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Breaking: Obama opposes repeal of law so terrible that even his own team abandoned it
posted at 4:47 pm on October 17, 2011 by Allahpundit
So attached is this guy to health-care boondoggles that he can't bear to part with one that even his own HHS advisors admit is a catastrophe in the making.
Alas, fellow "Princess Bride" fans, it seems the CLASS Act is only … mostly dead.
President Obama is against repealing the health law's long-term care CLASS Act and might veto Republican efforts to do so, an administration official tells The Hill, despite the government's announcement Friday that the program was dead in the water.
"We do not support repeal," the official said Monday. "Repealing the CLASS Act isn't necessary or productive. What we should be doing is working together to address the long-term care challenges we face in this country."
Over the weekend, The Hill has learned, an administration official called CLASS Act advocates to reassure them that Obama is still committed to making the program work. That official also told advocates that widespread media reports on the program's demise were wrong, leaving advocates scratching their heads.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday in a blog post on the liberal Huffington Post web site that the administration did not see a way to make the program sustainable. Sebelius indicated her agency hadn't been able to figure out a way to ensure the program providing long-term care paid for itself as required by law.
In other words, it's mathematically impossible to make the CLASS Act work, yet somehow The One's going to make it work anyway. You'll never find a sharper illustration of his basic approach to fiscal reality than you're seeing right here.
In fairness, he probably does understand that the program's well and truly dead, but so terrible would it look for him to sign legislation repealing any part of ObamaCare that he prefers the idiocy of vetoing a bill that's aimed at undoing a program already undone by his own staff. There's wonderful symbolism in that: Agenda and "messaging" trumps all, even if it means keeping a policy in place that's now acknowledged as destructive by both parties. So much for the guy who was going to end "business as usual" in D.C. Guy Benson's right too that O likely wants to keep stringing along the CLASS Act true believers for as long as he can, partly to soak them for donations before election day and partly to deflect tough questions they might ask about which other unworkable parts of ObamaCare the administration might be prepared to discard. All the more reason for the GOP to pursue repeal and put Senate Democrats on the spot. If they want to protect Obama by filibustering before it gets to his desk, great! Voting in favor of a program that even Kathleen Sebelius thinks is a hopeless boondoggle will make for some nifty NRSC attack ads next year. If Senate Dems are tired of covering for His Majesty and want to let him handle this with a veto, great! We, and the White House press corps, will have all sorts of "Obama vs. math" fun at his expense. There's no downside here. Repeal, repeal, repeal.
Also via Benson, here's a flashback from 2009 that I like to call "Harry Reid vs. math." Reid knew at the time, of course, that CLASS was a bust from the word go. He can add. He's just a liar who would say anything to get O-Care passed.
Breaking on Hot Air
San Francisco deploys an army of "trained witnesses" to hinder ICE operations
British Parliament attacker's profile was "extremely unusual"
Another college creates (and reports) their own fake racist propaganda
- You Keep Using That Word | hogewash
- Flap's Links and Comments for October 17th on 06:09 | Flap's Blog - FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog
- The failures of the Obama administration « Politics et al
- Obama: "All the choices we've made have been the right ones" - Jobbook News
- Oops: Two-month payroll-tax holiday would be a logistical nightmare, say experts | HDFC Forex Card

subset: commoncrawl


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Another post is up on the Maing Game of Thrones blog. Cat Taylor wrote a piece on the last day of shooting in Iceland at the end of last year. Below are two central paragraphs, make sure to read the rest. Credit: Helen Sloan
We have lost 7 minutes of light per day since arriving in Iceland. Winter is coming – and seems to be on a tight schedule – so every moment counts. It's always hard to keep to time when you are also shooting a big stunt, something that has to be done right the first time, as there is no time to reset the scene (or in this case, the stunt). When that stunt also involves VFX, it's even more important to get it right. Added to that, on the other side of base camp a small splinter unit with a single camera is filming some insert shots, so cast members are running between the two areas to make the best use of the day.
Finally, it's time to film the big scene. Anything involving fire is always going to be one of the most dangerous things to shoot, and when it's fire and a person everyone is on high alert. The stunt and safety teams are close at hand, and all non-essential crew are moved back to base. When the flame drops, there is only a short window of maybe 20 seconds to get the shot, and once the stunt man is lit, that's all the time you have, whether you get it or not. Let me just say this: We got it.
Hear Me Roar: So, an opening scene full of stunts, VFX, and persons on fire. I think I know what that is about. Not long to go until we all see it!


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Ponderay, Idaho - Dog-Friendly Listings
Idaho: Ponderay:
Ponderay - as dog-friendly as they come! This city guide will show you all the best (and worst) places for your pets. Don't forget to add your reviews for the businesses in this ultimate resource.
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Roger Mills County, located in west-central Oklahoma, was named for Roger Quarles Mills, a Texas politician. Explorers went through the county as early as the 1500s; Spanish explorer Coronado camped in the area in 1541. Other explorers and traders traveled the area in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Two historic battles took place in Roger Mills County: the Battle of Antelope Hills in 1858 and the Battle of the Washita in 1868. The Camp Supply Road and the California Road were transportation routes used in Roger Mills County in the 1800s, while railroad service began in the 1910s. The Black Kettle National Grassland covers 30,000 acres of Roger Mills County and offers hiking, horseback riding and hunting. West of Cheyenne, the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site displays the history of the famous 1868 battle. The Pioneer Museums in Cheyenne City Park is a walk-through museum complex featuring various buildings and artifacts.
In 2000, census records showed 3,436 people living in Roger Mills County. For more information about genealogy in Roger Mills County, resources are provided below.
Roger Mills County Courthouse Information
Roger Mills County Courthouse
503 E. Broadway St.
P.O. Box 708
Cheyenne, OK 73628
Telephone: (580) 497-3395
Directions: Broadway & L.L. Males Boulevard.
Records available: County Clerk has marriage, probate, civil court records from 1800s, divorce records from 1900; County Clerk has land records from 1800s.
Roger Mills Website: http://www.rogermills.org/
Detailed Map of Roger Mills County
Search for cemeteries, highways and scenic sites, or examine county and township lines with this detailed map of Roger Mills County.
Existing Towns in Roger Mills County
While researching your family history in Roger Mills County, be sure to visit Cheyenne, the largest town in the county. The following towns and cities are located in present day Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.
Ghost Towns in Roger Mills County
The following towns and cities either no longer exist in Roger Mills County or are still populated, but significantly less so than in years past. These towns and cities are commonly referred to as "ghost towns."
Cemeteries in Roger Mills County
The following cemeteries are located in present day Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.
Silent Home (AKA Crawford, AKA Roll) Cemetery |
Historic Schools in Roger Mills County
The following historic schools, academies and schoolhouses were located in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.
Libraries in Roger Mills County
Minnie R. Slief Library
100 S. Don Cearlock Ave.
Cheyenne, OK 73628
Telephone: (580) 497-3777
Historic Newspaper Archives of Roger Mills County
Transcribed early issues of Roger Mills County newspapers including the Cheyenne Sunbeam 1894-1900, the Cheyenne Star 1901-1911 & 1959 as well as Hammon newspapers on OKGenWeb.
Additional Genealogy Resources for Roger Mills County
Roger Mills County on OKGenWeb: Oklahoma Genealogy & History
Roger Mills County Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 205
Cheyenne, OK 73628
Roger Mills County Land Records
c/o Roger Mills County Clerk
P.O. Box 708
Cheyenne, OK 73628
Telephone: (580) 497-3366
Places to Visit in Roger Mills County
While researching your family history in Roger Mills County, be sure to check out the following attractions located in the area.


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Community Calendar - Chapter: Sweden |
Upcoming Past Month View Group Home |
Here you can find out about upcoming events. Some events require online registration, click the event name to view more details. Interested in self paced online courses? Click here to view them all. Interested in Iasa Certifications? Click here to view them all. Interested in the Iasa Self Assessment? Click here to learn more and register.
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THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
I have written on here about the benefits of Composable DML (i.e. the ability to insert the data outputted from an OUTPUT clause into a table) before however I discovered a limitation today that I think is worth sharing. Basically, the table that you're inserting into cannot have a FOREIGN KEY constraint nor can it have a FOREIGN KEY constraint pointing to it. Here's some code that demonstrates the first of these two restrictions:
/*This code demonstrates the fact that you can't use composable DML to insert into a table that has a FK*/ USE tempdb CREATE TABLE [TableWithPK] ([col1] INT PRIMARY KEY); CREATE TABLE [TableWithFK] ([col1] INT REFERENCES [TableWithPK]([col1])); /*Following statement fails with error: Msg 356, Level 16, State 1, Line 17 The target table 'TableWithFK' of the INSERT statement cannot be on either side of a (primary key, foreign key) relationship when the FROM clause contains a nested INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or MERGE statement.*/ INSERT [TableWithFK]([col1]) SELECT [col1] FROM ( INSERT [TableWithPK]([col1]) OUTPUT [INSERTED].[col1] VALUES(1) )insert_out ;
Definitely one to be aware of. Judging by this Connect submission: Insert over DML is not allowed on a table with a foreign key constraint this isn't going to change any time soon either.
P.S. I have put the above code up on PasteBin too: http://pastebin.com/jk3q9P2e . I've started to use PasteBin more and more recently, take a look at http://pastebin.com/u/jamiet to see what else I have shared.
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Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS
I think this may relate to the restrictions of OUTPUT INTO clause listed on article below. It sounds like both the DML and OUTPUT INTO must succeed or both will fail, so maybe they don't support constraints or triggers in the OUTPUT INTO to prevent recursion(?)
Inserting Data Returned From an OUTPUT Clause Into a Table:
When you are capturing the results of an OUTPUT clause in a nested INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or MERGE statement and inserting those results into a target table, keep the following information in mind:
The whole operation is atomic. Either both the INSERT statement and the nested DML statement that contains the OUTPUT clause execute, or the whole statement fails.
