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The Cornucopia Conference: Roundtable on the AAAS Meeting
Podcast host Steve Mirsky talks with Scientific American magazine Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina, news editor Anna Kuchment, feature editor Mark Fischetti and online news editor Robin Lloyd about various sessions at the recently completed annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. Web sites related to this episode and the conference include
"Chemical body burden" researchers and advocates raise questions about biomonitoring studies and hazards regulations
Why Are Americans So Ill-Informed about Climate Change?
Schools should teach kids more about how science is done
Just How Big a Deal Is Milk Drinking?
Malaria Parasite Infects People Thought Resistant
How Many People Can Earth Hold? Well...
Being Multilingual Helps with Multitasking
Podcast Transcription
Steve: Welcome to Science Talk, the more of less weekly podcast of Scientific American, posted on February 24th, 2011. I'm Steve Mirsky. The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrapped up Monday, the 21st in Washington D.C. A bunch of us from Scientific American attended. We gathered together on Tuesday back in New York and talked to each other about what we learned. Let's go around the table and everybody introduce themselves.
Anna: I'm Anna Kuchment. I edit the Advances section for Scientific American; that's the news section.
Steve: For the actual magazine.
Kuchment: For the actual magazine.
Steve: And Mark?
Mark: I'm Mark Fischetti. I'm one of the editors at Scientific American magazine and I basically cover energy, environment and sustainability.
Steve: And Robin?
Robin: I'm Robin Lloyd. I'm the news editor for the Web site.
Steve: And we're waiting on Mariette DiChristina, the editor in chief. We hope that she'll pop in here at some point during our conversation. So we were all at the meeting over the weekend of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This gigantic smorgasbord-cornucopia-firehose-of-information meeting, and we all went to different sessions, so I thought it might be interesting for us to basically brief each other and talk about what we thought was really interesting. Anna, what were you most intrigued by that you learned about at the conference?
Anna: I paid close attention to science education and scientific literacy, and there was a session that I was blown away by. The main speaker was Jon D. Miller of Michigan State University—he's an expert on scientific literacy and science ed—and he showed us a bunch of stats from his surveys. He surveys Americans about their knowledge of science over time. And he said that contrary to popular belief, scientific literacy is actually going up in the United States, although it's now at only 28 percent. (laughs) The United States actually ranks second in the world, in terms of scientific literacy, after Japan.
Steve: What does that actually mean: 28 percent?
Anna: Well it means that 28 percent of adults across the country have that, sort of, basic understanding of scientific facts, of facts related to science. He said it doesn't mean that Americans know a lot about the scientific method, the process of scientific inquiry, or really much all about how science is done, which a lot of other panelists explored as a problem, as a gap in our education. But the reason that scientific literacy is going up, he attributes that to the fact that American college students are required to take one year of science, all American college students, and that sets our country apart from others.
Robin: It's interesting to me because I was at bunch of sessions where scientists and sometimes journalists were trying to figure out why the general public and policy makers in the United States have yet to really take any significant action to mitigate and pull back climate change. And, you know, one model for understanding that is that, well it's called the deficit model: that we ought to really point finger at scientific literacy in the United States. And so, and that was pretty much debunked. It was brought up, and then it was, "Well, you know, the reason no action's been taken, the reason why the public is skeptical, is because of this lack of information or the lack of the ability to understand the information that's out there." And, basically, Naomi Oreskes and Gavin Schmidt, I think, were at the panels—Gavin's at NASA GISS—and both of them basically said that they don't really think that explains it. And then to hear from you in addition that actually science literacy is on the rise again suggests that it's more complicated than that.
Anna: Well, a lot of panelists talked about this problem that Americans aren't being taught really about what science is—what defines science and what separates it from ideology. They say that these debates about climate change and teaching evolution in schools, you know, really comes down, it really blurs the lines; it confuses the public about the kind of the boundaries between science and ideology.
Steve: And the data don't tell you just because somebody is scientifically literate, it doesn't tell you what they're going to do with that information either. They might understand global warming enough to be counted as among the scientifically literate, but still not accept it.
Anna: That's right, they say that our schools need to do a better job of teaching students to think critically and really assess the information that's given to them.
Steve: So let's move around the table a little bit, Mark.
Mark: Well, I'll give you a segue, if you like, to literacy and what you do with it. One of the big topics now is coming back from the economy and so growth is the mantra and growth has been the mantra for a century, right? It's an accepted model for modern civilization that the economy has to grow. Well, from an environmentalist point of view, and basically from scientist's point of view, we're on a finite earth, so you can't grow forever, right. So, people are now talking about population and consumption, resource, maxing out resources. And so there's this standoff starting to occur where most people will say we have to grow our way out of recession, and we have to always have some level of growth for prosperity and progress. But science says you can't do that on a finite planet. So what can you do to further civilization in a model where growth isn't the reigning economic marching order, as it were? So there was a session about this very thing: Is there a way to get off the growth model into some other sustainable, as you could call it, zero growth or sustainable living model?
Steve: I was at a session where somebody mentioned that one thing we should consider is changing from GDP—the gross domestic product—as the measure of the health of a society and replacing it with a happiness index.
Mark: Right exactly, right.
Steve: How healthy are the people? How fulfilled are the people? How engaged are the people? And not necessarily just what's the average family income?
Mark: And this session—it was Robert Costanza who is at Portland State—presented that or he's proposing it as let's get rid of GDP and replace it with GPI, which is called the Genuine Progress Index. And there are a number of studies—William Rees who's at the University of British Columbia was in that session and he brought up some studies that showed that, right: Beyond a certain point of material income, happiness doesn't increase, satisfaction doesn't increase and in fact even utility, you know, to society or utility even to economic prosperity does not increase beyond a certain level of income and that's individual, corporate. So they're trying to get us off again off this model. So, the genuine progress index might be a level of happiness or might be a level of feeling satisfied and there's different ways to quantify that. So, of course I must say I expected this session to be poorly attended because everyone just assumes, forward growth, and these other people are, you know, they just want to live in the woods, (laughs) but it was packed. So by the time the session was getting close to the end, there was this feeling in the room of everybody kind of buying in, but okay how do we actually do this, right? So Herman Daly, who's at the University of Maryland, actually had 10 specific, concrete steps that could be taken to knock us off the growth model and onto the Genuine Progress Index model.
Steve: You want to talk about a couple of those?
Mark: Yes. One or two are familiar: a cap and trade, auction system for basic resources; not just for carbon emissions, but for basic resources. One of the basic ideas of getting us off growth onto a sort of common sustainable economic and, sort of, life pleasure index, is to narrow the gap between haves and have-nots, narrow the inequality gap. And so how do you do that?. Well one of the steps is to have this cap-and-trade system for basic resources, so that one country can't overuse resources given their people versus another country. Kind of a corollary to that was that there should be some sort of way to lower the inequities including the planet. And right now, so he would, so Herman Daly was suggesting that we actually reregulate international commerce. So it's been largely deregulated, but if you reregulate it, essentially, so you can't allow, you know, the United States to outsource all its polluting industry and then just buy the result of it, so that there's limits to that, which again closes this inequity gap in terms of how much damage we're doing to the planet. So it's step like those, and some financial steps too, that could make this transition.
Steve: Isn't it also a problem that the real cost of doing things like agriculture, for example, is not market value because we don't value the filtration systems of wetlands as part of the economic equation?
Mark: Right, right. This, you know, life-cycle analysis or cradle-to-the-grave. But in agriculture and in resources too, you know, things just like oil. If you figure in all the so-called externalities, which don't get worked into price right now, like environmental damage, you know, labor inequalities and things, if you figure all those into the price then the price structure would be different. So he was also advocating, you know, we have taxes in the U.K. on oil and on energy that are much higher than U.S., and it forces change. And so subsidies in general are not part of this plan, so you can't end up favoring one sort of resource or one sort of production method over another.
Steve: Now I know that there are people listening who are saying, sounds like a lot of pinko stuff to me.
Mark: It's not communism, it's not socialism, it's not growth however. I mean so I don't know if there's a sociological or socioeconomic theory or body of work behind this yet; but it seems like if those are your choices and you don't like socialism, communism and you realize you can't continue growth, you need something different. And this audience was ready to hear by the end, you know, what is that different system? So I think we are at the beginning of seeing perhaps some of that being worked up.
Steve: Or we could just let the market decide the value of gas masks and SPF 50s.
Mark: We could.
Steve: Robin what do you have?
Robin: I was just amazed to hear this story. I didn't realize anyone was even thinking about that. That's something like this could even be implemented, sort of, seems like beyond the scope of possible. But it's exciting that at least, you know, your session was overflowing, it's great. I just had to tell this story of this session that I was in basically talking about media coverage of climate change. And it was great because there were three journalists on the panel who talked about what they were doing these days and covering climate science, including Elizabeth Shogren from NPR. And then afterwards, you know, I think they had another journalist come up and make comments, but then they brought up the M.I.T. climate scientist Kerry Emanuel. And there was this great, it was my favorite moment of the weekend and it was this very dramatic moment, when basically Emanuel was complaining a little bit, very politely, and smiling about the fact that journalists still are doing stories about, you know, the debate around climate science, but there's not really, of course, there's not a debate, there's consensus that anthropogenic global warming is happening and that, why are you still doing these stories, asking questions? And Elizabeth Shogren turned to Emanuel and said, "Because you guys haven't persuaded the public," and he immediately without pausing, smiled pointed back to her and said, "No, you haven't." And it really brought to a head, first of all the cultural clash between journalists and scientists, but also the bafflement that a lot of people who are following the science of climate change or are involved in generating it have around the fact that it hasn't really been responded to or really even accepted by a lot of the public. So, the session that I went to with those guys and then few other sessions tried to, sort of, tease this out a little bit more and come up with explanations for why this has happened. And I talked about the deficit model as one of them, and scientific literacy and maybe the media could be an explanation—that sort of is what Emanuel was pointing to. And then another session also talked about media contraction as being a problem and because there's fewer journalists at mainstream outlets or at outlets that have the budgets and the staff to do real investigative work, what you're getting is a lot of noise on the Internet and a lot of shallow and narrow reporting on the topic. And also there's a lot more room for low-budget coverage of science now, and low budget means a lot of, means commentary and debate and personalities, where you're not really talking about the science and the issues at hand. So as solutions, during both this session, where Tom Rosensteel from the Project for Excellence in Journalism was talking and then another session where Gavin Schmidt, as I said, from NASA GISS and Naomi Oreskes were talking, they had, you know, some real concrete solutions. And they included things like, well, when someone asks a question of you, scientist, that is very loaded, answer the question as if it weren't asked as a loaded question. So to answer things, to deescalate basically the emotion and the drama over the forced dichotomies or pitched feverism that might be, sort of, injected into the question. And then another solution was to do what politicians do, which is instead of answering a question directly, fill the answer turn space with information that addresses to some extent what has been asked but really conveys the information that you came to the interview to convey.
Steve: Like that's an excellent question, and I'm not going to answer it (laughter), I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about instead, thank you very much.
Robin: Exactly.
Steve: Just, you reminded me with the anecdote about "it's your fault; no, it's your fault." Just to let people know about this conference, when I first got there, I got on an elevator and guys standing next to the buttons is a noble laureate and he says, "What floor?" So I said, "nine", and he presses the button. I looked at him, I said, "Your a little over qualified to be an elevator operator." He just gave a smile and shrugged his shoulders. So it's that kind of conference. You walk around, there are noble laureates just wandering around. Some of them are literally wandering, because, you know, a lot of the physicists aren't that great at finding where they're trying to get, but it's really fascinating. I mean, thousands of scientists and hundreds of journalists, and, you know, everything is going on at the same time. Did anybody go to any hard science, any physics or chemistry or anything like that? Robin?
