text:
Bacteriophages (longish, more technical New Scientist article)
5 April 2003
Published in New Scientist (This is my original draft - the New Scientist rewrite wasn't as good.)
The male patient, a diabetic in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, had been told his foot would be amputated. He no longer had any circulation to move antibiotics to the infection there. As a last resort, his doctor had sent the man to Tbilisi's main hospital, where they still used a therapy dating back to the dawn of the Soviet era.
Dr Elizabeth Kutter, visiting from Washington State, was there a few days later, to watch Dr Guram Gvasalia, the hospital's chief surgeon, unwrap the infected foot.
"There was literally no sign of purulence," Kutter says, from her office at Washington's Evergreen State College. "As was later confirmed, they had saved his foot. My reaction was: how incredible! Here in the United States we have no real way to treat diabetic feet."
That was 1996, and Dr Gvasalia had been routinely saving diabetic feet for 25 years. His secret: the humble bacteriophage, probably the most common life-form on Earth.
Bacteriophages (better-known simply as "phages") are viruses that parasitise and kill bacteria. They have been known about since the early 20th century, and now that our antibiotic arsenal is starting to fail us, interest in them is reviving. As biotechnologists learn to upgrade these viruses with extra molecular weaponry, phages could become a last line of defence against a host of infectious diseases.
Phages came to our attention as early as 1896, when British chemist EH Hankin found that something in the waters of India's River Ganges could check the spread of Vibrio cholerae bacteria. The invisible agent was destroyed by boiling, so appeared to be a living entity. It was, Hankin speculated, keeping cholera epidemics at bay among those who drank the river water.
It wasn't till 1915 that British bacteriologist Frederick Twort identified the likely agent as a virus, the bacteriophage - a name actually given to it by Canadian microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle, who discovered phages independently two years later. (The two are now co-credited with the discovery.)
The clinical efficacy of phages was first demonstrated in 1919, when d'Hérelle treated several children with severe dysentery at a Paris hospital. Lacking any safety data on the phage, d'Hérelle and his colleagues drank a substantial quantity of it the day before treatment. "It was their version of a phase one clinical trial," says Elizabeth Kutter with amusement. "When nothing happened to them, they used it on some children, including several boys whose sister had just died - all of whom were close to death. And it cured all of them."
D'Hérelle went on to investigate phages at the Pasteur Institutes in Paris and Saigon in the early 1920s. In 1925 he became a health officer to the League of Nations in Egypt, using phages to control infectious disease during the Muslim pilgrimages, and on ships passing through the Suez Canal. The fame of the new treatment spread, and soon Western drug companies such as Eli Lilly had put phages in their product lines.
Therapeutically useful phages are lytic - those which, in classical viral fashion, pierce the offending bacteria, multiply, kill the bacterial cell by bursting (or lysing) it open, and liberate hundreds more viral particles to infect further bacteria.
Like the early "natural" antibiotics such as penicillin, phages are cheap and easy to produce. Scientists first find a source, like local sewage. After taking the larger particles out of it, they mix it in a medium with the bacterial species they want phages against. A day later, lots of the required phages will usually have bred up. The bacterial cells are then broken open with chloroform, to kill them and release the phages.
After that the phages are put onto a plate of agar with the appropriate bacteria. Clear patches will form on the bacterial lawn: that's where the phages are.
Dr Elizabeth Kutter says phages are often bred up through several generations to select for particular combinations of bacterial strains. "While it is very easy to isolate a phage against most bacteria, it is much more challenging to isolate one that will be effective, and to do all the characterisation and analysis that should be done before they are broadly used therapeutically."
Before World War Two, phages were poured onto lesions, taken orally, or used in aerosols and enemas. On rare occasions they were injected. They treated typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, cholera, and pus-producing and urinary tract infections, among others. Hundreds of studies were written up, though many of them were anecdotal or poorly controlled. Doctors jumped onto the phage bandwagon with little comprehension of how phages worked. Writes one author: "Often, uncharacterised phages at unknown concentrations were given to patients without specific bacteriological diagnosis, and there is no mention of follow up, controls or placebos." ("Viruses of Prokaryotes", Hans Ackermann, CRC Press, 1987.)
In 1931, the American Medical Association commissioned a major study on phages, which concluded that evidence for the efficacy was "contradictory".
Meanwhile, an entirely new sphere of bacteriology was taking shape. In 1928 Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin. By 1939, Howard Florey began small-scale manufacture of the drug, and in 1940 penicillin's success against infection became widely known. With World War Two escalating, penicillin use became widespread in the Allied military. In the post-War West, phages were increasingly discarded as antibiotics became more available.
But behind the Iron Curtain it was a different story. In the early 1920s, Félix d'Hérelle had collaborated at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with a talented Georgian microbiologist named George Eliava. In 1923 Eliava had founded an Institute of Bacteriology in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. D'Hérelle spent a total of 16 months at the Institute between 1933 and 1935, purchasing it books, materials and equipment with his own money. In 1936 Eliava embarked on a building program, and by 1938 a much larger Institute of Microbiology, Bacteriology and Bacteriophages had arisen on the site.
But in 1937 Eliava had been executed by Lavrenti Beria - then head of the Georgian KGB - as "an enemy of the people". (Reportedly, the two fancied the same woman.) Disillusioned, d'Hérelle cut his ties. But the Institute plugged on, in the phlegmatic Georgian way, till the present day. It is now generally known as the Eliava Institute.
Today, says Zemphira Alavidze, who heads Eliava's Phage Morphology and Biology lab, "our phage preparations are used successfully in almost every hospital in Tbilisi and other regions of Georgia".
In recent years the Institute has studied thousands of strains of Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Proteus, Clostridium and other bacteria for sensitivity to phages. Phage strains which inhibit most of them have been isolated, and phages are routinely used in Georgian hospitals and clinics against the above bacteria as well as others such as Pseudomonas, E. coli, Shigella and Enterococcus.
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Institute exported phages throughout the eastern bloc. Each year it produced 3-5 tonnes of phage tablets against dysentery alone. For the moment, though, its 800 production workers are gone, its pill-stampers and bottling machines are silent, and its fermentation vats are empty.
Eliava's industrial production has been privatised, though not all the companies which have taken it over are thriving. The Institute itself presently produces two phage "cocktails" - one for intestinal infections, the other for purulent wound infections. But at 200 litres a year each, this production is less than a tenth of what it was. Russia and Poland still have some phage production.
"My children," says Zemphira Alavidze, "have never used antibiotics. My ten-year-old grandson also uses only phages." And now Alavidze is reversing the historical trend, by reconstructing the Institute's production facility. Alavidze plans to soon produce fifteen phage products in sufficient quantity to supply Georgia.
The Institute has Georgian patents for numerous products including a phage cocktail against purulent infection which attacks Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, E. coli, Proteus, P. aeruginosa, Enterobacter and Acinetobacter.
Whilst the immediate post-Soviet period was grim (mounting debt, unpaid staff, on-and-off water and power), the Institute's debts are paid off now, and Eliava's power and water are back on - due in part to several international grants.
Eliava has a small clinic, headed by Dr Inga Georgadze, whose father headed the Institute for many years. The products it dispenses include phage suppositories for small children, creams for skin complaints, and liquids for gastrointestinal disorders.
If it weren't for the decline of antibiotics, the story of phages might have remained confined to the crumbling healthcare system of a former Communist state. But the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" has accelerated sharply over the last decade or so ago - mostly the result of the over-use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, and over-prescribing by doctors. Thousands have now died from untreatable infections - and it's getting worse. Dr John Tapsall from the World Health Organization's Drug Resistance Surveillance Group, says: "We have just had reports from Japan of treatment failure, due to resistance, of the last remaining group of antibiotics active against gonorrhoea."
Citing the Central Intelligence Agency, a WHO 2001 "Global Strategy" document states: "The emergence of antimicrobial resistance is regarded as a major future threat to the security and political stability of some regions."
Because of the mounting crisis, phages are once again starting to attract the attention of idealistic grant foundations and concerned governments. The Eliava Institute recently received $US315,000 from the Civilian Research and Development Foundation in the US, and $US800,000 over three years from the International Science and Technology Centers. Another senior scientist at Eliava, Liana Gachechiladze, has also received an ISTC grant - for developing new phage products in collaboration with one of the small companies that arose from the Institute's privatised production.
But regardless of the antibiotic resistance crisis, it's believed by phage aficionados that bacteriophage therapy has several advantages over antibiotics in the first place:
Whilst antibiotics decrease in concentration from the moment they're administered, phages typically do the reverse, by breeding up rapidly into a formidable army. And phages offer the best of both worlds: they're are also self-limiting. Once their job is done and the "bad" bacteria are dead, they too die away.
Unlike antibiotics, phages are "smart weapons" specific to bacterial species and strains. "Phages' tail-fibres interact with molecules on the surface of a particular bacterium, sort of like a lock and key might interact," says Elizabeth Kutter. "So those phages will only infect bacteria that have those correct receptors on the surface. In fact, phages will generally infect a subset of a particular species of bacteria."
Phages trigger no allergies, and few side-effects, and are cheap and easy to produce. Nature, indeed, produces them effortlessly: there are an estimated 10/32 [10 to the power of 32] on Earth.
There are some sceptics. James Bull, Miescher Regents Professor in Integrative Biology at the University of Texas, says "One can either take a stance of 'cautious until proven effective', or of 'worthy until proven ineffective'. I'm in the former camp." Bull says that infections are difficult to treat once established - by any method. And "virtually all experimental phage therapy applies phages at the same time as the bacteria, so one cannot assume that the current experimental work will reflect phage treatment of an established infection." And Bull suggests another potential problem: "There may be a major regulatory impediment, depending on how the Food and Drug Administration approves phages for clinical use. If each phage needs to be tested separately, then the cost will be prohibitive, because individual phages tend to have too narrow a host range to justify seeking approval one at a time."
Professor Bull also points out that some bacteria invade cells, to help them evade the immune system, and that it remains unproven that phages would be able to attack such bacteria.
"By and large," he says, "there has been so much hype about phage therapy that the field really needs some objective and quantitative studies to explore where it works, where it doesn't, and why."
To this end, Dr Elizabeth Kutter was inspired by her experience in Tbilisi to found the non-profit PhageBiotics Foundation. The Foundation promotes and supports phage research in the West, and provides moral and financial support to phage researchers in Poland and the former Soviet lands.
The healing of the Georgian man's "diabetic foot" helped Kutter to see understand another advantage phages have over antibiotics: their ability to replicate allows them to get into local infections where there is poor circulation. "Things like diabetic ulcers or infections from osteomyelitis," she says, "which antibiotics can't get into. But the phage just goes in, and multiplies. Then the daughter phages go deeper, and find more bacteria, and multiply further. Phages just keep expanding, and going deeper, until they get most of the bacteria that are there."
One phage will parasitise several - and often most - strains in a bacterial species, says Nina Chanishvili, head of Eliava's Genetics of Microorganisms and Bacteriophages lab. "And there is sometimes a 'cross-lyse' - for example between E. coli and Shigella, because those two bacteria are evolutionarily very close to each other."
On the other hand, phages' high specificity can present difficulties if a patient's bacterial strain is unknown, and there is no time to test for it.
And just as they can develop resistance to antibiotics, bacteria can also develop resistance to phages. Thus Kutter believes "phage cocktails" are the best approach to killing pathogenic bacteria. "That way," she says, "if any bacteria start to develop resistance to one of the phages, they're likely to be hit by another one" - before they can proliferate.
