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This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event March 2, 2012: Washington Post Calls on Republicans to Repudiate Limbaugh's Attacks on Law Student, Accuses Limbaugh of 'Debasing' Student and 'National Political Discourse'. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh insults Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified in favor of federal law mandating that health care providers pay for contraception (see March 1, 2012), as a "slut" and a "prostitute" who wants the government to pay her for having sex. On his radio show, Limbaugh, who wrongly identifies her as "Susan" Fluke, says: "What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps. The johns, that's right. We would be the johns—no! We're not the johns. Well—yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word. Okay, so, she's not a slut. She's round-heeled. I take it back." Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald comments on Limbaugh's characterization, "While it's probably not even worth engaging with Limbaugh on the facts, Fluke's testimony was about a friend who is a lesbian and needed birth control for non-sexual medical reasons, so he's only wrong about three times over, and offensive many more times over than that." Seitz-Wald notes that Fluke never discussed her own use, or non-use, of contraception, nor did she allude to her sexual activities at all. (Media Matters 2/29/2012; Seitz-Wald 2/29/2012; Seitz-Wald 3/1/2012)
Misrepresentation - Seitz-Wald will note that Limbaugh is deliberately misrepresenting Fluke's position and the position of Congressional Democrats. "Fluke's testimony, and the entire contraception debate, is about insurance companies paying for contraception as part of their health coverage, the… way they pay for any other medication, such as Viagra. Morevoer, Fluke's testimony was not about herself, but about a friend who need contraception to fight cancer and other fellow law students. This conservative narrative, which is pure fantasy, seems to be based on a single bogus article from Cybercast News Service (CNS), which Limbaugh repeatedly cites, with the ludicrous headline, 'Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate.'" (Bannister 2/29/2012; Seitz-Wald 3/2/2012)
Other News Outlets Join Limbaugh - Other conservative news outlets join Limbaugh in attacking Fluke and other women who use contraception. In the article cited by Limbaugh, CNS's Craig Bannister says that "sex-crazed co-eds" like Fluke should cut back on the amount of sex they're having to pay for other needs such as books and food. Fox News's Trace Gallagher mocks Fluke, saying: "And see, I was gonna go to law school, but I thought all you did was study in law school, right? So, I guess I was wrong on that." Fox News correspondent Monica Crowley says the government should not pay Fluke and others to have "recreational sex." CNN commentator Dana Loesch calls Fluke and other women "nymphos" for wanting access to contraceptives, and says Fluke and feminists "support… female genocide." (Media Matters 2/29/2012; Bannister 2/29/2012)
Fox Business Commentator: Fluke's Testimony Part of a Pro-Abortion Scheme by House Minority Leader - On Fox Business Channel's Lou Dobbs Tonight, regular guest Bill Donohue calls Fluke a "little brat." Dobbs asks Donohue to comment on what he calls Fluke's demand that she be given free contraception, a mischaracterization of Fluke's testimony (and one contradicted by the clip of her testimony Dobbs plays before Donohue's comments). Donohue begins by lambasting Georgetown for having a group called "Hoyas for Choice," which he calls "Hoyas for Abortion," but not groups like "Hoyas for Racism" or "Hoyas for Anti-Semitism." Donohue suggests that the university and Hoyas for Choice raise "the nine dollars a month" Fluke needs for her personal contraception needs, and Dobbs notes that Georgetown is "one of the most expensive universities in the country." Donohue attacks Fluke for "obviously dressing well" but then asking taxpayers to pay for her contraception and, without basis in fact, for her university education to boot. Why aren't taxpayers funding his anti-gout medication? he asks. "This is what we've come down to in this country," he concludes. "You have these little brats who come on TV and they testify and they say, 'I want, I want, I want,' and somehow I have a moral responsibility? They have a lien on me to pay this? It's all about getting the Catholic Church, obviously, to pay for their abortion-inducing drugs, which is why we're having this debate." Donohue says that Fluke's testimony is part of a scheme by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), "who actually brought her on there to speak," to force the Catholic Church to amend its position on abortion. (Media Matters 2/29/2012)
'Shockingly Ugly Hatred' - Conservative blogger Charles Johnson, who in recent years has become highly critical of the race- and gender-based rhetoric from the right, writes that the right's reaction to Fluke constitutes "shockingly ugly hatred," and says Limbaugh's attack is "another step into the gutter." (Charles Johnson 2/29/2012) Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates agrees with Johnson, noting that Limbaugh is not just an "entertainer," but a powerful opinion leader of the Republican Party, and says that Limbaugh's comments are part of what Coates calls "the normalization of cruelty" and "evidence of the lowest aspects of humanity." (Coates 3/1/2012) Eric Boehlert, a senior writer at the liberal media watchdog Web site Media Matters, calls Limbaugh's "radio outburst" an example of his "rancid misogyny," and writes: "[I]t was perhaps the talk show host's incessant need to bully powerless people from the safety of his studio that was so striking. That, and the glee Limbaugh seemed to take in not only maligning the young woman, but her parents as well. It's jaw-dropping." Boehlert goes on to remind readers that Limbaugh is not just a voice on the radio or an entertainer, but "the voice of America's conservative movement, as well as the Republican Party." (Boehlert 3/1/2012)
House Democrats Call for Condemnation - House Democrats, including Pelosi, call for Republican Congressional leaders to condemn Limbaugh's remarks (see February 29, 2012).
Statement from Law Student - Fluke will issue a statement repudiating Limbaugh's rhetoric (see March 1, 2012).
Continued Attacks - Limbaugh will continue his attacks on Fluke the next day (see March 1, 2012).
The Senate votes down the controversial "Blunt amendment" 51-48, on a nearly party-line vote. The amendment, offered by Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) as a rider to a routine highway bill and co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 22 other senators, would have allowed health care providers to refuse to pay for contraception and other health care procedures on religious or moral grounds. If the amendment had passed, health insurance plans and employers could refuse to provide or pay for coverage of "specific items or services" if the coverage would be "contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan." Blunt and the bill's supporters characterize the legislation as an attempt to restore religious freedoms taken away by the Obama administration's "government health care takeover," in Blunt's words; opponents say the bill is an attack on women's rights and an effort to ban contraception. Blunt said during the debate of the bill: "This amendment does not mention any procedure of any kind. The word 'contraception' is not in there because it's not about a specific procedure. It's about a faith principle that the First Amendment guarantees." McConnell says the bill is an attempt to fight for "religious liberty," which he and others say is under attack by the White House and Congressional Democrats. The Obama administration's health care policy requires organizations to cover the cost of contraception, but does not require religious establishments to cover the cost. Employees of religious establishments can still obtain contraception from the health care insurance company. Mitt Romney (R-MA), a Republican presidential candidate, first stated his opposition to the bill, then quickly reversed course and said he was for it. The only Senate Republican to vote against the bill is Olympia Snowe (R-ME), widely considered a moderate Republican; three conservative Democrats vote for the bill. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), considered a strong candidate to run as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2012 elections, says the Senate's refusal to pass the bill is "a setback for religious freedoms in America." Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) calls the bill a straightforward effort to ban contraception. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote in a recent op-ed, "Instead of coming together to fix our economy and strengthen the middle class, the Senate is considering a measure so extreme that it would allow any employer—religious or secular—to deny their employees coverage of any preventive service, including contraception, mammograms—anything the employer deems unfit to be covered." Senator Patty Murray (D-MA) says, "The Senate will not allow women's health care choices to be taken away from them." Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) says Republicans are attacking women's health care as part of "a systematic war against women." Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius had asked the Senate to reject the proposal, saying, "The Obama administration believes that decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss." Dr. Hal C. Lawrence of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists came out against the amendment, saying contraception "improves and saves babies' lives, improves maternal health, and can be life-saving for women with serious medical problems." The American Cancer Society released a statement opposing the amendment, saying it would allow employers to deny coverage of life-saving preventive services like mammograms and smoking cessation programs based on "undefined religious beliefs or moral convictions." (Pear 3/1/2012; The State 3/1/2012; The Week 3/2/2012) After the bill is voted down, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh vilifies Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, who was not allowed to testify before a House committee meeting debating the bill (Volsky 2/16/2012) , calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute" for advocating the free availability of contraception (see February 29, 2012). Fluke gave her testimony before a panel of House Democrats and posted it on YouTube, where she discussed the needs of young women who use birth control and other contraceptives for medical needs such as cancer prevention. Specifically, she cites the example of a friend who needed, and was unable to obtain, birth control pills to manage polycystic ovarian syndrome. (Beadle 2/16/2012) Democrats and others criticized committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) for only allowing men to testify before the House Oversight Committee on the topic of female contraception. It was Issa's decision to bar Fluke from testifying before the committee. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said at the time: "The Republican leadership of this Congress thinks it's appropriate to have a hearing on women's health and purposely exclude women from the panel. I may at some point be moved to explain biology to my colleagues." Issa only allowed committee Democrats to name one witness; they named Fluke, whom Issa barred from testifying as she was "unqualified" to speak. (Daily Mail 2/17/2012)
In an editorial by its editorial board, the Washington Post unequivocally condemns the recent attacks by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Fluke testified in opposition to a House amendment that would have allowed health care providers to deny contraceptive coverage and other health care necessities if they had religious or moral objections (see March 1, 2012). Limbaugh has called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" who is having "so much sex she can't afford the contraception" and wants the government to pay for it (see February 29, 2012), and said that if Fluke wanted the government to pay her to have sex, then he wanted her to post videos of her having sex online so the public could watch (see March 1, 2012). The Post calls Limbaugh's "rants" against Fluke "vile," and says that Limbaugh has "crossed… the line" that differentiates between "standards of civil discourse" and hate speech. The Post continues: "Like other 'shock jocks,' Mr. Limbaugh has committed verbal excesses in the past. But in its wanton vulgarity and cruelty, this episode stands out.… We are not calling for censorship. Nor are we suggesting that the ostensible policy issue here—mandatory provision of contraception under health insurance paid for by religious-based institutions such as Georgetown—is a simple one. Those who questioned President Obama's initial decisions in this area—we among them—were not waging a 'war on women,' as Democrats have alleged in strident fundraising appeals. What we are saying is that Mr. Limbaugh has abused his unique position within the conservative media to smear and vilify a citizen engaged in the exercise of her First Amendment rights, and in the process he debased a national political discourse that needs no further debasing. This is not the way a decent citizen behaves, much less a citizen who wields significant de facto power in a major political party. While Republican leaders owe no apology for Mr. Limbaugh's comments, they do have a responsibility to repudiate them—and him." (Washington Post 3/2/2012) Shortly after the editorial is published, Post editorial writer Charles Lane says in a Fox News interview that he cannot "remember a more hateful outburst from a public figure" than Limbaugh's. He tells Fox News anchor Bret Baier: "I think we should not talk so much about the politics of this and just talk about it on a human level. I have been covering politics and stuff in Washington for 30 years and I can't remember a more hateful outburst from a public figure that was less possible to justify by any political disagreement. What Rush Limbaugh said was really unworthy of decent political discourse." (Uwimana 3/2/2012) The Post editorial is published several hours before Limbaugh's daily broadcast; the talk show host continues to vilify Fluke in today's show (see March 2, 2012).
Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh issues an apology for his three-day verbal assault on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Fluke testified in opposition to a House amendment that would have allowed health care providers to deny contraceptive coverage and other health care necessities if they had religious or moral objections (see March 1, 2012) and was vilified by Limbaugh (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Limbaugh, echoing claims from his anti-Fluke broadcasts, claims he was merely joking in calling Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute," alleging that she wanted the government to pay for her having promiscuous sex, and demanding that she post online videos of the sex he claimed he would be paying for. On his blog, Limbaugh writes: "For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a presidential level (see March 2, 2012). My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices." (Rush Limbaugh 3/3/2012) Premiere Radio Networks, the subsidiary of Clear Channel Entertainment that distributes Limbaugh's show, quickly emails the apology to reporters, but initially declines to comment. Limbaugh's chief of staff Kit Carson refuses to comment as well. On March 4, the network will email a statement by a spokesperson that reads: "The contraception debate is one that sparks strong emotion and opinions on both sides of the issue. We respect the right of Mr. Limbaugh, as well as the rights of those who disagree with him, to express those opinions." The company refuses to divulge the names of the largest advertisers on Limbaugh's show, nor how much revenue Premiere is losing by the advertiser defections. A Twitter account called "Stop Rush" posts: "I think this attempt at damage control labeled as an apology actually makes things worse. You know what Rush's so-called apology means? Your efforts at delivering real accountability are working!" MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O'Donnell posts on Twitter, "Lawyers wrote that apology." (Stelter 3/3/2012; Associated Press 3/4/2012) Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald notes that Limbaugh conflates contraception with governmental purchases of sneakers, and continues to imply that Fluke and other women advocate for contraception coverage solely for their own personal sexual activities. Seitz-Wald recalls that Fluke testified to Congress on behalf of a friend who needed birth control pills to manage polycystic ovarian syndrome. (Seitz-Wald 3/3/2012) Liberal blogger Kaili Jo Gray writes in response: "Shorter Rush: 'I'm sorry if any sluts were offended by being called sluts, but if they'd stop being sluts, I wouldn't have to call them sluts.' Obviously, the campaign to demand that Rush's sponsors pull their advertising from his show is working" (see March 2, 2012 and After). (Kaili Jo Gray 3/3/2012) Others agree. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the Democratic National Committee chair, says, "I know he apologized, but forgive me, I doubt his sincerity, given that he lost at least six advertisers." And Eric Boehlert of the progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters says he doubts the apology will "stop the pressure that's being applied to his advertisers." In an email, Boehlert says, "His comments were so egregious, naturally advertisers will have doubts about being associated with Limbaugh's brand of hate." (Stelter 3/5/2012) It is possible that Limbaugh issues the apology in hopes of fending off a lawsuit by Fluke (see March 2, 2012) and/or to stop advertisers from removing themselves as sponsors of his show. Regardless, the exodus will intensify, and will spread to advertisers asking that their ads be removed from Limbaugh's political talk-show colleagues as well as from his own show (see March 9, 2012).