The following restrictions apply to the target of the outer INSERT statement:
The target cannot be a remote table, view, or common table expression.
The target cannot have a FOREIGN KEY constraint, or be referenced by a FOREIGN KEY constraint.
Triggers cannot be defined on the target.
The target cannot participate in merge replication or updatable subscriptions for transactional replication.
The following restrictions apply to the nested DML statement:
The target cannot be a remote table or partitioned view.
The source itself cannot contain a <dml_table_source> clause.
The OUTPUT INTO clause is not supported in INSERT statements that contain a <dml_table_source> clause.
@@ROWCOUNT returns the rows inserted only by the outer INSERT statement.
@@IDENTITY, SCOPE_IDENTITY, and IDENT_CURRENT return identity values generated only by the nested DML statement, and not those generated by the outer INSERT statement.
Query notifications treat the statement as a single entity, and the type of any message that is created will be the type of the nested DML, even if the significant change is from the outer INSERT statement itself.
In the <dml_table_source> clause, the SELECT and WHERE clauses cannot include subqueries, aggregate functions, ranking functions, full-text predicates, user-defined functions that perform data access, or the TEXTPTR function.
but it is working
DROP TABLE #TableWithPK
DROP TABLE #TableWithFK
CREATE TABLE #TableWithPK ([col1] INT PRIMARY KEY)
CREATE TABLE #TableWithFK ([col1] INT REFERENCES #TableWithPK([col1]))
INSERT #TableWithFK([col1])
SELECT [col1]
INSERT #TableWithPK([col1])
OUTPUT [INSERTED].[col1]
SELECT * FROM #TableWithPK
SELECT * FROM #TableWithFK
Hello Vyacheslav,
Yes, it works on temporary tables because "FOREIGN KEY constraints are not enforced on local or global temporary tables."
You get the same error with this statement:
INSERT [TableWithPK]([col1])
INTO [TableWithFK]
I usually output into a table variable or temp table then work with it like so:
DECLARE @TableWithFK TABLE([col1] INT);
INTO @TableWithFK
INSERT INTO [TableWithFK]
SELECT * FROM @TableWithFK
You can temporarily disable the constraint.
If you created the table with a named constraint (or know the name):
CREATE TABLE [TableWithFK] ([col1] INT, CONSTRAINT FK_MyFK FOREIGN KEY ([col1]) REFERENCES [TableWithPK]([col1]));
ALTER TABLE [TableWithFK] NOCHECK CONSTRAINT FK_MyFK
INSERT [TableWithFK]([col1])
I came across this when using a MERGE statement. One way to get around it was to insert into a temp table that matches the definition of the destination table and then insert the contents of that temp table into the destination.
see here for more info:
I meant that last ALTER TABLE to say CHECK rather than NOCHECK.
I once solved it by using dynamic SQL. It works but I can't recommend it due to readability is severely poor.
Gil's solution worked fined! however, don't know why but in SSIS did not work the first time.


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TheNinja's IGF-2 Log
I had a freakyly realistic dream last night that my girl was cheating on me and laughed about when I caught her. I woke up and wanted to slap her so hard! Luckily when I woke up she was clung onto my arm smiling!
Day 17 (Thursday's workout)
Workout - Legs/Shoulders:
Barbell Squat:
14 @ 135
12 @ 185
11 @ 205 = -1 rep (wtf?)
11 @ 225 = +2 reps
8 @ 235 = +10lbs
8 @ 235 = +1 rep +15lbs
drop set immediately into dumbells held out front
10 @ 50
Military Press with Barbell:
14 @ 95
12 @ 125
9 @ 135 = +1 rep
9 @ 135 = +2 reps
7 @ 135 = -2 reps +5lbs
9 @ 130 = +1 rep
drop set immediately 35 dumbells
10 @ 35
Good Morning:
10 @ 70
10 @ 70
10 @ 70
Upright Row:
12 @ 75
12 @ 80
11 @ 80
Diet: Normal
Overall Feeling: Now we're getting somewhere! I feel very tight and strong going into the workout. In fact just walking around normal I feel semi-pumped, but if I flex it is a very hard flex. Also as you can probably tell from a lot of my numbers, my beginning sets don't seem to be improving as much. However once I get into my workout, my later sets are crushing my original late sets. I have much more strength throughout the latter part of my workout that I did before.
Notes: One of the biggest things I noticed during my past workout was my stamina and recovery time. I don't know how much can be attributed to IGF-2 and how much to BCAAs but my feeling is that the IGF-2 has a lot to do with this. For example during squat day when I'm done with a set I'm breathing heavy, can't catch my breath, and sometimes felt like my heart was going to pump out of my chest. During this session when I was done with a set I felt almost fully recovered with my cardio within about 30 seconds. Within this 30 seconds I was breathing normal and heart rate felt much better. At the end of my workout I was tired and sore but my cardio, stamina, and mental alertness were perfect.
edit: In other words. This is my 3rd workout for legs while on IGF-2. I added 15 pounds and 1 rep to my final set. Beat that! - 09-10-2007, 12:29 PM
Day 19 (Saturday)
Workout - Back/Bis:
Well I had to workout at a different gym on Saturday. Sadly I did not have my notebook or anything along. I'm not going to put specifics on lifts here b/c 1) I can't remember exactly and 2) I used slightly different weights/machines and exercises so it would be hard to compare.
That being said, the workout was very good. Again I had great stamina and felt like I could lift forever and recover very quickly between sets.
Diet: Normal
Overall Feeling: Stamina is up. I have a pretty good overall feeling of being content and happy.
Notes: I do seem to still be losing weight but gaining strength. I really do not want to lose weight per se so I'm going to try and increase my calories for each day. My goal is to do this without increasing junk food though, which of course is tough. -
Day 20 (Sunday)
Workout - Cardio:
2 hour, approximately 7 1/2 mile walk/hike through the area.
Diet: A little messed up b/c of a weekend of course. I tend to eat large meals on weekends. I also drank too much on Saturday so on my Sunday hike I sweat like Dom Deluise having a threeway with Rosie O'Donnel and a 10 pound piece of honey-cured ham.
Overall Feeling: I haven't been doing a ton of cardio prior to IGF-2, but from what I was doing I can honestly say that I believe IGF-2 is helping with my cardio as well.
Notes: I wouldn't say I'm pumped like I'm on the juice or anything. But I feel like I look more toned in a resting state and more ripped (but not larger really) when I flex. In the past I've mentioned my weird dreams....you know what's more boring than actually flying on an airplane? Dreaming that you are waiting in line and then flying on an airplane for 2 hours! - 09-10-2007, 01:44 PM
Interesting report on the cardio. I will be starting my IGF-2 at the end of next week and plan on having two days of cardio with four days of weightlifting.
Thanks for checking out the log and posting a reply by the way. And yes, as far as cardio goes, it's not like I have been timing my sessions or am trying to hit a certain goal (like a 5 minute mile, or running a 10k nonstop), but I just feel that overall I have much better lung and heart capacity and endurance when lifting and walking/hiking. I haven't really noticed other people saying this in their IGF-2 logs but maybe they didn't feel it, or maybe they didn't include it in their logs, I'm not sure. It is a pleasant affect that I really didn't figure on at all. I went into this log thinking "I'm going to just get huge", but in reality I'm leaning out more than gaining weight, which is of course partially due to my diet, but my diet has not changed......
Day 21 (Monday)
Workout - Chest/Tris:
Bench Press:
12 @ 185 = 0
9 @ 225 = +2 reps
8 @ 225 = +3 reps
7 @ 225 = +2 reps
10 @ 210 = +2 reps
10 @ 210 = +2 reps +5lbs
12 @ 185 = +2 reps
Incline Flys - Dumbell:
12 @ 50 = +5lbs
10 @ 50 = -2 reps +5lbs
10 @ 50 = +5lbs
Tricep Pushdown:
10 @ 100
11 @ 100
9 @ 100
Single OverHead Tricep Dumbell:
11 @ 20
11 @ 20
Diet: Normal
Overall Feeling: Again, I feel very good mentally and physically. Today I got a little frustrated b/c mentally I was ready to push more but I couldn't will my body to do it. I don't know if a 7.5 mile hike took a lot of energy out of me or not. Also, my shoulder was a lot more sore than normal for some reason. That being said I got a CRAZY pump. When I went to the locker to change, my chest, shoulders, and arms were huge and very full looking.
Notes: Weight is maintaing, which is a good thing for me. - 09-11-2007, 02:57 PM
I'm reading more and more on IGF-2 and gettin' a little worried about the increased libido and wood. I work in a Fortune 100 company and haven't worn underwear in almost 12 years. Thank goodness I have my age and co-workers that are mostly men to keep things in check!
lol - HHHTheGame, a.k.a. Mr. Commando. I have noticed some increase in libido, but for me at least, I can control it. It's not like I walk around with wood all day and try to dry hump the 300 lb secretary while she dines on a bucket of crispy KFC chicken. But if I see a sexy picture or think of a sexy woman, I get a little more excited than usual and think "man, I wish I was getting laid now instead of here at work".
ROTF!!! hehehehehehe I have one of those too. I'll just keep wandering over by her all day long to keep me in check.
Yeah, it's not like a viagra pill.....it's just when I see good looking women....I can't help myself from staring and getting hard. I usually have self-control....but not this past month.
Day 23 (yesterday's workout)
Workout - Legs/Shoulders:
Barbell Squat:
14 @ 135
12 @ 185
11 @ 225 = -1 rep +20lbs
11 @ 225 = +2 reps
9 @ 235 = +1 rep +10lbs
8 @ 235 = +1 rep +15lbs
drop set immediately into
11 @ 100
Military Press with Barbell:
14 @ 95
12 @ 125
10 @ 135 = +2 reps
10 @ 135 = +3 reps
7 @ 135 = -1 rep +5lbs
drop set immediately into
11 @ 35 dumbells
12 @ 70s = -2 reps +10lbs
12 @ 70s = -2 reps +10lbs
Upright Row - Barbell:
12 @ 80
11 @ 85 = +5lbs
Good Morning:
12 @ 70 = +2 reps
10 @ 75 = +5lbs
10 @ 75 = +5lbs
Diet: Normal - but substituted WMS instead of malto/dex for PWO.