The Eliava Institute's researchers, from the days of d'Hérelle and Eliava till now, also believed in "cocktails" for maximum impact. "For example the bacteria usually associated with wounds are Pseudomonas, E. coli, Streptococci, Staphylococci, and so on," says Chanishvili. "Phages against all these bacteria have been made into a cocktail we name Pio-phage."
The "cocktail" approach can also solve the problem of an unidentified pathogen: cocktails are designed to knock out all likely culprits.
Phages won't be widely used in the West unless standardised formulations are tested in modern clinical trials, and licensed by regulatory bodies such as the British Medicines Control Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration.
"But you're not going to find double-blind studies done in Tbilisi," says Elizabeth Kutter. "That's because phages so clearly make such a difference that it would be considered malpractice not to give them to subjects in a control group."
In Poland phages were used by researchers from the Immunology Institute of the Academy of Sciences in 550 patients with infections such as septicaemia, abscesses and bronchopneumonia, between 1981 and 1986. Antibiotics had failed to help 518 of them. The phages had a 92 percent success rate in clearing up the patients' infections. (Slopek et al (1981). Results of Bacteriophage Treatment of Suppurative Bacterial Infections I. General Evaluation of the Results. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. 31:267-291.)
Large pharmaceutical companies will only take interest in phages if they can develop profitable, proprietary formulations. But how, exactly, can one patent something from Nature? The answer seems to be in developing innovative methods of delivering them.
Dr Richard Carlton, President of Exponential Biotherapies, Inc., in Port Washington, New York State, has developed a phage against Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci (VRE) - the mutant bacterium that famously kicked off the world's "superbug" anxieties, in US hospitals in 1989. Safety trials have been successful, though results won't be published till full clinical trials have been completed: the company is presently gearing up for these.
Exponential has patented a technique pioneered in a 1995 experiment by Carlton, and Carl Merril and Sankar Adhya from the NIH, among others, where powerful, mutant lambda phages were "selected" from "wild" strains that had been injected into a series of mice. (Long-circulating bacteriophage as antibacterial agents, Merril et al; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 93, April 1996.)
In a second study, Carlton and colleagues experimented with both these new "long-circulating" lambda phages and "wild-type" lambda phages - in addition to a placebo - in three sets of experimental mice.
The long-circulating phages were far more potent as anti-bacterial agents than the wild-type phages, Carlton says. "The animals that got placebo were all dead within 48 hours. The animals that received a single injection of the wild-type phage became critically ill, but eventually recovered. But the animals that received a single injection of the long-circulating phage were only a little bit lethargic for 24 hours, and then recovered completely."
By examining the new phage's genetic structure, Carlton and colleagues were able to identify which specific mutation had occurred. "The mutation was in the phage's major head protein," Carlton says, "of which there are many copies - and was situated in a segment of that protein that sticks out in space where it can interact with the surrounding environment." Based on that finding, "the patent office granted us the patent".
Exponential now has long-circulating phages against several bacteria, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa (multi-drug-resistant strains of which exist in many hospitals) and Staphylococcus aureus, the well-known "staph" infection also often acquired in hospitals. The company has additionally developed potent (non-long-circulating) phages against Campylobacter jejuni and Listeria moncytogenes, for use in food preparation rooms.
Exponential Biotherapies has patented all its products hitherto, Carlton says.
A Baltimore company, Intralytix, Inc., is making an American version of a product pioneered by Ramaz Katsarava at the Georgian Technical University, called PhageBioDerm.
"PhageBioDerm is a phage-impregnated slow release polymer that is used in management of hard-to-heal wounds such as stasis ulcers and bedsores," says Intralytix's Dr Glen Morris, who is also Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at the University of Maryland. The product is applied directly to wounds, where it acts as an artificial skin, and gradually releases phages to combat infection. In Georgia it is patented to Ramaz Katsarava - and Zemphira Alavidze of the Eliava Institute, who has worked privately to further develop the product. PhageBioDerm is licensed for sale in Georgia, with a US patent pending on an American version, made with phages isolated in the US. The patent will be "on the patch and on the combination of patch and phages," says Intralytix's Alexander Sulakvelidze. "Currently, no specific phages in PhageBioDerm are patented."
In a Georgian study in 2000, PhageBioDerm cured 70% of patients of wound and ulcer infections which had failed to respond to conventional treatments. (A novel sustained-release matrix based on biodegradable poly(ester amide)s and impregnated with bacteriophages and an antibiotic shows promise in management of infected venous stasis ulcers and other poorly healing wounds. Markoishvili et al. Pharmacology and Therapeutics.)
Otherwise, Intralytix is moving into phage products for use in food safety.
A phage product active against Listeria, to be used as a secondary food additive, will be on the market in the US by the end of the year, and the company hopes to have a similar product active against Salmonella available soon thereafter.
An emerging player in the global phage game is GangaGen, based in Palo Alto, California, and Bangalore, India. (The company's name, meaning "born of the Ganges", recalls EH Hankin's original discovery of a bacteria-killing principle in the river in 1896.)
GangaGen founder Dr Ram Ramachandran, who has a long history in biotech research in both India and the US, is aiming for products for both developed and developing worlds. "Antibiotic-resistant infection is a global problem," Ramachandran says. "People in the West go to hospitals to have surgery for broken bones, and die of hospital-acquired infection. In the developing world, children die of Shigella dysentery and other bacterial infections including drug-resistant tuberculosis."
For starters, the company is developing phages against a broad range of strains of antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (a bacterium Exponential has also targeted). "Stability and safety" studies in animals are in preparation for one of these, as a prelude to human clinical trials. The company is presently filing several patents including one for the Pseudomonas phage. "We also have an operation in Ottawa - GangaGen Life Sciences Inc," says Ramachandran, "focusing on veterinary, agricultural and environmental applications of phages." Indeed the first GangaGen product is likely to come from Ottawa because Canada's regulatory processes are shorter than those in the US.
Merril's work: Enzyme on tail
Phage research trailblazer Dr Carl Merril is the chief of biochemical genetics at the US National Institute of Mental Health. Merril has been intrigued by phages since the 1960s, but along the way he's had many reservations to overcome: "After all, it was a bacterial virus," he says, "that probably killed one-third of the Europeans, and came to North America in the 1770s - diphtheria."
Did that have relevance to the safety of today's phages?
"Well, we certainly have to be aware of it. One of the problems with phages is that they can carry these toxic genes - people weren't even aware of that before."
Many phage researchers invoke cautions about "toxic genes". As Merril explains them, they can cause phages to play a role in bacterial pathogenesis: "A number of phage genes have been discovered that encode toxins, or factors that enhance bacterial virulence. They may also contribute, through transduction, to the transmission of antibiotic resistance genes."
However it is possible to reduce such occurrences by sequencing the genomes of therapeutic phages, and using that information to seek out problem areas in these genes and identify them. "If potentially detrimental genes are identified," Merril says, "they can be deleted from the genome of phage that are being developed for therapeutic use as antibacterial agents."
But Merril has more exciting news than that: "I have a post-doctoral fellow in my lab, Dr Dean Scholl, and he's discovered how to put extra enzymes on the tail of a phage. The 'tail' is the phage-part which both recognises a bacterium, and punches a hole through the bacterial protective capsule to get the phage genome into the bacteria. So you can extend the host range that way."
Dr Scholl has found a "dual specificity" phage which encodes two different tail proteins, allowing it to attack both K1 and K5 strains of E. coli, and possibly the Salmonella bacterium as well. (Scholl, D., Rogers, S., Adhya, S., and Merril, C., 2001, Bacteriophage K1-5 encodes two different tail fibre proteins allowing it to infect and replicate on both K1 and K5 strains of E. coli.,  J. Virol. 75: 2509-2515.) The versatility of these newly found phage proteins suggests that their "genome motifs" might serve as a model for creating - as Merril puts it - "a modular phage platform that could operate over a wide bacterial host range".
NIH researchers Scholl, Merril and their colleague Sankar Adhya have applied for a patent for this idea of extending the phage host range by adding this new information to the phage genome. The NIH has also patented the "long-circulating" phage which Exponential Biotherapies now has an exclusive licence on, as well as so-called "reporter" genes - one of which employs luciferase.
Merril appears to have overcome a long-standing objection to the use of phages in severe infections such as meningitis. By the time you take 48 hours to culture the responsible bacterium, critics have said, then maybe another 48 hours to find the right phage, the patient may be dead. But what if bacteria could be identified in three hours instead of 48?
As a first step to speeding identification, Merril says, "we've put luciferase gene into our phages. That's the enzyme which gives off the light in the firefly."
If a patient comes in with a cough, for example, his sputum is put into a multiwell plate in which each "well" contains a different species of luciferase-added phage. Phages then infect the bacteria, Merril says, "and now only have to express the luciferase gene to provide a signal".
Instead of waiting 48 hours for bacteria to breed up, now Merril waits a mere three hours to see which phage infects - and thus identifies - a bacterium. Because of the luciferase gene, Merril says, the activated phage "gives off a burst of light". The researchers simply "wait three hours and see which wells light up".
More biotech innovations to come?
The profile of therapeutic phages received a boost last November when James Watson (of double helix fame) hosted an invitation-only international conference on phage therapy. The conference was at the Banbury Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, of which Watson is President, in New York State.
And what if the present exctement about phage research leads to successful trials and regulatory approval in the West? Will this kick-start the fledgling US phage industry, and bring "big pharma" onboard?
"I think that's probably right," says Exponential's Richard Carlton. "That will be the signal to them."
"What we have now," says Carl Merril, "that we didn't have in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s when the eastern Europeans got into phages, is that we've invented a whole world of molecular biology. And we can use that to engineer these phages so they're more efficient, and to make sure they don't carry the toxin genes, and to purify them, and to figure out which ones to use.
"The point is, we can do this scientifically now. We can make phages into a very effective agent. The only questions are, do we have the will to do it, and do we have the funds to do it?
"I think that we've only sliced the tip of the iceberg when it comes to phages."
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text:
Howdy folks,
On March 9th, the Azure AD team hosted its first "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) on Reddit. A bunch of us gathered in a big conference room, and even more of the team joined on a Skype call (sadly, the Skypers didn't get any of the snacks or pizza). And so many of you asked such great questions that we learned a lot ourselves. Thank you for participating!
If you haven't had a chance to go through the thread yet, I recommend you take a look. There's a lot of interesting and valuable information there.
Just about to start!
Everyone hard at work AMAing
So how did it go? Pretty awesome! Some quick stats:
- More than 50 people from our team participated, and some of our wonderful MVPs and representatives from our Microsoft partner teams joined, as well
- We had 102 top-level questions (29 per hour) and 449 total comments (128 per hour)
- Our post was upvoted by 96% of people with a total of 72 points. This compares with:
- 25 – average number of points for of all other /r/Azure AMAs (a 284% increase!)
- 89% – average upvote percentage for all other /r/Azure AMAs (a 7.8% increase!)
- We answered 99% of questions during the event
- The Azure AD AMA page had 2,586 hits in the five days surrounding the event, and is still getting 60-100 hits per day
For questions per hour, total comment count, and response rate, we're the new AMA champions at Microsoft. The SQL team has us beat for total number of questions, though, so we'll definitely host another AMA in the future and try to knock them off the top. We're looking forward to it and hope you'll join us!
Best regards,
Alex Simons (Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons)
Director of Program Management
Microsoft Identity Division

