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Arthur Silber brings the heat in his latest posts on the FISA "compromise." He cuts through the surface outrage over the Democratic-led, Obama-approved evisceration of the Constitution to expose the even deeper outrages beneath. And he takes on those progressive enablers who denounce critics of Obama's position for their "freshman dorm cynicism" – i.e., calling a shameful action a shameful action, and decrying the Democratic candidate's active collusion in undermining freedom.
But first, I urge you to get on over to Arthur's site right now and put something in the hat for the man. As we've noted often before – and as Silber explains here – the website is his only means of support. He lives on a perilous margin, with failing health, in constant pain, in brutal poverty, yet still manages to produce insightful, eloquent and illuminating essays at an astounding rate. We cannot afford to lose this unique voice and vision. So give whatever you can.
I.Silber's latest gives us the grim word that "FISA is Only the Prelude to Nightmare." As he puts it [see the original for links]:
…[As] odious and destructive of liberty and privacy as the new FISA "compromise" bill is, there is one perspective from which the momentous to-do about this legislation is very badly misplaced. The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture in a way that ensures that the ruling class's hold on increasingly tyrannical power will never be challenged — which is, of course, precisely what the ruling class wants. In one sense, I certainly won't criticize those who protest the FISA legislation so vehemently, because I favor almost anything that throws a monkey wrench into the operations of our monumentally awful and oppressive federal government.He then quotes Jack Balkin's pertinent observation that Obama approves the compromise because he very much wants to have those broad powers when he is president. As Balkin notes, it is the unheralded part of the bill — which vastly expands "the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before" — that is actually its most egregious and far-reaching element. The legal immunity for telecoms that helped Bush violate the law is but the icing on this poison cake. Obama can score political points by criticizing this element of the bill, because it doesn't really matter. It's almost impossible that immunity will be stripped from the final bill, as Democratic leaders have already admitted. The big corporations will be protected, and President Obama will have those expanded powers in hand — to be used only for good, of course.
However, and it is an exceptionally large however, if their protests about FISA remain the sole (or even the major) focus of the complaints about the surveillance state, the protesters will make a very large gift to those who wish to oversee, regulate and control every aspect of our lives.
Known and very popular cialis coupon which gives all the chance to receive a discount for a preparation which has to be available and exactly cialis coupons has been found in the distant room of this big house about which wood-grouses in the houses tell.
Silber then moves to a telling point that he has hammered home many times before: the FISA law itself — not just this "compromise" — is a forceful, brutal rape of the Constitution, a shocking outrage against liberty that has been going on for decades:
I must immediately interject that to discuss these issues [pertaining to liberty and privacy] with regard to FISA is ludicrous in a much deeper sense. As Jonathan Turley [has explained], FISA itself is a secret court whose very purpose is to circumvent the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The FISA court is no protection against illegitimate government intrusion at all. But as Turley notes, that we are fighting over whether to grant the executive branch and FISA still more untrammeled authority to disregard constitutional rights is a measure of how far we have already marched toward tyranny...Watch the layers peel away. The FISA compromise bill is abominable, without question; anyone who supports it cannot possibly be regarded as a serious believer in constitutional democracy. Yet behind this truth is another one, noted above: the FISA system itself is an abomination for a free people. And behind this comes yet another, grimmer truth: the FISA system, either old-style or the new Obama-abetted version, is just a miniscule part of the "endless array of weapons" at the disposal of the National Surveillance State:
If we were genuinely concerned about civil liberties and privacy, we would return to the Fourth Amendment and the procedures it requires, and the FISA regime would be abolished entirely. That's right: it would be abolished. No one wants to do that. Too radical, doncha know. That's scary talk, much scarier, it would appear, than the tyranny which daily strengthens its death grip on all our throats. Nonetheless, if you want to understand the nature and scope of the decades-long attack on individual liberty, you had better remember what FISA is.
With regard to FISA and issues of liberty and privacy in general, let me now ask you a few questions. How long do you think it would take you to identify, read, and understand every provision in every statute, regulation and other authorization that gives surveillance powers to the government? Furthermore: Would you know each and every place to look, or how to determine what those places were? Additionally: With a staff of 20, or 50, could it be done, even if you were provided with limitless time and limitless funds?Silber then goes through just a handful of these sinister instruments, garnered from a few moments of web research, detailing their forceful penetration into every aspect of our lives. In conclusion, he quotes the credo of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which tries to keep track of ever-spreading ooze of the Surveillance state, a 1928 quote from Justice Louis Brandeis: "The right to be left alone — the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people." Silber concludes:
I submit to you, without qualification or reservation, that you could not do it. No one could. Consider that most legislators in Washington aren't even aware of much of what's in the bills they so eagerly vote on. Consider the prohibitive length and complexity of legislation that comes before Congress. That's true of what is going on now. If you tried to track down every piece of legislation, every regulation, every administrative agency ruling, and every other pronouncement still in effect that allows the government to surveil and otherwise keep track of you, me, the guy down the street, the woman next door and the man in the moon, based on alleged concern with and the need to protect us all from the ravages of drugs, "illicit" sex, any and all other suspected criminal activity and, natch, terrorism, how on God's green earth would you do it? You couldn't. I further submit to you that the only reason you appear to have some precious remnants of freedom left, and the only reason you remain at liberty, is that the government hasn't comprehensively focused on all the powers it already possesses and hasn't come anywhere close to utilizing them fully and consistently. This is the moment you should fall to your knees and thank whatever gods may be for the miraculous, close to perfect incompetence of the pathetically ineffectual blockheads in Washington.
In terms of liberty and freedom, the right to be left alone is the most precious value of all. Regardless of what happens with FISA, and even if FISA were abolished altogether, you lost that right decades ago.Hot enough for you out there? Go read the whole thing, and you'll really start to sweat.
And if it is up to the ruling class, you are not getting it back.
As noted above, Obama has taken some heat for his embrace of the Democrat's deadly FISA farce. Disappointment, even anger, is certainly rife across the progressosphere. For some stalwarts, it has induced a new sense of grim realism, ranging from "ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and I'm glad our guy's got the balls to do what he gotta do" offered by Jonathan Leigh Solomon, to the strange blast produced by Digby, which Silber, in another piece, rightly describes as "We're 2% less shitty than Pure Evil! It's all we've got!"
Digby too has criticized Obama's FISA move, albeit with the usual "I just can't figure out why he would do such a thing" trope, which she has had to apply to virtually every action taken by the Democrats in recent years. [The answer, of course, as Silber has often noted, is plain: they "do it" – sell out to corporations, to warmongers, to authoritarianism and unaccountable power – because they want to do it. It's what they believe in.] Her disappointment in Obama is palatable. Yet in responding to unnamed persons who have apparently deluged her with comments along the line of "a plague on both your houses," she comes back with this:
Democrats have certainly enabled [Republican authoritarians] over the years and will likely continue to. They are politicians, after all, not comic book superheroes. But there should be no doubt to anyone who isn't wrapped up in immature freshman dorm cynicism, that there is a distinct difference between those who believe in the concept of an imperial presidency and those who are simply weak and corrupt. They both undermine freedom, but the first is many orders of magnitude worse than the second.So if you are someone like – well, like me, for instance – who says that Obama's actions and choice of advisers seem to suggest that he will not overturn, roll back or seriously challenge the long-running liberty-devouring, militarist, corporatist trends of the American Imperium, and could possibly even augment some of them – then you're just a German commie from 1932.
Perhaps that's not much to work with, but it's all we've got and in the end there will be no one around to acknowledge the intellectual superiority of those who sat on the sidelines, starry eyed and impotent, railing about third parties and revolution, while the world went to hell. (See: Communist Party, Germany, 1932) But hey, everybody has a right to their own kind of therapy and ineffectual whining is as legitimate as anything else. Whatever gets you through the night.
Well, I never. And here all this time I thought I was a Buddhist Jacobin in the Reconstruction Era – which is about as historically coherent as her allusion.
Digby seems to think that it was stay-at-home, stick-in-the-mud German Communists who somehow let Hitler obtain power in 1932. She also seems to think that the German Reds were some sort of starry-eyed, impotent "third party" sitting on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs while the Nazis strutted into office. In fact, the Communists were the second largest party in the country in the 1932 Reichstag elections. And in the last free election that year (or relatively free; a succession of right-wing governments had already introduced many of the authoritarian measures that the Nazis later extended), the Communists were gaining support, while the Nazis were losing voters. The Reds were also in the streets, battling it out with Brownshirts, putting their bodies on the line, and paying a heavy price – both then and later. Of course, this kind of thing is not real activism, not like, say, blogging, or clicking a "donate" button at barackobama.com. Still, "ineffectual whining" or even "starry-eyed impotence" might not be the best descriptors for people who were beaten, stabbed, shot and later put into concentration camps for fighting fascism.
What really opened the door to Hitler's rise to power was the collapse of the centrist parties' belief in democracy, and their acquiescence – and sometimes active collusion – in tyrannical measures that eviscerated the republic. Here one might attend to The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans, a work described by top historian Ian Kershaw as "the most comprehensive history in any language of the disastrous epoch of the Third Reich."
At one point, Evans describes the events of July 1932, when Nazi stormtroopers invaded a working-class town outside Hamburg which heavily supported the Communists. The ensuing violence – when those impotent Red whiners poured out to defend the community – gave the increasingly authoritarian central government of Chancellor Franz von Papen an excuse to seize control of the "progressive" state government of Prussia – which covered more than half the country – and impose military rule there. Evans notes:
Papen's coup dealt a mortal blow to the Weimar Republic. It destroyed the federal principle and opened the way to the wholesale centralization of the state. Whatever happened now, it was unlikely to be a full restoration of parliamentary democracy. After 20 July 1932 the only realistic alternatives were a Nazi dictatorship or a conservative, authoritarian regime backed by the army. The absence of any serious resistance on the part of the Social Democrats, the principal remaining defenders of democracy, was decisive. It convinced both conservatives and National Socialists that the destruction of democratic institutions could be achieved without any serious opposition.Historical analogies are just that: analogies, not exact parallels. Still, if one wanted to toss around comparisons between America today and Germany in 1932, one could do worse than point to the way that centrist parties – even "progressive" parties, like the Social Democrats – failed to stand up for democracy in the face of authoritarian encroachments. That would actually make more sense that comparing a few unnamed malcontents to a fantasy image of "starry-eyed," fence-sitting, marginalized German commies of yore.
But Silber finds implications beyond mere historical inaccuracy in Digby's piece:
…one of the keys to the intellectual rot and moral corruption underlying Digby's pronouncements will be found right here: "[T]here is a distinct difference between those who believe in the concept of an imperial presidency and those who are simply weak and corrupt. They both undermine freedom, but the first is many orders of magnitude worse than the second."Silber later notes in an aside:
This is profoundly wrong, and exactly backwards. Think about this: as history has demonstrated many times, full actualization of a great evil such as the imperial presidency is only made possible by those who are weak and corrupt…
Does Digby mean to suggest — honestly, truly and seriously, as in a conclusion supported by close study of the presidency in twentieth century America — that Democrats are opposed on the basis of some kinda, sorta political principles to "the concept of an imperial presidency"? Honestly? Truly? Seriously?Silber also contrasts the "frantic activity" and "frenzied motions" surrounding the entirely predictable Democratic complicity in the FISA bill – including energetic campaigns that have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars almost instantly to mount election challenges to Democratic supporters of the bill – with the near silence, and total non-action, that has greeted attempts to head off a war with Iran. Silber long ago proposed a plan for a national media campaign to rouse public opposition to military aggression against Iran. He undertook to carry out most of the work himself, or freely turn it over to others with better ideas and more resources – if even a modicum of proper financial backing for such a campaign could be found. With just a couple of posts, any one of the major progressive blogs could have generated sufficient funds to begin such an effort – as we have seen in just the past few days. None did.
That's their right, of course. Everyone is free to choose their own priorities. For some, it's stopping an act of mass murder that could lead to catastrophic suffering and upheaval on a global scale for decades to come. (An act which Obama has continually and forcefully – some might say maniacally – insisted that he is more than willing to perform.) For others it's holding the Democrats' feet to the fire – over and over and over again – in the wistful hope that they will perhaps someday be marginally less evil in their weak and corrupt undermining of freedom than the Republicans are. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.
But let's end with a question. Which of these priorities is actually much more positive than the other, imbued with a much greater belief in democracy, in hope and change, in the infinite possibilities of the human spirit, in the efficacy of political activism? The one that accepts weakness, corruption and the undermining of freedom as a basic principle, the best we can do, "all we've got"? Or the one that calls upon the better angels of our nature to stop needless suffering – and to end our acquiescence in a system that depends on perpetual war and authoritarian power to maintain its engines of injustice and domination?
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Comments (1)
Dale Mastarone said:
Heat Waves
Thanks, Chris, for letting me know about Arther 8 in it. Hey, Siber, and until now didn't know he existed. Went to his blog and was extremely impressed with his writings, and even sent him $20. even though my account only had $18 in it. Hey, things aren't that bad in this country -- yet -- people are still tossing empty beer cans out of their cars -- as if they don't care about the nickel deposit they can get back. So all I have to do is get some exercise, walk a mile of county road and pick up 40 beer cans at a nickel apiece, take them to the redemption center so as to cover my $2.00 overdraft. Hmm? Maybe people toss the valuable cans outta the cars because they consider it cheaper rather than face an "open bottle" charge that could cost them hundreds if pulled over?
In regard to your article, your first paragraph mentioned the constitution. Thereafter I kept seeing the word "democracy" exhibited as supposedly referring to our form of government. Dang, I looked in the US Constitution and could not find even one time the term "democracy", all I could find was "republic" in re what the Founders considered our form of government. Would you please be so kind as to point me to a dictionary that reconciles the two terms so as to mean the same?
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A man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine in North Dakota and elsewhere.
Uriel Curiel had pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and money laundering.
Authorities say Curiel and others traveled to Illinois to obtain the drugs. Curiel was arrested more than a year ago in Chicago.
A judge earlier this week ordered that Curiel be incarcerated in the nearest prison to his mother's house in California.
Three other men have been convicted in case. Juan Barrios was sentenced to 18 years in prison, Rafuel Fuentes to 11 years, and Cristobal Garza to 10 years.
Location, ST | website.com


