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Part of the Boris Karloff Blogathon, sponsored by Frankensteinia! Click Here to enjoy all the other entries in this web-wide celebration of the Life and Career of Boris Karloff!
Cinema history is littered with stories of golden age stars who ended their careers on desperate, depressing notes, working in low-budget, zero-prestige dreck totally unworthy of their talents. In the horror genre--and the world of film generally--perhaps no star better exemplifies this phenomenon than Bela Lugosi, whose fall from superstardom into drug addiction, anachronism, and death on the second day of filming what was for decades held as "the worst film ever made" is the stuff of sad Hollywood legend. Fellow golden age icons Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine fared only slightly better, and the last great face of horror cinema, Vincent Price, is perhaps the exception that proves the rule. It's almost as if something about the dark stories they brought to life in their heyday rubbed off onto the men beneath, cursing their final days with as much tragedy as they ever assayed on screen.
Even Boris Karloff, arguably the most talented and almost certainly the most successful legend of the Universal era, was not spared this cruel fate. Like many of his peers, Karloff did some excellent work even late in his career--How the Grinch Stole Christmas, anyone?--and lent his considerable gravitas and class to a slew of low budget horror films and television shows, often improving the material by several orders of magnitude by virtue of his unshakable sophistication and talent. But for all that, he still closed out his two-hundred film career in a series of z-grade Mexican mad-doctor flicks. Such efforts as Snake People and The Incredible Invasion (both 1971), though perhaps not without their peculiar charms, feature a game but clearly ill and exhausted Karloff, hobbling across the cheap sets and delivering lines in a sonorous but shaky voice, a mere shell of his former glory.
Which is why I say, "Thank God for Roger Corman," without whose legendary frugal and opportunistic showbiz know-how, today's film would not have been made. Corman had Karloff under contract for five days of shooting, and had already burned three of them on another project. Not one to let an aging horror star sit idle when there was unexposed film within reach, Corman told a young Peter Bogdonavich--then a fledgling, untried filmmaker with only one unremarkable film to his credit--that he could make any movie he wanted on two conditions: he had to use the two days Karloff owed him, and he had to use stock footage from 1963's The Terror (a previous Corman/Karloff collaboration that also starred a very young Jack Nicholson). Bound by those cost-cutting strictures, Bogdonavich and wife/cowriter Polly Platt came up with a film that can be considered a glorious and moving capper to Karloff's career: Targets (1968).
not to cast Karloff as a mad doctor bent on world domination or a Sadean aristocrat with a penchant for terrorizing bikini-clad girls. Instead, they decided to have Karloff play...himself! With the "you can't possibly mistake what we're doing here" moniker Byron Orlok, Karloff plays an aging horror star of the golden era, now forced to work in low budget schlock and live off the name recognition and status he built up in his glory days--a status that is clearly in steep decline.
Bogdonavich opens the movie with five minutes of footage from The Terror, like in the deal. We see the tumultuous climax of that film, with a younger but still none-too-youthful Karloff stalking through a gothic castle set, whipping his servant with chains, unearthing his beloved in her worm-eaten grave, and wrestling a diaphanous gown-clad spectre as the dungeon floods and the walls crumble around him. (For sheer "what a trooper" awesomeness, the only comparison is Lugosi's octopus-rasslin' scene in Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster.) The end credits roll, and the lights come up in a darkened screening room, where Orlok shakes his head sadly at the spectacle he's just witnessed, the depths to which his career has sunk.
"a work of art!" written by fledgling director Sammy Michaels that he claims will be "a real departure for you, Byron!" Through asides between Sammy and Orlok's distractingly attractive young secretary Jenny (Nancy Hsueh), we learn this is to be the director's big break, a chance to do the type of picture he's always wanted to do. It's about as meta as meta can get, since what we're watching is by all accounts the story of how the movie we're watching actually got made. The fact that Sammy Michaels is played by Peter Bogdonavich himself removes whatever doubt there could be left.
Orlok's had enough, however, and announces that he's retiring from the movies, effective immediately. Tired of appearing in movies he feels are beneath him and depressed at the downward trajectory of his career, Orlok is ready to walk away from the whole circus, leaving the producer, his agent Eddie, and the young director in the lurch. When Sammy tries to talk him out of it, Orlok is firm in his resolve. "Sammy, you're a sweet boy, but you can't possibly understand what it feels like to be me! I'm an antique, out of date ... an anachronism! The world belongs to the young! Make way for them--let them have it!"
As they argue in the street, we suddenly see Orlok through the crosshairs of a high-powered rifle--a jarring, unsettling image. Pulling back we find Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) testing the scope on a gun he intends to purchase. With his crew cut, smart suit, polite friendliness and gee-whiz good looks, Bobby is the very image of the clean, upstanding American youth of the 60s. But when he buys the rifle and takes it out to his car to add it to a veritable arsenal he has stored in the trunk, we start to see there's a hidden disturbing depth just below the All-American Boy surface.
Ilene (Tanya Morgan) live with Bobby's parents, in a house full of gun racks, gun magazines, and hunting and GI photos of the old man. Bobby calls his father "Sir" and bows his head dutifully for prayers before the evening meal, but the way he stalks around the empty rooms, an unreadable but slightly sinister gleam in his eye, speaks volumes.
Back in Orlok's hotel room, it becomes clear that the old man is determined to wallow in bitterness, actively trying to alienate his agent and secretary with his curmudgeonly self-pity. He even refuses to honor his contract for the personal appearance at the drive-in, causing the longsuffering Eddie no end of dismay. Karloff's performance here is nothing short of brilliant--his smooth, bitingly satirical delivery of his dialogue somehow captures Orlok's despair and anger without ever becoming too mean--you can see that he's a good man, a kind man, who just happens to be at the end of his rope. Of course the audience's prior knowledge of Karloff's off-screen persona helps a lot here, but that's all part of Bogdonavich's master plan, and it works wonderfully.
Back in suburbia, Bobby tries to open up to his wife about the demons that are haunting him. "I don't know what's happening to me," he tells her. "I get...funny ideas." But while Bobby's clearly struggling to articulate the impulses even he doesn't fully understand, his wife barely listens, putting him off with pleasantries and a good night peck on the cheek. Bobby stays up all night, smoking in the dark and gazing ominously at the gun on his bedside table as the plan forms in his head...
Targets is a movie that's not so much a horror film as a film about horror--specifically, it's changing face in the post-Charles Whitman era. (For those yet to study the incident in American History, Whitman was the gunman in the infamous Texas Clocktower Shootings--wiki article here.) Whitman's crime is referenced many times in the film, though not always directly. For instance, when Orlok laments that his type of horror "isn't horror anymore!", he cites as evidence a newspaper headline about a youth having shot down a group of innocents in a supermarket. When Bobby climbs to the top of a refinery tank and sets out his arsenal in preparation for the beginning of his onslaught, the parallels can't be ignored. Add to this the fact that Tim O'Kelly's Bobby bears more than a passing resemblance to Whitman himself, and the connection is clear. Horror no longer wears diaphanous gowns and rotting Victorian clothes--now it wears a crew cut and a smile and carries a high-powered rifle.
After picking off several motorists from his perch at the refinery and also murdering a worker who surprises him on the stairwell (Note to Flying Maciste Bros.: dummy death!), Bobby flees the scene, eluding the police by pulling into the drive-in theater where Orlok is scheduled to make his appearance. As luck would have it, Orlok has decided to show up for the PA after all, thanks to a drunken bender with Michaels the night before and the pangs of his conscience. It's here that Orlok and Bobby's paths finally cross, as the young man takes up a position behind the screen and begins picking off the audience while the movie plays. It all comes to a head when Jenny is shot and an enraged and probably in-shock Orlock heads behind the screen to confront the next generation's version of horror.
Samuel Fuller, who did a full rewrite of Bogdonavich and Platt's original script and refused screen credit for it. However, the young director was obviously paying attention and learning the right lessons, as his later career would show. (For you movie buffs, Bogdonavich's next feature after Targets was The Last Picture Show, for which Bogdonavich received several Oscar nominations.)
Making a virtue of the strictures Corman placed on him, Bogdonavich uses the other ten or fifteen minutes stock footage from The Terror in the movie's incredibly tense climax, slowly building the suspense as audience members are picked off one by one while the rest of the moviegoers sit and watch obliviously. Bogdonavich doesn't pull any punches either--scenes showing children bleeding in the arms of their weeping mothers, and another of a young boy in shock looking at his father's dead body in the seat beside him, are more than a little hard to take. The fact that the movie still resonates so strongly today is either a testament to the director's skill, a sad comment on present-day society, or a little of both.
The young director was blessed with an excellent cast as well, chiefly in the form of Karloff and Tim O'Kelly. Playing a slightly more curmudgeonly version of himself, Karloff is an absolute joy to watch, and his chemistry with Bogdonavich the actor and with Nancy Hseuh as Jenny is real and engaging. He also gets a chance to do some dry British comedy, as when he spars with a beatnik radio personality prior to the public appearance (Beatnik: "Mr. O, I must have dug your flicks like four zillion times! You BLEW MY MIND!" Karloff [extremely dry]: "Obviously."), or when an exasperated Sammy takes his script and storms to the door, threatening, "I'm gonna go offer this to Vincent Price!" On the dramatic side, highlights include the reportedly ad-libbed 'bedtime story' Orlok tells in lieu of an interview (an Arabian folk tale about the day Death came to the marketplace), and his wordless confrontation with Bobby behind the screen. (Two words: BORIS BITCH-SLAP!)
Targets before disappearing from the movies completely.
The supporting cast is great too--Nancy Hseuh is fabulous as a capable woman who knows how to handle her slightly childish old charge, and Bogdonavich carries his role well. One performance I enjoyed a great deal this second time around was Arthur Peterson as Orlok's agent Eddie, who with very limited screentime and dialog creates a believable, touching, slightly tragic character about whom I would have liked to know more.
If Boris had followed Orlok's lead and retired after Targets, it would have been a glorious, fitting end to a long and wonderful career. Of course Bogdonavich points out on his informative commentary that this was the one difference between Orlok and Karloff: "Boris never for a moment considered not working." Karloff's subsequent Mexican z-graders did nothing to diminish his legend either, and even in the most atrocious fare he was able to lend an air of class and sophistication that was almost magical. Still, Targets is a fabulous movie, a grand curtain call for one of the true greats not only in horror cinema, but in American film as a whole.
3+ thumbs. See it--you owe it to yourself, and to Boris. Come on, think of all he's given you! Is it too much to ask?
A few more images from Targets (1968):
Monday, November 23, 2009
Targets (1968): or, Go On, Boris, Take a Bow
Part of the Boris Karloff Blogathon, sponsored by Frankensteinia! Click Here to enjoy all the other entries in this web-wide celebration of the Life and Career of Boris Karloff!
Posted by The Vicar of VHS at 12:42 PM
Labels: '60s, Boris Karloff, Karloff Blogathon, Psycho Killer, Thriller
16 comments:
- T. R Xands said...
Last foto caption made my life.
Yay, a Boris Karloff blogathon! More reason to go watch Black Sabbath again. I'd heard of Targets but really not gotten too many reviews on it when I was thinking about renting/purchasing, I guess I just wasn't looking hard enough or something. I think now I'll give it a try this weekend if I can find it, you know, to avoid the family on Thanksgiving.
- November 23, 2009 at 2:30 PM
- Samuel Wilson said...
The title has sort of entered the film-buff lexicon, hasn't it? When an old war-horse in apparent decline pulls off a brilliant late performance,someone is going to call it his or her Targets. As a blog-appropriate example, Rojo Sangre is Paul Naschy's Targets in some estimates. That's a tribute to what Bogdonovich and Karloff accomplished, and your review reminds me that I have to finally catch up with The Criminal Code someday.
- November 23, 2009 at 2:53 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@T. R Xands: definitely seek this one out. It's a great piece of filmmaking over and above Karloff's performance, though of course that only makes it that much better. Bogdonavich's commentary is worth listening to also.
@Samuel Wilson: Rojo Sangre is DEFINITELY Naschy's TARGETS! An argument could be made for Vincent Price's THEATER OF BLOOD being in the same subgenre, except of course that Vincent went out with a bang in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, many years later. I've never seen THE CRIMINAL CODE either, but the clips in TARGETS make it look fantastic.
- November 23, 2009 at 3:15 PM
- JamiSings said...
Last caption - genius.
And of course now I want to see this movie and God help Hollywood if I like it and they do remake it. I'm ready to start a coup as it is to stop craptastic remakes. Complete with blazing torches and pitchforks.
- November 23, 2009 at 3:26 PM
- The Duke of DVD said...
Brilliance, as usual Vicar! I loves me some Karloff, as evidenced by the menacing statue I have of him in one of my gardens. (note: it keeps moles and gypsies away)
Is it just me, or does the person opposite Boris in your screencap about "scaring the crap out of kids" look like Jimmy Carter?
- November 23, 2009 at 3:56 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@Jami--They certainly don't need to remake this one; I'd rather they get to work on a Karloff biopic starring Jeremy Irons. I've always thought he could NAIL the role, and the resemblance is not a small one.
@The Duke--you may be right; after all, you look NOTHING like Jimmy Carter!
- November 23, 2009 at 4:05 PM
- Steve Miller, Writer of Stuff said...
This is one my favorite Karloff films. I like to pretend that it's the last one he made, having seen "Isle of the Snake People" and heard tell that it's the BEST of the Mexican films he shot scenes for.
Great article and the cut-lines made me laugh (which is what I get for web-surfing while my class is taking an exam....)
- November 23, 2009 at 4:33 PM
- Jenn said...
Does it get much better than meta-Boris? I don't think so. You know, I always wondered what it was like for actors to play meta-versions of themselves, like Courtney Love playing a strung out junkie lunatic in that Larry Flynt movie. Or the other examples mentioned (Naschy's ROJA SANGRE - god, I feel for the man in that movie! - and Price's THEATRE OF BLOOD).
Lovely and hilarious as usual.
- November 23, 2009 at 4:43 PM
- prof. grewbeard said...
i'm right there with you on this one, nuff said! your review BLEW MY MIND!...obviously.
- November 23, 2009 at 7:04 PM
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- November 23, 2009 at 7:08 PM
Thanks, V., for reminding me of this one, and for a damn fine kickoff entry in the B.K. Blog-a-thon.
Since childhood, Karloff in Frankenstein was my favorite film performance. The movie ignited my love of horror films, and the Universal catalog became my bible. For years I couldn't consider anything that wasn't a B&W gothic from the 30s or 40s as being a "true" horror movie.
Years later, it was Karloff again (with Peter Bogdanovich, of course) who showed me that an even greater horror could be the kind that lived next door, and that he scariest monsters were of the human breed.
- November 23, 2009 at 8:09 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@Steve Miller--thanks for the comment! I've seen SNAKE PEOPLE, and I think it does have a few things going for it if you're a lover of the MAD, but it's definitely nowhere near Karloff's best. TARGETS, on the other hand, is. Also, are you the teacher of this class? If so, I find the fact that you're surfing MMMMMovies during exams strangely cool and awesome! :)
@Jenn--It's hard to get better than Meta-Boris, this much is true. According to some of the other Blogathon entries, apparently he did a commercial for A-1 Steak Sauce in the 60s. Definitely have to find some video of that--the mind wobbles!
@prof. grewbeard--Crazy, Daddio! ;)
@Geo--Thanks for the kind words! As you know, I also cut my teeth on the Universal horrors, and it was a real pleasure for me to find this example of one of the stars of those flicks acting so well, so late in his career. Lon Sr. was the Grandaddy of them all, Lon Jr. the tragic knight, Lugosi the Dark Prince, but Boris--Boris was the KING.
- November 24, 2009 at 8:14 AM
- George said...
Shudders. If Matt Damon's in the remake...who plays Karloff...uh, Orlok?
- November 24, 2009 at 2:06 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@George--Jeremy Irons!
Disclaimer: to my knowledge, there is no remake planned. I would be all about a re-release, though.
- November 24, 2009 at 4:17 PM
- Nate Y. said...
Karloff's bewildered last line just sums this movie up: "Is that what I was afraid of?" Bogdanovich's point is clear -- real-life monsters are cowards. We're allowing ourselves to become afraid of the afraid.
- November 25, 2009 at 12:50 PM
- Emily said...
Love this review! I was really glad to see this film mentioned in Shock Value, but I have to say, you do such a great job of explaining so much about what Targets does. Good on ya!
- July 12, 2011 at 11:01 PM