Robin: Yeah, I went to this session on, basically, chemical body burden, where folks were talking about more and more researchers, for the EPA or other government agencies, are collecting population level information about the extent to which individuals are exposed to, you know, BPA, phthalates, arsenic, lead—some of them synthetic chemicals and some of them naturally occurring—that are starting to be linked at least in animal studies and some in human studies with negative health outcomes including, like, infertility and endocrine disruption. So, what was interesting though, is that the session really took a kind of a legal turn because not only are people participating more and more in these studies, they are now starting to request their data results at the end. They would like their individual numbers please. You know, now that more people are sensitized to the potential problems here, they would like to know, what are my numbers? So, now researchers are starting to wonder if they really should provide that information, and if they do are they then liable in some way. So Shaun Goho from Harvard Law was in the session, and he was sort going through the legal liabilities that researchers might be facing around this and it looks like not really a lot especially in a household situation. So, if the chemical exposure comes from a home, there's really not a lot of legal protection for individuals going after a researcher on this.
Anna: I actually sat in at that same session which was sparsely attended probably because it started at eight in the morning. But one interesting thing about it is that the researchers are put in this position to give data to their subjects saying, you know, at the levels of this Phenol A or lead, or other chemicals that they found in their blood or their urine, but they don't yet know what to do with this information. In other words, just because you have high levels of one chemical or another, there's no conclusive evidence that that's harmful to your health. All they can really tell you is how you compare to the general population or to other study participants. So that's where the field is still.
Steve: So the next step has to be to try to figure out if there's any correlation between these levels that you're seeing people have and any conditions that they have.
Robin: Well, the correlations are there; the question is causation.
Steve: Oh, okay.
Robin: So, and I talked to Cheryl Patten after the session whose with Commonweal, which is a research institution and it sounds like they're also, kind of, an advocacy group out in California; and, you know, she was explaining to me and David Biello here, one of our editors, was explaining to me too that it's not usually like a one-to-one causation that is probably going to be occurring with bad health outcomes. What you're probably going to have is an additive effect or cumulative effect. In fact, it may be the gateway model for cancer is the good way to think about it; like, first of all, maybe you're born with a genetic predisposition, then you have exposure 1, then you have exposure 2, and then bam—exposure 3, the cancer starts, or the offspring are going to have a lower circumference of the skull and so on. That was helpful to me. So you know, lot of us are thinking, well I don't clean with bleach anymore or I don't use ammonia anymore and she was, sort of, explaining to me you can't entirely shop your way out of this problem. Industrial practices are probably also going to have to change even once we do find, you know, what the multivariant model is that explains these outcomes and the extent to which chemicals are involved.
Steve: Because we're swimming in a sea of chemicals.
Robin: Yeah, radiation, you know, and of course, you know, chemicals aren't all bad. It's just the hazardous ones that we're worried about.
Steve: I myself am made out of chemicals. Hey! We've been joined by editor-in-chief of the magazine, Mariette DiChristina. Pull up a microphone and you were at the AAAS sessions. What did you go to that you found interesting?
Mariette: Hi Steve. Two things I wanted to mention. One of them, I'd like to take a step back from the talk of science findings and talk for just a minute about scientific thinking. One of things I did at the event, was I was welcomed into the AAAS cadre of fellows, generally very accomplished scientists—I'm not, of course, one of them. My fellow group is in General Interest in Science and Technology and these are people who do public outreach and help try to bring science and technology, make it more accessible to people and the general public. So at that morning's breakfast meeting, we had Rush Holt, join us the representative from New Jersey, who happens to have a Ph.D. in physics, and he made a few remarks that I just wanted to touch on here because I think they are so telling. Those of us who listen to Scientific American podcasts, read the magazine online, watch the videos and so on probably fall into a science-interested category and are very familiar with what we'll call scientific thinking. This is thinking where you look at what the actual facts are and the actual evidence is. But as I think we all know, a lot of the population doesn't necessarily feel that way. They may have emotions associated with these decisions and not to take anything away from emotions, but maybe somethings are less clear to them than people who really follow the facts. And the thing I wanted to mention about this was a couple of things Rush Holt brought out in his talk. One of them was, he looked at the Sputnik moment. Now, those of you who listened to the Obama state of the union, he said, here we are again at another kind of Sputnik moment where science, he hopes and his administration hopes and I certainly hope, will help lift the U.S.'s performance in science education—STEM education as they call it: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math—will help make this country stay competitive and stay involved on the world scene. And we've often thought of the Sputnik moment as a place that the U.S. leapt forward in many ways, but Rush Holt said that it also was a place where the division between the so-called two cultures at C. P. Snow spoke of really started to happen in a way that he hadn't appreciated until now, and he suggested this to the audience. Because either you're a science person around Sputnik, and we were going to go to the moon, or you were not and you're kind of excluded. And so he pleaded with the group of very august scientists to remember that they had some ability to affect and influence people around them to show that, really, science is an open endeavor and that everybody is welcome to the party and to the discussion. I thought that was just such a pleasant thing to hear from a scientist because we're often, you know, in the science community accused of not reaching out or listening, and I have to tell you that he got a standing ovation from all the scientists there who felt, kind of, renewed vigor about their charge of reaching out to public.
Steve: Although, I mean, C. P. Snow is talking about science versus the humanities really, and very smart people being highly engaged in one or the other; whereas, what we are really talking about here is either being scientifically interested or nothing. You know, I mean he is from New Jersey; those kids on Jersey Shore they're not interested in Shakespeare or thermodynamics.
Mariette: Well, but he's also at from the Princeton area where Einstein lived (laughs) so that there are two sides of anything, I suppose.
Robin: Yeah. We're not going to use Jersey Shore as an indicator of the overall state's intelligence, are we?
Steve: No, I didn't mean to castigate New Jersey specifically. I just meant that, you know, I don't think a lot of people—I am just basing it on what's on television, I guess because I watch TV, but I think, you know, a lot of people aren't particularly interested in science or the humanities. Anyway.
Mariette: I think that's a fair thing to say.
Robin: I think you're a pessimist. (laughter)
Steve: Well, I am a pessimist.
Mark: I think you just don't like the beach, Steve.
Steve: I also do not particularly care for the beach.
Mariette: Wear your sunscreen.
Steve: Exactly. And there was another…
Mariette: I want to mention just one other thing. One of the things I love about meetings like the AAAS meeting, one of the things that's novel and very interesting about AAAS compared with other science society meetings is they do bring in many policy issues. But the thing I am going to talk about was for me a piece of candy at this meeting. I saw a press conference and there was, the talking sessions were yesterday about printing skin—bioprinting, it's called; or other tissue, you know, some of it is cartilage. And there were these two groups working on, one was working on trying to do bio-printing of skin, which is 3D printing also called stereolithography for those who've been following it over the years. And that's been known for a couple of decades now. But what's interesting and new there, is in recent years they've been adding skin cells to these gel-like inks and pressing them into what they hope will be a skin patch that you could then take and apply to burn victims on the battle fields. So right away excellent triage. And that's the big thing with burn victims is you need to cover that right away. And this would be just such an improved way of treating what is a very common injury, especially in battlefield conditions.
Steve: So your equivalent to the printer cartridge would have this goop in it with some cells.
Mariette: With skin cells….
Steve: And then you press some buttons and out comes…
Mariette: It will come out as a flat sheet in this case. Obviously they're starting with extremely simple tissue, so a flat sheet of skin. The other application that is very near term is working on bits of cartilage, such as for the meniscus in the knee. And on stage they had a demonstration—and they used silicon for the demonstration because it's easier to come by then the skin gel all that I have described—and they built an ear right on stage while we watched in 15 minutes; and I was just fascinated to see this happen and then I actually snapped a picture of it and uploaded it to my Twitter account, @SAeditorinchief, just because it was so neat to watch something like that emerge. And the thought that in the next several years we might be able to apply these to the sorts of injuries; again they are very simple for this sort of tissue engineering but have great promise for certain kinds of very common problems.
Steve: So do you see the ear start to emerge from the printer?
Mariette: It's actually if you can imagine, I'm trying to, you know, when you make silly sand sculptures, those sand sculptures where you have different colors of sand that you layer up? So the 3D printing is like that. You lay down one very thin layer and then you lay down another and then each one as you're building it, you know, it has a slightly different shape. So the ear takes shape from bottom to top, so to speak.
Robin: Sounds like a dot matrix printer from the '80s.
Mariette: It's not dissimilar. Of course one of the problems with it is there's a bit of shear stress on the cells which they have to resolve. I think there are certain rates of failure they have to deal with; certain kinds of cells that can tolerate it better or not.
Steve: Really fascinating. So hopefully none of us will need an ear…
Mariette: Or skin.
Steve: …or skin, one of these days, but if we did it's, sort of, like just-in-time manufacturing. Rather than keep a store house of ears or skin, just make it as you need it.
Mariette: Yeah, they built this ear in 15 minutes on stage and it was just mesmerizing to watch it. I don't know exactly how long it takes to make a sheet of skin, but the idea is you would have the cells ready to go handy, and be able to do it very quickly. Now in the future they would love to be able to use the person's own cells—let's say scar repair later—but for the short-term applications these would be commercially available cells that are kept in cell culture ready to go.
Steve: Mark, you have something else.
Mark: Well one of the cool things also about AAAS is that of you float between sessions, you see things that, insights or solutions in one branch of science that could, sort of, be applied to or are also being found in other areas of science. And you also find sometimes there are situations in one part of the world that could apply to another part of the world. There was a session about waste as an energy source or as a resource. You know, 55 percent of the power generated in the United States is wasted and wasted because it is dissipated as heat and other sorts of losses; 25 percent of the food generated in the country is wasted as waste in that case. So this session had to do with how can you maybe tap this as a source. And there was a gentleman David Scott from Abu Dhabi Basic Industries who oversees the huge desalination plants in Abu Dhabi. And, you know, their typical day is 115 degrees and humid, they've got no source of fresh water; so they desalinate volumes of water but that takes a lot of energy and a lot of the waste there is in terms of heat. So they have managed to create centralized power plants to create electricity and the heat waste from that process is used for desalinating water. And the, it's done in a way so that 20 percent of that original sea water is actually reclaimed as salt water. Because one of the other problems with desalination, if you're pulling water from the bay and you're putting fresh water back in, you change the salinity and that's environmentally tricky, and also purely from an industrial point of view, you're diluting your own source. So the chemistry has to be kept pretty tightly controlled. So they reclaim this seawater, which helps their own process. So while he was talking, there was someone from one of the Southern California utilities in the audience who then stood up and said, "You know this is a perfect solution for Southern California, 20 years from now." Southern California is hard-pressed for energy, right, their fresh water sources are really running out; desalination is done really in a minor way there right now. But this sort of cogeneration system, if you want to call it that, of using the power plant output and the waste heat from that to drive the desalination plants, he was saying, you know, in 20 years that probably could be a great model and an efficient model for water generation in Southern California. And the trick of this whole discussion, because the Abu Dhabi person jumped back in and said, "You know, we have a problem that during the day when we have a lot of power requirements, we've got a lot of waste heat, we can desalinate a lot of water. But at night the demand is much lower, but we still have this generation and this excess heat—what do we do with it? So they're starting to desalinate water at night and store it so that when in the daytime, the water demand is also higher they actually don't have to run the power plants so much to support the desalination plants because they have a water reserve. So there's this idea of peak demand for water, like we are familiar with peak demand for electricity at certain times and lower demand at certain times where we can level those things out to make the whole system more efficient. Same thing in Southern California. So, it's interesting that the lessons from Abu Dhabi could actually be implemented in Southern California to help sustain the whole agriculture and the rise in population.
Steve: And that's why people go to this meeting, because there might be cross fertilization of ideas that actually lead to something concrete. And I went to a bunch of things but I am not going to talk about those because I am going to be making podcasts out of many of them. I went to a couple of history of science—I am very interested in history of science—there were some great sessions on Marie Curie and on the history of alchemy, and the hygiene hypothesis where you find that kids who are not exposed to enough of an immunological challenge when they are in the womb or very young can have higher rates of asthma and autoimmune conditions; and also some stuff on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be coming up.
Steve: We will be back very soon—just a few hours, in fact. Meanwhile, get your science news www.ScientificAmerican.com where you can check out some articles on blog items related to the subjects we just talked about during the roundtable. And follow us on Twitter where you'll get a tweet about each new article posted to our Web site. Our Twitter handle is @sciam, S-C-I-A-M. For Science Talk, the podcast of Scientific American, I'm Steve Mirsky. Thanks for clicking on us.