subset: commoncrawl


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2012-08-26: Friend Zone 4
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Heretical Rants
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 11:42 am
Post subject:
post ten times without monkey posting and win a prize
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Monkey Mcdermott
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 11:43 am
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The prize is a post from me!
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 11:43 am
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I'm extremely tempted to blow up the Friend Zone signs and hang them on my bed posts.
I've been needing to cover the ugly warning stickers I accidentally placed towards the room instead of the wall, anyway.
Samsally the Gray
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Heretical Rants
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 11:44 am
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all I have on my wall right now is a picture of Jesus
weird, right?
It's one of those optical illusion 'magic' junk mail prayer mats from that one spam scam ministry that says, "Please return this Prayer Rug. Do not keep it," and gives offers of wealth and great fortune and instamiracles. So I guess I'm not getting any of that stuff, since I kept it.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:16 pm
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I have a Star Trek calendar, a mermaid cross stitch, a picture of a unicorn, an Invader Zim poster, Star Wars poster, and Mario Galaxy 2 poster.
My walls basically say "Fuck growing up."
Samsally the Gray
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Heretical Rants
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:46 pm
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my walls say, "
Kneel on me.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:46 pm
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That sounds like an awesome space! Currently my walls are bare. After my next move, I'll hang some art. May even have some of my photography blown up and framed. We'll see
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Mr. Chicken
Joined: 15 Dec 2011
Posts: 79
Location: Somewhere between heaven and hell.
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:54 pm
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Growing up Samsally? Pffff, overrated.
Anyway, as soon as this girl (havent picked up a name i like for her yet) starts interacting with the rest of the main characters (anyone not from hell club) the hole comic might just become a lot better, at least for me. I just love it when devil girls start freeing themselves from their evil / demonic nature. Happened to Fuchsia, happened to Pebbles and a little to Blue.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:09 pm
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And Li'l E. I
the new Li'l E. Or rather, what I suspect is actually the
Li'l E, who does have to deal with parental trauma, but at least he's actually dealing with it and is showing humanity (as it were) and vulnerability in a way he wasn't before.
My walls are bare right now, but once we are done unpacking, there will be a variety of things on them, depending on the room. My partner, who loves Queer As Folk, will likely have the "Justin with angel wings" poster and the "Rage" comic poster from the series on his; our front living room area will likely have our Animal Kingdom Lodge paintings and perhaps our (essentially tasteful) nude barbarian painting; while my own room will probably have an array of things including hot Wolverine beefcake, more hot barbarians, posters by
Gengoroh Tagame
(NOT SAFE FOR WORK SO IF YOU HIGHLIGHT AND GOOGLE HIM IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT), and the like.
On my armoire I will have my nude Hercules wrestling statue, my pair of Papua New Guinean phallocrypts, and things like that.
In the comics room/library/storage room I am not sure what I'll have. Maybe the Wolverotica mentioned above. Or the Vartox painting. Not sure.
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:22 pm
Post subject: Re: (v_v)
Tinrac wrote:
Where`s comic zombie guy (i forget what you guys call him) No friends yet? (ToT) he could have been included in the corner with his picture filled stolen books
Storytime, I think?
As for healthier adult male-female romantic stuff, I think giving it time would be good. I think Tat would have to introduce new characters to do something more with that.
We may have had a
of that with bits of the Devil and his wife back in the day, before things went--apparently--increasingly wrong. And there was that moment when he was talking with the pre-fall (?) devil-girl (erm... which one escapes me at the moment) at the graduation ceremony.
But right now I think we're seeing more the characters -- or Tat? don't know -- taking a good hard look at themselves, sometimes going back to basics, and perhaps they will develop in healthier ways once a healthier starting place is established. I wish Tat would blog or something and tell us plainly what's going on, but I think the strip is all we're getting on that front. Maybe the Sisterhood stuff is Act I or II of a five-act big storyline, rather than all there is to them, or maybe it's meant to be taken uncritically as the officially right point of view. Or maybe we're supposed to react to it as we see fit.
Heck, maybe all of this is taking place inside someone's mind/heart/soul, with the Devil being a corrupted Id, or something, and the Sisterhood breaking through with ideas the person never considered before, but isn't the stopping place ultimately. Maybe we're seeing Thesis/Antithesis and we haven't yet seen Synthesis.
I don't know!!!
Tat! You are being an enigma! Please stop it! Pretty please?
(Well, I can
Last edited by ChastMastr on Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:24 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:22 pm
Post subject: Re: Interesting
TragicallyUnhip wrote:
So - apparently the only way we can be happy is to never desire sex and be totally infantilized in a childish playground setting?
Well, no, no more than the only way to be happy is to be the sexual submissive and fantasy plaything of everyone of the opposite sex who happens to fork over a dollar bill, either.
Thing is, most of the girls who I knew that were dancers ended up - *gasp* - married. With kids. Baking brownies and stuff. Almost like they weren't the cardboard cutouts of sexuality that shallow folks keep seeing them as. And maybe, just MAYBE, even a dancer might like to have a relationship with a man that isn't predicated on her needing to give him her hot body anytime and everytime he wants it.
Oh, yeah, and my walls have framed album covers on them. Stuff like Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom, which is quite an awesome Picasso homage.
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Joined: 13 Jul 2012
Posts: 1062
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:28 pm
Post subject:
To tell you the truth, this world is starting to scare the shit out of me. I mean, the patriarchy are making signs to create zones where you can only be friends, a matrix like system that basically means free will no longer applies (and the "good guys" trying to rewire it to send THEIR message, yeah, that's not good Tat, if they really are the right side, they should be breaking the Psychic Dominator Device, not using it to spread their own means), and these group of young girls that are the personality police.
What really depresses me is the state of Slick and Monique's relationship. I mean when she first started being a part of the Feminism Glossy practices, Slick was basically a stand up guy, basically acting like "he doesn't really understand why she felt she needed to change, but I'll support her" and from then on we have just seen Monique basically giving up on him. In virgin/whore comic, he gives a typical male response when giving his "middle of the road" of the two choices, the "One Hot Mama" you could say. She basically gives him a look that says "Shut the fuck up idiot", then basically ignores him being knocked down to go "fuck yeah, feminism!" Then they did the Porn Script Readings, and she basically said "not doing that anymore" if anything I think that was to insult Porn writing as something on the level of Stephenie Meyer. Then at the introduction of the Friendship Zone, she doesn't even talk to him, just points at the "friendship zone" sign. And now she's just ignoring him, not reacting to his Kcils side and walking away while he tries to talk. Basically from what I've seen of Monique, she has basically decided that Slick shouldn't be around her anymore, he can be a friend, but she doesn't want anything to do with him.
And another thing, where the hell did Slick, going from "I want to support you" go to "Wanna Bone?" Tat, where the hell did that come from Tat? I mean Slick always wanted to be with Monique, but he has respected her saying no so far, and even (as I said before) said that he'd "support her". And now all of a sudden he asks her if he wants to bone, and getting all upset when she doesn't want to? That's Character Derailment Tat, Kcils affecting him wasn't noticeable by Slick, considering that he was stuck in the "mirror world", so unless Kcils has been gaining more and more control over Slick (which my memory serves hasn't been shown in the comic) this is a radical departure of how Slick has acted before.
I still want to keep reading the comic, in that it makes me think, but yeah, the world and the characters are making me sad... though that may be the point...
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Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 586
Location: Tampa Bay, Florida, US
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 1:36 pm
Post subject: Re: (v_v)
ChastMastr wrote:
But right now I think we're seeing more the characters -- or Tat? don't know -- taking a good hard look at themselves, sometimes going back to basics, and perhaps they will develop in healthier ways once a healthier starting place is established.
Indeed, in some ways it reminds me a bit of some moments in C.S. Lewis' novel
That Hideous Strength
As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence first reveals affection, there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and the straight. Something else something he vaguely called the "Normal" apparently existed.... It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy and the thought that, somewhere outside, daylight was going on at that moment. He was not thinking in moral terms at all; or else (what is much the same thing) he was having his first deeply moral experience.
The same character also experiences this:
Two shelves in the little sitting-room were filled with bound volumes of The Strand. In one of these he found a serial children's story which he had begun to read as a child, but abandoned because his tenth birthday came when he was half way through it and he was ashamed to read it after that. Now, he chased it from volume to volume till he had finished it. It was good. The grown-up stories to which, after his tenth birthday, he had turned instead of it, now seemed to him, except for Sherlock Holmes, to be rubbish.
But this is all part of the undoing of some very nasty, even diabolical, directions his life has taken. It's going back to a healthier starting point than the bad turn things have taken--again, as Lewis says, "The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' or else not." I'm thinking maybe some of the Friend Zone stuff might be like that, and then after getting over some of the really nasty approach to using people, the characters could develop healthier romantic relationships. (I wonder if Slick might even mature enough that he and Monique might actually develop a healthy romantic connection? Don't know...)
Rambling, sorry...
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Joined: 04 Mar 2007
Posts: 154
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 4:14 pm
Post subject:
Delakando wrote:
AngelLilly wrote:
I'm a bit disappointed that Fyoosh and Crim seem to still just be in the friend zone.
Yep apparently they broke them from the shackles of dating because its demeaning towards women to be in a relationship with men other then friends.
I came to post more or less this.
The comic seems to say "if only we could all live in a world free of romantic interest and sexual desire."
I mean, seriously?
These are NOT requisite for a world free of patriarchy, Tat. Jesus.
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Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 7395
Location: California
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 4:29 pm
Post subject:
yes! a world free of romantic interest and sexual desire! which is totally why Crim and Fuchsia are there!
wait what
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The ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) is a nationally recognized and accredited professional credential in the fields of Audiology (CCC-A) and Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP).
Only those who complete a rigorous academic program, pass a national examination and engage in continuous education can be ASHA-certified.
The ability to communicate is vital. ASHA-Certified Professionals are extensively trained to identify speech, language and hearing issues at the early stages, help prevent them in certain patients and treat them in others — these professionals are dedicated to improving lives.


