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Microsoft's recent launch of their updated mobile OS WP7 put the spotlight on their renewed effort into the mobile field. But is it enough to lure consumers away from their iPhones, Blackberry's, and Android phones? There's no question there is tons of potential here. If there's anyone willing to throw money into a development pit, it's certainly Microsoft. Here are a few things I thought were missing that they could have done better.
Flagship. Every launch needs a flagship product. I didn't see one. The Samsung phone? The HTC phone? I didn't see anything that made me want to go out and suddenly own another Microsoft product.
Apps. If mobile developers have learned anything it's that applications drive consumers to buy your product. Again this is one of those things that has potential when you have a company like Microsoft backing development.
The things that I did like. The OS. It looks very good. Smooth, different but familiar. Perhaps resource heavy? Whatever they got running it must be fairly powerful. MS office integration. If it's a Microsoft product you gotta have integration of MS Office. That's one thing it has over other mobile OS's.
It could take off over the holiday shopping season. Perhaps Steve Balmer has something else up his sleeve?


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(written from a Production point of view)
Stewart Moss (27 November 1937 – 13 September 2017; age 79) was an American character actor who made two appearances on I AM ERROR first as Starfleet lieutenant junior grade Joe Tormolen (sciences division) in the episode "The Naked Time". His next role was as the Kelvan Hanar in "By Any Other Name". Moss was a friend of casting director Joseph D'Agosta, who originally considered him for the role of Dave Bailey in "The Corbomite Maneuver". (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One)
Moss filmed his scenes for "The Naked Time" between Thursday 30 June 1966 and Monday 5 July 1966 at Desilu Stage 9 and Stage 10. He filmed his scenes for "By Any Other Name" between Friday 10 November 1967 and Wednesday 15 November 1967 at Stage 9 and Stage 10.
Moss made several appearances on the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes from 1965 through 1968 (and one more in 1971), primarily playing the recurring character of Olsen. He made guest appearances on many other TV series, including Perry Mason (1964, 1966), the "Man in a Chariot" episode of The Fugitive (1964, with Peter Duryea, Edward Madden and Gene Lyons), the two-part "Ride the Wind" episode of Bonanza (1966, with DeForest Kelley), Mannix (1968), The Invaders (1968, with Lincoln Demyan, Peter Mark Richman, and Susan Oliver), Hawaii Five-O (1969), Barnaby Jones (1976, 1978, with Lee Meriwether), Archie Bunker's Place (1980, with Jason Wingreen and Bill Quinn), Quincy, M.E. (1981, with Robert Ito and Garry Walberg), T.J. Hooker (1985, with William Shatner, Martin Cassidy, Eric Server, Gwen Van Dam, Richard Herd, and James Darren), and Matlock (1986, with Jonathan Frakes, Betty McGuire, Gary Werntz, and Julie Cobb).
He also appeared in the TV movies Sarge (1971, with Ricardo Montalban and David Huddleston), Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Murder Case (1975, with George Murdock, Shelby Leverington, Gene Dynarski, Paul Kent, Jerry Hardin, Paul Lambert, John Crawford, Paul Fix, Claudette Nevins, and William Windom), and The Last Hurrah (1977, with John Anderson, Robert Brown, Leslie Ackerman, Mariette Hartley, James B. Sikking, Bill Quinn, Arthur Batanides, and Harry Basch. In 1974, he appeared as Kenneth O'Donnell, Special Assistant to President John F. Kennedy, in TV's The Missiles of October. Co-starring in this movie were Harris Yulin, Kenneth Tobey, Nehemiah Persoff, Peter Canon, Paul Lambert, Keene Curtis, and Byron Morrow.
His feature film credits include the John Wayne war drama In Harm's Way (1965, with "By Any Other Name" co-star Barbara Bouchet and Star Trek composer Jerry Goldsmith playing a pianist), Fuzz (1972, with Steve Ihnat, Peter Brocco, Jack Perkins, Vince Howard, and Bert Remsen), Zigzag (1970, with William Marshall, Robert Sampson, Vic Perrin, and Steve Ihnat), and Raise the Titanic (1980, with Michael Pataki, Mark L. Taylor, and Michael Ensign). He also worked with his wife, Marianne McAndrew, and fellow TOS guest stars Paul Carr and Michael Pataki, on the 1974 horror movie The Bat People.
External links
- StewartMoss.com – official web site
- Stewart Moss at Wikipedia
- Stewart Moss at the Internet Movie Database

subset: commoncrawl


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Directed by Yoon Jong-chan (윤종찬)
Screenplay by Yoon Jong-chan (윤종찬)113min | Release date in South Korea : 2009/11/26
Man-soo runs a car repair shop in the small town. He lives with his elderly mother who suf- fers from dementia. One day, Man-soos older brother, a gambling addict, threatens him for the contract to the shop after stripping him of everything, but Man-soo doesnt give in. But later on, his brothers unavoidable death, his mother losing her memory, and his girlfriend leaving him because of his poverty all became heavy burdens on him. Man-soo locks himself in his room for a couple of days and is then sent to a mental institution later.
Later on Man-soo comes under the delusion that he has become a millionaire. He issues blank checks to the patients at the hospital showing off his wealth. In particular, he likes the head nurse of his ward, Su-kyung. She has been taking care of her father who has been sick in the hospital for a long time. Su-kyung receives consolation from Man-soos bright smile and warm words although hes a mental health patient. But behind this bright smile hides his madness, not knowing what or when something will happen.
After his scandalous films, YOON Jong-Chan came back with another story about wounded souls. The director used a horror plot in his outstanding debut "Sorum"to describe the mentality of people who have been hurt, and in his second film, "Blue Swallow", he told us a story about a woman aviator PARK Kyoung-won who was destined to fail. This time he has captured an idea from a short novel called Mr. Cho, Man-deuk by LEE Cheong-joon. The story line and main characters differ slightly from the original story, but it still reflects life at a psychiatric ward. The story begins as troubled Man-soo becomes an inpatient at a psychiatric ward. Man-soo has a flabby family and a gambling brother, who comes to the hospital and bullies Man-soo for her credit card. These sad and angry memories about his family always ties Man-soo down and he tries to hide behind the world of his own creation. Soo-kyung, a nurse, who watches Man-soo everyday, is not exactly having a great life, either. She has a broken heart and also tries to recover from sad memories with her family. Where these two main characters meet is where all the wounded souls stay. HYEON Bins transformation into a sad inpatient and the clean image of LEE Bo-yeong stands out in the limited space of the psychiatric ward. The title of this film is a bit of a paradox, but clearly states the wish that we all have for a happier life.
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Mid-February through Mid-May
Come Santa Barbara Whale Watching aboard the 50′ Sailing Catamaran, the Double Dolphin.
This is an amazing treat that you and your family will remember forever!
Morning and afternoon trips leaving daily!
The Santa Barbara Channel is home to an incredible assortment of marine mammals, including over 30 different species of whales and dolphins. The most common whales sighted on our whale watching adventures are the majestic Pacific Grey Whales, but sometimes we also see the enormous Blue Whales, which can reach up to 100 feet in length and are the largest animals on the planet! On most of our whale watching trips we also see Common, Risso's and Bottlenose Dolphins, California Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, and lots of other marine life.
Occasionally, we are even lucky enough to spot Orcas, Humpback, Minke, and Pilot Whales.
Reservations are required.
College students under 25 with a valid college ID will receive a special rate, Monday – Thursday cruises only (excluding holiday Mondays). Tickets purchased at the college rate are valid for students 25 years of age or younger with a valid college-issued photo ID. ID Card must be presented at check-in, otherwise The Santa Barbara Sailing Center reserves the right to charge the adult rate for the cruise purchased.
Please arrive 20-30 minutes early to your cruise.


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Author: Stephen D. Hans
In recent years, thousands of companies have felt the impact of a slumped economy, increased costs and regulations. These conditions have forced employers to cut costs, reduce hours and downsize staffs. Consequently, employee lawsuits and job discrimination charges have risen. In fact, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that in both 2010 and 2011, there were a 100,000 workplace discrimination complaints filed.
After all the time and energy you have put into your business, it can be very stressful to receive notice that you are being sued by a former employee. It is easy to imagine all of your blood, sweat and tears circling the drain and leaving you with nothing. However, rather than panicking, you should take the following steps:
What to do:
What not to do:
Discuss employee claims with an experienced NY business litigation attorney
The fact is that just being named in a suit or complaint does not mean you will lose your company or that you will even end up in court. Plaintiffs often name several defendants in an attempt to hit all the bases. Your company may only be named because if it is in a related field or thought to be involved. If so, your attorney may be able to get your company dismissed from the suit. Employee disputes and claims can be nerve-wracking but a NY business litigation attorney can help you determine the best strategy to take in your situation.


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The Master of Science in Strategic Design and Management program brings together a diverse group aspiring to initiate and lead change in emerging fields: business professionals wishing to address business challenges through design, design practitioners seeking to acquire expertise in business and leadership, and entrepreneurs looking to develop transformative business propositions for an evolving global economy. Led by a world-class faculty, the program is both academically rigorous and practice-oriented, providing hands-on learning experiences. Students can complete the MS entirely on campus or online, or in a blended learning format.
This program is part of Parsons' School of Design Strategies (SDS).
The MS in Strategic Design and Management responds to the major restructuring of economies worldwide. The program brings together design thinking — tools borrowed from studio practice and applied broadly, such as ideation, prototyping, design research
and ethnography, and collaborative work — and service design and sustainability frameworks. Strategic Design and Management graduate students focus on the evolving global economy and are exposed to sophisticated real-world perspectives on strategy,
sustainability, management, leadership, entrepreneurship, and design innovation and research.