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2015 started warmer and drier than average due to the strengthening El Niño. This led to the earliest budbreak on record in March, a month earlier than average. Spring was typical for Oregon with alternating rain and sunshine that helped top up the soil moisture and slow development. Warmer conditions at the start of summer made for rapid bloom with excellent set and the weather stayed dry and warm all the way to harvest. 2015 was the earliest harvest we've seen in decades, and hot conditions put a bit of pressure on picking, but there was a distinct cool down mid-harvest allowing the grapes to hang longer to develop phenolic and flavor ripeness. All in all, the quality for the 2015 vintage in Oregon was exceptional with fantastic phenolic development, balanced sugars and acids.
2014 started out quick and warm with early budbreak. Exceptional weather conditions set very large potential crop across the state, requiring much crop thinning. The summer turned out to be the warmest in Oregon's history, yet it was without a real heatwave. Veraison occurred three weeks earlier than 2011, under warm and sunny skies. At the start of harvest, the fruit was perfect: perfect chemistry, perfect flavors, perfect health. Conditions during ripening were dry and sunny and grapes were able to be picked at optimum ripeness with no pressure from disease or weather. Both quality and quantity were high and the 2014 vintage in Oregon could be counted as among the largest and finest this state has ever seen producing wines of tremendous depth, balance and focus that will age for years.
2013 started off with a dry winter and an early spring. The arid conditions were a concern for most dry farmers but rain in May topped up the soil to carry the vines through the rest of the season. Budburst and bloom in Southern Oregon and the Columbia Gorge was early and aided by warm, dry weather that allowed for a great set and higher than normal yields. The Willamette Valley was also early with bloom but experienced a series of fronts which reduced set and lowered yields at most sites. Late season weather in the Willamette Valley caused some logistical challenges at harvest but helped to slow down the ripening. The warm, dry summer combined with an early season start, developed great color, flavor, and tannin ripeness.
The 2012 Oregon growing season returned to normalcy after two wild, late years. A normal budbreak launched a classic Oregon spring - periods of warm sunny weather followed by cooler rainy weather. There was a touch of frost but budbreak was quick and uniform followed by a drawn-out flowering. Poor weather during some periods of set reduced crop through shatter. Pinot Gris was hit the hardest with significant reduction in crop size. We enjoyed a true summer with very warm weather and no rain for the first time in two years. As harvest started, heat in the Rogue Valley and the Columbia Gorge pushed vines into overdrive. Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris came in fast and furious starting in the third week of September. A bit of a cooling period followed and harvesting slowed down with picking beginning in the Willamette Valley around the first week of October. Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris came in hand-in-hand for the Willamette Valley with perfect ripeness and low yields. Chardonnay took the longest and we even saw a bit of rain that cooled things off as we mostly closed out the Willamette Valley harvest in the third week of October. All in all, 2012 will be remembered as a classic Oregon vintage with great weather at harvest and low yields. The fruit was ripe, sound and very healthy. Little sorting was needed and the flavors were intense.
2011 was a year of records and extremes. The growing season was the latest and coolest ever in Oregon except for one oddity – budbreak was earlier than average with a big set. This, with the very cool growing season, led to higher costs in the vineyard: additional passes for vinework, natural sprays and weed control. The industry feared the most difficult harvest since 1984 but fair weather held through mid-November with a surprising result where both quality and quantity prevailed and grapes achieved full phenolic ripeness with little to no rot. The resulting wines are complex, intensely flavored, possess great texture and depth, and have lower alcohol than average. The reds in particular are darkly colored and will be long lived. 2011 will be remembered as a late, dry, "miracle" harvest.
The 2010 vintage is a story that is easier to read from end to beginning. It was a vintage where experience and hard work in the vineyards paid off. The growing season started off cold and wet pushing vine development back by three weeks and as spring turned into summer the conditions didn't get much better. The extra efforts to get through the hurdles (frost, mildew, weeds, late bud break & flowering) were redoubled as summer sun jump-started the vines into quick growth. Multiple passes through the vineyards were necessary to shoot thin, shoot position & cut back excessive growth. In early October, we started harvesting in Southern Oregon under clear and beautiful skies. As harvest progressed from Southern Oregon into the Gorge and then finally to the Willamette Valley, the weather for the most part held and we were able to bring in beautifully ripe fruit with lower sugar (read lower alcohol) than average. Yields were lower than expected due to early season weather and subsequent crop thinning to adjust for the shorter growing season. A to Z averaged only 2.5 tons per acre in 2010 and these low yields provided fruit with great concentration and balance. Southern Oregon stayed dry during harvest and in fact it was one of the best vintages we have seen from there. In 2010 we were rewarded with gorgeous wines with more concentration and depth, combined with a very crystalline structure with great purity – everything we could ask for in a vintage. Who doesn't love a happy ending?

