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In April, the federal government adopted standards for automobiles requiring manufacturers to improve the average fuel economy of their new-car fleets thirty per cent by 2016. The Times, in an editorial titled "Everybody Wins," said the change would produce "a trifecta of benefits." Those benefits were enumerated last year by Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy: a reduction in total oil consumption of 1.8 billion barrels; the elimination of nine hundred and fifty million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions; and savings, for the average American driver, of three thousand dollars.
Chu, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, has been an evangelist for energy efficiency, and not just for vehicles. I spoke with him in July, shortly after he had conducted an international conference called the Clean Energy Ministerial, at which efficiency was among the main topics. "I feel very passionate about this," he told me. "We in the Department of Energy are trying to get the information out that efficiency really does save money and doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have to make deep sacrifices."
Energy efficiency has been called "the fifth fuel" (after coal, petroleum, nuclear power, and renewables); it is seen as a cost-free tool for accelerating the transition to a green-energy economy. In 2007, the United Nations Foundation said that efficiency improvements constituted "the largest, the most evenly geographically distributed, and least expensive energy resource." Last year, the management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company concluded that a national efficiency program could eliminate "up to 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases annually." The environmentalist Amory Lovins, whose thinking has influenced Chu's, has referred to the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents as "not a free lunch, but a lunch you're paid to eat," since a fluorescent bulb will usually save enough electricity to more than offset its higher purchase price. Tantalizingly, much of the technology required to increase efficiency is well understood. The World Economic Forum, in a report called "Towards a More Energy Efficient World," observed that "the average refrigerator sold in the United States today uses three-quarters less energy than the 1975 average, even though it is 20% larger and costs 60% less"—an improvement that Chu cited in his conversation with me.
But the issue may be less straightforward than it seems. The thirty-five-year period during which new refrigerators have plunged in electricity use is also a period during which the global market for refrigeration has burgeoned and the world's total energy consumption and carbon output, including the parts directly attributable to keeping things cold, have climbed. Similarly, the first fuel-economy regulations for U.S. cars—which were enacted in 1975, in response to the Arab oil embargo—were followed not by a steady decline in total U.S. motor-fuel consumption but by a long-term rise, as well as by increases in horsepower, curb weight, vehicle miles travelled (up a hundred per cent since 1980), and car ownership (America has about fifty million more registered vehicles than licensed drivers). A growing group of economists and others have argued that such correlations aren't coincidental. Instead, they have said, efforts to improve energy efficiency can more than negate any environmental gains—an idea that was first proposed a hundred and fifty years ago, and which came to be known as the Jevons paradox.
Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century was the world's leading military, industrial, and mercantile power. In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, "The Coal Question," in which he argued that the bonanza couldn't last. Britain's affluence, he wrote, depended on its endowment of coal, which the country was rapidly depleting. He added that such an outcome could not be delayed through increased "economy" in the use of coal—what we refer to today as energy efficiency. He concluded, in italics, "It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth."
He offered the example of the British iron industry. If some technological advance made it possible for a blast furnace to produce iron with less coal, he wrote, then profits would rise, new investment in iron production would be attracted, and the price of iron would fall, thereby stimulating additional demand. Eventually, he concluded, "the greater number of furnaces will more than make up for the diminished consumption of each." Other examples of this effect abound. In a paper published in 1998, the Yale economist William D. Nordhaus estimated the cost of lighting throughout human history. An ancient Babylonian, he calculated, needed to work more than forty-one hours to acquire enough lamp oil to provide a thousand lumen-hours of light—the equivalent of a seventy-five-watt incandescent bulb burning for about an hour. Thirty-five hundred years later, a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson's could buy the same amount of illumination, in the form of tallow candles, by working for about five hours and twenty minutes. By 1992, an average American, with access to compact fluorescents, could do the same in less than half a second. Increasing the energy efficiency of illumination is nothing new; improved lighting has been "a lunch you're paid to eat" ever since humans upgraded from cave fires (fifty-eight hours of labor for our early Stone Age ancestors). Yet our efficiency gains haven't reduced the energy we expend on illumination or shrunk our energy consumption over all. On the contrary, we now generate light so extravagantly that darkness itself is spoken of as an endangered natural resource.
Jevons was born in Liverpool in 1835. He spent two years at University College, in London, then went to Australia, where he had been offered a job as an assayer at a new mint, in Sydney. He left after five years, completed his education in England, became a part-time college instructor, and published a well-received book on gold markets. "The Coal Question" made him a minor celebrity; it was admired by John Stuart Mill and William Gladstone, and it inspired the government to investigate his findings. In 1871, he published "The Theory of Political Economy," a book that's still considered one of the founding texts of mathematical economics. He drowned a decade later, at the age of forty-six, while swimming in the English Channel. In 1905, John Maynard Keynes, who was then twenty-two and a graduate student at Cambridge University, wrote to Lytton Strachey that he had discovered a "thrilling" book: Jevons's "Investigations in Currency and Finance." Keynes wrote of Jevons, "I am convinced that he was one of the minds of the century."
Jevons might be little discussed today, except by historians of economics, if it weren't for the scholarship of another English economist, Len Brookes. During the nineteen-seventies oil crisis, Brookes argued that devising ways to produce goods with less oil—an obvious response to higher prices—would merely accommodate the new prices, causing energy consumption to be higher than it would have been if no effort to increase efficiency had been made; only later did he discover that Jevons had anticipated him by more than a century. I spoke with Brookes recently. He told me, "Jevons is very simple. When we talk about increasing energy efficiency, what we're really talking about is increasing the productivity of energy. And, if you increase the productivity of anything, you have the effect of reducing its implicit price, because you get more return for the same money—which means the demand goes up."
Nowadays, this effect is usually referred to as "rebound"—or, in cases where increased consumption more than cancels out any energy savings, as "backfire." In a 1992 paper, Harry D. Saunders, an American researcher, provided a concise statement of the basic idea: "With fixed real energy price, energy efficiency gains will increase energy consumption above where it would be without these gains."
In 2000, the journal Energy Policy devoted an entire issue to rebound. It was edited by Lee Schipper, who is now a senior research engineer at Stanford University's Precourt Energy Efficiency Center. In an editorial, Schipper wrote that the question was not whether rebound exists but, rather, "how much the effect appears, how rapidly, in which sectors, and in what manifestations." The majority of the Energy Policy contributors concluded that there wasn't a lot to worry about. Schipper, in his editorial, wrote that the articles, taken together, suggested that "rebounds are significant but do not threaten to rob society of most of the benefits of energy efficiency improvements."
I spoke with Schipper recently, and he told me that the Jevons paradox has limited applicability today. "The key to understanding Jevons," he said, "is that processes, products, and activities where energy is a very high part of the cost—in this country, a few metals, a few chemicals, air travel—are the only ones whose variable cost is very sensitive to energy. That's it." Jevons wasn't wrong about nineteenth-century British iron smelting, he said; but the young and rapidly growing industrial world that Jevons lived in no longer exists.
Most economists and efficiency experts have come to similar conclusions. For example, some of them say that when you increase the fuel efficiency of cars you lose no more than about ten per cent of the fuel savings to increased use. And if you look at the whole economy, Schipper said, rebound effects are comparably trivial. "People like Brookes would say—they don't quite know how to say it, but they seem to want to say the extra growth is more than the saved energy, so it's like a backfire. The problem is, that's never been observed on a national level."
But troublesome questions have lingered, and the existence of large-scale rebound effects is not so easy to dismiss. In 2004, a committee of the House of Lords invited a number of experts to help it grapple with a conundrum: the United Kingdom, like a number of other countries, had spent heavily to increase energy efficiency in an attempt to reduce its greenhouse emissions. Yet energy consumption and carbon output in Britain—as in the rest of the world—had continued to rise. Why?
Most economic analyses of rebound focus narrowly on particular uses or categories of uses: if people buy a more efficient clothes dryer, say, what will happen to the energy they use as they dry clothes? (At least one such study has concluded that, for appliances in general, rebound is nonexistent.) Brookes dismisses such "bottom-up" studies, because they ignore or understate the real consumption effects, in economies as a whole.
A good way to see this is to think about refrigerators, the very appliances that the World Economic Forum and Steven Chu cited as efficiency role models for reductions in energy use. The first refrigerator I remember is the one my parents owned when I was little. They acquired it when they bought their first house, in 1954, a year before I was born. It had a tiny, uninsulated freezer compartment, which seldom contained much more than a few aluminum ice trays and a burrow-like mantle of frost. (Frost-free freezers stay frost-free by periodically heating their cooling elements—a trick that wasn't widely in use yet.) In the sixties, my parents bought a much improved model—which presumably was more efficient, since the door closed tight, by means of a rubberized magnetic seal rather than a mechanical latch. But our power consumption didn't fall, because the old refrigerator didn't go out of service; it moved into our basement, where it remained plugged in for a further twenty-five years—mostly as a warehouse for beverages and leftovers—and where it was soon joined by a stand-alone freezer. Also, in the eighties, my father added an icemaker to his bar, to supplement the one in the kitchen fridge.
This escalation of cooling capacity has occurred all over suburban America. The recently remodelled kitchen of a friend of mine contains an enormous side-by-side refrigerator, an enormous side-by-side freezer, and a drawer-like under-counter mini-fridge for beverages. And the trend has not been confined to households. As the ability to efficiently and inexpensively chill things has grown, so have opportunities to buy chilled things—a potent positive-feedback loop. Gas stations now often have almost as much refrigerated shelf space as the grocery stores of my early childhood; even mediocre hotel rooms usually come with their own small fridge (which, typically, either is empty or—if it's a minibar—contains mainly things that don't need to be kept cold), in addition to an icemaker and a refrigerated vending machine down the hall.
The steadily declining cost of refrigeration has made eating much more interesting. It has also made almost all elements of food production more cost-effective and energy-efficient: milk lasts longer if you don't have to keep it in a pail in your well. But there are environmental downsides, beyond the obvious one that most of the electricity that powers the world's refrigerators is generated by burning fossil fuels. James McWilliams, who is the author of the recent book "Just Food," told me, "Refrigeration and packaging convey to the consumer a sense that what we buy will last longer than it does. Thus, we buy enough stuff to fill our capacious Sub-Zeros and, before we know it, a third of it is past its due date and we toss it." (The item that New Yorkers most often throw away unused, according to the anthropologist-in-residence at the city's Department of Sanitation, is vegetables.) Jonathan Bloom, who runs the Web site wastedfood.com and is the author of the new book "American Wasteland," told me that, since the mid-nineteen-seventies, per-capita food waste in the United States has increased by half, so that we now throw away forty per cent of all the edible food we produce. And when we throw away food we don't just throw away nutrients; we also throw away the energy we used in keeping it cold as we lost interest in it, as well as the energy that went into growing, harvesting, processing, and transporting it, along with its proportional share of our staggering national consumption of fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation water, packaging, and landfill capacity. According to a 2009 study, more than a quarter of U.S. freshwater use goes into producing food that is later discarded.
Efficiency improvements push down costs at every level—from the mining of raw materials to the fabrication and transportation of finished goods to the frequency and intensity of actual use—and reduced costs stimulate increased consumption. (Coincidentally or not, the growth of American refrigerator volume has been roughly paralleled by the growth of American body-mass index.) Efficiency-related increases in one category, furthermore, spill into others. Refrigerators are the fraternal twins of air-conditioners, which use the same energy-hungry compressor technology to force heat to do something that nature doesn't want it to. When I was a child, cold air was a far greater luxury than cold groceries. My parents' first house—like eighty-eight per cent of all American homes in 1960—didn't have air-conditioning when they bought it, although they broke down and got a window unit during a heat wave, when my mom was pregnant with me. Their second house had central air-conditioning, but running it seemed so expensive to my father that, for years, he could seldom be persuaded to turn it on, even at the height of a Kansas City summer, when the air was so humid that it felt like a swimmable liquid. Then he replaced our ancient Carrier unit with a modern one, which consumed less electricity, and our house, like most American houses, evolved rapidly from being essentially un-air-conditioned to being air-conditioned all summer long.
Modern air-conditioners, like modern refrigerators, are vastly more energy efficient than their mid-twentieth-century predecessors—in both cases, partly because of tighter standards established by the Department of Energy. But that efficiency has driven down their cost of operation, and manufacturing efficiencies and market growth have driven down the cost of production, to such an extent that the ownership percentage of 1960 has now flipped: by 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration, eighty-four per cent of all U.S. homes had air-conditioning, and most of it was central. Stan Cox, who is the author of the recent book "Losing Our Cool," told me that, between 1993 and 2005, "the energy efficiency of residential air-conditioning equipment improved twenty-eight per cent, but energy consumption for A.C. by the average air-conditioned household rose thirty-seven per cent." One consequence, Cox observes, is that, in the United States, we now use roughly as much electricity to cool buildings as we did for all purposes in 1955.
As "Losing Our Cool" clearly shows, similar rebound effects permeate the economy. The same technological gains that have propelled the growth of U.S. residential and commercial cooling have helped turn automobile air-conditioners, which barely existed in the nineteen-fifties, into standard equipment on even the least luxurious vehicles. (According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, running a mid-sized car's air-conditioning increases fuel consumption by more than twenty per cent.) And access to cooled air is self-reinforcing: to someone who works in an air-conditioned office, an un-air-conditioned house quickly becomes intolerable, and vice versa. A resident of Las Vegas once described cars to me as "devices for transporting air-conditioning between buildings."
In less than half a century, increased efficiency and declining prices have helped to push access to air-conditioning almost all the way to the bottom of the U.S. income scale—and now those same forces are accelerating its spread all over the world. According to Cox, between 1997 and 2007 the use of air-conditioners tripled in China (where a third of the world's units are now manufactured, and where many air-conditioner purchases have been subsidized by the government). In India, air-conditioning is projected to increase almost tenfold between 2005 and 2020; according to a 2009 study, it accounted for forty per cent of the electricity consumed in metropolitan Mumbai.
All such increases in energy-consuming activity can be considered manifestations of the Jevons paradox. Teasing out the precise contribution of a particular efficiency improvement isn't just difficult, however; it may be impossible, because the endlessly ramifying network of interconnections is too complex to yield readily to empirical, mathematics-based analysis. Most modern studies of energy rebound are "bottom-up" by necessity: it's only at the micro end of the economics spectrum that the number of mathematical variables can be kept manageable. But looking for rebound only in individual consumer goods, or in closely cropped economic snapshots, is as futile and misleading as trying to analyze the global climate with a single thermometer.
Schipper told me, "In the end, the impact of rebound is small, in my view, for one very key reason: energy is a small share of the economy. If sixty per cent of our economy were paying for energy, then anything that moved it down by ten per cent would liberate a huge amount of resources. Instead, it's between six and eight per cent for primary energy, depending on exactly what country you're in." ("Primary energy" is the energy in oil, coal, wind, and other natural resources before it's been converted into electricity or into refined or synthetic fuels.) Schipper believes that cheap energy is an environmental problem, but he also believes that, because we can extract vastly more economic benefit from a ton of coal than nineteenth-century Britons did, efficiency gains now have much less power to stimulate consumption. This concept is closely related to one called "decoupling," which suggests that the growing efficiency of machines has weakened the link between energy use and economic activity, and also to the idea of "decarbonization," which holds that, for similar reasons, every dollar we spend represents a shrinking quantity of greenhouse gas.
These sound like environmentally valuable trends—yet they seem to imply that the world's energy and carbon challenges are gradually solving themselves, since decoupling and decarbonization, like increases in efficiency, are nothing new. One problem with decoupling, as the concept is often applied, is that it doesn't account for energy use and carbon emissions that have not been eliminated but merely exported out of the region under study (say, from California to a factory in China). And there's a more fundamental problem, described by the Danish researcher Jørgen S. Nørgård, who has called energy decoupling "largely a statistical delusion." To say that energy's economic role is shrinking is a little like saying, "I have sixteen great-great-grandparents, eight great-grandparents, four grandparents, and two parents—the world's population must be imploding." Energy production may account for only a small percentage of our economy, but its falling share of G.D.P. has made it more important, not less, since every kilowatt we generate supports an ever larger proportion of our well-being. The logic misstep is apparent if you imagine eliminating primary energy from the world. If you do that, you don't end up losing "between six and eight per cent" of current economic activity, as Schipper's formulation might suggest; you lose almost everything we think of as modern life.
Blake Alcott, an ecological economist, has made a similar case in support of the existence of large-scale Jevons effects. Recently, he told me, "If it is true that greater efficiency in using a resource means less consumption of it—as efficiency environmentalists say—then less efficiency would logically mean more consumption. But this yields a reductio ad absurdum: engines and smelters in James Watt's time, around 1800, were far less efficient than today's, but is it really imaginable that, had technology been frozen at that efficiency level, a greater population would now be using vastly more fossil fuel than we in fact do?" Contrary to the argument made by "decouplers," we aren't gradually reducing our dependence on energy; rather, we are finding ever more ingenious ways to leverage B.T.U.s. Between 1984 and 2005, American electricity production grew by about sixty-six per cent—and it did so despite steady, economy-wide gains in energy efficiency. The increase was partly the result of population growth; but per-capita energy consumption rose, too, and it did so even though energy use per dollar of G.D.P. fell by roughly half. Besides, population growth itself can be a Jevons effect: the more efficient we become, the more people we can sustain; the more people we sustain, the more energy we consume.
The Model T was manufactured between 1908 and 1927. According to the Ford Motor Company, its fuel economy ranged between thirteen and twenty-one miles per gallon. There are vehicles on the road today that do worse than that; have we really made so little progress in more than a hundred years? But focussing on miles per gallon is the wrong way to assess the environmental impact of cars. Far more revealing is to consider the productivity of driving. Today, in contrast to the early nineteen-hundreds, any American with a license can cheaply travel almost anywhere, in almost any weather, in extraordinary comfort; can drive for thousands of miles with no maintenance other than refuelling; can easily find gas, food, lodging, and just about anything else within a short distance of almost any road; and can order and eat meals without undoing a seat belt or turning off the ceiling-mounted DVD player.
A modern driver, in other words, gets vastly more benefit from a gallon of gasoline—makes far more economical use of fuel—than any Model T owner ever did. Yet motorists' energy consumption has grown by mind-boggling amounts, and, as the productivity of driving has increased and the cost of getting around has fallen, the global market for cars has surged. (Two of the biggest road-building efforts in the history of the world are currently under way in India and China.) And developing small, inexpensive vehicles that get a hundred miles to the gallon would only exacerbate that trend. The problem with efficiency gains is that we inevitably reinvest them in additional consumption. Paving roads reduces rolling friction, thereby boosting miles per gallon, but it also makes distant destinations seem closer, thereby enabling people to live in sprawling, energy-gobbling subdivisions far from where they work and shop.
Chu has said that drivers who buy more efficient cars can expect to save thousands of dollars in fuel costs; but, unless those drivers shred the money and add it to a compost heap, the environment is unlikely to come out ahead, as those dollars will inevitably be spent on goods or activities that involve fuel consumption—say, on increased access to the Internet, which is one of the fastest-growing energy drains in the world. (Cox writes that, by 2014, the U.S. computer network alone will each year require an amount of energy equivalent to the total electricity consumption of Australia.) The problem is exactly what Jevons said it was: the economical use of fuel is not equivalent to a diminished consumption. Schipper told me that economy-wide Jevons effects have "never been observed," but you can find them almost anywhere you look: they are the history of civilization.
Jevons died too soon to see the modern uses of oil and natural gas, and he obviously knew nothing of nuclear power. But he did explain why "alternative" energy sources, such as wind, hydropower, and biofuels (in his day, mainly firewood and whale oil), could not compete with coal: coal had replaced them, on account of its vastly greater portability, utility, and productivity. Early British steam engines were sometimes used to pump water to turn water wheels; we do the equivalent when we burn coal to make our toothbrushes move back and forth.
Decreasing reliance on fossil fuels is a pressing global need. The question is whether improving efficiency, rather than reducing total consumption, can possibly bring about the desired result. Steven Chu told me that one of the appealing features of the efficiency discussions at the Clean Energy Ministerial was that they were never contentious. "It was the opposite," he said. "No one was debating about who's responsible, and there was no finger-pointing or trying to lay blame." This seems encouraging in one way but dismaying in another. Given the known level of global disagreement about energy and climate matters, shouldn't there have been some angry table-banging? Advocating efficiency involves virtually no political risk—unlike measures that do call for sacrifice, such as capping emissions or putting a price on carbon or increasing energy taxes or investing heavily in utility-scale renewable-energy facilities or confronting the deeply divisive issue of global energy equity. Improving efficiency is easy to endorse: we've been doing it, globally, for centuries. It's how we created the problems we're now trying to solve.
Efficiency proponents often express incredulity at the idea that squeezing more consumption from less fuel could somehow carry an environmental cost. Amory Lovins once wrote that, if Jevons's argument is correct, "we should mandate inefficient equipment to save energy." As Lovins intended, this seems laughably illogical—but is it? If the only motor vehicle available today were a 1920 Model T, how many miles do you think you'd drive each year, and how far do you think you'd live from where you work? No one's going to "mandate inefficient equipment," but, unless we're willing to do the equivalent—say, by mandating costlier energy—increased efficiency, as Jevons predicted, can only make our predicament worse.
At the end of "The Coal Question," Jevons concluded that Britain faced a choice between "brief greatness and longer continued mediocrity." His preference was for mediocrity, by which he meant something like "sustainability." Our world is different from his, but most of the central arguments of his book still apply. Steve Sorrell, who is a senior fellow at Sussex University and a co-editor of a recent comprehensive book on rebound, called "Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Consumption," told me, "I think the point may be that Jevons has yet to be disproved. It is rather hard to demonstrate the validity of his proposition, but certainly the historical evidence to date is wholly consistent with what he was arguing." That might be something to think about as we climb into our plug-in hybrids and continue our journey, with ever-increasing efficiency, down the road paved with good intentions. ♦