A 36-credit program, Strategic Design and Management incorporates cutting-edge analyses of the new economy, which help students develop new business models and organizational designs for creative and other industries. These classes provide hands-on experience
in designing, managing, and improving many types of firms, including design-intensive and creative businesses. Studios enable students to apply their course learning to projects and prepare for industry and consulting jobs.
executive version of the MS Strategic Design and Management program is also available. It is structured as a series of six three-day seminars held
at the Parsons Paris campus, combined with online learning, hands-on studios, and global experiences in New York and Shanghai. Courses are taken one at a time, and the full
program takes about 18 months to complete.
With evening and online classes, this flexible graduate program is well suited to early- to mid-career professionals seeking to complement their design and business expertise with professional application. Students in this program also benefit from the
resources, student networks, and faculty expertise of a university-wide community engaged in management and entrepreneurship. Housed in the
School of Design Strategies at Parsons, the program is part of a leading urban university known for its courses on design thinking, organizational management, nonprofit management, sustainability management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Parsons
is home to the
ELab, a design-led business lab dedicated to entrepreneurial practice and research. ELab currently offers four programs, ranging from an alumni mentorship program to three-, nine-, and 12-month
fellowship, incubator, and accelerator options.
Graduates are well positioned for careers in business, sustainability management, innovation, social enterprise, strategic and service design, and entrepreneurship.
The Master of Science degree is awarded for completion of 36 credits. Transfer credits are not accepted. Students must maintain a 3.0 cumulative grade point average and fulfill all requirements in a timely manner.
The curriculum chart below reflects the typical course of study in this program. To view curriculum adjustments for the exceptional 2020-2021 academic year, click here.
As our geopolitical structures, our socioeconomic systems, even our personal career aspirations, as well as the underlying contexts of ethical responsibility evolve ever more intensely and turbulently, we have set an ambitious mandate for the MS in Strategic Design and Management (MS SD&M): We exist to inspire, educate, and develop the next generation of cadres that will create, shape, and govern a new era of human ingenuity. We accomplish this by pushing the envelope and creating a new space of "design intelligence," an imperative, collaborative, and transformative approach that puts ontology and purpose before epistemic know-how, context before content, and effectiveness before efficiency, and engages and leverages the attributes, competencies, and capabilities of "designerly" thinkers to develop new policy and stimulate new action. We up the ante by extending the dominant paradigm of strategic management with the design dimension to capture the importance of larger contexts for economies, firms, and individuals as open interdependent systems and by transforming our more than ten years of experience in educating undergraduates in design and management into a strategic framework that allows designers to shape and shepherd the creation of the future.
By fusing and infusing economic logic, business rationality, and organizational reality with the powerful notion of design thinking in particular, we provide a programmatic approach to a select group of motivated and qualified business professionals, creative practitioners, and aspiring innovation pioneers to get ahead of the curve of transience and transition and rather impact, influence, and inflect the paradigm shift in their own right. They will become the game changers, trail blazers, and chaos pilots that are entrusted with originally defining, designing, and directing the systems and the substance for the way new technologies, actors, relationships, performance models, and rules of engagement generate entirely novel social and economic value.
The program's unique, focused, and innovative curriculum prepares a future generation of "chaos pilots," game changers, and innovation pioneers who will lead (instead of lag behind) the necessary transformation, define elements of the new economy (rather than simply execute them), and design new organizational and collaborative structures (rather than simply join them), grounded in a principled fusion of economic rationality, business logic, organizational reality, and design thinking.
Traditional management and business–related programs are highly "synthetic" in nature and transactional in perspective, merely focused on problem-descriptive and contingency-analytical skills. In contrast, students in Parsons' MS S&DM will emerge with far more advanced attributes, competencies, and capabilities. They will develop their existing generative attributes and acquire new ones in order to initiate and lead change. Students will develop a broader range of competencies that leverage design thinking and support a deeper understanding of the issues affecting an evolving economy than they would in a traditional design program that focuses on designing objects. Design thinking, in combination with a strategic, sustainable, future-oriented business and economic perspective, will allow them to experiment with organizational contexts, new collaborative structures, and innovative project settings. They will initiate, implement, and participate in real-life projects with partners in creative industries, design consultancies, and other organizations.
Academically, we provide a programmatic path by starting at the economic level, providing a macro vision of future value creation and consumption systems. We then proceed to the firm level by investigating the parameters, conditions, and limitations of new business models. These in turn require new forms of collaboration, co-creation, and co-determination in high-powered creative groups and teams. At the individual level, we focus on generating the leadership effect and innovation capacity. We integrate these with a fundamentally challenging ethical context of the experience economy with its dimensions of social value, private means, intellectual contributions and property, and the imperatives of sustainability, ecological accountability, and business-environmental responsibility. And we finally put it together in our capstone course, New Design Firms, identifying the potential, the competitive advantage, and the fundamental imperative of design-centric strategy for managers, entrepreneurs, innovators, policymakers, and business catalysts.
We support the content of new learning with immediate and real-life application through studio courses with external partner engagement and with tangible deliverables.
In addition, the program delivery not only relies on highly qualified and accomplished faculty but also reaps tremendous benefits from its capability of attracting high-profile real-world instructors who are leading the charge for strategic design thinking and design intelligence in their design consultancies, creative firms, and innovative entrepreneurial or corporate ventures.
This relatively young program remains dynamic, continuously prospecting for new opportunities to incorporate into curriculum, delivery, and positioning. Our identity is creating impact at unprecedented levels in industry and academia and is aggressively defining the contours of a new discipline with its new competitive parameters. An exciting number of future employers, faculty, and partners are contacting us, creating tremendously important opportunities and prospect for our students.
MS SD&M is ideal for mid-career, experienced professionals who are motivated to initiate change in their personal careers, organizational settings, or social contexts by applying a powerful combination of economic logic and design thinking to new challenges and problems.
The program is intended to appeal on one hand to mid-career business professionals who need to complement their existing capabilities with design thinking and on the other to design practitioners, consultants, and managers who seek a deeper grasp of business, economic, and financial issues in order to make more sustainable organizational decisions. It is also intended for professionals of all industries who want to change the direction of their careers or redirect their firms toward more future-oriented organizational practices and more robust economic relationships. Students are expected to work in order to immediately practice learned material and implement adopted concepts, constructs, frameworks, and methods.
The program is unique in that it integrates a creative, rigorous course of study in business logic, economic rationality, organizational reality, and design thinking. The curriculum is supported by a world-class faculty and an extensive network of design consultancies, design and design management professionals, and practitioners in the creative industries.
Whereas many schools have heeded the trend toward more ontology and sustainability in their business and design programs, few have been able to integrate the two as successfully as the MS SD&M program proposes to do. The creators of the MS SD&M curriculum designed the program from the ground up, carefully defining every course from scratch, incorporating an integrative approach to new media, platforms, and modes of delivery (online, onsite, and hybrid). The course of study features a progressive pedagogy composed of seminars, lectures, studios, and labs. Geared to the working professional, MS SD&M accommodates students with online, evening, and blended instruction, enabling the program to reflect a global focus. The MS SD&M is positioned more as a learning platform than a top-down taught program. In it, external partners from creative industries, design consultancies, and innovative project settings will host new talent, contribute to the program, and source new talent in a collaborative environment alongside a world-class and globally aware faculty.
Students anywhere in the world can complete the MS SD&M program online. It can also be completed entirely on-site in New York. Combining online and on-site modules is also possible, immigration and residency requirements permitting. The
curriculum has been designed as a full-time, nine-credit-per-semester course of study without electives, with the goal of simplifying the student experience and optimizing the program's cost-effectiveness. Currently the program permits entry only in the fall semester.
The MS SD&M is intended for students interested in a cutting-edge, profoundly novel, progressive, and strongly future-oriented program, one that will undoubtedly become mainstream quickly. MS SD&M is not a "professional" program; that is, it is not focused on preparing students for a license, charter, or standard exam. It is an eclectic and demanding program; it is not for the passive, the faint of heart, or those who are unclear about their own path. The program is experiential and developmental. It requires you to be generative, creative, and productive and to be open to personal and professional transformation.
Indeed, the program requires students to take on and commit to the challenge of becoming co-producers of their own experience and contribute in addition to their academic work. Most of our projects and activities outside of the curriculum are student-designed, student-initiated, and student-run, such as the Global Design Network for alumni relations; the hosting of high-profile renowned new-economy NYC firms for presentations of opportunities and relationships; the Culture Council, composed of practitioners, students, and faculty from other colleges of The New School, which participates in the governance of the program; and numerous other initiatives that function as sounding boards and feedback mechanisms for the program, the director, and the institution.
The MS Strategic Design and Management program has three six-credit components. Students complete two six-credit integrative studios in the program's spring semesters. In Integrative Studio 1, students—working in teams—apply their learning in projects structured like ones in real-world industry. Students complete one six-credit research component in the fall semester of the second year, conducting in-depth design research for the entire semester on a topic of their choosing. In Integrative Studio 2, students build on the Independent Research Course work to prototype and test the business models generated from the research conducted in the prior semester.
Internships: Please note that students may carry a maximum of two internship credits in a given term in order to remain below the 12-credit-per-semester limit, beyond which the per-credit tuition is converted to a flat rate. Internships may be of particular interest to on-site, full-time international students who do not have work privileges as part of their immigration status but are seeking real-world, hands-on experience.