subset: commoncrawl


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If you're an organizer who gets annoyed with speaker, or a speaker made to feel superfluous, look away. This medical blogger describes what happened at a professional dermatology conference at which the traditional "poster sessions" -- free-for-alls in extemporaneous speaking, where hundreds of scientists stand next to a poster describing their research, and answering questions from passers-by -- are replaced by a digital poster session, speakers not required. Some background for those in non-technical fields: A poster session's not quite a regular panel presentation or keynote, and so it's a good experience-and-confidence-builder for researchers to share what they know, with a limited, fixed visual and an audience on its feet, ready to move along. Poster sessions often are jovial, crowded networking scenes, but they serve a real purpose, helping researchers to get the benefit of colleagues' opinions and questions, which may help shape the research in progress. The blogger, a medical journalist, notes how it felt when she visited the "digital poster session," a roomful of computer terminals:
Once there was one doctor, who told me this was the second "session" he'd attended – neither of which was graced by the author of the scheduled poster. "I asked about it at the registration desk," he said. "I was told it's not mandatory for the presenter to attend. People can come in here any time and view all of the posters on screen." The proctor in charge of the room told me only one presenter had shown up all day – and no one was there to hear her speak. I checked it out. The program is easy to navigate. It brings up the poster in a series of PDF images. There's even a link to email the presenter – although after you input all the data you get a message saying "Thank you. Your email will be delivered after the meeting concludes."Even in an age where social media rules and we're eliminating paper, meeting attendees flock to conferences for the chance to see and meet speakers, face-to-face. Have you seen this at other conferences? Share your perspective in the comments. (Photo by Colin Purrington, from Flickr, and a hat tip to Ivan Oransky for sharing this post.)
Join the conversation on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook and sign up for my free email newsletter, "Step Up Your Speaking," which covers a different topic in-depth each month--along with news of workshops and resources.>>>>


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Goshen College Goal Sunday
Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) correctly and on time is sometimes seen as being complicated and time-consuming. But at the Goshen College Goal Sunday site, financial aid experts will be ready with FREE help, so you and your family can file the FAFSA financial aid form ONLINE in one afternoon.
February 23, 2020, 2-4 p.m.
Goshen College
Union Building
1700 S. Main St.
Goshen, IN, 46526
FAFSA online and Spanish interpreter available at this site.


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Phew, week 2 of Make Art That Sells was a doozy! In a good way, of course ;-)
This week was all about the Home Decor market, and we were tasked with using Staffordshire Pottery as our drawing inspiration. If you don't know what Staffordshire Pottery is (like I didn't), do a google search and you'll find some of the weirdest, scariest, and definitely not-to-my-taste ceramic figurines. Huh, crap. How was I meant to get inspired by a subject matter I didn't find very attractive?!
Luckily I don't think I was alone in feeling this way – it seems like a lot of the people in my class were also struggling with it a little bit which made me feel reassured! Nevertheless I managed to get over myself and find some time while Arlo napped to try sketching a few of these funny figurines without being too self conscious of the outcome (kinda tough for me!). The idea is to experiement after all. And whaddayaknow – I actually started to enjoy it. So then I moved onto watercolour and it only got better! Wha. Amazing – and the funny thing is, because Staffordshire pottery is already kinda quirky, I found that the less precise my illustrations were the better, and the fat watercolour strokes seemed to just fit right in.
Yay! So now that I had some icons to work with, next up was to tackle the main assignment for this week, which was to create a set of 4 ceramic plates using our Staffordshire illustrations. By now I was really loving the assignment, so had fun putting the plates together :)
Here's my final piece.
So despite the slightly unsettling start to this week, I'm really happy with where it ended up! :) And looking at our class Flickr group I'm blown away by just how varied our work is. All 200 (or so) of us got the same brief, and no one's work is even close to similar, it's kind of amazing!
This week we're onto Children's picture books… bring it!


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Even today, some 500 years after the Reformation and the beginning of the modern era, the atmosphere of those times can still be felt in Eisleben and Lutherstadt Wittenberg. This is where you'll find unique Luther memorial sites such as the house where the Church reformer was born, the house where he died, the monastery where he lived and the church to which he nailed his 95 theses.
In 1996 these original sites of the Reformation were elevated to UNESCO World Heritage status on the grounds of their universal significance. Eisleben was where Martin Luther was born on 10 November 1483 and where he died on 18 February 1546 while travelling. There is plenty to see in the town's old quarter: the historical market square, for example, with its splendid town houses. Then there's the Luther statue and the historical town hall. Specific Luther sites include the house in which he was born, the church of St. Peter and St. Paul where he was baptised, St. Andrew's Church with its original Luther pulpit, St. Anne's Church with the only stone-carved biblical scenes in Europe and the Luther Museum in the house where he died. The house of his birth, which the town turned into a memorial site as early as 1693, is Germany's first ever museum and one of the oldest in the world. The house in which he died, a late-Gothic patrician town house dating from around 1500, has also been turned into a museum and memorial.
Luthers grave, however, is in Wittenberg. Here too, a stroll through the beautiful old town takes in memorials to Luther. These include the Castle Church, where in 1517 he nailed his 95 theses to the door, the burial sites of Luther and his friend and fellow protestor Philipp Melanchthon, the courtyards of the painter Cranach, the Town Church with its striking Cranach altar and the houses where Luther and Melanchthon used to live. From 1511 and for the duration of his time in Wittenberg – including after he married in 1525 – Luther lived in the Augustineum, both as a monk and later a professor. The monastery was where he lectured to students from all over Europe and where he wrote the works that were to change the world. Luther's House opened its doors to the public in 1883 and is now the largest museum of Reformation history anywhere in the world.
Public guided tour: at Easter and from May to October: tours throughout the day; November to April: on request
Opening times for Luther's House: April to October: 9am to 6pm daily; November to March: Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm
Opening times Melanchthon's House: April to October: 10am to 6pm daily; November to March: Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm
English-language services: Saturday 5pm to 6pm at the Castle Church or the Church of St. Mary
Further information:
Opening times for house in which Martin Luther was born and house in which he died:
April to October: 10am to 6pm daily; November to March: Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm
Further information:
Luther memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg is part of the '' UNESCO route. Other stops on the route are:
UNESCO World Heritage sites:
Other towns and cities worth seeing:
Δύο χρήσιμοι συνδυασμοί πλήκτρων για μεταβαλλόμενη εστίαση στο πρόγραμμα περιήγησης:
Μεγέθυνση: +
Σμίκρυνση: +
Περισσότερη βοήθεια προσφέρει ο πάροχος του προγράμματος περιήγησης με ένα κλικ στο εικονίδιο:


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Support your eyes and skin with the powerful ingredients in IlluminEyes! Featuring lutein and zeaxanthin, this proprietary formula helps reduce eye strain, protects eyes from damaging blue light, and maintains vibrant skin. IlluminEyes can also help support your eye health in the long-term—vitamins A and C both have properties that may help reduce eye health deterioration commonly related to age.*
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Young Living products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.IlluminEyes™ Product Information Page


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Indicative Rate * AU$99 to AU$198
Branell Homestead Bed and Breakfast, located one hour from Brisbane, just outside Laidley in the beautiful Lockyer Valley, is for people who wish to experience the finer things in life, from reading a book in the extensive library, to watching a movie on the big screen. Alternatively, you might enjoy fishing from the private jetty or taking a relaxing stroll around the 80 acre property and discovering the native fauna and flora. Whatever you choose, you will be enchanted with the charm and grandeur of this federation style homestead with its peaceful valley views.
Branell Homestead is also a stunning wedding venue that can offer you an affordable, stylish, country wedding with luxurious accommodation. Wedding receptions are held in the large Wedding Pavilion and wedding ceremonies can also be held at Branell. At Branell, it is not compulsory to organise your catering or alcohol through them. Unlike most other wedding venues, they charge a flat venue hire fee. This is where you will save money, because most wedding venues charge per head for food and alcohol. At Branell Homestead, you can have a very personalised wedding at a beautiful location and it does not have to cost you the earth.
Luxuriously appointed with antique furnishings, king sized bed, flat screen television, ensuite, tea and coffee making facilities and fully air-conditioned.
Extravagantly appointed with antique furnishings, king sized bedroom, spacious bathroom including spa bath and bidet, large walk-in robe, television, kitchenette with a television, mini-bar, tea and coffee and microwave. Fully air-conditioned with fabulous views from a private veranda over the 80 acre range and cattle property.
The Fig Tree Suite is their most private suite and it has antique furnishings, a king sized bedroom, a private lounge room, tea and coffee making facilities, air conditioning, a large bathroom with a claw foot bathtub and magnificent views out over the Lockyer Valley from a private veranda.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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This week is Open Access Week. Here is the schedule of events happening at the University of Utah.
Tuesday Oct 23rd:
Publishing SMART: How to Make Your Article Visible
Instructors: Allyson Mower, Marriott Library and Abby Adamczyk, Eccles Library
1 to 3 pm, Marriott Library, Room 1009
Register Here
Authors want their scholarly articles to be seen, cited and utilized. This class provides opportunities for researchers to increase their visibility by exploring various publishing and archiving choices. Tools for evaluating journal impact factors, online usage, local online availability, retaining copyrights, and submission to online archives are covered.
(If you cannot make this session, there will be another on Monday Dec. 3rd at the Eccles Health Sciences Library)
Wednesday Oct 24th:
The Social Impact of Research: New Modes of Scholarship and New Ways of Publishing
Presenters: Dr. Johan Bollen, Indiana University-Bloomington and Mr. Roger Schonfeld, Ithaka S+R
U of U Panelists: Jose Crespo, Biology; Rob Gehl, Communication; Randy Irmis, NHMU/Geology & Geophysics
2 pm to 4 pm, Marriott Library, Gould Auditorium
This year's keynote address will provide insight into the world of scholarly communications and will include a panel of University of Utah authors who will share their experiences publishing in open access journals and how it affected their readership.
Check out the Marriott Library OA Week blog post for more information.
Thursday Oct 25th:
USpace at Seven: Shaping and Sustaining the U's Institutional Repository
Presenters: Lisa Chaufty, Donald Williams, Kinza Masood, Sarah LeMire, Allyson Mower (Marriott Library)
2 to 3 pm, Marriott Library, Room 1150
During Open Access Week 2010, we celebrated USpace's fifth birthday. Two years have flown by. Come and hear how the University of Utah's open access digital repository has continued to develop and grow. Presenters will discuss recent projects, new content development streams, and areas of future growth.


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Of course Zilch and many others here are equally into building the system rather than just buying a really good one.
Of course Zilch and many others here are equally into building the system rather than just buying a really good one.
In a couple of weeks I'll be popping down to Northridge for some dealer event... it'll be interesting how they choose to show off all of those empty cubicles and unused factory floor space.
Still plenty for us bottom-feeders:
Summary is here, but there's a bunch of stuff in-between, including data for 2452H-SL on PT-F95HF:
I also snuck some H4338/2452H-SL data in on a different forum using a stock 800 Hz JBL Cinema Series crossover:
There is no dearth of gusto in what I do; your 414Zs are here:
I deleted my posts after reading the entire thread.
As far as I know you aren't lawyers.
Some comments that jumped out at me:
I don't know if he actually said so himself, but H4338 is purported to be second only to Everest II in sonic quality.
The H4338 measures better than the H66000.
What drivers are run on them matters in that, of course: this is the best I can do right now, but it could likely be improved with Be diaphragms.
Yes, the drivers do matter. If the 3-inch driver doesn't work for you use the 4-inch instead. All those horns, H4338, H9800, H66000, H9900, H4365, 1400 Array, SAM1HF, 2344A are very nice. G.T. has mentioned numerous times that he prefers them vertical to horizontal.
The 2452H-SL with the Truextent should beat anything short of a TAD, 476Mg or 476Be.
The TAD is real expensive and the JBL's are unobtainable.
backing up a couple of posts, the 435al is the one used in the japanese 4338 in order to keep cost down?
The 4338 uses the 1500FE, 435AL, H4338 and 045Ti to make the intended price point. These drivers are roughly one third the cost of the Al and Be versions (I use the 1500AL, 476Be, H4338 and 045Be.)
The CAD files for the similar, smaller, H9800 are available, and clones in wood were made in Europe for ~$600 apiece, but they never got it "right" in the critical throat transition region. I do have a prototype of that one which measures well in comparison to the original, and should probably get my act together and make some of them....
The originals were $1000 a pair, and we can't get any more short of purchasing 4338s in Japan.
They were right around $1,500 a pair MSRP. They aren't economical like waveguides are.
I'll not be slicing an H4338 to do similar.
I tried to get a spare to do just that. It never happened. I guess the H9800 will have to do. That really shouldn't be a problem.
None of this really goes with the theme of this thread.
Zilch, are you reffering to this issue with the mounting plate?The CAD files for the similar, smaller, H9800 are available, and clones in wood were made in Europe for ~$600 apiece, but they never got it "right" in the critical throat transition region.
Yes, basically.
I'm no expert on this, but I did at one time by Giskard's leave have both a factory H9800 and Widget's clone here to measure. The differences were very minor, and that data is posted on this forum somewhere. Widget is more familiar with the techincal aspects of the issue. I have never run Widget's clone using 2452H-SL.
Visually, H4338 is H9800 expanded in one dimension; by that, I mean the throat detail, as well. H4338 is two-piece, I presume to allow more precision molding in the undercut region at the throat.
I was surprised to see the results of the rough directivity measurements of H4338 I did in that Screen Array study; the horizontal dispersion appears to be narrower than I had assumed, which removes some of the questions I had about deploying it vertically such as others have done. I should take a closer look at that and post my findings. Anyone with CLIO, a lazy susan, and a protractor should be able to replicate any study I might undertake. We may still have an H9800 out here to measure for comparison, and Widget's clone, as well, of course.
If the H9800s are now considered "surplus" in the Project May program, we might be able to recruit Widget to slice one of those, do a scan, and make a precision mold. We did that with H2600 throats here at one time, casting them in pewter. I have another idea for a suitable H9800 casting material, which I did mention to him at one time.
As to off-topic, I doubt John would have minded (he knew full well what a blogger I am), but if an administrator wants to spin this discussion off into DIY, we might more appropriately continue it there....
If I were you I would use the drivers but ditch the original crossovers and crossover points. I would use the 2118 lower and then cross it over at say 1.5K to a 1" compression driver on a good horn. Add the 2404 if I couldn't get the top octave extension I wanted or wasn't satisfied with it. In that design both the 2118 and 2404 are used to the max limits.The 2118 on the high side and the max lower limit on the 2404. For home application I would not use either driver that way.Then who is willing to do something with 4628B?
"I could be arguing in my spare time"
Read this thread from the beginning
To sum it up these are PA boxes. If you like them as is great. The have good drivers that with different crossovers and crossover points can be made into a system more suitable for home use. Take a look at the crossover schematic for the 4628. It's minimal at best. I would not use a 2404 down to 3K becasue it will get harsh sounding. I wouldn't run a 2118 that close to it's upper breakdown region as another example for the same reason. The drivers will work that way but you can make a better sounding system by limiting how far up the 2118 goes and how low the 2404 runs.
"I could be arguing in my spare time"
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There are more contractors than troops in Afghanistan
Time's Battleland October 9, 2012 by David Isenberg
U.S. military forces may be out of Iraq, but the unsung and unrecognized part of America's modern military establishment is still serving and sacrificing — the role played by private military and security contractors.
That their work is dangerous can be seen by looking at the headlines. Just last Thursday a car bomb hit a private security convoy in Baghdad, killing four people and wounding at least nine others.
That is hardly an isolated incident. According to the most recent Department of Labor statistics there were at least 121 civilian contractor deaths filed on in the third quarter of 2012. Of course, these included countries besides Iraq.
As the Defense Base Act Compensation blog notes, "these numbers are not an accurate accounting of Contractor Casualties as many injuries and deaths are not reported as Defense Base Act Claims. Also, many of these injuries will become deaths due to the Defense Base Act Insurance Companies denial of medical benefits." To date, a total of 90,680 claims have been filed since September 1, 2001.
How many contractors are now serving on behalf of the U.S. government?
According to the most recent quarterly contractor census report issued by the U.S. Central Command, which includes both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as 18 other countries stretching from Egypt to Kazakhstan, there were approximately 137,000 contractors working for the Pentagon in its region. There were 113,376 in Afghanistan and 7,336 in Iraq. Of that total, 40,110 were U.S. citizens, 50,560 were local hires, and 46,231 were from neither the U.S. not the country in which they were working.
Put simply, there are more contractors than U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
These numbers, however, do not reflect the totality of contractors. For example, they do not include contractors working for the U.S. State Department. The CENTCOM report says that "of FY 2012, the USG contractor population in Iraq will be approximately 13.5K. Roughly half of these contractors are employed under Department of State contracts."
While most of the public now understands that contractors perform a lot of missions once done by troops – peeling potatoes, pulling security — they may not realize just how dependent on them the Pentagon has become.