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In this week's multimedia compilation of pop culture crap Janice Dickinson returns to judging people, Judge Judy and Antiguan weed, gay polyamory, and more!
1.) Janice Dickinson
The Insider has a new format sort of based on The View's "Hot Topics," in which the "news" correspondents and a celebrity guest debate bullshit tabloid stuff. The show describes it as "entertainment news with opposing views." Janice Dickinson was the guest on Wednesday, and they really need to just give her the job permanently, because she has finally found her perfect calling.
On Jon Gosselin:
On Whitney Houston:
On confusing saying the word "jackass" and acting like one:
2.) Bobby Brown's body is "pure"
What does Janice think of him?
3.) New Judge Judy episodes!
It's been a cruel summer without some new JJ. Thankfully the new season has returned to dispense the most practical advice in the world.
4.) "Get off your period, dude."
On The Real World: Cancun reunion show, Emilee almost got all L7.
5.) Police work stinks for women
6.) Why did Kim look like Dracula's girlfriend?
Oh, and of course, this.
7.) "Get ready for the fashion show!"
8.) They're just not that into you.
On True Life: I'm Polyamorous, three gay men were in one relationship with each other, but one of them is totally the outcast.
The outcast's solution was to add one more guy into the mix, to a balance. Once he found a suitable candidate, he brought him home to meet his boyfriends, and it all worked out for the best.
9.) How not to raise children.
10.) Paula Abdul
She needs a pageant mom for some stability.