Michelle Bernard, the former head of the conservative Independent Women's Forum, explains why few Republicans have criticized talk show host Rush Limbaugh (see March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, and March 4, 2012) for defaming a female law student during his broadcast (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Limbaugh, whom Bernard praises during an MSNBC appearance, is something of an ideological "enforcer" who pressures Republicans and conservatives to "toe the line," she says. Bernard says that some conservatives such as herself have chosen not to adhere to Limbaugh's ideological hard line. (Media Matters 3/4/2012)
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh attempts to explain his three-day tirade against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012) and expand on his apology for his comments (see March 3, 2012). In the process, he insults "liberals" and continues his attack on Fluke, though he now reframes his attacks on Fluke in political terms and avoids the personal defamation in which he had previously engaged. "I want to explain why I apologized to Sandra Fluke in the statement that was released on Saturday," he says. "I've read all the theories from all sides and, frankly, they are all wrong. I don't expect—and I know you don't, either—morality or intellectual honesty from the left. They've demonstrated over and over a willingness to say or do anything to advance their agenda. It's what they do. It's what we fight against here every day. But this is the mistake I made. In fighting them on this issue last week, I became like them. Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words ['slut' and 'prostitute'] to describe Sandra Fluke. That was my error. I became like them, and I feel very badly about that. I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program. Nevertheless, those two words were inappropriate. They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. I do not think she is either of those two words. I did not think last week that she is either of those two words. The apology to her over the weekend was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do, and in so doing, I became like the people we oppose. I ended up descending to their level. It's important not to be like them, ever, particularly in fighting them. The old saw, you never descend to the level of your opponent or they win. That was my error last week. But the apology was heartfelt. The apology was sincere. And, as you will hear as I go on here, it was not about anything else. No ulterior motive. No speaking in code. No double entendre or intention. Pure, simple, heartfelt. That's why I apologized to Sandra Fluke on Saturday, 'cause all the theories, all the experts are wrong.… Now, all of this is what I should have told you last week, 'cause this is what happened. I use satire. I use absurdity to illustrate the absurd. The story at the Cybercast News Service characterized a portion of her testimony as sounding like (based on her own financial figures) she was engaging in sexual activity so often she couldn't afford it. I focused on that because it was simple trying to persuade people, change people's minds." He continues attacking Fluke for her attempts to persuade Georgetown University to include contraception in its student health insurance coverage. He calls her a "longtime birth control activist" who went back to law school in order to engage in demagoguery at Georgetown over the contraception issue, and questions the testimony she was prepared to offer before a House committee in support of insurer-paid contraception coverage (see March 1, 2012). "In fact, she told stories less about birth control as a social tool (which was, of course, the left's true agenda) and more about birth control as a medication for treating other conditions, such as pregnancy," Limbaugh says. "To the left, pregnancy is a disease. If you're listening to me for the first time, you may say, 'Well, that's crazy.' It's not. They treat pregnancy as a disease for political purposes. All of this, folks, is political. Sandra Fluke gave vague examples based on unnamed friends who she says couldn't afford birth control to treat medical conditions they had, since Georgetown University wouldn't pay for them. Georgetown paid for all of their other medical treatment, but it wouldn't pay for the birth control pills that these doctors prescribed should they be necessary—or so she says. We still don't know who any of these friends of hers are, these other women, and we don't know what happened to them. Her testimony was hearsay, and it was unprovable." He says to Fluke, "If birth control insurance is important to you as an enrolling student, and you find out that Georgetown doesn't offer it, you might want to attend (or work at) a school that isn't run by Catholics." Fluke and others "intentionally target schools like Georgetown to advance an agenda of ultimately forcing them to abandon their religious beliefs," Limbaugh says. "All of this is to serve Obama's agenda (see March 2, 2012). The agenda he worked all summer on. He abandoned it only when America stood up, united, and this said they would not tolerate tearing down religion to increase government's control over our lives.… They [Democrats] use Sandra Fluke to create a controversy. Sandra Fluke used them to advance her agenda, which is to force a religious institution to abandon their principles in order to meet hers." (Sullivan 3/5/2012; Rush Limbaugh 3/5/2012) Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald observes, "While this is perhaps some progress from Limbaugh's overtly sexist slurs of last week, it's hardly the words of a man genuinely sorry for his ad hominem attacks on a women's health advocate." (Seitz-Wald 3/5/2012)
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA), considered the leader in the primary race for the Republican presidential nomination, again refuses to comment on the controversy surrounding talk show host Rush Limbaugh's three-day vilification of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Romney, like many Republicans, has refused to publicly criticize Limbaugh over his actions (see March 2, 2012 and March 2, 2012). Asked during a campaign stop about his position on Limbaugh, he says, "My campaign is about jobs and the economy and scaling back the size of government and I'm not going to weigh in on that particular controversy." (Viser 3/6/2012) Some prominent Republicans, such as Romney's fellow candidate Ron Paul (R-TX—see March 4, 2012), former Bush White House advisor Peggy Noonan (see March 4, 2012), Senators John McCain (R-AZ—see March 5, 2012) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AZ—see March 6, 2012), and former Bush speechwriter David Frum (see March 5, 2012), have condemned Limbaugh's rhetoric. Two days ago, the former head of a conservative women's organization predicted that few Republicans would step up to publicly criticize Limbaugh (see March 4, 2012).
Author and investigative reporter Cara Hoffman writes an op-ed for the liberal news and opinion Web site TruthOut and her blog concerning the controversy surrounding talk show host Rush Limbaugh's recent invective-laden tirades against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, March 2, 2012, and March 5, 2012). Fluke drew Limbaugh's ire by advocating for insurer-paid contraception as part of broader health care coverage (see March 1, 2012). Hoffman writes that Limbaugh is correct in stating that "single, educated women" like Fluke and author Tracie McMillan, whom he excoriated after his attacks on Fluke (see March 6-7, 2012), "are trying to take away his freedom.… Limbaugh's freedom has gone unchecked for a long time; his freedom to deliver a constant stream of invective and hate speech, the foundation of which is misogyny. So his anxiety is well justified. People once had the freedom to lynch, terrorize, and sexually assault African Americans until that freedom was taken away. They had the freedom to deny them an education, a vote, the right to marry whom they chose, until that freedom was taken away. They had the freedom to mock and use racial epithets and hate speech in all forms of media until that freedom was taken away." Hoffman writes that Limbaugh's listeners are in a similar predicament, facing the loss of their "freedom" to exercise what she calls their hatred for women: "[f]reedoms they had before women were allowed to go to school, or to vote, before rape shield laws existed, before domestic violence laws changed. They know as long as there is no level playing field, as long as women are kept second class citizens, the freedom to discriminate, exploit, intimidate, and reap the benefits of the economic and social freedoms that come from creating an underclass remain." Hoffman concludes: "Young single educated women and men, working class women and men, married women and men are at the forefront of dismantling your freedoms, Mr. Limbaugh. Rest assured we will be taking them. You won't have to wait much longer." (Hoffman 3/8/2012)
Premiere Radio Networks, the company that distributes radio shows by an array of right-wing hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, announces that 98 out of 350 advertisers, including a number of major corporations, have requested that their ads only appear on "programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity)." The Premiere email says, "Those are defined as environments likely to stir negative sentiment from a very small percentage of the listening public." Limbaugh vilified law student Sandra Fluke for three days on his radio show (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012), and though he issued an apology on his Web site (see March 3, 2012), advertisers have dropped their sponsorship of his show in increasingly large numbers (see March 2, 2012 and After) following a widespread outcry of anger against Limbaugh's rhetoric. Now, large advertisers such as Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm, McDonald's, and Subway Restaurants have asked that their advertising be removed from Premiere's right-wing talk shows. Industry insider Valerie Geller tells a reporter: "I have talked with several reps who report that they're having conversations with their clients, who are asking not to be associated with specifically polarizing controversial hosts, particularly if those hosts are 'mean-spirited.' While most products and services offered on these shows have strong competitors, and enjoy purchasing the exposure that many of these shows and hosts can offer, they do not wish to be 'tarred' with the brush of anger, or endure customer anger, or, worse, product boycotts." For nearly two decades, Limbaugh has been at the forefront of the movement that insisted conservative talk shows on radio and television must counterbalance what he and others have termed the "liberal bias" of the mainstream media (see Summer 1970, October 7, 1996, October 9, 2002, October 8, 2003, December 2004, December 14, 2005, December 19-20, 2005, December 21, 2005, May 2008, October 23-24, 2008, February 24, 2009, and August 11, 2009). After cable television and Internet access fragmented the market, "niche" audiences such as Limbaugh's have provided the most reliable listenership and viewers, and the highest comparative ratings. However, the demographics are changing for right-wing talk. Limbaugh, Levin, Savage, Hannity, and others generally rate best among aging white males, a demographic that is less profitable than it used to be. Now, the prize advertising demographic is women aged 24 to 55, a demographic that has been leaving the right-wing talkers in steadily increasing numbers, and now makes up the forefront of the angry pushback against Limbaugh over his public savaging of a young female law student over a political disagreement. Some, including Limbaugh's brother, right-wing talk show host David Limbaugh, have complained of a "left-wing jihad" against conservative radio hosts. However, as reporter John Avlon writes: "[T]he irony is that the same market forces that right-wing talk-radio hosts champion are helping to seal their fate. Advertisers are abandoning the shows because they no longer want to be associated with the hyperpartisan—and occasionally hateful—rhetoric. They are finally drawing a line because consumers are starting to take a stand." Moreover, the advent of social media has made the response time for protesters and angry consumers almost immediate. Geller says: "In the past, a letter, petition, or phone campaign took a few days to put together and longer to execute. But now customers [listeners] can instantly rally using Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging to make their displeasure with a client, product, or service known immediately. These movements can happen fast." Avlon concludes: "When big money starts shifting, it is a sign of a deeper tide that is difficult to undo, even if you are an industry icon like Rush Limbaugh. It is a sign that the times are changing. Let's hope that what emerges is an evolution of the industry, away from stupid, predictable, and sometimes hateful hyperpartisanship and toward something a little smarter and more civil." (Radio-Info.com 3/9/2012; Avlon 3/10/2012)