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Needless to say we were all very excited to be able to take a dip in the bay following that!
The next morning a few of us went to a park right outside of the Old Town walls in hopes to play with some of the local kids. It was a little difficult to get the parents comfortable with us, but a few of them finally were ok with it.
After a while, we packed it in and decided to go for a swim. Darjen, our local friend took us to the jumping rock to do some cliff jumping!
Next up, 4th of July...Montenegro style!


text:
|Posted by titantv on February 6, 2014 at 1:25 PM
By Kayla Gallion
Is Repay Okay?
I am one of those teens that stay constantly busy; what with being involved in several extracurriculars, working nearly every evening, and looking after my siblings, I barely have a moment to breathe. It is nearly impossible for me to ever take a break from all the chaos and get to act like the kid I am, and I cannot help but be envious when I see other teenagers out with their friends. Naturally, when a basketball game was rescheduled and by some miracle I got to go, I leapt at the chance. My best friend and I are go-getters; we have demanding job hours, homework from advanced and AP classes, and activities that require quite a bit of commitment. We hadn't had a chance to go to a game so far this season, so we obviously couldn't believe our luck. The game was on a Wednesday, so we would get the chance to watch some of the games before having to leave; me for dance class, her for church. Our activities took less than an hour, so we figured we could come back right after and watch the varsity boys game, which is what many consider the main event. However, upon entering we noticed the harsh signs hung everywhere saying if anyone left they would have to repay, without exception, when returning. We tried to explain our dilemma at the gate, but they stood by what they had said, saying we were welcome back in with six more dollars. Frustrated but desperate to do something fun, I sat and watched what little of the girls' game I could before I left. I had wasted some of the little money I had on barely an hour, and I couldn't help feeling cheated as I left to return to my busy life, once more missing out on my chance to act like a high school senior.
Of course, I understand why such a rule would exist. As Coach Neil Brackett explains, the rule was actually put in place in the mid '70s, but is just now being strictly reinforced. "It was a little easier when the concession stand and bathrooms were in the commons area," Brackett said, "but a few years ago when the new restrooms and concession stands were put on the end of the gym, it became harder to keep up with people coming and going." It can be hard to place trust in our fellow man sometimes, and students and adults alike would often go out into the parking lots to engage in activities inappropriate for school grounds. Parents and school faculty would often worry about new drivers going back and forth between the ball game with friends and behaving recklessly. Some spectators even found ways to watch the games without having to pay, and so much money comes from McDowell's sports that it was obvious something had to be done. The school has tried tickets, hand stamps, and other ways of keeping spectators reigned in, and all have had their flaws. Says Brackett, "we found out that people who would leave early would give away their tickets to other people." He is unsure of why hand stamps are no longer used, but knows that this has been a problem since McDowell High's beginnings. Those at the gates asked for help in monitoring the spectators, and to give MHS some credit, the administrators have tried to find solution after solution. However, I'm not sure they have found the right one.
I am not a special case. There are several students of all grades and groups who have a hard time finding ways to fit free time into their chaotic schedules. While a mere sport shouldn't seem like a big deal for high schoolers, especially seniors, it is important to fit in a little time for relaxation and fun with friends. School can become stressful and overwhelming, as can the concept of college and our post-graduation lives. We know as adults we'll only have less time to enjoy moments like this, and many groups of friends will go their separate ways. For young adults, that is a legitimate concern. However, those that have to find the delicate balance between responsibility and relaxation are easily and understandably frustrated when they have to waste their own money to re-enter a game they have already paid for. There are always going to be people who try to ruin things for everyone else. Without any system or rule, there would be inappropriate conduct in the parking lot and people sneaking in dishonestly. I don't argue this, but what I do argue is what type of system should be put in place. I personally am curious to see how hand stamps would work, but regardless, there has got to be something better than what feels like price gouging to the students who really must leave, but who wish to come back and enjoy the little time they have acting like the kids they are before going back to their hectic realities. Even if it means gathering up people of all types from McDowell High and brainstorming until we find a solution, there must be a better way to maximize the money the school makes from games, the amount of spectators in the stands, and the satisfaction of those who just want to watch some Titan basketball.
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Truck Accident Lawyers
Chicago Semi-Tractor Trailer Accident Lawyers
When tractor trailers collide with passenger vehicles, the car-truck collision injuries can be devastating. Car-truck accidents often result in catastrophic injuries and even fatalities. If you have been injured or a loved one was killed in a trucking accident, come to the law offices of Woodruff Johnson & Evans. Our truck accident lawyers have extensive experience handling truck accidents claims. We understand the trucking industry and we know how to get results for you. Contact us today to schedule a no-cost consultation with one of our personal injury lawyers. You will pay no attorneys fees until we recover financial compensation for you. Our attorneys have recovered financial compensation for clients injured in all types of car-truck collisions, including those involving:
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Check Out the new Remax App
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text:
Better to crawl before running when it comes to hitting $10 billion in assets.
That mindset has led Home BancShares in Conway, Ark., a serial acquirer post-crisis, to shy away from deals this year. The $9.8 billion-asset company has also become more conservative with lending as part of a plan to stay under an approaching regulatory threshold that includes mandatory stress testing and caps on interchange fees.
While Home, along with Chairman John W. Allison, expects to rev up the acquisition machine next year, it doesn't plan to loosen its lending standards anytime soon.
"We didn't want to go over the $10 billion," Allison said during a Thursday conference call to discuss third-quarter results. "I think you'll see our foot go back on the accelerator in 2017 and 2018. You'll see things pick up."
Allison, named one of American Banker's 2013 community bankers of the year in large part due to his deal making prowess, said he once considered following the lead of others by landing a big deal to catapult over $10 billion in assets. "I have watched some of our friends leap over the mark and … we were totally in agreement with that strategy," he said.
The veteran banker eventually changed his mind. Management, he explained, has already "cooked in" the costs of stress testing — which totaled nearly $500,000 in the second and third quarters — and there is a fairly good idea of what Home will lose in interchange fees. At the same time, the company isn't going to reach for a deal simply to build scale.
Home, meanwhile, hasn't closed a bank acquisition since buying Florida Business BancGroup in October 2015.
"We still do smart transactions," Allison said. "We will not do a dumb transaction. You see what happens to people who pay too much for deals and it's obvious when they [lose] their pants. … We're not going to do that."
Management's commentary led Stephen Scouten, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill, to predict in a note to clients that Home could announce one to two smaller deals "in the coming months."
Home is also tapping the brakes when it comes to loan growth.
Total loans rose by just 5% during the third quarter — Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Brady Gailey had expected 14% growth — and management indicated that they would increase loans slowly over the rest of this year. Commercial real estate loans rose by just 2% from June 30 and 16% from a year earlier, equating to slower rates compared to what Home had reported in prior periods.
Another factor could be increased regulatory scrutiny of CRE, which Home is monitoring. At Sept. 30, CRE loans equaled roughly 360% of total risk-based capital, while construction loans are at 115%, or enough exposure to warrant added regulatory scrutiny.
Home is comfortable with that level rising, said Kevin Hester, the company's chief lending officer. The company is generating enough capital through retained earnings to help offset any potential increase in CRE levels. "And we're watching the markets, looking at our underwriting and continuing to be conservative — even more conservative — as we go along," he said.
Management is paying close attention to the hospitality industry, where supply and demand are being watched, and the office market, where delinquencies are slightly increasing. In the case of loans for office projects, Home is insisting on more equity being included in the deal. Disciplined loan pricing is also important.
To be sure, Home has been slowly increasing loansin the national CRE group it bought last year after the collapse of Doral Financial. The group's book reached $900 million in the third quarter — consisting of 17 loans — and should hit $1 billion by yearend. Still, management said they would likely cap the size of the portfolio at $1.5 billion.
Home is also making more commercial-and-industrial loans, which rose 64% from a year earlier, to a still-modest $1.2 billion. Home booked $72 million in loans during the third quarter — mostly C&I — in New York, where it opened a loan-production office last year.
Allison, who enjoys talking about deals as they progress, was quick to tell analysts that he still has an itch for M&A. He said Home had ironed out some issues with a unnamed target in Florida, adding that "hopefully we'll have something for you here before long."
Allison and his team are also having more discussions with potential targets.
"We visited with a $2 billion bank and a $7 billion bank recently, so we're more active," Allison said. "Nobody has better opportunities in this entire market than Home BancShares with the power of [our] stock."


