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It's "Latin Night" and at the top of the show, Tom tells us the stars will have "a chance to dance for immunity." I do not like that sound of that one little bit.
Mark Ballas is wearing a color-coordinated fedora. Guess how I feel about that. Also, I'm going to turn into an old biddy and say that Zendaya's lip color is too dark for a young woman her age.
There's a new twist this week where whichever couple scores highest on their regular dance will get "immunity" and the other couples will then dance to add extra points to their scores. It's a pain when my silly dancing show makes me use my brain.
Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff
During rehearsals, Karina has fun with a partner as strong as Jacoby, pretty much hurling herself at him, so he can catch her. And sometimes she hurts him in the process. In fact, he misses a day of practice to get a massage and spend the day in ice. That first part sounds fun, but that second part not so much.
Jacoby explains that with football after a game, Monday you have a walk-through, and Tuesday is the players' day off, but dance is wanting him every day.
Jacoby notes in an interview, "I love to dance, but I didn't know dancing was this serious or this intense."
Jacoby and Karina start at the top of the stage, she with maracas, he with bongos. In case you're interested in this sort of detail, he is wearing a shirt, but it is entirely unbuttoned. They get in a lift that's Jacoby swinging Karina around by an arm and a leg and then later she pretty much does a handstand into a cartwheel up his body onto his shoulders.
They look like they're going to repeat the "Jacoby leaps over Karina from behind" move but at the last second, he doesn't go high enough and her head ends up between his knees, with her arms holding onto his legs. Which makes me think maybe it was supposed to be that way? I don't know. I'm sure we'll find out if it was a goof during judging or the interviews.
Len asked if that was an earthquake or if Jacoby just rocked this place. Len says he would've liked a few less lifts, and Jacoby's mom hollers at Len from across the ballroom. The camera cuts to her, and she's making the "I've got my eyes on you" gesture. And looks stunning in a white dress.
Bruno gets very excited about Jacoby's hip action and tells Karina she spends more time flying around than Iron Man. I'm too lazy to look up if the media conglomerate that owns ABC also produces the Marvel films. Or if Bruno just gave the movie a plug out of the goodness of his heart.
Carrie Ann says Jacoby is so good that it's like he could "fart salsa." It just gets grosser from there and Tom Bergeron has a "Really?" look on his face.
Brooke asks a question about the farting analogy but is too prissy to say "fart." Jacoby says that his grandmother told him if he didn't fart he could die, so he lets it out. Lovely. Brooke then asks if dance training is harder than football. He replies, "When I go back to the Baltimore Ravens I'm gonna talk so much trash about conditioning."
Jacoby says his experience on the show is definitely going to improve his touchdown dances. The people of Baltimore hope he gets many, many chances to show off those moves.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 9, Len: 9, Bruno: 9
Ingo Rademacher & Kym Johnson
Ingo's planning on bringing some of his "General Hospital" character to the rumba, for the sexy factor. He's worried about the fine line between looking cool and looking stupid with the hip action.
It's a rumba. It's hip action, hip action, pose, pose. Ingo is great in the face, selling the character, but is sometimes a little awkward in his movements. It definitely feels a little bit, "Kym dances around Ingo."
Bruno says "hips don't lie," but in Ingo's case he wishes they could. The tension was good, but the hips need a lot more work. Carrie Ann says he lost his timing and in losing his technique, lost the tension some times. Len gets a dig in at the Lakers as he criticizes Ingo, but he liked the content and says it was good, but not great.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 7, Len: 8, Bruno: 7
Kellie Pickler & Derek Hough
Kellie did three concerts in three states last week and it really cut into their training time. Derek's adding what looks like a lot of advanced content to their routine.
Derek's shirtless. Are we going to have to institute a dress code for this show: "No shirt, no shoes, no scores"? Kellies got on a long wig this week.
There's an odd part in the middle where they slow down their moves, not matching the tempo of the song at all. And then they finish with the complicated under the arm turn that Kellie was having trouble with in rehearsal.
Carrie Ann says when she watches Kellie all she can see is "perfection," but that she doesn't "feel" her when they dance. She's focusing so much and so well on technique that she's losing the character of the dance. Len says she had both the "how of the technique and the wow of the performance." Bruno says something incomprehensible about "bon bons" (they danced to the Ricky Martin song).
Derek throws on a tank top during the interview with Brooke portion, which is actually kind of classy of him. He explains after their scores that he didn't really want to go shirtless tonight, because his grandparents are there. Awwww.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 9, Len: 10, Bruno: 10
Andy Dick & Sharna Burgess
I kind of hoped we'd lose Andy before he had to do a rumba. I'm not sure how this is going to go well. Andy says he and Sharna are part of the "pack of scraggly coyotes" who are hanging in there at the bottom. In rehearsal, Sharna says she's going to keep it basic and work on technique. Andy tells Sharna, "Don't get mad at me if you fall in love with me."
Y'all, the faces he's making are ridiculous. I think they're trying to add a bit of a comic vibe to this, but they should have added a lot more. That being said, it's not all bad – they're hitting some decent poses every now and then. It wasn't nearly as cringe-worthy as I'd feared, so that's something.
Len liked the fun of it and the entertainment value and loved Andy's enthusiasm, but then calls it "more erratic than erotic." Not enough hip action or musicality. Bruno points out that they were mimicking the Cyd Charisse/Gene Kelly scene in "Singin' in the Rain" (I hadn't picked up on that, because Sharna's wearing wearing purple and Cyd wore green) and that it was near sacrilege. Carrie Ann tells him that he needs to work on his arms. She's the only one to give him constructive criticism. Nicely done, Carrie Ann.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 5, Len: 6, Bruno: 6
Whoa. Carrie Ann was saving her hit for the scoreboard.
Alexandra Reisman & Mark Ballas
Mark is wearing those stupid dropped crotch pants again and I hate them so much. He goes to the doctor and in the doctor's office he is wearing a hospital gown over his clothes BUT HE STILL HAS ON HIS FEDORA. Maybe while he's there, he could have it SURGICALLY REMOVED?
In the end, the injury to Mark's back is enough to bring Henry in as a substitute during rehearsals. But after all that, Mark ends up dancing with her tonight. He couldn't not -- given that he already had his color coordinated fedora (OF COURSE) and matching neon green spats.
Oh, right the dancing. There's tons of energy, but it's kind of goofy, like this one part where Aly crawls/scooches across the floor. I guess I'm just not a fan of Ballas's choreography tonight.
Bruno loved it. Carrie Ann did too. And then she starts singing at Len. Len would've liked a "little bit more salsa" in there and Carrie Ann and Bruno shake their maracas at him. No, really, the percussion instruments.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 10, Len: 9, Bruno: 10
Sean Lowe & Peta Murgatroyd
Sean is finding the rumba challenging because he doesn't have romantic feelings for Peta. So, they bring in his fiancée, for him to practice with. It is a little weird to watch an actual couple do these moves. I mean, when you're watching pros, you know it's all for show.
Well, right with the first moves, Sean looks awkward -- instead of lowering his body down to meet Peta's he's squatting in the most ungainly way. There's a lot of dry ice, which my parents always complain about. Actual text from my dad during a previous episode, "Fab fog covers pesky footwork again."
There's a giant swinging lift in the middle of the routine and I don't know if that's allowed now or what.
Carrie Ann says he's responded to the criticisms from earlier about getting into the character of the dance. Len calls him "wooden" and when Carrie Ann interrupts him, he scolds her. I know I just brought up my dad, but Len should steal the line I always heard growing up, "Pardon me for talking while you're interrupting."
Anyway. Len didn't like Sean's hands and then any other criticism he tries to get out is obscured by Carrie Ann interrupting AGAIN. So Len pouts and says he'll just stop talking. Bruno says he liked Sean's extensions but that sometimes Sean's butt did stick out and he looked like he "was going to the toilet." See? That's what I meant by the squatting.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 8, Len: 8, Bruno: 8
Really? That was better than Ingo? I disagree.
Zendaya & Val Chmerkovskiy
Paso Doble
I think we're all hoping this couple never has to dance the rumba, because of Zendaya's age. Luckily, they've got Paso Doble, which maybe explains her dark lipstick. Zendaya says Val is intense all the time, but she's happy and more "chill." She says to get the passion, "I'm just going to channel ... I don't know ... I'm an actress. I'll just act." Attagirl.
Zendaya and Val start at opposite ends of the dance floor -- that tells you how good she is and how confident Val is in here that he's ok with her starting the dance on her own. There's a spot in the middle when the music stops and it seems like the dance is over, but it's not. That was weird. I dunno, that was probably very good technically but kind of boring to watch.
Len loved it but wants Zendaya to lift her chin more. Bruno liked the flamenco at the beginning but that Len is right about her chin, that she needs to watch her "top line." Carrie Ann said it lacked strength, like a song without a bass line.
Scores: Carrie Ann: 9, Len: 9, Bruno: 9
So, now it's time for this "immunity" and "dance off" business. Aly & Mark and Kellie & Derek are tied with 29 after the first round. Brooke is going to explain this to us, so I'm sure it'll all be clear soon. The rulebook says, according to Brooke, that the couple with the "highest accumulative [sic] scores," wins the tiebreaker, so Kellie & Derek get the immunity.
Colombia rock superstar Juanes performs because this is a live show and we need to do something while the couple change costumes for Round 2. Wikipedia tells me this guy is 40. Give me the name of his dermatologist.
Each winner of the dance-offs will win 3 extra points. Sharna points out that for the very first time, Andy will get picked first for a competition. Ha! Val is hoping he and Zendaya don't get rumba, "for obvious reasons." I'm glad he feels that way too.
Aly & Mark get to pick who they're dancing against, and they do prey on the weak -- as they should, it's a competition after all -- and choose Andy & Sharna. They get to pick the dance style. As Andy is taking his time on the decision, Tom starts whistling the Jeopardy! theme. Wonder how much that will cost them?
If you didn't think Mark had spats on hand to match Aly's dress, you've never read any of my recaps ever. Hope you've been enjoying your first one so far.
Yay for Andy being a good sport, but this is no contest. The judges agree. And the comments here are more pointless than usual. Winner, officially: Aly & Mark
Kellie & Derek: 29 -- Immune from elimination
Aly & Mark: 29
Zendaya & Val: 27
Sean & Peta: 24
Ingo & Kym: 22
Jacoby & Karina: 27
Andy & Sharna: 17
I kinda hate that the group dance means Ingo and Sean are both ahead of Jacoby, but I'm not at all worried about his fan base keeping him around. If nothing else, you know his mom has got everyone she knows voting on every phone in their house and at least five different emails, per person. She's fierce, that lady. She might even be driving herself around to everyone she knows and saying, "Can I come in and use your phone to vote for my baby? Won't take a minute." I'd let her in. I'd give her a cup of tea, too.
I think it's curtains for Victor tomorrow night and Andy has that group dance and the power of circle dancing to thank.


