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I have the same problem and I want to know how does the back of the freeezer come off? It is full of ice but I do not wish to let it sit for a day for the ice to melt....
There are probably some screws holding the evaporator cover in place. Turn the fridge off and use a hair drier to melt any frost. If you see no screws look for any dime size circles that could be screw covers. If there are none of these the cover may just be snapped off. Anyway after you get the evaporator exposed melt any remaining ice. If there is a big buildup this could take half an hour or more. Be gentle. Do not use any object to try to chip or break the ice! A puncture of the evap could completely destroy the fridge. When its cleared of ice turn the fridge on before replacing the cover. The evaporator coil should frost up evenly within 10-20 min. That usually indicates the refrigeration is ok and the defrost circuit is inop. Then there's the task of diagnosing the failed component. If you get that far we can discuss that procedure. Hope to have been of some help.
You can replace this main control board which controls the defrost. If the heater and defrost thermostat are ok. RepairClinic.com - Appliance parts for 80 brands, shipped same day.
I fixed my freezer, it was full of ice behind the panel. Broke a couple plastic pieces but now the fan won't break on me. Here's what it looked like. I couldn't tell you the model I have but the symptoms posted previously sounded just like mine. Thanks alot people!
I too faced the same problem with my refrigerator, tried all means could not stop it. now i am looking for a chance to get it out of my house.
I have an LG fridge (side-by-side model) that was making the same noise: like something hitting the fan. Instead of letting the fridge defrost, I got a blow dryer and aimed it at the vents in the back for few minutes. That did the trick - no more noise.
Thanks for the insight that it was likely ice build-up around the fan - I would not have thought of the blow dryer otherwise.
my LG fridge is doing this when i get home hopefully all my food isnt spoiled. ill try this out.
I didn't want to take the time for it all to thaw back there, so I unplugged it, opened the freezer and the sliding door, and waved a hair dryer around the ice for 10 minutes. Put a towel down on the floor of the unit to soak up all the water. The motor noise has stopped now, thanks to your post. But I am not going to want to do this every 6 months. We really haven't come very far since the days when my Mother would defrost her freezer twice a year now, have we Bethany? Never again will I buy a major appliance from LG. NEVER EVER AGAIN!
It will be more like every week. It doesn't take long for the ice to build back up with the automatic defrost system not working.
Had the repair guy in recently. He used a standard clothes steamer to melt the ice in just a couple of minutes.


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Diabetes Health Center
Another Study Suggests Inflammation May Trigger Diabetes
Diabetes specialist Zachary Bloomgarden, MD, tells WebMD that the new study is interesting but not convincing. He points out that Ridker is measuring very low levels of the blood factors, so low that the elevations reported don't suggest "clinical inflammation," meaning that there would be none of the usual physical signs of inflammation such as swelling.
So what Ridker is seeing, says Bloomgarden, may be another aspect of these indicators. He says, for example, that CRP is also produced by fat tissue, especially abdominal fat. He says that CRP produced by fat can affect organs "such as the pancreas, leading to a state of insulin resistance." So it may be that the significance of CRP to diabetes is not as an indicator for inflammation but rather as a "mediator," or causative agent, of the disease process.
Is This Normal? Get the Facts Fast!
Your level is currently
If the level is below 70 or you are experiencing symptoms such as shaking, sweating or difficulty thinking, you will need to raise the number immediately. A quick solution is to eat a few pieces of hard candy or 1 tablespoon of sugar or honey. Recheck your numbers again in 15 minutes to see if the number has gone up. If not, repeat the steps above or call your doctor.
People who experience hypoglycemia several times in a week should call their health care provider. It's important to monitor your levels each day so you can make sure your numbers are within the range. If you are pregnant always consult with your health care provider.
Congratulations on taking steps to manage your health.
However, it's important to continue to track your numbers so that you can make lifestyle changes if needed. If you are pregnant always consult with your physician.
Your level is high if this reading was taken before eating. Aim for 70-130 before meals and less than 180 two hours after meals.
Even if your number is high, it's not too late for you to take control of your health and lower your blood sugar.
One of the first steps is to monitor your levels each day. If you are pregnant always consult with your physician.
Did You Know Your Lifestyle Choices
Affect Your Blood Sugar?
Use the Blood Glucose Tracker to monitor
how well you manage your blood sugar over time.
This tool is not intended for women who are pregnant.
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Lemon juice can help fade darker scars because its acidic nature allows it to work as a natural exfoliant and bleaching agent, according to the Scar Help Center. Lemon juice helps remove layers of dead skin and tissue that compose the scar, so the appearance is diminished. It also contains vitamin C, which is a natural skin brightener. Slice a lemon in half and rub it directly on the scar. When there is enough juice on your skin, massage it into the scar for 5 to 10 minutes. Afterward, rinse the area with cold water.
Home Remedies to Remove Old Scars
If you have scars from old cuts, scrapes or burns, the marks may be a source of embarrassment and discomfort. You may try to hide the scars with clothing or disguise them with makeup. Cosmetic surgeons may be able to remove scars with laser treatments, but for many people, the cost of these procedures may be too steep. There are economical natural remedies that allow you to remove your old scars in the privacy of your home.
Lemon Juice
eHerbal Remedies says that honey is effective in removing the appearance of older scars because it helps moisturize skin. As a result, the area surrounding the scar appears plumper and smoother. Honey also reduces inflammation, so scars are less noticeable. In addition, honey is believed to help stimulate the growth of new cells, so scar tissue may be replaced by fresh skin. Honey may be applied to scars twice daily and left on for 15 to 20 minutes. It may also be left on overnight with a bandage placed over the scar.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C can be helpful in reducing the appearance of old scars because it has healing properties that encourage blood clotting, according to eHerbal Remedies. The ascorbic acid present in vitamin C also helps with the removal of old scar tissue. Vitamin C may be taken internally, but in treating old scars, it is best to use a topical vitamin C cream or serum. For best results, apply twice daily.
Cucumber slices are often used to reduce puffiness under the eyes, and a similar premise may be applied to scar removal. Cucumbers help lessen bruising and swelling, according to eHerbal Remedies.com, so they can be effective in diminishing the appearance of old scar tissue. Instead of slices, mash cucumbers into a paste. Apply to your scar, wrap a bandage around it and leave on overnight. With repeated use, your scar should begin to smooth out.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter is a vegetable fat derived from the cacao bean. It has good moisturizing properties and softens the skin, making it a viable option for old scar removal, according to the Scar Help Center. Apply cocoa butter and gently massage the scar and surrounding area for approximately 5 minutes, twice a day. It may take some time to see results, but the scar tissue should begin to soften and its appearance should become less noticeable.
- Photo Credit un oeil image by binax from Fotolia.com
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FOREX-Euro surges to six-week high vs dollar; outlook cautious
* Euro gains on short-covering, stop-loss buying
* Spain formally asks for European funds to recapitalize banks
* U.S. factory activity shows contraction
* Euro vulnerable to flare-up in "fiscal cliff" worries
By Julie Haviv
NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The euro gained for a fourth straight session against the dollar on Monday to hit a six-week high as news from Spain and Greece lowered concerns about the debt-burdened countries while data out of China allayed worries about global economic growth.
The single currency shared by 17 countries gained against the greenback on signs Germany may be open to a Greek debt write-down, but it hit a new high after Spain formally asked for European funds to recapitalize its banking sector.
Demand for euros was also buoyed by business surveys showing the euro zone's manufacturing sector shrank a little less rapidly in November and data showing Chinese manufacturing output grew last month for the first time in more than a year.
The expansion in Chinese factory activity should provide a boost for world growth, particularly since recovery in the debt-strapped euro zone still appears a long way off.
The array of positive news far outweighed a report showing a surprise contraction in U.S. factory activity.
"There was much more positive news today than negative and that is why the euro has strengthened," said Charles St-Arnaud, foreign exchange strategist at Nomura Securities in New York.
The euro was helped by Spanish and Italian bond yields falling as investors became more confident about buying euro zone debt, and Greek bonds rallied after the announcement of details of a debt buy-back.
"The spreads on Spain's debt versus Germany's have compressed substantially, which has also helped the euro, but it also takes pressure off of Spain to ask for a full government bailout," he said.
If Spain requests a government bailout the euro should rally even further as it sets the stage for the European Central Bank to buys its bonds.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday Greece's creditors may look at writing down more of its debt, a move that would make the country's debt burden more easily sustainable.
Greece said it would spend 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to buy back bonds at a price range that topped market expectations, boosting hopes it can cut its ballooning debt and unlock long-delayed aid.
A successful buy-back is central to the efforts of Greece's foreign lenders to put the near-bankrupt country's debt back on a sustainable footing and would clear the way for the funding Athens needs to avoid running out of cash.
"The successful completion of the repurchase will unlock bailout cash from the IMF and help secure the flow of rescue funds from the so-called 'troika' in 2013," said Ilya Spivak, currency strategist at DailyFX in New York.
Greece's "troika" of lenders includes the International Monetary Fund, European Union and the European Central Bank.
"Confidence may be threatened as the closely watched U.S. ISM print comes across the wires," Spivak said.
The euro climbed to $1.3076, its highest since Oct. 22, before paring gains to last trade up 0.6 percent on the day at $1.3064.
Traders said stop-loss orders were triggered on the break of $1.3030, and market players who had previously bet against the euro were squaring their short positions as it moved higher.
There was talk of an options barrier at $1.3050 with some traders expecting sellers around that level.
Despite the euro recovering from falls after ratings agency Moody's downgraded the euro zone rescue funds late on Friday , the single currency looked vulnerable to continuing concerns about how the euro zone will deal with its debt crisis and worries about the U.S. "fiscal cliff".
If Congress and Washington cannot reach a deficit reduction deal by the end of the year, massive U.S. government spending cuts and tax rises will be unleashed in early 2013. Many economists believe this "fiscal cliff" has the potential to tip the U.S. economy back into a recession.
Signs policymakers are struggling to reach an agreement to avert that scenario could boost demand for the highly liquid dollar, which is considered a safe-haven currency.
"Resolution of the U.S. fiscal cliff still seems some way off, and it is increasingly likely that a comprehensive agreement will be delayed into the new year, meaning the economy may go over the cliff in January only to be hauled back up again soon after," said Simon Hayes, analyst at Barclays Capital.
The yen has been under pressure on expectations that a likely change in Japan's government later this month would lead to aggressive monetary easing.
The dollar last traded down 0.2 percent against the yen at 82.24, retreating from last month's peak of 82.82 yen, according to Reuters data.
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Wilkinson shows off a leaner look in New York. Plus: Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson, Megan Fox, Jennifer Garner & Violet and more
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Megan Fox and boyfriend Brian Austin Green flaunt matching six-packs Tuesday while vacationing in Kona, Hawaii. The brunette beauty is enjoying some newfound free time – she recently left the Transformers franchise.
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Florida is undergoing a radical conservative transformation under Gov. Rick Scott, but one of his top proposals seems to be a bridge too far and too soon even for the Republican supermajorities in the state House and Senate.Even at a time when billion-dollar deficits have become the norm for Flor ... More >>
Forget the awful past, say Alfonso and Pepe Fanjul, Florida's sugar barons. It's time to make nice and go into real estate.
University of Miami's Deborah Mash believes ibogaine could be the wonder drug to end all drugs. And she's ready to risk everything to prove it.