Overall Feeling: Squats are going through the roof (for me at least). When you consider I'm doing 15 more pounds and 1 more rep than 20 days ago, that aint bad at all. The velcro belt that I use at the gym won't stay tight though - Also my Military press isn't showing an explosion but in reality the reps feel much better and tighter now. I feel good muscle contraction and pump when pressing and no looseness in my joints.
Notes: I just got some bulk cissus in to help with my shoulder, we'll see if it does anything. I think as far as helping to sleep I notice that if I sleep until my body says it's time to get up 7-8 hours, I feel great during the day, better than normal. However, if I don't quite get enough sleep or get interrupted (say 6-7 hours), I feel more tired than when I was not on IGF-2. My theory is that b/c IGF-2 helps with a deep sleep and therefore if I allow my body to come out naturally I'm great, but if I interrupt it, it takes me a few hours to really get going for the day....just my theory though - 09-13-2007, 01:58 PM
Good job Ninja. Same holds true from the comment I made earlier about our strength differences with your last workout... I'd warm up with your heavy set of squats but NO WAY I could do an upright row with 80 pounds or a barbell press with 135. I guess we can both deal with that since we have PERFECT physiques
Maybe at the end of your log you could compare pump, endurance, hardness, strength increase to other supps that you have tried in the past.
Btw, cap the cissus cause it'll make you barf your brains out otherwise. You get the 5% or the 10%? Both were effective for me but obviously moreso with the 10%. I've also tried a 20% cissus and it was no different than the 10% FWIW. - 09-13-2007, 02:00 PM
nice log you got going here ninja! Ive been snooping around it from time to time but never got to actually posting :P
Thanks for the feedback fellas. I like to include some detail on my workout so people can a) get more info into how I'm working and and using the product and b) critique my workout and/or offer suggestions if they wish.
I also like to include that little summary for those people who don't have the time to read or who don't care about every lift/rep I'm doing.
Plus I'm keeping a running tab on the +reps and +lbs since the beginning lifts. I find this useful for me and maybe other people like it too. - 09-13-2007, 08:04 PM
always reminds me of that one episode:
drugs...drugs are bad mmmmkay. You shouldn't do drugs. If you do them, you're bad, because drugs are bad mmmkay. It's a bad thing to do drugs, so don't be bad by doing drugs, mmmkay, that'd be bad. Well, unless the drugs are supplments. Then they are good, mmmkay. (ok, I added the last part)
thanks by the way. I'm trying to stay on top of it and be honest. - 09-13-2007, 08:57 PM
Day 24
Workout - Back/Bis:
Bent Over Barbell Row:
Bent over Barbell Row:
10 @ 135
10 @ 135 = +2 reps
10 @ 140 = +5lbs
10 @ 140 = +5lbs
10 @ 140 = +1 rep +5lbs
T-Bar Row (actually the barbell stuffed into the corner with weights on one end):
12 @ 70
11 @ 80
9 @ 80
10 @ 80
10 @ 80
Bicep Barbell (with large 45lb bar)
12 @ 80 = +2 reps
10 @ 80 = +1 rep
9 @ 80 = +1 rep
Seated Dumbell Hammer:
10 @ 35 = -2 reps +5lbs
11 @ 35 = +5lbs
Reverse Forum Curl (behind the back with large 45lb bar):
16 @ 90 = +2 reps -5lbs
14 @ 100 = +1 rep +5lbs
Diet: Normal (pizza and a hotdog for lunch..... )
Overall Feeling: I feel great. I know I said it before but I honestly can't believe the recovery and stamina I am feeling. I don't know if I need to work harder or what but I didn't sweat a terrible lot and about 1 minute after the workout I just pack up and walked up breathing through my nose like I just got up from my desk. That is probably the biggest difference is that I don't feel like I'm going to die or can't catch my breath between sets or after a workout. Instead of feeling worn out like I need a nap I feel like I should go out and do more
Notes: Ok, I don't know why I didn't find this exercise before. But the T-Bar row with the barbell in the corner is awesome! I can usually feel good workout with pulldown and bentover but I always feel like my biceps and grip get more of a workout. This exercise was a total pump on my lats, which is exactly where I'm trying to grow some to give me that wider, V, look.
I took a few pics after my workout. Horrible quality from my cell phone I know but just thought I'd toss them in at the famous 24 day mark (which has absolutely no significance ) - 09-16-2007, 08:50 PM
Thanks man! Everything is going great here. I'm going to really try and put some size and width on my back. I used to always worry about chest and never missed chest day b/c of that famous question (how much do you bench?). Well I decided now I want to focus more on back and squats/hammies.
To those reading, this week is going to be a little messed up. I'm gone Friday-Sunday doing a 17 mile hike to Yosemite on Saturday. I am probably going to skip leg workout this week, or maybe do something light to keep my legs loose. - 09-17-2007, 12:07 PM
Day 27 (Sunday)
Workout - Cardio:
1 hour, approximately 3 mile walk/hike through the area.
Diet: Again my weekend diet is always different b/c of when I get up, if I'm gone more, etc. Overall I believe I get about the same number of calories, I just get a few more from alcohol sometimes and I get my calories in larger chunks instead of 6-7 small ones.
Overall Feeling: Good mood. Good focus. Good energy!
Notes: Gotta get training for my big hike coming up. Slept great and feel refreshed today. - 09-17-2007, 07:05 PM
Nope, not even close...lol. I did 7-8 miles 2 weeks ago and thought I gave myself plantar faciitis because of it. I have some buddies that want to do it, I"m a moron and agreed to go along. I'm in good muscular shape but my cardio is severly lacking. I actually got some samples of poseidon and swell that should help. I'll probably add some BCAA as well. I may be dead on Monday
Day 29
Workout - Chest + Legs (light day):
Bench Press:
12 @ 185
9 @ 225 = +2 reps
8 @ 230 = +3 reps +5lbs
6 @ 230 = +1 rep +5lbs
10 @ 210 = +2 reps
8 @ 210 = +5lbs
13 @ 185 = +3 reps
Overhead Dumbell (laying on a bench - first time I tried it):
12 @ 40
10 @ 45
Incline Flys - Dumbell:
14 @ 50
drop immediately to
9 @ 25s
Good Mornings:
12 @ 70
12 @ 70
12 @ 70
12 @ 185
12 @ 185
12 @ 185
12 @ 185
Diet: I don't think I ate enough food for lunch.
Overall Feeling: Didn't feel very explosive in the gym today. I didn't get a chance to have a preworkout malto/WMS/BCAA that I sometimes do. I don't know if that had something to do with it. I was however able to hit 8 reps @ 230lbs! I'd have to go back and check but that is likely a PR for me. I may have got close when I was on heavy dose of creatine but I lose so much power when I go off creatine. Also even on creatine I never hit 230, 8 times.
Notes: I feel tired after today's workout. I'm not sure why. Probably combining heavy chest with legs (even though they were 80% weight sets for me) took a lot out of me. I'm chillin' with my WMS + BCAA right now. Then eating my banana and Whey. - 09-20-2007, 01:47 PM
Day 30
Workout - Back: (yesterday's workout)
Pull Down (don't know if the numbers are pounds but it is just the number I use on the stack):
12 @ 120
10 @ 140 = +2 reps
9 @ 140 = +1 reps
10 @ 140 = +3 reps
9 @ 140 = + 2 reps
T-Bar Row (actually the barbell stuffed into the corner with weights on one end):
11 @ 80 = -1 rep +10lbs
11 @ 80 = 0
9 @ 85 = +5lbs
10 @ 85 = +5lbs
10 @ 85 = +5lbs
Diet: Normal - A nice 900 calorie burrito for lunch...mmmm
Overall Feeling: I only had 30 minutes for my workout b/c of previous engagements. However I wish it was longer. I felt very good in the gym today. Got a nice pump in my back (which is very hard for me to do for some reason...maybe I use to much arm in general). The lifts are going up in either reps or weight slowly but steadily.
Notes: I didn't get much sleep the night before so I was dragging part of the day. However, once I got in the gym I was good to go. Sleep, libido, and hardness of muscles overall feel very good on a regular basis now. - 09-21-2007, 12:17 PM
Day 31
Workout - Shoulders/Arms:
Military Press with Dumbells:
12 @ 50s
12 @ 50s
12 @ 50s
12 @ 50s
Bicep Dumbell:
8 @ 45s
8 @ 50s
7 @ 50s
6 @ 50s
immediately dropped to:
9 @ 25s
Tricep Pushdown:
12 @ 100
10 @ 115
8 @ 120
8 @ 120
immediately dropped to:
12 @ 70
Diet: Normal - I like to eat a banana before workout now.
Overall Feeling: I haven't been getting good sleep, but that is not the fault of IGF-2. My sleep has been getting interrupted by various crap outside of my control. IGF-2 has actually helped me get back to sleep when woken up though. Bicep strength was through the roof today. 8 reps at 50 pound dumbells is pretty good for me. I even focused on not swinging or arching my back. Triceps also felt nice. Even after this short workout my arms were exploding!