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Laser for varicose veins no better than surgery
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Laser therapy doesn't appear to outshine the standard surgery to treat severe varicose veins, new research suggests.
In the largest study so far to compare the two procedures, doctors found no significant differences in the number of patients who went on to develop new varicose veins two years after treatment.
Varicose veins are relatively common, but the precise estimates vary widely -- from five to 30 percent of adults. Usually they don't cause any problems, but in a small percentage of people they can be severe enough to cause pain and swelling, and even wounds or blood clots in rare instances.
In the less serious cases, exercise, weight loss and compression stockings may ease pain and prevent the varicose veins from getting worse.
For severe cases, however, the standard treatment is to remove the vein with surgery -- also known as high ligation and saphenous vein stripping. Costs vary, but start at a few hundred dollars.
While the procedure is considered safe and effective, a considerable number of patients end up having new varicose veins caused by regrowth of blood vessels.
Laser treatment, also called endovenous laser ablation, is an alternative procedure in which a small probe is inserted into the vein and causes it to collapse and disappear. It is less invasive than surgery and has become increasingly popular, although it is more expensive.
Yet only a few small experiments have compared laser treatment to surgery. So Dr. Knuth Rass of the Saarland University Hospital in Homburg, Germany, and colleagues assigned 400 patients to one of the two procedures.
All patients had been diagnosed with "chronic venous insufficiency" of the great saphenous vein, which runs from the hip to the toes.
Of the 316 patients who could be reached by the researchers two years later, 16 percent of the patients who got laser treatment had developed new varicose veins.
That figure was 23 percent in the surgery group, but the difference was small enough that it might have been due to chance, the researchers report in the Archives of Dermatology.
Although patients in the laser group were slightly happier with the cosmetic results of their procedure than those in the surgery group, they were much more likely to experience a backflow of blood where the saphenous vein connects with the femoral vein.
Based on ultrasound scans, the researchers were surprised to see that about 18 percent of the patients in the laser group had that problem, compared to just one percent of those who had surgery.
While backflow in a vein may lead to bulging varicose veins in the future, Rass and colleagues stress that they can't say for certain and recommend more research in the area.
There were also some differences in side effects, with more laser patients experiencing swelling caused by blood clots, pain after the procedure and skin color changes. On the other hand, surgery patients took about a day and a half longer to return to work.
All in all, the researchers conclude, the two treatments seemed equally effective, and 98 percent of all patients said they would undergo each procedure again if medically necessary.
Alternative treatments for severe varicose veins include sclerotherapy, in which a chemical in injected into the vein causing it to die, and ambulatory phlebectomy, in which smaller varicose veins are removed through several tiny skin punctures.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/pkVTzD Archives of Dermatology, online September 19, 2011.
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Who Else Wants To Learn About Friends With Benefits Relationships
"Friends with benefits" is a term that has been around for some time now and with films of the same name and stars such as Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake starring within it, there's no surprised that is became a bit of a phase…
Friends with benefits are basically friends that you don't have a relationship with. Perhaps you had dated them once before while you were both in school, or you gave it a bash once years ago but found that you worked better as friends than as partners? They might be people that you would never see yourself being with in a loving, emotional sense. They could even be work colleagues that you don't particularly like.
The only difference between these friends and your friend with benefits, is that you don't have sex with the other friends. With your benefit friend, you do!
That's the beauty of friends with benefits, you see. You could meet someone that you have amazing sex with, but don't seem to be compatible with out of the bedroom, and you still get to keep them in your life. It's just like NSA fun (no strings attached), it's something that fulfils a purpose, not just because you want to feel warm and fuzzy in bed at night, spooning someone else to sleep.
The idea of it all is to not treat it as though it is a relationship because it isn't. They don't need to know where you are, what you're doing, who you're with, how many drinks you've had, and in the same breath, you don't have a right to know where they are, what they're doing, who they're with, how many drinks they've had, etc. It's easy – you get your life, they get theirs, and you get to have great sweaty, passionate, hair pulling, biting, scratching, pounding sex. The best kind – you can do what you like really because you don't have to cook their breakfast the next day, see their faces without makeup, or wash skid marks out of their underpants on a Saturday afternoon.
Of course, the friends with benefits relationship isn't something that suits everyone. Some girls can't handle not having that much control over their male sexual partners. Some guys can't handle the fact that they don't know what their girl is up to on a Friday night. It's something that only works for a small, select group of people, and if you're the jealous type, it's probably not the right kind of relationship for you.
There are a few things that you should know before you embark on this journey with a friend with benefits… For a start, these situations almost always end with one party getting feelings for the other party, and things ending in a horrible showdown. However, sometimes these love stories do work and do end in a marriage, babies and happy ever after. You might just end up being one of the lucky ones like our friend Dave who ended a friends with benefit situation with a handshake and a kiss on the cheek. There was no tears, no screaming, no upset… But that very rarely happens!