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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — Jason Kidd's run as coach in Brooklyn could soon be over after just one season, courtesy of his own ambition.
Kidd was denied a promotion with the Nets and, in the wake of that failed attempt to increase his power to include personnel decisions, was granted permission to discuss future employment with the Milwaukee Bucks, according to a report from Tim Bontemps of the New York Post.
The Bucks, of course, already have a coach in Larry Drew. So it's unclear exactly which job Kidd is exploring in Milwaukee. Both Kidd and Drew just finished their first seasons, respectively, in their current positions.
Kidd's reported power play puts him in a precarious position with the Nets, who have loads of other decisions to make, including what to do with Kevin Garnett and the final year of his contract, and might have to add a coaching search to their to-do-list.
If Kidd tried to undercut Nets GM Billy King and failed, he's almost certainly out of a job in Brooklyn. For this news to break on the eve of free agency makes for an extremely bizarre process as the Nets try to reload for the 2014-15 season.
There's an excellent chance they'll do so without the services of Kidd, whose methods, per the Post, were nothing if not bold:
According to a league source, Kidd recently approached ownership with a series of demands, including the role of overseeing the Nets' basketball operations department in addition to his head coaching responsibilities. The source said Kidd didn't want general manager Billy King to be dismissed, but wanted to be given a title and placed above him in the organizational hierarchy.
Ownership declined to grant Kidd that kind of power, which is rare for any coach in the league to have. The source said ownership felt Kidd wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility after having only one year of coaching experience — the team finished his first season on the bench with a 44-38 record, good for sixth in the Eastern Conference — and allowed Kidd to seek other opportunities.
The franchise then was approached by the Bucks to speak with Kidd about the prospect of hiring him, and have done so with the Nets' permission.
Kidd has a small ownership stake in the Nets, so perhaps he felt he was well within his rights to ask for more power. But someone else within the organization clearly didn't agree with his way of doing business.
Whatever role the Bucks have played or will play in this process can only be further complicated by them speaking to a coach of an Eastern Conference rival while they already have a coach under contract.
Whatever happens in Milwaukee, it's clear Kidd's days are numbered in Brooklyn.