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Cars and Light Trucks
Inspection & Maintenance (I/M) - Policy Guidance
This page provides policy guidance on I/M program implementation.
NOTE: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available as a free download, to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more about PDF, and for a link to the free Acrobat Reader.
- February 2014 modeling guidance document entitled Performance Standard Modeling for New and Existing Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance (I/M) Programs Using the MOVES Mobile Source Emissions Model (PDF) (25 pp, 246K, EPA-420-B-14-006, January 2014) provides clarification on how to quantify I/M emission reductions for planning purposes using the MOVES generation of mobile source emission factor models, including a discussion of I/M modeling changes since the previous mobile source emission factor model, MOBILE. This guidance corrects technical issues identified in an earlier version released November 2013 (23 pp, 242K, EPA-420-B-13-059, November, 2013). The current version replaces that earlier document.
- May 12, 2004 policy memo signed by Tom Helms (Ozone Policy and Strategies Group) and Leila Cook (State Measures and Conformity Group) entitled 1-Hour Ozone Maintenance Plans Containing Basic I/M Programs (PDF) (3 pp, 92K) provides clarification on how the CAA's anti-backsliding provisions apply under the 8-hour standard with regard to certain categories of vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs.
- October 3, 2002 Guidance Memo (PDF) (1 pg, 52K) and Attachment (PDF) (5 pp, 272K), signed by Margo Oge, entitled "Considerations for State I/M Program Optimization" provides a list of questions and/or issues states should consider as they make choices about their existing and/or future I/M programs.
- EPA guidance on Model Year Exemption Policy (PDF) (2 pp, 9K, EPA420-S-99-007, December, 1999)
- The Calculation of I/M Waiver Adjusted for CPI (PDF) (2 pp, 8K, EPA420-B-99-011, December 1999) is the methodology that states should use to determine the minimum repair expenditure limit for waiver under 51.360 of the I/M rule.
Contact: Dave Sosnowski at 734-214-4823 or email@example.com


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[ 11 January 2013 to 13 January 2013. ]
A fresh year lies before us dear reader.
But what is worth seeing and doing around town this weekend in Canberra?
Just leave your suggestions in the comments!
[ 8 January 2013 to 31 January 2013. ] This just in:
Tuesday 8th 7:30pm
Andrew Galan's Our Dystopian Futures Trivia
Thursday 10th 9pm
Chainsaw Hookers
Johnny Roadkill
Renegade Peacock
Saturday 12th 9:30pm
The Mouldy Lovers (Bris)
Underscore Orkestra (USA)
The Brass Knuckle Brass Band
Sunday 13th 8pm
Wil Wagner (The Smith Street Band, Melbourne)
Lincoln LeFevre (Hobart)
Isaac Graham (Sydney)
Ben David (Adelaide)
Tuesday 15th 7:30pm
Arc Cinema Presents
Liz and Bolings Quiz of Fortune
Wednesday 16th 8pm
Saturday 19th 9:30pm
Bob Log III
Crash [...]
[ 14 December 2012 to 13 January 2013. ]
This just in:
Presenting the fourth annual College Express exhibition, with outstanding artworks by Year 11 & 12 students from eight colleges and schools in the Belconnen region: Dickson, Gungahlin, Hawker, Radford and St Francis Xavier Colleges, Burgmann Anglican School, Melba Copland Secondary School Copland College and UC Secondary College Lake Ginninderra. In a stunning array [...]
[ 1 December 2012 to 19 January 2013. ] December
Saturday 1st 9:30pm
Bladder Spasms
Rather be Dead
Sunday 2nd 8pm
Lloyd Spiegel
Jonno Zilber
Monday 3rd 8pm
CMC presents The Bootleg Sessions
She & I
Fats Homicide
The Wanninashvilles
Tuesday 4th 7:30pm
Andrew and Shannon's Pub Trivia
Wednesday 5th 9pm
CIT end of year Jam
Thursday 6th 9pm
Sean McMahon's Western Union
Hannah Gillespie
Saturday 8th 9:30pm
Waterford's 5th Birthday
Owen M Carroll (Voss)
Shoeb Ahmad
Monday 10th 8pm
2XX Local n Live presents The Bootleg Sessions
Fun [...]
[ 1 November 2012 to 31 July 2013. ]
An intriguing exhibition up on the War Memorial website:
The small French village of Vignacourt was always behind the front lines. For much of the First World War it was a staging point, casualty clearing station and recreation area for troops of all nationalities moving up to and then back from the battlefields on the [...]
[ 14 December 2012 to 2 April 2013. ]
The National Gallery has announced Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris & the Moulin Rouge is the big summer drawcard coming up.
'The National Gallery of Australia is excited to bring together Australia's first Toulouse-Lautrec retrospective exhibition, showing only in Canberra. Together with our own collection of works, the exhibition will provide a comprehensive insight into the artistic life of [...]