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The Spanish take their wine aging very seriously–they are truly concerned with not releasing a wine "before its time." So much so that they've written it into their wine laws:
A Spanish quality wine labeled Crianza (red wine) must be aged a minimum of 2 years, with at least six months in barrel (barrica de vino). In Navarra, Rioja, and Ribera Del Duero, the minimum time in barrel is a year. White wines must be a year old, with at least six months in barrel.
Reserva wines (red) must be aged at least three years, with one year in barrel. Whites must be two years old, with at least six months in barrel.
Gran Reserva wines (red) must be aged at least five years, with 18 months in barrel. In Navarra, Rioja, and Ribera Del Duero, the minimum barrel time is two years. White wines must be four years old, with at least six months in barrel.
Spain, by the way, has more land under vines than any other country on earth.
South Africa is one of those wine regions that a lot of people have heard about, but few people–too few, anyway—have taken the time to discover and explore its wines. I'm a little bit in that category; I've tasted some of its stuff from time to time, particularly Chenin Blanc, which they sometimes call "Steen" locally, and of course Pinotage, a cross of Cinsault and Pinot Noir that was literally invented in South Africa in 1925. But I've never really spent much time thinking about South Africa except at an occasional tasting. And for a lot of people, SA is really just off their wine map, and that's unfortunate.
Wine has been produced in South Africa probably since the mid-1600s, when vine cuttings from Europe were brought to the cape. But grape growing and wine production unfortunately didn't follow a path of steady growth and improvement. Over the next three centuries, both good and bad wine was made, but South Africa really never became a major player on the world wine stage. In the early 1900s, a cartel called the KWV was formed and gained considerable power, with quotas on grape production and controls on prices. In the end, this really didn't do the SA wine business much good and led to the production of a lot of, well, crappy wine. However, about 18 years ago the power of KWV was essentially stripped away, and the industry has really begun to flourish.
Today South African producers are starting to open up space on American shelves, and its winemakers and marketers are showing up here to showcase their products. South Africa, if I'm not mistaken, is the 8th largest wine producer in the world in fact. The country as a whole is making great strides—the really miserable, gamey offerings of Pinotage have tapered off to a trickle, and some great sparkling wines are coming out, as are possibly the best Chenin Blancs from anywhere. There are also some excellent Chardonnays, Rieslings and even Bordeaux blends being produced, some with the help of so-called "flying winemakers" from France.
I was able to enjoy some of these wines a few weeks ago with two producers from Stellenbosch Vineyards, from of course the Stellenbosch region, about 30 miles northeast of Cape Town. Here, in the "Bordeaux of South Africa," the current winemakers trace their lineage back to 1690, including the land making up the Welmoed (courage) farm, named to commemorate Jacobus van der Heyden, its first owner, who stood up to the corruption of the Dutch governor of the day. Our New York hosts were Eduan Steynberg, one of the Stellenbosch Vineyards' owners and its managing director, and Johann Diedericks, whose job it is to sell to American consumers. Although they were on a whirlwind tour, they both were clearly enjoying their time in New York.
Over the course of the evening at Manhattan's Vareli restaurant, we tasted several wines:
- Four Secrets Sparkling Shiraz: a light, crisp, only slightly sweet sparkling wine. I've tasted a bunch of these from Australia, and this is decidedly different, and mostly better.
- Stellenbosch Vineyards Heyden's White: Very crisp, the Sauvignon dominates, but the Viognier adds body and floral aromas.
- Welmoed Chenin Blanc: This is a tremendous, just outstanding Chenin Blanc and one of the best <$10 white wines I've tasted in a very long time.
- Stellenbosch Vineyards Bushvine Pinotage: Here they got past the smoky, too-earthy and way-too-gamey Pinotage wines I've tasted far too often from South Africa. Clean, integrated and well balanced.
- Stellenbosch Vineyards Heyden's Red: A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Solid blackfruit, moderate but integrated tannin and a nice long finish.
- Stellenbosch Credo Shiraz: A little deceiving. Much of this is Shiraz (Syrah), but there's a good proportion (∼30%) of Merlot in here and the rest Viognier, yes, a white grape, that adds floral aromas. Powerful and balanced but not over the top.
When you think of Italian wine—and I'm just guessing here—you probably think of reds. Dr. Hannibal Lecter aside, Chianti is the wine everyone knows best, made from Sangiovese grapes grown in Tuscany, and it's a truly great food wine. Amarone, one of my favorites, is lush and powerful, with a hint of sweetness, made from partially-dried Corvina grapes, and works best with rich food. And Barolo and Barbaresco wines, made from the Nebbiolo grape, are among the greatest red wines of Europe. And of course there are the Super-Tuscans, fairly expensive wines often (but not always) made from a base of Sangiovese, and then "suped-up" with Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot. The most famous of these, Sassicaia, actually has no Sangiovese at all, and can retail for $200 a bottle.
If you think of any white wine from Italy, it's likely to be Pinot Grigio. PG used to be and probably still is the most popular imported wine in the United States, and what my friend Tina Caputo of Vineyard and Winery Management magazine calls "accessible." Well, she's right. But much of it isn't terribly good, with little aroma, body or flavor. Now, there are Italian whites of note—Prosecco, of course; Gavi, from the Cortese grape; Lugana, made from Trebbiano; and of course Soave, made mainly from Garganega. And then there's always Chardonnay. I guess everywhere, there's Chardonnay. But I don't know that I can name a truly standout Italian white; I mean something I crave, or crow about.
That's why I was really looking forward to tasting some Italian white wine that just might be memorable, and also a wine with which I wasn't so familiar.
So I was excited as I walked into Bettony restaurant on West 57th in Manhattan and bounded down the steps to the private dining room, set up more elegantly than for just about any other tasting I've ever attended. I was the first guest there, but before my friend Jane could introduce me to our winemaker host, Andrea Felluga, she had to tear him away from several magnums of Terre Alte, which he was opening and tasting in advance of our arrival. Over the next couple hours Andrea treated us to a "vertical" tasting of these interesting and unique whites, in this case eight vintages ranging from 1997 to 2012. Literally, "high land", Terre Alte is a blend of Friulano, Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon Blanc wines, from grapes grown in Friuli in far northeastern Italy.
The winery was founded by Andrea's father Livio Felluga, whose name is on the label, and he bottled a first vintage in 1956. But these were single-grape varietal wines; Terre Alte wasn't born until until 1981, and that was only after a long struggle by Andrea's Brother Maurizio, finally persuading his father that a blended wine was the key to the future.
This break with tradition was significant, because while the Friulian winery was relatively new, the family's history in the business spans five generations, and began in the Istrian peninsula, in what became Yugoslavia, and is today shared by Italy (a tiny slice), Slovenia and Croatia. In the 1930s, Livio, having made only two vintages, headed off to WWII, and when he returned home, the family had lost all its vineyards in Yugoslavia. They ended up working the slopes of Friuli, where Livio, Mario Schiopetto and a few other pioneers had set about creating a Friulian "archetype" white wine. By the 1960s they were producing pure, light, aromatic wines from gently-pressed grapes fermented in antiseptically-clean and refrigerated tanks.
The base of Terre Alte is Friulano, but for decades, maybe centuries, it's been known here as Tocai. Some wine scholars say it's related to Furmint, which is the grape used to make the rich Hungarian dessert wine Tokaji, and to avoid the confusion (though you'd never confuse the dry, crisp Terre Alte with the cloyingly sweet Tokaji) the locals all refer to the grape as Friulano now. There are more stories about a more modern version of Friulano related to another grape, but I won't bore you.
Anyway, the tasting. We began with the 2012, which as Andrea admitted, is "hardly wine" at this very early stage. I agreed. And enough said. The others, though, were truly interesting, and some were outstanding. All of these wines generally have many of the characteristics of Sauvignon Blanc—nicely refreshing—but are certainly more complex, with varying amounts of fruit, and they all age nicely.
Terre Alte 2011: Nice for such a young wine. Dominant citrus, well balanced, a very slight cinnamon aroma; medium to long finish.
Terre Alte 2009: Soft, round, and rich, with a hint of vanilla and a short finish. Not my favorite.
Terre Alte 2008: Perfectly balanced, with a touch of ginger, and a long finish. Outstanding. Best of the lot!
Terre Alte 2006: Fresh and fruity (thanks, Denny's) which is unusual for these wines. Just a hint of sweetness. Very nice.
Terre Alte 2001: Strong mineral character, briskly acidic, with a medium to long finish. Nice.
Terre Alte 1998: Well balanced, crisp, really smacks of the Sauvignon Blanc; strangely doesn't show its age!
Terre Alte 1997: Does show its age; softer, lacks the acid it needs for balance.
Looking forward to lunch with Andrea Felluga of Friuli's (Italy) Livio Felluga wines, on Wednesday, at Manhattan's Betony Restaurant. Meeting winemakers is always great fun. As is lunch in New York during working hours!
The world of Italian wine might be more complex and mystifying to most Americans than any other wine region, including France or Spain. Yet it's only been the last 25 years or so that Italian wines have really taken off here, due in large part to a couple things—one, a revolution of a sorts in modern winemaking, and two, the introduction of the so-called "super-Tuscans", wine based on the Sangiovese (Chianti) grape, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot added for structure and body. That actually points out one of the things that's typically been a stereotype but true about Italian wines; they've always been known for their finesse, moderation and balance, true food wines, rather than blockbusters. And of course, that makes a lot of sense, given the Italian penchant for fine food. And at least during my visits to Italy, I couldn't get and haven't had a bad meal, although I did have some less than stellar wine.
But there's some great wine coming from Italy now, and there always has been. A few years ago I was privileged to work with Marilyn Krieger at Winebow, and taste many of Leonardo Locasio's many fine import selections. But just last week, I had the pleasure of actually sitting down with a scion of one of Italy's great winemaking families, for a lunch and vertical tasting of wines from the Capezzana estate of the Conte (Count) Contini Bonacossi Family, in Tuscany, perhaps Italy's greatest wine region.
Our hostess, Beatrice Contini Bonacossi, is one of four siblings (of a total of seven) who are directly involved in the winery, and its global brand ambassador. As she buzzed around the modern yet elegant Soho apartment she's renting as her NY headquarters, chatting with the dozen or so of us that she'd invited over, I cornered her for a few moments and learned that she fell into this line of work really by accident, selling high-end German cookware while a student in London. Her brother Vittorio figured out that her skills in sales and customer relations would be transferable to the wine business…and so it has!
The Capezzano Estate is huge by any standard, with a total of about 1650 acres, with 200 under grapevine, 140 in olives, and the rest farmland and private property. The place is about 12 miles west of Florence in the Apennine Mountains, but at only about 600 foot elevation, daytime temps are high and nights are cool. The grapes ripen early here.
The specific wine region here, Carmignano DOCG, is Tuscany's smallest wine appellation but it has an important history and influence. Long before the Super-Tuscans were adding Bordeaux grapes to their wines, the story is that the Medici family (yes, that one) was adding Cabernet Sauvignon to its Sangiovese-based wines 450 years ago. The winery's offerings include DOC, DOCG and IGT wines, and to refresh your memory:
DOC: Demoninazione di Origine Controllata or Demonination of Controlled Origin. Reserved for Italy's best wines, and created in '63. Also says how wines in this category have to be made.
DOCG: Demoninazione di Origine Controllata e Guarantita or Demonination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin. Reserved for Italy's most prestigious wines, a level above DOC. DOCG was created in '63 with DOC, which just leaves off the "G." There are 31 DOCG zones.
IGT: Indicazione Geographica Tipica or Typical Geographic Indication. Middle ground between table wine and DOC/DOCG (classified) wines.
Villa de Capezzana Riserva DOC 1968: 65% Sangiovese, 10% Cab, 15% Canaiolo, and 10% other regional grapes. Hints of cinnamon, very little tannin, still nicely balanced and has maintained its acid.
Villa de Capezzana Riserva DOC 1977: 65% Sangiovese, 10% Cab, 15% Canaiolo, and 10% other regional grapes. Mint, violets, very light bodied, but holding up well.
Villa de Capezzana Riserva DOCG 1988: 70% Sangiovese, 15% Cab, 10% Canaiolo, and 5% other regional grapes. This was the first DOCG vintage. Moderate tannin but has lost some fruit, mint and leather, actually tasted older than the '77.
Villa de Capezzana Riserva DOCG 1998: 80% Sangiovese, 20% Cab. First vintage fermented in a type of vessel called a tonneaux. Nice balance, medium-long finish. Overall a very nice wine.
Villa de Capezzana DOCG 2008: 80% Sangiovese, 20% Cab. Lots of fruit, lots of tannin. Fun wine to drink.
Trefiano DOCG 2007: 80% Sangiovese, 10% Cab, 10% Canaiolo. Easy drinking, yes. Complex, no.
Ghiaie della Furba IGT 2007: 80% Sangiovese, 30% Merlot, 10% Syrah. Wow. This wine punches you in the mouth with flavor and acid, spice and a long finish.
Other Capezzana Wines:
Sessante IGT 2007: 100% Merlot. Wonderful wine. Great balance, nice blackfruit, great long finish.
Vin Santo DOC 2006: 90% Trebbiano and 10% San Colombano. Wonderful, nutty sweet dessert wine. I'd drunk Trebbiano as a dry white table win but I'd never heard of San Colombano before. Bet you never have either.
There's a chill in the air and it's probably time for many if not most people to break out some reds.
But maybe one last bottle of Rose will go down nicely, sitting on the deck after a football game this weekend. Just got a bottle of Banfi's Centine (Chen-teen-eh) Rose 2012 and snapped open the (yes) screwcap last night.
This pale salmon-colored wine delivers strawberry and melon flavors, a nice balance and a long finish, and I don't really find that real hint of sweetness that others do, which suits me just fine. Maybe there's a skosh. A great fall wine with appetizers and wings before the game, too.
For some food and Rose wine pairing ideas, go here and here.
I built this website to help you de-mystify the world of wine, so that you can try new stuff at your local retailer, or order confidently in a restaurant. And this little article should also give you some gumption when you attend your first, or 20th, wine tasting.
So – you're invited to a formal wine tasting…and you want to go. After all, it's for a worthy charity that you know, and they've got some wonderful cult California reds and brilliant French white Burgundies. Yum. So you register, and pay your $75, and you show up with anticipation. You're new to the world of wine, and the only "tastings" you've ever attended are at a friend's house. And we all know that those were really more like wine "drinkings," also known as "parties."
So when you stand outside and gaze into the tasting room, you feel overwhelmed as you watch the light reflect off hundreds of freshly washed glasses, while the assembled guests preen and prance around like masters of the universe. This is supposed to be fun, right? But all you see is very serious-looking people having what look like very serious conversations with well-dressed men and women standing behind tables, carefully pouring a small sample into each glass. The guests hold their glasses up to the light very deliberately, and then swirl them with great ostentation before sticking their noses in so deeply that you think they'll break – the glasses, their noses, or both. You hear one say something about the "mid-palate" and another remark that "too much time in 100% French is obvious." Some guests even have those little shiny "tastevins" around their neck, while the prettiest woman in the room is spitting into a ceramic bucket from three feet away with the accuracy of a Marine sniper.
Aside from all these affectations of wine tasting, you think to yourself "I'm not really experienced or very good at this…and what if one of the wine suppliers asks me to describe their product wine in 'wine terms' – I will literally shrink to the floor!" You assume that the palates of these critics – and their tastes in wine in general – are so much more "refined" than yours, that you're simply out of place here.
Well, don't, and, you're not.
Why do I say that? Because in 2001, a professor at the University of Bordeaux conducted two wine tasting experiments that show just how much even so-called experts are influenced by pre-conceived perceptions. In the first of his two scams, Professor Frederick Brochet invited a bunch of self-anointed wine gurus to describe the flavors and aromas of both red and white wines he poured. One of these high priests praised the red for its "jamminess," while another talked of its "crushed red fruit." None of the almost 60 experienced tasters figured out that the red was really a white wine, tinted darkly with food coloring! The second test with a different group was even sneakier, in which ordinary and inexpensive red table wine was placed in a pricey Grand Cru-labeled bottle, and also in its original labeled bottle.
In other words, a single wine was passed off as itself - and as a different, far superior wine. Yet three-quarters of the experts there judged the "grand cru" as "complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin de table (ordinary wine) in their view was "weak, light, flat and faulty".
But they were the same wine!
My points here are simple:
France, and specifically Bourgogne, what we in the great USA call Burgundy, is where the world's best Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays are grown. And I say "grown" because Burgundy is all about the vineyard rather than the chateau or winery.
Not to say that there aren't some excellent Pinots and Chardonnays from other places – old world and new, oaked and unoaked, cool climate and hot climate, austere and crisp. Of course, there are also sweet, caramel-y, and in my view pretty much undrinkable wines from those places, too. Think Yellowtail, or, actually, don't.
I've tasted Pinots from New Zealand and Oregon that rival the best from Burgundy, and recently I had a Chardonnay from Italy that I might have sworn was a Premier Cru from France. But for a whole bunch of reasons, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay just seem to grow better in Burgundy than just about anywhere else on earth. Incidentally, several other grapes are at home in Burgundy including Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Aligote—a totally under-appreciated white grape that has some similarities to Chardonnay—and last but not least, Gamay, the great grape of Beaujolais.
Now you could spend a lifetime learning about all the vineyards in Burgundy. You could memorize all 33 Grands Crus and win a wine-trivia contest, and you could read the 821 pages of Clive Coates's The Wines of Burgundy and learn far more than you wanted to know about this almost perfect wine-growing place. I'm about a third of the way through it and frankly it's more like a career than a book. But maybe you just want to know a little bit.
A Reign of Terroir
What you might find more interesting if you care about any of this, beyond just how good these wines taste, is the idea of terroir. This is the somewhat mystical concept which holds that the wine is a result of the soil, subsoil, temperature, rainfall, elevation, drainage, sun exposure and hours of sunlight, density and orientation of the vines, wind, cover crop, and a bunch of other things related to the vineyard, far more than anything the winemaker does. Nowhere in the wine world more than Burgundy is the idea of terroir held so absolutely, regardless of whether any of it can be proved. And I don't think it can. Yet many people believe absolutely in the idea.
A Brief History of Burgundy
For hundreds of years leading up to the French Revolution, the great vineyards of Burgundy were owned by the nobility and the Catholic Church, who leased them out through a chain of proprietors down to the tenant farmer who actually maintained the land and the vines, and grew the grapes. While the nobility is long gone and the Church has invested in other things, this fragmented owner/operator system still exists.
The first Burgundy chateau we know of was built by monks from Citeau in the year 1115. And as far back as 1395, a focus on quality was formally established through an ordinance published by Duc Philip "the Bold." Twenty years later, King Charles VI set the original boundaries of the Burgundy wine-producing area.
In 1720, the merchant company Champy was founded…and is still in business today. And as the French Revolution came 60 years later, vineyards owned and operated by the Catholic church were confiscated and auctioned off, setting the stage for today's Burgundy where even tiny vineyards often have multiple owners. In 1861, Beaune's Agricultural Committee issued the first classification of Burgundy wines of the Côte d'Or.
In 1875, the nasty little louse Phylloxera began destroying the vines in Burgundy, and in return, huge vineyard areas were eventually torn out and replanted. On the eve of WWII, Morey-Saint-Denis became the first Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) in Bourgogne; on the eve of D-Day, the "Premier Cru" category was created in the region. In 1975, Burgundy's version of Champagne called "Cremant de Bourgone" was granted AOC status, and just five years ago, Bourgogne Tonnerre became the region's 100th appellation.
Understanding the Classifications
Burgundy is composed of five distinct regions, from north to south: Chablis, Cote d'Or (Cote de Beaune in the north and Cotes de Nuits in the south), Cote Chalonnaise, Maconnais and Beaujolais. The Cote d'Or alone has 28 different wine-producing villages called communes, with a total of 20,000 acres or 8100 hectares of vineyards. The entire region has about 72,000 acres of vineyards, and produces about 200 million bottles of wine a year.
The classifications in Burgundy do have a certain logic to them, but they're still a pain in the ass, and they're far different from the Bordeaux ones. The important thing here is the vineyard and village where the grapes are grown, rather than the Chateau (winery) as in Bordeaux.
The top classification is Grand Cru— there are 33 Grand Cru Appellations representing about only 1.5% of the wines produced here —and they're named by the single vineyard alone. If you've spent some time in the Burgundy section of a wine store, some of these names might ring a bell: Bâtard-Montrachet, Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, Échezeaux, Montrachet, Musigny, Richebourg, and Romanée-Conti. Each Grand Cru wine really is its own Appellation.
The second tier is ironically named Premier Cru or "first growth", sometimes abbreviated 1er Cru. These also represent great terroir and about 10% of Burgundy's production. In an interesting twist, a few 1er Cru wines will actually take grapes from more that one named vineyard, and then they'll keep the Premier Cru designation but name the wine for the village only. But they'll always say "Appellation Premier Cru Controlee."
Tier 3 are true Village wines, about 37% of all Burgundies, and the grapes for these wines are sourced from vineyards within a single village or commune…and that's what they'll say, the village name; for example, "Appellation Nuits-St. George Controlee." The thing here is that the vineyards themselves have to be classified at the village level or better.
Bringing up the rear, but by no means bottom-feeders, are wines from the 23 Regional AOCs, making up about 52% of all Burgundies. Make no mistake, the wines from regional appellations can be superb and command pretty big prices. These will be labeled by the broad region alone, such as Appellation Bourgogne Controllee, or by a smaller sub-region such as Cote de Beaune. Regional wines can also have the name of the grape on the label, and this is the only level in Burgundy where this is permitted.
The Wines: Chardonnay
Chardonnay is far too often grown in hot-climate areas all over the world, allowed to overripen, and then turned into high-alcohol, over-oaked, sweet caramel bombs. I know that some people like these, including a lot of Americans, so who am I to say they shouldn't drink them…just because I won't?
But since we're on the subject of White Burgundies, I want to mention that while there are a lot of lousy ones from here, there are also the world's best, with names on the bottles that you've probably heard of such as Chassagne, Meursault and Puligny. The finest are rich without being sweet, with enough oak to balance their acidity and bring out the honey, nutty, vanillin and toasty flavors that make this wine, well, the best white wine on earth.
As an aside I want to give a shout-out to Chablis, and no I don't mean the crappy, sweet and watery California jug wine I drank in college, made from French Colombard grapes. Although it's considered the northernmost part of the Burgundy region, Chablis is actually about 70 miles northwest of the top end of the Cote d'Or. Its chalky soil (similar to the soil of Champagne), relatively cool climate, and restrained style of winemaking produces wines that are often described as austere or flinty. What they are for sure is about the purest "expression" of Chardonnay.
The Wines: Pinot Noir
The merits of Burgundian Pinot Noirs are probably discussed and debated among wine lovers more than any other grape, wine or wine region. People that love them don't think anything else comes close, and they'll give you the reasons: they're elegant, perfumed, silky, subtle, nuanced, and glorious! Notoriously thin-skinned, Pinots are lighter in color and lower in perceptible tannin than almost any other red wines, and deliver up a lush bouquet of summer fruit: to me, red cherries, strawberries and raspberries. As they age they gain spiciness and complexity that they clearly lack in youth, and contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom Red Burgundies can age for a very long time, at least those from good terroirs in the best vintages.