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Mike "Carwash" Karwath: 2009 Sigma Buggy
Top Truck Challenge 2010 Competitors: The Dirty Dozen
Sean P. HolmanPhotographerKen BrubakerPhotographerFour Wheeler StaffWriter
A.K.A. Carwash
Mike "Carwash" Karwath of Union, Kentucky, has built quite a reputation over the past couple of years as he built up his 2009 Sigma chassis into a terrain-dominating implement of fun. This tube-chassis buggy polarizes the most hardened trail veteran with its mix of well thought out design, good looks, and quality fabrication. It is one helluva nice rig that any of us would be so lucky to have under our Christmas tree. Prepped for battle, the ultimate test of two years of hard labor was a week of hard fun.
- Owner name/city: Mike "Carwash" Karwath/Union, KY
- Occupation: Shop owner/Fabricator
- Vehicle model: 2009 Sigma
- Estimated value: $60,000
- Engine/aspiration: 468ci Vortec Gen VI OHV V-8
- Transmission: TH400
- Transfer case: Stak Monster Box 3-spd
- Suspension (f/r): Triangulated 4-link, 2.5x18-in Fox Air Shocks/triangulated 4-link, 2.5x18-in Fox Air Shocks
- Axles (f/r): 21/2-ton Rockwell/21/2-ton Rockwell
- Axle ratio: 6.72:1
- Wheels: 20x14 steel Stazworks double beadlocks
- Tires: 54-in Mickey Thompson TTC Claws
Mike Karwath, Team #11
- Most looking forward to: "Tank Trap. Seems to be the biggest challenge of the week. Some seem to roll right through it and others have problems every part of the way. There also seems to be no rhyme nor reason to this success or lack of success. So I'm anxious to see how my team fares in the 'Trap."
- Not looking forward to: "The Mud Bog. Ugh. Mud sucks. 'Nuff said."
- Playing in his iPod/CD player: "Next four songs from the random playlist: 'I Go To Work' by Kool Moe Dee, 'Drink to the Dead' by Clutch, 'Gimme Back My Bullets' by Lynrd Skynrd, and 'Break 'Em Off Some' by Cypress Hill."
- Karwath says: "The big toenail on my left foot grows at a 45-degree angle, to the left."


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World Cup organisers will be praying the rain stays away at Taunton when Australia take on Pakistan after a tournament record third abandonment in Bristol.
Sri Lanka suffered their second successive washout, this time against Bangladesh, as the inclement weather became an unfortunate talking point with three matches being called off in the space of five days.
On the eve of their latest clash, Australia summoned Mitch Marsh to England as cover for the injured Marcus Stoinis but have yet to request a formal replacement.
Tweet of the day
Former England spinner Graeme Swann sees the upside of persistent rain.
World Cup snapshot
Quote of the day
The Bangladesh coach bemoaned the lack of reserve days over the course of a six-and-a-half-week tournament.
Stat attack
This is the first time the World Cup has had three abandonments in one edition in its history. The tournaments in 1992 and 2003 each experienced two no-results but persistent rain in England and Wales is causing havoc with the schedule. To compound matters there is further rain forecast for the next couple of days so further washouts are a distinct possibility.
What's next?
Today: Australia v Pakistan at Taunton.


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Source: The Cookbook Club Newsletter
1 box spice cake mix
2 cans sliced apples, undrained (not pie filling)
1 stick margarine or butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped pecans
In a 9x13 inch cake pan, dump in apples and spread evenly. Sprinkle with dry spice cake mix. Pour melted margarine all over dry mix. Top with chopped pecans.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until bubbly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.


text: In 2007, the brand was officially established in Los Angeles along with world-renowned saxophonist Jimmy Sommers as CEO and President of Wildfox. With the help of Sommers, Wildfox has propelled into a highly recognizable brand through cultivating both a strong [celebrity|/celebritypicks.html] following and visibility in fashion press. With much success, Sommers has been able to break into a highly competitive market and quickly bring Wildfox to the pulse of fashion with their tees, sweats, tops, sunglasses and more.


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Happy Hanukkah to the new Maccabees
As every Jew will tell you, in the traditional Jewish calendar Hanukkah is not big deal. It reached its present status because it happens to fall at the same time as Christmas. Jewish parents, therefore, turned it into a gift-giving holiday so that their children didn't feel completely left out from the happy, generous, celebratory Christmas season.
The fact that it's not a big religious holiday, though, doesn't mean that Hanukkah doesn't commemorate an extremely important event, one that has enduring meaning to all freedom seeking individuals. For those who don't know it, the story of Hanukkah is as follows:
Since time immemorial, nations have fought over that small patch of land we now call Israel. Considering that nature was less than generous in endowing Israel with fresh water or arable land, there must indeed be something special about the Holy Land, some transcendent aura, that has made it such a tantalizing prize to so many nations and people.
In 168 B.C.E., Greek soldiers located in modern-day Syria seized the great Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and defiled it by dedicating it to Zeus. Jews were appalled and offended, but still passively accepted this insult, for fear of incurring even greater wrath from the Greeks. Human nature, though, is human nature, and you cannot appease a tyrant. Heartened by Jewish passivity, the very next year, Antiochus, the Syrian-Greek emperor, mandated that any Jews who observed Jewish rituals would be put to death. Just to make sure he was completely clear, he also ordered that all Jews must affirmatively worship the Greek gods.
The Jews realized that it was one thing to be barred from a building, and another thing to be barred from their faith entirely. The smoldering tinder of Jewish resistance was lit when Greek soldiers in the village of Modiin gathered Jews together, and tried to force the Jews to bow to an idol and eat pork. Realizing that where the leader goes, the others will follow, a Greek officer focused his efforts on Mattathias, a High Priest. Mattathias refused to acquiesce to the Greek demands. In fear, another villager offered to violate Jewish law on Mattathias' behalf. Mattathias, rather than being grateful, was outraged. He killed first the appeasing villager and then the Greek officer. Mattathias, his five sons, and some other villagers then came together and killed the remaining Greeks.
Outlaws now in Greek-controlled Israel, Mattathias, his sons, and their followers hid in the m0untains and began a guerrilla campaign of resistance against the Greek occupiers. The fight was a deadly one. Mattathias and several of his sons died in battle, leaving one of his sons, Judah Maccabee to carry the fight to its conclusion. As was the case with the American revolutionaries fighting their seemingly insane battle against the might of the British Empire (the most successful military in the world at that time), it seemed impossible to believe that the Maccabees (or Hasmoneans) could win — but they did, driving the Greeks from their lands and restoring the Temple to its rightful glory.
Of course, once the Maccabees first re-took the Temple in Jerusalem, it had been completely defiled by Greek religious practices, including the slaughter of swine on the altar. The Jews believed that they could purify the Temple by burning the ritual oil in the Temple's menorah for eight days and eight nights. To their dismay, however, they discovered that they had only enough oil left for one day and one night. Nevertheless, they lit the menorah and a great miracle happened there: the menorah burned for eight days and eight nights. It is this miracle that the Jews celebrate when they light the menorah every night for the eight days of Hanukkah.
The Hanukkah story is a wonderful story of faith, commitment, and bravery. It is also a reminder that tyrannies, despite their power, are fundamentally unstable. A committed band of people can come together to topple them.
We are blessed to live in a republican Democracy. Obama is not a tyrant, but he is creating an infinitely more powerful federal government that has the seeds of tyranny in it (as all too-powerful governments do). For many of us, the 2008 election was the equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple takeover. It was a fearsome thing, but we did not yet feel that our lives and beliefs were being fundamentally transformed.
This 2012 election, however, has made us realize that Obama can follow through with vigor on his Big Government initiatives. All too soon, we may be forced to bow down. Now is the time for us to fight. We won't slay people and take to the hills, though. Instead, we'll run for elected office, refuse to let our children's public schools use our tax dollars to indoctrinate them, boycott anti-American Hollywood products, invest in conservative businesses and news sources, assert our beliefs without apology, and in every way we can, become a conservativism that's resurgent.
We are the new Maccabees.
Happy Hannukah!