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Graffolution Show Was HOT!
Posted in Nobody's JournalJuly 16, 2010No comments
Literally.I got there early so I could see and appreciate the work of my contemporaries. And about an hour later The Soapstone Gallery became a suana. I was really was diggn quite a few of the pieces. Below are a few of my faves.
But don't take my word for it, click here to see the entire exhibit online.
All and all a good night, yet, I left with this empty feeling, like something (somebody) was missing. Next time.


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nice one from nancy
- A driver learns from the past to lead the future
- A driver builds up his own trucking business
- Father and son share a love of life on the road, even if it makes visits rare
- This driver always makes time to mentor the next generation — whether at home or on the road
- This driver helps rookie truckers learn the ropes
- Home-schooling in a truck means the country is a classroom
- This driver sees the world through Google Glass
- A career trucker brings his tales of the road to people in hospice
- How driver Paul Sedlak finds motivation to reach his fitness goals
- I Love Trucking: More than a job, driving is a way of life
The Town That Loves Truckers
As you must know by now, Nov. 1-7 has been designated National Truck Driver Appreciation Week. It's when America takes time to honor the efforts of more than 3.5 million professional truck drivers who deliver almost 70 percent of the nation's freight.
While most of the country sets aside one week, one community in South Central Wisconsin works on recognizing drivers almost all year long. The people of Waupun have been honoring truckers and the trucking industry for two decades. This past August, the community again came together for the 20th Annual Waupun Truck 'N' Show (TNS).
Originally called the Waupun Truckers Jamboree, the event relies on more than a hundred volunteers who operate food stands, park cars and shuttle spectators to the Community Center, empty trash containers, register trucks, assist with truck parking, and do those thousands of unnoticed little things that keep these events running smoothly. After taking a well-deserved two weeks off, the TNS committee starts planning for the following year's show.
Spectators and stars
The schedule starts with the Lights of the Night truck parade through downtown Waupun, some residential areas and the countryside. This year, for the first time, rain forced cancellation of the parade. The field at the Community Center was too soggy, but many came from the parade route to see Lights of the Night in a static display.
In bright sunshine the following morning, entrants wiped the last water spots off their trucks prior to the awards competition. While several dozen judges evaluated more than 320 trucks, the crowds mingled with celebrity guests from the Chrome Shop Mafia and former Green Bay Packers Super Bowl winners Gilbert Brown and Santana Dotson.
Alex Debogorski, star of History Channel's Ice Road Truckers, was also on hand to sign autographs. If you watch the show, you know his sense of humor. "I always thought I was famous," he says. "Now, everyone else found out." Joking aside, he takes the responsibility of representing truckers on TV seriously. "I try to show the importance of trucking and drivers in our society," he says.
Celebrities are a recent addition to the show, testifying to its growth in prestige among trucking events. But the thrust of the event has always been supporting charities and, as Waupun's mayor, Jodi Steger put it, being "a family reunion of sorts" and "an opportunity for all of us who attend to say thank you, truckers, for your dedication to your profession."
Lead positions in the parades are determined by auction. This year, the event raised more than $10,000 for the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Special Olympics. The Waupun High School hockey team sold concessions inside the Community Center building, while the figure skaters had the outside food tent. Beer sales benefitted the Fire Department.
A friendly group
Dave Marcotte drives up from Momence, Ill., almost every year. He hauls rendered fat and edible oils in his immaculate stainless steel Heil tanker, "Liquid Chicken." The maroon 1992 Peterbilt 379 has won numerous truck shows, but Waupun remains special to him. "I started coming here in 1997 and only missed one or two since then. I love the atmosphere, the way the whole town turns out. I've been to St. Ignace, but this one is a little more special. Walcott is fun, but it's mostly truckers. This is the whole community," he says.
Nancy Kutschenreuter, of Oconomowoc, Wis., a volunteer who has been chairperson of judges for all of the 13 years she attended, says, "I'm delighted to be involved. We're a trucking family and this is a family event. Being a trucker is a team effort. The whole family must be involved, be committed, to make it work. We recognize that in Waupun because we have so many truckers and trucking companies here. Besides, where else can you take a family and have a show and parades while your support friends and neighbors and two very worthy causes?"
Loni Wendt of Waupun helps Kutschenreuter run judging. Her husband, Steve, is one of the founders and a member of the organizing committee. "We're all volunteers. We actually pay dues to the committee to do this. It takes a huge volunteer corps in addition to the committee to make it all work."
A lot of credit goes to Ron Vande Zande, one of the founders, who's stepping down after 20 years as president of Truck 'N' Show. "We had 129 trucks our first year," he says. "Back then, our community was a trucking hub, so a group of us decided to put on a show here. We've been doing it with volunteers from day one."
"What really sets this show apart is the community involvement and the benefit to charities," adds Jerry Kissinger, of Stoughton, Wis. He has personally helped raise more than $50,000 for the charities through his own contributions and those of suppliers, customers and other drivers. Kissinger drives a 1991 Mack Superliner with a flag-draped trailer that is the showpiece in his company, Independent Operator. He recently joined the committee, a fact totally unrelated to his truck, Thumper, winning Best of Show this year. The truck also collected its share of trophies at the Great American Trucking Show and won its division at Shell SuperRigs.
Trophies were awarded in more than 100 different classes, from limited mileage bobtail to working combination to dump truck and milk tank. Even truck models made by students got awards.
Which just goes to show that coming to Waupun for Truck 'N' Show is a win-win situation all around.
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We wanted to use this as a T-shirt quote, but I feel that "if winning isn't everything then why do they keep score" is wrong. The correct sentence should be "if winning isn't everything then why do they keep a score". However, a Google search shows that I may be wrong. Only one person agrees with my sentence. Is the first sentence just incorrect American grammar?
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"Keep score" is a (slightly) idiomatic expression that means "keeping track of the score". It is not ungrammatical to use this phrase on a T-shirt (or anywhere else). If the T-shirt had the text "keep a score", it might actually give the impression that the shirt was not made by a native English speaker.
(This is speaking as someone from the US; I don't know for certain if the expression might be different in the UK.)
You'll want to add the apostrophe to isn't and a question mark to the end, but there's really nothing wrong with putting such a sentence on a T-shirt. T-shirts and bumper stickers are pretty much exempt from formal rules, and no one expects them to be models of English grammar and usage anyway. I wouldn't worry about pleasing the editors on this one.
Casual English is appropriate for a t-shirt since wearing clothing with phases on them is pretty casual. The term "keeping score" can have the meaning to keep track, but may a negative connotation of holding grudges.