Notes: Yes, I went easy on lifting this week, especially shoulders and legs. I didn't want to burn out my legs before Saturday. I also didn't want sore shoulders if I'm going to have a 20lb pack on it all day tomorrow. I'll be ready to lift them all heavy again next week, if I'm able to walk - 09-21-2007, 09:47 PM
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text:
Punishment and Prejudice: Judging Drug-Using Pregnant Women
Lynn M. Paltrow Throughout the late 1980's and still today, "crack moms" and "crack babies" are the subject of vigorous public debate. 1 Much of this public discussion has been governed by speculation and medical misinformation reported as fact in both medical journals and in the popular press and has been extremely judgmental and punitive in many instances. The harshest response has been the call for the arrest and prosecution of women who use cocaine during pregnancy. In a country that had come to learn that certain drugs, such as thalidomide and DES, can cause serious damage to a child exposed to them prenatally, it is not surprising that people are concerned about the possible effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine. But a concern that could have become the basis for rational scientific inquiry as well as compassionate and constructive discussion quickly became a conclusion that all children exposed prenatally to cocaine would be damaged irrevocably and that their mother's selfish and irresponsible drug-taking behavior is to blame for a national health tragedy. One key question is why was there such a "rush to judgment" both about the medical effects of cocaine and about the women who used it while pregnant. 2 While there is no one, simple answer, it is clear that the issue of drugs and pregnancy touches on some of the most highly charged and deeply entrenched political issues of our day. It involves America's long tradition of punishing drug use rather than providing treatment and education. 3 Because the problem of cocaine use in pregnancy was presented as one predominantly as a problem of the African American community it is deeply intertwined with issues of race, race discrimination, and the legacy of slavery: 4 while illicit substance abuse crosses all race and class lines, this particular debate has focused on low-income African-American women, many of whom are rely on welfare. Because it involves women and pregnancy, the issue of drugs and pregnancy is inseparable from issues concerning the status of all women as well as with sex and sexuality. 5 Finally, the issue of pregnant women's drug use has been shaped by claims of fetal rights that are at the heart of today's abortion debate. 6 It is not possible to address all of these influences here. But identifying them helps to explain why rational and compassionate discussion of the issue is so difficult. For example, if the issue of drug use does not trigger an emotional response, the issue of race or women's rights. As a result, there is little room for meaningful exploration of what the medical risks of cocaine use during pregnancy really are and what might actually help pregnant women and drug exposed infants. It also means that there is virtually no room to discuss complex ideas that take into account a range of human responses and possibilities. If I say cocaine may not be as damaging as once thought, people interpret that to mean that I am saying that it is perfectly fine to take cocaine. 7 If I oppose prosecution of pregnant women then I am heard to be saying that such women have no responsibility for their actions. If I say that fetuses should not be treated as persons under the law, I am accused of denying that they have any value at all. None of these assumptions or misinterpretations is correct. The fact that cocaine may not be more damaging than cigarettes, doesn't mean that pregnant women should now be urged to use it. Rather, it means that an unprecedented legal response to pregnant women who use cocaine can't be justified by claims of this particular drug's unparalleled or exceptional harms. Opposition to prosecution and other punitive responses does not mean that pregnant women lack responsibility for their actions. In our current political climate, however, prosecution and imprisonment appear to be the only mechanisms recognized for holding people accountable for their actions. But they are not the only ways to encourage responsible behavior. In fact punishment in some circumstances can be the least effective social response. Furthermore, to oppose the recognition of fetal personhood as a matter of law is not to deny the value and importance of potential life as matter of religious belief, emotional conviction, or personal experience. Rather, by opposing such a new legal construct, we can avoid devastating consequences to women's health, prenatal health care and women's hope for legal equality. Exploring some of the real issues involving cocaine and pregnancy and how our discussion of it has been shaped or manipulated by the media coverage of these issues can help bring some sensible and informed thought to the discussion. With luck it might also make room for compassion and understanding.
The Villain Cocaine Bold yellow letters read "Crack Kids" followed by the headline: "Their mothers used drugs, and now its the children who suffer." The face of a tearful child filled the page beneath the words. Inside, on the table of contents another photograph appears. This one is of a tiny infant's head, so small that a grown man's hand engulfs it almost completely. Next to the picture it reads: "A mother's sad legacy: Can the innocent legacies of drug use be rescued?" The inside story begins: "Innocent victims: Damaged by the drugs their mothers' took, crack kids face social and educational hurdles and must count on society's compassion." This time a menacing picture of a distraught Black child accompanies the text. In fact, as the photographs become more sinister the subjects' skin color becomes darker. The same year the New York Times ran a front page story entitled "Born on Crack and Coping with Kindergarten." 9 The story is accompanied by a photograph of a school teacher surrounded by young children. Underneath the caption reads: "I can't say for sure it's crack, said Ina R. Weisberg, a kindergarten teacher at P.S. 48 in the Bronx, but I can say that in all my years of teaching I've never seen so many functioning at low levels." Throughout these years medical and popular journals, public school teachers and judges alike were willing to assume that if a child had a health or emotional problem and he or she had been exposed prenatally to cocaine, then cocaine and cocaine alone was the cause of the perceived medical or emotional problem. Rather than wait for careful research and evaluation of the drug's effect there was, as several researchers later criticized, a "rush to judgment" that blamed cocaine for host of problems that the research simply has not born out. 10 Indeed, an article in the medical journal Lancet in 1989 found that scientific studies that concluded that exposure to cocaine prenatally had adverse effects on the fetus had a significantly higher chance of being published than more careful research finding no adverse effects. 11 The published articles, delineating the harmful effects on infants prenatally exposed to cocaine, reported that brain damage, miscarriages, genito- urinary malformations and fetal demise as just a few of the dire results of a pregnant woman's cocaine use. Infants that survived the exposure were described as inconsolable, unable to make eye contact, emitting a strange high-pitched piercing wail, rigid and jittery. These early studies, however, had numerous methodologic flaws that made generalization from them completely inappropriate. For example, these studies were based on individual case reports or on very small samples of women who used more than one drug. Researchers often failed to control for the other drugs and problems the mother might have, and/or failed to follow-up on the child's health. 12 The articles describing these studies were nevertheless relied upon to show that cocaine alone was the cause of an array of severe and costly health problems. Like alcohol and cigarettes, using cocaine during pregnancy can pose risks to the woman and the fetus. More carefully controlled studies, however, are finding that cocaine is not uniquely or even inevitably harmful. For example, unlike the devastating and permanent effects of fetal alcohol syndrome, which causes permanent mental retardation, cocaine seems to act more like cigarettes and marijuana, increasing certain risks like low birth weight but only as one contributing factor and only in some pregnancies. 13 Epidemiological studies find that statistically speaking many more children are at risk of harm from prenatal exposure to cigarettes and alcohol. In fact, one recent publication on women and substance abuse has created the label "Fetal Tobacco Syndrome" to draw attention to the extraordinarily high miscarriage and morbidity rates associated with prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke. 14 By the late 1980's, it was already becoming clear to researchers in the field that the labels "crack babies" and "crack kids" were dangerous and counter- productive. 15 If one read far enough in the Time article -past the pictures of premature infants and deranged children-the story reported that: [a]n increasing number of medical experts, however, vehemently challenge the notion that most crack kids are doomed. In fact, they detest the term crack kids, charging that it unfairly brands the children and puts them all into a single dismal category. From this point of view, crack has become a convenient explanation for problems that are mainly caused by a bad environment. When a kindergartner from a broken home in the impoverished neighborhood misbehaves or seems slow, teachers may wrongly assume that crack is the chief reason, when other factors like, poor nutrition, are far more important. Even the New York Times article about the crack-exposed children in kindergarten eventually revealed that researchers: "after extensive interviews [found] the problems in many cases were traced not to drug exposure but to some other traumatic event, death in the family, homelessness, or abuse, for example." 16 And despite the fact that school administrators "rarely know who the children are who have been exposed to crack.and the effects of crack are difficult to diagnose because they may mirror and be mixed up with symptoms of malnutrition, low birth-weight, lead poisoning, child abuse and many other ills that frequently afflict poor children," the article resorts to crack as the only reasonable explanation for an otherwise inexplicable phenomenon. In fact, the outcry about cocaine and damaged children occurred at the end of eight years of Reagan-era budget cuts, many of them in social programs for poor women and children. As researchers Banks and Zerai noted, Resources for women and children were seriously affected. Between 1977 and 1984, maternal and child health block grants were reduced by one-third. As a result federally mandated comprehensive health clinics including well-baby, prenatal and immunization clinics were eliminated. Community and Migrant Heath Centers were cut by one third and the national health service Corp's budget was reduced by 64% (between 1981-1991). The WIC program did not sustain budget cuts, but by 1989 it still only served one-half of those eligible. 17 Reports from the Children's Defense Fund for these years described the devastating consequences of increasing poverty, linking it to a dramatic decline in children's health and safety. 18 When the headlines might more accurately have been "Born in Poverty and Coping with Kindergarten" and the real news was there is no such thing as a "crack kid," Time, the New York Times, and other leading news outlets continued to report cocaine in pregnancy as an epidemic destroying a generation of children. Even groups like the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, lead by Joseph Califano, in an otherwise tempered Annual Report that described their research on the cost of substance abuse to society, referred to newborns exposed to alcohol and especially cocaine as "a slaughter of innocents of biblical proportions." 19 These stories and characterizations where not lost on the public officials looking at the question of substance abuse and pregnancy. One judge, assuming a knowledge of cocaine's effects that he simply did not have, and revealing his evident racial bias, admonished a woman accused of having a "cocaine baby": You know, we've got enough trouble with normal children. Now this little baby's born with crack. When he is seven years old, they have an attention span that long [holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart]. They can't run. They just run around in class like a little rat. Not just black ones. White ones too. 20 The Public Responds The public response to the media and medical journal reports was one largely of outrage. The harshest response was the call for the arrest of the pregnant women and new mothers who used drugs. Numerous states considered legislation to make it a crime for a pregnant woman to be pregnant and addicted. 