text:
The purpose of this award is to recognize an outstanding influence on our built environment or our awareness of it.
|Vivien Li Hon. BSA (2017)
|Cambridge Historical Commission (2000)
|pinkcomma gallery (2016)
|Robert Campbell and
Peter Vanderwarker (1999)
|Boston Survivors Accessibility
Alliance (2015)
|Trustees of Reservations (1997)
|Edward Linde (2012, posthumous)
|AGC of Massachusetts (1996)
|Boston Harbor Island Alliance (2011)
|The Boston Globe (1995)
|Boston Public Library (2010)
|UrbanArts/Pam Worden (1994)
|Emerson College (2009)
|Bridge Design Review Cte. (1993)
|Boston Redevelopment Authority (2008)
|Fred Salvucci (1992)
|Norman Leventhal (2007)
|Boston Preservation Alliance (1991)
|Boston Harbor Assn. (2006)
|National Parks Service,
N.E. Office (1990)
|Adaptive Environments (2005)
|Harbor Clean-Up Project (1989)
|Citizen Schools (2004)
|SPNEA/Nancy Coolidge (1988)
|"Back to the Beaches" (2003)
|Historic Neighborhoods
Foundation (2002)
|Boston By Foot (1986)
|Women's Institute for Housing
& Economic Development (2001)
|First Night (1985; first year given)
The individual, group, concept, or object (other than an architect or a building) has influenced significantly our built environment or our awareness of it. Prospective recipients might be a public agency, a public policy, or a private developer/user who encourages good design. Also eligible would be such diverse candidates as a publication or an outstanding education program.


text: Demi Lovato Festival People Flawless By OCEANUP on September 2, 2013 Demi Lovato performing @ Festival People. + New Self Magazine outtakes. Demi was spotted heading into a recording studio in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon with The Saturdays, they may be working on songs for next album. No related posts. Demi Lovato


text:
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A root canal involves removing the soft tissue within the tooth – (the pulp) – when it has become infected and inflamed. Your dentist gently files the infected tissue out of the root canals of the tooth (this is where the procedure gets its name) and fills the void with an inert material. The procedure is completed with the placement of a filling or, in some cases, a crown.
Restore Your Smile Today!
We can remove your troublesome tooth and cam give you the treatment options for replacing that tooth to complete your beautiful smile once again.


text:
Certified Solidworks Professional Webinar
Friday 15th July, 10AM – 10:15AM
CSWP (Certified Solidworks Professional) title is entitled to an individual who has successfully passed the advanced skills examination.
When you pass the exam, you will get a unique code that is tied to your name which you can put it in your resume! This code can be verified on the Solidworks website.
You are entitled to free CSWP examination if you are under current maintenance (subscription) for your Solidworks seats.
More information available during the webinar!


text:
This development is from the so-called NSV (Non-Scale Victory) series. As you know, I started my weight loss drive with LCHF+IF in March of last year, so this spring is the first one I get to experience in my new state of weight and health – 50+ pounds lighter and non-diabetic anymore.
A few days ago I suddenly realized that first time in many years I have no annual allergy symptoms. No sneezing, no itchy eyes, none of this every year spring nightmare. My first thought was, probably late spring and some fluctuations in pollen counts bring a relief this year. So I looked around. Hmmm. Everything that triggered those "joys" blooms as always – Scottish broom,
seeding grasses,
and other stuff the names for which I don't know. Mowing grass has been usually something sending me into a two-hours long session of misery – so far none of that materialized. People around me complain of severe symptoms as always, so it's not an easier year for allergies. Looking at the allergy forecast, I see an objective confirmation as well:
So, where did my allergy go? It's not the environment that changed, it's me. The change that my new lifestyle brought manifested itself in more ways than I felt and observed before. Maybe general inflammation level decrease effected this improvement, maybe something else is at play here; I don't really know nor care about the details. Intuitively, it makes total sense, doesn't it? Your health in general improves, various manifestations of underlying problems decrease or disappear. Remains to be seen how the rest of the summer goes as various species bloom, but so far none of the traditional symptoms appeared. It's an additional perk of righting the ship. Yay.


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The People With Diabetes Conference was founded as an event especially for people living with Diabetes, by people living with Diabetes, 'experts by experience'. After seeing how many professional conferences were held throughout the year for healthcare professionals rather than those with the condition, we decided to do the opposite: a conference for the people living with Diabetes.
Taking place on February 27th and 28th 2016 at Colwick Hall, Nottingham, the conference gives people with Diabetes, their families, friends, and carers, the chance to share stories, experiences, and a whole weekend with others with the condition, in stunning surroundings outside Nottingham City Centre.
Operated on an 'Open Space' format, no formal agenda is decided prior to the event, instead topics for discussions are decided following visitor's arrival, with everyone gathering to decide the topics there and then, the topic contributor acting as chair for the discussion.
2016 sees the introduction of a much more interactive event, with the same Open-Space format being used for the discussions, however side stands will include:
'Challenge Team Blood Glucose' – where visitors can pit themselves against Team Blood Glucose members in a range of sporting activities
'The Great #GBDOC Bake Off' – An opportunity for visitors to bring in their homebaked goods and compete for titles including 'lowest carb content' and 'best in show
'BG Bingo' with the chance to win great prizes, including a Dexcom CGM starter kit.
There will also be the 'GBDoc Swap Shop', hypo table, and a Team Blood Glucose kit shop.
The Saturday will be open 11am-5pm, with the sunday open 11am-4pm
The conference is completely FREE OF CHARGE!
To register your place please go to the tickets page, as you will still require a ticket to gain entry to the conference.
As we do still need to fund the cost of refreshments throughout the weekend we would welcome a donation towards the cost of these as follows:
Lunch, tea & coffee = £10 per person per day
There will also be a 3 course evening meal on the Saturday, strictly limited to 150 spaces.
There is a £25-per-head charge on the meal, and please book by Friday 12th February if you wish to stay for it.
As well the opportunity to meet other people living with diabetes, the conference will feature the 'GBDoc Bake Off Challenge' and
There will also be an evening social for 18+ attendees to experience the best Nottingham nightlife has to offer on the Saturday evening!
If you are booking a student ticket you must provide valid student ID on the day or will have to pay the remainder for a full ticket
For accommodation over the weekend our Jurys Inn booking code has now expired, however you can go to HotelsCombined.com to view other rates in Nottingham (Ibis is probably the best one!)
Other hotels are available in Nottingham, with Colwick Hall only 10 minutes from the city centre by car.