text: FA LAI-CHU (Charmaine Sheh) is a kindhearted and innocent woman with the IQ of a ten-year-old. When her parents passed away, she shouldered the responsibility for the care of her younger sister and brother. While she is not able to bring home the bacon, she does an exceptional job protecting her siblings, though this often means bringing home hilarious troubles! Because of her mentally challenged sister and their younger brother FA WAI-CHUNG (Lam Chi Sin), who is a man of no enterprise, FA LAI-PING (Toby Leung) has to take charge of the family. So she is determined to be successful by hook or by crook. She helps her supervisor, who is also her ex-boyfriend, LUK HO-CHEONG (Pierre Ngo), to betray the company. TSEUNG SUM (Woo Fung), chairman of the company, has a stroke. When he is in a coma his playboy grandson TSEUNG YIK (Raymond Lam) is deposed from office. Thanks to CHU's kindness, YIK does not end up on the street. It does not take long for CHU and YIK to fall in love with each other. However, when SUM comes round, he is strongly opposed to their "abnormal" relationship. Unwillingly, YIK breaks up with CHU and returns to the life what everybody else thinks is normal.


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This peptide is a potent antagonist of PACAP 38 and is much more potent and selective than PACAP (6-27) in the inhibition of PACAP-27 stimulated pituitary adenylate cyclase. The Ki values for the inhibition of the enzyme are 7nM and 150 nM, respectively.
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Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi, known as Albucasis (936-1013)
Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi was born near Cordoba, Spain, when it was part of the Islamic Empire. He was a physician, surgeon and chemist. He is best remembered for his encyclopedia of medicine, the Al-Tasrif li man ajaz an-il-talif (An Aid for Those Who Lack the Capacity to Read Big Books), known as the al-Tasrif. This became a standard reference in Islamic and European medicine for over 500 years. In Europe, Al-Zahrawi was known as Albucasis, and was particularly famous for his surgical knowledge.
Al-Zahrawi's encyclopedia included sections on surgery, medicine, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, pharmacology and nutrition. In it he described over 300 diseases and their treatments. He also included detailed descriptions of numerous surgical procedures, and the use of over 200 surgical instruments, many of which he developed. The most famous section of the encyclopedia, on surgery, was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 1100s. From this time it also became a standard text in Europe, and was still being reprinted in the 1770s.
While famed for his writing, Al-Zahrawi was also a prominent practitioner and teacher. In recognition of his skills, he was appointed as the court physician to King Al-Hakam II of Spain.
Related Themes and Topics
Related links
BibliographyF Ramen, Albucasis (Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi): Renowned Muslim Surgeon of the Tenth Century (New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2005)
The branch of medicine concerned with the preservation and restoration of the muscular and skeletal systems in the body.