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Ceramics engineers work with nonmetallic elements such as clay and inorganic elements such as zirconia. They are part of the ceramics and glass industry, which manufactures such common items as tableware and such highly technical items as ceramic tiles for the space shuttle. These engineers perform research, design machinery and processing methods, and develop new ceramic materials and products. They work at engineering consulting firms, manufacturing plants, and commercial support facilities. There are approximately 27,040 materials engineers in the United States; ceramics engineers belong to this group.
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Torrington gets revenge on Woodland in tourney
WATERBURY — When the Torrington and Woodland girls squared off for the first time this season Jan. 8, the Hawks pulled off a 39-37 upset.
The Red Raiders weren't about to let that happen again Monday as the No. 2 seed in the Naugatuck Valley League tournament.
Torrington used a stifling full-court press and crisp ball movement to overwhelm Woodland in a 61-39 quarterfinal victory at Holy Cross.
The Red Raiders will face No. 3 Holy Cross in a rematch of last year's league championship tonight at 5 p.m. at Kennedy.
Torrington applied defensive pressure from the opening tip and used it to open up a 17-7 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Hawks only managed six field goals in the entire first half.
"I don't think ball handling is their biggest strength so we like to get out on them," said Torrington's Caroline Teti, who scored a game-high 21 points. "They take very few outside shots so we were pushing it and making it hard for them to get it down low."
See RAIDERS, Page 5C
The Raiders' pressure and physical defensive style helped create turnovers in the early going and prevented the Hawks from getting the ball down to leading scorer Andrea Piccolo, who finished with a team-high 10 points.
"We made two bad turnovers on (the press) because we tried to force the ball deep and those hurt us," Woodland coach Jess Moffo said. "In the first half we didn't want to drive on them and make contact."
The Hawks only briefly cut back the lead to single digits early in the second quarter before Teti helped Torrington pull away for good.
From the middle of the second to the end of the third, Teti scored 14 of the Raiders' 23 points to turn a 23-13 advantage into a 46-24 blowout. It all started with a fast-break layup followed by the first of her two 3-pointers on the day.
"I hit that first jump shot and I love seeing the first one go in," Teti said. "I'm not especially fond of the rims at Holy Cross but they liked me today."
Woodland's box-in-one defense limited Nicole Kozlak to just five points, all in the first quarter. But Teti and four other players—Paige Middelton, Mika Howard, Olivia Morrison and Megan Calabrese—all scored at least five points to propel the Red Raiders.
"We're really team-oriented," Teti said. "Nobody's really selfish and we're all willing to give the ball up to each other. That's what's helped us; nobody's been able to stop everyone at once."
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We take a moment during each of the Final 49 weeks until Kickoff 2013 to look at various aspects of the Charlotte 49ers football program.
Ticket Treasures
Aug. 22, 2013
By Tom Whitestone
Less than two weeks from the opening kick.
And its getting busier and busier for the team, the coaches, the staff and the fans.
School started Monday as did the period in which students could start requesting tickets.
In less than six hours, about 6000 tickets had been requested.
People sometime ask what the student reaction has been to football. Over 5,000 came out for the spring game. About 6000 requested tickets to the inaugural game the very first chance they got. That number has since risen, of course.
Those numbers speak for themselves -- and indicate that this campus is hungry for football.
The campus is alive and excited and game day will be like no other day this campus has seen.
At the same time, FSL Account holders began to receive their season ticket packages.
Following twitter to see the reaction of Niner Nation was priceless:
"tix just arrived. it's real now" tweeted one fan.
"Put your tailgating pants on" another tweeted after opening her mail.
"Best day ever." "Can't wait for kickoff!" "Sweet!" "@ Charlotte 49ers football is getting closer".
Most tweets included pictures of the ticket package -- as proud alum, proud fan, proud ticket holder showed off their ticket treasures.
One in particular stood out.
"THEY'RE HERE!!" one fan tweeted along with a picture of himself holding the tickets and his young child.
Meanwhile, the media attention has been substantial. Head coach Brad Lambert found time around practice prep to hit the studios of WFAE and News 14, this week with an appearance on WCCB's Got Game slated for Saturday. The Charlotte Observer will put out a special section dedicated to Charlotte 49ers Football in Sunday's newspaper to complement the front page preseason coverage they've already rolled out. Radio appearances, interviews at practice and regular requests continue to roll in.
In the meantime, plans are made for the game broadcasts on both ESPN 730 AM and WCCB-TV Charlotte.
So while the team practices within campus, plenty of noise reverberates off campus. A sportscaster sports the 49ers football cap she received at a Media Reception. A student clicks online to request his game day ticket. A fan, waiting patiently at home, celebrates the arrival of the family's ticket package.
The inaugural season is upon us, with the opening kick less than two weeks away -- and that package that arrived on the doorstep today is a treasure -- but it will pale in comparison to the one that awaits a week from Saturday.


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I just updated to Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS. But after the update, my computer is unresponsive.
I used to be able to click on my name, then I would be prompted to enter my password. This is no longer available, and I no longer have access to anything on my laptop.
Any ideas on how to correct this?


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National Preparedness Month – Part 1
The following was contributed by Guest Blogger Jeff Jellets, Territorial Disaster Coordinator for The Salvation Army's Southern Headquarters in Atlanta, GA.
September is National Preparedness Month.
The timing is always curious to me. September is the historical peak of hurricane season and most years, I'm way too busy responding to a looming tropical cyclone to think – at that point anyway — much of preparedness. When you live in the path of hurricanes, the best time to prepare is … well … way before September 1st.
But September 2011 also marks the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a terrible event that also serves as a somber reminder that America, as a people and a nation, must be always be prepared. As www.ready.gov, FEMA's disaster preparedness website, succinctly states September 2011 marks a "Time To Remember. A Time To Prepare."
While most of my Septembers have been preoccupied with the paths and intensities of tropical storms, 9/11 has always remained a day apart. I served in New York City at the World Trade Center site, and not a year passes in my life when that day is not marked in remembrance. I am sure most Americans will take "Time To Remember" those that were lost on that terrible day in 2001 and, like me, will also take time to honor all those who continue to serve our great country today.
But what does "A Time To Prepare" really mean?
First, prepare yourself, your family and your home. This means developing a family disaster plan, building a family disaster kit, and protecting your home from the most common disaster hazards. For example, every home should have a smoke detector to protect your family from fire, and every home should have a weather radio to warn your family of dangerous weather. Where would you go if you had to evacuate? If your family was separated in emergency, how would you reconnect with one another after reaching safe locations? These are questions you should answer long before disasters threaten.
Don't let your family become disaster victims! Be survivors. By preparing, you not only protect yourself and those you love, but you also put yourself into a position where you are much more likely to be able to help others. Just as importantly, by being ready to take care of yourself, you allow professional emergency responders to focus their attention on life-saving efforts for others who may be trapped are in the areas hardest hit by the disaster.
Second, prepare your community. And in this sense, I mean community in the broadest sense of the word. First, you need to think about your neighborhood. In an emergency, it is often your neighbors who will be the first people to rush to help. In a catastrophic incident, like an earthquake or ice storm, where whole communities are affected, professional emergency responders may need to time to reach your particular area. Know the people in your neighborhood who have special needs, such as the elderly or small children, and plan to check-in on them during a crisis to ensure they are okay. Likewise, identify people in your neighborhood with special skills or training. If a doctor or nurse lives on your block, that's important to know.
Now extend your community preparedness efforts beyond where you live. Think about where you work, where your children go to school or daycare, where you worship, and even the car you drive. Disasters can occur at any time or place … so it is just as important to have a disaster plan for your workplace or church and a disaster kit in your car as well as your home. Talk to your children's school or daycare about their emergency plans and make sure they have a procedure for reunifying you with your child in the event of an emergency.
Third, prepare to help others. Once you have taken care of yourself, your family and your community, then you can start thinking about helping others. The most important thing to remember here is to help appropriately. In the United States, most municipalities have a disaster response and recovery plan coordinated by a local emergency management agency. If you want to help, you have to fit into that plan. One of the easiest ways to do so is to affiliate with an existing voluntary agency, like The Salvation Army, or check to see if your community supports a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).
Another important point to remember is that training is essential. The Salvation Army, among other voluntary agencies, offers disaster training. If you are not sure where to start, let me recommend basic first aid and CPR. Basic lifesaving skills have application far beyond just disaster response; even on the quietest day, someone around you might become injured or ill and it may be up to you to help save their life.
Hopefully, I've convinced you by this point to take emergency preparedness a bit more seriously this September than you have in the past. If so, let me give you one more challenge – Don't stop preparing on September 31st!
Stay tuned for "What's In Your Disaster Kit?" in Part 2 of our National Preparedness Month blog – coming soon!


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• Galway -- Located in the west of Ireland along the Atlantic coast, Galway is best known for its diverse music culture and its dynamic waterfront. This is the home of the popular Galway Arts Festival, held each July, and the September Oyster Festival, as well as the Druid Theater Company, a number of historic limestone buildings and the birthplace of the Claddagh ring.
• County Cork -- Located in the southern part of Ireland, County Cork is known for its dramatic cliffs, green pastures and sea views. The area is home to the Blarney Stone and also the last spot of the "Titanic" before she met her fate.
• Waterford -- Waterford, located on the southeast coast of Ireland, is the country's oldest city. Best known for the crystal stemware that bears its name, Waterford is also home to a picturesque harbor and the oldest building in Ireland.Irish is the official language of Ireland, although English is spoken by virtually all residents.
The euro is the official currency in Ireland.