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Flesh and Spirit
The New Testament writers frequently contrast flesh (Greek sarx) and Spirit/spirit (Greek pneuma). But the contrasts are not all the same. It may be helpful to distinguish ten different contrasts (though some of them overlap). Physical vs. Spiritual Aspect …Read More
Why "Let Go and Let God" Is a Bad Idea
What is "let-go-and-let-God" theology? It's called Keswick theology, and it's one of the most significant strands of second-blessing theology. It assumes that Christians experience two "blessings." The first is getting "saved," and the second is getting serious. The …Read More
Andrew Naselli
Dr. Andrew D. Naselli is assistant professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis. He is author of Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology.

subset: commoncrawl


text: "ANALYZING THE SOIL . . ." New Mexico Tech mathematics professor Brian Borchers (pictured on left) and hydrology professor Jan Hendrickx (pictured on right) recently welcomed Russell Harmon (middle, with baseball cap on), chief scientist of the terrestrial sciences branch of the U.S. Army Research Office, with a tour of the university's new Outdoor Counter Land Mine Research Facility, located just west of the university campus. Borchers, Hendrickx, and Harmon were joined by a trio of other Tech scientists, which included Xiaobing Zhou (middle right, with straw hat on), research assistant professor of hydrology; Remke van Dam (talking with Harmon), postdoctoral research associate in hydrology; and Sung-Ho Hong (middle left, with blue shirt on), a doctoral student in Tech's hydrology program. The Tech researchers are studying how soil variants, such as the composition and moisture content of various soils, affect the accuracy of currently employed land-mine detection methods and technology, and are developing and field-testing models based on their research findings.


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Child-migrant problem on rise
Apart from keeping the lights on, the stopgap spending bill signed by President Barack Obama Friday is its own "to-do" list for Washington: spending add-ons for cybersecurity, forest fires, nuclear weapons modernization, veterans' benefits.
But amid all the numbers in the six month, $1.047 trillion measure, none stands out more than a little-noticed $132 million increase to address the flood of unaccompanied child migrants crossing the Southwest Border from Central America.
Story Continued Below
These are teenagers and younger, often riding alone atop freight trains to cross Mexico from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. And the new spending for these children is a wake-up call of sorts for Washington to a genuine humanitarian crisis, the government's own struggles to cope, real costs for American taxpayers, with no one fully understanding the dynamics of what is happening.
Indeed, even as Border Patrol detentions are down historically, the tide of under-18 migrants remains strong and inside the numbers, the population mix has changed dramatically.
Fewer are coming from Mexico, more from Central America, making it harder to send them back home quickly to their families. And the result is a near doubling in the caseload for the Office of Refugee Resettlement inside Health and Human Services, the department charged with taking care of the children after the first 72 hours of detention.
In federal-speak these are UAC's: Unaccompanied Alien Children. Three quarters are male, averaging just over 14, according to the government. But more girls are showing up according to child advocates. And a front-page New York Times account in August detailed the poignant story of a 6-year-old boy caught up in an immigration court in Texas after crossing the border to try to reach his illegal immigrant parents inside the U.S.
The Women's Refugee Commission will release a detailed report in mid-October on its own findings from interviewing more than 150 of the children. Already from briefings, it seems clear that the wave of violent crime from drug cartels and trafficking in Central America is a factor.
"There are a myriad of reasons but the most striking thing for me was that all the children I talked to knew in advance how dangerous it was to cross through Mexico and they still did it," said Jennifer Podkul, an attorney who participated in the WRC study. "I'm not new to this, I've handled these cases," she told POLITICO. "But the desperation to make that journey alone. I just thought, 'Things must be so bad at home.'"
A review of Border Patrol data for the past four years helps to frame the crisis.
From 2009 through 2011, the average number of UAC detainees per year was about 20,500— more than two-thirds from Mexico. Through July—or the first 10 months of fiscal year 2012 ending Sunday—the comparable numbers show a modest increase to 21,842. But the Mexican portion has dropped to about half while the 2012 numbers from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador total almost 8,200, more than double the average for the prior three years.
For the Border Patrol, these numbers are still small in the larger scheme of things: UAC detainees accounted for just about 7 percent of illegal immigrants apprehended through July this year. But the impact is huge for the refugee office which must provide shelter, medical care and screening, all while coordinating with legal services and background checks as the children are relocated.


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Rita Price
The most prevalent childhood disabilities have shifted away from the physical to mental-health disorders, researchers say.A report released today by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution notes that the top five limiting conditions of children are now behavioral or developmental. In 2009, more than one in five parents reporting a child with a disability cited ADHD -- attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder -- as an underlying condition, according to the report in The Future of Children. Another 19 percent cited other mental, emotional or behavioral problems. Today, ADHD is nearly three times more likely than asthma to contribute to childhood disability, the report said. Autism affects about 6 percent of all special-education students, up from 2 percent over the past decade. But understanding the spiking rates is problematic because "disability" is not standardized, and criteria for diagnoses and services seem to vary widely, editors of the report said. They said it is "difficult to resolve the controversy over how much of the increase in disability reflects changes in incidence or changes in definition and diagnosis." According to the National Health Interview Surveys, the prevalence of disability for children younger than 18 more than doubled from 1981 to 2009, to 8 percent. But the National Survey of Child Health classifies just 4.3 percent of children as disabled. The nation badly needs workable definitions that can be implemented in national surveys, the report said. (c)2012 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Visit The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) at www.dispatch.com


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While many believe Beyonce's new women empowering single is just a song, you would be surprised to find out which Forbes 500 companies are actually ran by women.
Whether they are top corporate women, fierce entertainers, or an entrepreneur who started with nothing to become a billionaire, if you take a closer look you may indeed find out girls do run the world.
Peep the page #'s below to see ten of the most successful women who help make this world what it is.
comments – add yours


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October 2, 2007
Get directions to Wabash College Fine Arts Center
Wabash College's Visiting Artists will present the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m., Thursday, October 18, in Salter Hall in the Fine Arts Center.
Born of the bloodless "Velvet Revolution," the Czech Republic has spawned a renaissance of artistic activity in Prague, including the revitalization of international touring by the celebrated Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Formed in 1977 by Pavel Prantl and colleagues from the Czech Philharmonic, today's chamber orchestra comprises musicians from both the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Radio
Symphony Orchestra.
Soloists for the 30th Anniversary tour in October 2007 include the much-recorded oboist Jana Brozkov?, solo oboe of the Czech Philharmonic and the young Czech violin virtuoso Barbora Kol?rov?, who has performed as soloist with the orchestra on multiple tours.
The Journal de Geneve (Switzerland) says this about the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, "The precision and artistry of the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra are a wonder to behold. Each note is perfect, each phrase a study in musicality. And the musicality is very distinctly Czech."
Seating for Visiting Artists Series events will be by general admission, though free tickets are required for Visiting Artists Series programs.
Contact the Fine Arts Center Box Office by email at firstname.lastname@example.com; or phone: 765-361-6411. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 1:30 to 4 p.m. The box office will open 90 minutes before curtain time for Visiting Artists events. Tickets not claimed at the Box Office 10 minutes prior to curtain will be released to the general public.
For more information on the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra visit:


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"My ancestor(s) came over to Ellis Island (insert any country/port you want) in 1911 (insert any year)"For many (most?) of us this isn't a correct statement! Many of us are descended from different ancestral immigrants who arrived in various ports/countries in different years and from different countries. Of course some are first generation in our country of residence and so ca correctly make the statement. But those who are not the first generation probably cannot.
Do researchers simply pick a favourite ancestor and not bother mentioning all the other immigrants we descend from?
Or do researchers pick a time frame and a port that appeals to them, ignoring all the other arrivals?
I get the impression that many people in America want to have an Ellis Island arrival and a Mayflower arrival. I don't care about having an ancestor that fits into either or both of those two categories and it's always interested me that many genealogists do.
I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.
My earliest immigrant ancestor that I know of was Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyke, a young Dutch lad who arrived in New Netherland (present day New York) in 1634. My most recent immigrant ancestors were my maternal grandparents who left England and arrived in Quebec Canada in June 1913. I have many other ancestors who came to N. America at different times, and from different countries.
So what do I tell other genealogists or family or friends if asked? Do I choose my favourite time/port/country? Do I choose my earliest? How about my most recent? I've learned that when asked what I consider an imprecise question such as "when did your ancestors come to this country?" I can't give a detailed precise answer. If I do, the questioner's eyes glaze over, they fidget, and I see them rapidly losing interest.
So I simply say
"My ancestors came over at different times but my very first ancestor to arrive was in 1634"It's an imprecise response to an imprecise question and being a bit of a nit-picker it bothers me. But it's the best I can come up with.


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Former Jaguars wide receiver Laurent Robinson has filed a grievance against the club regarding his 2013 base salary, Tom Pelissero of USA Today reported Tuesday.
Robinson, 28, was released in March. Per Pelissero, Robinson's $2.6 million base salary was to be guaranteed were he on the roster on April 5, and it was only injury-guaranteed until that time.
Robinson suffered four concussions in 2012. He told USA Today that he "definitely wasn't ready to be cleared" when the team medically cleared him in January.
"We acknowledge that a grievance was filed and we are working with the NFL to resolve the dispute," the Jaguars told USA Today.
Robinson began working out earlier in July and hopes to play in 2013, he told Pelissero in the story published Tuesday.
"There's going to be doubts about me with the concussions," Robinson said, per USA Today. "But the only thing I can do is tell teams to bring me in, work me out and go from there."
If healthy, Robinson could bolster a club's wide receiving depth. His best season came in 2011, when he caught 54 passes for 858 yards and 11 touchdowns. However, his concussion history figures to be the big hurdle for interested teams.


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Biological Sciences
Research Highlights
June 2005
Automated, high-throughput protein pipeline in place at PNNL
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have developed a high-throughput automated pipeline that can produce and purify dozens to hundreds of proteins per week, at levels up to 50 mg per individual protein. In addition, PNNL's protein pipeline includes the high-throughput isolation of protein complexes in vitro and the automated elucidation of protein-protein interactions.
The technology is scalable to up to hundreds of unique protein complexes per week, providing thousands of protein interactions for bioinformatic analyses per year. It is universally applicable for drug or biomarker discovery, proteome-wide functional analysis of proteins, and network and pathway analysis in systems biology. It is also generic—different organisms can simply be "plugged" into the workflow as long as the protein expression system is capable of producing correctly folded bait proteins.
The automated protein pipeline is a result of a research challenge raised by the Department of Energy's Genomics: Genomes to Life (GTL) program (http://www.genomestolife.org/) to understand how the information held in a microbe's DNA sequence transforms into the myriad molecular processes that allow an organism to function. The pipeline is part of the joint Oak Ridge National Laboratory/PNNL Center for Molecular and Cellular Systems (http://www.doegenomestolife.org/research/ornl.shtml) pilot project on protein complexes. The Center is working toward the Genomics: GTL program goal of developing a technology capable of characterizing 80% of the protein complexes in a microbe in 1 year (see http://www.doegenomestolife.org/program/goal1.shtml).
The pipeline team at PNNL includes Vladimir Kery, Gordon Anderson, Deanna Auberry, Kenneth Auberry, William R. (Bill) Cannon, Yuri Gorby, Eric Hill, Brian Hooker, Gary Kiebel, Chiann-Tso Lin, Eric Livesay, Priscilla Moore, Ronald Moore, Elena Peterson, Heidi Sofia, Kristin Victry, Richard D. (Dick) Smith, and Steven Wiley.
Protein complexes—"the molecular machines" of the cell—are responsible for molecular processes within and between cells, and they dictate how a cell or organism interacts with its environment. Thus, identifying and characterizing these protein complexes is the key step towards defining biological function from the molecular level.
96 different genes of Shewanella oneidensis were expressed with hexahistidine affinity tags in E. coli and purified using the Beckman Biomek FX robot and MagneHis beads. The purified proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE. Average yield of 40 proteins purified to >90% homogeneity was 0.25 mg. Full Image.
The process involves expressing cloned probe proteins and affinity purifying them. The purified probes are then immobilized and exposed to host cell lysate. Protein complexes are formed exogenously as the large amount of the probe protein drives protein complex formation. Protein interactors are then eluted and automatically digested, and the peptides of the individual components are identified by automated liquid chromatography (LQ) tandem mass spectrometry (MS).
Protein interaction network for several important cellular processes in Shewanella oneidensis. Full Image.
Pipeline Data and Validation
PNNL has demonstrated the automated pipeline on several well-known, well-characterized bacterial protein complexes. Validated protein interaction networks are being put into a database of protein interactions to be publicly available via the Internet. All data from the pipeline are statistically analyzed to obtain probabilities for individual protein interactions. The protein interaction networks are then visualized.
PNNL researchers are developing complex bioinformatics analyses of the experimentally obtained protein interaction networks to ultimately combine multiple sets of biological and bioinformatics data (gene profiling, nearest gene neighbor analysis, DNA arrays, protein expression, whole proteome analysis, protein interaction networks) into one "snapshot" about specific interactors in an organism of interest.


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2. Steve Williamson explains the two main ways that financial crises fit into economic models: A) as amplifiers of shocks, or B) as generators of multiple equilibria. Naturally, both things could be important at the same time.
3. Steve Randy Waldmann reminds us that unit labor costs have been falling, not rising, in most rich countries, including almost all European countries, and in particular have been converging across Europe (as basic theory would predict). This weakens the argument of those who claim that high union-driven labor costs are the cause of Europe's woes. It also provides support for the notion of factor price equalization - the thesis that the stagnation in rich-world incomes is due to the massive China Labor Dumb of 2000-present.
4. Steve Williamson gives some arguments in favor of the auto bailouts.
5. The Incidental Economist reminds us of an important fact from first-year microeconomics: Although the First Welfare Theorem says that (under certain conditions) free markets are efficient, the Second Welfare Theorem says that (under only slightly more restrictive conditions), redistribution is efficient too! So before you use the Welfare Theorems as a justification for free markets, remember that. (H/T Thoma).
6. Menzie Chinn points out that government purchases - i.e., the government actually spending money on stuff - have been going down, not up. What has been going up are transfer payments. Attention conservatives: "Shift resources from transfers to public investment" is a better position than "Cut taxes no matter what."
7. Simon Wren-Lewis argues that even if the macroeconomy does not contain emergent properties, aggregate models with no microfoundations can be preferable to models with microfoundations, since different sets of microfoundations can produce the same aggregate behavior. But he admits that chucking microfoundations is a very dangerous thing to do, and I agree.
8. Here's Wren-Lewis again, with an explanation of why the "LM" in "IS-LM" should be ditched. The argument is probably familiar to anyone who has taken an intro grad macro class.
9. Karl Smith claims that the rich-world investment drought is not about "stagnation," it's about "deindustrialization." Tyler Cowen politely coughs his throat and points out that those are, um, the same thing. Cowen win.
10. Finally, here is an absolutely righteous takedown of Jagdish Bhagwati by the perspicacious Peter Dorman, who is rapidly usurping my rightful place as the sheriff of the econ blogosphere. He's out-pinioning Noahpinion!