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BCG Digital Ventures
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Tamara Mellon
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iHerb LLC.
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iHerb.com is a global health and wellness retail leader, focused on "Offering our Customers earth's best selection of available natural products, at the best possible value, delivered with the most convenient experience."
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MeUndies is a Los Angeles-based underwear & loungewear company best known for its softer than soft basics. Founded in 2011, MeUndies disrupted the $110B underwear industry when it launched the first online underwear subscription. Through the years the brand has inspired a passionate community of undie-obsessed individuals with its bold products.
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Our Place
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At Our Place, we believe in the power of home-cooking to bring people together. Our mission is to create products and experiences that celebrate cultures, honor traditions, and cultivate connections. Our products are made for home-cooking, and our stories are from the people and communities who inspire us. We believe that when you cook and eat...
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Savings.com helps you save money every day. We have the best deals on all the things you want, making it easier than ever to search, find and share big savings from all your favorite brands and stores. Built on best-of-breed technology, we offer the best collection of coupons available online to help you find the best savings opportunities.
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Natalist is a venture-backed women's health startup currently in stealth mode. We support women from concept to conception.
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Loot Crate
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Loot Crate's mission is to discover, create and share the best content experiences in the world and transform the way people connect with pop culture both on and offline. Working here means that you're super innovative and endlessly creative. We craft solutions via cutting-edge technology, we design with a human-centered approach and we make...
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Consumer Web • Fitness
We're a feel-good company, from the Founders of Drybar. Our mission is to use the power of massage to improve the health & happiness of our guests & team members!. Our revolutionary app-based booking & payment platform simplifies the process, making scheduling, paying, tipping, & rating easy, breezy, Squeezy. First shop opens in Studio City in '19....
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Hollar is the ultimate mobile destination for cool products at incredible deals starting at $2. Featuring thousands of items from toys and electronics to home, beauty and apparel – including unique curated gift and party collections – Hollar is all about the joy of discovery. Find Hollar on iOS, Android and the web (www.hollar.com).
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DIFF Eyewear
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DIFF Charitable Eyewear is built on the principle that designer eyewear should be affordable, fashionable, and socially-conscious. Our "Buy a Pair, Give a Pair" promise ensures that for every pair of DIFF glasses purchased, a pair of reading glasses is donated to someone in need.
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An S&P 500 company, Macerich is one of the country's leading owners, operators and developers of major retail real estate (NYSE:MAC). Our unique and irreplaceable properties and dominant position in the nation's gateway markets — the most affluent and densely populated with significant international appeal — set the company apart.
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Ever Essentials
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Ever Essentials is a home decor/lifestyle startup that focuses on delivering the absolute best home decor goods with product design, value, and user experience at the heart of our business model. We see home goods as an essential key to living a better life and aim to inspire moments of optimism throughout our customers lifetime experience.
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The Honest Company
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The Honest Company® is a mission-driven consumer products company dedicated to empowering people to live happy, healthy lives. Consumers seeking thoughtfully formulated, safe and effective baby, personal care and beauty products can find The Honest Company products across North America via honest.com and at more than 17,000 retail locations.
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Sentia Wellness
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Sentia Wellness' mission is to be the leading global provider of pure, tested, and effective hemp derived CBD consumer products while positively impacting the lives of our customers, employees and shareholders.
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Faith did some healing
I found J. Anderson Thomson Jr.'s [September 30 cover story] about Islamic terrorism to be an interesting discussion of the evolutionary nature of group violence. I did, however, find his conclusion to be a non sequitur.
If, as Thomson suggests, there is no god, then one has great difficulty in defining good. If there is no god, then how can one definitively condemn violence? Any statement about what is good or bad in itself is based on faith– faith in a higher power or faith that our physical experience and our feelings of pleasure or pain are reliable, true, or absolute.
Those who live by faith have a moral ability to criticize immoral behavior. The various Eastern traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and varieties of Buddhism, were able to bring stability and peace to the Chinese empire. Islamic religionists were able to create the studies of modern medicine, mathematics, and a host of modern sciences. Several monks in imperial Spain were able to bring to an end the slavery of Indians within the Spanish empire.
Christian activists in the United States were able to argue for the reformation of prisons, the abolition of slavery, and a variety of legal reforms (hand in hand with unions) to benefit workers. Christians and Jews in this country helped to establish the first institutions of higher learning and the first hospitals. Christian pacifists opposed American imperialism from the War of 1812 through Mexico, and all the way up to Iraq.
Religion, by its nature, can bring violence in many forms but can also bring peace and civil society, just like human nature. The key, as one of our great secular leaders who was also a religious man, pointed out, is to appeal to the better angels of our nature.
Matthew J. Lind