subset: commoncrawl


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It's Wednesday, so that means another challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.
This week we have a
This week we have a Photo Inspiration challenge for you.
Isn't this the yummiest photo. I love all the bright colours.
I found a cool card on Pintrest that I cased to create this stunning lollipop.
If you go to pintrest you can find it on my boards.
I stamped a cute sentiment...
And did some paper piercing for more interest.
It made a great birthday card for a little girl.


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Happy Mother's Day – 2011
May 7 2011
Happy Mother's Day! I hope all the mothers out there have a pleasant day tomorrow – May 8, 2011 – with kids
not whining doting on you, listening to everything you say, and smiling all day. 🙂 If your kids are grown and if you've been a good mother, hopefully they'll send you something or call you. My kids are still young so I suspect they will give me something they made at school. For one brief second I thought about writing a short Mother's Day poem, but then I realized how late it was and changed my mind. Being a mother has been the hardest, yet so far the most rewarding profession I've ever had. I love my two little human start-ups (i.e., ventures) more than anything else in the world. The mother-child relationship is the only relationship that starts with a human physically connected and constantly fed by another human. I imagine I'll always feel connected to them in some form even though the connection changes over time. I hope I have as positive an affect on their lives as they have had on mine.
My neighbor shared some of her Mother's Day roses with me today. She said she had so many and she wanted to share some with me. That was so very thoughtful and sweet of her, and I'm tearing up a bit writing about it now especially given the hard year we've gone through. They are my favorite flowers: roses, which are shown in the photo accompanying this post. I'm grateful for people like our neighbors who we've lived next to for over 10 years and who have been kind and supported all of us. She's a wonderful mother with 4 kids, and I think close to 10 grand kids now. When she's not working, she seems to be always doing something for her kids or grand kids. Her husband is the wonderful guy who helped us plant our new trees, and he has also read my blog consistently since almost soon after I started writing on it over three years ago. So I know he'll see this post and hopefully tell her about it.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2011 to all. Do your best to be great mothers every day and night (since it's a 24×7 job) and hope your kids forgive you when you screw up as you will forgive them when they do…unless of course they forget mother's day or your birthday!Author: Aruni | Filed under: marriage, mom, mother, mother's day | Tags: human connection, mother's day, planting trees | 1 Comment »


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Good morning, folks!
A few days ago, I was reading a post by Ms Vanessa-Jane Chapman. It was all about her love of seagulls. We're not fans over here at Spineless Wonders because we view seagulls as scary predators (well the boys do – Ms Katykins just thinks that they like to shite very accurately on unsuspecting victims!). Vanessa's post was entertaining and contained some interesting, lesser known, facts about seagulls – although the info was somewhat unsettling to Cyril and Willy.
Today's post is dedicated to Vanessa-Jane, we'd like her to know that we have a good sense of humour over here! 😉
Have a great day everyone!
Ms Katykins 🙂