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Penetration Testing
mailing list archives
Please can you help? Has any-one else out there had issues with NMAP port scans
(or any other port scanner) causing systems to crash?
I use Nessus to baseline the security of our systems and have twice had problems
caused by the NMAP port scan on clustered unix boxes running our enterprise
applications. NOTE - it was the initial port scan that caused the problems, not
the subsequent vulnerability assessment.
I've done a quick Google search and found confirmation for one of the systems -
BUGTRAQ Vulnerability 3358, "IBM HACMP Port Scan Denial of Service Vulnerability",
the other was a bespoke app running on some HP UX boxes.
Does any-one know of other systems that fall over with a simple port scan?
Up til now I've been running port scans happily across our subnets to look for
rogue FTP, SMTP, HTTP etc, obviously I'll have to take more care now...
Thanks in advance for any help.
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only. If you are not the named recipient, you must not use, disclose, reproduce,
copy or distribute the contents of this communication. If you have received this
in error, please contact the sender and then delete this email from your system.
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Space Kitty
by Dr. Lukas Brezak
Phone Cases
Protect your iPhone with a one-piece, impact resistant, flexible plastic hard case featuring an extremely slim profile. Simply snap the case onto your iPhone for solid protection and direct access to all device features.
Yeah... 2o1O... do you remember year 2o1O? Oh...
- 214Promote
LOL - I was going to say Gagarin's cat in Space Odyssey ...but 2010 is fine too :
Very cool one Lucas !!
Very cool one Lucas !!