Although the program is not intended or designed to be a preparation for traditional professional settings, it prepares students to enter a variety of careers, work scenarios, job opportunities, and business environments. Students who are already working may apply their learning to become "intrapreneurs" in their organizations. Or they may want to develop and help lead evolution within their current organizations. Consequently, all the managerial, entrepreneurial, leadership, innovation, and professional areas not reserved to licensed practitioners are open to graduates, including some featuring surprising job titles like CCO (chief change officer/chief creative officer), CIO (chief innovation officer), CFO (chief fun officer), and LDT (lead design thinker). The program enables you to create your own trajectory rather than be tied to an institutional placement service. Ultimately, your fellow students, instructors, professional and practitioner guest lecturers, and industry project participants become the network in which you market your talent; MS SD&M is the platform that supports this talent pool programmatically and academically.
For the most up-to-date information on tuition and credit costs, please visit the
Registrar's website, which outlines tuition and fees.
This program is designed as a global program, and most of the online version can be completed from anywhere in the world. Integrative studio courses take place every spring during the week before the regular academic semester begins (approximately the third week of January). For this period of study,
international students are eligible for a short-term I-20 certificate that allows them to apply for a short-stay visa for each one of those two-week integrative studio sessions.
International students taking the program on-site are eligible for a regular I-20 certificate and resulting F-1 visa because the nine-credit-per-semester structure qualifies them for full-time status. However, they need to keep in mind that the modular options (combining on-site and online classes) are limited by immigration requirements stipulating that full-time students need to take a minimum of six credits of on-site instruction to maintain their full-time status and immigration privileges.
The Strategic Design and Management program seeks students who want to become the game changers of the new economy and its new actors, digital firms, social information networks, and co-productive individuals. Motivated by the opportunities of our
transforming economic landscape, committed to contributing new business models, innovative organizational designs, and progressive architectures for cyberspace, and determined to shift paradigms, students of various professional and academic backgrounds,
experiences, and trajectories that want to not only change their own course, but help shape the future of business through design management practices are invited to apply. A minimum of 3-5 years of professional experience is strongly encouraged.
Application Deadline
The application deadline is January 2. To be most competitive for admission and merit scholarship consideration, please apply before the deadline. We will continue to review applications submitted after the deadline pending space availability in the
program. The Admission Committee will make a decision on your application only after all the required materials have been received. Spring term admission is not offered for this program.
Financial Aid Deadline
Merit Scholarships: All admitted students are considered for merit scholarship awards determined by the strength of their applications. International students are eligible only for merit scholarships.
Federal Student Aid: If you are a U.S. citizen or eligible non-citizen, we encourage you to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which can be found at
www.fafsa.gov. The FAFSA is available each year on October 1. The New School's federal school code is 002780. You do not need to wait for an admission decision to apply for federal
aid. Submit your FAFSA by our February 1 FAFSA Priority Deadline.
All applicants are required to apply online. Save your work frequently and print a copy for your records. You must complete all required fields and uploads prior to submission.
Any additional supporting documents that need to be sent by mail must include an
Application Materials Cover Sheet. All supporting materials must be received before your application can be reviewed.
See below for additional information regarding submission of transcripts and recommendations.
In addition to submitting the online application, applicants can submit an optional portfolio using SlideRoom:
Learn more about what Parsons students, faculty, and alumni are doing throughout the city and around the world.
Explore the Strategic Design and Management Community
Michele Kahane
Program Director
Koray Caliskan
Associate Director
Matthew Robb
Associate Director
Undergrad Wide
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More on:
Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament
Gary Samore, an arms control official in the Clinton National Security Council and CFR's director of studies, says it remains a mystery whether Syria was working with North Korea to receive nuclear technology. He adds, however, that it would make sense that Syria would be interested to develop some kind of deterrent, given that its neighbor, Israel, is said to have nuclear weapons. "Syria has always been an interesting case," Samore says, "because you would think a country in that position, faced with an enemy that has both conventional and nuclear superiority, would want to develop a nuclear option. That would make a lot of sense."
In the last week there has been considerable speculation about an Israeli air incursion into Syria near the Syrian-Turkish border. There have been some reports the Israelis were trying to knock out a North Korean supplied nuclear facility. The North Koreans and the Syrians have both denied this. Do you have a guess on what happened?
I know the Israelis have been concerned for some time that Syria might be receiving nuclear assistance from North Korea. In particular, I think the Israelis were worried that North Korea was sharing centrifuge systems with Syria, but I haven't seen the evidence for that, so it's hard for me to judge whether that's a solid concern or not. In any event, it seems unlikely that the Syrian program would have been very advanced. Nonetheless, if Israel thought that there was a real risk that the Syrians were beginning to dabble in centrifuge technology, you could understand why they would try to destroy that at a very early stage.
You would think the Syrians would go to the Iranians for help on centrifuge technology.
They might have been going to both. And there's always been speculation that A. Q. Khan [the prominent Pakistani scientist and so-called "father" of Pakistan's nuclear program, who sold nuclear technology to third parties] who of course marketed his services throughout the Middle East, might have approached the Syrians as well. Nobody really knows whether they took advantage of that offer.
Do the North Koreans really have enough left over P-1 centrifuges, provided by Khan, that they would want to sell?
The Pakistani government has acknowledged that A.Q. Khan provided a small number, less than two dozen, of these P-1 centrifuges to North Korea. So in theory, if the North Koreans wanted to sell or barter that technology to Syria, they could certainly do that.
North Korea and Syria both deny the nuclear deal, but Syria has, despite announcing the Israeli raid, never said what actually happened.
Syria has always been an interesting case, because you would think a country in that position, faced with an enemy that has both conventional and nuclear superiority, would want to develop a nuclear option. That would make a lot of sense. But up to now the Syrians seem to have been content with a chemical and biological capability, which they would use as a deterrent against Israel. And it's always been curious that the Syrians have never, as far as we know, developed a nuclear weapons program, unlike many other Arab countries: Egypt, Libya, and so forth.
The latest round of the Six-Party Talks [North Korea, South Korea, United States, China, Russia and Japan] in Beijing was supposed to have been held today, but Beijing announced a postponement and nobody really knows why. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Well three different explanations have been offered. One is that the Chinese wanted to avoid a confrontation between the United States and North Korea over this Syrian business and so they decided to postpone the meeting and let tempers cool before they went ahead with it. A second theory I heard was that the technical experts really haven't reached agreement yet on what steps would be required to disable North Korea's nuclear facilities.
"Syria has always been an interesting case, because you would think a country in that position, faced with an enemy that has both conventional and nuclear superiority, would want to develop a nuclear option. That would make a lot of sense."
As I'm sure you know, a team of experts from the United States, Russia, and China visited the North Korean nuclear center last week in order to review the proposals that North Korea had made. I haven't heard in detail what the North Koreans had proposed, or whether or not it was acceptable to the weapons inspections committee.
And they're supposed to announce everything they have in the nuclear field?
They're supposed to declare everything they have in the nuclear field, and they're supposed to disable their existing nuclear facilities. This technical trip last week was to go over the actual steps and measures that would be required. One theory is that there isn't agreement yet on these technical measures, and the Chinese didn't want to have the meeting until they could announce that the experts had reached agreement on these technical steps.
The third theory, which is my favorite, is that the North Koreans have asked to postpone the meeting because they haven't received the shipment of heavy fuel oil that they were expecting from the Chinese.
That's interesting. They were supposed to receive the oil last week?
I gather there's just been a technical glitch in the shipment of this second load of heavy fuel oil from China to North Korea, and the North Koreans don't like to do anything on credit; they like to be paid up front. So they were just basically saying, "We're not going to come to the table until we actually have our hands on that oil."
You've been rather bearish, I think, on how far this Six-Party agreement, reached in February, can go, beyond closing down the Yongbyon facility. Why is that? Are you still bearish, or are you a little more optimistic?
There's nothing in the agreement that talks about destroying their nuclear weapons, but certainly Chris Hill interprets the agreement to mean that the North Koreans will eliminate all of their nuclear weapons capabilities. I think that part of the agreement is extremely unlikely to be achieved during the rest of this administration and I think well into the next administration.
I think the U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has certainly made some progress. He worked out an agreement in principle with the North Koreans that they will declare and dissemble by the end of this year. In exchange the United States would take North Korea off of the list of countries that sponsor terrorism and lift some economic sanctions. So I think that's a good sign, a step forward. Now the question is whether that can really be implemented, and I think there still remain some very significant obstacles, particularly in the declaration area, because the North Koreans, according to press reports, will acknowledge some kind of secret enrichment program and they will admit that they were out trying to buy special components. But whatever they declare is bound not to be taken at face value, and if they declare something that's inconsistent with independent information the United States has, then we'll get into a process of questions and answers, requests for interviews, looking at documents and visiting facilities, which I think could be very difficult to resolve.
And what about the atomic bombs they are supposed to have? We don't know how many bombs they are keeping do we?
We don't. I think we can make a pretty good estimate about the amount of plutonium that they might have produced and then, based on that, we can approximate how many nuclear weapons they could have. But you're right: we don't know how many they have, and if something like that is included in the North Korean declaration, there will naturally be questions about whether they fully declared all the plutonium they were holding.
They are not obliged under that agreement to destroy their nuclear weapons, are they?
There's nothing in the agreement that talks about destroying their nuclear weapons, but certainly Chris Hill interprets the agreement to mean that the North Koreans will eliminate all of their nuclear weapons capabilities. I think that part of the agreement is extremely unlikely to be achieved during the rest of this administration and I think well into the next administration. I don't think the North Koreans are likely to give up their existing nuclear weapons. Although I do think they might agree to disable their old facilities, which may have actually come to the end of their useful operational life, and they may be willing to make a declaration about their secret enrichment program if the price is right.