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What is your child's favorite game? Hide and Seek, of course! It's the best game ever! Now you can pump up your kid with the Hide and Seek shirt. This tee features printed heat-sensitive Quiksilver graphics that change color according to temperature, so all his friends can see he's heated and excited to play!
- 100% Cotton fabric
- Rib-knit collar
- Woven brand tag on sleeve
- Screen print heat-sensitive graphics
- Imported
- Short sleeve
- Imported
- Brand: Quiksilver
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by Sally McGraw My girl Audi made this request: I'd love to see you do a piece about embracing our bodies and faces as we age. It bums me out to see so many attractive women succumbing to the pressure to look "younger" through cosmetic surgery and Botox and all that. You've written a lot about loving your body the way it is … [Read more...]
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Aging Gracefully in a World of Anti-Aging
March 27, 2013 By pia
Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: acceptance, advertising, anti-aging, botox, diet industry, facelifts, Georgia Okeefe, Media Literacy, messages, younger looking


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I bought a package of Appleton Farms, hardwood smoked, sugar cured, sliced bacon about 32 hours ago & forgot to put it in the refrigerator. The ingredients state "cured with": water, salt, sugar,sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrate. The package is still sealed. Do you think it is safe to eat?
Does the package say it needs to be kept refrigerated? Did it come from refrigerated storage at the store? If either of these is true, then you should toss it.
Bacon CAN be heavily smoked and cured for room-temperature storage, but most grocery-store bacon is not this kind. Due to the nitrates/nitrates and smoking process, normal bacon should be safe at room temperature for longer than the 2 hours we give uncured meats, but 32 hours is simply WAY TOO LONG.
I am an old timer and I am about to repeat some stories from other old timers from when I was a youth. These folks lived most of their lives without refrigeration. Curing ham and bacon was a common practice for keeping that portion of the pig. The hams and bacon hung cured in the root cellars for months (3 and 4, 5 was pushng it.) When retrieved for cooking, if there was a little spoil on the outside it was cut off down to the good meat and cooked an eaten. They all lived into their 90's. interestingly, uncured quarters of beef were handled pretty much the same way. Use the smell test both before and after cooking.
If the package is sealed I would go for it! I doubt there's been any serious bacterial growth with all the preservatives. Besides, you still have to cook it (well), which would kill any bacteria (supposing there are any). That said, the taste/quality might be modified, but nothing to be concerned about (not harmful). If it doesn't taste good, toss it.
[DISCLAIMER: I'm a Biologist and consider myself to know quite a lot about bugs. I would eat it, but do so under your own responsibility.]
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1 fl. oz.
TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Step 2: Replenish is a serum that contains vitamins, antioxidants and anti-irritants to leave skin feeling soft and smooth.
All prices are suggested retail.
Q: What causes the skin to age?A: The natural aging process of the skin usually begins in our 20s. As the skin ages, its renewal rate slows. It becomes drier, less firm and less radiant. External factors such as sun exposure and environmental stresses like pollution can often accelerate the skin's aging process.
Q: What is a wrinkle?A: Wrinkles, creases or expression lines are signs of aging skin. They are caused by both normal aging and premature damage which impact and weaken the underlying support structure of the skin, causing a loss in elasticity or the ability to bounce back.
Q: What causes wrinkles?A: Intrinsic aging is the natural process that includes factors we cannot control. The skin's metabolism slows, causing less collagen production and weaker elastin. The development of new skin cells slows down and turns over less frequently. We lose body fat and muscle strength, and bones shrink in the facial region. Hormones also play an important role.
Extrinsic aging is influenced by external factors that we can control. Sun exposure is the main contributor to premature aging, combined with other environmental factors such as pollution and smoking. In addition to the natural gravity, our sleeping positions and repetitive facial movements may also play a role. In addition to wrinkles, chronic sun exposure can lead to photoaging.
Q: What is microdermabrasion and how does it work?A: Microdermabrasion has long been a secret weapon for beautiful skin. It is an extra exfoliation process that effectively removes the dead skin cells that naturally build up on the skin and cause a dull appearance. It is currently the fourth most popular* nonsurgical procedure in the U.S. With the TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set, you can see and feel immediate benefits at home.
The two-step set was developed for anyone with fine lines and visible pores or dry, flaky skin who wants to see healthier, skin immediately. The TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set separates itself from the competition by including an important second step that many brands don't offer. Step 2:Replenish is a serum that contains vitamins, antioxidants and anti-irritants that nourish the soft, smooth feeling skin revealed by Step 1: Refine.
Best of all, the TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set was designed to work together with the other TimeWise® skin care products. After one week of use,** 85 percent of users saw an improvement in their skin texture, 73 percent saw a reduction in fine lines, and 71 percent saw pores that looked smaller with this quick, two-step procedure.
*In an industry study reported by the Cosmeceuticals New Strategies and Development Seminar **In a consumer study conducted by an independent research facility
After using the TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set for just one week:*
*In a consumer study conducted by an independent research facility
*Over-the-counter drug product **Use day or night, two or three times per week. Do not use the TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set (Steps 1 and 2) or TimeWise® Moisture Renewing Gel Mask, TimeWise® Even Complexion Mask, Botanical Effects® Mask on the same day; however, you may alternate their usage during the week/months. If you are going to use two of the products during the same week, you may want to limit the usage of each product to only two times per week.
TimeWise® Skin Care eCatalog
Love Your Skin For Life
Get All For:
Step 2: Replenish is the second part of the TimeWise® Microdermabrasion Set for more radiant-looking skin. TimeWise® Step 2: Replenish feeds and nourishes skin from above with an exclusive Mary Kay® Triple-Tea Complex, plus other vitamins, antioxidants and anti-irritants that nourish the soft, smooth feeling skin revealed by Step 1: Refine.
Note: Some people may experience a little redness. This is normal and is the result of increased blood flow to the area. The result is a healthy-looking glow.
Each TimeWise® product is specifically formulated to combat a wide variety of signs associated with the skin's aging. The products are designed to work together to help maximize their age-fighting benefits.
Step 2: Replenish is immediately absorbed into the skin to leave it feeling smooth and soft. This lightweight, opalescent lavender serum:
Triple-Tea Complex (Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract) is an antioxidant. The exclusive Mary Kay® Triple-Tea Complex is known to help protect the skin from the damaging effects of free radicals. This ingredient is also known for its calming and soothing properties, and provides a mild astringency to help tone the skin.


text: In the mid 1950's I belonged to a coffee mess book club that was dedicated to science fiction literature. We subscribed to several magazines and members contributed from their own reading. I am looking for one containing a story about the world after homosexuals are accepted and they came to dominate society to the extent of having a special policing authority. In view of the pressure being exerted by homosexuals to be accepted as a normal lifestyle, I am interested in this, for me, seminal writing.


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Woodlands Crib Sheeting
- Overview
Wise owls and blooming trees create a fun graphic pattern on these white cotton sheets. Pair them with our coordinating toddler quilt for a colorful and craft-like sleep space.
- Crib sheet is 200-thread-count cotton percale.
- Ruched crib skirt is pure printed cotton with a pink trimmed border.
- Nursery Bumper Bedding Set includes fitted crib sheet, bumper and crib skirt.
- Nursery Quilt Bedding Set includes fitted crib sheet, toddler quilt and crib skirt.
- Images provided (left) show bumper's distinct interior and exterior patterns; always fasten securely with exterior facing outward.
- Machine wash.
- Imported.
- Dimensions & Care
- View our nursery bedding safety tips.
- Made of 100% cotton.
- Pottery Barn fitted crib sheets have elastic around the top and bottom only rather than around the entire edge, a feature that makes our sheets safer for your baby.
- Four-sided skirt fits around the entire crib and is tailored with split corners for easy placement around posts.
Fitted Crib Sheet
- 26 x 53"; fits mattresses up to 8" deep
Crib Skirt
- 28 x 52"; 16" drop
- Machine wash in warm water, gentle cycle.
- Use only nonchlorine bleach, if needed.
- Tumble dry on low heat; remove promptly.
- Warm iron as needed.
- Shipping & Return Info
This is a general shipping item.
View Our Shipping Information
Return Policy
At Pottery Barn Kids, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction is our priority. We carefully inspect your order prior to shipment; upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage. We will arrange for a prompt replacement. If, within 7 days for Quick Ship upholstery and 30 days for all other products, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value.
If your return for Merchandise Credit Cards is greater than $10,000, we will issue $10,000 in Merchandise Credit Cards to you that day, and then mail additional Merchandise Credit Card(s) for the amount in excess of $10,000 to you.
We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, special-order items, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. We also cannot accept returns of final-sale items, which are identified by a price that ends in $0.99.
For returns of items purchased from your Pottery Barn Kids registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later.
For assistance, please contact Customer Service at 800.993.4923, 7 days a week, 5:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. PST.
International Returns: Online returns are available only for items that were shipped to the United States. If you would like to return items that were shipped outside the US, please see International Returns and Exceptions.