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A world of health and beauty
Welcome to Looks Divine Whole Body Beauty and Health.
Since opening in 2007 we have become one of Perth's most well known and respected clinics with locations in Nedlands and the CBD of Perth. This year both clinics where accredited with the ISO 9001 International Standard of Excellence in Aesthetics and Cosmetics. Looks Divine Whole Body Beauty and Health is the first accredited cosmetic clinic in Australia.
We offer a wide range of Beauty, Skin treatments, the latest cosmetic treatments, womens health and hormonal expertise and plastic surgery. This includes anti-wrinkle treatments, dermal fillers, peels, the new Venus Freeze for fat reduction and skin tightening as well as hormone replacement and facial plastic surgery.
At Looks Divine Whole Body Beauty and Health we aim to make your experience with us second to none and our goal is to provide honest advice about the most effective treatment for you and provide realistic expectations on what can be achieved.Now availbable to buy online


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" Humans don't know what it means to be a monster. To them a monster is anything they don't understand. They give it this horrific label and treat it as a threat, rejecting, exterminating, slaughtering it into oblivion. Monsters are simply your way of hiding your own ignorance. You do it even to your own species…"
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I vondeah… vhat et means zhat I call mein self zhat… eh?… hmm.. /He ponders on this/ Mein own ignorance?
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BREAD & BUTTER Tradeshow Summer 2013: Reebok Classic 2014 Spring/Summer Preview
As trade show season begins to unravel, here we take a trip to Berlin, Germany for the biannual BREAD & BUTTER show for Summer 2013. We stopped by the Reebok Classic booth to view some of the new colorways the brand has in store for the upcoming seasons. While all of the exciting new sneakers cannot be revealed, here Reebok teases audiences with a look at upcoming releases from the Pump collection, including the highly coveted Pump Omni Lite. Here we find a fittingly retro theme across the sneakers, with white and yellow colors featured heavily on two silhouettes. Whether this will be applied onto the full collection is yet to be seen, but for now, enjoy a preview of the Reebok Classic Spring/Summer 2014 line above.