Conservative columnist John Derbyshire, who has written about the accuracy of racial and ethnic stereotyping (see February 1, 2001), has proclaimed himself a racist (see November 11-18, 2003), and lectured black law students about African-American intellectual inferiority (see April 5, 2010), writes an article about a "talk" with his children about race. In short, he writes that he has taught his children to fear and avoid African-Americans for their own safety. African-Americans are disproportionately given to antisocial and criminal behavior, he writes, as well as "school disciplinary measures" and "political corruption." What he calls "black-on-white behavior" is extraordinarily antisocial and dangerous, he writes, and he warns his children to avoid encounters with black Americans except under certain, controlled circumstances. "A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us," he writes. "A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming." To be safe, he writes, white Americans must "[a]void concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally[; s]tay out of heavily black neighborhoods"; stay away from vacation or entertainment venues that will be, in his words, "swamped with blacks on that date"; leave public events if "the number of blacks" at those events "suddenly swells"; do not live in areas "run by black politicians"; "scrutinize [the] character" of a black politician "much more carefully than you would a white" before voting for that person; never stop to assist a black "in apparent distress"; and never stop to chat with an African-American not known to you. Derbyshire asserts that "[t]he mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites," and in a fair society, "there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black." Derbyshire grants that among the US's 40 million black citizens, "there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks," which he abbreviates as IWSBs. "You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice." Whites find career and social bonds with IWSBs so favorable, he writes, that "IWSBs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets: boasted of by upper-class whites and wealthy organizations, coveted by the less prosperous. To be an IWSB in present-day US society is a height of felicity rarely before attained by any group of human beings in history. Try to curb your envy: it will be taken as prejudice." He concludes by asserting: "You don't have to follow my version of the talk point for point; but if you are white or Asian and have kids, you owe it to them to give them some version of the talk. It will save them a lot of time and trouble spent figuring things out for themselves. It may save their lives." (John Derbyshire 4/5/2012) The column appears in "Taki's Magazine," a blog hosted by far-right Greek socialite Taki Theodoracopulos. (Nazaryan 4/5/2012; Harris 4/6/2012)
Posted in 'Extreme Right, Openly Racist Web Site' - Blogger Charles Johnson, a conservative who has become increasingly frustrated at the racism and gender hatred promulgated by some on the right (see April 15, 2011, February 9-11, 2012, February 12-13, 2012, and February 29, 2012), says that while "Taki's Magazine" is "often described as 'libertarian,'" it is "in reality an extreme right, openly racist Web site, with a list of contributors that reads like a who's who of white nationalists, white supremacists, and upper-class pseudo-intellectual bigots, including Pat Buchanan, Steve Sailer, Peter Brimelow, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, and of course, Robert Stacy McCain. TakiMag.com is often cited at the Internet's most vile sites such as Stormfront, because they put a thin veneer of academic pretension over the racist sludge. Neo-Nazis think it makes them look smarter, because TakiMag doesn't toss around the N-word with abandon (although Derbyshire does complain in this article that as a white man, he's not allowed to say it)." (Charles Johnson 4/6/2012)
Author: Column Intended to be 'Social Commentary' - The next day, Annie-Rose Strasser of the liberal news Web site Think Progress asks Derbyshire if his column is meant to be satirical in nature. "I'd call it social commentary," he responds. Strasser notes: "Derbyshire peppers the post with links to news stories of crimes, a few random videos, and his own columns. The only 'fact' included in the entire piece (and just a small image, at that) is from the offensive book The Bell Curve. Every other hateful, racist claim is based on a one-off story or his own foregone conclusions." (Strasser 4/6/2012)
Author Will be Fired for Column - Derbyshire will be fired from the National Review as a result of his column (see April 7, 2012).
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University Park, Pa. -- Cell phones to their ears, a team of research participants will report their interpersonal interactions in real time to provide a better view of human behavior thanks to a $1 million grant from the National Institute of Aging as part of the National Institutes of Health's American Recover and Reinvestment Act funding.
Participants will submit data after every significant interaction lasting five minutes or longer, for three straight weeks. The Penn State researchers want a detailed description of how emotions, physical health and personal interactions affect each other throughout the day.
The study will reach new heights in data collection frequency and test new data collection technology. Rather than fill out questionnaires, which can be tedious, participants will submit data via smart phones with touch screen displays and an application that prompts them with questions on the spot. This will allow participants to reflect on their interactions within minutes.
Studies that collect data once per day, or less, rely on participants' memories that can be inaccurate. In contrast, the data collected in this study should capture a more accurate and detailed "moving picture" of people's lives, said Nilam Ram, assistant professor of human development and family studies, Penn State, and principal investigator of the study.
"We're hoping to develop technology that can be used to better understand the intricacies of human behavior," Ram said.
Participants will be reporting on their perceptions of health including their general, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal health; emotions including whether an interaction made them feel angry, happy, sad, etc., and interpersonal behavior including actions they engaged in during the interaction and whether they perceived the other person as cold or friendly, dominant or submissive.
Ram and his research team will also apply new statistical techniques that they hope will better describe the variability in individuals' behaviors.
"Current analytical approaches require us to make strong assumptions about people," said Ram. "For instance, no family has 2.3 children, but that's the average we always hear about and use as the basis for predicting behavior. The statistical methods we're developing should help tailor theories so that they more accurately describe individuals and their own unique idiosyncrasies. So we should be able to say, 'this family has three children' or 'this family has no children.'"
Ram hopes that these approaches will eventually be able to refine existing prevention programs, such as those used to help people overcome addictions.
"If we can see patterns in an individual's behavior -- for instance, if a person automatically goes for a drink when something stresses them out -- we might be able to tailor messages to his or her specific pattern and head them off or at least shift them onto a path that will promote more positive, healthy growth," says Ram.
Ram will conduct the study through Penn State's Gerontology Center. Other key investigators on the project include David Conroy, associate professor of kinesiology; Aaron Pincus, associate professor of psychology; Peter Molenaar, Michael Rovine and David Almeida, professors of human development and family studies; Denis Gerstorf, assistant professor of human development and family studies; and Martin Sliwinski, professor of human development and family studies and director of Penn State's Gerontology Center.

subset: commoncrawl


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Read Now
The Muppets Present... PIGS IN SPACE! Fozzie Bear and Rizzo the Rat try to pitch a PIGS IN SPACE movie to a Hollywood producer! What could go possibly go wrong? Written by acclaimed scribe Roger Langridge, who continues his celebrated run on THE MUPPET SHOW COMIC BOOK! A stand-alone story that serves as a prelude to the launch of next month's ongoing!


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Evans, Coronado need R&R
Two staples were out of the Bisons lineup on Saturday afternoon and done so by design when manager Ken Oberkfell filled out his card. Nick Evans and Jose Coronado are going to be out of the lineup for "a few days" in the series against Syracuse.
"I think it's good for them to get a couple days of mental (relaxation)," Oberkfell stated following Saturday's game. "Just to relax and not press so much. So a couple days to rest mentally is going to help them."
Combined the two players are 10-104 (.096) at the plate during the first 14 games. As a team the Bisons are hitting .202 and Coronado and Evans were the only two players left on the lineup not to receive a day off in the seasons' first two weeks.


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ESPN execs are not sitting on their hands on this one. A day after Rob Parker's "is he a brother or is he a cornball brother" comments about Robert Griffin III, ESPN said that Parker is suspended indefinitely.
There will also be a "full review" into what happened, the network announced. One subject for review could be why, if Parker's remarks were "inappropriate," First Take producers re-aired the show yesterday afternoon with his comments untouched. Apparently the producers and the executives don't have the same understanding of what the standards are.
Reviewing that issue could lead ESPN into some uncomfortable territory: What exactly is First Take? Parker did exactly what the show sets out to do: propped up a straw man to start an "authentic" debate. A show built on troublemaking commentary aired comments that made trouble.
Where's the line between Parker's race-based take on Griffin and the race-based Griffin analysis that host Skip Bayless came up with earlier this year? The network has already had one bout of First Take-inspired self-examination this week, about its unhealthy Tebow fixation. We'll see where this new round leads.


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Swift water rescuer recounts amazing tale of saving couple
HOLD your breath. Get back in the boat. Save them. Get home safely to your wife and kids.
These are the words repeating in Matthew Foster's mind as he is thrown around like a rag doll in the 70kmh torrents of the flooded Widgee Creek outside Gympie.
The Maroochydore swift water rescuer and his team mate Denis Donadel have just been flung from their inflatable rubber boat, the Ark Angel.
Horizontal rain is blinding them, rapids swirl around them and debris keeps slamming into their torsos.