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January 11, 2009 |
|Remarks by Jeffrey Lacker, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Maryland Bankers Association Annual Economic Outlook Forum
Linthicum, MD
The beginning of a new calendar year is a popular occasion for discussing the outlook for future economic conditions. Recent trends to some extent have dampened enthusiasm for this annual exercise. On the other hand, uncertainty about the economic outlook looms particularly large now, and the economic policy challenges we face are particularly profound, so perhaps the returns to such a discussion are above average this year, even if our zeal for the topic is a bit below average.
The basis for dampened enthusiasm regarding this year's economic outlook is fairly clear. The U.S. economy has been in a recession for a year now, and the pace of the contraction in economic activity appeared to increase markedly around the end of September. In my remarks today, I will discuss the factors I see affecting the outlook for the U.S. economy and monetary policy. As always, the views I express will be my own, and may not coincide exactly with the views of all of my Federal Reserve System colleagues. I will devote special attention to recent financial market conditions, because the financial market turbulence that has been so striking over the last year-and-a-half looms large in any discussion of the economy and economic policy these days.
The proximate cause of the financial market turbulence, of course, is the home mortgages made from late 2005 through early 2007, near the end of long U.S. housing boom that began in 1995. Since the peak in activity in 2005, housing investment has fallen by more than 40 percent. Average housing prices, as measured by the FHFA repeat sales index, have fallen nearly 9 percent since their peak in April 2007. The resulting erosion in home equity for many borrowers has meant that mortgages made near the peak of the boom, especially the subprime and non-traditional categories, are experiencing much larger losses than expected.
It will take years of research to untangle the quantitative contribution of various causal factors to the decade-long housing boom, the accompanying rise in subprime mortgage lending, and the subsequent increase in mortgage losses. A definitive assessment is too much to ask at this point, but a list of the most plausible suspects can easily be discerned. One candidate that is often overlooked is the significant increase in productivity growth, and thus growth in real household income, which began around 1995 and lasted until some time earlier in this decade. To the extent that households came to see the increase in trend real income growth as likely to continue, one would expect to see a sustained rise in the demand for housing. Moreover, current data suggest a decline in trend productivity growth in the middle of this decade, around the time housing demand peaked and began falling.
Another plausible contributing factor was the wave of technological innovation in retail credit delivery, which allowed lenders to make finer distinctions between potential borrowers. This facilitated lower interest rates for some borrowers and an expansion of lending to borrowers formerly viewed as unqualified for credit. As in any industry undergoing an innovation-driven structural shift (the telecommunications industry in the late 1990s, for example), the natural evolution of the industry can involve overshooting and retrenchment. Subprime lending with high loan-to-value ratios was profitable while home prices were rapidly rising, but profitability fell sharply when price trends reversed. Home price trends are hard to predict with any confidence, and lenders who found past subprime mortgage lending profitable in 2004, 2005 and 2006 may have underestimated the probability of a broad and sustained decline in home prices.
The regulatory and supervisory regime surrounding U.S. housing finance also seems likely to have contributed to the boom in housing and housing finance. Here, several factors deserve mention. Supervisory agencies, like borrowers, lenders and investors, assigned a low probability to the possibility of an adverse housing demand shift of the magnitude and geographic extent that we have seen. In addition, private sector incentives to foresee and protect against such shocks were to some extent dampened by the presence of the federal financial safety net – that is, deposit insurance and the access of commercial banking organizations to Federal Reserve lending. Market participants may have inferred that a housing market shock that was large enough to afflict a broad swath of the financial system would elicit significant official support, particularly for institutions perceived as "too big to fail." Past instances of government intervention to prevent large financial institutions from failing – from Continental Illinois to Long Term Capital Management – have encouraged such inferences. The federal safety net probably also played a role in banks' involvement in the securitization process at the heart of housing finance, particularly among institutions perceived as too big to fail. The use of off-balance sheet arrangements and the provision of back-up lines of credit created contingent exposures for the banking system that by design were most likely to be realized in generally bad states of the world, when the safety-net protection of the formal banking sector would be most valuable. In addition to these incentive problems, the inferred prospect of support for the government-sponsored housing finance enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, lowered their borrowing costs and contributed to their demand for mortgage-backed securities. Legislative incentives for such enterprises to extend credit to low-income borrowers also would have stimulated their demand for securities backed by subprime and nontraditional mortgages.
Another key causal suspect is the relatively low path of interest rates after the recession earlier this decade, especially in 2003 and 2004. Some economists have argued, with the benefit of hindsight, that tighter monetary policy during that period would have led to better outcomes by preventing core inflation from rising, thus limiting the housing boom and mitigating the subsequent bust. This view strikes me as quite plausible, but again, further research will be required to substantiate this hypothesis.
That's all prologue, however, to the turmoil that has plagued financial markets since the middle of last year, when the potential scale of the home mortgage problem became more widely appreciated. The turmoil intensified in mid-September of this year, and volatility has been elevated since. Financial market participants have faced three major categories of uncertainty. The first concerns the aggregate amount of losses on mortgage lending. For mortgages made in 2006 and early 2007 – the vintages in which losses are concentrated – significant uncertainty still remains regarding total losses.
Second, financial market participants have faced uncertainty about where the losses will turn up. Mortgage risks were split up and spread widely, both within the United States and abroad, through securitization and use of the insurance capabilities provided by credit derivative contracts. As a result, financial market participants are understandably apprehensive about whether a particular counterparty's mortgage-related losses will erode their capital buffer enough to threaten their viability.
Third, market participants have at times faced uncertainty about prospective public sector intervention. The disparate responses to potential failures at several high-profile organizations this year may have made it difficult for market participants to forecast whether official support would be forthcoming for a given counterparty. Shifts in expectations regarding official intervention may have added volatility to financial asset markets that already were roiled by an increasingly uncertain growth outlook. And uncertainty about the form of government support – asset purchases versus dilutive capital purchases, for example – may have hindered the provision of fresh equity capital.
Most of what has been observed in financial market since the summer of 2007 is fairly intelligible in light of these sources of uncertainty facing market participants. Apprehension about potential losses caused lenders to demand higher risk premia in interbank credit markets for institutions with at least some presumed mortgage-related exposure. Market participants became especially concerned about the heightened risk associated with lending at longer maturities, and so risk premia became especially elevated for term lending. Some borrowers were unwilling to pay higher premia for term loans, and shortened the tenor of their funding. Others were willing to pay the unusually high premia in order to "lock in" funding and protect themselves against an erosion in counterparties' perception of their creditworthiness. More broadly, the proliferation of intermediation channels in recent years has meant that for many borrowers, the next best financing option may not be much more costly. For example, many commercial paper issuers have back-up lines of credit with banks that they can draw on in the event they are unsatisfied with market pricing. Thus observing that a given intermediation channel is "frozen," "clogged," or "dried up" may not indicate dysfunction, per se, but may indicate instead just a portfolio reallocation in response to a shift in risk assessments.
The striking feature of central bank lending and other government financial support during the recent turmoil is the extent to which it has extended well beyond the boundaries that previously were understood to constrain such lending, both in the range of institutions and the contractual terms on which credit has been provided. Intervention has been driven by a desire to prevent damaging disruptions to financial markets, and thus reduce the overall costs of the turmoil. While this objective is clearly understandable, central bank lending can create the expectation that similar support will be forthcoming when market disruptions occur in the future. Such expectations can themselves be very costly, because they can distort the incentives faced by, and as a result, the choices made by private-sector participants. For example, in the past year, expectation of official support may have induced some firms to take the risk of turning down capital infusions or merger offers in hopes of finding better terms in the future. Prospective equity investors may have demanded stiffer terms to compensate for the possibility of dilutive government intervention. Clearly, these recent examples of the moral hazard effects of official intervention are detrimental to broader public policy objectives, and place a significant burden on the supervisors of financial institutions to constrain such risk-taking.
The critical policy question of our time is where to establish the boundaries around the public-sector safety net provided to financial market participants, now that the old boundaries are gone. In doing so, the prime directive should be that the extent of regulatory and supervisory oversight should match the extent of access to central bank credit in order to contain moral hazard effectively. The dramatic recent expansion in Federal Reserve lending, and government support more broadly, has extended public sector support beyond existing supervisory reach, and thus could destabilize the financial system, if no corrective action is taken. Restoring consistency between the scope of government support and the scope of government supervision is essential to a healthy and sustainable financial system. One option is simply to adapt our regulatory and supervisory regime to the new wider implied reach of government lending support. This strikes me as an unattractive option, if for no other reason than the current uncertainty about the outer bounds of that support. Constraining moral hazard in such a regime would be an immense and daunting task. I take it as given, therefore, that the scope of financial safety net ultimately must be rolled back.
Note that it will not be sufficient simply to roll back the current lending programs when the economy begins recovering. The precedents that have been set during this episode will influence how market participants expect policymakers to react during the next episode of financial market turmoil. Establishing a coherent and stable financial regulatory regime will require rolling back expectations about how the policymakers will respond to the next financial market disturbance or the next recession. Doing so will be difficult. But rolling back those expectations will be impossible if moral hazard concerns are always set aside in the exigencies of a crisis.