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/// Land Shark, Two Wild and Crazy Guys and Schweddy … Yahoo Adds 38-Year SNL Archive to Site
April 25, 2013 | All Things Digital
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a blog post that the Silicon Valley Internet giant had reached an agreement with Broadway Video to "feature Saturday Night Live content exclusively on Yahoo! The partnership gives Yahoo! users exclusive access to the entire 38-year archive of SNL content as well as clips from the current season." The content will be available across Yahoo's sites, she said. While a lot of the content is already widely available across the Web and for years — thus, kind of stretching the idea of exclusive a bit — having it all in one place online, as the Church Lady says: "Isn't that special ?"
Read the rest here:
Land Shark, Two Wild and Crazy Guys and Schweddy … Yahoo Adds 38-Year SNL Archive to Site
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- 11/16/2013 • Dish, Media General Reach TV Deal Ending 47-Day Blackout


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This ugly bug landed on my desk. And since I was studying SAT words yesterday, I killed it with one of my flashcards. Behold what word I killed it with, SURREPTITIOUS. It means to be sneaky. The surreptitious bug couldn't outwit my surreptitious-ness. Haha, okay. That was terrible. I'll stop now.
3 years ago on June 04, 2011 at 04:54pm
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Deputies Arrest Two Persons for Breaking Into Home
Lexington County Sheriff's Department deputies on Saturday, July 27 arrested a 25-year-old Gilbert woman and a 34-year-old Gilbert man on charges that they broke into a home on Main Street in Gilbert on July 18 and were caught in the act on Saturday of unlawfully removing the sheet metal roof of a storage building outside the same residence on Main Street.
Lexington County Sheriff James R. Metts said deputies arrested Jennifer Hatchell, 25, of 614 Main Street, Gilbert, and Jeremy Earl Warner, 34, of 1428 Marcellus Road, Gilbert, on charges of third-degree burglary, petit larceny, obtaining ferrous metals unlawfully and possessing implements that are capable of being used to commit a crime. Hatchell and Warner were being held on Monday, July 29 at the Lexington County Detention Center on bail totaling $27,130 each. Warner is Hatchell's boyfriend and the father of Hatchell's child.
At about 12:25 p.m. on Saturday, deputies went to the home on Main Street in order to investigate suspicious activity that had been reported at the residence, Metts said. Deputies encountered Hatchell walking out of the home's back porch, with a crowbar in one of her hands.
Deputies found Warner in woods near the storage building outside the home, Metts said. Portions of the sheet metal roof on the storage building had been removed, with sheet metal piled by the building. Deputies found a backpack in Hatchell's possession that contained one hammer, tin snips, one screwdriver, one prying tool and one flashlight.
Deputies found that multiple holes had been cut in the drywall and living room floor in the Main Street home in order to remove copper wire, Metts said. Holes also had been cut in the bathroom floor in order to remove copper pipes that connect to the home's water heater.
Metts asked anyone with information about additional criminal activity involving Hatchell or Warner to contact the Lexington County Sheriff's Department at (803) 785-8230 or CrimeStoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC. Citizens also can provide information anonymously by accessing the Crime Tip link on the Sheriff's Department web site (www.lexingtonsheriff.com).
10/24/2014 - Criminal Domestic Violence Video
10/21/2014 - Deputies Arrest Man for Sexually Assaulting Two Females
10/18/2014 - Detectives Arrest Woman for Threatening to Use Destructive Device
10/06/2014 - White Knoll Business Coalition Open House
09/29/2014 - Man Arrested for Robbing Two Convenience Stores and Trying to Rob One Discount Store
09/25/2014 - Man Arrested in Fatal Shooting
09/23/2014 - Man Charged with Burglary
09/22/2014 - Shooting Incident
09/22/2014 - Investigators Seek Citizens' Help in Investigating 2009 Murder
09/17/2014 - Road Closures
09/17/2014 - Detectives Arrest Man for Trying to Steal Two Motor Vehicles
09/16/2014 - Sheriff's Department Donates More than $3,000 to Nancy K. Perry Children's Shelter
09/11/2014 - Man Returned to Lexington County on Murder Charges
09/09/2014 - Missing Person Investigation
09/07/2014 - Woman Charged with Intentionally Setting Fire to Residence
08/28/2014 - Fugitive Investigators Arrest Man Who Owed More Than $170,000 in Child Support Payments
08/25/2014 - Sheriffs Department Donates Over 700 to United Way
08/22/2014 - CrimeStoppers Tip Enables Detectives to File Charge
08/19/2014 - Explorers Post 106 First Nighters Meeting
08/19/2014 - Detectives Arrest Two Men for Stealing One Motor Vehicle and Stealing Items from Four Motor Vehicles
08/14/2014 - Man Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Two Children
08/08/2014 - Officer Involved Shooting Investigation
08/07/2014 - Aviation Unit Recovers Stolen Vehicle During National Night Out
08/04/2014 - Man Arrested for Attempted Murder and Heroin Trafficking
07/31/2014 - Sheriff Promotes Two Deputies
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"The percent of teenagers sending or posting sexually suggestive messages:
|As bad as Miranda thinks Germaine is; I don't think Germaine's ever used someone's infertility as a weapon against them.
Fuck it's set in the 60's. How hard is to type "Mad Men" into Wikipedia? And remember this Rolling Stone cover?:
|because it's not possible that she was enjoying much of the sex she was pursuing; she has clearly been zombified by our sexualising culture
|I wonder why she doesn't have statistics for that last claim …
|Calm down Mrs Robinson
Classic Miranda, 2006: Integration is not just about accepting female equality, as the Prime Minister suggests, but about the willingness of moderate Muslim families to trust their daughters to a culture that seems to tolerate the premature sexualisation of girls.
Anecdotes from the adolescent front line suggest their angst is not unfounded.
For instance, a year 8 student, aged 15, attending a Sydney private girls' school has apparently been given permission to sleep with her boyfriend in the family home at weekends. Since the peer group moves in concert, other parents despair at their ability to rein in their 14- and 15-year-old daughters while competing with such a lenient model of parenting.
|Don't mention the obvious reasons why a parent would make that decision; like they don't want their kid having sex somewhere where they could get caught and arrested or they don't want their kid to feel ashamed of wanting to do something that is completely natural or they want to make sure their kid is using protection. I can understand why a parent would be eked out by the idea of their child having sex but I think it's a parent who really cares about their kid who will suffer through the awkwardness to make sure their kid is safe.


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Genre: Romantic Suspense, General Romantic Suspense
Look in the dictionary under "dysfunctional," and you will definitely find a picture of the Cahill family. In this terrific followup to Jackson's If She Only Knew, Cissy Cahill's life takes another dark turn as more of her family's twisted secrets are revealed. This book is creepy to the extreme!
Since her murderous mother Marla escaped from prison, Cissy
is intense. Then Cissy's wealthy grandmother Eugenia Cahill is murdered, and everyone suspects that Marla is behind it. Is Marla stalking and murdering the remaining members of her family? If so, are Cissy and B.J. in her sights? Cissy doesn't know what to think as everyone seems to have a vested interest in Eugenia's money. But one thing is for sure: The danger and the madness are creeping ever closer to Cissy and her son. (ZEBRA, Aug., 419 pp., $7.99)
Reviewed By: Jill M. Smith
Publisher: Zebra
Published: August 2007