21 Although, not a single state legislature passed a new law creating the crime of fetal abuse, individual prosecutors in more than thirty states arrested women whose infants tested positive for cocaine, heroin, or alcohol. Many of these women were arrested for child-abuse, newly interpreted as "fetal" abuse. Others, like Jennifer Johnson in Florida were charged with delivery of drugs to a minor. 22 In that case, the prosecutor argued that the drug delivery occurred through the umbilical cord after the baby was born but before the umbilical cord was cut. Still other women were charged with assault with a deadly weapon (the weapon being cocaine), or feticide (if the woman suffered a miscarriage), or homicide (if the infant ,once born, died). Some women were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. While arrests were almost always the result of the action of an individual prosecutor, in the state of South Carolina there was unprecedented coordination between health care providers, the prosecutors office, and the police. In 1989, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, established a collaborative effort among the police department, the prosecutors office, and a state hospital, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), to punish pregnant women and new mothers who tested positive for cocaine. Under the policy, the hospital tested certain pregnant women for the presence of cocaine. Under the policy, the hospital tested certain pregnant women for the presence of cocaine. Women were tested for the presence of cocaine to further criminal investigations, but the women never consented to these searches and search warrants were never obtained. While the hospital refused to create a drug treatment program designed to meet the needs of pregnant addicts, or to put a single trained drug counselor on its obstetrics staff, it did create a program for drug-testing certain patients, their in- hospital arrest, and removal to jail (where their was neither drug treatment nor prenatal care); the ongoing provision of medical information to the police and prosecutor's office; and tracking for purposes of ensuring their arrest. Some women were taken to jail while still bleeding from having given birth. They were handcuffed and shackled while hospital staff watched with approval. All but one of the women arrested were African-American. The program itself had been designed by and entrusted to a white nurse who admitted that she believed that the "mixing of the races was against God's will." 23 She noted in the medical records of the one white woman arrested that she lived "with her boyfriend who is a Negro." 24 While a civil suit in federal court challenging the Charleston practice failed at the trial level, it is now on appeal. However, the women who sued were successful in stopping the arrests. The National Institutes of Heath found that research relating to the arrests violated federal law regarding research on human subjects; and the hospital agreed to stop facilitating the arrest of patients in a settlement agreement with the Office of Civil Rights which and been investigating it for race discrimination violations. 25 As for other legal challenges, courts in twenty-four states have held that prosecutions of pregnant women are beyond the intent of the law, and in some cases beyond federal constitutional limits on state power. Only one court, the South Carolina Supreme Court, has upheld such prosecutions in a case called Whitner v. State. 26 This decision is now being challenged in the federal courts. Who are these mothers? As a report from the Southern Regional Project on Infant Mortality observed: Newspaper reports in the 1980's sensationalized the use of crack cocaine and created a new picture of the "typical" female addict; young, poor, black, urban, on welfare, the mother of many children and addicted to crack. In interviewing nearly 200 women for this study, a very different picture of the "typical" chemically dependent woman emerges. She is most likely white, divorced or never married, age 31, a high school graduate, on public assistance, the mother of two or three children, and addicted to alcohol and one other drug. It is clear from the women we interviewed that substance abuse among women is not a problem confined to those who are poor, black, or urban, but crosses racial, class, economic and geographic boundaries. 27 African American women, however have been disproportionately targeted for arrest and punishment, not because they use more drugs or are worse mothers, but because, as Dorothy Roberts explains "[t]hey are the least likely to obtain adequate prenatal care, the most vulnerable to government monitoring, and the least able to conform to the white middle-class standard of motherhood. They are therefore the primary targets of government control." 28 Beyond the stock images and prejudicial stereotypes, the media has given the public little opportunity to meet or get to know the mothers. If we never learn who they are it is inevitable that their drug use will seem inexplicably selfish and irresponsible. Yet, if we could meet them and learn their history, we might be able to begin to understand them and the problems that need to be addressed. Let me give an example. In the popular television show, NYPD Blue we get to know the irascible Detective Sipowicz. While he is neither handsome nor charming we come to care for him. We learn that he is an alcoholic who is able to stop drinking and improve his life. When he has a massive relapse and behaves outrageously, effectively abandoning his new wife and their newborn son, committing crimes of violence and countless violations of his responsibilities as a police officer, we nevertheless want to forgive him and give him another chance. We are able to sympathize, at least in part because we have been given the information about why he has relapsed. His first son, whom he has finally reconnected with, is murdered, and Sipowicz, who can't handle it emotionally, turns back to the numbing, relief-giving effects of alcohol. Sipowicz, in the end, is supported by his police colleagues who cover up for him and give him another chance. By contrast, when the same program did an episode involving a heroin addicted pregnant woman, whose drug-habit leads her two older sons to a life of crime, we never get to know why she has turned to drugs. We do not know as we did with Sipowicz what could have driven her to this behavior. The viewer can only assume that her drug use is purely selfish, stemming from a thoughtless hedonism. Thus, she is not entitled to understanding, sympathy, or the many second chances Sipowicz's character routinely gets. But like Sipowicz, pregnant women who use drugs also have histories and complex lives that affect their behavior and their chances of recovery. We know that substance abuse in pregnancy is highly correlated with a history of violent sexual abuse. 29 In one study 70 percent of the pregnant addicted women were found to be in violent battering relationships. A hugely disproportionate number, compared to a control group, were raped as children. Drugs appear to be used as a means to numb the pain of a violent childhood and adult life. Like Vietnam veterans who self medicated with drugs for their post-traumatic stress disorders, at least some pregnant women also use drugs to numb the pain of violent and traumatic life experiences. 30 Are their difficult childhoods or their experiences with violence an excuse for drug use? No. But the information begins to provide some idea of root causes that might need to be taken into consideration when trying to imagine the appropriate societal reaction. Will the threat of jail remove the trauma and pain that in many instances prompted the drug use and stands in the way of recovery? It is not that a woman who uses drugs is not responsible, but rather that we have to hold her responsible in a context that takes into account the obstacles, internal and external, that stand in the way of recovery. Let me give a few examples. In the Jennifer Johnson Case, judge Eaton, who initially found Johnson guilty of delivery of drugs to a minor and sentenced her to eighteen years of probation and court supervision if she ever became pregnant again, said the following at her sentencing: "The choice to use or not to use cocaine is just that - a choice." 31 The judge ignored, as most people do, the physiologically addictive nature of cocaine. Despite the medical evidence as well as long-standing Supreme Court decisions recognizing that addiction is a chronic disease, marked by numerous relapses on the road to recovery, judges and the public continue to treat it as volitional behavior that is simply a matter of will-power. Because addiction has both physiological and psychological components, achieving total abstinence or even successfully reducing the harms associated with drug use is difficult to overcome without help. Indeed the judge viewed Ms. Johnson's drug use alone as punishable under the law, despite the fact that the United States Supreme Court has recognized that addiction is a diseases and that to punish someone for being an addict violates the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. 32 Perhaps, however, the judge in the Jennifer Johnson case assumed that treatment was available for this disease. Unfortunately, then and now, pregnant women are routinely turned away from drug treatment programs. When Britta Smith, a woman in the state of Virginia, discovered that she was pregnant, she looked in the yellow pages for a drug treatment programs that could help her with her cocaine problem. She was told none took women who depended on Medicaid for payment. Instead of being able to get the treatment she wanted, she was arrested on charges of child abuse. 33 All pregnant women, not just poor ones are routinely denied access to the limited drug treatment that exists in this country. In a landmark study in 1990, Dr. Wendy Chavkin surveyed drug treatment programs in New York City. She found that 54 percent flat out refused to take pregnant women. 34 Sixty-seven percent refused to take women who relied on Medicaid for payment and 84 percent refused to take pregnant crack addicted pregnant women. One hospital in New York was sued for excluding women from drug treatment. The program argued that its exclusion of all women was justified and no different from its medical judgment to exclude all psychotics. 35 While New York State courts found that such exclusion violated state law, this did automatically increase needed services. During the Dinkins' administration, however, new programs for women and children that proved cost effective and successful were created. When Mayor Guilliani took office, however, he promptly shut down the new programs. 36 Nationally, most of the new programs that have been developed for pregnant women and mothers are funded only as demonstration projects and primarily with federal dollars. Funding is unlikely to be renewed in the coming years. Most of the existing programs, as numerous studies have shown, are not designed to meet the needs of women. 37 They are based on studies about male drug users and many rely on an extremely confrontational model that does not work for women, whose profiles generally include guilt and extremely low self-esteem. Furthermore, male-oriented programs do not take into account women's child care and family responsibilities. Many people, however, like Judge Eaton, think women should be punished for failing to get non-existent treatment. Others disguise punitive policies of arrest as fair punishment for women who unreasonably refuse offers of voluntary treatment, when in fact, the "offer" is coerced under the threat of arrest and the treatment itself often inappropriate or inadequate to help the women. Other barriers also exist. Judge Eaton ruled that "the defendant also made a choice to become pregnant and to allow those pregnancies to come to term." The prosecutor argued that "[w]hen she delivered that baby she broke the law." By saying this, the judge makes clear that it was having a child that was against the law. If Ms. Johnson had had an abortion she would not have been arrested - even for possessing drugs. 38 But, this statement not only reveals a willingness to punish certain women for becoming mothers, it also reflects a host of widely held beliefs and assumptions about access to reproductive health services for women. For example, implicit in this statement is the assumption that Ms. Johnson had sex and became pregnant voluntarily. Given the pervasiveness of rape in our society, assuming voluntary sexual relations may not be justified. Perhaps, though, the judge, like many others, simply thought that addicts have no business becoming pregnant in the first place. A South Carolina judge put it bluntly: "I'm sick and tired of these girls having these bastard babies on crack cocaine." Apparently concerned by his candor, he later explained: "They say you're not supposed to call them that but that's what they are. . .when I was a little boy, that's what they called them." 39 On call-in radio talk shows someone inevitably asks why these mothers can't just be sterilized or injected with Depo Prevera until they can overcome their drug problems and, while they are at it, their low socio economic status. The consistency of this view should not be surprising given our country's history of eugenics and sterilization abuse. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared sterilization of men unconstitutional, but has never overturned its decision upholding the sterilization of women perceived to be a threat to society. 40 The suggestion of sterilization, however, is particularly attractive if there is no explanation about why a pregnant woman with a drug problem would want to become pregnant or to have a child in the first place. But drug-using pregnant women become pregnant and carry to term for the same range of reasons all women do. Because contraception failed. Because they fell in love again and hoped this time they could make their family work. Because they are "pro-life" and would never have an abortion. Because when they found out the beloved father of the baby was really already married, they thought it was too late to get a legal abortion. Because they do not know what their options might be. Because they have been abused and battered for so long they no longer believe they can really control any aspect of their lives including their reproductive lives. Because they wanted a child. Because their neighbors and friends, despite their drug use, had healthy babies and they believed their's would be healthy too. Threat of sterilization is just another punitive response that denies the humanity of the women themselves. Although Judge Eaton did not propose sterilization as part of the sentence he imposed on Ms. Johnson, as some judges in related cases have,41 he undoubtedly assumed that Ms. Johnson could decide, once pregnant, whether or not to continue that pregnancy to term. Since 1976, however, the United States government has refused to pay for poor women's abortions and few states have picked up the costs. 42 In Florida, like most other states, the "choice" Judge Eaton spoke of does not exist for low-income women. It was in Florida, after all, where Dr. Gunn was hunted down and murdered for providing abortions to those women who could afford them. It was also where Kawana Ashley, another woman from Florida discovered she was pregnant with an unwanted pregnancy. Ms. Ashley was already raising a child as a single parent and felt she could not responsibly have another one. Her boyfriend promised to help pay for the abortion. After waiting and waiting until weeks had passed, she realized he was not going to help her. She went to a clinic where she found out that she was already in her second trimester of her pregnancy. The abortion was prohibitively expensive and neither the state nor the clinic would provide one for free. Ms. Ashley, in an act of desperation, took a gun and shot herself in the stomach. She survived. The fetus, weighing two pounds, two ounces was delivered by cesarean section with a wound to its wrist. It lived briefly but did not survive. Ms. Ashley was charged with murder. 43 Even assuming that Ms. Johnson's religious and ethical belief's would have allowed her to end her pregnancy, she, like Kawana Ashley, would have found that her "choices" were much more limited than Judge Eaton assumed. Lack of access to abortion services is only one of the many barriers that exist for a drug-addicted pregnant woman who attempts to make responsible "choices." There are many other barriers that make it extremely difficult for pregnant women on drugs to get the kind of help and support they need. Access to services for drug- addicted women who are physically abused is also limited. For example, many battered women's shelters are set up to deal with women who have experienced violence, but are not equipped to support a woman who has become addicted to drugs as a way to numb the pain of the abuse. 44 Other barriers include lack of housing, employment, and access to prenatal care. As one of the few news stories to discuss these woman's dilemmas explained: Soon after she learned she was pregnant, [Kimberly] Hardy [who was eventually prosecuted for delivery of drugs to a minor] convinced she had to get away from her crowd of crack users as well as her crumbling relationship with her [boyfriend] Ronald, took the kids home to Mississippi for the duration of her pregnancy. But by moving, she lost her welfare benefits, including Medicaid. Unable to pay for clinic visits, she had to go without prenatal care. 45 And what about the men in their lives? Their contribution to the problem, physiologically and socially, are ignored or deliberately erased. Rarely in the media do we know what has happened to the potential fathers. Their drug use, abandonment, and battering somehow miraculously disappear from view. Nevertheless, men often do play a significant role. For example, in California Pamela Rae Stewart was arrested after her newborn died. One of her alleged crimes contributing to the child's ultimate demise was having sex with her husband on the morning of the day of the delivery. Her husband, with whom she had had intercourse, however was never arrested for fetal abuse. Indeed, the prosecutor's court papers argued that Ms. Stewart had "subjected herself to the rigors of intercourse," thereby totally nullifying the man's involvement or culpability. 46 Prosecutors in South Carolina also manage to ignore the male culpability, even when it is the father who is supplying the pregnant woman with the cocaine or other potentially harmful substances. Many women arrested in this state were not identified as substance addicted until after they had given birth, a point at which their drug use could not even arguably have a biological impact on the baby. Prosecutors argued that arrest was still justified because evidence of the woman's drug use during pregnancy is predictive of an inability to parent effectively. But fathers identified as drug users are not automatically presumed to be incapable of parenting. Indeed, when a man who happens to be a father is arrested for drunk driving, a crime that entails a serious lack of judgment and the use of a drug, he is not automatically presumed to be incapable of parenting and reported to the child welfare authorities. Prosecutor's nevertheless rely on biological differences between mothers and fathers. Arguing that a man's drug use could not have hurt the developing baby in the first place. However, studies indicate that male drug use can affect birth outcome: Studies on male alcohol use have demonstrated a relationship between male drinking and low birth weight in their children and a study of cocaine and men suggests that male drug use can also affect birth outcome. 47 We continue to live in a society with double standards and extremely different expectations for men and women. Drug use by men is still glorified, while drug use by women is shameful, and by pregnant women a crime. This could not have been better demonstrated than by a recent advertising campaign by Absolute vodka. On Father's day, as a promotional gimmick, Absolute sent 250,000 free ties with copies of the New York Times Sunday edition. Scores of little sperm in the shape of Absolut vodka bottles swim happily on the tie's blue background. So while many call for arrest when a pregnant woman uses drugs or alcohol, fathers who drink are celebrated and, in effect, urged to "tie one on." Of course, none of these arguments are made to suggest that women are not responsible for their actions or that they are unable to make any choices that reflect free will. Rather, it is to say that popular expectations of what acting responsibly looks like and notions of "choice" have to be modified by an understanding of addiction as a chronic relapsing disease, of the degree to which our country has abandoned programs for poor women and children, and of the time, strength and courage it takes for a drug addicted woman to confront her history of drug use, violence, and abandonment. Compassion and significantly more access to coordinated and appropriate services will not guarantee that all of our mothers and children are healthy. But medical experts and both children's and women's rights advocates agree that such an approach is far more likely to improve health than are punishment and blame. Some people argue, however, that a woman who "chooses" to become pregnant, and does not end that pregnancy should be held legally accountable for her actions. Much of the problem with this argument has already been addressed above. How do we know that a woman chose to become pregnant? Or that she could have ended her pregnancy? Even assuming that at least some women's choices are completely free, totally conscious, and completely funded, the consequences of such a standard of accountability would result in a level of state surveillance and scrutiny of women's lives that is not only dangerous but also completely unprecedented under our system of law. As the Illinois Supreme Court explained in rejecting the argument that a child should be able to sue its mother for injuries caused by her behavior during pregnancy: It is the firmly held belief of some that a woman should subordinate her right to control her life when she decides to become pregnant or does become pregnant. Anything which might possibly harm the developing fetus should be prohibited and all things which might positively affect the developing fetus should be mandated under penalty of law, be it criminal or civil. Since anything which a pregnant woman does or does not do may have an impact, either positive or negative, on her developing fetus, any act or omission on her part could render her liable to her subsequently born child. While such a view is consistent with the recognition of a fetus' having rights which are superior to those of its mother, such is not and cannot be the law of this state. As the court recognized, to hold women legally accountable would depend on the "legal fiction" that the fetus is "a separate person with rights hostile and assertable against its mother." As the court explained: The relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus is unlike the relationship between any other plaintiff and defendant. No other plaintiff depends exclusively on any other defendant for everything necessary for life itself. No other defendant must go through biological changes of the most profound type possible at the risk of her own life, in order to bring forth an adversary into the world. It is after all, the whole life of the pregnant woman which impacts on the development of the fetus. As opposed to the third-party defendant, it is the mother's every waking and sleeping moment which for better or worse shapes the prenatal environment which forms the world for the developing fetus. That this is so is not a pregnant woman's fault: it is a fact of life. The court concluded that it could not treat women as strangers to their own bodies, recognizing that "[j]judicial scrutiny into the day-to-day lives of pregnant women would involve an unprecedented intrusion into the privacy and autonomy of the citizens " of its state. 48 But What About the Fetus? Many, however, feel that protection of women's privacy and autonomy ignores the rights of the fetus. This argument has been borrowed from the rhetoric and legal grounds developed by the anti-abortion movement in its efforts to gain legal recognition of fetal personhood and to outlaw abortion. Prosecutors trying women for their behavior during pregnancy borrow wholesale from the anti-choice legal augments on behalf of the fetus. These prosecutors assert that by promoting fetal rights and the view that a mother's drug use is the same as child abuse, they are somehow protecting fetuses and children. But just the opposite is true. As every leading health group has pointed out, threatening punishment of pregnant addicts will accomplish only one thing -deterring women from health care, including prenatal care, that can ameliorate problems of substance abuse even if a woman can't stop her drug use altogether. 49 It will also deter women from what little drug-treatment is available. In fact, since the highly publicized Whitner decision, some drug treatment programs in South Carolina saw a drop of over 80 percent in the number of pregnant women seeking drug treatment. 50 Punishment could have even more far-reaching deterrent effects: It might deter pregnant women from seeking the food they need during pregnancy. While low-income women can use the federal Women, Infant and Child (WIC) program that provides nutritional supplements to pregnant women, such programs are required to determine if a woman is using drugs. Public health workers including those employed by the WIC program are mandatory child abuse reporters under the South Carolina law. As a result, a pregnant woman using drugs in South Carolina might not even be able to get the food she needs without the risk of arrest. The effect of treating a pregnant drug user as a child abuser will not help fetuses or children. It will, however, further an agenda to undermine women's rights. Few people realize that women are not yet recognized as full persons under the law: In a series of cases, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that the Constitution provides women with protection against certain forms of discrimination on the basis of sex. This protection, however, applies only in certain areas such as employment and education, and then only to a limited extent. 