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TF 1800 BGA and SMD Rework System
Patented Inductive-Convection Heater Provides Ultimate Thermal Performance
Conventional resistance coil heating technology has been successfully used in convective rework stations for decades to install and remove a variety of BGA, QFN, CSP, CGA, PoP, Flip Chip, 0201 and other bottom terminated components. However, today's extremely high thermal mass boards, ultra-fine pitch components and challenging production rework environments demand greater process control, thermal performance and faster throughput than ever before.
Enter PACE's TF 1800 BGA/SMD Rework System. With its groundbreaking, patented Inductive-Convection Heating Technology, the TF 1800's top-side heater reaches the target temperature in just seconds for safe, rapid solder joint reflow in virtually any component installation or removal application.
Top-Side Heater: Fast Heat Up - Rapid Cool Down
PACE's Inductive-Convection Heater easily outperforms competitive heaters which utilize standard forced air convection technology, achieving target temperature instantaneously, about 4x faster than competitive heaters. Unlike conventional heaters, the TF 1800 immediately drops to temperatures well below solder melt when the heater is de-energized.
How Inductive-Convection Heating Works
The TF 1800's Inductive-Convection Heating Technology provides ultimate thermal performance by its ability to instantly heat up and cool down the temperature of the air it delivers to the work.
1.) The air is first pre-heated in the outer heater chamber as it moves in a cyclonic fashion around the induction coil before it enters the inner chamber. 2.) After entering the inner chamber, the pre-heated air is then heated to target temperature through a highly efficient heat transfer process in an energized induction field. 3.) During active cooling, the induction coil is de-energized and the TF 1800 delivers fast, controlled, active cooling of the component and PCB directly through the nozzle, eliminating the risk of excessive intermetallic growth and yielding the highest quality solder joints.
Powerful, Energy Efficient Performance
The TF 1800's Inductive-Convection Heating Technology delivers all the power you need to tackle the most challenging high thermal mass PCBs available today. Yet, its highly-efficient design does it with just a fraction of the power required by yesterday's conventional heating technology.
Advanced Features
Ultra-High Precision Placement Capability
Newly designed motorized reflow head is driven by an advanced stepper motor system which provides smooth, high precision, repeatable movement with no drift, allowing for soft landing of components and 28µm (.0011") placement accuracy.
High Sensitivity Vacuum Pick Assembly
New Vacuum Pick design is more robust, utilizes an optical sensor, is counterweight balanced, and uses precision high temperature linear ball bearings for the highest sensitivity in placement and pick-up. Includes 7 Vacuum Picks.
PACE Exclusive Height Adjustable Bottom-Side Preheater
High powered medium/long wave quartz IR heating elements respond faster with 1000W of power. The preheater height is adjustable from standard position up to 38mm (1.5") closer to the PCB for the most challenging high thermal mass boards.
Integrated Board Support Wand
An innovative Board Support Wand prevents warping or sagging during reflow, is extremely adjustable to clear parts on the bottom of PCB, and is easily removed when not in use.
High-Definition Optical Alignment System
An automated Vision Overlay System uses a beam-splitting prism for simultaneous view of PCB pads and balls, high intensity LEDs for shadow-free lighting, and new high definition 1080p camera to easily align any component.
Crisp & Clear Images for Component Alignment
A high definition Vision Overlay System uses bright white LEDs with independent intensity control and up to 240x zoom capability to provide precise distinction of pads and solder ball or leads.
Quad-Field Imaging for Large/Fine Pitch BGA's
Quad-Field Imaging allows up to four corners of a large component (and its pads) to be viewed under high magnification, providing perfect alignment of outsized BGAs or fine-pitch QFPs.
Fourth Generation Software Suite
Newly designed Windows-based software provides a simple graphical interface with intuitive set-up and profiling, on-the-fly profile adjustment, unlimited profile storage and much more.
LIMITED TIME OFFER - 5 Free Heat Focusing Nozzles
For a limited time, we will provide 5 Nozzles free of charge with the purchase of each TF 1800 System, a value of over $2,200/£1400/€1,650! Over 90 standard nozzles are optionally available for BGA, CSP, QFP, SO, QFN and other components. Custom designs can be created to meet specific rework requirements. Click HERE for a list of available nozzles.
Download TF 1800 Manual (Updated May 2019)
230 V Part #: 8007-0575
- Power Requirements120 VAC, 50-60Hz (requires 20 A supply)|| 230 VAC, 50-60Hz (requires 10 A supply); 1600W maximum
- Dimensions737mm (29") H x 686mm (27") W x 737mm (29") D
- Weight (Without Computer)45kg (100lbs)
- Top-side HeaterPatented Inductive-Convection Heater, 300 Watts
- Bottom Side HeaterMedium/Long wave IR, 1000 Watts; 220mm (8.6") x 155mm (6.1")
- Bottom Heater Adjustable HeightCan be raised up to 38mm (1.5") closer to the PCB
- Active Cooling CapabilityOffers swift, yet controlled component/PCB cooling, directly through the nozzle
- High Sensitivity Vacuum Pick Counterweight balanced with an optical sensor and precision high temperature linear ball bearings (includes 7 picks)
- Precision Placement CapabilityPlacement system utilizes a stepper motor and position encoding for precise movement
- Placement Accuracy28μm (.0011") accuracy
- Board Support WandPrevents PCBs from sagging or warping during rework and is adjustable to clear parts on the underside of a PCB
- Temperature Setting RangeTop Heater: 100˚ to 400˚C (212˚- 750˚F) || Bottom Heater: 100˚ to 221˚C (212˚- 430˚F)
- Max PCB SizeMaximum: 305mm x 305mm (12" x 12")
- Max/Min Component SizeMaximum: 65mm (2.5") x 65mm (2.5"); Minimum: 1mm Sq.
- Thermocouple InputsFour (4) thermocouple inputs (includes 4 K-type thermocouples)
- High Definition Optical AlignmentVision Overlay System (VOS) with High Definition 1080p color camera
- Vision Overlay System (VOS)Contains integrated frame grabber and dichroic beam-splitting prism with independantly controlled LED lighting
- VOS Zoom CapabilityUp to 240x zoom capability, with Stable Zoom and image stabilization
- Quad-Field ImagingAllows up to four opposite corners of a large component (and its pads) to be viewed under higher magnification
- Single Axis OperationAll operations are complete in a single axis, eliminating risk of component movement after placement/reflow
- Auxiliary Cooling FanStandard
- SoftwareIntuitive, user-friendly, Windows software guides operators through profile development and execution
- Computer SystemWindows 8.1 PC, with wireless mouse and keyboard
- Video Monitor607mm (24") wide screen flat panel monitor (includes Monitor Arm Mounting Kit)
- Video InputsUSB 3.0
- Maximum AirflowSelf contained pump, PC controlled, adjustable up to 30 SLPM
- Nitrogen CapabilityNitrogen soldering and cooling ready
- Component NestsThree (3) removable and adjustable Component Nests provided for perfect centering of components
- Heat Focusing, Vented Nozzles5 included; over 90 optional nozzles available
- Flux Application PlateIncluded; allows for automated flux dipping
- Stencils/Solder Paste ApplicationOver 145 stencil kits are optionally available (requires Universal Bracket Kit) and are integrated into the installation process
- PV-65 Pik-Vac Vacuum WandIncluded; provides a manual vacuum pick-up capability for handling SMDs, with 15 minute auto-off feature
- WarrantyOne Year Limited Warranty


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Nowadays, the complicated TI graphing calculators are higher up on the school supply list than pink erasers. TI has realized this and have introduced the TI-Navigator. These are graphing calculators with the ability for teachers to wirelessly view the work their students do on the graphing calculator, and the teachers can even analyze and correct wrong answers in real time. This is a great step in helping out struggling math students because teachers can see mistakes made in real time.
I can't wait to see what the teacher thinks when I spell out BOOBS on my calculator.


text: It's a holiday movie courtesy of Topshop, starring their brand new face, Kate Bosworth. Titled "Winter Wonderland," the film, directed by Michael Polish (also Bosworth's boyfriend), is inspired by the sultry piano scene with Michelle Pffeifer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. The ever-stylish Bosworth explains,"This project brings together two important aspects of my life: cinema and fashion. I have always been a fan of the Topshop brand and it has been an honor to work with Sir Phillip and the team. I hope everyone enjoys watching it as much as we did making it." The actress co-designed the cocktail dress she dons in the short film —watch below for it and to hear her sing.


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Acopian announced availability of a new family of programmable AC-DC power supplies. Featuring wide-adjust output voltages from 0V-5V to 0-135V and current capabilities up to 70A, the 1U format single output voltage power supplies offer 750W of output power. These rack and benchtop modules notably provide high power density, low ripple and a user-friendly front panel.
Acopian's programmable switching power supplies with wide-adjust output voltages are suitable for use in a broad range of ATE, OEM and laboratory applications such as component testing, semiconductor burn-in, test and measurement, RF Amplifiers, LED/laser testing, as well as a variety of electromagnetic and electromechanical applications.
The power supplies accommodate the universal AC input voltage of 95 to 265VAC, 50/60Hz with active power factor correction (PFC) of 0.99 single phase to ensure operation in challenging AC environments and compliance with European EMC requirements. For added support, models can be configured with an optional fixed auxiliary output of between 3.3Vdc and 125Vdc, up to 180W.
An intuitive front panel supports reliable linear controls for precise adjustment, and optional digital LED voltage and current meters. Voltage and current monitor outputs, and provisions for N+1 redundancy and paralleling for higher current, are also optionally available. Pluggable connectors are provided to facilitate quick and easy wiring of control and input leads.
All models within Acopian's latest family of programmable AC-DC power supplies are provided standard with active PFC, universal input, constant current, built-in over voltage protection (OVP), and constant current control to provide further flexibility. Additional standard features include "soft start" and "no load" operation, short circuit and overload protection, thermal protection, internal EMI filtering, RFI shielding, and remote sensing. Digital interfaces, including RS232, RS485, Ethernet and USB, are available upon request.
Acopian's rack mounted 1U 750W programmable AC-DC power supplies featuring wide-adjust output voltages start at $835.00 per unit. Benchtop unit pricing starts at $845.00 each. Modules are shipped within three days.