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Friday Discussion: The Best Cover Songs
We've been having more fun than ever with our PropertyOfZack Friday Discussions lately with The Best Album Openers and Closers, so we thought we'd throw one more rad category out there with The Best Cover Songs. Covers can be tough; Some fans like the covering band to spice up the original's song in their own way, and some fans don't. To each their own. We put a list of covers from bands in our scene that we love in an Rdio Playlist to listen to as you read the Discussion as well (though not all covers were present). Check out our list below and feel free to reblog with some of your favorite covers!
The Ataris - "The Boys of Summer (Don Henley)"
Okay: raise your hand if upon hearing The Ataris' cover of "The Boys of Summer" back in 2003, you thought it was actually their own song. You can't see me, but my hand is definitely up. In fact, I had no idea it was a cover for a whole two years, until one fine morning when I was in eighth grade and my mom made a comment about how much better it was than the original. Without question, it absolutely is.
Everything from the sped-up tempo, to the progressive, much-improved instrumentals, to Kris Roe's smooth-to-rough vocals, sounds like this is an Ataris original. Even though So Long, Astoria also boasted "In This Diary," another mega-hit, this cover certainly did the album and band an entire world of good, receiving oodles of radio air-time and even making it to the top of the ever-infamous MTV music video countdown TRL (R.I.P. childhood). This song is a pop-punk classic, and by far outdoes its original not-so-pop-punk predecessor's classic status. It's hard to even think that someone before this band uttered, "My love for you will still be strong/after the boys of summer have gone" into a microphone. No offense, Don Henley, but this cover is so good that it pretty much puts the original out of existence. - Brittany Oblak
All Time Low - "Umbrella (Rihanna)"
It can be a little hard to remember nowadays, but there was a time when All Time Low brought the pop and the punk in equal measure, and they never did it better than on this cover of Rihanna's mega-hit "Umbrella". Marrying snarling guitars with sticky-sweet vocal harmonies that only soar bigger and brighter as the song progresses, "Umbrella" is such a natural fit for All Time Low's strengths that you'd be forgiven for thinking Terius Nash helped pen it with the clown princes of pop-punk in mind. It's a prime example of what can happen when a great song finds its way to a band at the peak of their creative powers. - Jesse Richman
Bayside - "Be My Baby (The Ronettes)"
Bayside has always produced good covers – so good, in fact, that the songs are sometimes mistaken for originals by less knowledgeable fans (see: "Megan" by The Smoking Popes). With their first covers EP, the band stepped into new territory, choosing to cover songs they had grown up listening to, and perhaps introducing a whole new generation to the likes of The Ronettes, Elvis Costello, Del Shannon, Van Morrison, and Billy Joel.
Of the five tracks on the EP, "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, is the only one originally performed by a female band. However, between Anthony Raneri's distinctive vocals and Jack O'Shea's gripping guitar solo, the transition into a Bayside song is all but impeccable. Though Bayside has never been particularly known for love songs, the harmonies and vocal overlays that give this track its old school, swoon-worthy feel suggest that maybe the band should try it more often. - Becky Kovach
The Early November - "The Power Of Love (Huey Lewis & The News)"
I'm a sucker for cover versions that are truly transformative, and I'm not sure I can think of one that flips the script as radically as The Early November does on their cover of Huey Lewis & The News' bombastic pop-cheese classic, "The Power Of Love." By trading the skronking synths and pulsing drums of the original for laconic, hypnotically repetitive acoustic arpeggios and whisper-thin vocals, Ace Enders and company gingerly excavate the love that's long been buried underneath all that power. I've written about it before, and I'm sure I'll write about it again; it's an obscure gem that deserves to be heard. - Jesse Richman
Kevin Devine – "Holland, 1945 (Neutral Milk Hotel)"
"The only girl I've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes / But then they buried her alive." If I didn't know any better, the cinematic lyrics to "Holland, 1945" could have been written by Kevin Devine. It's no surprise that Devine chose to cover this Neutral Milk Hotel song, but what is slightly surprising is how he could change so little about the arrangement and still offer a completely different spin on the tune. Devine has a knack for making woeful songs sound like a celebration, and this cover is far from being an exception. - Alyssa McKinley
Dustin Kensrue - "Round Here (Counting Crows)"
A remnant from the former Thrice frontman's early solo project, Ursus Veritas and a staple in his solo sets, it almost feels like "Round Here" was written for Dustin Kensrue to sing. The linchpin opener of Counting Crows' 90s masterpiece August and Everything After, with its brooding declaration, "Step out the front door like a ghost / Into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white," demands subtlety and nuance. And Kensrue easily does it poetic justice.
Kensrue gives "Round Here" plenty of space to breathe, delivering the tune with airy vocals and plaintively-plucked acoustic guitar. He tinges his voice with just enough grit to give the track its drive, and even though its never really gotten an official release, this is one cover that's definitely worth finding a bootleg for. Of his plethora of covers (highlights include Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio" and Radiohead's "Creep"), this is easily Kensrue's finest. - Erik van Rheenen
Reel Big Fish - "Hungry Like The Wolf (Duran Duran)"
Reel Big Fish has been as well known for its cover songs as for its witty, wacky originals since the moment they hit the scene more than a decade and a half ago. Back then, it was their take on "Take On Me" that generated most of the buzz, but I've always thought their rendition of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf," which dates back to the same period, was the better track. I remember downloading this song off some random music FTP server in the pre-Napster file-sharing days. It took half an hour to transfer, was encoded at 96kbps or some similar shitty bitrate, had no tags or anything to indicate where the track came from, and sounded like it was being played through a blown-out boombox at the bottom of a swimming pool. Which is to say: it was fucking awesome! That being what it is, "Hungry Like The Wolf" doesn't lose any of its smarmy, goofy greatness in high fidelity, I promise. - Jesse Richman
Streetlight Manifesto - "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)"
Paul Simon's songbook is nearly untouchable. "Graceland," an album I spent most of my youth listening to (try finding a better pop song than "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"), is Rhymin' Simon's most accessible work sans Garfunkel, but it's still kind of embarrassing that I wasn't introduced to one of his biggest hits until I heard Streetlight Manifesto's ska'd-up reimagining of it.
Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" is a clever, jangly little ditty with infectious acoustic guitar riffs and — no joke — a whistle solo, but Streetlight spins the song on its head for the first, and probably last, installation of 99 Songs of Revolution. Streetlight's cover is a rollicking ska-punk romp, coming out horns blazing. Tomas Kalnoky's gruff vocals give the song a surprisingly fitting edge. It's lighthearted and a blast to sing along to, just like the spirit of the original.- Erik van Rheenen
Clem Snide - Beautiful "(Christina Aguilera)"
Today, you can proclaim your love for both Title Fight and Taylor Swift without getting so much as a sideways glance, but at the beginning of the 2000s, the battle lines were much more firmly drawn. It was rare for underground acts to dabble in pop covers; those that did almost always took the tongue-in-cheek approach, attacking the material with aloof disdain and ironic distance. But indie-poppers Clem Snide were having none of that when they cut this astonishingly empathetic take on "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera's TRL-dominating ode to self-worth. On a number that could have been oh-so-easy to mock, frontman Eef Barzelay instead approached the material with delicate fragility and a warmth that drills down to the song's core and amplifies all its best parts — the pain, the sweetness, the spark of life at its center. "Beautiful" is the rare cover of a hit that gets things even more right than the original; it's one of my favorite recordings of all time, cover or no. Monumentally moving. - Jesse Richman
Nirvana – "The Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)"
There are a handful of artists who should remain untouched, classic catalogues that should not be tampered with. It is safe to say that David Bowie is one of them. If ever there were a band that could make a Bowie song (dare I say it?) better, it was Nirvana. Where Bowie is metallic and processed, Nirvana is gritty and honest. "The Man Who Sold The World" just seems to be a song that lends itself much better to that honest grit. This is one of the few covers in history that became something much greater than its original, and that's saying a hell of a lot in this case. - Alyssa McKinley
Into It. Over It. – "Don't Let Me Cave In (The Wonder Years)"
I bought the Glamour Kills Tour Split at 3 a.m., an impulse buy inspired by a night of feeling sorry for myself and an inability to sleep. I guess it was a fitting purchase, because Evan Weiss' (a.k.a. Into It. Over It.) cover of "Don't Let Me Cave In" has since become the soundtrack to many a similar night. Whereas the original version is a fierce number with rollicking drums, the kind that get you up and moving, Weiss takes things in a completely different direction. He strips the song down to nothing but a static-laden guitar and his own angst-ridden vocals, breathing new life into it as he quietly pleads, "Don't let it happen to me/No, don't let it happen to me." - Becky Kovach
Gatsby's American Dream - "Just like Heaven (The Cure)"
It's very, very rare, if ever, that I will give a nod to anyone who dares to cover The Smiths or The Cure. Yes, I'm looking at you Zooey Deschanel and that atrocious 500 Days of Summer soundtrack, mutilating my beloved Morrissey.
However, an exception I have made, because this cover is exceptional, is Gatsby's American Dream's cover of "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure. This totally modernized, yet somewhat stripped-down version hits on all the right spots, especially the keyboard/synth dominated interlude after the first verse. It makes my heart melt and my hair stand on edge. Comparing it to the original is an apples-to-oranges type of situation, but for being a fairly small band, Gatsby's knocks it out of the park and really makes it their own. They keep true to the original sound and effect, but in the coolest way ever, not to mention the spot-on, pleading vocals that still break your heart in a way that Robert Smith's could: just differently. This cover is indeed nothing short of heaven, and the only acceptable cover of one of the best love songs of all time. - Brittany Oblak
Midtown – "Sister Golden Hair (America)"
Okay, the original "Sister Golden Hair" will never be touched. I would probably hate just about any cover of this song, but something about Midtown's is just plain cool. They didn't try anything fancy or try to make it something that it's not. They just paid homage to a classic in a pure way, and a way that made it accessible to a completely different audience. If this cover was the reason any pop-punk kids discovered America 30 years after they wrote this song, than it wasn't just a great cover but a great deed. Besides, Gabe Saporta's voice carries this originally folky jam surprisingly nicely. - Alyssa McKinley
Goldfinger - "99 Red Balloons (Nena)"
As far as I'm concerned, the entire Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack is an early 2000s goldmine of covers, featuring the likes of Good Charlotte, Mest, Phantom Planet, and a dare-I say it-an awesome version of "Tainted Love" by Marilyn Manson. However, the standout track from this album, and honestly probably in the entire world, is Goldfinger's cover of "99 Red Balloons" (originally titled "99 Luftballoons" in German) by Nena.
This is certainly one of those covers that outdoes the original version by far. Even my mom, who had her prime in the 80s, would much rather hear this version any day. Same goes for people who have never heard any other song by Goldfinger. With the addition of quite a few instruments — especially the amazing guitar line — to really beef up and enrich the sound, along with a more upbeat tempo and perfect vocal delivery, this is a cover that goes over well for basically any listener. As long as they have ears. - Brittany Oblak
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I agree with a lot of these, but I prefer the Movin' Out cover from that Bayside EP, but all of the covers off of it are...
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I called Anthony Raneri's vocals "swoon-worthy." Yup.
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What do you think of these cover songs?
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- notmyblood said: This list is questionable from the start. Saying The Ataris are better than Don Henley is laughable.
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Why 'Your Freedom' is a failure
In response to this discussion over at b3ta (and because I can't post a response there), I thought I'd sum up why I think this exercise is a failure.
The idea behind this is sound – crowdsourcing opinions from ordinary citizens on laws they find restrictive or unnecessary. But the execution is so poor it is simply a waste of time and resources. And here's why:
The site doesn't work. They've clearly tried to rush this out, and do it on the cheap, so the site's unstable. It was inaccessible for much of launch day. There's no search functionality either, so instead of encouraging people to comment on suggestions that have already been made, it forces people to add their comments as new suggestions (unless they want to scroll through 46 pages of listings to see if it's already been picked up). This means that people who have a valid point are buried in the sheer volume of contributions.
It's vague. Instead of providing a platform for meaningful online consultation, asking for specifics on what legislation should be looked at, it simply asks for "ideas".
As a result, we have a massive shit-fest, including suggestions for more laws, repeal of laws that weren't laws in the first place, and the rather predictable deluge of people calling for laws to reinforce their existing prejudices.
Given all of this, it's hardly a surprise that the suggestions look like something from the BBC's Have Your Say.
It's tokenistic. This is just a website, it's not a genuine commitment to listen to what people want and act upon it. There's no commitment from the government that they're going to do anything about the suggestions put forward here. In fact, only today the Conservatives have said they consider Parliamentary reform to be an unnecessary distraction when we've got the economy to deal with. If that's the case, why are they asking for our thoughts on repealing the law on reporting squirrel sightings?
People are already having conversations on forums across the internet, and face to face with their MPs, via the media, and down the pub. We all make it clear through existing channels what laws annoy us. Yet our elected representatives ignore these calls. This site won't change that.
Someone on B3ta suggested it's better that exercises like this exist so people who normally wouldn't engage in the political process can do so.
I'd disagree; in the long term these kind of half-hearted, tokenistic exercises only serve to increase people's cynicism about politics. If someone's taken the time to add a suggestion to Your Freedom, only for absolutely nothing to happen in response to these, they're going to be even more disengaged next time.
I'd also take issue with the name: Your Freedom. Freedom includes freedom from things as well as freedom to do things. Freedom from harm, from want, from harassment, from pain. Giving one person the freedom from, say, racial harassment necessarily means restricting someone else's freedom to harass. This is why we have laws, and indeed lawmakers whose job it is to weigh up the arguments based on the evidence.
I fully support meaningful online consultation, and honestly believe that done properly it has a hugely important role to play in restoring public confidence in our politics.
But this is not meaningful consultation. And it's not been done properly.
How can we do this better?
Design the consultation better. That doesn't just mean designing your website better – although that would help – but put some thought into how you can make this a useful consultation exercise.
That means leading your users through the consultation. If you want people to think about changing laws, ask them to specify which legislation they want to change. Not everyone will know this, so link to the places where they can find out. You'll need search functionality, and might need to re-write content to make it suitable for a lay audience. This would get people to think about what the law is now, and how we can make the law better.
By actually linking to the relevant existing legislation, you'd would provide a meaningful basis on which to kick of discussions between users, looking at the pros and cons of changing the law.
Include a mechanism to remove duplicates. It's not difficult to get an algorithm to suggest duplicates before a user posts. This would prevent having hundreds of posts on the same topic. As it stands, perfectly sensible posts are lost in the sheer volume and arguments against the same law aren't joined together to form a stronger, more coherent argument.
Staff your consultation properly. That would allow comments to be pre-moderated to remove dross, offensive comments and anything that's simply impossible, like the suggestion to remove the laws of gravity.
Facilitating discussions by adding relevant links to legislation, keeping conversations on track and banning trolls would improve the quality of the consultation's output, and mean there's something genuinely useful at the end of all this for the coalition to look at.
This poorly-designed, poorly-resourced exercise is unlikely to produce anything useful at all. Once this closes, politicians will look at the thousands of incoherent, irrelevant posts and conclude online citizen consultation is a waste of time. That's a real shame, and a huge missed opportunity