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Press release from athletic dept. a few minutes ago.
ORONO, Maine – University of Maine women's basketball interim head coach Amy Vachon has announced the addition of Kathleen 'Kat' Williams, a 6-5 center. Williams will join the Black Bears in the fall of 2017-18.
"We are excited to announce the signing of Kathleen 'Kat' Williams," Vachon said. "Kat will bring a solid low post presence to our team and will be a force on the defensive end as well with her size. Kat has a great touch around the basket and has a high basketball IQ that will fit in well with our system. She is not only a great basketball player, but Kat is an excellent student with high standards who will only enhance our team culture. Black Bear Nation, please join us in welcoming Kat Williams!"
Williams, who hails from Coral Springs, Fl., averaged a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds to go along with six blocks per game for Majory Stoneman Douglas high school. As a captain, she helped lead her team to a school-record 28-3 mark and a District championship in 2017. Individually, Williams was named to the state all-star team and earned a First Team All-Broward County selection.
Bob Neal
New Sharon


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PhysTEC 2007 Pre-Conference Workshops
Powerful Ideas in Physical Science
Bob Poel and Nancy Stauch
Pre-Conference Workshop on Friday, March 2, 2007
9:00am - 12:00pm and 1:30pm - 4:30pm
Powerful Ideas in Physical Science is an inquiry-oriented, research-based curricular model course for college students intending to become elementary teachers. The course content focuses on those physical science concepts that are typically introduced in elementary science curricula. A structured questioning pattern guides future teachers through a hands-on, inquiry-based course that models the nature of scientific inquiry. This workshop is designed for college professors and master teachers who teach preservice elementary teachers.
University of Colorado's Learning Assistant Program
Noah Finkelstein and Valerie Otero
Pre-Conference Workshop on Friday, March 2, 2007
1:30pm - 4:30pm
The CU workshop will discuss the Colorado Learning assistant program and it's three fold mission to: increase the quality preparation and number of undergraduates engaged in teaching, transform undergraduate courses to be more aligned with findings from research, and help shift science culture and faculty beliefs to engage more thoroughly in education.
We will discuss our program's achievements and limitations and spend significant time exploring what it would mean for participants to establish their own programs.
PhysTEC 2007 Plenary Sessions
Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the tools of physics to teach physics
Carl Wieman
Lunch and Plenary on Saturday, March 3, 2007
12:30pm - 2:00pm in the Century Room
Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science has advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Guided primarily by tradition and dogma, science education meanwhile has remained largely medieval. Research on how people learn is now revealing how many teachers badly misinterpret what students are thinking and learning from traditional science classes and exams. However, research is also providing insights on how to do much better. The combination of this research with modern information technology is setting the stage for a new approach that can provide the relevant and effective science education for all students that is needed for the 21st century. I will discuss the failures of traditional educational practices, even as used by "very good" teachers, and the successes of some new practices and technology that characterize this more effective approach, and how these results are highly consistent with findings from cognitive science.
Rising Above the Gathering Storm
Cherry Murray
Lunch and Plenary on Sunday, March 4, 2007
12:00pm - 1:30pm in the Century Room
Cherry A Murray was a member of the National Academies Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century, which was created in 2005 to respond to the request by Senators Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, with endorsement of Representatives Sherwood Boehlert and Bart Gordon to deliniate the top ten actions, in priority order, that federal policymakers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the US can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global comminity of the 21st century. She will give a summary of the committee's "Gathering Storm" report and follow some of the subsequent response.
PhysTEC 2007 Plenary Panel
Representatives from IBM, Intel, Lawrence Livermore, and ExxonMobil will discuss the corporate/foundation view of the importance of teacher preparation
Plenary Panel on Sunday, March 4, 2007
1:30pm-3:00pm in the Century Room
PhysTEC 2007 Conference Workshops
Attending to More than Content Mastery: assessing student attitudes and beliefs in our classrooms
Noah Finkelstein, Wendy Adams, Katherine Perkins, and Steven Pollock
Session 2 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
10:45am-12:15pm in the Millennium Room
It is well documented that traditional introductory physics courses often fail to teach our students the basics. Indeed, these same courses often teach students things we don't want. Beyond the usual focus on pure content, there are extensive sets of attitudes and beliefs about science that we teach our students. Some of these messages are beneficial (e.g., that science is a coherent representation of the world) while others are detrimental (e.g., the notion that women cannot be strong physicists). While decades of physics education research have reformed classroom practices to improve conceptual mastery, these same practices often fail to improve student attitudes and beliefs about learning physics. This interactive workshop will discuss the development and structure of a new instrument designed to probe students' beliefs about science and learning science, the Colorado Learning About Science Survey (CLASS) [1]. In addition to exploring the various dimensions of student beliefs that this instrument probes, we examine correlations between student beliefs and class performance, students' understanding of expert beliefs, and gender differences. We conclude with discussion of class environments and practices that support productive beliefs.
[1] Adams, W. et al, "A new instrument for measuring student beliefs about physics and learning physics: the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey" Physical Review, Special Topics: Physics Education Research. 2,1,010101 (2006).
Cultivating Our Physics Community and Reaping the Next Generation of Physics Teachers
Cathy Ezrailson
Session 5 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
8:15am-9:45am in Suite 331
Even if today's physics and physical science teacher has been fortunate enough to graduate from an excellent college or university teacher preparation program, as this teacher begins a career teaching high school physics, he or she is typically: 1) the only physics or physical science teacher on the campus, 2) teaches physics as only one of several course responsibilities, 3) has inherited low tech, ancient (enigmatic), broken or inadequate equipment with which to carry out necessary labs and 4) has little contact with a physics mentor or other physics teachers on a regular basis. Add to this dilemma a lack of the possession of anything like an experienced teacher's "bag of tricks" or other resources to help in planning a coherent curriculum for student learning, the new or cross-over physics teacher has a difficult road ahead. University and college faculty, if aware of this situation may want to help but may be at a loss to know where to begin. Mentoring requires time and resources with a plan of action behind it. There are many excellent formal mentoring programs in place as exemplified by TIR and PTRA. But, it is through the many informal support mechanisms and ready online resources that can be offered to the many needy and isolated high school physics teachers that the greatest national impact may be made. The Physics Front and other online libraries and collections can be a lifeline and a means of communication and support between college faculty and public school teacher alike.
The development of scientific reasoning skills in a Physics by Inquiry course
Lillian McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, Paula Heron, and Mila Kryjevskaia
Session 6 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
10:15am-11:45am in the Century Room
Physics by Inquiry (Wiley, 1996) is a set of laboratory-oriented modules intended to provide K-12 teachers with the subject-matter background needed to teach science effectively. The modules have been developed on the basis of extensive classroom experience and many years of research on the learning and teaching of physics. Thorough class-testing has taken place at the University of Washington and at other institutions. The modules emphasize the scientific reasoning skills. Starting from their own observations, students develop basic physical concepts, use and interpret different forms of scientific representations, and construct explanatory models that have predictive capability. The modules do not teach by telling; students are required to take an active role. Workshop participants will gain direct experience with the approach and view excerpts from a video made during an NSF Summer Institute for K-12 teachers.
Direct Practices for Physics Teacher Candidate Recruitment
Carl Wenning
Session 1 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
8:45am-10:15am in the Millennium Room
One of the best ways to recruit physics teacher candidates is to do so directly - by having high school physics teachers inspire, identify, and ask prospective teacher education majors to consider a career in science teaching. This workshop will begin with the review of one statewide program that is beginning to make a difference in the number of science teacher education majors. The discussion starts with how this model can be adapted to other states. The workshop concludes with a discussion of physics departments' recruitment practices that work and don't work.
Do student accommodations only mean I need to give them more time for the test?
Julia Olsen
Session 6 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
10:15am-11:45am in Suite 331
Educators from elementary through college often feel unprepared to effectively teach students who are disabled or who need academic accommodations in their courses. This workshop will explore issues and solutions for teaching those diverse learners in your science courses. A variety of strategies will be investigated, as well as the theory behind them. Typical cases will be investigated and specific useful interventions and methods will be presented and modeled. This workshop will be interactive and practical!
From Research to Practice: Why hasn't educational research had more of an influence on teachers and what can we do about it?
Charles Henderson
Session 1 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
8:45am-10:15am in Suite 231
Reform-minded science educators have expended significant effort developing and testing high quality curricular materials and techniques with the expectation that science instructors will recognize the superiority of these materials and adopt them. Adoption is assumed to be a relatively unproblematic process and the expectation is that the number of instructors using these materials will naturally expand, eventually leading to a critical mass of instructors teaching in a fundamentally new way. Unfortunately, current and historical evidence does not indicate promise for this approach to reform. This workshop will focus on some of the reasons why educational reform is so slow and difficult. It will also identify shortcomings of standard approaches to reform and explore alternative models that may be fruitful in overcoming these weaknesses. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their experiences in promoting change in their own teaching and/or in the teaching of their colleagues, students, etc.
Impacting the Achievement of Underrepresented Minorities in Science and Engineering: Insights from the CU Multicultural Engineering Program
David Aragon and MEP Undergraduates
Session 4 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
4:00pm-5:30pm in the Millennium Room
This workshop will provide an overview and description of the academic learning community offered through the Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP). Participants will gain insights into the 'collaborative learning model for student development and retention', which fosters academic achievement among underrepresented minority students (African-American, Hispanic/Latino and Native American) in engineering. The workshop will describe the value of various extra-curricular activities such as: supplemental instruction, peer group collaborative learning, and leadership development experiences; which have proven to dramatically increase the first-year performance and the freshmen-to-sophomore return rates (within Engineering) of MEP students (85% for participants vs. 50% for non-participants). Additionally, participants will hear first-hand accounts from MEP students about their own experiences with the transition from high school to the university as science and engineering students. Participants will gain insights into how they can facilitate extra-curricular learning experiences that will reinforce classroom learning and help their students develop their own identities as future science and engineering professionals.
Indirect Practices for Physics Teacher Candidate Recruitment
Carl Wenning
Session 4 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
4:00pm-5:30pm in the Century Room
In order to effectively recruit physics teacher candidates, physics departments must offer quality teacher education programs. One cannot market the physics teaching degree effectively unless there is a suitable program to promote. Of what does a quality teacher education program consist? This workshop will begin with a review of one large and successful physics teacher education program. The workshop concludes with breakout sessions followed by reports about what essentials constitute a quality physics teacher education program.
Investigative Science Learning Environment: Using the processes of science and cognitive strategies to help students learn physics
Eugenia Etkina and Alan Van Heuvelen
Session 1 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
8:45am-10:15am in the Century Room
This workshop will introduce you to an ISLE curriculum: an inquiry-based interactive way of helping students learn introductory physics. Students in the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) learn the content by actively engaging in processes that mirror methods that physicists use to discover physics knowledge. In every conceptual unit they start by observing simple phenomena and looking for patterns, develop explanations for these patterns, use these explanations to make predictions about the outcomes of testing experiments, conduct the experiments and decide whether the explanations need revisions based on the outcomes of these experiments. They also learn to represent physical processes in multiple ways, which helps them reason qualitatively and quantitatively about physical phenomena. These features are applied to every conceptual unit in the ISLE learning system.