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Mild-Mannered 440 Mauler Mayhem - Part 5, The Dyno TestWritten by on October 1, 2005 Our Mild-Mannered Mauler 440 Spends a Day on the Dyno
As we admitted at the onset of this project, we had set some pretty ambitious goals for our Mild-Mannered Mauler; in fact, we were looking to cut new ground. To recap, the engine is a basic .030-inch over 440, a balanced assembly with a factory forged crank, and a set of short dome SpeedPro pistons, massaged for a final net dome volume of 11 cc. The engine combination's main goal was to produce power like a race piece, at the 600hp level, and yet deliver road manners, idle quality, and an rpm range typical of a mild street mill. To put numbers on it, we were after 600 hp, 600 lb-ft, and an rpm range making peak at or just above 6,000 rpm. The idea was minimal bark, but a bloody bite in a normally aspirated package. This engine will eventually wind its way into a street 'Cuda convertible project, where it will be expected to idle with 13.5-14 inches of vacuum, and cruise the open road cleanly at low-to-moderate rpm with a deep overdrive ratio manual trans. It will need to sit in traffic in the heat of summer with the A/C on. Good fuel economy, quiet operation, and low maintenance would be nice too.
Taking an analytical look at those numbers, crossing the 600hp mark by itself isn't too tough with a good 440, but making it by 6,000 rpm is something that would take an outstanding execution of the combination. Remember, horsepower is derived from torque and rpm, so setting a relatively low cap on the rpm at which peak power will occur means it will take tremendous torque to get there. Making a peak torque number of 600 lb-ft from 446 cubes is really pushing the limits of what is obtainable. It can and has been done, but it's ground not often traveled. Add in the driveability and idle quality requirements, and it's going to be a development effort to get there.
The outline for meeting these requirements was pretty clear: high airflow, short duration/high lift cam/ high compression ratio and cylinder pressure. Airflow had to be exceptional for good cylinder filling, especially with the short camshaft duration required to meet the rpm and driveability objectives. A long duration cam would make more power from the combination, but would sacrifice idle quality. We needed relatively short duration, and would make up for the short overall timing with exceptionally fast valve opening rates and high lift. In theory, the super-aggressive Competition Cams XEHL hydraulic lobes would provide the fastest valve action, and as a hydraulic would meet the low-to-no maintenance and noise objectives. Working with custom 1.7:1 rocker arms, the combo we settled upon delivered .600-inch net lift, with a rated duration of only 275 degrees at .006-inch lift, or about the same overall duration as stock. A single pattern cam set on a 112-lobe separation angle, and installed at 106-degrees intake centerline would help achieve an idle not much off a near-stock 440 Magnum, despite the lift.
High compression would serve double duty, helping to achieve the torque and power numbers we targeted, while the reduced clearance volume also aids in cleaning up the idle. Modern OEM engines are pushing ever closer to the 11:1 mark, with Chevrolet's new LS7 Corvette plant actually at that level now. Initially, we were shooting for about 11.7:1 compression, and we had prepped a set of Mopar aluminum heads for the job with 88cc chambers. We were confident that compression ratio could be tolerated on pump gas with thermal barrier coatings, a tight .035-inch quench, and cold-air induction. Midstream, the highly modified Mopar head castings were set aside in favor of Indy's CNC-ported 295cc EZ heads, which featured better flow and a more workable architecture.
With the bottom end already built, the smaller 78cc chamber of the Indy head shot the compression ratio of our combo way up-to no less than a full 13:1. What to do? A change back to a flat-top piston would have brought the combo back to exactly the targeted ratio, but the super-high compression was intriguing. No, it wouldn't be expected to run on pump gas by itself, but it would very likely work with water or a water/alcohol injection. Newer high pressure/high atomization systems have become popular on highly boosted street turbo and mechanical supercharger applications, so we decided to keep the high ratio to experiment with such systems in a high-compression normally aspirated engine. The potential benefit-if it works-is more torque production, and better part-throttle efficiency and fuel economy. It's a pretty wild approach, so don't start building your own Mauler until the full series is completed, all the data is in, and all the cards are on the table.
To The Dyno
That pretty much sums up the build and the theory behind it. The engine was taken to Westech Performance Group for preliminary testing to get an idea of how the theory works out in practice. This project is by no means the type of thing you build with full knowledge of what to expect, slam on the pump for a report card, then ship out the door. Our first testing was more of a progress report, a check to see how close it is to being on target for the objectives we set, and to determine what, if anything, will need closer examination or changes. The engine was equipped with the ported Indy dual-plane intake we featured in a previous story, topped with a Mighty Demon 850-cfm carb. With the radical flat-tappet cam, we were very careful in the cam break-in procedure. The cylinder heads were equipped with Comp's springs (PN 930), set up at an installed height of 1.900 inches, using Comp's titanium retainers (PN 721). The springs deliver 142 pounds of seat load and 353 pounds over the nose with our cam, which is pretty stout for a flat tappet. For break-in, the inner springs were removed, and the springs were installed on the heads with the outer springs and dampers only. This reduces the load considerably, until the cam and lifters establish a wear pattern.
For this testing, we used VP 114-octane race fuel. The distributor was dialed in for 34 degrees of total timing, and it fired instantly. The engine speed was brought to 2,200 rpm for a break-in cycle of 30 minutes. The break-in went perfectly. With the outer springs and dampers only, the springs were providing 103 pounds of seat load and 270 or so pounds at max lift. With the outer springs only, dyno operator Tom Habrzyk and I decided to do a couple of preliminary pulls to gauge the air/fuel ratio, and to see how the low spring load copes with the intense camshaft action. Our first pull was to 4,500 rpm, followed by another, raising the limit to 5,000. The engine did run up to 5,000 rpm before any audible valve float occurred; however, the data showed, as expected, compromised control with the very light spring loads. Power on this first-look pull reached 490 hp at 4,900 rpm, with torque coming in at 540 lb-ft at a low 3,700 rpm. The mixture was very rich, registering in the low-to-mid 10s over the course of the rpm range.
With preliminary numbers that looked encouraging, we allowed the engine to cool down and installed the inner spring to the valvespring assemblies. Our loads were now quite high for a flat-tappet application, just in the range of what would normally be used with a serious flat-tappet cam. The 930 is a conventional dual-spring with a 1.509-inch outside diameter, and has proven to offer good rpm potential with a typical high-performance flat-tappet camshaft. We also took this opportunity to make a jetting change, leaning the carb six jet sizes at the front and rear. The dyno was set to make a pull to 6,000 rpm. The results showed the jetting to have helped lift the power curve in the lower rpm ranges, and revealed some interesting insight on valvetrain control. The curves carried virtually parallel through 4,600 rpm, although the engine was making an average of 10 lb-ft more torque across the range with the more appropriate mixture. At 4,600 rpm, the single outer spring dropped off like a stone, while the dual spring with its increased loads carried on with the slope of the power curve as straight as a bullet. However, at 5,400 rpm, the gig was up, and the valvetrain became unstable with an immediate nosedive in power from there up. Peak numbers were now 551 lb-ft, at 3,500 rpm, and 560 hp at 5,500 rpm, right where the valvetrain went unstable. The low apparent peak torque is deceptive, since the engine's torque curve was extraordinarily flat. At 4,800 rpm, the engine was making 550 lb-ft, within one lb-ft of the torque reading at 3,500. In fact, looking at the average torque over the full test range from 3,100 to 5,500 rpm-the point at which valvetrain instability became apparent-the engine delivered an average of 544 lb-ft, which was very unusual.
We could see the engine in this configuration was going to come up short of our goal of 600 lb-ft of peak torque. However, the slope of the horsepower curve before the onset of instability showed the potential was there to meet the 600hp target, if only it would rev more cleanly upstairs. We had a set of Comp's high-tech Beehive springs (PN 26120), which have tested to provide unusually good valvetrain control in other applications. We made the spring change, installing the new Beehive spring at 1.880 inches, which provided spring loads of 155 pounds on the seat and 377 pounds over the nose. This is about as much spring as can be run with any reliability on a conventional flat tappet, and the Beehive winding significantly reduces inertia at the valve. We used a steel retainer (PN 964) and a modified lower locator to fit the Indy heads. Interestingly, the change to the Beehive spring did almost nothing to improve the rpm potential of the valvetrain. Peak torque improved slightly to 556 lb-ft at 3,500 rpm, with the same flat curve varying little and holding nearly constant to record 554 lb-ft at 5,100 rpm. Peak power nudged up to 559 hp at 5,400, at which point the valvetrain became unstable and power began to plummet.
It seemed as if there was little we could do to correct the valvetrain instability problem, but the lower part of the power curve at which the valvetrain was operating correctly seemed normal. We had run all of our tests to this point with the ported Indy 2D two-plane intake. We also had an Indy 440-2 single-plane intake and were curious about how it would compare. The 440-2 was port matched, but not otherwise modified. The single plane manifold added marginally to output above 4,500 rpm, recording a new high in peak power of 570 hp at 5,500 rpm, while peak torque moved to 561 at 5,100 rpm. The lower end of the torque curve dropped sharply for the 10hp gain at peak torque, dropping as much as 50 lb-ft off the bottom end. Outright top-end power, however, was clearly limited by the problems we were encountering at the higher rpm.
With the limitation on rpm, despite a wide range of different springs, it began to look as though the springs' ability to control the cam's action at the valves was not really the limiting factor here. The evidence began to point to the hydraulic lifter itself. To explore this possibility, we decided to run a diagnostic check, substituting a solid lifter for the hydraulic. Can a solid lifter run on a hydraulic stick? For testing such as this, the answer is yes. Hydraulic cams lack the clearance ramps required to ease a solid lifter from lashed clearance on the base circle to the flank where the lifter begins to really accelerate. The trick is to lash the solid at .003-.004-inch lash, hot, which will effectively allow it to follow the lobe similarly to a hydraulic. The difference is, it will not have the hydraulic mechanism we suspected to be the cause of instability in our setup. The lifters were swapped and lashed, and the results were telling. The engine pulled cleanly to the 6,000-rpm limit of our test and produced 607 hp at 6,000 rpm. Peak torque was now at 549 lb-ft at 5,200 rpm. The solid lifter allowed the cam to translate its design specifications to the valve more accurately, while it appears with the hydraulic, something was being lost in the translation.
While the engine handily met our 600hp by 6,000-rpm goal, the check with the solid lifter certainly isn't a long-term solution. Actually, it just pointed to the direction where we needed to do more work. The simple conclusion here is the combination of very intense valve action, high spring loads, and a relatively heavy valve and valvetrain is just too much for the hydraulic mechanism to cope with. At higher rpm, the lifter likely just collapses the internal plunger, losing lift and duration, making the power curve nosedive. The easy solution is to substitute a solid roller in place of the hydraulic flat tappet, since the roller will allow high spring loads, while the solid body will eliminate all question of hydraulic instability. These intensities are exactly what a solid roller is designed for. Our engine did meet the goals of mild manners at idle, running smoothly at 850 rpm without a big-cam lope, while generating over 14 inches of idle vacuum at 14 degrees of initial advance.
We are uncertain exactly where this project will lead until we get more testing done on the dyno. We'd like to see peak torque edge up to the stratospheric levels and improve the high-rpm dynamics without sacrificing the great idle we have now. It'll make for some interesting testing to come.
|T1: Indy 2D dual plane; Comp 930 spring
|T2: Indy 2D dual plane; Comp 120 Beehivespring
|T3: As T2, but swap to Indy 440-2 singleplane
|T4: As T3, but swap to solid tappet lashedat .004 inch
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
Testing was done with a set of Hooker 2-inch SuperComp headers with collector extensions, but no mufflers.Since this is theoretically a "street engine," we retained a mechanically driven water pump, but utilized a set of underdrive pulleys.With the high-intensity flat-tappet package, the engine was broken in with the inner valvesprings removed from our Comp dual-spring assemblies (PN 930). After a thorough run-in, the oil was changed to Lucas 10-40 Semi-Synthetic. Spark plugs are Denso Iridium.Back up and running, the 446 was put to its first serious pulls, running from 3,000 to 6,000 rpm. Torque was nearly constant from the bottom of the pull to 5,400 rpm, at which point the hydraulic cam valvetrain went unstable. Power stood at 560 hp and 551 lb-ft.RPM capability in our valvetrain was clearly holding back peak output. Searching for the magic bullet to stabilize the system, the conventional dual springs were swapped to Comp's Beehive springs (PN 120). The spring change had little effect on rpm potential, prompting us to look elsewhere for the source of instability.We had an Indy 440-2 intake available for testing. The intake was box-stock, except for a port match. We found it added a little power over 4,500 rpm, but the trade-off was losing the torque of the 2D dual-plane down low. The single plane intake's benefit up top would have been more apparent had our combination been able to work in that rpm range.It was evident after the spring changes that our problem at higher rpm was related to the hydraulic lifters themselves. It stood to reason, with our demanding combo of a super-aggressive lobe and high rocker-arm ratio, and the relatively heavy valves and valvetrain, it was asking the hydraulic mechanism to cope with a lot. To put the theory to the test, we substituted a set of solid lifters for the hydraulics. It would show what the cam and valvetrain would be truly capable of, if not for the dynamic problems in the hydraulic mechanism. The combination of a juice stick and a solid tappet is not how you'd want to run the engine in the real world, but in this case served as a good diagnostic check. Note the easy access to the lifter valley provided by the Indy 440-6R valley plate.To make the solid work on the hydraulic cam, the valvetrain was installed and lashed to .004-inch hot. This would provide reasonable valvetrain action and allow the combination to live for testing purposes.For the final testing with the solid tappets, the Indy single plane used in the previous test was reinstalled. With tappets that actually followed the cam's profile, the engine easily cleared the 600hp mark by 6,000 rpm, actually registering 607 hp at the top of our pull at 6,000. The test showed that there was plenty of potential in the combination, but there would be some more work involved in coming up with a happy valvetrain combo.