text:
Monday Morning News
Up until now, Intel has mostly been mum in the mobile space, preferring to instead focus on desktop and server CPUs. A new report from VentureBeat says that could all change, as Intel currently has "a small army of people" working on getting an Intel product included in the next iPhone, with the chip manufacturer keen to hitch their next-gen LTE modem to the iPhone bandwagon.
Friday Morning News
Apple has announced new research studies for autism, epilepsy, and melanoma, all of them being based in ResearchKit. Notably, the John Hopkins Epilepsy study is the first to use the Apple Watch, with the Watch app capable of tracking and logging seizures as well as performing response tests.
Thursday Morning News
Apple has been found to infringe on a patent from the University of Wisconsin, which could lead to $862 million in payable damages. The patent itself deals with "improving power efficiency and overall performance" in processors by using a specialised "data speculation circuit", otherwise known as branch prediction, as used in Apple's A7, A8, and A8X SoC designs. The patent was also succesfully used against Intel's Core 2 Duo line 2008, reports AppleInsider.
Wednesday Morning News
As the rumours predicted last week, Apple did indeed add a 4K option to the 21-inch iMac overnight, but what the rumours didn't predict was that the 27-inch iMac now comes with a 5K display as standard, and the entire iMac lineup was upgraded to Intel's sixth-generation Skylake processors. Ars Technica has a review of the 21-inch iMac with 4K display, saying it's the same great design with a much higher resolution display.
Tuesday Morning News
Ars Technica put the TSMC and Samsung manufactured A9 chips in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus to the test, and found that the results are mostly what Apple quoted to the press last week. While the device with the Samsung chip did have consistently lower battery life, the kind of usage scenarios where you'd even notice a difference just aren't that common, and for all intents and purposes, iPhone 6s battery life should be similar enough for it to be a complete non-factor.
Review: Bose Soundlink Around-Ear Wireless Headphones II
If your commute involves public transport, you probably don't realise how much time you spend moving cords out of the way or having headphones yanked off your head. I certainly didn't until I tried out Bose's new Bluetooth headphones, and now I think I've been spoiled for wired headphones forever.
Monday Morning News
Apple's statement on battery life differences between the Samsung and TSMC-manufactured versions of the A9 SoC as found in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus confirms there is a 2-3% variance. Anandtech's investigation into the issue attempts to explain why the difference was perceived to be larger than Apple's stated figures, which mostly comes down to testing methodology, but also says there's no real conclusion until more thorough testing can be performed.
Friday Morning News
It's no secret that there are two variants of the A9 processor found in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but you'd expect both variants to be more or less equal. Benchmarks of the two SoC versions say that might not be the case, with the TSMC variant out-performing the Samsung version, although whether there's actually a noticeable impact on battery life (especially if you don't have another unit to compare with) remains to be seen.
Thursday Morning News
After Apple brought 5K to the 27-inch iMac, it was only a matter of time before the upgraded the 21-inch iMac with an insane number of pixels, and rumour has it they'll be doing just that next week. The new 4K 21-inch iMacs will likely come with price adjustments for the Australian dollar (which I can't believe is a thing we have to consider now), so if you've wanted a non-Retina iMac, now would be the time.
Wednesday Morning News
Rumour has it Apple's iPad Pro with large display will go on sale in the first week of November. Along with the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard accessories, that means pre-orders for the iPad Pro will open in a couple of weeks time, but I know a lot of people who will want some hands-on time before being completely shocked by the price, thanks to the atrocious Australian peso.


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Budget Hotels are Perfect for Extended Stays
Breaking the monotony of the regular life becomes extremely important at times. The best way to relax and rejuvenate the soul is to go out on a fulfilling vacation. Traveling is a blessing for the soul, and is considered as one of the best stress busters. By travelling one can gets an opportunity to not only explore new places but also to spend some time away from the city chaos. Though, travel plans can be either just for the weekend o can be longer as well. Sometimes, vacations can be extended and during those extended stays, it is very important to plan everything according to the budget. Therefore, budget hotels in India are just apt for any extended stay.
Budget hotels are ideal for long stays, here's why-
1. Less Money, More Comfort
Budget hotels in India, as the name suggests, are economical options to relax. Some of these hotels are almost like home, and make the time out here extremely comfortable. Without burning a hole in the pocket, these hotels can turn out to be ideal rest houses and offer all the comforts in lesser prices. Also, as money is spend less on the accommodation so you would extra penny to spend on travelling and exploring new places. Hence, you would be able to travel more than expected.
2. Extend your Vacation
With so many good backpackers hotels situated all across the country, a traveler can easily choose to extend the stay. Sometimes, we have more time and we feel like spending some more time in the picturesque location that we are in, but as hotel expenses are pretty high so we drop our plan. However, if you stay in a good budget hotel then, you would always have the option to extend your stay whenever you wish to. So, you can enjoy more while spending less.
3. Feel Like Home Factor
As, most of the budget hotels are not so huge, hence, the staff therefore gets easily familiar with you. This makes your stay in the hotel all the more comfortable as you start feeling like home. This makes your stay pleasing and you prefer to come in the same hotel again and again. This can at times also help you to get more offers or discounts. A long holiday demands lots of planning and efficient budget management. Hence, while starting off for an extended vacation, make sure that your hotel bookings are economical and they don't eat up a large part of the budget. This will help you get more money to spend on other things like travelling, adventure sports, food or shopping. In India, these days, many good budget hotels have established like Vedanta Wake Up!, making it very convenient for the travelers all across the nation to get good staying options by spending less.
So, kick-start your travel-booking process by selecting a good budget hotel for your long holiday now!


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YSL decided to go bright and bold for summer… with a collection of wet/dry shadows:
The quads are a departure from their traditional quints, and they're limited edition. Every single one is beautiful, but at 50+ bucks a pop, there's no way I can snap them all up at once. So I picked my favorite at the moment, which is #3:
I picked it for the denim blue, which is more smooth and pigmented than any shadows that I have in that color. I also really liked the cool bronze color and the shimmer brown.
Swatches… dry:
And wet:
When the shadows are wet, they turn into the same consistency as a Make Up For Ever Aqua Cream. I'm really impressed. On the down side, using the shadows wet makes a complete mess of the palette. Mine is all ugly now. Boo. And it didn't clean up well. But since the shadows perform so well, I guess I'll forgive YSL, for now.
Although the quads are limited, YSL has also come out with a line of waterproof eyeliners that are permanent. So, those of you who were bummed that you didn't get your hands on the Armani version before they sold out… worry not. Just head over to your nearest YSL counter and get their version. The YSL Black Liner is shinier than the Armani version anyway… so win-win.
4 comments
Oh, permanant eyeliner? What if you make a mistake? Seriously scary but amazing idea!http://fridayisforever.blogspot.com
No… I mean permanent to the collection. The quads are limited edition, so when they sell out… they will be gone forever. The eye pencils are not limited edition. You can get them anytime.
Sounds amazing!! I love how they look wet! 🙂
It's very expensive to me… 😦


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|Message view
|« Date » · « Thread »
|« Date » · « Thread »
|Giovanni Marzulli <giovanni.marzu...@ba.infn.it>
|Writing failure test. Client and datanode on the same machine.
|Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:46:41 GMT
Hi, I'm testing HDFS (0.20.203) on my cluster. Particularly, I'm conducting writing tests while a datanode is down, but not yet marked dead by namenode. If I write a file by client on the same machine where datanode process was killed, the task fails and these logs are printed: /...INFO hdfs.DFSClient: Exception in createBlockOutputStream java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused... /(for every retries)/ /Inoticed that client insists on writing on local datanode exhausting all retries (dfs.client.write.block.retries is set to 100) until writing aborts! Is this correct behavior? After N failed retries, it shouldn't contact another datanode to avoid writing abort? Thanks Gianni
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A worker at Intervale Food Hub in Burlington, Vermont, packages carrots as part of a weekly delivery of locally grown food.
Here is what is happening in the "Food Hub" world - in New York City, where shoppers and diners can find delicacies from all over the world, there is hefty demand for food grown closer to home.
The taste for products from farms in the Northeast has led South Bronx-based Greenmarket Co., a nonprofit regional food distributor that serves as the middleman between farmers and buyers, to constantly expand the size and scope of its operation over the last half-decade. Read more -
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Discussion in 'Books, Music, TV & Movies' started by Porygon-X, Jun 6, 2010.
This guy is absolutely crazy. You'll know what I mean when you see the vid.
Like? No like?
Wow, I never knew Remi was so good O.o
You mean hes very good at football
he's always been good at football
check this one out
I know, he's very impressive! Saw it a couple of days ago, couldn't believe it myself.
Can't believe how much time this movie took, just amazing!
Yeah, I've seen the '08 and '09 ones too.