The workshop participants will learn about the motivation behind the ISLE curriculum (which comes from the needs of future workplace and cognitive studies), the differences between ISLE and some other reformed curricula, and will experience a brief version of one of the ISLE cycles.
Just Can't Be Done: Four Year Degrees Plans, Full Internal Funding, and Other Secrets for Doubling Science and Math Teacher Graduates.
Michael Marder
Session 2 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
10:45am-12:15pm in the Century Room
In thinking about how to increase the number and quality of teachers universities produce, there is usually a tension between actions that seem necessary in order to benefit future teachers and the realities of how large universities work. This workshop will build on experience building the UTeach program at UT Austin to explore ways to change institutional realities and find more teachers. Discussion topics will include assembling qualified personnel, persuading administrators to provide needed resources, constructing degree plans that allow students to obtain certification and a major at the same time, and dealing with the huge range of student attitudes and qualities one inevitably encounters both in undergraduates and post-baccalaureate candidates.
Modeling Instruction in Physics: An Appetizer
Kathleen A. Harper
Session 2 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
10:45am-12:15pm in Suite 331
Modeling instruction began in the mid-to-late 80's via a collaboration between a high school physics teacher (Malcolm Wells) and a university physics education researcher David Hestenes). Now, nearly 20 years later, Modeling has spread nationally, internationally, and to other science disciplines, particularly chemistry. It was one of only two K-12 science education efforts to be designated "exemplary" by the Department of Education in 2001. At this time, approximately 2000 high school and 375 junior high teachers have taken at least one in-depth Modeling workshop. Twenty states have hosted workshops. It is important to note that most of the dissemination occurs directly from teacher to teacher, testifying to Modeling's impact and flexibility.
The purpose of this workshop is to give participants a taste of Modeling, which is not a specific curriculum, but rather a philosophy for curriculum design. Participants will work through a condensed Modeling Cycle (based in part on the work of Karplus) and discuss the larger picture of an entire Model-based high school physics course.
The Nuts and Bolts of designing a Pedagogical Course for Learning Assistants
Valerie Otero and Steve Iona
Session 6 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
10:15am-11:45am in the Millennium Room
This workshop is targeted at faculty who are planning to implement a Learning Assistant (LA) program at their universities. The LA experience consists of (1) teaching undergraduate students in small group settings, (2) meeting weekly with their lead faculty member for planning and reflection, (3) submitting online weekly logs of their own teaching, and (4) attending a special seminar that focuses on pedagogy and learning theory and serves as a mechanism for recruiting new teachers. In this workshop we will introduce the Mathematics and Science Education seminar that has been held at the University of Colorado at Boulder since Fall 2003. Workshop participants will investigate the topics covered in this seminar, engage in specific activities that are used during the seminar, explore the reading list, and discuss how this seminar can serve as a teacher recruitment tool. We will also discuss "lessons learned" from implementing this seminar for over 3 years and how our decisions regarding the content of the seminar were revised according to our evolving understanding of how the LA population tends to view teaching and learning and how they tend to respond to educational research-based ideas that are presented in the course.
Promise and Pitfalls of Reformed Instruction for Female Students
Catherine Crouch and Noah Finkelstein
Session 3 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
2:00pm-3:30pm in the Millennium Room
In this workshop, we will examine how reformed instruction can both help and potentially hinder female students, depending on exactly how it is implemented. In the first segment of the workshop, the workshop leaders will review pertinent research on the origins of the underrepresentation of women in the physical sciences and factors promoting the success of female students in science and mathematics classrooms. In the second portion of this workshop, participants will discuss how to structure learning in their classrooms based on insights from existing research, and will also identify implementation issues in need of further research. If time permits, workshop participants will also discuss how such research might be conducted.
Recruiting a New Generation of Physics Teachers: The Role of Mentoring in the Learning to Teach Continuum
Drew Isola and Bob Poel
Session 5 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
8:15am-9:45am in Suite 231
This workshop will take a discussion-oriented approach and will focus on such topics as: the impact of mentoring & induction programs on teacher recruitment and retention, viewing teacher preparation as a 'learning to teach continuum', and the various dimensions of mentoring.
Recruiting Females into High School Physics Teaching: Issues, Actions, and Results
Patsy Ann Johnson
Session 3 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
2:00pm-3:30pm in Suite 231
About one-half of all students in the United States taking physics courses are female. However, only about one-quarter of all their teachers are female. Why do people want to study physics while in high school? Why do people want to teach high school physics courses? What has caused this discrepancy in the proportions of female students and female teachers? Is anyone hurt by this discrepancy? In what ways are people harmed? If this discrepancy is a problem, will it be solved over time as people continue to act as they do now? If the status quo is maintained, how long will it take for the problem to be solved? If people wish to increase the rate of change, what can they do to encourage females to become high school physics teachers? Discussion in this workshop will be focused on these questions. Demographic statistics will be provided to help answer these questions. Recommendations based on education research will be summarized. Resources for further learning will be shared.
A research-based approach to helping students understand mechanical waves
Lillian C. McDermott, Peter Shaffer, Paula Heron, and Mila Kryjevskaia
Session 5 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
8:15am-9:45am in the Millennium Room
The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington is developing two sets of research-based instructional materials. Tutorials in Introductory Physics (Prentice Hall, 2002) is intended to supplement instruction in standard introductory calculus and algebra-based courses. Physics by Inquiry (Wiley, 1996) is a set of laboratory-oriented modules intended to provide K-12 teachers with the subject-matter background needed to teach science effectively. Portions of a new Physics by Inquiry module on mechanical waves are being adapted from the related tutorials. In addition to developing a strong conceptual framework, the PbI module helps teachers become aware of common student difficulties with the material. Workshop participants will gain direct experience with the materials. Pretest and post-test results will be presented to illustrate how ongoing research is guiding the development of both tutorials and PbI.
Resources and tools that can help you implement the Investigative Science Learning Environment
Eugenia Etkina and Alan Van Heuvelen
Session 3 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
2:00pm-3:30pm in the Century Room
In this workshop participants will learn about the resources and tools that are available for those who wish to implement the Investigative Science Learning Environment in their classrooms. Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) is a curriculum that helps students learn the physics content by actively engaging in processes that mirror methods that physicists use to discover knowledge physics and that uses various cognitive strategies to help students approach problems as experts. ISLE as a method of instruction can be used in any science or physics course: in large and small enrollment college introductory physics courses; high school classes and AP B courses; physics methods courses for pre-service physics teachers; science methods courses for pre-service elementary teachers; professional development programs for in-service elementary, middle school and high school teachers, etc. The resources that we provide include The Physics Active Learning Guide with 30 or more activities per textbook chapter for use with any textbook in lectures, recitations and homework; a CD with over 200 videotaped experiments and associated questions for use in lectures, recitations, laboratories, and homework; and a set of labs that can be used to construct, test and apply concepts to solve practical problems.
Retaining a New Generation of Physics Teachers: The Role of Physics Departments in Effective Mentoring Programs
Drew Isola and Bob Poel
Session 6 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
10:15am-11:45am in Suite 231
This workshop will continue the discussions of our previous workshop with a focus on such topics as: various models for implementation of mentoring programs, styles of mentoring, the importance of mentor training and various models for training implementation, difficulties in implementation.
TIR'S and Teacher Preparation; The What, When, Why and How!
Dave Buck-Moyer and Nancy Stauch
Session 3 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
2:00pm-3:30pm in Suite 331
The need to recruit, train, and retain well-prepared science teachers has never been higher. In this session we will explore how a Teacher in Residence (TIR) program can enhance and improve a teacher education program. TIR's are experienced local science teachers, brought on to a university campus to address teacher preparation. We will discuss the roles TIRs can play in; methods courses, supervision of student teachers, liaison with the college of education and local schools, formation and guidance of a teacher advisory group, and the development of innovative courses to draw in new science teachers. Finally we will look at how a program like this can work at your particular site, and we will examine how programs like these can be sustained at the university level.
An Undergraduate Teacher Education Program For Engineering Students
Janet A. Blume
Session 2 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
10:45am-12:15pm in Suite 231
The Division of Engineering and Department of Education at Brown University recently established an Undergraduate Teacher Education Program (UTEP) for students concentrating in the engineering ScB or AB programs. Graduates will be granted Rhode Island certification for teaching physics at the secondary (7-12) level. The program builds on the strong commitment of the engineering faculty students to our ongoing outreach programs in K-12 education. In this workshop the structure of our program, and its strengths and weaknesses will be discussed. The mechanics of getting approval for the program from all constituents ranging from the engineering department to the university administration to the Rhode Island Department of Education will also be described.
Why having a theory of learning changes what I do in class on Monday: Helping students build physical intuition
Edward F. Redish
Session 5 Workshop on Sunday, March 4, 2007
8:15am-9:45am in the Century Room
Learning how to teach is a skill typically learned by doing. For more than 30 years, I struggled, through trial and error, to improve the help I gave my students. After switching my research effort from nuclear physics to physics education more than a dozen years ago, I have studied (and developed) theories of learning and education. The focus of my research has been on understanding my students' cognitive (how they think) and epistemological (how they know) behaviors. In this workshop, I will discuss my theoretical model and how the day-to-day activities of my teaching practice have changed as a result of my looking at teaching from a theoretical perspective. The workshop will include demonstration exercises of some new pedagogical methods developed using this perspective.
"Why Should I Care?": Teaching Physics to Non-Believers
Robert E. Thorne
Session 1 Workshop on Saturday, March 3, 2007
8:45am-10:15am in Suite 331
Introductory physics courses for life science and premedical students are dreaded by students and faculty alike. Students perceive them as boring, challenging and irrelevant obstacles whose sole purpose is to destroy their GPA. Faculty perceive students in these courses to be grade-obsessed, analytically challenged, demanding and impossible to please. They feel strong pressure from colleagues in the life sciences to deliver a high quality product, and can invest far more time and energy in them than in their courses for physics majors. Yet these often heroic efforts are invariably "rewarded" by far harsher student evaluations, largely independent of lecturer and pedagogical style, and even when PER-tested methods including polling, peer instruction, cooperative learning and interactive laboratories are used. This state of affairs is troubling, not least because the diversity of the students in these courses most closely resembles the diversity in our high school physics classrooms.
I will argue that these courses are in fact the "canary in the coal mine" signaling the failure of our traditional modes of instruction. Unlike majors and other "true believers", who are able to achieve subject mastery with little guidance or motivation and who may respond well to "monomaniacal" pedagogical approaches, connecting with non-believers requires a much broader attack. This workshop will describe and demonstrate a variety of strategies to more fully engage non-believers, to convey to them the power and excitement of physics, and to address common psychological issues that affect student attitudes to and performance in physics.
PhysTEC 2007 Focused Discussions
How to most effectively use a master teacher
Gay Stewart, Facilitator
Session 4 Focused Discussion on Saturday, March 3, 2007
4:00pm-5:30pm in Suite 231
Ways to provide an early teaching experience
Cody Sandifer, Facilitator
Session 4 Focused Discussion on Saturday, March 3, 2007
4:00pm-5:30pm in Suite 331
What should a definitive volume on Teacher Preparation Include?
David Meltzer, Facilitator
Session 4 Focused Discussion on Saturday, March 3, 2007
4:00pm-5:30pm in Suite 431
PhysTEC 2007 Post-Conference Sessions
Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP): Providing Feedback to Improve Science Instruction
Paul Hickman, Facilitator
Post-Conference Focused Discussion on Sunday, March 4, 2007
3:30pm-5:00pm in the Century Room
National Task Force on Teacher Preparation
Stamatis Vokos, Facilitator
Post-Conference Focused Discussion on Sunday, March 4, 2007
3:30pm-5:00pm in the Millennium Room