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Looking for feedback. Sorry for the low quality this is just a room mic to save ideas.
New one.
Started by Puff_ADDR , Yesterday, 04:39 PM#Philadelphia #FullBand
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Martha Coakley is looking for redemption
Coakley has learned from her botched 2010 Senate run. But there are two weeks left in her Massachusetts gubernatorial run, and it's not going well. In a state dominated by Democrats, Coakley is neck-and-neck with her Republican opponent.
Latest Politics News
9 things you didn't read today (but should have)
Donors, sleepers and silly subject lines.
Sarah Palin endorses independent in Alaska
Palin has feuded with Republican Gov. Sean Parnell. Now she wants him out.
Ranking Senate candidates on a key metric: How terrible they make opponents look in their ads
Political science at its finest.
Campaign 2014: Jeff McCormick for Governor 'Mandela'
This ad released by Jeff McCormick for Governor uses video footage of Nelson Mandela and a narrator who sounds like Morgan Freeman to promote the independent candidate for Massachusetts.
Dogs were key in stopping White House intruder
The latest suspect's rapid capture posed a marked contrast to the Secret Service's handling of a similar incident in Sept.
Report: Lewinsky mistreated in investigation of Clinton
The "matter could have been handled better," the report says of the meeting to pressure her to wear a wire.
Are Democrats losing their edge among women?
Republicans have drawn even among women in polling.
Is an old boys' club always sexist?
If there are enough boys, then probably yes. The lesson: group context - and not just leaning in or changing men's attitudes - matters for empowering women politically.
House hopeful John Foust on federal workplace issues
House candidate John Foust discusses federal employee issues.
'Morgan Freeman' endorses a 'viable candidate' in Massachusetts (Video)
The most brazen -- and perhaps dumbest -- campaign ad of the year.
36 breaches of the White House perimeter, mapped
Where people usually jump the fence to get into the White House -- and what happens next.
Popularity is overrated when it comes to winning Senate seats this year
The predicted winner in several Senate races: someone viewed more negatively than positively.
Can quotas solve the problem of 'bias' against women in top government positions?
The private sector may hold back women due to cultural bias, but we expect the government to be above those biases
Campaign 2014: American Future Fund 'Haugh'
The Koch-backed American Future Fund is behind the online ad campaign "More Weed, Less War" which encourages young people in North Carolina to cast their vote for Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Sean Haugh, who supports marijuana legalization.
American support for the death penalty hasn't budged since botched executions
Do botched executions change how people feel about executions? No, not really.
Kentucky now has the most interesting Senate race in the country
The two sides have a deep disagreement about where this one is headed.
In North Carolina's Senate race, a negative ad ran on average once a minute -- for SEVEN days
That's 10 ads for every commercial break, statewide.
Another man jumps White House fence
Officials said the jumper was taken into custody after being bitten by a guard dog on the North Lawn.
This is how far black and Hispanic women lag behind white men on pay
Here's a look at wage gaps by state, according to the National Women's Law Center.
Colorado governor's race tests Hickenlooper's leadership
Democrats express frustrations — including that race is a tossup — and governor seems to be getting the message.
New Jersey files response to pro-sports leagues in sports betting case
Earlier this week, the NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL, and MLB argued New Jersey's plan to allow sports betting violated state law. New Jersey says it disagrees.
There are 850 164-year-old voters in New York City. Yes, you read that right.
These folks apparently were able to cast ballots for Andrew Cuomo and Theodore Roosevelt.
WATCH | Jimmy Kimmel uses Coburn's 'Wastebook' for 'Expenditure or Stoner?' quiz
Can you guess whether these zany-sounding projects were real government expenditures or stoner ideas?
No, Don Young, 'government largesse' doesn't lead to more suicide
An argument easily disproved with data.
Jerry Brown can rest easy: support is strong for the two ballot measures he wants passed
A majority of likely voters say they support the pair of measures, which would improve water infrastructure and bolster a rainy-day fund.
Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns is retiring. Really, he is.
Veteran career diplomat and deputy secretary of State Bill Burns is retiring after 32 years.
IRS boosts retirement investment limits
Inflation-related adjustment allows larger savings in TSP, 401(k) plans in 2015.
S.C. House Speaker to plead guilty, resign
House Speaker Bobby Harrell will plead guilty to using campaign funds for personal purposes.
Alison Lundergan Grimes is the buzziest candidate on Facebook. But the GOP is better 'like'-d.
GOP candidates have about three times as many "likes."
What do you care about in the midterms?
Tell us at #mymidtermfix on Twitter.
This map shows you all the 'toss-up' House districts since 2000. There are more than you think.
Yet that vast majority of the map remains untouched.
How zombies could decide control of the Washington state Senate
If you build a zombie empire and then try to run for office, the jokes will come.
Campaign 2014: Martha McSally 'Puppies'
The Republican U.S. congressional candidate for Arizona's 2nd district, Martha McSally, responds with humor to attacks from her Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Barber.
This cowboy poet might be America's next great political analyst
Former senator Larry Pressler recently cited the work of Baxter Black, who is no newcomer to politics.
Can the nation's oldest veterans groups attract younger veterans?
The American Legion and VFW fight back after a Washington Times article cast doubt on whether they can attract post-9/11 veterans.
9 percent of likely 2014 voters are 'enthusiastic' about President Obama
Understanding the lack of a pro-Obama vote.
Alison Grimes doubles down
on a 4-Pinocchio claim
She puts her credibility on the line by uttering the claims herself.
Transgender federal employee wins historic discrimination case
The Office of Special Counsel said the Army discriminated against a transgender civilian employee.
Testimony of some witnesses said to back officer in Ferguson shooting
Michael Brown and Darren Wilson fought for the officer's gun, interviews and the autopsy indicate.
7 things you didn't read today (but should have)
John Deere, bears and memes.
Most Read: Politics
1Secret Service guard dogs are in spotlight after latest White House fence jumping
2Evidence supports officer's account of shooting in Ferguson
3Transgender federal employee wins historic discrimination case
4Another man jumps White House fence, is apprehended on lawn by K-9 squad
5Alison Grimes doubles down on a 4-Pinocchio claim
Read In


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Supporters of a campaign to loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research in Michigan want to raise between $10 million and $20 million for their proposal targeting the November election.
The Stem Cell Research Ballot Question Committee will have to collect more than 300,000 valid signatures of Michigan voters to make the ballot.
The ballot drive has opposition. Groups such as Right to Life of Michigan and the Michigan Catholic Conference oppose embryonic stem cell research but support adult stem cell research.
Michigan has some of the nation's strictest rules on embryonic stem cell research.