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DETROIT – (11 March 2015) – For 10 days in April, Midtown, Downtown and Eastern Market will come alive as the canvas for Art X Detroit: Kresge Arts Experience (AXD). Organizers announced today the programming and the nearly 40 Kresge Eminent Artists and Artist Fellows who will debut and share their works in the free, arts experience celebrating Detroit's vibrant arts scene between April 9-26, 2015. Staged over three weekends (April 9-12, 16-19, 25-26) at nearly 20 venues throughout the city, the public is invited to experience an exciting collection of visual art installations, dance, musical and theatrical performances, film screenings, literary readings, and much more. AXD is presented by The Kresge Foundation and produced by Midtown Detroit, Inc. A complete list of artists and programming is available at ArtXDetroit.com.
"Art X Detroit will present work from our Kresge Eminent Artists and Kresge Artist Fellows – some of the most creative minds in metro Detroit – in the city's remarkable collection of galleries, museums and presentation spaces," said Rip Rapson, president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation. "We invite everyone to experience how art is uniquely able to bring us together as Detroiters."
Since 2008, The Kresge Foundation has provided $3 million to honor more than 100 artists living and working in metro Detroit through its Kresge Eminent Artist and Artist Fellowship programs. The programs are administered by Kresge Arts in Detroit at the College for Creative Studies.
Returning for its third edition, the biennial AXD attracted over 15,000 visitors in 2013 as Detroit's flourishing arts scene continues to generate excitement nationally and internationally.
This year's event will feature the 2013 and 2014 Kresge Eminent Artists, Michigan Opera Theatre founder and acclaimed composer David DiChiera and iconic Detroit photographer and educator Bill Rauhauser, along with Kresge's dance, music, film, theater, literary and visual artist fellows from 2013 and 2014.
Arts enthusiasts will experience new works and performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) and Detroit Film Theatre (DFT), the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Music Box and other venues in Midtown's Cultural Center. New venues for AXD include the Detroit Opera House, the Garden Theater, Cinema Detroit, Salt & Cedar and Trinosophes, to name a few.
The opening night of Art X Detroit is a free, open-to-the-public, multi-venue celebration on Thursday, April 9, 5:00 p.m. – 11 p.m. at MOCAD and the N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art. The evening will open with a reading and lecture by cultural critic Lynne Tillman, and includes the opening of the ongoing AXD Visual Arts Exhibition, film screenings and live performances by AXD artists at MOCAD, N'Namdi, DIA Detroit Film Theatre and Detroit Symphony Orchestra Music Box.
AXD captures the creativity and imagination of the Kresge Eminent Artists and Fellows whose works will be on display, including:
"An Afternoon with David DiChiera & His Works" by 2013 Kresge Eminent Artist David DiChiera. Composer, educator and operatic impresario, DiChiera is the founder, music and general director of the Michigan Opera Theatre. Acclaimed for his opera Cyrano, DiChiera has presented operatic, dance and musical theatre productions in Detroit and throughout Michigan for over 40 years. AXD features a special presentation of select pieces from the works of DiChiera, with special guests, musicians and vocalists. The event will be presented with the entire audience seated on stage in An Afternoon with David DiChiera & His Works at the Detroit Opera House on Sunday, April 26, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
"Selected Photographs: Bill Rauhauser" by 2014 Kresge Eminent Artist Bill Rauhauser. As an iconic Detroit photographer and educator, Rauhauser spent years photographing the streets and houses of Detroit and eventually joined the photography department at the College for Creative Studies, where he would teach for 30 years. Selected Photographs: Bill Rauhauser presents a selected display of some of Rauhauser's celebrated photography providing a glimpse into works spanning the 1950s through the 1980s. It will be on exhibit at MOCAD throughout AXD.
"Juan Atkins Celebrates 35 Years of Techno" by Juan Atkins. As a producer and musician, Atkins is widely credited as one of the originators of Detroit techno music. This night of music will celebrate Atkins' 35th anniversary as an electronic musician and the 30th anniversary of his label, MetroPlex Records. Atkins will present his 24-year-old daughter Milan Ariel, an "urban alternative" vocalist who fuses electronic music with hip-hop and R&B. A live music performance with Atkins providing techno sounds along with live musicians will be followed by a dance party. The night will feature a screening of a new short documentary about Atkins and his long history with Detroit techno. Saturday, April 25, 10:00 p.m.- 4:00 a.m., Garden Theater.
"McKinfolk: The New Beginning" by Gayelynn McKinney. Grammy-nominated Gayelynn McKinney will bring together internationally-renowned jazz greats like 2009 Kresge Eminent Artist Marcus Belgrave, Geri Allen, and Miche Braden to celebrate and perform the music of McKinney's father, the legendary jazz pianist, composer and teacher Harold McKinney. Sunday, April 26, 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., First Congregational Church, Sanctuary.
"A Live Scored Conversation with Detroit Legend Ed Love" by dream hampton. In an ongoing effort to honor storytellers and history keepers, writer, award-winning filmmaker, director, organizer, and cultural producer dream hampton will film an onsite live conversation between journalist Kim Heron and legendary Detroit jazz musician Ed Love. This interview will be scored by 5-piece ensemble McKinney Zone, and musically directed by Gayelynn McKinney. Sunday, April 26, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Trinosophes.
"World Space Party" by Daniel Land. Detroit's official entry into the World Space Party— also known as Yuri's Night, for the April 12th, 1961 anniversary of the first man in space — celebrates the past, present, and future of humans working together to defy gravity. Daniel Land's multimedia exploration of the human reach beyond the Earth is linked to hundreds of nearly simultaneous events spanning all seven continents in dozens of countries. This immersive, educational, all-ages party experience presents cutting-edge narrative visuals, interactive exhibits, themed cocktails, live weblink to events in other cities, and an experimental musical set featuring Audra Kubat. Saturday, April 11, 9:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m., Michigan Science Center Planetarium, Rocket Ship Area.
"On Becoming [Unfukwitable]" by Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe. Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe is a writer, editor, and performer who uses art to transform, heal and forge new ground. Sharpe's one-women show, On Becoming [Unfukwitable], will examine her molestation through the lens of each family member involved. Set to an explosive, live jazz score that blends jazz, opera and Filipino folk music, Sharpe will serve as the actor leading the audience through an exploration of these characters to demonstrate the beauty of the healing journey, showing that one does not have to be a sexual assault survivor to feel the effects. The audience is invited to come dressed as they'd like to be seen five years in the future. Saturday, April 25, 7:00p–9:00p Garden Theater.
"Detroit Visionary Fiction Generator" by adrienne maree brown. As a science fiction writer, adrienne maree brown's work evolves at the intersection of emergence and complex sciences, science fiction and social justice. Detroit Visionary Fiction Generator will feature prominent science fiction writers alongside writing from social justice organizers and thinkers from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, the recently published anthology that brown co-edited with Walidah Imarisha. The official Detroit release party for Octavia's Brood, featuring local DJs and a host of micro-performances, will follow. Saturday, April 18, 8:00 p.m.–11:00 p.m. Garden Theater.
"From Here to There" by Kate Daughdrill. Kate Daughdrill's ongoing installation provides an immersive space for quiet engagement with a holy water station, a station for letting go, plants, jars of food, herbal medicine, ceremonial objects, and a publication exploring the life and values of Burnside Farm, Daughdrill's 8-lot urban farm on the east side of Detroit. The installation will be activated with a series of intimate activities, including a medicinal food and tea pairing, an aromatic encounter, an elixir making experience with students from the Boggs School, and a discussion about food sovereignty and urban farming in Detroit. Friday, April 17, 5:30 p.m.–8:00 p.m. MOCAD, Café, Side Parking Lot.
"The Flow of Water" by Carl Wilson. Decades spent as an inactive artist, autoworker, and repressed religious cult member are at the root of Carl Wilson's creations. Traditionally a print artist, Wilson steps out of his comfort zone with the creation of a 2D animated short film, The Flow of Water. As a mixture of animation techniques including cut out, traditional, and digital, the film is intercut with live action and told in a surreal style with a non-linear narrative. Wilson's work will be featured in an ongoing exhibit at MOCAD throughout AXD.
David DiChiera (2013)
Bill Rauhauser (2014)
Juan Atkins
Ben Hall
Kisma Jordan
Gayelynn McKinney
Stephen Nawara
New Music Detroit
Tracy Halloran Pearson
Britney Stoney
Diane Cheklich
Tony D'Annunzio
Donavan Glover
dream hampton
Leon Johnson
Daniel Land
Rola Nashef
Jasmine Rivera
Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe
Terry Blackhawk
adrienne maree brown
Arthur R. LaBrew
Cary Loren
Dunya Mikhail
Chace "Mic Write" Morris
Peregrine Workshop
Carolyn Walker
Michael Zadoorian
Jon Brumit
Coco Bruner
Jason E. Carter
Kate Daughdrill
Oren Goldenberg
Marie T. Hermann
Charlie O'Geen
bryant tillman
Carl Wilson
AXD partners include: Kresge Arts in Detroit, College for Creative Studies, Creative Many and MOCAD. Media partners include: WDET-FM, FOX 2, Metro Times and ZIPR Magazine.
For more information, visit www.ArtXDetroit.com or call (313) 420-6000.
Heather George, lovio george, 313-832-2210, email@example.com
Bridget Burns, lovio george, 313-832-2210, email@example.com
The Kresge Foundation is a $3 billion private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in America's cities through grant making and investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services, and community development efforts in Detroit. In 2013, the Board of Trustees approved 316 awards totaling $122 million; $128 million was paid out to grantees over the course of the year. In addition, their Social Investment Practice made commitments totaling $17.7 million in 2013. For more information visit kresge.org.
Midtown Detroit, Inc (MDI) is a nonprofit planning and development agency charged with revitalization of Detroit's Woodward Corridor. Representing over 100 area stakeholders, including Detroit's anchor educational, medical and cultural institutions, MDI provides public space maintenance and security services; marketing support; technical assistance; infrastructure and real estate development; grant administration; and arts programming for the district.
Over the last decade, MDI and its predecessor organization, the University Cultural Center Association, have raised $56 million for a variety of initiatives including the Midtown Greenway Loop, restoration and conversion of six historic homes into a boutique hotel, the Woodward Avenue Streetscape Enhancement project, the creation of the Sugar Hill Arts District, the construction of two community gardens and a Green Alley, the renovation of many commercial facades throughout the district, and a matching grants security enhancement program for property and business owners. MDI has also facilitated funding for over 50 residential developments resulting in over 1800 new units of housing and has assisted over 100 local businesses with technical assistance and financing. MDI also manages Live Midtown, a successful initiative to increase population density through incentives to eligible anchor institution employees. Over 1,000 participants have taken advantage of the Live Midtown program to date.
Additional initiatives include a comprehensive communication and marketing campaign to increase awareness of Midtown's numerous qualities, stimulate population growth, and attract new businesses to the area. MDI additionally promotes local cultural events including three signature events – Noel Night, DLECTRICITY, and Art X Detroit along with New Center Park summer entertainment. For more information, visit midtowndetroitinc.org
Latest News
BY Annmarie - 01/06/2015
"Gallery is Now Up!"
BY Annmarie - 28/04/2015
"Thank You!"
BY Annmarie - 24/04/2015
"Hyperallergic – Art X Detroit Lives Up to the City's Vibrant Cultural Life"