51 Significantly, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution itself does not provide protection to women in many areas involving pregnancy and abortion. 52 For example, the Court found that it was not a constitutional violation to provide male state employees with health benefits for all of their health problems but to exclude coverage for women with health problems associated with pregnancy. The Supreme Court held that this was discrimination between pregnant persons and nonpregnant persons, not discrimination between men and women. The Court views a woman's capacity for pregnancy as something that makes her different from men, and extends constitutional protection against employment discrimination only where women are similarly situated to, or in fact, exactly like men. As long as the Supreme Court continues to hold that discrimination against pregnant women is not sex discrimination, women will not be equal under the law. 53 The problem with treating the fetus as a person is that women will not simply continue to be less than equal, they will become nonpersons under the law. No matter how much value we place on a fetus's potential life, it is still inside the woman's body. To pretend that the pregnant woman is separate is to reduce her to nothing more than, as one radio talk show host asserted, a "delivery system" for drugs to the fetus. It is only by treating the pregnant woman as a stranger to her own body that people can compare her drug use to a parent who feeds cocaine to her two year old child. It allows people to ignore the pregnant woman's mental and physical state and the physiological addiction that compels her to take drugs. As many authors have noted, pregnant women do not become pregnant and turn to drugs, but are already addicted when they become pregnant. 54 Nevertheless, some argue that the drug-addicted pregnant woman should be treated as if her drug use is the same as child abuse and at least one state supreme court has apparently accepted that view. The Supreme of South Carolina, distinguishing itself from courts in twenty-four other states, has declared that at least inside the borders of South Carolina a viable fetus is a person and a pregnant woman who endangers its health can be found guilty of child abuse. 55 The South Carolina court could not fathom the difference between a stranger who attacks a pregnant woman and the woman herself. The court argued if the fetus is not treated as a child under the law, then, "there would be no basis for prosecuting a mother who kills her viable fetus by stabbing it, by shooting it, or by other such means, yet a third party could be prosecuted for the very same acts." But in order for a mother to "stab" or "shoot" the unborn child, she must first cut through her own flesh, rip apart her own body. Her actions thus have vastly different physiological and psychological implications than those of a third party who commits violence, not against his own body, but against that of another person. Moreover, a parent addicted to drugs can avoid child abuse charges by providing for her child's needs and by ensuring that the child does not take drugs him or herself. Because the fetus is inside the woman's body, a drug-addicted pregnant woman may be a criminal no matter what she does. This is especially clear for a woman who is pregnant and addicted to heroin. If she stops using heroin, the ensuing effects of withdrawal could cause fetal death, in which case she would be guilty of murder. If she seeks a late-term abortion she could be arrested for having an illegal abortion or committing murder. Alternatively, if she continues her pregnancy and gives life to a child despite her addiction problem, she could go to jail for ten years as a child abuser. Because the fetus is in her body, every option available to her is a crime. If the fetus is a person, there are no limits on the state's power to police and punish pregnant women and on the power of husbands and putative fathers and even complete strangers to interfere with women's freedom. Pregnant women could be prosecuted for drinking alcohol. It has already happened. Pregnant women could be prosecuted for failing to get sufficient bed rest or endangering the fetus by having sexual intercourse late in pregnancy. Remember, that too has already happened. Self-appointed guardians for the fetus could seek to prevent a pregnant woman with cancer from having chemotherapy that might endanger the fetus. It has already happened. Courts could order pregnant women to undergo cesarean sections for the benefit of the life of the fetus, even when such surgery could cause the woman herself to die. Unfortunately, this has already happened as well. 56 In 1987 Angela Carder, who was approximately twenty-five weeks pregnant, found out that she had a tumor the size of a football in her lungs. At thirteen she had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. She defied predictions of her death and lived despite chemotherapy and the removal of an entire leg and half her pelvis. Eventually she married and became pregnant. When she realized she was having a recurrence of the cancer she made clear to her doctors and family that above all she wanted to live. Her family felt the same way and her doctors did not believe they could do anything to save the pregnancy. A neonatologist at the hospital, however, decided that the fetus ought to be rescued from Angela's body. The doctor went to the hospital's lawyers, who in turn called a judge to decide what should be done in terms of the fetus. A lawyer was appointed for the fetus, and she, along with another lawyer who appeared on behalf of the fetus, argued that what Angela wanted did not matter since the fetus had a right to life. Angela's doctors testified that the cesarean section could kill her and that none of them were willing to perform the surgery. In the end the cesarean was ordered and performed. . The decision rested entirely on the view that the fetus had a right to life. The fetus was so premature that it lived only for a few hours. Angela died two days later, with the cesarean section listed as a contributing factor in her death. Although the order was eventually overturned, Angela's case is but one of many examples of distorted and inhumane health care resulting from the creation of fetal rights. A husband has sought a court order for visitation of his "child" to keep his estranged pregnant wife from leaving town. Juvenile courts have taken custody of the drug-exposed fetus and ordered "it" into drug treatment. In Colorado, state officials terminated a woman's parental rights to a child before it was even born, arguing that she was an "unfit pregnant" woman. Furthermore, in South Carolina, despite official claims that the purpose of prosecution is not to punish women who seek help and take care of their children, one woman, who had been able to stop using drugs, and who was working and home raising her three young, healthy children, was forced to serve a five-year jail sentence for child abuse based on a positive cocaine test at the birth of her son. The possibilities for denying women's freedom are not the fantasies of lawyers engaged in slippery slope arguments, but rather current trends in the ever increasing effort to win legal recognition of the fetus and to undermine and ultimately abolish women's rights. Conclusion The truth is that we do not have to pit the woman against the fetus to promote healthy pregnancies or to value life. In fact, creating fetal personhood hurts both women and the possibilities for healthier pregnancies. We could treat addiction for what it is, a health problem. We could fund programs designed to meet women's needs not only during pregnancy, but throughout their lives because we value women as whole persons. We could respect people's different values regarding fetuses without creating the legal fiction that fetuses are separate persons. We could commit to ending poverty, the greatest threat to children's health. We could attempt to develop a sane drug policy and ensure that health care and reproductive freedom are realities for all people. Most people think these goals are too unrealistic to fight for. But is it exactly because we have given up these goals that there is now so much room for arguments for punishment, and the protection not of life or health in general but only of fetal life alone. Citations:
This article is re-printed with the author's permission. It was first published in: MOTHER TROUBLES, RETHINKING CONTEMPORARY MATERNAL DILEMMAS, Edited by Julia E. Hanigsberg and Sara Ruddick, (1999 Beacon Press) www.beacon.org, ISBN 0-8070-6787-3 | |
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By Judy Hevrdejs Chicago Tribune
Lonely Planet's "Food Lover's Guide to the World" ($39.99) is not the sort of book one tosses in a carry-on or backpack along with a toothbrush and passport. It measures roughly 9-by-11 inches and weighs more than 3 pounds.
Yet it's a must-have for anyone who pesters locals for restaurant ideas, pokes around food markets or buys dumpling ladles as souvenirs. A terrific resource before you travel, it also has enough recipes — from Spain's simple egg-potato tortilla to India's complex Hyderabadi biryani and Denmark's sweet flodeboller — to keep cooks happy.
Its food credentials are golden: James Oseland (Saveur mag's editor-in-chief) and Mark Bittman (New York Times columnist and cookbook author) were involved, as were chefs Fergus Henderson, Eric Ripert and Atul Kochhar.
Also in the mix: Lonely Planet's "food-passionate travel writers," said Ben Handicott, the book's publisher.
"The book presents food as travel experiences and is for anyone who loves either traveling or great food experiences," Handicott said in an email.
Cooking classes. Food or wine tours. Sections dubbed "Learnings" suggest truffle hunts in France and Sweden, trips to a souk before cooking lunch in Morocco and more. Bite-Size Diversions offer food-related insights, from explaining noriwrapped rice packets (onigiri) found in Japanese convenience stores and Turkish ice cream (dondurma).
Food-related festivals, markets and shout-outs to restaurants are included. So is an array of valuable cultural tips, from how to order noodles to why you shouldn't stick chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice.
Among the best parts are pages devoted to topics such as cheese, breakfast and coffee that take an understanding of the subject beyond a Facebook photo and "it tastes good."
The cheese section, for example, explains why France's Muenster is related to England's Stinking Bishop and Italy's taleggio.
What won't you find in the book? "We wish we could have done more on Malaysia and Brazil — these are two places with fantastic eating experiences that we just couldn't devote more space to — we plan to rectify that in the future," Handicott said.
Perhaps they also will expand beyond the 14 countries and nine regions to give South America and Africa more attention.


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Which Joe gave his name to 'sloppy joes'? We look at five interesting sandwiches and their lexical origins.
1A member of an American Indian people formerly resident in Mississippi and Alabama, and now in Oklahoma.
- 'The fort also served as an important supply base and staging area for allied Indians in their 1739-40 campaign against the Chickasaws.'
- 'Wilson was impressed with the acculturation and prosperity of the Chickasaws.'
- 'Particularly at issue were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole Indians of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida - the so-called Five Civilized Tribes.'
- 'To accomplish this, he must also find a way to remove the southeastern tribes, the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Chickasaws, from their homes.'
- 'The Creeks complied most fully, but the Chickasaws never honored them.'
- 'The archaeological record reveals a dramatic change, one that culminated in the 'final transformation of the Chickasaws into subsistence farmers with an emphasis on free-range cattle… in the 1790s'.'
- 'But only the largest tribes - most Creeks, most Choctaws, and the pragmatic Chickasaws, actively opposed and actually removed.'
- 'The Chickasaws used fires in their territory to aid in hunting and gathering and perhaps to range cattle and other livestock.'
- 'The book's second part provides accounts of the customs and histories of the Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws.'
- 'The previously unpublished document describes a territory undergoing European American settlement and documents cultural adaptation and persistence among the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee peoples.'