In a flash of adrenalin Matthew, 43, and Denis, 50, manage to make their way back into the boat for a few fleeting moments.
Just metres away, a husband and wife cling for their lives to trees in the middle of the heaving creek.
An hour earlier the couple were attempting to drive through a flooded crossing. They fled their van when it stalled, partly submerged.
It would later emerge during an incredible five hour rescue mission the couple's son, a 27-year-old with cerebral palsy and physical disabilities, was ripped away from his parents' grip.
How it unfolded...
Emergency services received a triple 000 call in the early hours of Sunday, January 27.
Matthew and Denis were the second swift water rescue crew on scene, about 5am.
Another Maroochydore team, on temporary deployment from Brisbane, arrived about two hours later with four level-two swift water technicians. Their Gympie colleagues, level two technicians Grant Feeney and Tony Wildman, had arrived in darkness about 4.30am.
The only thing they heard above the rapids was a woman yelling, "Help me, help us."
Several rescue attempts were made in the treacherous conditions.
Water rising fast
As day breaks rescuers focus their attention to the woman clinging to a tree 40m from the broken creek bed.
Water is rushing over her shoulders and she is in serious danger of being swept downstream.
"It was pouring rain and the water had already risen 1.5m throughout the incident," Matthew said. "The conditions were so dangerous; I have never seen anything so ferocious.
"In the first attempt we got within two metres of her when a log came and hit the boat.
"We were tossed out, trapped under.
"It was the closest I have been to seeing what's on the flip side but my concern in that moment was my crewman Denis and getting back to safety."
Rescuing the husband
As conditions worsen, the boat flips again and the decision is made to let it go. The rescuers are now 10 metres below the husband.
Gripping hold of the trees, they edge close enough to fit him with a life jacket.
The husband yells "save my wife, I already lost my son, save my wife."
Matthew estimates the water to be flowing at an approximate depth of 4.2m where the men remain trapped.
Lines were thrown midstream to Denis and Matthew by rescuers Grant and Tony which was an integral part of the life saving mission.
This allowed the husband to be taken to safety. Those lines were used to gain access to the wife.
Saving the wife
The team's strategic effort turns to the man's wife, who has been clinging to the same tree for three hours.
She is struggling to hold her breath as the rapids churn around her from every angle.
"Water was going over her head," Matthew said.
"I don't know how she had the strength to do it. She kept hold of the tree under instruction from Denis - it was inspirational.
"At one point a massive tree fell 10m in front of her, creating a barrier between her and the torrent.
"It pretty much saved her life because it gave her some strength to keep holding on and gave the rescuers more time.
Getting them through
Matthew said the efforts of Denis and Grant to get the woman in the Ark Angel were an incredible feat in the dangerous circumstances.
"All rescuers at the incident should very proud of their efforts and action," he said
"Without the skills, courage and knowledge of all on scene, who put themselves in personal danger, it could have a different outcome."
Matthew said if it wasn't for the support of family, especially his wife Julie-Anne and his kids, Kristy, Dylan and Sam, the job would be a lot harder to deal with.
"They are the ones that are the most important and you want to come home every night to be with them," he said.
The fire-fighters reached the woman five hours after the rescue mission began.
"We were all battered and bruised and exhausted, but we felt rewarded to have been able to save these two people," he said. "Working with the fire-fighters was inspirational and the most rewarding job I have ever been involved in.
"We saved two lives that day."
If it is flooded forget it
Matthew said the incident highlighted that all fire-fighters put themselves in dangerous situations.
"We take calculated risks to save others," he said.
"It gives you pride to be part of a great organisation with the skills, courage, dedication and mateship of fire-fighters right across Queensland to perform rescues throughout the state in dire times."
The body of the couple's son was found by a resident the following day. It was 300m from the crossing.
- Additional reporting Kate Clifford


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With refrigerators, bigger is better in more ways than you think
Over the past decade or so our diet has changed slightly. We almost never eat meat at home and have gradually eliminated most dairy products. Consequently, the volume of food in our refrigerator has decreased over time, and since we bought it in 2002 it is already considered obsolete, inefficient even. Refrigeration technology has improved markedly in the past 10 years to the point that devices made now use as little as one-fourth the amount of energy used by an equivalent sized refrigerator made in the '80s or '90s. And since we are contemplating moving sometime in the future we decided it might be a good idea to buy a new, smaller model when we do in order to take advantage of this greater efficiency.
So we went to our local discount electronics store and looked at all the models. Of course, smaller refrigerators cost less than larger ones, but when we looked at the energy consumption specifications we became confused. The bigger the volume of the refrigerator, the less energy it used. In some comparisons the difference was startling. If you look on the inside of the main compartment door of a refrigerator there is a sticker with the pertinent specifications, one of which is the average amount of kilowatts the appliance uses in a given year when operating continuously. We saw one 500-liter model that used only 40 percent of the energy that a 350-liter model used. The manufacturers make the comparison even easier by printing the average amount of money you will pay in electricity for a year on the outside of a given model. Moreover, there are star ratings, from one to five, that indicate energy efficiency in relative terms, with five stars indicating the most efficient.
We asked a salesman if there was a smaller refrigerator that was as efficient as a large one and he quickly said there wasn't. The difference he said was that larger refrigerators used inverters to control the operation of the compressors in a smoother fashion, while smaller refrigerators used conventional compressors that simply went on and off to control interior temperatures. The inverter, however, also makes the refrigerator itself more expensive. When we said our present refrigerator was 415 liters and that we wanted something smaller, he said rather presumptuously, "I can tell you which size you need."
Since we aren't newlyweds and found his manner condescending we decided to look into the matter ourselves. The star system is administered by the Energy Conservation Center of Japan, a government organ, and is based on the energy savings achievement rate (sho-ene taseiritsu) established by the 2006 Energy Conservation Law. The unit used for comparison's sake is Annual Performance Factor, a means of measuring energy efficiency. In order to come up with an efficiency rating, the ECCJ currently uses "the most efficient product" on the market in terms of energy consumption in 2010. The efficiency percentages on the store sticker are based on APF and thus only indicate relative values. For instance, an energy efficiency finding of 110 percent means that the model is 10 percent more efficient than the 2010 model chosen by the ECCJ as the standard, and which is not publicly disclosed. The stars are more or less a means of making these comparisons even easier. However, comparing refrigerator prices against money saved on electricity bills may require a certain algebraic capability that most consumers don't possess or, if they do, probably don't want to bother with.
Conventional compressors, which use electricity and chemicals to cool the interior of the refrigerator, turn off when the desired temperature is reached and then turn on again when the temperature rises above that level. It takes a lot of energy to turn a compressor on. The inverter works on a kind of fuzzy logic principle. It keeps the compressor working all the time but at variable levels, using less energy in the process. It also produces much less noise since conventional compressors tend to get loud when they start up again. That's why an older refrigerator, or a smaller new one, suddenly kicks into high gear whenever you open the door. An inverter will add at least ¥20,000 to the price of a refrigerator, and according to one website we saw electronics manufacturers don't think people will buy smaller refrigerators if the price is above a certain threshold, so they don't bother putting inverters in them.
Of course, some people simply think that the small-big energy-saving paradox is a scheme by these manufacturers to compel consumers to buy refrigerators that may be too big for their homes or their needs, since profit margins rise almost exponentially with the price of the unit. If that's the case then it seems to be working. Last year, the only household appliances whose recycling rates increased were air conditioners (up 0.8 percent) and refrigerators (2.7 percent).


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Idea for a new discipline: Take the herstory of a famous event, then put back in the boring kings, political declarations and armies, without any mention of needlepoint or what the scullery maids were thinking. I even have a name for my new field of study: "history."
"Farewell, My Queen," a look at the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty through the eyes of an irrelevant midlevel servant (Léa Seydoux) to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), is resolute about its approach — which is to avoid almost all of the important stuff, such as why the king and queen are in trouble.
Instead, the film — which begins on July 14, 1789, and mostly takes place over the following three days at Versailles as the peasants are getting huffy in nearby Paris — delivers lots of scenes about what the servant girls were up to: embroidery, nattering about their boyfriends, wondering who is in the queen's favor (Marie-Antoinette's friend Gabrielle de Polignac, played by Virginie Ledoyen, is presented as her lover in this fictionalized retelling) and coveting an expensive alarm clock loaned to Sidonie (Seydoux). She frets when the clock goes missing, but since the aristocracy's heads are about to go missing, her boss finally asks, "Who cares?"