Assessing the effects of the financial market turmoil on real economic growth is not as straightforward as it might seem. One popular notion is that the credit market disruptions we've seen over the last year or so impede the financial sector's ability and willingness to extend credit to households and business firms, thereby creating an additional drag on spending. The widely observed correlations between economic activity and measures of bank credit extension lend support to this theory. But causation can flow in the opposite direction as well. When overall economic activity seems poised to contract, the outlook for household income and business revenues deteriorates as well, and borrowers become less creditworthy, all else constant. My reading of current conditions is that bank lending is constrained more now by the supply of creditworthy borrowers than by the supply of bank capital. This may explain why recent programs aimed at reducing credit spreads in particular financial sectors seem to have had such limited effects; if credit market stress is a symptom rather than a cause of the economic slowdown, then intervention in particular credit markets may not be an effective demand management tool.
The decline in residential construction activity since early 2006 has affected not only credit markets – it has had a significant impact on broader economic activity as well. For a time, the weakness was isolated in the housing market and the rest of the economy continued to expand at a relatively healthy rate. But in late 2007, consumer spending began to slow. Household net worth has declined as home prices have fallen virtually nationwide over the last year-and-a-half, and, more recently, equity prices have slumped. Increases in energy prices up through the middle of last year took a substantial bite out of real incomes. Moreover, payroll employment peaked at the end of 2007, and has since declined by about 2 million jobs. As the labor market has weakened, wage growth has tapered off. Except for the temporary bulge due to the stimulus payments last year (which did not, in the end, leave much trace on household spending), real personal income has steadily decelerated, and is now below where it was a year ago. Given this catalog of adverse developments for U.S. households, it should be no surprise that consumer spending was sluggish in the first half of last year and has fallen significantly since then.
When household spending slows substantially, investment is usually not far behind. Business spending on equipment and software fell in each of the first three quarters of 2008, and the near-term outlook is not favorable. Many firms are facing dimmer sales prospects, higher funding costs, and more restrictive borrowing terms. Thus, further softening in this segment of business investment appears quite likely. Indeed, new orders for capital goods are off sharply since the summer. The other segment of business fixed investment, spending on new structures, has been flourishing for some time now. Over the three years leading up to the third quarter of 2008, real nonresidential fixed investment – a segment that includes office buildings, hotels, malls and the like – grew at a 12 ¼ percent annual rate. That category seems to have slowed significantly in the second half of last year, although not as much as I had expected. Anecdotal reports indicate that the flow of new projects has diminished considerably, and it seems clear that nonresidential investment will decline over the course of this year, with only the magnitude of slowing remaining uncertain.
Foreign trade was adding significantly to GDP growth until recently; net exports added over 1 ½ percentage points to real GDP growth for the first three quarters of 2008. Since then, the trade contribution to U.S. growth has been declining in response to diminishing world growth prospects and the recent strength in the dollar. As a result, we can't count on the foreign sector to offset weak domestic demand for goods and services going forward.
Last month, the National Bureau of Economic Research officially confirmed what virtually all economists already knew – namely, that a recession began in December of 2007 when payroll employment peaked. For a time, the decline was fairly mild – in fact, milder than the last two recessions, both of which were themselves mild by historic standards. But conditions began deteriorating much more rapidly after the extraordinary deliberations in Congress in the second half of September. Since then, according to reports, many households and firms are taking a "wait and see" attitude, reducing or postponing nonessential outlays in response to a general sense of uncertainty about the potential meaning of these dramatic events for their own economic circumstances. Economic indicators have weakened markedly across a wide array of sectors since then, and the current contraction in economic activity now appears to be on par with the recessions of 1974-75 and 1981-82.
Looking ahead, housing market conditions will be critical to the outlook for overall economic growth. The housing market is by no means healthy right now; inventories of unsold, vacant homes are still large in many areas of the country, and, as a result, average home prices still are declining at a rapid pace. Having said that, I find it hard to believe new home construction has too much farther to fall, and that would imply that residential investment will soon exert much less of a drag on GDP.
Consumer spending will be another key determinant of the growth outlook. Because households tend to base their consumption plans on their income prospects, any improvement in consumer spending growth likely will depend on a shift to a more optimistic assessment of those prospects. Once households become convinced they can see an end to the deterioration in labor market conditions and the fall in equity and home prices, consumer spending growth will be based on improving longer-run income prospects and is likely to pickup substantially. It's too soon to tell just when and how rapidly that shift will occur, however.
But all told, it strikes me as reasonable to expect the U.S. economy to regain positive momentum sometime in 2009, for several reasons. First, monetary policy is now quite stimulative and real interest rates are quite low. Second, the energy and commodity price shocks that dampened economic activity earlier this year have subsided already or are in the process of doing so. And third, as I said, the drag from declining residential investment seems likely to diminish significantly in the next year. In fact, I would be surprised if we don't see a bottom in housing construction sometime in 2009.
While the downturn in real economic activity is going to pose challenges for monetary policy in the period ahead, it's essential that we not let inflation drift from view. Since 2004, overall inflation has trended upward, and has been higher than I would like over the last few years. Much of the acceleration we saw earlier this year reflected energy prices, however, and with oil prices down, we have seen overall inflation subside in recent months. Moreover, many economists are forecasting relatively low inflation in the months ahead, on the grounds that widening economic slack is generally associated with declining price pressures. I would be cautious about relying on this correlation as a causal relationship, however, even though it is detectable in many datasets.6 There have been times in the past when inflation declined only temporarily when activity slowed, and re-accelerated when the recovery began. And while it may seem premature to be worrying about how inflation behaves after the recession is over, we need to be sure our policy remains consistent with a strategy that does not allow inflation to ratchet up over the business cycle.
As I noted earlier, monetary policy is now quite accommodative. As growth prospects deteriorated after August 2007, the Federal Open Market Committee has brought the federal funds rate down from 5 ¼ percent to near zero. The fact that banks can always hold idle balances earning no interest will prevent further reductions in the funds rate from here. But even though it is common to think of policy in terms of the central bank's interest rate target, monetary policy fundamentally is always about the amount of monetary liabilities issued by the central bank – also known as the "monetary base." After all, hitting an interest rate target requires varying the quantity of central bank money, reducing the supply to raise rates and increasing the supply to reduce rates. Even when the policy rate has been driven down to zero, central banks can still dictate the supply of central bank money.
When interest rates approach zero, one often hears concerns about deflation, that is, a falling price level. I do not believe that deflation is major risk right now. But deflation can be dangerous because for any given interest rate, it increases the corresponding real (or inflation-adjusted) interest rate, and thus stifles growth. For a sustained deflation to emerge, people have to believe that the money supply will fall along with the price level. That's what happened during the first three years of the 1930s, at the beginning of the Great Depression, when the U.S. consumer price index fell by 27 percent, and the monetary base shrank by 28 percent.7 Central banks can prevent deflation by credibly committing to keep the money supply from contracting. Such a commitment is a natural byproduct of a credible commitment to price stability, but for a central bank that has not yet formally adopted an inflation objective, preventing deflation can present additional challenges. This is why some central banks increase the quantity of their monetary liabilities dramatically when interest rates are at zero – to convince the public they will not let the money supply contract in the future.
The monetary liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks have more than doubled over the last several months, from around $840 billion the week ending September 11, to around $1.7 trillion the week ending December 31. Virtually all of this increase was in the form of bank reserves – the deposit balances that banks hold at their Federal Reserve Banks – which went from $8 billion to $848 billion over that period. (The rest of the monetary base consists of paper currency.) This increase in the Fed's money supply was a consequence of the collection of credit programs initiated last fall. Prior to October, the Fed was able to "sterilize" new lending through offsetting asset sales that soaked up the additional bank reserves, which otherwise would have increased the monetary base. After October, the cumulative amount lent became too large to sterilize, and further lending added to the monetary base. Luckily, the implementation of these large credit programs coincided with a time in which additional monetary stimulus was warranted.
But monetary policy and credit programs do two different things. Monetary policy stabilizes the purchasing power of money over time by keeping the price level stable and relatively predictable, and by doing so, contributes to maximum sustainable economic growth. Credit policy is also aimed at promoting growth, but it is more a form of fiscal policy in that it uses the public sector's balance sheet to alter the allocation of resources. In this instance, credit market interventions have been financed to some degree by the issue of new monetary liabilities, but they could just as well be financed with non-monetary liabilities, such as U.S. Treasury securities.
Mixing monetary and fiscal policy is fraught with risks. Many historical instances of monetary instability have been the result of central banks being prevailed upon to use their balance sheets for fiscal ends in ways that impeded their ability to keep inflation under control. That is why in recent decades, countries around the world have provided a measure of independence to their central banks, within frameworks that ensure accountability, in order to explicitly insulate them from short-run political exigencies that might diminish the credibility of their commitment to control inflation. The cornerstone of that framework in the United States dates back to 1951, when the Treasury-Fed Accord formally gave the Federal Reserve independent control of its balance sheet.
Both the short-term benefits and the long-term costs of central bank credit have been and will no doubt continue to be debated for some time to come. But no matter how one assesses the overall merits of such programs, it is important to recognize that these are fiscal measures that are distinct from monetary policy. While at the present time, credit programs do not conflict with our monetary policy strategy, there could well come a time at which monetary stimulus needs to be withdrawn to prevent a resurgence of inflation, even though credit markets are not deemed fully healed. At that time, containing inflation may require closing down credit programs, or finding an alternative, non-monetary financing arrangement for them. Price stability, after all, is the vital first ingredient in financial market stability.