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Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Recent reports have revealed that schools in Louisiana have also been using the Bible in their Science classes – specifically the Book of Genesis in Biology. The news has reignited the evolution vs creationism arguments. Blendover looks into the story.
Our Craniumelody artist this episode is Uppermost.
Topics Discussed:
- Louisiana: Creationism vs Evolution in the Classroom
- SWAT Destroys Colorado House
- Uppermost
- Nekrogoblikon
- Redditcoin
- Zombie Apocalypse
- WTF: Selfie Crash
- WTF: Porn in Space
- WTF: Using 911 for dating
BlendoveR is the "trendover" podcast, bringing you the news that the news isn't covering. Presented by Greg Davies and Aaron Ciavarra, we focus on topics that are not trending across the web and in the mainstream media, and have a knack accurate predictions of coming events, trends, and media coverage.
Louisiana: Creationism vs Evolution in the Classroom
In Louisiana, students read the Book of Genesis in their science classes
SWAT Destroys Colorado House
Man's Home Destroyed By Police In Shoplifter Standoff
Owner of house blown apart by SWAT says: 'This is an abomination. This is an atrocity'
Tenant of home ruined during Greenwood Village standoff offered $5,000
Nekrogoblikon – We Need A Gimmick [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
Redditcoin quietly killed off and lead developer fired
Zombie Apocalypse
Scientists find mutation that protects against kuru after studying cannibal group
The Zombie Apocalypse Begins With Scientists Bringing a Dead Rat's Limb Back To Life
WTF: Selfie Crash
Girl Takes Selfies Before And After Horrible Car Accident
WTF: Porn in Space
Pornhub is crowdfunding $3.4M to explore the final frontier
WTF: Using 911 for dating
Florida man calls 911 to brag about muscles, hits on dispatcher
Recommended Listening:
- "Revolution" by Uppermost from Revolution


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Categories: Torts Economic Regulation
Instructor(s) Aiken, Jeffrey
The course deals with the various aspects of construction law, drawing upon a student's existing knowledge of contract and tort law and expanding into the wide array of construction specific issues --such as project delivery systems, risk allocation principles, contract forms, insurance coverages, liens, surety bonds, owner and contractor claims and dispute resolution processes. The sessions will be taught in a discussion and practical exercise format, focusing on pre-assigned reading materials. There will be a final short answer essay or multiple-choice exam. Over one-third of U.S. economic output is related to the construction industry which produces a large volume of disputes subject to resolution through ADR or judicial proceedings, requiring not only a working knowledge of contract, tort, insurance and oftentimes surety law but also industry standard project delivery systems and practices. This course will meet once per week for two hours focusing on the broad range of unique construction law issues from contracting and risk allocation principles to claims resolution, drawing upon a student's existing knowledge of common law legal and equitable principles after exploring the wide range of project delivery systems, procurement and construction activities.
The sessions will be taught in a class discussion and practical exercise format, focusing on pre-assigned reading materials requiring approximately 50 pages of review for each session.


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Performance objectives are milestones on the path to achieving your preparedness program's goals. Objectives should be developed for all aspects of the program. Include hazard prevention/deterrence, risk mitigation, emergency response and business continuity.
Consider goals and objectives for managing risk, investing in resources, establishing capabilities through training and exercising and complying with regulations. Consider both short-term objectives for the development of the program and long-term objectives that may require more significant planning or investment.
Examples of short-term objectives include:
- Establish a program committee that includes wide participation from your company.
- Assess your current preparedness program.
- Reach out to public emergency services and regulators. Ask for input.
- Conduct a risk assessment to identify threat and hazard scenarios and significant loss potential.
- Conduct a business impact analysis to identify the operational and financial impacts from an interruption or disruption of your business.
- Identify opportunities for hazard prevention and risk mitigation.
- Protect the safety of your employees by developing evacuation, sheltering and lockdown plans. Conduct employee training and drills.
- Install an emergency generator to power the data center during a power outage.
- Develop plans to equip and configure Plant B as a backup for Plant A.
Examples of long-term objectives include:
- Upgrading the protection of the facility by installing a fire sprinkler system.
- Phasing out the use of highly toxic or flammable chemicals.
- Conducting a full-scale exercise of our emergency management program involving public emergency services.
- Shifting some or all operations to a location that is less susceptible to natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes or flooding.
- Building a culture of preparedness in the workplace and encourage employees to have a plan at home.
Objectives should be tangible and measurable. When the program is reviewed, determine whether objectives have been achieved (see Program Improvement).


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Media Contact:
Elisabeth Brookover
School of Law Communication Director
Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Co-Founds Global Forum on Law, Justice, and Development
International Web-Based Platform Supports Rule of Law in Developing Countries
CHICAGO, February 8, 2012—Loyola University Chicago School of Law has become a founding intellectual partner of the new World Bank Global Forum for Law, Justice and Development (GFLJD). The forum, which features a number of partners, serves as an innovative and dynamic international web-based platform for financial and academic institutions and international organizations to exchange information, examine current trends in legal and justice reform, and support developing countries in their efforts to build the rule of law.
The forum uses a multi-disciplinary approach to support these developing countries.It will serve as an effective tool to discuss policy responses and exchange first-hand experiences any time of day, anywhere in the world, and more importantly, free of charge.
"While our law school, through its LLM Program on Rule of Law for Development (PROLAW®) will take the lead in the forum, legal reform processes involve inter-disciplinary approaches that can be informed and supported by a number of Loyola University Chicago faculties," says David Yellen, dean of Loyola's School of Law. "We look forward to lending the substantial expertise of our University to this important initiative."
The forum will help identify, examine, and produce innovative and customized legal solutions to global, regional, or national development challenges. It seeks to: (1) promote a better understanding of the role of law and justice in the development process, through structured dialogues of relevant stakeholders, and a research agenda that will support knowledge co‐generation including academia and think‐tanks; and (2) strengthen and better integrate legal and judicial institutions in the development process through selected capacity building initiatives and an open repository of knowledge.
"Loyola has a particular interest in promoting ways to support developing countries' ability to generate and implement their own legal reforms without the need to rely on foreign advisors to do so," says William T. Loris, professor and program director of the LLM Program on Rule of Law for Development at Loyola. "As this fits well with the forum's philosophy, we will look for opportunities to pursue this idea with all of our forum partners."
Other organizations involved with the forum include: the World Bank, the European Bank for Economic Development, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the African Development Bank, the International Development Law Organization, and a number of universities, including Syracuse University, who is playing a key role in hosting the forum's IT platform. For a full list of partners, please visit http://bbi.syr.edu/gfljd/partners.htm.
For more information on the forum, please visit its website at http://bbi.syr.edu/gfljd/.
About the PROLAW Program
PROLAW is a one-year LLM degree program in Rule of Law for Development that was launched in September 2011 at Loyola University Chicago's John Felice Rome Center in Italy. From their first day on the job, graduates will be qualified to act as advisors in technical assistance projects, and in national initiatives undertaken by legal and judicial authorities in developing countries. For more information, visit LUC.edu/PROLAW
About Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Loyola's School of Law has been educating students across the country and around the world for 100 years. The school offers full- and part-time Juris Doctor programs, with specialized certificates available in advocacy, child and family law, health law, international law and practice, and tax law. For attorneys pursuing advanced legal education, the school offers Master of Laws programs in advocacy, business law, child and family law, health law, rule of law for development, and tax law. In addition, the school offers the Master of Jurisprudence for non-attorney professionals in business, child and family law, and health law, as well as two doctoral degrees focusing on health law and policy (SJD and DLaw).
About Loyola University Chicago
Founded in 1870, Loyola University Chicago is the nation's largest Jesuit, Catholic university, with more than 16,000 students. Nearly 10,000 undergraduates hailing from all 50 states and 82 countries call Loyola home. The University has four campuses: three in the greater Chicago area and one in Rome, Italy, as well as a presence in Beijing and an academic center in Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The University's 10 schools and colleges include arts and sciences, business administration, communication, continuing and professional studies, education, graduate studies, law, medicine, nursing, and social work. Consistently ranked a top national university by U.S.News & World Report, Loyola is also among a select group of universities recognized for community service and engagement by prestigious national organizations like the Carnegie Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service. To learn more about Loyola, visit LUC.edu, "like" us at Facebook.com/LoyolaChicago, or follow us on Twitter via @LoyolaChicago.