I had the same question for Benoit Jacquot, the director, except unlike his lead character, Jacquot is supposed to stand for something other than a rustle of crinoline and a pretty pout.
There is a certain hushed authenticity about the film and its low-key portrayal of how news breaks into this aggressively closed-off world, with servants loitering in hallways and agonized whispers being exchanged in dim corridors over candlelight. Jacquot captures how a seemingly unimaginable revolution can drip or seep into reality.
But every brief scene of the queen's emotional deterioration and her stolen moments with Gabrielle makes us wish we were spending more time with them instead of with the dull bystander Sidonie.
Jacquot's lavish décor and costumes are like the perfume the women use instead of bathing: They may cover up the willful carelessness at the center of the project, but it's still there.


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Everbeta is an integrated art and design studio based in Rocky Point NY, specializing in website design, logo design and print design. The firm's founder Colin Goldberg began building websites in 1994, with a portfolio including many national and global brands. The studio also functions as a production facility for Goldberg's original artworks and limited edition prints.
Before the rise of the web, Goldberg was part of the desktop publishing revolution. He has been working with industry-standard tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator for over 25 years and is also an award-winning fine artist.
Website Design
Everbeta's web portfolio includes small-to-mid-sized businesses, not-for-profit organizations, visual artists, writers, and online publications.
Logo and Identity Design
Everbeta works closely with its clients in developing appropriate branding to match the client's vision and target market.
Print Design and Other Services
Print design services include advertising design, mailers, brochures, stationery, posters and other custom pieces. We will help you develop your identity and your portfolio of creative assets in order for them to be deployed both online and offline. Other services include creative direction, motion graphics, and media consultation.


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Wehelpen is literally a movement of the people, by the people, for the people. People who need help, people who want to help, and informal caregivers who are already helping but who would like some additional support. These people find each other through the nationwide network wehelpen.nl. Together, they are creating a more socially-minded community in which helping and sharing help is something that goes without saying. United they are strong: (that is) strength through each other.
Neighbourliness and helping one's neighbours used to be the most natural thing in the world: if you needed to borrow something, you asked your neighbour, and your neighbour was always ready to help you with a heavy chore. Nowadays it seems that asking for help, or even offering help, is something we'd rather not bother other people with. But you can't get what you don't ask for. In that way people may unintentionally find themselves on the sidelines, they become isolated. But there are also always people willing to lend a helping hand. If asking for help and offering help were just a little simpler, these people could easily find each other. That is what wehelpen is about. Wehelpen makes asking for, offering and sharing help easy again.
The cooperative society wehelpen is inspiring a nationwide movement towards more informal care and personal involvement in the community (civic participation). In other words, a modern version of the neighbourliness that we remember from the past. The concept is based on reciprocity: anyone can ask for help and anyone can help someone else in word or deed in their own way and in their own time.
For who?
Informal caregivers, volunteers, people in need, old people, young people: anyone who, for whatever reason, needs or wants to lend a helping hand or who wants to share help in an easier way. The 'we' in wehelpen stands for individuals as well as for organisations like municipalities, housing corporations, banks and employers. In that way everyone can express their (social) involvement based on their own dynamics.
The website wehelpen.nl is a nationwide platform where people who need help can connect with people who have help to offer. The platform includes an organizer and logbook function that can b shared privately by groups of people. That makes it easy to share and to organise help.
The people behind wehelpen
WeHelpen is a cooperative society. The members of the cooperative all believe in and actively support civic engagement. Their goal is a community in which we all make an effort to help each other. They implement wehelpen.nl and encourage their followers to do what they can to help. The members of cooperative WeHelpen include municipalities, social services and welfare institutions, health insurers, pension funds, hospitals and housing corporations. More information about the cooperative WeHelpen can be found on our website: www.cooperatiewehelpen.nl. Requests for help and replies are posted daily on www.wehelpen.nl.


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I actually won something! Today in my mailbox was a large box from Benefit. Now, I'm always getting something from Benefit, but I know I hadn't ordered anything, because I was just at Sephora and bought the 10 (which I will review shortly). Anyway, inside was this great book and a note saying congrats! So, share in my good fortune - Benefit gave me a coupon code, and if you use it you can get free shipping on any order of $65. It's FRESHP65. Enjoy! And I will have a review of the book just as soon as I can!
So Excited!
I Heart These Jeans - And On Sale, Too!
I seriously love these jeans! How comfortable do they look? And the best part? They are on sale at Smart Bargains for $60. Looks like they have plenty of sizes, too.
My Sephora Haul
Dear blog, I haven't neglected you. I have been out of town doing much work stuff in places with no internet connection! I did, however, manage to get myself to Tyson's Corner Galleria and do some serious Sephora shoping. Here are a few things I managed to pick up:
I really adore their makeup primer. I considered briefly getting the tinted version, but ultimately decided against it. I always thought primer was just a gimmick, but it really does help with lines and pores.
This is just cuticle oil, but oh so important. I have a tendency to bite at my cuticles, so I was told to be religious about using a cuticle oil. I figure this pen is perfect to put in my makeup bag in my purse to have on hand.
I ended up choosing the Sephora brand over the Nars brand for a bronzing oil. I liked the Nars, but I couldn't see paying $60 for it. I really like this spray oil for when you're going out and need that little extra shimmer. It smells like monoi oil too, although I don't know if it really has monoi in it.
Eye makeup remover. I keep searching and I keep looking....oh, wait. That is a song, isn't it? Anyway, I'm always looking out for a good eye makeup remover. That Diorshow can be hard to get off, especially combined with a liquid liner. So I thought I'd give Sephora's FACE line a try.
The Sephora brand nail polish. A steal at $4. I love this color, too. It's a deep rose with a gold shimmer. Goes well with the body glow oil above.
Next comes my new eye makeup from Urban Decay. This one is apparently one of their popular shades and is called Midnight Cowboy, so I thought I'd give it a try. Be warned: it has a LOT of glitter. Big glitter! But the color is just about perfect.
This is Urban Decay's Green Goddess. Love it. Very shimmery, not so much glittery.
And finally my Urban Decay 24/7 eye pencil in Shocking. I think. I can't remember. But I adore it. I'm all about blue eyeliner this summer, I think. Especially with coppery lids.
And that is it! I'll have more indepth reviews of these items soon


text:
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U.S. Steel Tries Tech AlchemyBy Mel Duvall Print
The biggest American steelmaker would have the worldand the Bush administration, which is trying to save the company with fresh tariffs on products of foreign rivalsbelieve it is one of the most efficient producers around. Is it?
U.S. Steel thought it knew what it was doing. Then, Ford Motor Company said USS ranked dead last in performance among its chief suppliers. But now the biggest American steelmaker would have the worldand the Bush administration, which is trying to save the company with fresh tariffs on products of foreign rivalsbelieve it is one of the most efficient producers around. Is it?
| Buying software isn't always better than building it. Compare the options using our three-step tool.
In the summer of 1996, U.S. Steel got a wake-up call. Ford Motor Co., one of its three biggest commercial customers, was threatening to end its 70-year relationship with the largest steel maker in North America over a series of foul-ups involving ready-to-stamp steel.
Massive coils of finished steel, ready to be turned into the shells of automobiles at Ford's facilities, were showing up without notice.
The fiasco reinforced U.S. Steel's ranking as dead last among Ford's suppliers in delivering on promises. "We were put on warning. Unless we did something fast, we were in danger of losing Ford's business,'' says Chief Information Officer Gene Trudell. "It was that serious."
The crisis forced U.S. Steel to adopt a bunker mentality. Where six years ago, individual businesses and factories controlled their own information infrastructures, the biggest steelmaker now has deposited the vast majority of its computing power in a fenced, low-rise Pittsburgh compound. The company also has led the steel industry in deploying new digital systems for interacting with suppliers and fulfilling the orders of buyers such as Ford, General Motors and General Electric. Now, U.S. Steel can track an individual slab of steel as it comes out of a casting facility in Gary, Ind., and follow it all the way to the customer's door. Not only does the steelmaker deliver the finished product when the carmaker wants it, it can confirm it made the delivery as ordered.