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Hi people,
I'm interested in results, such as the Gauß-Bonnet theorem, Fàry-Milnor theorem or classification theorems for manifolds, which give topological properties from geometric considerations. Can anyone recommend some good texts? In particular I'd like to see a nice proof of Fàry-Milnor and of the theorem of turning tangents (total curvature of an imbedded plane curve is $2\pi$).


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History Is the Only Competition for Vettel
Sebastian Vettel, the three-time Formula One champion, won the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, passing Jackie Stewart for sixth on F1's all-time win list—and raising the question of just how high he can climb.
Vettel (pictured above) now has 28 victories, but Michael Schumacher's record of 91 isn't going to come under threat soon—if ever. The active leader, Fernando Alonso, has 31. The only other driver to even reach 50 was Alain Prost with 51.
But Vettel continues to be utterly dominant. After qualifying second for Bahrain, the 25-year-old Red Bull team driver took the lead on the third lap, never letting it go. "The pace was phenomenal," he said postrace, calling the team's effort "flawless." Kimi Raikkonen placed second, followed by Romain Grosjean, Raikkonen's Lotus teammate, in third.
F1 teams and organizers arrived at the desert circuit last week amid worry over political unrest in Bahrain. (Due to uprisings, Bahrain's Grand Prix was canceled in 2011.) Outside the track, antigovernment activists clashed with authorities. At the circuit, however, the weekend moved along without any major incidents—especially for Vettel, who has won two of four races this year in his quest for a fourth straight F1 title.
—A.J. Baime
That Buccaneers-Jets Opener Ought to Be Fun
The New York Jets traded star cornerback Darrelle Revis (below right) to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday for two draft picks.
In exchange for Revis, a four-time Pro Bowl selection, the Jets will receive the Buccaneers' first-round selection (the 13th overall pick) in this week's draft and a conditional pick (third or fourth round) in the 2014 draft.
Tampa signed Revis to a six-year deal, the team announced. It is for $96 million, none of it guaranteed, a person familiar with the matter said. The Jets and Bucs open the 2013 season against each other at MetLife Stadium Sept 8.
—Mike Sielski