The North Koreans may calculate that the Bush administration in the last year and a half of its term will be willing to make some pretty significant concessions in order to make progress on the nuclear issue.
Now the South Korean president is due to arrive in North Korea in early October, for the second summit between the two countries, which are still in a technical state of war. They're talking about a possible peace treaty. Do you think they're about to have a peace treaty without the United States signing on?
I think the issue of peace treaty is really one of sequence. The North Koreans say that they can't give up their nuclear weapons until "peace" is established on the Korean peninsula. The problem with that approach is that the North Koreans can delay signing a peace treaty for years and years. There are a number of complicated issues here.
The United States argues that the North Koreans should give up their nuclear weapons first, and then there will be peace on the Korean peninsula. Apparently we're prepared to begin negotiations for a peace treaty as we had during the Clinton administration, which didn't get very far.
You were involved in nuclear discussions with the North Koreans in the Clinton administration. Could you describe those talks?
There were many rounds of discussions. They were called "Four Party Talks"—the United States, China, South Korea and North Korea—and the talks never proceeded. One of the big sticking points was that the North Koreans always refused to sign a peace treaty with South Korea, because they said they weren't prepared to recognize South Korea. Now if there's been a change in that North Korean attitude, it would be very significant.
It would be very interesting, and I think that's something the United States should favor, because the more we can reduce hostility on the Korean peninsula, the more we can argue that North Korea doesn't need to have a nuclear deterrent. But the big question for the South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, and his visit to North Korea, is the extent to which he links the nuclear issue to the big economic package of development assistance that apparently South Korea is prepared to offer to the North. The concern in Washington is that unless there's a clear link in conditionality between this economic package and progress on the nuclear issue, it will undercut any incentive the North has to take further steps on the nuclear issue.
Now you had an op-ed piece in a South Korean paper after the trip you made to Beijing, in which you said that China was feeling left out because of the U.S.-North Korean dialogue. Is that still the case, do you think?
I think it's still the case. I think the Chinese on the one hand are happy that a crisis has been avoided and progress is being made to resolve the nuclear issue, but I think, on the other, they are missing their essential place in the negotiations, and if these negotiations stumble at some point, which is actually quite likely, I think the Chinese may once again find themselves in the central role of mediating disputes.
That's interesting, because you point out in your article that the Chinese have for years been urging the United States to get more involved with North Korea.
That's correct.
I haven't seen anything from any of the Democratic Party candidates about North Korea, have you?
No, and I think it's because Bush is essentially doing what the Democrats have long advocated. I mean, in essence this current Bush strategy is the Clinton strategy. From that standpoint I think there is probably a lot more support among the Democrats for this strategy than there is among the Republican candidates. But the Republican candidates, I think, don't see the point in pushing a fight with the Bush administration over its North Korea policy. I don't think it's a very important issue for the electorate, especially compared to Iraq.
More on:
Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament


text:
Office of Inspector General (OIG)
CPSC's Office of Inspector General was established on April 9, 1989, in accordance with the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended. This law gives the Inspector General the power to act independently: the Inspector General cannot be prevented from initiating, carrying out, or completing an audit or investigation, or from issuing any subpoena; has access to all records of the agency; reports directly to Congress; and can only be removed by a two-thirds vote of the Commissioners, who must communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer.
Inspector General (IG)
Christopher W. Dentel was appointed the Inspector General for the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2004.
About Inspector General Dentel
Report an act you believe to be wasteful or fraudulent
There are three ways to report fraud, abuse, or mismanagement to CPSC's OIG:
By phone - 301.504.7906
By mail. Write to:
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Fraud can also be reported using the General Accounting Office's Fraudnet website.
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|CPSC OIG Audit Peer Review - Final System Review Report
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|Peer Review of the Audit Operations of the CPSC OIG
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|CPSC Peer Review
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|Final Report, System of Quality Control for the Audit Organization of the CPSC Office of Inspector General, by the Farm Credit Administration, Office of Inspector General


text:
The other person on the line from the studio in Bath was Stuart Campbell, custodian of Wings Over Scotland and a crowd-funded SNP apologist. If you're just interested in the facts you can skip the next section.
I recognise the term "crowd-funded SNP apologist" may seem rather dismissive. I use it only because during the broadcast Stuart referred to me as "some dog food salesman". It was a predictable attempt by him to deflect from the point being discussed by getting a rise out of me and I wasn't going to waste valuable airtime by biting.
In his rapid-rebuttal blog post immediately after the interview he refers to me as "an amateur blogger with a keen interest in Pedigree Chum". Quite why the fact that I'm an "amateur" blogger (translation: runs real businesses and does this in their spare time) is considered relevant I don't know. He's a "professional blogger" which presumably means he'll have the time to be far more informed and better researched than I am ...
Oh and the business of mine he's referring to? It doesn't sell Pedigree Chum - but then Stuart never has been overly bothered about factual accuracy
You can listen to the part of the broadcast I participated in here. It was an interesting debate (do listen if you have time, the segment was about 15 minutes long).
The conclusion on question one was pretty unequivocal. The statement made by Sturgeon that we were testing was:
the projections the Scottish Government made were in-line with [chuckle] all [/chuckle] external projections for prices and for revenues …This statement was shown to be false.
Stuart from Bath asserted that the statement was in fact true because the price assumptions used were in line with (among others) the OBR. Unfortunately - despite being a "professional" blogger invited on to comment on this specific question - Stuart appeared not to know what the revenue forecasts he was defending actually were.
I observed that at the time of writing the White Paper the £7.9bn oil revenue assumption the Scottish Government used for 2016-17 was £5bn higher than the £2.9bn the OBR were forecasting at the time. I suggested that it was therefore clearly incorrect to suggest that the SG forecast was in-line with all external projections for prices and revenues.
[I also pointed out that they weren't even in line with the OBR on price - at the time of the white paper the OBR were forecasting $97 versus the SG's $113 - but that was beside the central point.]
I showed that the fact that the forecasts were not in-line with others' was clear at the time of the referendum by quoting the IFS May 2014 statement on "Oil: The Continuing Source of Disagreement"
The main point of disagreement is the different forecasts for revenues from North Sea oil and gas used. Our figures and the Treasury's figures are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility's projections. The Scottish Government report instead uses their own – higher – forecasts for North Sea revenues.Stuart countered with some predictable ad hom against me and accused me of "obsessing with the OBR's projections" as opposed to "everyone else". Unfortunately he wasn't able to cite a single alternative oil revenue forecast made by anyone else to back up his assertion. At the time of writing he has still not (either on twitter or his blog) been able to cite a single alternative forecast that would back up the statement.
I've checked the SNP's website - they're famed for the speed of their rebuttals but I see nothing there to support the FM's assertion.
I've gone back to read the Scottish Government's Oil & Gas Bulletin from March 2013 which includes the £7.9bn figure for 2016-17. The only other revenue forecast they refer to is the OBR (in the 5 page document the OBR is mentioned 10 times).
We've established that the £7.9bn forecast was not in-line with the OBR and that the OBR (who are relied on by HMRC and the IFS among others) is a very significant "external forecaster".
So the statement about being in-line with all external forecasters when related to revenue forecasts in the White Paper is demonstrably false.
What interests me now is: were they actually in-line with any credible external forecasters when it came to forecasting North Sea Oil revenue generation in 2016-17? I'm sure they'll be able to dig out some from somewhere, but the fact that they haven't been able to yet speaks volumes.
For completeness: the second point under debate was something I agreed was - as narrowly stated - true because it was a truism. Sturgeon said.
Well, I've said our growth in onshore revenues over the next few years is projected to [chuckle] significantly [/chuckle] outstrip the decline in offshore revenues ...As I pointed out - if you're flexible enough in your interpretation of a "few years" to include 8-10 years - then of course underlying GDP growth will eventually replace lost oil revenues. The point I attempted to make was that if you have to use all of the GDP growth over the next 8-10 years merely to plug the gap left by oil you can't use that GDP growth to invest in public spending. A corollary of this is that the fiscal gap that exists between us an the rest of the UK - widely referred to as the "black hole" - wouldn't be closed because of course the UK's GDP is also growing.
Stuart suggests that because I accepted Sturgeon's statement was a truism this somehow represented (I'm directly quoting his subsequent blog post here)
"categorical agreement from the Yes and No sides alike that actually the falling oil price makes an independent Scotland MORE economically viable, not less"I mean this is really desperate stuff.
He justifies this because he quoted an unrelated BBC report (which I've now found here) which did indeed say:
The Scottish economy will continue to pick up pace, despite the lower oil price having an adverse impact on the oil and gas industry.
The Fraser of Allander Institute's regular forecast shows the boost to oil users in Scotland outweighs the harm to North Sea producersIt turns out that report was dated March 2015 (so nearly a year out of date) and also stated
The University of Strathclyde institute's report's conclusions run counter to the view of the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney.
He said he expected the UK economy to be helped by lower oil prices, while the Scottish economy would not be
So I've had a quick check to see what the Fraser of Allander Institute are actually saying now (rather than nearly a year ago). I confess I've only skim-read their latest Economic Commentary but I can't find anything in there that backs the assertion Stuart makes. Here are some highlights that caught my eye;
For 2016, we have also revised down our forecast to 2.2% from 2.3% in June, in recognition that the slow down in the rate of recovery will continue into 2016 as exporting continues to be difficult due to the high pound sterling and because of the lingering effects on Scottish onshore activity of the low price of oil.So whilst there's recognition that there is a positive demand boosting aspect to the fall in oil price, I see nothing there to suggest that it makes "an independent Scotland more economically viable".