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RIPTON — Hilda Billings has viewed her hometown of Ripton through a very special lens for the past 92 years.
Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English held its first summer session in 1920, the year Billings was born. She has seen devastating floods rip through her community, including the big one back in 1927. And Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Frost made a point visiting her once a year at her home, which doubled as the Ripton Post Office.


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Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Dear Senator,
I'm writing to urge you to designate the Arctic Wildlife Refuge as a protected wilderness. This incredible place is home to polar bears, whales, seals, caribou and other wildlife. Unfortunately, attempts to bring oil and gas drilling to the region threaten to destroy the habitat that these animals need to survive. Additionally, it is now more important than ever that we leave fossil fuels in the ground, given the increasing number of extreme weather events caused by climate change.
Thank you,


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Hello all The-X-universe fans,
A good friend dropped me this link, https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/12/01...-announcement/ looks interesting with a chance to win $20K. There might not be much time left. But this reminds me of the good old days when the community here would do this kind of stuff for fun. Well hopefully we can pool some new people and old people to see what we can accomplish.
Well I think some new people are coming to the site again, and we are talking0 Thanks, 0 Likes, 0 Dislikes
Wow !!! Where did all the TXU gurus go , it has been over a year and looking back to the dev members which made some outstanding mods. It feels like last month we had bounced posts back and forth. Aragon Speed, Galdar, Stemardu, Phlt, Eliah, Sartorie, 2blackhawk, Elffin, Mishra, Apollo, Alex Vanderbuilt to name a few. There are so many missed from more than a year ago. even Roguey I think was one of the Demi gods in modeling the games.
Now don't you wish you asked them for advice1 Thanks, 1 Likes, 0 Dislikes
You can do a search and there is an flood of opinions. Many think they are the same, actually very different. Sites like FB allow anyone to self promote, self glorify, a thought, feeling or opinion. but after posted when the likes or dislikes are done, that moments flair quickly rolls off the pages in history out of sight.
Those arguments, opinions or what badge you got on a mobile app is not what is found in the search engines. Engines never bringing that to surface in any results.1 Thanks, 1 Likes, 0 Dislikes
Seems there are more and more games being released and changed which forces people to purchase stuff up front which mis lead buyers to dump money into stuff they want, but get something that is far from advertised.
Seems we should give out "Gruber Game Awards" to developers which say and promise but yield less or opposite of the advertisement.
What has been your experiences, keep them short, share your quick opinion for others to be aware.
But it0 Thanks, 0 Likes, 0 Dislikes
Wow 12 years I had my nose stuck in the corporate world with security updates, patches, MS office, spread sheets, updates, and you get the picture. Most people look at a typical laptop to do gaming can run $1200-2200 but looking close the actual hardware cost about $500-900.
I am going to back up a few years, I have spent $200 - 400 dollars upgrading my pc hardware for each person in the house, then compile the OS upgrades $199-299, and the Html web developer Software $299, $+100 of0 Thanks, 3 Likes, 0 Dislikes
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A Fresh Push for LBOs in Asia
China's biggest leveraged buyout, the $3.7 billion acquisition of Focus Media Holdings, is off to a promising start, adding to signs that the Asian-Pacific region's dull leveraged-buyout market could regain luster.
LBOs, in which buyers fund an acquisition using the cash flow of the target, peaked in the region seven years ago and dwindled alongside more-volatile stock markets. The $1.08 billion loan to finance the acquisition of advertising firm Focus Media by its chairman and private-equity firms is in the process of being sold to other banks, which could give renewed confidence in such deals. Add to that the firming of stock markets, low interest rates and increasingly aggressive Chinese and Taiwanese providers of leveraged financing, and bankers say the outlook for LBOs hasn't looked this good in years.
"Private-equity firms appear to be stepping up their buy-side activity into 2013, gaining confidence from revaluation
gains delivered by equity markets in 2012," said Lyndon Hsu, HSBC Holdings PLC's head of Asia-Pacific leveraged and acquisition finance.
LBOs have never been as popular in Asia as in the West, because many companies in the region are owned by families that are loath to sell and have access to cheap loans from cash-rich banks. At the peak in 2006, the value of LBOs in the region totaled $50 billion, a fraction of Europe's $266 billion and the U.S.'s $417 billion that year, according to Dealogic. By last year, the amount had sunk to US$15 billion.
"LBO activity last year was hurt by volatile market conditions, which made it hard for buyers to put a right valuation on assets," said Atul Sodhi, chairman of the Asia-Pacific Loan Market Association, which aims to promote growth and liquidity in the region's lending market. Mr. Sodhi also heads Crédit Agricole's loan syndication for the Asian Pacific region.
Bankers said they expect activity in the region's LBO powerhouses—Australia and Japan—to rise this year because of improving market sentiment. They also expect a pickup in efforts to take offshore Chinese companies private.
Laws in China and India don't permit leverage buyouts onshore.
Asian stock markets are rising this year. Hong Kong's benchmark index closed at a 21-month high on Monday. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average briefly topped 11000 for the first time since April 2010.
"The bank market's risk appetite is returning, and they are again becoming comfortable with leveraged deals," said HSBC's Mr. Hsu.
In the Focus Media buyout, three banks—Citigroup Inc Credit Suisse Group and DBS Bank Ltd.—led the $1.53 billion financing, but six others others, including China Development Bank Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and China Minsheng Banking, helped as well. The nine are now selling $1.08 billion in smaller chunks to other banks.
Another LBO in the works is the $635 million effort to take private 7 Days Group Holdings The China-based, U.S.-listed hotel chain's co-chairmen and the private-equity firms backing them are seeking between $100 million and $120 million in loans, bankers said.
Chinese and Taiwanese banks, drawn by the high interest rates offered in LBOs, have been increasingly involved in buyouts outside their home markets.
Pacific Equity Partners Pty. Ltd.'s leveraged buyout of Australia's Spotless Group Ltd., a cleaning and catering contractor, attracted 26 lenders last year, eight of which were Taiwanese. The Spotless deal offered a yield of 5.5%, much higher than the 2% that banks generally charge for corporate loans.
Chinese banks still prefer LBO deals that have a link to China, so the growing number of U.S.-listed Chinese firms seeking to go private are giving these banks a new source of LBO revenue, Mr. Hsu said.
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The National Society for Education in Art and Design Survey Report 2015-16/
In the last five years how has government policy impacted on art, craft and design education? Read the full reportRead More
In the last five years how has government policy impacted on art, craft and design education? Read the full reportRead More
The Contemporary Visual Arts Network's ultimate goal is to nurture contemporary visual artists and organisations in order to produce internationally regarded, critically engaged work that is valued by our society.
Let's sustain a mood of optimism as the days become warmer and develop a balmier attitude to uncertainty - life goes on and the arts are never more vital than when we need to reinvent ourselves. Let's embrace change, get out in front and shape it!
Happy Holi everyone! Spring is springing (kind of!) and we need to find some joy in our lives! So let's take back a bit of control and engage the opportunity to think about the future of the UK's world-leading visual arts sector and how we're going to be growing internationally in a world where there's far more going on than our own little constitutional crisis . . .
The Brexit White Paper sets out some positive negotiating positions relating to mobility for students and talent as well as participation in EU cultural frameworks. Let's hope they can be achieved . . .
CVAN networks worked closely with ACE to respond to the consultation on extending the creative industries tax relief to Museums and Galleries towards the end of 2016. The Museums and Galleries Exhibitions tax relief came into law in November 2017.
The scheme is now starting roll-out but claims can be backdated to 1 April 2017.
CVAN is particularly concerned that many of the smaller organisations within our regional networks may encounter barriers in engaging with the Museums and Galleries Exhibitions tax relief scheme and we would like to ensure that take-up is even across the sector...
The Arts Council's current strategy, Great art and culture for everyone, runs from 2010 to 2020. ACE is now in the process of consultation to feed into its 10-year strategy from 2020 to 2030 and is keen to ensure that the strategy is evidence-based and reflects the concerns of stakeholders and the public. Participation is welcomed here. The consultation closes on 11 April 2018
The DCMS Select Committee is currently inquiring into the societal impact of participation in culture and sport. CVAN will be submitting evidence to the Inquiry and it is important that the evidence we submit is regionally balanced. There is very little time for CVAN to consult with the regions so we are urgently calling for relevant arguments strongly supported by clear evidence in the form of case studies. Closing date: 18 February 2018
You can always use statistics and evidence featured in our paper written in collaboration with a-n The Artist Information Company and submitted to Treasury last Autumn, when making the case for the visual arts in advocacy messages.
A concise run through of the Education White paper released last week can be found here
NSEAD have issued a response to the paper here
It has been 50 years since the Government wrote its last White Paper for Culture, this week sees a new one, drawn from consultation with the sector over recent months.
To read more click here
CVAN welcome a number of announcements made by the Chancellor in his budget on March 16, particularly in relation to a of tax break for museums and galleries.


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Melon Ballers & Parisian Scoops
Perfect for watermelons, cantaloupe and honeydew, food ballers can also be used with many other foods such as potatoes, apples, ice cream, butter, and more. A great way to make uniform and consistent scoops and balls to create a beautiful presentation, this versatile tool comes in durable stainless steel with wood or plastic handles. Many come with two different scoop sizes with one on each end.


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Lyoto Machida
- Full name Lyoto Carvalho Machida
- Nickname The Dragon
- Birth date May 30, 1978
- Birth place Belem
- Current age 40 years 359 days
- Height 6 ft 1 in
- Weight 205 lb
When you share the same "Dragon" moniker as a certain Bruce Lee, and you compete in Martial Arts, you better be a seriously good fighter. Lyoto Machida is one of the very best. A former UFC light-heavyweight champion, Machida has always been something of a mystery in MMA due to his unorthodox style.
The Brazilian actually made an extremely underwhelming start to his UFC career, attracting more criticism than credit for failing to finish his first three fights, despite the fact he won them all. Even an arm triangle victory over Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and a decision win over Tito Ortiz did little to add to the Machida aura, although the Ortiz fight did at least make the casual fan sit up and realise Machida was for real.
At an undefeated 13-0 in his career, Machida was arguably worthy of a title shot, but the UFC acknowledged his low marketability value by throwing him into one more fight, this time against Muay Thai dangerman Thiago Silva. In one of the defining moments of Machida's career, he produced the Knockout of the Night right on the first-round buzzer to silence his critics and finally line up a shot at the light-heavyweight belt.
Machida's fanbase began to proliferate rapidly and for the first time his name was chanted by the crowd, who witnessed one of the greatest displays of striking in Octagon history as "The Dragon" delivered a nine-minute lesson to champion Rashad Evans, knocking him out after a flurry of punches. The undefeated mystery was now the undisputed champion.
Due to an unorthodox karate style Machida is one of the most elusive athletes in MMA, and the Brazilian Black House fighter also has a base in sumo which makes it very difficult to take him down - as Ortiz found out.
However, Machida is currently entering into a period of development after Shogun KO'd him in May 2010, before Rampage Jackson snatched a controversial decision in November. A bounce-back win over Randy Couture, with one of the most memorable knockouts in UFC history, got Machida back on track, but he walked into the wall that is Jon Jones in his second attempt at a UFC title, leaving him to rebuild once again.
Career high
Knocking out Rashad Evans to win the UFC light-heavyweight title, marking the completion of a full circle for Machida, who had originally been cast as a dull fighter after a string of decision victories. On this night, fans chanted "Machida" "Machida" as the Brazilian dismantled the reigning champion.
Career low
Machida suffered his first loss in 17 fights to Shogun Rua, and it came in brutal fashion. Several huge rights turned off the Brazilian's lights, and robbed him of his UFC light-heavyweight title.
"People are very immediate, you make a good fight and already are the guy, but it isn't like that. This is a very good moment, but I'm not impressed, I don't think I'm the best, I have a lot to improve."
Lyoto Machida drinks his own urine once every morning as a natural form of therapy.
- Source: Machida agrees Davis bout (Jun 4, 2013)
- Gustafsson left waiting by Jones injury (Apr 30, 2013)
- Rousey survives major shock as Machida edges Hendo (Feb 24, 2013)
- White: Machida is light-heavyweight No. 1 contender (Feb 24, 2013)
White: Winner of Machida v Hendo gets title shot (Feb 21, 2013)
View the full list of related articles »
Feb 23, 2013
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Aug 4, 2012
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Aug 4, 2012
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Dec 10, 2011
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The person who wrote the article was apparently fine with any nonprofit reposting of this, but will just link a few paragraphs anyway and you can check the page if you want to read more. (the terms and conditions here says no reposting of entire articles, not sure how that applies if there's no copyright, but will just paste a few paragraphs either way.)
Source : http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/garysnyder.htmNo one today can afford to be innocent, or indulge himself in ignorance of the nature of contemporary governments, politics and social orders. The national polities of the modern world maintain their existence by deliberately fostered craving and fear: monstrous protection rackets. The "free world" has become economically dependent on a fantastic system of stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which cannot be satiated and hatred which has no outlet except against oneself, the persons one is supposed to love, or the revolutionary aspirations of pitiful, poverty-stricken marginal societies like Cuba or Vietnam. The conditions of the Cold War have turned all modern societies — Communist included — into vicious distorters of man's true potential. They create populations of "preta" — hungry ghosts, with giant appetites and throats no bigger than needles. The soil, the forests and all animal life are being consumed by these cancerous collectivities; the air and water of the planet is being fouled by them.
The joyous and voluntary poverty of Buddhism becomes a positive force. The traditional harmlessness and refusal to take life in any form has nation-shaking implications. The practice of meditation, for which one needs only "the ground beneath one's feet," wipes out mountains of junk being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket universities. The belief in a serene and generous fulfillment of natural loving desires destroys ideologies which blind, maim and repress — and points the way to a kind of community which would amaze "moralists" and transform armies of men who are fighters because they cannot be lovers.
The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both. They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma path: wisdom (prajna), meditation (dhyana), and morality (sila). Wisdom is intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one's ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the mind to see this for yourself — over and over again, until it becomes the mind you live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live, through personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward the true community (sangha) of "all beings."