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My wife and I spent three nights at this ryokan during a recent trip to Kyushu. The location is fantastic, right in the middle of the town next to the river. Our room faced the water and was clean and comfortable. The best on-site onsen baths are the outdoor single-sex ones, there are three private baths too but they're indoor... More
Location: Japan > Kyushu-Okinawa > Kumamoto Prefecture > Aso-gun > Minamioguni-machi > Kurokawa Onsen
Price Range (Based on Average Rates): $$$
Number of rooms: 12
- Reservation Options:
- TripAdvisor is proud to partner with Booking.com so you can book your Ryokan Yumotoso reservations with confidence. We help millions of travelers each month to find the perfect hotel for both vacation and business trips, always with the best discounts and special offers.
- Also Known As:
- Ryokan Yumotoso Japan/Kumamoto Prefecture - Minamioguni-Machi


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Blackphone Promises To Be a Cellphone to Beat the NSA
By Lyle in Syn-Geekdom, Syndication on 15 January, 2014
Privacy is at the forefront of everybody's mind, now more than ever. So Blackphone, which will run a "security-oriented" version of Android and claims to be able to foil the NSA, couldn't be better timed.
Related posts:
- Jeopardy Contestant Tries a Bane Impersonation
- Important PSA: Update Gadget Gifts Before You Wrap Them
- Most Popular iPhone Apps and Posts of 2013
- Absterge and Facebook Timeline Cleaner Purge Your Facebook Activity
- Gawker Someone Paid Over $40,000 to Have Cybersex with This Woman [NSFW] | Gizmodo Reddit Has a Burg
Tagged: geekdom, nerdy bits, social hack


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edited and republished 28 Aug 2014. Capitalism has an undisputed record of wealth generation, yet it has always functioned under a cloud of moral suspicion. In a culture that venerates Mother Teresa as a paragon of virtue, businessmen sit in stoic silence while their pursuit of profits is denounced as selfish greed. Greed is nothing […]
Voluntary System: Get Ready!
The situation with American government, It's debt, and it's Force has become worse with every passing day. While our focus has been on American Federal government, this applies to all governments at all levels across our Planet Earth. It's abundantly clear that our Rulers have made the Great Collapse inevitable, while we Humans find ourselves […]
No Citizen Safe Throughout the World
Untold millions of words have been spoken and/or written in articles, blogs and books about most everything. That's all well and good, but there comes a time when the discussion is exhausted, and the time has come to make decisions and take appropriate Action, lest all that talk be wasted. It seems clear that Force is a lousy solution. As GOVERNment IS Force, let's find a better way and Action!
Best for Today
Feedback, Please?
An occasional pat-on-the-back would help, ya' know! But more importantly, with your help, all of us can can do so much more! Such as these:
There is a SHARE link on the bottom of every post, with literally hundreds of choices. Even sharing to a few can make a huge difference. Yes, it takes some effort, but really!
Comments are critical – show that you give a darn! We CAN take (constructive) criticism!
Every Article has thumbs-up/down. We've also brought back ditto on Comments. USE 'em!
Surely you can bring in many good articles from other sites and repost them here?
You can write your own articles here. There are a few essentials to complete so that your thoughts get spread around. The "Notify Users" link is fast and easy.
Debunking Free Market Materialism
Gary Galles at Mises.org:
While freedom allows greater output to be produced, that does not make it materialistic. It is more likely that the persistent denial of the fruits of one's labor to individuals in alternative, coercive systems makes people, of necessity, far more materialistic in focus."
The source article begins with a myriad of "quoted proof" for Gary's summary, which is the portion published on our post.
The Philosophy of Liberty
Video and text of "The Philosophy of Liberty" – updated to show video.
IT IS TIME: Move Your Money Out of the US Banking System
This is a re-post from Lew Rockwell.com. I copied it here because this may well be a very legitimate concern and requires your action to protect yourselves; Act accordingly. For ourselves, we're juggling things to move our money out of our bank accounts. We've been discussing this at home for several months. It seems not that easy! If you have thoughts on how best to do this, please comment. Thank you, Dean Striker
Bottom line: You are playing with fire if you keep any serious amount of money in a US bank.
It is time for serious diversification. Depending upon the size of your assets, there are different things that should be done. But almost everyone should have some cash and gold coins stored outside the banking system.
Do you believe in freedom for everyone or do you believe in control of the many by the few?
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and have sadly come to this conclusion: that the United States of America is divided into specifically two groups: people who love freedom and people who love control.
The Death Penalty vs the Right to Life
I'd like to have an honest discussion on a topic that struck me today in a different manner than it ever has. The Death Penalty vs the Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I should state that I have always been in favor of the death penalty. Yes, I know there may […]


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Los Olivos Farmhouse Rental Photos and Description
Farmhouse, 3 Bedrooms, 3.5 Baths, (Sleeps 6)
You truly have found paradise when you rent this amazing farmhouse in Los Olivos on 6 acres. Located just 3/4 of a mile from the center of Los Olivos, at the end of a private lane sits this wonderful property perched on a hilltop. Breathtaking views of the neighboring cattle ranches and Santa Ynez Valley Mountain Range abound.
This property is complete with main house of 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths plus detached studio 1 bedroom suite with bath.
Enter the charming dutch door to find wood beamed ceilings, sandstone fireplaces, abandant warmth and coziness that feels like home. A beautiful Gourmet kitchen with island/bar that opens to the Family Room with fireplace, formal dining area, formal Living room with fireplace, master bedroom suite with fireplace and King size bed, Guest bedroom suite with Queen size bed, powder room for guests, outdoor dining fireside on the patios with picnic table, bistro table and lounge chairs plus 2 BBQs, one gas and one wood or charcoal. Bring your bathing suits for the spa.
Just a few steps away discover the 3rd bedroom and private bath in a private studio bedroom suite complete with queen size canopy bed, reading chairs, and covered deck with views.
Keywords: Farmhouse, cottage, bungalow, retreat, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, Wine Country, Romantic Getaway, Views
- Suitability:
- non smoking only
- pets considered
Guestbook comments from the owner
Such a beautiful home in a perfect spot. So many books, not enough time. Rode bikes, walked, ate great food and drank great wine. When can we move in??? P.S. Scooter loved the squirrels :)


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Tags funk, jazz, soul
Genres jazz, funk, soul, rhythm and blues, blues (beta)
(flag as incorrect)
July 17, 2012
excellent mix my man
Thank you lot!@pandamonium
Yeah. That's nice!!
and I´m still enjoying ;)
such a great mix, thank u so much for that. nice soundtrack for ending my sunday :)
thank you! nice to hear that you enjoy the mix so much.
SMOOTH & LOVELY by RePeter
funk, jazz, soul
HANDMADE by RePeter
handmade, guitar
PARA A GATA by RePeter
While I am away.
porto, while i am away, hip hop, golden era hip hop
While in Porto... by RePeter
14 Tracks from Action Bronson, NY Confidential, Azealia Breaks, Neako.
hip hop, newschool


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Topics: Politics, Health Reform, States
Sep 27, 2013
USA Today examines how the health law is viewed in Colorado as a case study of the confusion that surrounds it. As further evidence of that confusion, one new poll finds that people without insurance are divided on how much the overhaul will impact them just as another concludes that half of Americans say Republicans should stop their effort to derail the measure as part of the current budget battle.
USA Today: Colorado: Microcosm Of Confusion On Health Law
In Colorado and across the country, the insurance marketplaces known as exchanges are scheduled to open Tuesday, and the success or failure of Obama's signature legislative achievement is at stake. Passing the health care overhaul defined much of his first term in the White House, and defending it from Republican assault has defined much of his second -- including in the current budget showdown (Page, 9/27).
The New York Times: Uninsured Americans Divided On Impact Of Health Care Law
Less than a week before the health insurance marketplaces established by the 2010 health care law begin accepting customers, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found that there is some support among uninsured Americans for President Obama and his law, but also a wariness and a lack of understanding about what the law will mean for them (Kopicki, 9/26).
Bloomberg: Americans Reject Effort To End Obamacare Amid Ad Barrage
Half of Americans say Republicans should stop demanding that President Barack Obama's health care plan be defunded as part of legislation to keep the government running even as they voice concern about the law's impact. Three in five people say they think the law will raise medical-care costs, and more say they will be worse off than better off under it, according to a Bloomberg National Poll.
California Healthline: Survey: Reform Support Holding Steady
According to a survey released today, Californians approve of the Affordable Care Act's health care reform by a small margin, with 53 percent of those polled supporting the effort. The numbers haven't changed much since the last survey -- which is a little surprising, said PPIC president and CEO Marc Baldassare. "These numbers are pretty consistent with previous surveys. Really, there is no change over time in the approval numbers," Baldassare said. And that's a bit of a surprise, given the publicity around next week's launch of open enrollment season for the Covered California health benefit exchange (Gorn, 9/26).
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