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Vancouver Rates & Plans
so you're thinking about joining...
Learn about Zipcar membership rates and pick a car sharing plan that fits your lifestyle. Once you've joined, you can reserve cars by the hour or day. Rates will differ based on where you drive and the type of car you're driving.
You're viewing Vancouver personal car sharing plans. (change city) (check out business rates)
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The best choice for commitment-phobes.
Included with every plan: fuel, insurance and up to 200 free kilometers per day
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Reservations include 200 kilometers per day, additional kilometers from 0.30 CAD (0.40 CAD for premium vehicles and vans); varies by country; see details.
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Insurance is included; a damage fee of up to 1,000 CAD may apply if you're involved in an accident with your Zipcar; see details.
To cover short-term changes in costs (fuel, parking, etc.), sometimes rates may change. So when you book a reservation, check the estimated cost. This will show you the current price (minus tolls, extra mileage or other incidental charges). Select holidays will reflect seasonal weekend rates. When reserving, check the price shown to see your actual reservation cost.


text: The Rt. Hon. Joe CLARK, P.C., C.C. served as a federal Member of Parliament for twenty-five years and held the most senior Cabinet positions, including those of Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Minister of Constitutional Affairs and President of the Privy Council. Mr. Clark continues to work with international foundations, associations and businesses on issues of governance, democratic reform, security and peace. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, Maureen McTeer.


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Lady Gaga addressed a few of her famous feuds on "The Howard Stern Show" on Tuesday amid the release of her latest album "Artpop."
Her latest tiff with "Fashion Police" host Kelly Osbourne doesn't bother her and she said she was "not personally affected" by it.
As for her long-running feud with celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Mother Monster seemed exasperated by the whole thing.
"All the feuds usually that people write about, they're very one-sided. It's me over here and somebody's feuding with themselves about me," the "Applause" singer said at the 23-minute mark during her interview. (Warning: This interview contains profanity.)
"I don't really care anymore," she added. "It's so ridiculous at this point. It's such nonsense. And, you know, the whole thing is really rooted in Madonna. That's sort of the center of it and no one has really said that or admitted to it. It's silly."
What does Madonna have to do anything? Well, Gaga observers have constantly drawn comparisons between the Lady and the Material Girl.
"There's always this pissing match: Did she take her torch, you know, is she the new her? Is she going to outlast her or not?" Gaga said of the comparisons. "And there's this thing with some people that I'm a 'threat to the throne' and I don't want your ... throne. And no thanks, and I have my own. And I don't actually want a throne at all because I don't view myself as a queen. I view myself as one of my fans and that's it."
The 27-year-old called the recording-artist game "a popularity contest."
She alluded to the fact that her former good friend Hilton was one of those people allegedly putting her down.
"What happened was we were doing an interview -- I took two days out of my schedule when I was on a world tour to do an interview for him ... and in the middle of the interview he started asking me really terrible questions and he was being very negative about 'Born This Way' and we had had a lot to drink. He was supposed to be my friend and I felt betrayed, so I started crying. And then my friend had to come in and pull the camera out, they wouldn't turn the cameras off.
"And then he apologized, but I sort of felt like it was like, 'But I'm Perez Hilton so I'm allowed to treat you this way.' I looked at him and said, 'Just because you are who you are, does not mean that our friendship doesn't mean anything when the cameras turn on. So, now I see who you really are.' And I was done after that," she said.
"And he's just mad that I don't want to hang out anymore because I don't want to be around fake people. I really believed, when I first met him, that he wanted to change. I really believed that he wanted to bully people less on his site and that he wanted to move into a more positive space. I was really there for him and I really supported him."
Gaga said she felt framed as a failure, which was "really hurtful," and despite not caring that people thought that, she was upset that he felt as if he were "entitled to harass" her on film. After that, Gaga claimed that Hilton tried to move in next door to her in her New York City apartment building, which elicited a whole Twitter rant and back and forth between the two of them. Hilton put out a statement in August denying any wrongdoing over the apartment.
"I freaked out so much about it because I have no rights," she said. "My sister [Natali] was sleeping there and it made me scared and upset. And then he lied and told everybody that he wasn't stalking me, but that next day -- after I asked him to leave me alone -- he put an offer in on two apartments in the building. Why do you need to live in my apartment [building]? There's only one reason: to try to hurt me, or harass me, or blow yourself up. If you hate me, hate me from over there. Continue firing away on your blog and your Twitter."
"We will no longer as a society, for much longer, sidestep the consequences of the things that we say," she said. "You can think that, 'Oh, it's on the Internet, it's no big deal.' Or because it's so easy to type something because you're not looking someone in the eye. But at some point these things are going to come back to you and it's not good. ... It's faceless."
However, Hilton, 35, didn't take her tirade with a poker face. The blogger took to Twitter to fire back soon after.
"@LadyGaGa Keep talking about me, though. I love the press!" he continued, also posting a pretty flippant (and by flippant, we mean finger) Vine basically telling her off.
The single dad also implored Stern via his and Sirius XM's Twitter accounts to "reach out" to him if they want him "to come in and speak the truth" about Lady Gaga.
But he didn't leave it at that. He also invoked the Material Girl just as he took one last jab.
"@Madonna So @LadyGaGa told @HowardStern she doesn't want your "... throne". Good. She'll never get it! You're Madonna. She's Yoko Ono!"
Yikes. Something tells us this clash of titans is far from over.
Follow Ministry of Gossip @LATcelebs.