- 'The 'Five Civilized Tribes,' the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, resolved to stay where they were, though they eventually ceded most of their land.'
- 'Tuscahoma was the name of an Indian town in Oklahoma, and his father was part Indian, three-fourths either Choctaw or Chickasaw.'
- 'The Creeks were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, along with the Seminoles (who were actually affiliated with the Creek Confederacy until they formed a separate government in 1856), Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws.'
- 'The same is true with respect to the other four 'Civilized Tribes '- Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles - all of whom had shared the Cherokees' fate by 1840.'
- 'The earliest descriptions of Mississippi Black Belt prairies comes from the letters of Thomas Nairne who visited the Chickasaw at the northern end of the Black Belt in 1708.'
- 'Of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes (Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees), only the Cherokee, whose language is classified as Iroquoian, speak a non-Muskogean language.'
- 'Most Chickasaws settled primarily in three or four towns in the fertile BlackBelt Prairie (approximately 70 km east of Oxford) throughout most of the historic period before cession.'
- 'He moved on for several months to live among and preach to the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw before returning home.'
2The Muskogean language of the Chickasaw.
- 'Choctaw and Chickasaw, for instance, employ one pair of markers for paratactic constructions, and a different pair/array of markers for adverbial, complement, and relative clauses.'
- 'In subordinate dependency, the dependent clause may precede or follow the independent clause, as in the Chickasaw example.'
Relating to the Chickasaw or their language.
- 'In the next portion of the narrative Wilson describes his experience in Chickasaw country.'
- 'As president of their church's Woman's Missionary Union, his mother taught Bible lessons and childcare on the local Choctaw and Chickasaw reservation, taking her small son along with her.'
- 'Indeed, ranching seemed to have invaded Chickasaw society as the eighteenth century ended.'
- 'Taking Choctaw conceptions of the world seriously, he utilizes the available Choctaw and Chickasaw language dictionaries to gain insight into the meaning of Choctaw ideas and practices.'
- 'Coming to the ring wearing an Indian headdress and famous for his tomahawk chops and Indian-strap matches, McDaniel was actually one-eighteenth Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian.'
- 'Those that correspond best to the archaeological examples refer specifically to Chickasaw burial treatments for non-chiefly individuals.'
- 'Including roughly two-thirds of present-day northeastern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama, the area was home to the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes well into the nineteenth century.'
- 'The Chickasaw language is still so similar to Choctaw, for instance, that linguists surmise that the separation of the two could not have occurred very long ago.'
The name in Chickasaw.
Further reading
6 punctuation marks you might be using incorrectly
Read moreWe take a look at several popular, though confusing, punctuation marks.
An A-Z of country name origins
Read moreFrom Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, discover surprising and intriguing language facts from around the globe.


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Sara Ahrens' Offbeat: Sara shares her thoughts on how to be divergent when it comes to self defense.
How we process the world around us preprograms our responses to spontaneous, violent attacks. In life, there are 2 categories of thinkers — convergent and divergent. Convergent thinkers are those who believe that every problem has a predetermined number of potential solutions. It is an inward method of thinking and problem solving. A divergent mindset, on the other hand, is an outward method of resolving an issue. It is an approach to a problem that investigates the surrounding world, identifying limitless possibilities and solutions. It employs the creative side of our minds, because we can draw conclusions and make connections that may not be obvious to others.
If we conclude that the only response to a life-or-death situation is with a gun, then we impose limits and jeopardize chances for survival. Without identifying a "Plan B" we will resort to inaction if our "Plan A" fails. We need to focus on the goal, which is to stop the attack any way we can, not focusing on the tool. Developing a divergent response is easily accomplished.
Developing a divergent mindset
Developing divergent thinking in preparation for a violent encounter requires us to first develop situational awareness. As a retired police officer, I constantly practiced this mental exercise. We were taught in the academy to identify potential weapons in the environment that could be used to harm us. Many years after my academy training, I realized that this identification isn't just useful for preventing a suspect from accessing and using weapons against me, it also is useful in identifying weapons I could use against the suspect if, God forbid, I faced a malfunction or am unable to access my intended tools.
Divergent thinking in critical situations
To develop my divergent thinking I made a habit of taking mental notes upon arriving on-scene at every call. I noted my surroundings and all accessible objects. When we begin to look at our surroundings with this lens, we begin to realize how blind we've been. At first, we easily identify potentially harmful objects like a rock, shovel or a bottle. But, true awareness is measured by identifying every object within an environment, and then identifying the tactical advantage those objects provide.
Consider the photo taken at a convenience store. If you are making a delivery and are confronted by a suspect, what are your potential environmental tools? The use-of-force options change, depending on your location and the location of the suspect. What I see when I study this picture is an endless supply of distraction and self-defense objects.
Below is my list, which is not all-inclusive.
- Dolly — This can be used as a barrier, a distraction tool when shoved at the suspect, or a use-of-force tool (if it can be lifted and swung).
- Van door — Depending on the circumstances it is possible to slam the door open or closed into the suspect.
- Pavement/parking block — In a ground fight, the pavement and hard surfaces are useful, blunt-force objects.
- Dirt or broken glass — The existence of dirt or glass isn't necessarily obvious in the photo, but having been a bike officer in this area, you can trust me that it's there … I've lost a few tires! Also, this parking lot overflowed with traffic during the filming of "The Shooting Gallery's" episode Ride Along with Sara when beer bottles were launched at my squad car. Picking up a handful of glass or dirt and throwing it into your aggressor's eyes is an often overlooked, but very effective use-of-force tool. Eighty percent of information processing occurs through the sense of sight. If we cripple that sense, we win the advantage. In addition, having had many physical fights on glass, I don't fear using it to my advantage. I'll headpin someone into glass or gravel, if the situation dictates. It's effective pain compliance.
- Glass windows/brick walls — In a struggle, shoving someone through glass or into a brick wall is an effective stunning technique and may provide edged weapon access.
- The van — If I am at deadly force and behind my wheel of my car I will drive away if I can. If not, I already recognize that my car may be the best weapon I have.
- Bucket (near front door) — Anything that is not nailed down is subject to being transformed into a weapon. It can be swung or thrown at an offender.
My list doesn't begin to address what exists inside the store that is accessible, nor items I have on my person. We possess everyday objects that were never intended for use as self-defense tools, but certainly can be. Consider the Stiletto Killer trial going on now — this is a perfect example. The goal with developing a divergent mindset in regard to self-defense is to identify and use the objects immediately available within the environment to quickly gain a tactical advantage.


text: The Mathews Mission line of bow is growing rapidly each year and the demand for a quality soft case is far greater than ever. Blacks Creek introduced the all new Mission line of Soft Sided Bow Valise's. Their innovative design sets them apart from any other bow case. Unlike traditional bow cases the Valise carries the bow with the riser down and string up. This helps balance the bow while carrying and makes for easy loading and unloading. Its offered in 3 configurations, the Mission, Mission Craze and Mission Riot.


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Combining the ultimate in luxury with breathtaking panoramic views, the Pacifica Penthouse at the Hotel Playa Mazatlan offers an unsurpassed vacation experience guaranteed to be unforgettable in every way.
Let's start with your own private rooftop infinity pool with built-in Jacuzzi, next to an over-size tiled patio/terrace that's big enough for a party, family reunion or business get-together. Spacious balconies follow the sweeping view, opening to shady dining nooks and sunny lounge areas as they wrap around the large, elegant living areas inside. From every angle, the vista stretches as far as the eye can see, from the "El Faro" lighthouse and Centro Historico in the south, to Nuevo Mazatlan and points beyond to the north. Just offshore, a cluster of three small, lush islands sits ready to frame yet another postcard-perfect sunset.
Inside, contemporary Mexican decor mixes with traditional styling for a fresh, comfortable ambience. The split-level living room is appointed with a wrap-around leather couch, giant flat-screen TV and guest bath; floor-to-ceiling windows bring the glittering Pacific Ocean and soothing tropical breezes into your daily routine. The full-size dining room, with its brick cantilevered ceiling, is big enough for entertaining or hosting a private dinner or get-together for loved ones. Pacifica's fully-equipped kitchen, with granite countertops and stainless steel modern appliances, has all the comforts of home – and then some.
The two large bedrooms can accommodate up to six guests and each has its own walk-in closet, private bath with skylight, flat-screen TV and either king or two double beds. One, with a private entrance, includes a full-size tub; the other opens to an oceanfront balcony. Both include the soothing sounds of the surf below, free of charge.
Your stay at the Hotel Playa Mazatlan's Pacifica Penthouse is guaranteed to deliver more than it promises. Why wait? Book your vacation now, and experience the life you've been dreaming about.


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I never knew there were bikers in ireland. would like to find out more
Posted on July 22, 2007, 5:15 pm By Jay Lee
Stumbled upon an Irish biker bar.
Haven't gone in yet.
Lots of BMW motorcycles parked out front.
1 comment Categories: Galway, Ireland, Photography, Sony Alpha 100, Travel Tags: Photography, Travel


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CrunchDeals: 8GB iPod Touch For $185 Shipped
Next Story
A Wind Farm In Oregon Draws $100 Million Investment From Google's Treasury
Quick! You've got three and a half hours (as of my writing this) to pick up a new iPod touch at this solid price — $185 is $45 off the normal $230. 8GB isn't a lot of space, to be sure, but for a dedicated streaming music and app machine, this is a great deal. Head over to eBay's daily deal page to pick one up.
[via 9to5Mac]
- Founded 1976
- Overview Apple is a multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, portable digital music players, and sells a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. Apple provides many products and services, including iPhone; iPad; iPod; Mac; Apple TV; a portfolio …
- Location Cupertino, CA
- Categories Consumer Electronics, Retail, Hardware, Electronics
- Website http://www.apple.com
- Full profile for Apple
- Description Apple's MP3 player that launch in 2001.
- Website N/A
- Full profile for iPod