U.S. Steel's transformation from technology laggard to technology leader was so thorough and rapid that Ford named it supplier of the year just two years after the wake-up call. But the $6.4 billion-a-year maker of the steel that undergirds the North American construction, automaking and appliance industries is hardly out of the woods. Its chairman, Thomas Usher, has been at the forefront of calling for protection from foreign imports. On average, the company last year lagged behind its toughest competition, Korean steelmaker POSCO, by an average of $68 a ton in overall costs.
Its biggest disadvantage? Labor costs. That accounted for $66 of the difference. Part is due to the higher cost of union labor. But the biggest portionupwards of $40 a toncomes from health care benefits paid to retirees. That's $40 a ton POSCO doesn't worry about.
As a result, even with the 30% tariffs on imports of flat-rolled steel products imposed by the Bush administration in March, U.S. Steel's costs still exceed those of its prime foreign competitors, including POSCO and Arcelor of Europe.
Daniel Ikenson, a senior trade policy analyst with the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, says U.S. Steel is certainly one of the more efficient American steel companies. But it now lacks the size or scale to compete with foreign counterparts. U.S. Steel has the capacity to produce about 14 million tons of steel per year, ranking it about 10th in the world. That's less than one-third of the production capacity of Arcelor, the world's largest producer, and less than half the capacity of Korea's POSCO or Nippon Steel of Japan.
"U.S. Steel's biggest problem is it doesn't have the same economies of scale that its foreign competitors have," says Ikenson. His solution: consolidation of steelmakers into larger, more efficient players. Not bailouts.
But even at its current size, U.S. Steel is not inefficient. Indeed, World Steel Dynamics, a statistical service, estimates U.S. Steel takes just three hours of a person's time to produce a ton of steel. That's well below the 4.8 hours used in South Koreaand the 34 in India.
Through the mid- and late-1990s, U.S. Steel in fact improved its systems to the point where it thinks it can run a profitable business peddling logistics of steel manufacturing and distribution to its domestic competitors.
That new-found expertise last year led to the creation of Straightline, a new division that sells steel products directly to smaller customers, much like Dell Computer bypasses distributors to sell directly to individuals and small businesses. Another sales and services subsidiary, USX Engineers and Consultants, markets order fulfillment and supply chain management software not just to other steel companies, such as Inland Steel and National Steel, but aluminum makers and companies in other similar fields (See "Profiting from Information Technology" at www.baselinemag.com/uec).
Developing technology is one of U.S. Steel's key methods of beating back domestic innovators like Nucor, that use scrap steel as low-cost raw material for its mini-mills. That forces U.S Steel to transform coal and iron ore into higher-grade products for automakers, skyscraper-builders and the like. Only if it can deliver premium products efficiently will it earn a profit against competitors with lower raw material and labor costs. In effect, U.S. Steel's main weapon at this juncture in its struggle for survival is no longer integration, but information.
"Our competitive edge is not the equipment or the facilities," Trudell says, "it's the data we wrap around everything."
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South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
Print version ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.105 n.7-8 Pretoria Jul./Aug. 2009
Continuous production of carbon nanotubes and diamond films by swirled floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition method
A.S. AfolabiI, *; A.S. AbdulkareemI, S.E. IyukeI; H.C. van Zyl PienaarII
ISchool of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3, WITS 2050, South Africa
IIInstitute of Applied Electronics, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Vaal University of Technology, Private Bag X021, Vanderbijlpark 1900, South Africa
Various techniques for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are being developed to meet an increasing demand as a result of their versatile applications. Swirled floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition (SFCCVD) is one of these techniques. This method was used to synthesise CNTs on a continuous basis using acetylene gas as a carbon source, ferrocene dissolved in xylene as a catalyst precursor, and both hydrogen and argon as carrier gases. Transmission electron microscopy analyses revealed that a mixture of single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes and other carbon nanomaterials were produced within the pyrolytic temperature range of 9001 100°C and acetylene flow rate range of 118370 ml min1. Image comparison of raw and purified products showed that low contents of iron particles and amorphous carbon were contained in the synthesised carbon nanotubes. Diamond films were produced at high ferrocene concentration, hydrogen flow rate and pyrolysis temperatures, while carbon nanoballs were formed and attached to the surface of the CNTs at low ferrocene content and low pyrolysis temperature.
Key words: SFCCVD, CNTs, continuous production, pyrolysis, diamond films
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are poised to make themselves the 'materials of the millennium' due to their unique characteristics, such as good mechanical properties1,2 good electrical conductivity35 and other special functional properties,6,7 which have culminated in various technological developments in recent times. The exceptional properties of these 'miracle materials', as they are called by Karel,8 have provoked the interest of many researchers, scientists and technologists from all parts of the world. Some of the applications of these materials are energy storage,9 hydrogen storage,1012 field emission,13 nanoelectric devices,14 artificial muscle,15 reinforcing materials16 and catalyst support in fuel cells.17,18 This versatility in the applications of CNTs places their price in the international market as high as five hundred U.S. dollars per gram.
Since CNTs were discovered by Iijima,19 various methods for their production have been developed.2024 The chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method has been identified as the best for large-scale production of the materials.25,26 In the same vein, many other carbon nanomaterials are usually associated with the CVD production technique; some of these nanomaterials are carbon nanoballs,27 carbon nanofibres,28 carbon nanorods29 and even diamond particles.30
Chemical vapour deposition production of CNTs has employed different carbon and catalyst sources3133 which have significant effects on the type and quality of CNTs produced. This paper presents another CVD technique termed swirled floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition (SFCCVD) which employs acetylene as the carbon source and ferrocene dissolved in xylene as the catalyst precursor to produce CNTs on a continuous basis. The analyses of these products revealed that the mixture of single- and multi-walled carbon nanotubes produced were of high purity. Diamond films were also produced alongside these materials.
The apparatus used for the production of CNTs was developed by Iyuke,34 presented schematically in Fig. 1. The equipment consisted of a vertical silica plug flow reactor (1) immersed in a furnace (2) with a sensitive temperature regulator, and a system of rotameters, pressure controllers and valves that controlled the flow of hydrogen, nitrogen, argon and acetylene gases into the reactor. The upper end of the reactor was connected to a condenser (3) which led to two delivery cyclones (4 and 5) where the CNTs produced were collected. The ferrocene catalyst was dissolved in xylene at specific quantities and pumped (8) at regular intervals into a ferrocene vaporiser (6) placed on a heater with a sensitive temperature regulator. This catalyst vaporiser was connected to the swirled mixer (7) which in turn led into the reactor.
Nitrogen was first turned on to purge the system of any impurity. The reactor and ferrocene heater were switched on while the nitrogen was running. At a reactor temperature of about 300°C, nitrogen was turned off to prevent it from reacting with oxygen. Argon was then turned on at a prescribed flow rate to continue purging and to act as a carrier gas. At reactor temperatures of 900°C, 950°C, 1 000°C, 1 050°C and 1 100°C, and a catalyst heater temperature of 150°C, ferrocene dissolved in xylene was pumped into the vaporiser at intervals while hydrogen and acetylene gases were turned on at specified flow rates. The system was run continuously while the catalyst was pumped into the vaporiser at regular intervals. The smoky product, or carbon vapour emitted from the reactor, was cooled at the condenser and collected in the cyclones. The wall of the reactor was also scraped clean of CNTs. These raw CNTs were treated with 30% HNO3 and stirred for 2 h at room temperature. The solid products were filtered, washed repeatedly with distilled water until a pH of 7 was achieved, and dried at 120°C in hot air for 12 h. The as-synthesised and purified samples were analysed and characterised. A JSM 840 scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM, Phillips CM200) were used to investigate the surface morphology of both as-synthesised and purified carbon nanomaterial samples. A trace amount of each of these samples was ultrasonically vibrated in methanol until they were well dispersed and formed a suspension in the solvent. A drop of this suspension was spread on a 300-mesh copper grid with lacy carbon thin film and allowed to dry. After drying, the grid was loaded into the instrument for TEM operation using 100 keV. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of the products were recorded by a Philips X Pert X-ray diffractometer with graphite monochromatised copper Kαradiation.