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Zachary's White and Bright Nursery
Name: Zachary
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
We wanted a simple nursery that would be bright, light and welcoming. We bought most of our furniture from IKEA, because we were pretty appalled by the prices of nursery furniture at specialized baby stores.
We did several DIYs - homemade fabric bunting flags, a giant chalkboard, and we modified an IKEA Hemnes chest into a change table by building a change table box top that fits snugly on top (it holds a standard change pad and has an extra space to hold baby products).
We initially wanted an entire chalkboard wall, but since we're not allowed to paint at our rented apartment, we opted to paint a giant piece of particle board with chalkboard paint and mount that to the wall instead. It's a fun way to add colour to an otherwise white room - and it can be changed at any point with a new drawing.
Well done - thanks Vanessa! Readers, see more of this room at Hey Lady Grey.
(Images: Hey Lady Grey)


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One Direction Learn to Speak Japanese and It's the Cutest Thing Ever [VIDEO]
While promoting their 'This Is Us' and 'Midnight Memories' releases last year in Japan, the One Direction boys were cute and playful, and stylish. But they also gamely attempted to learn Japanese with a little help from the lovely lady who was interviewing them!
First, can we just say that we crush hard on Niall Horan's nerdy glasses, Zayn Malik's flannel scarf, Louis Tomlinson's ankles, Liam Payne's dapper coat and Harry Styles' use of the word "drats" during the interview.
But we absolutely swooned over their attempt to speak phrases in a foreign language. They tried really hard and incorporated some other non-verbal cues into the mix.
They practiced on camera and played close attention and had fun with it.
Notice that Hazza reaches over and touches Liam's ear while he is talking and acting as a bit of a 1D spokesman, but for what reason? We're not quite sure what little ear tug was about. Who cares, though? It showed how close the 1D boys are.


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It's time for accustomed medical experts to prove the science abaft their anesthetic by demonstrating successful, nontoxic, and affordable all-around outcomes.
It's time to revisit the accurate adjustment to accord with the complexities of another treatments.
The U.S. government has belatedly accustomed a actuality that millions of Americans acquire accustomed abandoned for decades – acupuncture works. A 12-member console of "experts" abreast the National Institutes of Bloom (NIH), its sponsor, that acupuncture is "clearly effective" for alleviative assertive conditions, such as fibromyalgia, tennis elbow, affliction afterward dental surgery, abhorrence during pregnancy, and abhorrence and airsickness associated with chemotherapy.
The console was beneath abiding that acupuncture is adapted as the sole analysis for headaches, asthma, addiction, menstrual cramps, and others.
The NIH console said that, "there are a amount of cases" area acupuncture works. Since the analysis has beneath ancillary furnishings and is beneath invasive than accustomed treatments, "it is time to yield it seriously" and "expand its use into accustomed medicine."
These developments are by itself welcome, and the acreage of another anesthetic should, be admiring with this accelerating step.
But basal the NIH's endorsement and able "legitimization" of acupuncture is a added affair that accept to appear to light- the acceptance so built-in in our association as to be about airy to all but the a lot of acute eyes.
The acceptance is that these "experts" of anesthetic are advantaged and able to canyon acumen on the accurate and ameliorative claim of another anesthetic modalities.
They are not.
The amount hinges on the analogue and ambit of the appellation "scientific." The account is abounding of complaints by declared medical experts that another anesthetic is not "scientific" and not "proven." Yet we never apprehend these experts yield a moment out from their vituperations to appraise the credo and assumptions of their admired accurate adjustment to see if they are valid.
Again, they are not.
Medical historian Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D., columnist of the battleground four-volume history of Western anesthetic alleged Disconnected Legacy, aboriginal alerted me to a crucial, admitting unrecognized, distinction. The catechism we should ask is whether accustomed anesthetic is scientific. Dr. Coulter argues assuredly that it is not.
Over the endure 2,500 years, Western anesthetic has been disconnected by a able alienation amid two adjoin means of searching at physiology, health, and healing, says Dr. Coulter. What we now alarm accustomed anesthetic (or allopathy) was already accustomed as Rationalist medicine; another medicine, in Dr. Coulter's history, was alleged Empiric medicine. Rationalist anesthetic is based on acumen and prevailing theory, while Empiric anesthetic is based on empiric facts and absolute activity acquaintance – on what works.
Dr. Coulter makes some amazing observations based on this distinction. Accustomed anesthetic is alien, both in spirit and structure, to the accurate adjustment of investigation, he says. Its concepts always change with the latest breakthrough. Yesterday, it was antibody theory; today, it's genetics; tomorrow, who knows?
With anniversary alteration appearance in medical thought, accustomed anesthetic has to bung abroad its now anachronistic acquiescence and appoint the new one, until it gets afflicted again. This is anesthetic based on abstruse theory; the facts of the physique accept to be angled to accommodate to these theories or absolved as irrelevant.
Doctors of this alignment acquire a article on acceptance and appoint it on their patients, until it's accustomed amiss or alarming by the next generation. They get agitated abroad by abstruse account and overlook the active patients. As a result, the analysis is not anon affiliated to the remedy; the hotlink is added a amount of acceptance than science. This approach, says Dr. Coulter, is "inherently imprecise, approximate, and unstable-it's a article of authority, not science." Even if an access hardly works at all, it's kept on the books because the access says it's acceptable "science."
On the added hand, practitioners of Empirical, or another medicine, do their homework: they abstraction the abandoned patients; actuate all the accidental causes; agenda all the symptoms; and beam the after-effects of treatment.
Homeopathy and Chinese anesthetic are prime examples of this approach. Both modalities may be added to because physicians in these fields and added another practices consistently seek new advice based on their analytic experience.
This is the acceptation of empirical: it's based on experience, again always activated and aesthetic – but not reinvented or abandoned – through the doctor's circadian convenance with absolute patients. For this reason, homeopathic remedies don't become outmoded; acupuncture analysis strategies don't become irrelevant.
Alternative anesthetic is accurate every day in the analytic acquaintance of physicians and patients. It was accurate ten years ago and will abide accurate ten years from now. According to Dr. Coulter, another anesthetic is added accurate in the truest faculty than Western, alleged accurate medicine.
Sadly, what we see far too generally in accustomed anesthetic is a biologic or action "proven" as able and accustomed by the FDA and added accurate bodies abandoned to be revoked a few years after if it's been accurate to be toxic, malfunctioning, or deadly.
The conceit of accustomed anesthetic and its "science" is that substances and procedures accept to canyon the double-blind abstraction to be accurate effective. But is the double-blind adjustment the a lot of adapted way to be accurate about another medicine? It is not.
The guidelines and boundaries of science accept to be revised to beset the analytic subtlety and complication appear by another medicine. As a testing method, the double-blind abstraction examines a alone actuality or action in isolated, controlled altitude and measures after-effects adjoin an abeyant or abandoned action or actuality (called a placebo) to be abiding that no abstract factors get in the way. The access is based on the acceptance that alone factors could cause and about-face illness, and that these can be advised alone, out of ambience and in isolation.
The double-blind study, although taken after analytical assay to be the gold accepted of avant-garde science, is in actuality misleading, even useless, if it is acclimated to abstraction another medicine. We apperceive that no alone agency causes annihilation nor is there a "magic bullet" able of alone abandoning conditions. Assorted factors accord to the actualization of an affliction and assorted modalities accept to plan calm to aftermath healing.
Equally important is the compassionate that this complication of causes and cures takes abode in abandoned patients, no two of whom are akin in psychology, ancestors medical history, and biochemistry. Two men, both of whom are 35 and acquire agnate flu symptoms, do not necessarily and automatically acquire the aforementioned bloom condition, nor should they accept the aforementioned treatment. They might, but you can't calculation on it.
The double-blind adjustment is butterfingers of all-around this amount of medical complication and variation, yet these are physiological facts of life. Any access claiming to be accurate which has to exclude this abundant empirical, real-life abstracts from its abstraction is acutely not accurate science.
In a abstruse sense, the double-blind adjustment cannot prove another anesthetic is able because it is not accurate enough. It is not ample and attenuate and circuitous abundant to beset the analytic realities of another medicine.
If you depend on the double-blind abstraction to validate another medicine, you will end up doubly dark about the absoluteness of medicine.
Listen anxiously the next time you apprehend medical "experts" whining that a actuality or adjustment has not been "scientifically" evaluated in a double-blind abstraction and is accordingly not yet "proven" effective. They're just aggravating to mislead and alarm you. Ask them how abundant "scientific" affidavit underlies application chemotherapy and radiation for blight or angioplasty for affection disease. The actuality is, it's actual little.
Try axis the bearings around. Demand of the experts that they scientifically prove the ability of some of their banknote cows, such as chemotherapy and radiation for cancer, angioplasty and bypass for affection disease, or hysterectomies for uterine problems. The ability hasn't been accurate because it can't be proven.
There is no charge whatsoever for practitioners and consumers of another anesthetic to delay like supplicants with hat in duke for the accurate "experts" of accustomed anesthetic to allotment out a few arrogant debris of official approval for another approaches.
Rather, acute citizens should be ambitious of these experts that they prove the science abaft their anesthetic by demonstrating successful, nontoxic, and affordable all-around outcomes. If they can't, these approaches should be alone for getting unscientific. After all, the affidavit is in the cure.