As noted below, the effect of the slowdown in the oil & gas industry due to the low price of oil is also affecting the service sector in Scotland much more than the UK, for obvious reasons. And that is one contributory factor to Scotland's weaker service sector performance recorded here
In Scotland, weakness in the service sector has been affected by the onshore implications of the fall in the price of oil hitting business services in particular as well as mining and quarrying.
The Survey also reveals the impact that the low global market price for Brent crude oil is continuing to have on the Scottish economy, with the performance of oil and gas service businesses dampening results in the Financial and Business Services sector.
Domestic demand in Scotland and the UK continues to be boosted by low inflation, helped by the fall in the price of oil and some other commodity prices, with the fall in the oil price being key, further boosted by the low price of imports due to the strength of sterling
The rather obvious point here is that from the low point of now (with oil revenue this year estimated to be only £0.1bn) the economy boosting effects of lower oil price may be net positive - but relative to the indyref case that was presented (assuming £7.9bn annual oil revenue) it's frankly preposterous to argue that the chronic decline in the North Sea oil industry makes "an independent Scotland more viable"


text:
Liesbeth Eggermont
Date: January 8, 2018
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A SHOP worker suffered a broken nose after she was attacked by a gang she caught trying to steal from her store.
The 44-year-old member of staff at New Look, in Shirley High Street, spotted a young woman in the group trying to steal items.
The victim asked them to leave but they started shouting at her and three of the youths began attacking her, punching and pushing her eventually knocking her to the floor.
It was only when another customer in the store managed to push them out of the door that they were forced out.
The woman suffered a broken nose in the incident and had to receive medical treatment.
Now officers want to speak to the three people that can be seen in these CCTV stills about the shocking attack.
They are the woman in the stripy jumper, the woman in the grey cardigan and the man in the grey tracksuit.
They are all thought to be aged between their late teens and early twenties.
Officers are also trying to trace the younger female in the red coat shown in one of the CCTV pictures.
She appeared to be with the group but did not take part in any of the incident. Officers would like her to come forward and speak to them.
They would also like to hear from anyone who knows who any of the group are.
Anyone with information is asked to call PC Lou Wright at Shirley Police Station on 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.


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17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, August 19, 1912: Did quite a bit of sewing today. You see I'm getting some of my things out of the way for when school starts. It rained like everything this evening.
Her middle-aged granddaughter's comments 100 years later:
What was Grandma sewing? Maybe she did some hemming—of a new dress, or to remodel a hand-me-down and make it just the right length.
Here are directions from a hundred-year-old book about how to make a hem. (An aside: I had so much fun with the recent buttonhole post that I decided to do another post using the same book).
A hem is a fold made by twice turning over the edge of the material (Fig. 16). Make a narrow, even turning, and mark the depth for the second turning on the material with a coarse pin, chalk or basting, using as a marker a card notched the desired depth of the hem. Fold on the line, and if the hem is wide, baste at top and bottom.
Hold the edges you are going to sew on, toward you; place the hem over the forefinger and under the middle finger and hold it down with the thumb. Begin at the right end and insert the needle through the fold, leaving a short end of the thread to be caught under the hemming stitches.
Pointing the needle toward the left shoulder, make a slanting stitch by taking up a few threads of the material and the fold of the hem. Fasten the thread by taking two or three stitches on top of each other.
If a new thread is needed, start as in the beginning, tucking both the end of the new and old thread under the fold of the hem and secure them with the hemming stitches. Train the eye to keep the stitches even and true.
The Dressmaker by The Butterick Publishing Co. (1911)
These directions seem awfully complicated and the drawing doesn't look exactly right–but then, I guess that I probably couldn't easily explain exactly how to tunnel through the cloth and then take a small stitch every half-inch or so.


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MB Madaera
Lost 31.7 lbs fat
Built 11.7 lbs muscle
Chris Madaera
Built 9 lbs muscle
Keelan Parham
Lost 30 lbs fat
Built 4 lbs muscle
Bob Marchesello
Lost 23.55 lbs fat
Built 8.55 lbs muscle
Jeff Turner
Lost 25.5 lbs fat
Jeanenne Darden
Lost 26 lbs fat
Built 3 lbs muscle
Ted Tucker
Lost 41 lbs fat
Built 4 lbs muscle
Determine the Length of Your Workouts
Evaluate Your Progress
Keep Warm-Up in Perspective
"Doing more exercise with less intensity,"
Arthur Jones believes, "has all but
destroyed the actual great value
of weight training. Something
must be done . . . and quickly."
The New Bodybuilding for
Old-School Results supplies
MUCH of that "something."
This is one of 93 photos of Andy McCutcheon that are used in The New High-Intensity Training to illustrate the recommended exercises.
To find out more about McCutcheon and his training, click here.
Mission Statement
H.I.T. Acceptable Use Policy
Privacy Policy
Drew Baye
Ellington Dardens Straight TalkAbout The New High-Intensity Training Part IIBy Drew Baye
I received many positive comments about the first part of this interview. Most of you were fascinated by by Ells descriptions of Arthur Jones and Casey Viator during the 1970s, and more recently, how Dave Hudlow gained 18 pounds of muscle in two weeks. Several days ago, I welcomed an advance copy of The New High-Intensity Training. Large-sized, well-designed, clearly written, excellent routines, and inspiring photography its easily the best HIT book on the market today.
In Part II, Ell discusses his early strength training with Ken Hutchins and he voices his opinion of SuperSlow. He answers questions about Mike and Ray Mentzer (theres a funny story here), timed static contractions, negative work, and specialized routines. Then, he details why and how his new HIT book is different from previous HIT approaches.
Question: Ken Hutchins, the architect behind the SuperSlow philosophy, and you grew up in the same town in Texas. Was their something in the environment or education system that motivated you guys into weight training?
Answer: Its interesting that both Ken and I were raised in Conroe, Texas, which is 30 miles north of Houston. I was 8 years older than Ken and I didnt really didnt have much contact with him until my fourth year of college. When Ken started high school he became a friend to one of my classmates, Philip Alexander, who was in medical school. Kens dad was a physician in town and Philip visited him often to gain practical knowledge.
In late 1967, Alexander invited Hutchins and me to his wedding and at the reception afterward, Ken began talking to me about strength training and bodybuilding. Hutchins was a beginner and I had been training seriously for a number of years. He had a lot of questions for me and I had to dig pretty deep for some of the answers.
Concerning the environment and educational system in Conroe, small-town football was big in Texas. Some of the football coaches, who encouraged me to lift weights from 1958 to 1962, also encouraged Hutchins in the late 1960s.
Hutchins and I both has access to weights through the school system in Conroe. Plus, I had a fairly good setup in my parents garage, and when I visited my parents during the holidays and summer, Hutchins would often join me for workouts. During one of my stopovers in 1970, I introduced Hutchins to several Nautilus-styled HIT routines and I could tell he was impressed. As a result, I gave him some articles by Arthur Jones to ponder. Ken always came back for more, and perhaps most importantly, asked intelligent questions.
When Hutchins was a senior in high school, Conroe had one of the best football teams in Texas. The team was composed of several all-state players, each of whom weighed well over 225 pounds. Kens parents would not permit him to play football. But Ken often strength trained with the team and was significantly stronger than the top players in most of the basic exercises.
The head football coach, who had been in Conroe for 10 years, told me that Hutchins bench-pressed 50 pounds more and dealifted 100 pounds more than the strongest guys on the team. Hutchins lifts, he said, always motivated the players to get stronger, but none ever exceeded Kens poundages.
When I graduated from Conroe High School in 1962, I was the strongest student athlete in most of the basic strength-training exercises. In 1970, when Hutchins graduated, the high school was five times larger and Ken was the strongest male in school. Furthermore, he bench-pressed and deadlifted significantly more weight in 1970 than I did in 1962.
In a local physique contest, however, Hutchins would have been pressed to finish in the top 10 (just kidding, Ken). Make no mistake Ken Hutchins was one strong, Texas teenager.
Question: When Nautilus hired you, did Ken visit you in Florida?
Answer: When I joined Arthur Jones and Nautilus in 1973, it wasnt long before Hutchins drove to Florida to see for himself what was happening. After multiple visits, Hutchins was hired in 1977 by our sports-medicine orthopedist to be his assistant. Hutchins was mostly involved in the physical therapy side of Nautilus, which finally led to his supervisory position in a Nautilus-sponsored osteoporosis research project at the University of Florida Medical School in 1982. It was during this project, which continued for four years, that Hutchins tested and applied the initial SuperSlow protocols.
During the 10 years that Ken worked at Nautilus, he and I were involved in four major strength-training and fat-loss projects, as well as dozens of Nautilus-related seminars and workshops. Today, I live approximately 25 miles from Ken. We remain great friends and I try to see him once a month.
Question: Whats your opinion of Hutchinss SuperSlow?
Answer: I like SuperSlow. I apply many of the techniques in my workouts each week. Without getting into the finer points of the SuperSlow philosophy, I want to say simply: Ken Hutchins carefully studied repetition form, which was and is a subset of HIT, and turned it into a full-fledged business. And Im glad he did.
If Arthur Joness specialty is intensity, then Ken Hutchinss forte is form. Im grateful that Ive spent as much time as I have with both Jones and Hutchins.
Question: Do you have an interesting story about Ken Hutchins that you could share with us?