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I've encountered two different generalizations of the Principle of Dependent Choices (DC) to initial ordinals $\kappa>\omega$. First, some notation. By $A\prec B$, I indicate that $A$ is injectable into, but not bijectable with, $B$. Given a function $f$ on a set $A$ and a subset $B$ of $A$, I denote the restriction of $f$ to $B$ by $f\restriction B$. Given an ordinal $\alpha$ and a set $X$, I denote the set of functions $\beta\to X$ where $\beta<\alpha$ by $X^{<\alpha}$.
Now, the generalizations are as follows:
$\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$: If $X$ is a non-empty set and $R\subseteq\mathcal{P}(X)\times X$ is a relation such that $$\text{dom}(R)\supseteq\{Y\in\mathcal{P}(X):Y\prec\kappa\},$$ then there exists some $f:\kappa\to X$ such that $$\text{ran}(f\restriction\alpha)\:R\:f(\alpha)$$ for all $\alpha<\kappa$.
$\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$: If $X$ is a non-empty set and $R\subseteq X^{<\kappa}\times X$ is a relation such that $$\text{dom}(R)=X^{<\kappa},$$ then there exists some $f:\kappa\to X$ such that $$(f\restriction\alpha)\:R\:f(\alpha)$$ for all $\alpha<\kappa$.
I can see that $\text{DC}_\omega(1)$ and $\text{DC}_\omega(2)$ are equivalent to DC.
I've been trying to show that $\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$ and $\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$ are equivalent. Showing that $\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$ implies $\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$ is fairly straightforward, but I have thus far been stymied on proving the other direction. The approach I've been trying to take is to suppose some relation $R$ satisfies the hypotheses of $\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$, constructed a related relation $S$ satisfying the hypotheses of $\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$, yielding a function $f$ satisfying the conclusion of the $\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$, and from that trying to show that $f$ satisfies the conclusions of $\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$, or using $f$ somehow to construct another function $g$ that does.
Can anyone give me any hints as to how I might accomplish this task?
Edit: Let me show you one of my abortive attempts to prove the trickier direction, to make it easier to advise me on this.
Suppose $\text{DC}_\kappa(1)$ holds for some initial ordinal $\kappa>\omega$, and suppose $R$ satisfies the hypotheses of $\text{DC}_\kappa(2)$.
Given $Y\subseteq X$, define $I(Y,\kappa)$ to be the set of all injections $Y\to\kappa$ if $Y\prec\kappa$, and otherwise define $I(Y,\kappa):=\emptyset$. Given $h\in I(Y,\kappa)$, and well-ordering $Y$ by proxy using $h$, there is a unique ordinal $\alpha_h$ isomorphic to $Y$ in this well-ordering, and a unique isomorphism. In this way, $h\in I(Y,\kappa)$ uniquely determines an ordinal $\alpha_h<\kappa$ and a bijection $F_h:\alpha_h\to Y$.
Now, given any $\alpha<\kappa$ and any $h:\alpha\to X$, the map $\text{ran}(h)\to\alpha$ given by $x\mapsto\min h^{-1}(x)$ lets us well-order $\text{ran}(h)$ by proxy, uniquely determining an ordinal $\beta_h<\kappa$ and an isomorphism $G_h:\text{ran}(h)\to\beta_h.$ Each $G_h$ is then an injection from a subset of $X$ into (but not onto) $\kappa$.
Define $S\subseteq\mathcal{P}(X)\times X$ by $Y\:S\:y$ iff there is some $\alpha<\kappa$ and some $h:\alpha\to X$ such that $Y=\text{dom}(G_h)$ and $h\:R\:y$.
Take any $Y\subseteq X$ with $Y\prec\kappa$ and any $h\in I(Y,\kappa)$. Then $F_h\in X^{<\kappa}$, so by assumption there is some $y\in X$ such that $F_h\:R\:y$. Moreover, $Y=\text{dom}(G_{F_h})$, so by definition, $Y\:S\:y$. Thus, by $\text{DC}_\kappa(1),$ there is some $f:\kappa\to X$ such that $\text{ran}(f\restriction\alpha)\:S\:f(\alpha)$ for all $\alpha<\kappa$.
Sticking Point: I don't believe we can conclude that $(f\restriction\alpha)\:R\:f(\alpha)$ for all $\alpha<\kappa$, but I'd like to be able to use $f$ to construct a function $\hat f:\kappa\to X$ such that $(\hat f\restriction\alpha)\:R\:\hat f(\alpha)$ for all $\alpha<\kappa$. I'm not sure how I might do this, though.


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The 6 Best 2012 Apocalypse Theories (Are All Bullshit)
#3. The Hopi Indians
The Hopi are one of America's oldest Indian tribes, found in the northeastern section of Arizona along with absolutely nothing else. They have a rich mythology filled with Spider Women, Skeleton Men and the repeated creation and destruction of the Earth. They are a bleak people.
The Hopi believe time to be cyclical and made up of a number of worlds. When a world begins it is innocent and pure, but as time goes by the world and its people become corrupted by sex, war and other things we pay 10 dollars a ticket to see at AMC.
At the height of decay the world ends, its people are purified, and everything starts over from the beginning. We'd like to imagine it as the end of Matrix Revolutions, except that we swore on our father's grave we would never think about that movie ever again.
Fuck you, Matrix Revolutions. Fuck you forever.
According to the Hopi lore, we are currently living in the fourth world. Sadly, due to the white man and his insatiable white quest for spiritless technology, we are rapidly approaching the Great Purification. Once we all pass through a cosmic Brita filter we will enter world five, which as fate would have it is the one with all the goddamn hammer brothers.
And people figure, hey, might as well be 2012, right? After all, these prophets can't all be wrong.
What Predictions (Supposedly) Came True?
There are nine signs that lead to the Great Purification.
Dastardly white men with guns.
"The coming of spinning wheels filled with voices" - early American pioneers in wagons, or bass-thumping Escalades with spinning rims.
The coming of the white man's cattle - Longhorns.
"The land will be crossed by snakes of iron" - Railroads.
The world will be crisscrossed by a giant spider's web - telephone lines or the Internet.
The building of a large network of roads.
"...The sea turning black, and many living things dying..." - Oil spills.
"...Many youth, who wear their hair long like my people, come and join the tribal nations..." - hippies.
A "dwelling-place in the heavens... that shall fall with a great crash" - U.S. Space Station Skylab, which fell to Earth in 1979.
Why it Might be Bullshit
The signs of the Hopi apocalypse read like a middle school American History text book with a particular emphasis on the ill-deeds of the white man. Consequently, they seem little more than elements of a curse or an elaborate revenge fantasy.
"Then the white people are all like, 'Don't kill us!' and we're all like, 'No! HAHAHAHA!'"
Still, predicting things like the "snakes of iron" that would crisscross the land? We have to admit it's pretty impressive that they predicted things like the railroads in... oh, wait, they didn't publish the prophecy until 1959.
#2. Mother Shipton
Ursula Sontheil, later known as Mother Shipton, was born in a cave in North Yorkshire, England in 1488. She is historically described as being the visual approximation of a foot grafted to an ass. Upon discovering her father was Satan himself, her mother fled to a nunnery and gave Ursula up for adoption (by tossing her from a speeding carriage, which was the 15th century equivalent).
Due to her fanciful lineage, she was bestowed the power to see the future. It wasn't until 1641--80 years after her death--that an anonymously written pamphlet was published detailing some of her prophecies.
As the centuries passed, newly discovered Shipton prophecies were released to the world, one of which reads, "When pictures seem alive with movements free, when boats like fishes swim beneath the sea, when men like birds shall scour the sky, then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die."
Wait, only half? What are we even worried about?
What Predictions (Supposedly) Came True?
The death of Henry VIII
The Great Fire of London
The Printing Press
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada
World Wars I and II
Why it Might Be Bullshit:
Hey, have you noticed that she didn't specifically mention 2012? Yet, she comes up in all of the 2012 articles. Ask them why they assume 2012 for her particular prophecy, and they say it only makes sense because that's what all the other prophecies say. Then in the next breath they boast about how all the prophecies "agree." You can see how it works.
As for Mother Shipton, her story seems pretty solid, other than the fact that she may not have ever existed at all. Her biographer, Richard Head (no, seriously), later admitted that he had collected some stories he knew and created a fictional narrative he sold as The Life and Times of Mother Shipton.
As for her predictions, they can be credited to the oldest and most reliable method mankind has ever discovered: they were all written after the events in question had already taken place, and then passed on to the public as "newly discovered" prophecies.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
#1. Nostradamus
Ah, Nostradamus. No one else in history has caused more people to stockpile Spam in their bomb shelters. Hell, might as well get him in on the act.
In 1982, the world gained a whole new reason to fear Nostradamus when a never-before-published work of his was discovered in Rome. A repeated image in the book is that of an eight-spoked wheel, which allegedly represents the intersection of the Divine Cross (made up of the angles of our galactic center and the celestial equator) and the Terrestrial Cross (the angles that make up our equinox and solstice). The two crosses only come into alignment once every 13,000 years, and we're due for alignment in, you guessed it, 2012.
Nostradamus' Armageddon for Dummies also has an image that shows three solar eclipses followed by a lunar eclipse, indicating that sometime between 1992 and 2012 our world will end. The likely cataclysm is a great flood, because at one point there is a picture of a giant pair of stripper's underwear that scholars allege is a raft.
Without question, this is a picture of a raft.
What Predictions (Supposedly) Came True?
The Reign of Napoleon
The Rise of Hitler
The Atom Bomb
The Kennedy Assassination
Why it Might be Bullshit:
Let us, for a second, ignore the fact that the book contains three different handwriting styles, that it is a copy of an original so damaged most of it could not be deciphered, and that (again) every predicted event occurred well before the book's "discovery" in 1982.
We are still faced with bullshit by the whole "three solar eclipses,one lunar eclipse" thing. There are dozens of lunar and solar eclipses taking place during the 20 year period of 1992 and 2012, not just four as the theory implies. There was a period between 2007 and 2008 that met the three and one criteria, but that just begs the question "Why the fuck didn't the world explode, evil picture book?" Don't ask. It doesn't know.
If all of these predictions are bogus (which they most certainly are), how do they manage to have 2012 in common? The History Channel, that's how. In late 2007, the History Channel ran a special about Nostradamus' lost book, stretching interpretations so thin you could make a doomsday crepe out of it. As with all of the above "prophecies," 2012 sites around the Internet took the ball and ran with it.
Pretty annoying, right? Well, get used to it. You've got two and a half more years.
Find more of Luis's work over at ScenicAnemia.com.
For end of days scenarios based in reason and logic, check out 5 Cosmic Events That Could Kill You Before Lunch. Or find out what science is up to that will inevitably doom civilization, in The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World.
And check out our own doomsday prediction in Cracked.com's Top Picks (featuring Gladstone as the virgin sacrifice).