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I am on my second batch of these cookies. They are my go-to sugar cookie recipe by Martha Stewart. For these, I have personalized them by adding chopped pecans and finely minced candied ginger.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Sugar Cookies with Pecans and Candied Ginger
I am on my second batch of these cookies. They are my go-to sugar cookie recipe by Martha Stewart. For these, I have personalized them by adding chopped pecans and finely minced candied ginger.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Patelles: A Trinidad Christmas Recipe
Trinidad pastels are similar to tamales of latin america: savory ground meats encased in a cornmeal dough and steamed to perfection. Pastelles are a staple on the Trinidad christmas menu; it a proud expression of the spanish influence on the country. As soon as we were old enough to help, my sister and I were recruited in the pastel-making ritual. And a ritual it is. First of all, during the week before Christmas, my father would gather bananas leaves. Since he owned agricultural estate at the time, it simply a matter of cutting a few leaves from a few banana trees. Then those leaves has to be washed, dried, and individually steamed to make them malleable enough to use as a wrap. These days, many grocery stores on the island sell pre-cut leaves.Here in Minnesota, I have opted to use parchment paper ( I can almost hear the collective gasp of my "Trini" relatives and friends) in place of the banana leaves because well frankly, I started this process way to late to find a way to locate these leaves in Minnesota. But dear friends, I find that parchment paper does the job just as well, and is much less work. Where would I have found the time within the past two hectic weeks to clean and steam banana leaves?
Another characteristic of pastelles is that the meat filling is typically ground beef. My version however uses ground chicken. Ninety five to five percent meat to fat ratio to be exact. Thanks to the Gold and Pump chicken company of Cold Spring Minnesota who has generously sent me samples of their new chicken products, I am using ninety five to five percent lean ground chicken.
Be it chicken or beef pastelles, making this dish always takes me back to a true island Christmas. A time of family, friends, great food, and warm weather; memories I welcome while looking out my window at the six inches of snow (and counting) that's coming down.


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My #1 recommendation for a Halloween rental this year is Pontypool, directed by Bruce McDonald. If engaging the audience and provoking an emotional response is a measure of success for a movie, then Pontypool gets full marks from me. Seeing it in a theatre 6 months ago, I remember sitting up in my seat holding onto the armrest for the second half of it thinking, "Man, this is creeping me out." It took me for a ride. The idea for the story is that language, the spoken word, is a virus — a virus that will turn you into a zombie if you don't shut up.
The story appropriately takes place in a small town rural radio station where we can't see what's happening but we hear live reports from a guy in the street witnessing the mayhem of people slowly turning into zombies — and this is where your imagination goes nuts. As most people in radio will tell you, sound is a visual medium. The audience is engaged by listening, hearing the story unfold. Then we watch the reactions of the people at the radio station. There aren't many zombies in the movie, but we don't need to see them to feel their presence. Then comes the question, "How do you prevent the spreading of a verbal disease when you can't talk about it, especially when you work at a talk-radio station?" The possible answers to this question are intriguing and entertaining. Although not a perfect movie, Pontypool succeeds so well at engaging the imagination to scare the crap out of you, while providing plenty of laughs along the way, it's a perfect movie for the Halloween season.
"Pontypool" is based on the book of by Tony Burgess.


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What: 15th annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run/Walk
When: Nov. 28-Nov. 30
Where: Register for Nov. 30 run at Riverside Cemetery, 5201 Brighton Blvd. at 8 a.m. The public is also welcome at the sunrise ceremony at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site on Nov. 28.
Cost: Free; donations to defray travel expenses accepted
Directions: nps.gov/sand
The instructions Vanessa Braided Hair gave me last Thanksgiving weekend for the final day of the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run were simple: Meet at Capt. Silas Soule's grave marker in Denver's Riverside Cemetery.
Braided Hair, 29, a Northern Cheyenne from Lame Deer, Mont., was among a group of young Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members who ran a relay of 173 miles over four days, starting at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, out on the eastern Colorado plains not far from the town of Eads.
That is the spot where, on Nov. 29, 1864, roughly 375 of their ancestors were killed or wounded in a surprise attack led by Col. John Chivington of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry, mocked as the "Bloodless Third" because it had not seen much action.
Chivington certainly got his blood that day. He brought in a mountain howitzer and attacked at dawn, to be sure that the women, children and men — who had been promised safety — would be surprised and have no chance to flee. Nearly half of the camp was cut down or wounded, some of the bodies mutilated and body parts later paraded through Denver.
When the attack came, Cheyenne leader Black Kettle stood in front of his tipi, waving both a huge American flag and a white flag of truce. Many of you know of Chief Niwot, also known as Left Hand. He was among the "peace chiefs" who approached the charging cavalry, only to be gunned down.
Before we began the run, there was a ceremony, and we were asked to stay behind the lead runner, who was carrying an eagle staff. It was made by Lee Lone Bear, who started the Spiritual Run in 1999. He passed away two years ago, and last year's run was in his honor.
"The main purpose is healing," Braided Hair said of the Spiritual Run, "dealing with the trauma today, and also to honor and never forget what our ancestors went through."
And these runners' ancestors did go through much. "At stake were two ways of using the land, of seeing the world," is how the Sand Creek historic site brochure puts it, explaining how the howitzer blasted "point blank" into the women, elderly and children trying to escape the carnage by burying themselves in the sand.
There was, however, no escape. Those who scrambled up the river bank and tried to get away were hunted down and killed.
"Most who surrendered were executed; … the next day some soldiers looted, scalped and mutilated the dead … they left the site bearing human body parts as trophies" that were carried through Denver, not far from where we were running.
We continued down Brighton Boulevard behind a Colorado State Patrol escort, turning onto 15th Street in downtown Denver. We grew silent, almost as if in church, as our thoughts turned to the Sand Creek massacre, and then, perhaps, to our own personal tragedies.
As we reached Larimer Street, a crowd waited at the intersection.
"Why are we stopping?" I asked a white-haired, chubby man, standing on the sidewalk.
"This is where Silas Soule was assassinated," he replied. I looked up at the gleaming glass buildings, the clean streets, the orderliness. Soule, too, was a "peace chief," I thought, and so suffered the fate of other such men and women through the centuries.
My new companion told me how Soule, from an abolitionist New England family, had testified against Chivington in military hearings, detailing the atrocities and how Sand Creek was not a battle, but a massacre, the likely reason he was killed.
"You know a lot about Silas," I said.
He nodded, replying that he was related to Soule and had traveled from out of state to participate in the Spiritual Healing Run. Gesturing to a nearby building, he pointed out a plaque honoring Soule.
I went closer, in the shadow of an office building, and read:
"At this location on April 23, 1865, assassins shot and killed 1st Colorado Cavalry officer Capt. Silas S. Soule. During the infamous Sand Creek massacre of Nov. 29, 1864, Soule had disobeyed orders by refusing to fire on chief Black Kettle's peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village. … His murderers were never brought to justice."
We all walked slowly and mostly silently to the steps of the state Capitol. The silence was broken by the guttural cries of the young Cheyenne and Arapaho runners, as well as by some of the elders who were walking the final mile.
When heard up close, the cries pierce your bones, conjuring up a different way of life, a different spirituality, one without ownership of land, without fences, one with buffalo herds sustaining nomadic tribes that honored a "Great Spirit" that is not only in the mountains, streams, sky and trees, but is you and me as well.
We forget, or rather, many of us never knew, that when we drive down the turnpike, we are passing over the homelands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. They no longer live on their native lands, having been relocated. On this weekend each year, they return home, to honor and remember.
I was impressed with the runners. As we chatted on the Capitol steps, I talked with a young Cheyenne man. He was not a serious runner, yet had pushed himself during the relay.
"Did you think of dropping out and not finishing the run?" I asked. There was a glint in his eyes, and I know I had asked a silly question.
"We are not trained runners, but because of the connections with our ancestors, we don't feel the pain," said Braided Hair, who ran 15 miles during the relay. "It is all about healing and honoring them."