Answer: The first thing that pops into my mind happened in Atlanta, Georgia, one night in February 1980. Ken and I had been involved in a Nautilus seminar and we were waiting to fly back to Daytona Beach. It was about 20 degrees outside and the Atlanta airport was the middle of an ice storm, so all flights were delayed. There we were with thousands of frustrated people and a couple of hours to burn.
Ken was sitting next to me and we began sorting through our strength-training slides, since we had both given talks using a 35mm-slide projector earlier in the day. After a while, Ken asked me what I thought about his new section, which he called "Exercise Versus Recreation."
A little background is necessary here.
Ken and I, for several years, had tried various approaches during Nautilus seminars to debate people who believed they needed daily aerobic activity to be healthy. Proper strength training, we always felt, was more than an adequate way to work the muscles and heart. And strength training was a lot safer than the most popular aerobic activities, such as jogging and aerobic dancing, which were the latest crazes. Kens exercise/recreation section explained how to define exercise (which involved disciplined overload and was not fun), and then how to separate it from recreation (which required no overload and was enjoyable). His conclusion was to accept exercise for what it is, hard work, and not try to make it recreation or fun.
I told Ken that compartmentalizing exercise and recreation was on-target and I thought his new concept was going to help our cause. As we discussed the topic further, I glanced across the lobby, which was in the center of four departure-arrival gates. Sitting about 30 yards away was a man who was also examining slides and arranging them in a carousel. As I focused on the guy, I recognized him. It was Dr. Kenneth Cooper.
At that time, Cooper was the #1 running guru, as a result of a couple of best-selling books on aerobics. Furthermore, he was generally thought of as being anti-strength training, anti-HIT, and anti-Nautilus.
A couple of years earlier, at one of the industrys annual fitness conventions, Hutchins had been involved in a panel discussion that included Cooper. Cooper, answering a question, knocked strength training. Hutchins wanted to respond, but didnt. Since then, hed regretted not speaking up.
As a result, Hutchins and I improvised a plan.
We figured Cooper did not know how to define exercise clearly, at least not in the vernacular that Hutchins had conceived. Hutchins was going to ease over and take a seat beside Cooper. After some small talk, he was going to ask him bluntly to define exercise. We then expected some locking of horns to occur.
I was going to watch the deliberations from my angle for 10 minutes, and join the action. Wed effectively double team Cooper and help him understand exercise, generally and specifically, and then share with him the advantages of strength training on Nautilus equipment.
With the plan in mind, Hutchins hurried over but just as he approached, an older woman took the seat beside Cooper. No problem, he simply dropped down on one knee in front of Cooper and continued.
I noticed that Cooper was being very animated and seemed to be expressing himself well. But since Hutchins had his back toward me, it was difficult to gauge what was happening on Kens side. At the planned 10-minute mark, I walked over. The lobby was even more crowded, so I had to kneel on the floor beside Hutchins.
There we were: Ken Hutchins and Ellington Darden kneeling at the feet of Dr. Kenneth Cooper, while he lectured to us on aerobic exercise. We both tried at least a half-dozen times each, to wedge a comment into Coopers dissertation. But it was no use. The man seemed to project a mesmerizing spell on us and we soon found our heads nodding to concepts that were directly against what we believed. After another 30 minutes had passed, all the seats in the lobby were overflowing with people, and we had little to do but keep kneeling and nodding. It felt like we were in the middle of an old-fashioned tent revival.
Finally, the ice storm cleared, and the three of us boarded the same plane to Daytona Beach. (Cooper was speaking at a hospitals grand opening the next morning.) Thank goodness, Hutchins and I were not seated near Cooper, as our heads and necks needed rest.
Our double-team plan had failed. We had been steam-rolled, and worse captivated somehow by what we heard. In fact, we ended up chauffeuring Cooper to his hotel. We bid him good night and invited him to visit us the next day at the Nautilus headquarters, if time allowed. We never heard from him.
But that wasnt the end of the story.
Four years passed . . . and a mutual friend told me that Cooper still didnt care for strength training. But he had recently signed off on the purchase of two lines of Nautilus machines for his Aerobics Center in Dallas, primarily because of two hospitable Nautilus guys hed talked with one stormy night in the Atlanta Airport. One thing Cooper appreciated, our mutual friend noted (and this was no joke), was that we had not raved to him about Nautilus.
Sometimes, being unable to express yourself is a blessing in disguise.
Question: Thanks, thats a fascinating story. Ive heard Hutchins blast Coopers philosophy, but I never knew he had an influence on the Aerobics Center in Dallas purchasing Nautilus. To change the subject . . . timed static contractions have become popular with some instructors for use with clients who cant perform certain exercises through a full range of motion due to physical problems or injuries. Since they involve no movement and have no potential for negative work, which hypothetically would produce little microtrauma, what do you think of their value for stimulating muscular size increases relative to full-range exercise?
Answer: I certainly think timed static contractions have value. Ive tried then several times and Ive definitely felt them. Someone somewhere should be doing a large-scale research project to help us understand more about their place in short- and long-term exercise.
Compared to full-range exercise, Id have to say that full-range exercise given that youre dealing with healthy trainees would supply many more benefits. For example, full-range exercise provides more thorough muscular strengthening, more stretching for flexibility, more work for the cardiorespiratory system, and more calorie-burning ability from the overall workout.
Arthur Jones noted more than 30 years ago that negative-work potential was perhaps the most important aspect of the muscle-building process. Studies since then have confirmed what Jones believed concerning negative work. So at least from that perspective, static contractions are lacking.
As you stated, however, theres a place for timed static contractions in exercising people who have certain limitations.
Question: In your book, you discuss the importance of negative work in building muscle. Was Arthur Jones the first person to introduce negative work to bodybuilding?
Answer: Negative work (eccentric muscle action) was kicked around haphazardly in the physiology world before Jones came on the scene. But it wasnt until Jones started experimenting and writing about negative work in 1972, that any bodybuilder took it seriously. I read all the bodybuilding magazines from 1959 until 1972, and I never came across anything remotely similar to the emphasis and guidelines Jones placed on lowering a heavy weight.
Today, if you walk into any serious gym in the United States (or in the world), "doing negatives" is a regular part of a lifters vocabulary. We can thank Arthur Jones for that.
Question: In chapter 9 of your new HIT book, you talk about meeting and working with Mike Mentzer. I thought Mike would have thrived being around Nautilus and Arthur Jones. What happened?
Answer: Mike moved to Lake Helen, Florida, in 1983 and worked for Nautilus approximately 6 months. And youre correct, youd have thought that with his devotion to hard training, hed have been on cloud nine.
When I was around Mike, we got along fine. Mike and his girlfriend, Julie McNew, came over to my home several times for dinner and we had some far-reaching conversations, none of which had much at all to do with bodybuilding.
The strange thing was that the entire 6 months Mike was at the Nautilus headquarters, I never saw him take an intense workout. There were several times when he appeared to be interested, but it quickly faded. He seemed to be in a perpetual training drift, looking for someone or something to take his oars and row him to shore. But when someone or something emerged, Mike would jump overboard or make himself invisible.
After Mike left Nautilus and returned to California, I heard he experienced severe depression and went through lengthy periods of drug therapy. I also read that much of his depression was related to Arnold Schwarzenegger defeating him in the 1980 Mr. Olympia, a contest Mike thought he should have won. (By the way, I agreed with Mikes assessment.) During the competition, Mike and Arnold had a bitter argument that was never settled, and worse, continued to fester.
None of that helped Mikes health, and unfortunately, he died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 49.
Question: What did you think of Mentzers Heavy-Duty books?
Answer: I was a fan of Mikes books, especially the ones that chronicled his training for the 1978 Mr. Universe and the 1980 Mr. Olympia. Who knows? If Mike would have won the Olympia, the world of professional bodybuilding might now be significantly different.
Generally, Mike Mentzers writings, success in contests, and inspiring photographs influenced bodybuilders everywhere to train harder and briefer. In 1978, at Sean Harringtons Nautilus club in Los Angeles, I witnessed Mike go through a true HIT workout. He handled almost the entire weight stack on every Nautilus machine and his workout was almost equal to what Casey Viator could have done in his prime. I was impressed.
Question: In your book, you also mention Mikes younger brother Ray. Ray Mentzer was even stronger than Mike, right?
Answer: Yes he was. While Mike showed little desire to train intensely in Lake Helen, Ray was just the opposite. He was frequently up for a hard workout. I trained him multiple times. After a while, we would have to pin additional weight on most of the Nautilus machines. He was that strong. Ray handled the entire weight stack, 500 pounds, on the Nautilus duo-squat machine with ease. I never witnessed anyone else get a single rep with the entire stack and there were a lot of big, strong athletes who tried.
Ray was the first bodybuilder I ever saw who weighed 250 pounds or more, in fairly lean condition. There are a few in that category today, but there werent any in 1983.
Joe Mullen, a former Nautilus club owner, recently told me that he saw Ray go through a HIT workout in 1999. "On our Nautilus leg-extension machine, Ray did 290 pounds for 10 good repetitions," Mullen said, as he paused and cleared his throat.
In my mind, Im thinking . . . "290 pounds on the leg extension machine, I believe Ive done that much."
Having cleared his throat, Mullen continued . . . "With one leg."
Thats right, Ray Mentzer did single leg extensions in a normal positive-negative manner with 290 pounds, which is equivalent to handling 580 pounds with both legs.
That reinforced to me that Ray Mentzer was the strongest man Ive ever trained, and Ive been training people for more than 40 years.
Question: Ive read that Ray Mentzer was somewhat of a comedian. Did he ever do any amusing things around Nautilus?