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FREDERICK — The public can get a sneak peak at the newest high school in the St. Vrain Valley School District before it opens this year.
An open house at the new Frederick High School, 5690 Tipple Parkway, is scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27.
Frederick High student volunteers will conduct tours. Visitors are asked to enter through the east side of the building.
The high school will open this fall, and a formal grand opening is scheduled for late August, according to a news release from the school district.


text: ISS034-E-013990 (2 Jan. 2013) --- In the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory, Robonaut 2 is pictured during a round of testing for the first humanoid robot in space. Ground teams put Robonaut through its paces as they remotely commanded it to operate valves on a task board. Robonaut is a testbed for exploring new robotic capabilities in space, and its form and dexterity allow it to use the same tools and control panels as its human counterparts do aboard the station.


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News & Events
For the Media
Scrimgeour Appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at Clarkson University
Jan Scrimgeour has been appointed assistant professor of physics at Clarkson University.
He received his master of physics degree with first class honours in optoelectronics and laser engineering, from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. He received his D.Phil. in condensed matter physics from the University of Oxford.
Before coming to Clarkson, Scrimgeour was a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Gothenburg University in Sweden.
His research interests involve the application of advanced optical microscopy for the visualization and characterization of nanostructured biological interfaces. He is especially interested in the interplay between the nanostructure, physics and biochemistry of cell-surface polymers and the roles of each in mediating interactions between tissue surfaces and the immune system. His work can shed light on chronic inflammatory conditions.
He has written journal articles and contributed to book chapters, along with making numerous conference and seminar presentations, guest lectures and other invited talks.
His awards include the James Watt Medal for Excellence in Optoelectronics and Laser Engineering, 2001.
He is a member of the American Physical Society, Optical Society of America, American Chemical Society, and the Materials Research Society.
Clarkson University launches leaders into the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as a CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world's pressing issues. Through 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, sciences and health sciences, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and engineering innovation with enterprise.
[A photograph for media use is available at http://www.clarkson.edu/news/photos/jscrimgeour.jpg .]


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Electrelane : Birds
Electrelane's first album The Power Out was another one of my college staples. It was moody and kinda girly but not saccharine sweet. I can't really listen to them anymore because the wave of nostalgia that washes over me is kind of too great for me to be able to handle. This year I would like to reclaim songs, bands and records lost to breakups. I thought this would be a good place to start but as soon as I heard this song I kinda teared up a bit. Anyways, it's a really beautiful song and the whole record is really ACES, so enjoy it and get out if you can because it is a BEAUTIFUL DAY!


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Here is a dirty little secret that even publishers don't know: No one in this business knows what they're doing. Everyone thinks they know what they're doing. But know one knows.
Consider the Skinner pigeons.
Group A pecked on a little lever, and received a treat. As a result, they pecked on the lever when they were hungry.
Group B pecked on the lever, but nothing happened. As a result, they never pecked on the lever.
Group C pecked on the lever, but they only received a treat occasionally. As a result, they pecked on the lever non-stop.
When your actions are rewarded sporadically, you still link your efforts with the rewards, even if there is no direct connection. This is because you're unable to judge the effectiveness of your efforts, since the results are sporadic.
Now consider publishing. Publishers know that in order to make money, they have to spend money. But they aren't sure what to spend money on, because they always get mixed results.
Let's apply this specifically to advertising.
Sometimes publishers buy a huge ad, see a sales spike, and attribute the spike to the ad (even though it may have had no direct connection.)
Sometimes they buy a huge ad, get no sales spike, and wonder why it didn't work. So, like Skinner's Group C, they buy another ad.
Your publisher will keep pecking away, hoping for rewards. Ads are part of their tried and true arsenal. They know they must spend money, so they spend money on ads. But is this a case of ads being beneficial? Or is this just habit?
In my experience (which is flawed like everyone else's) ads don't work for new or midlist writers. An ad as a tool to get people into a bookstore fails because there are too many steps that need to be taken between awareness and purchase.
If you see an author speak, and the book is being sold right there, the distance between awareness and purchase is only a few seconds--the customer takes the book to the register.
People are immune to advertising. They forget it three seconds after seeing it. Even if the ad got them interested in the book, the purchase isn't easy or instant. They have to get in the car, go to a bookstore, find the book, and even then they'll look at it before they actually buy it. The book sells the book, not an ad.
Some say ads reinforce a brand, and customers will remember the product after seeing it several times. That's why the same commercials get repeated over and over within the same one hour time slot.
I believe that content sells. Not advertising.
If you want to reach a specific crowd, visit the specific crowd. If you want to sell books to a demographic, target that demographic with your work, not with your ads.
For example: if you write mysteries about quilting, there are plenty of quilting magazines you can target. Rather than place ads in these magazines, you should write articles for them, or short stories for them. Or give them an ARC and encourage them to review it, or do an interview.
And this is free (or they pay you.)
Branding works when people have a favorable experience with a product, and keep returning to the product to have the same experience. Ads can reinforce a brand, but they don't create a brand. That's why a Stephen King ad works--it's an announcement. But an ad used to sell a product, rather than remind someone of a positive experience with a product, is a lot of money spent on a very small return.
It doesn't matter how many amazing hair dye ads I see, I'm never going to buy hair dye. I'm not the target market. The target market is a very tiny percentage of everyone exposed to the ad, and even if someone is actively looking for hair dye, awareness that a product exists is still a long way away from getting someone to try the product. Especially since the hair dye buyer is probably already brand loyal to something else.
Don't agree? Consider Bouchercon. Every year, attendees get goody bags filled with books. And every year, hundreds of books wind up discarded.
These people are the intended demographic for these books, and they're getting them free, and they're still throwing them away.
Why is this?
A book essentially advertises itself with its cover, jacket copy, genre, and quality of writing. Certain people don't like certain books, so even a free copy won't persuade them to try something new. Why would an ad do so, when the actual product (free) doesn't?
Of course, some free books are kept and read, and new fans are gained. This is because a free book actually offers an experience. An ad only offers the promise of an experience, in a way we've become immune to.
I challenge anyone to pick up a copy of PW, read through it, and honestly judge the effectiveness of the ads. Do they prompt you to buy the book? Do they reinforce branding and name recognition?
They do? Okay---the next day, see how many of those ads you can remember.
Of course, if you're in advertising, or if you're doing this because I suggested it, you may actually retain more than normal. So try this:
Think about the last magazine you read. Can you remember any of the ads? Why or why not? Did any of them reinforce brands? Did any of them make you aware of new products? Did any of them make you rush out any buy something?
I was reading a magazine two hours ago. I can remember four of the articles I read. I can't remember a single ad.
I've experimented with ads, and so has my publisher. I've found that the amount of money it costs to run can be much better used for promotion that produces immediate, tangible effects, such as appearances.
The problem (and even advertisers admit this) is that there's no real idea of what works and what doesn't. And because advertising is used in conjunction with other forms of promotion, there is no way to judge the effectiveness of it.
Save the hundreds of dollars on a trade ad and go to a conference. You still won't sell nearly enough books to justify the cost of travel, but you're a much better (and more memorable) spokesperson for your book than an ad.
Of course, I encourage everyone to draw your own conclusions from your experiences. Try everything at least once. But know why you're trying it, and what you expect from it.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
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Rapid City Woman Sentenced for Bank Embezzlement
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - A Rapid City woman accused of stealing from the bank where she worked has been sentenced to two years in federal prison.
Authorities say 20-year-old Krissa Shewey stole checks from mailboxes late last year and early this year and cashed them at the bank. She pleaded guilty in June to an embezzlement charge.
U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson says Shewey was ordered to pay $3,300 in restitution.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Material may not be redistributed.