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By Kim Galeaz
Oatmeal is a whole-grain breakfast cereal that provides protein and fiber, especially the soluble type that helps lower cholesterol. Boost calcium and protein by cooking oatmeal with milk instead of water. Add a sprinkle of wheat germ for even more fiber, nutrients and antioxidants like vitamin E. Apricots provide an outstanding source of natural antioxidant beta-carotene (vitamin A). Choose canned apricots packed in juice or light syrup to minimize added sugars. Even the cinnamon packs a natural immune-boosting antioxidant punch!
Makes 4 cups oatmeal (3 servings, 1-1/3 cup each)
Ingredients1 ½ cups oats, quick-cooking or old-fashioned2 ⅔ cups low-fat 1% milk⅓ cup wheat germ⅓ cup pure maple syrup1 teaspoon ground cinnamon1 cup canned (or very ripe, fresh) apricots, chopped
Directions1. Combine oats and milk in large microwave-safe bowl.
2. Microwave on high for 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients.
4. Microwave for additional 3 to 5 minutes or until oatmeal is hot and thickened throughout.
Nutrition information (per serving) Calories: 460Protein: 16g (14%)Carbohydrates: 86g (75%)Fat: 5.5g (11%)Saturated Fat: 1.5g (3%)Cholesterol: 11gSodium: 105mgCalcium: 330mgIron: 4mgVitamin A: 2190 IUVitamin C: 4mgFiber: 8g
Copyright (c) 2010 Studio One Networks. All rights reserved.
Kim Galeaz is an Indianapolis-based registered dietitian and owner of Galeaz Food & Nutrition Communications. As a freelance culinary-nutrition consultant, she has worked with many companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, The Kroger Company and Weider Publications, to help position and promote smart and healthy food, beverage and lifestyle choices.


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Integrity Choral God Be Praised SATB by New Life Worship Arranged by BJ Davis
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BJ Davis and Brad Parsley collaborated to bring us this exciting and worshipful collection of songs from New Life Church. You'll hear powerful anthems like Overcome, God Be Praised, How Awesome Is Your Name and I Will Stand. You'll be drawn into intimate moments with Jesus hearing songs like We Give and Draw Near, and you'll celebrate with songs like My Savior Lives, Promises and Mighty King of Love. There is something so powerful when ordinary people surrender their lives to God, and lift up a song together in unity. Includes: My Savior Lives, Everyone (Praises), God Be Praised, Worthy, We Give, Mighty King of Love, Promises, I Will Stand, Draw Near, How Awesome Is Your Name, Overcome. Instrumentation (varies from song to song): Flute 1, 2; Trumpet 1, 2, 3; Trombone 1, 2, 3; Percussion 1, 2; Violin 1, 2; Viola; Cello; String Bass; String Reduction; Rhythm. Available separately: SATB, Preview CD, CD Accompaniment Trax (Split), CD Accompaniment Trax (Stereo), CD 10-Pak, Preview CD Pak, Orchestration (CD-ROM). Duration: ca. 57:30.


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Hi everyone! Long time. Please join me at the soapbox.
Gird up your pocketbooks, people. If you're not debt-free, get that way, and get an emergency fund in place.
Everything's about to get really expensive when the taxes go up drastically in January and all the ObamaCare regulations roll in on the businesses you work for and buy from (some already have, and companies have already stopped hiring full-time workers so they don't have to pay the massive ObamaCare tax of being required by the government to buy health insurance for their employees), and the less debt you have, the better you'll be able to deal with it!
We've been working through Dave Ramsey's baby steps since May 2011, and you should too. We're almost done with our emergency fund, and then the real fun starts. We haven't had any non-mortgage debt since March — no car payments, student loans, credit cards. We only have the mortgage. How much money could you save every month if you bought cars only with cash, paid off your student loans and credit cards, and quit buying things on credit? We have a significant amount per month more now that we're out of debt, and we're putting almost all of it into savings. After the emergency fund is in place, we will start chucking a ton at retirement and college funds, and the rest will go toward paying off our house. Can you imagine not having a mortgage? Can you imagine having that extra thousand, 2K, 3K a month? I can (for us it's $1200). That's when the real fun starts. That's when you get to take big vacations and buy stupid things (only with cash, though!), and give a lot more to charity (real charity, not prison-enforced "charity" that you pay to the IRS), as long as it's in the budget.
Eat beans & rice and cut out the luxuries (including eating out, alcohol — really, look at your alcohol expenditures and see how much money you'd save if you cut that out, tobacco, expensive clothes), and GET ON A BUDGET. Frank and I each still have an allowance. We each get a small amount every month that we can spend on anything we want. And that's all. We don't say, "Oh, I really want this, though, and it's only $30, and we have $30, so I'll just buy it." If I don't have enough in my allowance right now, I wait until I have enough saved up (we carry balances forward month-to-month, and I just make sure I mark in the budget that the full allowance amount was spent). It's frustrating when I want something *right now* but it's necessary. I live in a 1st-world country, so it's all luxury. I'm not suffering if I have to wait until next month to buy the next Harry Potter book for my Kindle or wait two months to buy my Big Shot. We started with the allowance system back in 2007 when we realized that we weren't making any headway with our finances, and that's when everything started turning around. We also take 10% from any extra money (bonuses, royalty checks, etc.) that happens our way, and we put that in our "fun money" fund. We use that for eating out and non-fancy vacations, and if we don't have money in our fun money fund, we don't eat out, I don't make sushi, and we don't go anywhere that isn't free. We have a small amount budgeted for vacation savings each month — yes, this is a luxury, but we need to visit family every couple of years, so we budget that. We also budget a small amount for Christmas savings each month so we don't get hit with the whole thing in December — and it is a small budget. We don't buy a lot of gifts for each other or for other people right now. It's not in the budget. We occasionally splurge (for Buttercup's birthday, we bought her a doll house), but only after both approving the splurge and putting it in the budget. Yes, we get each other's permission to spend money that isn't budgeted, because we're married.
Set a limit for yourselves on money you get to blow, and you have a lot more money for the more important things, like life insurance, gas, saving for your next car (we're about to save for a minivan so that when the new baby comes, we'll have a nice used van for me to haul the kids around in), and groceries — which are about to get even more expensive. I've seen my grocery prices at least double in the last 4 years, and I expect them to skyrocket when we hit the fiscal cliff, which is coming, and it's not racism telling you that, it's math. January should be fun and/or horrific for everyone, especially people dealing with debt payments they can't afford.
And teach your kids about living on a budget so perhaps the next gen of politicians can understand the importance of not spending more than you make and of saving money. And that people will vote for fiscally sane politicians in the future.


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11 Dec 2012 10:59
Eskom has said it is hoping the country's competition authority will impose conditions on the merger to ensure coal supplies to its power plants are not at risk. (AFP)
Glencore was expected to defend its case this week after South African power utility Eskom raised concerns the deal could affect its coal supplies, but the hearing was postponed until January 18 after the parties asked for more time to prepare.
"We agreed to postpone the hearing because there would be insufficient time now to properly examine the matter," said Rafik Bhana, a lawyer representing Eskom, on Monday.
State-owned Eskom has said it is not calling for the deal to be abandoned but is hoping the country's competition authority will impose conditions on the tie-up to ensure coal supplies to its power plants are not at risk.
The utility relies on coal-fired power plants to generate 85% of the electricity that powers Africa's biggest economy and is keen to ensure the merger does not impede its ability to obtain timely, sufficient and competitively priced coal.
The meaning of the merger
Xstrata is one of South Africa's biggest coal producers and a key supplier of the fuel to Eskom. The utility said the merged entity would be supplying 15% of Eskom's coal and would be also among the largest traders in the coal market.
Eskom hopes to ensure that the merged entity does not dominate the market by setting prices that are unaffordable to the utility or opt for exports hoping for higher returns.
Insufficient and poor qualities of coal have been a concern to Eskom in the past and affected its ability to meet fast rising demand for electricity in the major producer of platinum, gold and other minerals.
Glencore's long-awaited takeover of Xstrata only has two hurdles left to clear: final approval from competition authorities in South Africa and China.
– Reuters
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