Results and discussion
The SFCCVD method was used to synthesise various carbon nanomaterials at different flow rates of the carbon source (acetylene) and carrier gas (hydrogen), and different catalyst concentrations (based on the percentage of ferrocene dissolved in xylene). Figure 2a shows the image of as-synthesised single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) obtained at a concentration of 10% ferrocene, a pyrolysis temperature of 1 100°C and an acetylene flow rate of 248 ml min1. This sample contained traces of iron impurities trapped within the tubes. This was due to excess iron particles that could not form nucleation sites for carbon nanotube growth. The image of a purified SWCNT shown in Fig. 2b reveals that the acid treatment removed the iron impurities in the tubes. The two images show little or no amorphous carbon. The images of as-synthesised and purified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), produced at 3% ferrocene and 1 000°C, are shown in Figs 3a and 3b, respectively. Comparing these samples, it can be seen that both contained trace amounts of both iron impurities and amorphous carbon. This could be attributed to the limit of solubility of ferrocene in xylene at room temperature.35 This supports the finding of Liu et al.35 that at low ferrocene concentrations, the catalysis efficiency of ferrocene is high. Though the quantity of CNTs produced at lower ferrocene concentrations was small, the low amorphous carbon and iron particles in the samples resulted in formation of clean CNTs. The effects of ferrocene concentration and pyrolysis temperature on the rate of production of carbon nanomaterials are presented in sections 3.1 and 3.2, respectively.
Effect of ferrocene concentration
The ferrocene catalyst was the precursor for iron particles which acted as the nucleation sites for the growth of CNTs. Xylene was used as a solvent to dissolve the ferrocene for easy transportation into the heater and also functioned as a CNT growth promoter. Figure 4a shows the SEM image of clustered CNTs produced at a ferrocene concentration of 3% and a pyrolysis temperature of 1 050°C. Figure 4b presents the TEM image of the carbon nanoballs (indicated by the arrows) obtained at a ferrocene concentration of 2% and a pyrolysis temperature of 900°C. These carbon nanoballs were formed due to a low content of ferrocene at low pyrolysis temperature, as reported by Liu et al.35 The xylene might have assisted in the formation of these carbon nanoballs since low catalyst content at high temperature is known to result in CNTs with a high content of amorphous impurities. Figure 5 shows that varying the concentration of ferrocene had a significant effect on the production rate of carbon nanomaterials. It can be seen that the highest production rate of 0.36 g min1 was obtained at a 10 wt% concentration of ferrocene in xylene and an acetylene flow rate of 248 ml min1 at 1 100°C.
Effect of pyrolysis temperature
The effect of pyrolysis temperature on the rate of production of carbon nanomaterials at various flow rates of acetylene, various concentrations of ferrocene and a constant hydrogen flow rate of 181 ml min1 is shown in Fig. 6. Attempts were made to produce carbon nanoparticles at lower temperatures (750850°C) but no products were obtained. The pyrolysis temperatures were therefore varied between 900°C and 1 100°C. The rate of production of carbon nanomaterials was significantly affected by the pyrolysis temperature as well as the acetylene flow rate. The highest production rate was observed at 1 100°C, at an acetylene flow rate of 248 ml min1.
Production of diamond films
At an acetylene flow rate of 248 ml min1, hydrogen flow rate of 181 ml min1 and pyrolysis temperatures between 1 000°C and 1 100°C, diamond particles as well as glassy carbon were produced alongside CNTs. The production of these diamond particles (Figs 7a and 7b) could be attributed to the ionisation of hydrogen gas at high temperatures. The diamond films were however, thermodynamically unstable as they disappeared after a few minutes. Figure 8 shows the XRD analysis of the samples obtained at a temperature of 1 000°C, an acetylene flow rate of 248 ml min1, hydrogen flow rate of 181 ml min1, and 10 wt% and 2 wt% concentrations of ferrocene, respectively. The analysis confirms the presence of diamond flakes and glassy carbon identified as graphite nitrate; the nitrogen in the nitrate may have been from the traces contained in the argon and hydrogen gases (Afrox), which were 4 and 2 volume per million (Vpm), respectively.
It was observed that the rate of production of diamond films increased with increases in the concentration of ferrocene, hydrogen flow rate and pyrolysis temperature. These parameters play significant roles in the quality of synthesised CNTs and are therefore contributing factors in the formation of these diamond particles.36 The excess iron impurity in the synthesised CNTs might have been responsible for the nucleation of diamond which grew at high pyrolysis temperature. Carbon nanotubes containing high amounts of amorphous carbon as the nucleation precursor will produce graphite, rather than diamond, at the pyrolysis temperatures studied due to graphite's lower energy state.37 However, the trace amount of amorphous carbon in the CNTs produced possibly makes the iron catalyst lose its activity, leading to the formation of diamond films with less developed morphology. The thermodynamic stability, morphology and crystal size of these diamond films are still under study.
The SFCCVD method presents a novel, continuous synthesis of both single- and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, as well as other nanomaterials, with a maximum production rate of 0.36 g min1 which allows mass production of these materials and presents a breakthrough in the production of CNTs. These CNTs contained trace amounts of iron impurities and amorphous carbon. Diamond films were formed at high ferrocene concentrations, hydrogen flow rate and pyrolysis temperatures, while carbon nanoballs were formed at low ferrocene concentration and pyrolysis temperature. The higher the acetylene flow rate, the higher the rate of production of these nanomaterials.
The financial support provided by the Wits University Research Council (URC) Equipment grant, Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials (CoE-SM) and the Vaal University of Technology is much appreciated. The technical support given by the Wits Microscopy and Microanalysis Unit and Willie Augustyn of the Tshwane University of Technology is also appreciated.
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Received 18 May. Accepted 29 July 2009.
* Author for correspondence E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Real estate for sale: apartments in Panama, houses, comercial real estate in Panama, offices, business, beachfront homes, island properties, country houses, farms, land, buildings
Apartments rentals, houses, rooms, commercial, offices, business, beach homes, furnished apartments & houses, country houses
Beach-front for rent, apartments, short term rentals. rent properties for weekend, weeks or month.
Panama real estate development / new constructions, condo Investment Realty
Buying a home isn't as difficult as you might think, even if you're short on funds, but the process will go a lot smoother if you get familiar with your real estate market and narrow down your needs before you start looking at properties.
Read our Panama real estate tips. Real estate agents represent buyers, sellers, or both - and in some places they can work as neutral facilitators for either party. It's essential to understand agent duties and loyalties before you make that first phone call.


text: Many experts are convinced that large scale, practical implementations of quantum information systems hold great promise for society, much as the laser and the transistor have already revolutionized the world. This stems from a long history of research that included an intense, raging battle of epic proportions between scientific giants. In tracing these steps, you will learn why Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr argued over the nature of entangled states where pairs of sub-atomic particles are strangely correlated from 1935 until their very deaths.


text:
LOS ANGELES, June 12 (UPI) -- A combination of climate warming, encroaching humans and habitat change saw woolly mammoths go extinct thousands of years ago, U.S. scientists say.
Although humans and mammoths co-existed for millennia, the shaggy giants disappeared from the Earth between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago, doomed by the same threats facing many species today, UCLA researchers reported Tuesday.
"We were interested to know what happened to this species during the climate warming at the end of the last ice age because we were looking for insights into what might happen today due to human-induced climate change," said Glen MacDonald, director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
"The answer to why woolly mammoths died off sounds a lot like what we expect with future climate warming."
Analyzing all the changes happening thousands of years ago, the researchers found the extinction didn't line up with any single change but with the combination of several new pressures on woolly mammoths.
Although humans had hunted woolly mammoths in Siberia for millennia, climate change added pressure on the animals with rising temperatures leading to a decline in woolly mammoths' favored foods like grasses and willows.
Still, researchers said, there is no one single thing that killed off the mammoths.
"It's not just the climate change that killed them off," MacDonald said. "It's the habitat change and human pressure. Hunting expanded at the same time that the habitat became less amenable."


text:
I am trying to use this function:
these variables are stored in datetime format of mysql.
var1:2012-02-01 01:39:32
var2:2012-02-02 01:47:11
PHP Code:
if (date('Ymd', $var1) == date('Ymd', $var2)
Why does this output true every time?
Any other suggestions on how to do this? Please keep in mind I'm limited to doing this in PHP on this page without using any database. And I'm looking only for the same date not a 24Hour difference, however I don't care about differences in time zones as long as both variables reflect the same timezone.