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Printer Friendly Version
Standard ECMA-100
Data Interchange on 90 mm Flexible Disk
Cartridges using MFM Recording at 7 958 ftprad on 80 Tracks on
Each Side - ISO Type 301
2nd edition (December 1988)
This Ecma Standard specifies the characteristics of 90 mm flexible disk cartridges recorded at 7 958 ftprad using modified frequency modulation recording, on 80 tracks on each side - ISO Type 301 .
It specifies the mechanical, physical and magnetic characteristics of the cartridge, so as to provide physical interchangeability between data processing systems.
It also specifies the method of recording, the quality of the recorded signals, the track layout and the track format.
Together with the labelling scheme of Standard ECMA-107, this Standard provides for full data interchange between data processing systems.
The following file can be freely downloaded:
This Ecma publication is also approved as ISO 8860.
The previous replaced "historical" edition of this Ecma Standard is available here.


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One of the primary reasons unions in the United States are opposed to right-to-work laws is the potential loss of dues from present members. Under most right-to-work laws, workers are not required to belong to a union or pay dues. Dues are used to maintain the union organization and support peripheral union activities.
One of the primary reasons unions in the United States are opposed to right-to-work laws is the potential loss of dues from present members. Under most right-to-work laws, workers are not required to belong to a union or pay dues. Dues are used to maintain the union organization and support peripheral union activities.
The peripheral activities are important, inasmuch as they include significant monetary support for politics and politicians. Union political support for the Democratic Party's liberal agenda is the primary reason right-to-work legislation has passed in heavily unionized states.
Republican-controlled legislatures passed right-to-work laws to substantially reduce the flow of money the Democratic Party spends to re-engineer the nation's social fabric.
Also, many union members are conservative and don't agree with the distribution of dues to liberal politicians and liberal causes. Most union members work hard and take care of their families. They object to giving money and support to people in our society who have learned how to manipulate the system of government handouts.
The monetary handouts received by the "takers" come from taxes paid by hard working men and women, union and non-union.
I have stated in past commentaries that unions are aligned with the wrong party. Unions should be in concert with companies and entrepreneurs because they are job creators and primarily Republican.
Union officials should encourage the creation of new companies, especially manufacturing. Unions could tell the companies and entrepreneurs we will organize your plant or plants if you don't pay good wages and benefits to your employees.
How else can unions grow if they don't have somebody creating manufacturing job opportunities?
Entrepreneurs who start companies are incubators for future union members.
Unions have a role to play in the overall fabric of a nation. There should be an organization that bargains on behalf of the employees of a company on wages and benefits.
Not so much for health and safety, however. Health and safety issues now come under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In addition, workers' health and safety are primary considerations for companies because the cost penalty associated for a worker being injured on the job is extraordinary.
Finally, decisions at the top of the organization are dominated by very few individuals who have their own social agenda for union goals and objectives. These individuals think the proper relationship with management is adversarial. They look on companies and their leadership as enemy combatants.
Liberal socialistic philosophies, whether good or bad for employees and union members, are being imposed on a membership that individually might be in opposition.
Members of a union have no options because the majority of union members blindly follow union leadership. It would be interesting to know how local union officials perceive the liberal agenda followed by their top union officials.
Times have changed. Union membership has decreased dramatically. If unions are to remain viable in the United States, labor unions need a change in course.
A good place to start would be a re-evaluation of goals and objectives of the labor movement. There is still a place for organized labor in the United States, but unless the membership demands a fundamental change of direction, membership rolls of the unions will be dominated by public service workers.
Maybe unions are willing to write off non-public sector jobs, but I don't think so.


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Fresh Seder Plates for Spring
Spring holidays give us rituals for cleaning, decorating, hosting, and eating. The Jewish holiday of Passover begins the evening of March 25, and it involves all four tasks in abundance: dinner table decor for this holiday has been under scrutiny since, well, time immemorial.
The seder plate, which is used as a centerpiece to present the symbolic elements of the meal service (called a seder), gets all the attention. We rounded up a group of modern seder plates three years ago--many of which are still available for purchase--but we thought it was time to refresh with a selection of new, simple seder plates that evoke spring.
1. Ceramic Passover Seder Plate from Etsy shop Boxandbowl - $90
2. Williams-Sonoma Pickard porcelain plate with silver or gold rim - $249
3. Bernardaud "Louvre Judaica" plate from Bloomingdale's - $237
4. Lladró porcelain limited edition seder plate - $975
5. Green Bisque ceramic plate by Kosoy and Bouchard - $375
I can't afford to invest in a new seder plate this year, so I have to decide between two I already own. Care to weigh in and tell me which one you think I should put on my table?
The first is a hand-painted wooden plate with six bowls from Israeli artist Yair Emanuel.
The second is a silver-plated and wooden plate--a classic design that your great grandparents might have used. A similar version is available through Amazon.
(Images: Gallery images, as linked above; Single images, Rachel Rosmarin)