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Clownesse Cha-U-Kao at the Moulin Rouge
Prints and Drawings
|Object type
|Medium, technique
|watercolour on paper
140 × 227 mm
|Inventory number
|Prints and Drawings
|On view
|This artwork is not on display
Bonington was one of those artists who were given a very short time to create. He was not yet twenty-six when tuberculosis brought an end to a promising career, which played an important mediating role in British-French artistic relations in the early phase of Romanticism.
Though he was born in England, he became a painter in France, because he was fifteen-years-old when his family moved to Calais. By a strange coincidence, the painter who took notice of the talented, young man around 1817, and taught him the English watercolour technique, was a French artist – Louis Francia, who fled France after the Revolution, and spent years as an émigré in Britain. Bonington's artistic development greatly benefited from his family's move to Paris, where he studied under Baron Gros, and copied the masterpieces at the Louvre with great enthusiasm. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, cabinet pictures and watercolours were growing in popularity among collectors, something Bonington greatly profited from, as he excelled in small-sized oil paintings and watercolours. He quickly earned success with his landscapes, as both the public and his eminent contemporaries thought highly of his works. He was a good friend of Eugène Delacroix, with whom he visited London in 1825, and upon returning to Paris, they went on to share a studio for a while.
Bonington's character and interests explain why representations of the sea had a distinguished place in his oeuvre. While travelling in search of motifs, he would regularly go to the coasts of Normandy. We are also aware of his working process: a friend often depicted him as he was sitting in a boat on the rough sea, drawing. He elaborated the plein air sketches he made in this way in the studio. From February 1824, he spent several months near Dunkerque, and he presented his oil seascapes at the Paris Salon in August. The same period saw the birth of the oil painting, A Sea Piece (Wallace Collection, London), as well as its preliminary sketch (Yale Center, New Haven). An inscription on the latter makes it obvious that it is a plein air study made during his stay in Dunkerque. The watercolour in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts was most probably made after these works. The sheet displays those traits of Bonington which were typical of the compositions he made around 1824–1825: a low horizon, a great variety of cloud formations, and small figures with dots. Capturing the restless sea and the billowing sails is to his painterly credit, but the sheet also brings into relief his mastery of composition: the largest boat is almost in the centre of the picture, while the overlapping sails and the masts are arranged in a geometric order. The small craft in the centre are distinguished from the sky only thanks to the darker tone, as their outlines are completely blurred. The contrast of the water and the clouds is softened by the bluish-greyish tone they both share. With this piece in Budapest and other such compositions, Bonington was catering to the booming art trade of his time.
Text: © Zsuzsa Gonda


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We just released LFS 0.7.3. This is a yet another bugfix release of the 0.7 branch.
You can find more information and help on following locations:
See here for more.
We are sprinting on this year's EuroPython in Florence. Don't hesitate to join us, see https://ep2012.europython.eu/p3/sprints/ and LFS sprint topics for more.


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Arrange to attend our PinBuild Career Development Clinics this August. This could be the most important appointment of your career so far...
PinBuild Clinics are for sales and marketing professionals in the construction and building products sector, providing specialist career advice and a match to the latest construction sales vacancies.
Call us and arrange to meet one of our expert construction industry consultants on 01480 405225 or contact us via to secure your booking e-mail email@example.com
August clinic dates
- Wednesday 5th August: Warrington
- Wednesday 12th August: Birmingham
- Wednesday 19th August: Notts / Derby
- Wednesday 26th August: Swindon
Our current jobs: You might find one you'd like to discuss: Search for building and construction products sales jobs
PinBuild Clinics will evaluate the job seeker's career to date and identify the best opportunities available. The clinics provide professionals with expert advice on how to progress their career by discussing the industry sectors that have potential for growth, the skills and focus needed to ensure that they develop with the changing nature of the market and how to ensure that their career continues to progress rather than stagnating.
The clinics will also assist those that attend to map out a realistic and achievable career path, including any potential training requirements. Assistance will also be given to evaluate their CV and also their interview technique and where they should focus to ensure they realise their true potential in the building and construction industry.
We specialise in external and internal sales positions, marketing and management roles and director and board appointments with manufacturers, merchants or distributors across the whole building, construction and interiors product spectrum.
Take some time out to read about CRASH the construction industry's charity for homeless people and one of our industry partners for our charity initiative 'Helping others as you recruit.'


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Not anymore. One year and 46 famous women's speeches later, we've got everything from Eleanor Roosevelt to Lady Gaga, among many others. Now I've collected all of them to create in one place The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, an index that will grow as our Famous Speech Friday series continues.
Here's a flavor of what you'll find in the index:
- Women speakers from many locations and many topics: Women from the U.S., Canada, England, France, Haiti and Kenya were featured, and their topics range from war, business, the environment and equal rights to cancer, orgasm, gender identity and family. All of them rock the house in their own way.
- Women in a wide range of roles: There are First Ladies, presidential candidates, governors, members of Congress, a prime minister, an international banker, business executives, religious crusaders, cancer and stroke survivors, government agency heads, activists, feminists and anti-feminists, writers, actresses, singers, royalty, women who are old, young, black, white, Native American, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, liberal, and conservative.
- The types of speeches also vary widely, with commencement addresses, eulogies, political stump speeches, lectures, tributes, awards acceptances, keynotes, congressional testimony, international declarations, TED talks, mock debates, convention speeches, speeches to interest groups, legal arguments, assessments of women's progress in professions, evocative fables and rousing union speeches on our roster.
I set a special goal for these speeches, looking for examples that not only hold good lessons for today's speakers--each example has at least three lessons for you--but also speeches that reflect women speaking about women's issues, at least in part. Wherever possible, we've provided links to the text or a transcript, along with audio or video of the speech or one like it.
It's not easy committing to a weekly series, particularly when the sources of information are scattered and sketchy; for much of our history, women were discouraged from speaking publicly, and the records of their talks were not preserved and made available. For that reason, I am grateful to the many historians, historic sites, government and university archives, women's studies programs and other sources of excellent information. Links to their offerings are in each post, and I welcome hearing from other sources of information on famous women's speeches of today and yesterday. And hear me, those of you with women speakers today: Please transcribe and record their speeches and make them publicly available!
I have made a permanent page on the blog for the index, so that, as we continue the Famous Speech Friday series, the list will continue to grow and serve as a ready reference. I welcome your suggestions for future famous speech examples by women, at info[at]dontgetcaught[dot]biz...but first, go take a look at your new reference, The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, and please pass it around. Who's your favorite so far on the list?


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Longterm Care
Long-Term Care Insurance (LTC)
Long-term care (LTC) is the assistance or supervision you may need when you are not able to do some of the basic activities of daily living. Your personal risk of needing LTC depends on many factors. We encourage you to utilize the resources below in making the best decision for your situation.
If you do not find the information you need, we invite you to call our Consumer Hotline (1-800-927-4357) for assistance. Our dedicated insurance experts are available to assist you.
Long-Term Care Insurance Rate and History Guide
The California Department of Insurance annual Consumer Guide for Long-Term Care Insurance.
- California Partnership for Long-Term Care
The California Partnership for Long-Term Care is an innovative program of the California Department of Health Services in cooperation with a select number of private insurance companies. These companies have agreed to offer policies that must meet stringent requirements set by the Partnership and the State of California.
- Department of Health Care Services - Long-Term Care Alternatives
Long-Term Care Alternatives include an array of home and community choices that allow persons with disabilities to avoid unnecessary institutionalization.
- Medicare - Long-Term Care
Medicare's official U.S. Government website on long-term care
- National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) - Long-Term Care
NAIC's official website on long-term care. Insurance information on a wide range of topics.