Answer: Ray did have a sense of humor and he often had a joke up his sleeve. He prided himself in being able to "keep a straight face," which threw you off, until you figured out his style. Arthur Jones had some of that ability, too.
One of the funniest Ray Mentzer/Arthur Jones stories occurred during the summer of 1983. At that time, Nautilus had three, state-of-the-art television studios in Lake Helen. Jones had an interest in producing how-to videos on many aspects of sports medicine. It wasnt unusual for Jones to discuss various deals with well-known athletes, or their agents.
One day, Martina Navratilova, the famous tennis player phoned. She was intending to do a series of instructional videotapes and wanted to check out the studios in Lake Helen. Could someone from Nautilus pick her up at the Orlando International Airport the next day at 11:00 AM?
Maybe it was Martinas tone of voice, or maybe she forgot to say please, whatever it was, it didnt set right with Jones. The next morning he instructed Ray Mentzer to meet Martina at the airport and escort her back to Lake Helen. Ray had massive 20-inch arms and 30-inch thighs. He was so big that all he could wear to work were stretchable Ban-Lon shirts and Bugle-Boy pants.
Arthur told Ray to put on his brightest, horizontal-striped shirt (he didnt want Martina to miss him) and be sure and drive the old, unwashed car, which had a broken air-conditioner (that meant hed have to roll down all the windows so air could circulate).
Finally, Jones informed Ray that once he was back in Lake Helen, to give the lady a tour starting with the barn. In the middle of the Nautilus compound was a non-descript, 30- by 50-foot, metal building, which was the home of 40 large crocodiles that Jones had brought in from Jamaica.
By now, you should get the picture.
According to Ray, he got more attention at the airport than Martina did, the dirty car turned her off, and the ride back to Lake Helen was hot, both in temperature and in conversation.
Then, there was the tour through the barn. Ray neglected to tell Martina that there were dangerous crocodiles inside. Instead, he announced that combating successfully what was on the interior was the final test of a Nautilus obstacle course, and let her enter ahead of him. That curveball sent Martina scrambling for a phone. Evidently, her interest in seeing the video studios had vanished. She called a cab and within 15 minutes, was on her way to Orlando.
"I offered to drive her back even told her Id run the car through a Jiffy Wash," Ray deadpanned afterward. "She had promised to help me later with my tennis game. I dont know what went wrong."
Question: How is your book, The New High-Intensity Training, different from other HIT books, such as those written by John Little, Stuart McRoberts, Brian Johnston, and Matt Brzycki?
Answer: I cover some similar topics, such as intensity, form, and progression. But my books differences can be grouped as follows:
History: In my opinion, Arthur Jones, more than any single individual, developed HIT. Thus, I spend about half of my 272-page book relating the stories and experiences of Jones. No other training book has this type of history or background material, which I believe is worthwhile and meaningful in understanding the why of HIT.
Photography: To illustrate the history, I also have more than a hundred photographs from the 1970s that are placed throughout the text.
Whole-body routines: To quote Arthur Jones, "Split routines make about as much sense as sleeping with one eye open." Each routine in the new HIT features at least some exercise for both your upper body and lower body. Why? Because organized properly, you get better results. All the other HIT books eventually have you performing split routines.
Not-to-failure (NTF) workouts: Several chapters and a detailed chart illustrate precisely how to integrate NTF workouts into your standard HIT routines for best-possible results. Furthermore, the chart and routines extend for longer than a year. No other HIT books covers NTF training.
As you can see, my book is distinct from the others.
Question: I also think that the bodybuilder you use to illustrate your HIT exercises has an outstanding build. Who is he?
Answer: Hes Andy McCutcheon and hes been using HIT principles since 1988, when he trained at Dorian Yatess gym in Birmingham, England. McCutcheon placed high in a few contests in Great Britain and relocated in 1992 to Portland, Oregon, where he became an engineer for Novellus Systems. I first noticed McCutcheon six years ago, when close-ups of his arms and torso were featured on the award-winning Bowflex commercial.
"Who is that muscular guy?" I thought to myself.
I found out in 2001, when Andy was selected to demonstrate the exercises for my book, The Bowflex Body Plan. After working with McCutcheon for week, I knew hed be ideal to use for The New High-Intensity Training. When we took the HIT photography, 38-year-old McCutcheon weighed 184 pounds, at a height of 6-feet even, and I personally measured his body fat at 3.4 percent.
Question: Shoot straight with us. Does McCutcheon actually train on Bowflex?
Answer: People ask him that all the time, and Ill shoot straight with you. McCutcheon trains by himself at home in his basement. He has a Bowflex Ultimate machine and he uses it two or three times a week. He also has several bars and 400 pounds of free weights. His overall routines include about 50-percent Bowflex exercises and 50- percent free-weight exercises. McCutcheon believes in simple, get-as-strong-as-you-can, basic exercises. And, hes into the martial arts, so he does some of that several times a week.
Question: In part IV of your book, you devote a chapter to each of eight different specialized routines. As examples, you have a routine for thighs, calves, chest, arms, and waist. Out of curiosity, which one do you like the best?
Answer: To paraphrase Arthur Jones, "Rather than the best, Ill tell you the one that I like the least, which will be the routine that I need the most."
That being the case, then I must go with chapter 16: shocking your hips and thighs. This chapter describes a three-exercise leg cycle. The last of the three exercises: extremely slow leg presses, 4 repetitions in 120 seconds, will rock your world but good. Ive experimented with all styles of leg presses and this one is the hardest of all.
First, you need to have access to an efficient leg-press machine, one that you can adjust by moving the seat forward to prevent you from locking the knees. Use about half the weight that youd normally use. Important, you must have a clock or a watch with a second hand that you can place in plain sight. Or a training partner with a watch can talk your through each phase.
Your goal is for each repetition to take 30 seconds: 15 seconds on the positive and 15 seconds on the negative. The entire movement needs to be fluid and controlled. Pay particular attention to the bottom turnaround. Stay focused and keep the tension and the movement smooth and slow. That fourth repetition will be a bear, but you should be able to finish it which will build your confidence for your next workout.
For your next workout, I want you to increase the resistance by 25 percent. Now, youll experience some of the reasons why this is my least favorite routine. If you can accomplish 4 repetitions with this weight in 120 seconds, youll be ready to add the two pre-exhaustion exercises before you do the leg press.
Anyway, review chapter 16 to find out all the how-tos.
Question: The publisher of your new HIT book is Rodale. Rodale also is behind a number of magazines, such as Mens Health and Prevention. How were they to work with? Are they planning anything special to promote your book?
Answer: Over the last 25 years, I worked with a lot of major publishing houses, such as Little Brown, Simon & Schuster, Contemporary Books, and Putnam. Rodale is the best of the bunch.
They have a New York City office, but the majority of their publishing house in located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, which is a quaint community in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
My initial contact with Rodale occurred 5 years ago when Ken Hutchins introduced me to a Bill Stump, an editor from Mens Health, who was in Orlando interviewing Ken. Stump later introduced me to the guy who eventually became the editor of The New High-Intensity Training.
When I visited Rodales main photography studio in Emmaus, I met with my editor, Lou Schuler, who also is the fitness director for Mens Health. I assumed one of the Mens Health design team would be assigned to do the layout of my book. Instead, the book was assigned to Carol Angstadt, of Rodales womens publishing group, who had never before been involved with a bodybuilding book. In the past, with my bodybuilding books from other publishers, I had always worked with a man on the design and layout. I was a bit worried.
Halfway through the photo shoot, I could tell that Carol was quickly getting a handle on the subject matter. Once I saw her creative design and layout, I realized that she had leapfrogged significantly my other bodybuilding books.
Thanks to Lou Schuler, who did a superb job with editing my words, and Carol Angstadt, who made the format and illustrations pop with excitement, The New High-Intensity Training is going to be, in my opinion, my best book yet.
Rodales marketing team assures me that the book will be:
Excepted in Mens Health MUSCLE magazine (September issue).
Advertised in Muscle & Fitness and Ironman magazines (November and December 2004 issues).
Targeted to fitness and bodybuilding press, newsletters, and Web sites
Promoted with an extensive Internet media campaign.
Overall, Im very pleased with whats happening with the book.
Question: How many bodybuilders do you figure are interested in HIT?
Answer: Lou Schuler, who was recently appointed editor of Rodales newest magazine called, Mens Health MUSCLE, asked me the same question a while back. We researched the HIT interest and heres what we concluded about our audience:
In the early 1980s, when HIT was at its height of popularity, about 16 percent of bodybuilders in the United States were involved with it. Today, that percentage of involvement has shrunk by half, which leaves approximately 8 percent.
The latest statistics from the Sports Goods Manufacturers Association reveals that approximately 20,000,000 males in the United States are actively involved in bodybuilding and strength training. Thus, taking 8 percent of that number indicates that 1,600,000 males are into HIT.
But perhaps more importantly, research shows that with that sliding 8 percent, if there was a unified HIT push, it could rather quickly increase back 16 percent, or 3,200,000 trainees.
It would be impossible to sell a book to each of those existing, 1.6 million trainees. But I believe its a reasonable goal to aim for one-tenth of that number during the first year after publication. That would amount to 160,000 copies sold of The New High-Intensity Training in 12 months.
My original Nautilus book, initially published in 1980 and revised five times, sold more than half a million copies. A goal of 160,000 for The New HIT seems reachable.
Question: If you place those potential HIT users on the far left side a normal, bell-shaped curve, what would you label those on the far right side high-volume trainees?