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Now follow Medical Mondays on Twitter! #MedMonday
Monday, January 23, 2012
Medical Mondays: Prions from Outer Space
Now follow Medical Mondays on Twitter! #MedMonday
Posted by Lydia Kang at 5:00 AM
51 comments:
- Natalie Aguirre said...
That sounds like a terrible disease to get. We're pretty sure that one of my aunts who died got mad cow's disease and died. I did not get to visit her because she lived across the country but she experienced a lot of the symptoms you describe before she died. So sad that people have to suffer through things like this that they have no control over.
Thanks for sharing with us though.
- January 23, 2012 at 5:31 AM
- Miranda Hardy said...
Still, very scary to think about. So glad it's not easily spread.
- January 23, 2012 at 5:40 AM
- Laura Pauling said...
I will always think about the novel Going Bovine when I read about mad cow disease! Always!
- January 23, 2012 at 6:21 AM
- Connie Keller said...
Really creepy!
- January 23, 2012 at 6:29 AM
- Sarah said...
This post made me shudder. Great job, Lydia :)
- January 23, 2012 at 6:30 AM
- B.E. Sanderson said...
Scary disease. Thank goodness it's so rare and hard to get. And now my inner hypochondriac wonders if my proteins are secretly folding.
- January 23, 2012 at 6:53 AM
- SA Larsenッ said...
This does sound a bit sci-fi. It always amazes me how strong some of these viruses/disorders/diseases are.
- January 23, 2012 at 7:13 AM
- Old Kitty said...
Now I'm petrified! And I love cows! Living ones! LOL! Take care
- January 23, 2012 at 7:31 AM
- Dianne K. Salerni said...
They DO sound like some creepy disease that came out of asteroids, or something. I have heard of prion diseases before. I can't think of where -- but it was probably the TV show HOUSE! It doesn't matter how rare it is. They've seen it all!
- January 23, 2012 at 7:33 AM
- Coleen Patrick said...
Scary, interesting and thankfully rare--yes I'm sighing in relief! :)
- January 23, 2012 at 7:34 AM
- walk2write said...
The first time I learned about prions was in an A&P class years ago at a community college. The professor related that he was relieved of his duties for ratting on a former colleague at a medical school. The colleague was studying human brain tissue but ignoring simple sanitation and safety rules while conducting his research. Our teacher was a little bitter and upset about the whole thing and understandably so. The former colleague was putting people at risk with his sloppy habits. Anyway, those prions made quite an impression on me when I first heard about them. Scary!
- January 23, 2012 at 7:43 AM
- Matthew MacNish said...
Wow. How utterly terrifying. Sounds like the makings of a great story, though.
- January 23, 2012 at 7:44 AM
- Alex J. Cavanaugh said...
Glad it's not common. And I think Matthew meant to say it's 'udderly' terrifying. Yeah, bad pun, I know!
- January 23, 2012 at 7:58 AM
- Emily Rose said...
These prions are bad news...
- January 23, 2012 at 8:06 AM
- LTM said...
omg, Dr. K, that is so weird. And creepy and ... now I'm freakin out!!! :D
j/k. But that is interesting. Prions. I thought "it's like cancer" at first, but I guess the difference is... umm... well... LOL! I don't know.
But as always, interesting and informative! <3
- January 23, 2012 at 8:39 AM
- K. Turley (Clutzattack) said...
Doesn't the character Thirteen(?) on House have some sort of slow terminal disease?
Except prions sound way more cool.
- January 23, 2012 at 8:59 AM
- Jax said...
Omg, scary! I remember the whole Mad Cow disease scare. That stuff freaks me out!
- January 23, 2012 at 9:06 AM
- Melissa Bradley said...
A very creepy and fascinating post! I may have some more questions for you, if you don't mind.
- January 23, 2012 at 9:12 AM
- Justine Dell said...
Yes, HUGE sigh. Huge. I thought I was going to have to wrap myself up in a bubble.
- January 23, 2012 at 9:23 AM
- Slamdunk said...
Scary yet informative Lydia. Glad to hear about the 1 in a million odds...
- January 23, 2012 at 9:29 AM
- Amanda Borenstadt said...
Weird and horrible disease! But kind of fascinating too.
- January 23, 2012 at 9:30 AM
- Bossy Betty said...
I love this stuff. You always give me facts I never knew! I am glad it is rare though.
- January 23, 2012 at 9:35 AM
- Clarissa Draper said...
Scary disease. What a horrible way to die.
- January 23, 2012 at 9:44 AM
- Linda Gray said...
I think you've just convinced me to become vegetarian. Prions, yikes. Reminded me of 'replicators' on an old sci-fi tv show, but at least they could shoot them!
- January 23, 2012 at 9:53 AM
- Bryan Russell said...
If we come across a cannibal cow, we're really in trouble.
- January 23, 2012 at 10:03 AM
- Meredith said...
Uniformly fatal? I don't care if it's rare, now I'm thoroughly freaked out! Fascinating post!
- January 23, 2012 at 10:14 AM
- Em-Musing said...
I don't know what's scarier...enemies outside the body...or inside.
- January 23, 2012 at 11:39 AM
- Tamara Narayan said...
Okay, so here's the big question: What happens to zombies who eat prion-infested brains? Hmmm?
- January 23, 2012 at 11:44 AM
- Bathwater said...
That does sound like a case for Dr. House although it sucks when he doesn't cure the patient.
- January 23, 2012 at 11:51 AM
- Emily R. King said...
Scary stuff! I'm glad it's rare. Thanks for the interesting read. I learned a lot!
- January 23, 2012 at 12:01 PM
- Roland D. Yeomans said...
O.K. You have just officially freaked out me and Victor! I am so happy they are rare. Wow. No more hamburgers for me for awhile. I know. It can't be transmitted by eating cow -- but there's always Mad Cow disease! LOL. Roland
- January 23, 2012 at 12:30 PM
- Krispy said...
Ok, reading this info again is freaking me out again. Haha. Thanks for the suggestions, Lydia! You're awesome! :)
- January 23, 2012 at 1:14 PM
- mooderino said...
Now that'sa scary disease. everything about it feels like it was made up by a sci-fi writer. This is why I don't share brain fluid with anyone.
- January 23, 2012 at 2:38 PM
- Carrie Butler said...
That gave me cold chills, just reading it! Creepy stuff. :|
Great post, though! :)
- January 23, 2012 at 3:28 PM
- Colene Murphy said...
AHHH!!! That's scary!! Wow. I never knew such a thing existed. Very creepy. Screw ax murderers, this is scarier.
- January 23, 2012 at 3:38 PM
- Deb Salisbury said...
Wow! Fascinating!
I seem to be pretty weird, though. It didn't occur to me to be scared until I read the comments.
- January 23, 2012 at 4:09 PM
- justjoe said...
Oh man, those are some scary diseases. Especially kuru. But I'm glad they're not so common!
- January 23, 2012 at 5:46 PM
- The Golden Eagle said...
It's interesting that they're not technically alive; they sound similar to viruses in that respect.
- January 23, 2012 at 6:10 PM
- Abby Minard said...
Ew! Sounds like it could be some kind of scary pandemic outbreak or something (if people start touching brain matter all over the place). Great for a book or movie!
- January 23, 2012 at 7:18 PM
- JEFritz said...
Woo! Those things are scary. I've heard of them but didn't understand what they were. It's good to know they aren't easily transmitted. Great explanation.
- January 23, 2012 at 8:35 PM
- alexia said...
Scary! And morbidly fascinating...
- January 23, 2012 at 9:37 PM
- Angela Brown said...
I can not tell a lie. Mine was probably the loudest in that collective sigh you heard :-)
This sounds like something totally Outbreak-like. Morbid and scary.
- January 24, 2012 at 12:05 AM
- Sarah Pearson said...
Wow, I'd never even heard of this. Glad it's so rare.
- January 24, 2012 at 3:47 AM
- Cynthia Chapman Willis said...
How scary and creepy. And yet, interesting.
- January 25, 2012 at 10:44 AM
- Carol Riggs said...
Wow. No kidding we're relieved this is rare. It does sound sci-fi-like! Scary stuff...
- January 25, 2012 at 12:58 PM
- Nancy Thompson said...
WOW! I see a horror movie in the making!
- January 25, 2012 at 7:00 PM
- January 26, 2012 at 10:17 AM
- February Grace said...
they misdiagnosed my grandfather with CJD back in the early 80's. Know what he actually died of?
Lead poisoning- which he got through his skin by dyeing shoes for a living for decades and decades.
No I am not making that up...I'm sure if that had happened now with much better diagnostic techniques the mistake would not have been made.
Fascinating! (I say, eyebrow arching a'la Spock...) hey, one good Trek reference deserves another!
- January 26, 2012 at 1:42 PM
- Suze said...
Okay, yeah, they're rare but good night!
- January 26, 2012 at 6:32 PM
- Shallee said...
I always thought prions were like the horror-movie version of any kind of illness...shiver. Thanks for the detailed information, though-- good story fodder. :)
- January 26, 2012 at 7:48 PM
- Adeeva Afsheen said...
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Season both sides of the fish with salt and pepper. Put the flour in a shallow bowl, dredge the fish, tapping off the excess flour to create a light coating.
In a medium nonstick fry pan, heat the 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Cook the fish until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer fish to a plate.
Wipe out the pan with a paper towel and heat the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, tomatoes, water, parsley, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook at a simmer for 10 minutes. Add the basil and the fish and heat for 2 minutes. Serve immediately.


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When you think Skyrim shoes, you might think dusty boots and clunky metal footwear. But these are something else.
I don't normally wear gamer gear because they're completely conceptually bland. Riddled with logos and ugly prints for the most part.
But these Keds restyled by crispiniscool to look Skyrim-themed are actually pretty nice (check the link for more photos). And I don't even usually like fur on my clothes! But that colour scheme, that dragon, and those leather laces? I'd be into it.
[via The Elder Scrolls]


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The winter holidays are closing in fast and cosmetics designers aren't wasting any time when it comes to transposing their ideas into new seasonal makeup collections that will mesmerize all the honeys that love to enhance their natural beauty to perfection. One of the go-to brands when it comes to fabulous, quality makeup, Lancôme has focused on creating an all glam makeup collection for the winter 2012 season, so if you're ready to have your peepers mesmerized, take a peek at the Lancôme Happy Holidays makeup collection and find the perfect... Read More


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AFCEA Homeland Security Conference February 26-28, 2013 Grand Hyatt Washington Washington, D.C.read more
The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) promotes cooperation among the Armed Services, Industry, Academia and various Government agencies in pursuit of improved training and education programs, identification of common training issues and development of multiservice programs. More information at http://www.iitsec.org...read more
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