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Hikers across the state were erupting with frustration on Thursday morning when coveted Mount St. Helens climbing permits went on sale.
Error message after error message flashed on their screens as they attempted to buy the $22 permits. A few who had success, said they persisted for more than 40 minutes, continually refreshing their screen while using multiple browsers and devices.
Briefly, the website for the processing company Discover Your Northwest showed every permit available for May 24-Oct. 2 was sold out. Then the system was shutdown and message was posted that stated that the transaction process was suspended while the Mount St. Helens Institute and Discover Your Northwest attempted to "identify and resolve a number of unexpected issues related to the overwhelming demand."
The organization said they'd post an update on Facebook at 5 p.m. on Monday.
So what went wrong?
On Thursday evening, Mount St. Helens Institute director Ray Yurkewycz wasn't entirely sure. They anticipated a flood of requests. Discover Your Northwest had significantly beefed up the size of its servers for the occasion, Yurkewycz said. It seems, it wasn't enough.
He was not sure how many requests were submitted Thursday morning, but KIRO-TV reported 11,000 people tried to get permits, more than three times as many as 3,500 that tried on the opening day of sales last year.
"It (the website) is always a little slow on the first day," Yurkewycz said. "But we've never seen anything like this."
In 2012, when the institute started processing permits sales, 12,000 climbing permits were issued, Yurkewycz said. Last year, they issued 20,000. He said, typically, summer weekends and Mother's Day permits sell out in a matter of minutes, but several summer week day permits are often available for several days.
The question many were asking Thursday was how many permits are going to be available when sales reopen? Did the entire summer really sell out?
Yurkewycz doesn't know. "We're still sorting it out," he said. Although, he said, he suspected their were likely still be some permits available.
What about those who saw screens that said their purchases were successful but did not receive a confirmation email?
Those emails should still be on the way. "All completed transactions are still available," Yurkewycz said.
Some permits shoppers raised concerns that scalpers might be buying the tickets.
This is unlikely, Yurkewycz. He says he's only ever seen a couple of cases of people trying to resell permits at a marked up price. Tickets are usually resold at purmit.com, where they must be sold at face value.
Those who miss out on permits during the initial rush, will have a second chance thanks to new permitting rules.
This year, 10 percent of permits aren't available until the final day of the month preceding the permit date. "For example, 10% of all June permits would only be released at 12:01 a.m. on May 31," states the Mount St. Helens Institute website.
Craig Hill: 253-597-8497, @AdventureGuys


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Pasadena, Texas (PRWEB) June 25, 2015
According to court files, Kaneka Corporation has been in dispute with Xiamen Kingdomway Group Company, Pacific Rainbow International Inc., and Shenzhou Biology and Technology Co., Ltd. since March 2011, when Kaneka instituted a patent infringement action against them in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging infringement of Kaneka's U.S. Patent No. 7,910,340 relating to coenzyme Q10.
On June 10, 2015, according to court files, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the claim construction definitions determined by the District Court in granting its summary judgment was erroneous, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the District Court.
Not only are the new claim construction definitions binding on the California District Court, but also on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where Kaneka is in dispute with Zhejiang Medicine Co. Ltd. and ZMC-USA, LLC. (collectively "Plaintiffs") in an infringement action for the same patent. As a result of this decision, Kaneka intends to proceed to a jury trial with the case in Texas and to the discovery process with the case in California.
Kaneka Corporation v. Xiamen Kingdomway
United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case No. 2:11-cv-02389-MRP-SS
Kaneka Corporation v. Zhejiang Medicine Co., Ltd., and ZMC-USA L.L.C.,
United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, Case No. 4:11-cv-01052


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The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons recently held a regional workshop on assistance and protection against chemical weapons for representatives of state parties in Africa.
The workshop, co-organized by the government of Mazambique and the OPCW in Maputo, was held from March 18 through March 20. A total of 28 participants from 17 state parties participated in the workshop.
Conducted under the OPCW's Program to Strengthen Cooperation with Africa, the workshop was designed for planners and managers who are responsible for protection programs against chemical weapons or who are involved in chemical response activities.
Information was provided at the workshop on the Chemical Weapons Convention and its provisions with a special focus on the rights and obligations of state parties under Article X, submission of declarations of protection programs, analysis of Article X weaknesses and problem areas, an overview of assistance and protection activities in the region, and development of emergency response plans.
Additionally, representatives from African state parties made presentations to share experiences and lessons learned from their respective countries.
Member countries taking part in the workshop include Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.


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Last week, congress voted mostly along party lines to amend the Defense Departments's budget, prohibiting the Pentagon from further investigating the effects of climate change or enacting any initiatives in response to the climate disturbances based on the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the National Climate Assessment. Healthy skepticism is an integral component to successful research, but in this instance, congress has overreached for political gains. The only chance for Republicans to ever "win" the climate debate is to allow further climate research to better understand the precise direction and underlying causes of any changes. The science will not change because of a politics. Of course, there are biases researchers inject into their investigations, but the goal of the scientific community is to sail beyond such individual predispositions and to arrive at the truth.
Congress carries unique powers in directing the focus of research efforts across the United States. Most recently, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology threatens to cut major research efforts in the social sciences and humanities. The committee chairman - Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) - has spearheaded a new appropriations bill that slashes spending on research the committee deems inappropriate for taxpayer dollars. In addition to the spending reductions (note: spending on so-called hard sciences will increase slightly), Smith's bill also proposes new criteria for the the National Science Foundation (NSF) to use when allocating research funds. Currently, NSF focuses on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. The new metrics (see Sec. 106(B) for details) would urge the agency to focus on aspects such as economic competitiveness, development of a STEM workforce, and national security. These are certainly lofty goals, but many scientists worry that such guidelines would leave out much of the basic research that innovation in the sciences has relied upon (see NSF's Discoveries page for examples).
The movement to change funding distributions for research at the federal level caught wind when Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) voiced major opposition over a paper by Stanton Glantz, which traced the close involvement of Big Tobacco in the origins of the Tea Party. Harris, joined by Smith and Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK) - himself a habitual critic of "wasteful" federal research spending - decided to take on these funding agencies to prevent what they view as wasteful research spending. In essence, Tea Party politicians went after research about the Tea Party they didn't like. Of course, NSF along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) must be good stewards of their resources, but I find it frustrating that these and other congressmen choose to focus on a relatively small amount of US spending (combined NSF and NIH spending comprise less than 7% of US military spending) for ostensibly political motivations. What's more, the opposition primarily points to projects the representatives disagree with, rather than identifying fraud and abuse that plagues so much of our other government spending (especially defense spending). Again, the justification for going after research funding agencies appears to emerge more from an attempt to gain political brownie points than to best serve the American people.
In my current capacity as a researcher in training, my own funding and career path will be heavily influenced by the resources available for federal funding agencies. I certainly have some meat in the game, and I admit my bias is strong. To be clear, I don't mean for this to be an attack on the Tea Party or on the political right. My objection is to allowing political partisanship to dictate the research questions scientists and engineers can pursue. Science must be the guiding light. Legislators are within their right to enact laws and regulations to ensure that research remains within the moral imperatives of our country. Such imperatives must extend beyond party lines, and I judge that in these instances, the congressmen have gone too far.
Science as a pursuit of knowledge is apolitical and amoral in its purest form. Data acquisition and rigorous testing of hypotheses drive research from one locale to the next. The researcher ensures the work remains within ethical and fiduciary bounds, but progress more commonly emerges out of diligent record keeping than an individual's ingenious guidance. Arbitrary limitations on the direction research may turn serve to delay what is likely inevitable. Knowledge cannot be suppressed in an age of unprecedented global prosperity and connectivity.
We must remember: refusing to ask the question does not change the answer. The ones hurt by the results of scientific inquiry are the ignorant and the selfish.