Answer: Yes thats precisely what we were thinking. As HIT decreased its following from 16 to 8 percent, high-volume training (HVT) increased its numbers from 16 to 24 percent. All of us should strive to win back those previous HIT believers.
And of course, lets not forget about that middle 68 percent, the wishy-washy majority, who have trouble believing seriously in any training philosophy for very long. Surely, with the correct instruction and motivation, we can turn a reasonable percentage of them into HIT believers.
Question: Are you currently working on anything new and exciting?
Answer: I have a couple of projects in the formative stages. One deals with a follow-up to my 1995 book, Living Longer Stronger, which was written for men between the ages of 40 and 60. This new one will be directed to men over 60 years of age. Why? Because thats now my age and someone needs to write sensibly for this group of men. The other project is best described by its working title: Accentuate the NEGATIVE: The Negative Way to Positive Fat Loss.
When I talked with Arthur Jones on July 29, 2004, some thought-provoking discussion took place concerning a brand-new HIT routine. It involves a very unique way to vary the repetition number, as well as the slowness of each repetition. Ill report on the discovery this fall, so I encourage interested readers to visit often at www.DrDarden.com.
Richard Smith
Ontario, CAN
Ellington Darden
Nevada, USA
Ontario, CAN
Florida, USA
chris mason
Virginia, USA


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Ephesians is the great Pauline letter about the church. It deals, however, not so much with a congregation in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor as with the worldwide church, the head of which is Christ (Eph 4:15), the purpose of which is to be the instrument for making God's plan of salvation known throughout the universe (Eph 3:9–10). Yet this ecclesiology is anchored in God's saving love, shown in Jesus Christ (Eph 2:4–10), and the whole of redemption is rooted in the plan and accomplishment of the triune God (Eph 1:3–14). The language is often that of doxology (Eph 1:3–14) and prayer (cf. Eph 1:15–23; 3:14–19), indeed of liturgy and hymns (Eph 3:20–21; 5:14).
The majestic chapters of Ephesians emphasize the unity in the church of Christ that has come about for both Jews and Gentiles within God's household (Eph 1:15–2:22, especially Eph 2:11–22) and indeed the "seven unities" of church, Spirit, hope; one Lord, faith, and baptism; and the one God (Eph 4:4–6). Yet the concern is not with the church for its own sake but rather as the means for mission in the world (Eph 3:1–4:24). The gifts Christ gives its members are to lead to growth and renewal (Eph 4:7–24). Ethical admonition is not lacking either; all aspects of human life and relationships are illumined by the light of Christ (Eph 4:25–6:20).
The letter is seemingly addressed by Paul to Christians in Ephesus (Eph 1:1), a place where the apostle labored for well over two years (Acts 19:10). Yet there is a curiously impersonal tone to the writing for a community with which Paul was so intimately acquainted (cf. Eph 3:2 and Eph 4:21). There are no personal greetings (cf. Eph 6:23). More significantly, important early manuscripts omit the words "in Ephesus" (see note on Eph 1:1). Many therefore regard the letter as an encyclical or "circular letter" sent to a number of churches in Asia Minor, the addressees to be designated in each place by its bearer, Tychicus (Eph 6:21–22). Others think that Ephesians is the letter referred to in Col 4:16 as "to the Laodiceans."
Paul, who is designated as the sole author at Eph 1:1, is described in almost unparalleled terms with regard to the significant role he has in God's plan for bringing the Gentiles to faith in Christ (Eph 3:1–12). Yet at the time of writing he is clearly in prison (Eph 3:1; 4:1; 6:20), suffering afflictions (Eph 3:13). Traditionally this "Captivity Epistle" has, along with Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon, been dated to an imprisonment in Rome, likely in A.D. 61–63. Others appeal to an earlier imprisonment, perhaps in Caesarea (Acts 23:27–27:2). Since the early nineteenth century, however, much of critical scholarship has considered the letter's style and use of words (especially when compared with Colossians), its concept of the church, and other points of doctrine put forward by the writer as grounds for serious doubt about authorship by Paul. The letter may then be the work of a secretary writing at the apostle's direction or of a later disciple who sought to develop Paul's ideas for a new situation around A.D. 80–100.
The principal divisions of the Letter to the Ephesians are the following:
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Having finished six seasons and already at work on their seventh, Supernatural is no stranger to Comic-Con, but this year Ballroom 20 would not be enough to hold them. For the first time ever, Supernatural's panel was hosted in Hall H, with fans filling up the giant hall to scream and cheer for there favorite monster hunting brothers. Moderated by IGN's Eric Goldman, the panel consisted of writer and showrunner Sera Gamble, writer Ben Edlund, Jensen Ackles (Dean), Jared Padalecki (Sam), Misha Collins (Castiel), Jim Beaver (Bobby Singer), and Mark Sheppard (Crowley). Hit the jump to read about what is in store for Sam and Dean this year.
Before the panel, Ackles came out to introduce a "Roads So Far" montage of clips from season 6 as well as a clip from the 3rd episode from season 7, "The Girl Next Door," which is his second time directing an episode of Supernatural. The clip featured special guest stars Jewel Strait as "Amy Pond" and Colin Ford, who reprises his role as young Sam. After the clip Ackles talked a bit about how his experience directing his second episode different from the first back in season 6.
"It was more difficult the second time – last year it was more ignorance is bliss. I had to be in it more this time."
– It was asked whether or not Jared Padalecki behaved for his co-star-come-director, which was answered with a resounding no. But that he trusts Jensen, after six years of working with him, to tell him where to go and when to talk. Ackles added that he doesn't need to tell Padalecki how to be Sam.
– Misha Collins was asked a lot about his character's dark turn at the cliffhanger of last year's finale. To catch up those behind, Castiel has gotten himself a big shiny new set of cosmic powers and has decided that he is the new God, for better or worse. Collins mused about his character's new status, commenting that he was surprised no one has written a godlike role for him before now and how much of a perfect fit it is for him (much to the groaning of his castmates). He feels that the role is a little daunting and is going to be an unusual challenge for him to do.
– Sera Gamble however was very tight lipped about how much we are going to be seeing Castiel in this next season, only stating that he will be in the first 2 episodes. Gamble stated that for a while Cas has felt that God abandoned him, and that his "daddy issues" will play a big role in regards to his new god-status. Castiel felt that God was doing a terrible job and that he will use his new status to do what he believes God should have been doing for a while, cleaning up the messes that he believes that his father has left.
– It was asked if Collins acts different on the set now that he is God. He said that he smites more.
– Mark Sheppard wants a spin-off called "Oh, Crowley," possibly with a bit of singing and dancing. He will be returning in season 7 as Cas has "big plans" for him. Gamble says that we will find out what these are right at the start of the season.
– Jim Beaver was asked about his characters feelings towards Sam and Dean and their treatment of him in the previous season. He stated that he believes Bobby understands that in the world they inhabit, bad things happen; he believes that Bobby knows Sam didn't mean it.
– Ben Edlund was asked if there are any more meta episodes in the works, and he answered that after the "French Mistake" it would be very difficult to top that level of breaking down the fourth wall, but believes that there is still much that can be done with form. He's excited to experiment with what can be done with elements like the Ghostfacers.
– Sam went to some dark places of this last season and Jared Padalecki is excited to see what is the fallout of both what he experienced during his time in hell and also what he was involved in while he was Souless!Sam. Padalecki believes this season is going to deal a lot with Sam being scared and out of his depth with what has happened to him, but also about him healing from these experiences. He also quipped that Collin shirtless scares him. "I think you're confusing fear with jealousy."
– The question of Lisa and Ben was approached; Ackles believed that Dean's sacrifice of them was necessary. That is never going to be his life. Dean is always going to be a hunter and he has bigger problems on his hands now.
– There are no plans as of yet to have Chuck return.
– Death doesn't mean the same thing on Supernatural that is does on other shows and Gamble makes a point to tell actors this when they gets scenes in which they die. He also said that all the main actors have had a death on the show. Padalecki scoffed, "A death? A death?" Ackles then pointed out, "I died like 40 times in one episode."
– Ackles and Padalecki said the scenes where Sam and Dean are fighting and bickering are some of their favorite scenes; they feel like there characters grow during these scenes. Ackles admits that playing off Soulless Sam was very difficult because the way that Sam and Dean have been playing off each other as brothers for years was so ingrained in the way he played Dean that to suddenly have Sam be so out of character threw him off.
There are plans to have a couple characters returning :
– Sheriff Mills is coming back and Beaver hopes that this means that Bobby will get lucky romantically for once.
– Jo is going to return as well, but they were very tight lipped as to how.
– Death is going to make another appearance in season 7
– Since the show already has gone beyond the 5 seasons it was originally plotted it was asked whether there is an ending planned. Gamble said that there is a plan in place if this is their last season and also there is another plan for if they get a pick up. She hopes, however, that it will go on for a long time.
– One fan asked about the arsenal that Sam and Dean keep in their trunk and if we are going to see some of the more esoteric weapons seen in the trunk used in the show, such as Ninja Stars or the grenade launcher. Edlund jokes that if they used the grenade launcher the episodes would be much shorter, but that he hopes to use the Ninja Stars in an episode.
– They touched a bit on the new anime series that is coming out July 26th to DVD and Blu Ray. Supernatural: The Animation is a retelling of the first season and both Ackles and Padalecki voice their characters in many of the episodes. Padalecki commented that it was weird for him because while they were doing the voices it coincided with the finale of the 6th season where he was already playing three different versions of his character, then to add a 4th "past" version of Sam was a little jarring for him.
Season 7 of Supernatural starts this September.