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China's Patent Strategy Isn't About Innovation; It's An Economic Weapon Against Foreign Companies
from the waking-the-wrong-giant deptJohn Bennett points us to an article in the NY Times that claims to be about how China is gearing up to be an innovation powerhouse rather than just known for "copying." Of course, the actual focus of the article is about how China is trying to get a lot more patents. In fact, we covered this very issue back in October, highlighting how China has set an "innovation policy" that appears much more focused on getting more patents, rather than increasing innovation. There are, of course, some people who still think that the number of patents is a proxy for innovation, but this claim has been debunked so many times, it's just kind of cute when people still bring it up.
So, could it be that thanks to sustained US pressure on China to "crack down" on infringement, that China has suddenly come to believe that patents equal innovation? Last month, just before some diplomatic meetings between the US and China over trade issues, US officials did their usual misleading grandstanding about how China doesn't do enough to "protect" US intellectual property. And, in response, Chinese officials did their usual song-and-dance about how they're really serious about intellectual property now, and we should stop worrying.
Of course, as we've pointed out, China seems to be much more aggressive with intellectual property lately, but not in the way the US wants. That is, it's been using patent and copyright laws to make life more difficult for foreign companies, specifically US companies. And, in reading through the details of that NY Times article above, it looks like they're planning to do more of the same.
The strategy that's being described (get a TON more patents in China and all around the rest of the world) is not a strategy for innovation. It's a strategy to stop others from innovating. It seems that China may understand patents a hell of a lot better than even officials in the US. And, incredibly, US officials seem to be falling for it. The Chinese must be laughing with glee to hear USPTO director David Kappos naively declare that:
"The leadership in China knows that innovation is its future, the key to higher living standards and long-term growth," Mr. Kappos says. "They are doing everything they can to drive innovation, and China's patent strategy is part of that broader plan."No, they're not driving innovation. They're seeking out weapons to use against foreign companies, as they've been doing for the past few years. That such an obvious move is totally missed by someone like Kappos suggests the level of ignorance of our own patent officials.
The US has taught China well how patents can be used as a weapon to hinder innovation, and it seems clear that China's latest strategy is to use patents as an economic weapon. It's not about improving innovation at home. The Chinese will continue to copy and ignore patents whenever it wants and whenever it believes it will be helpful to the local economy. But it will seek to stymie innovation around the globe by using patents as monopolies that can set up both tollbooths and huge hurdles for innovation from foreign competitors. And the US is playing right into this strategy by believing that patents, by themselves, are some sort of indicator of innovation and pushing China to "respect" patents even more. It's not hard to see how this is going to backfire badly on the US, including the companies who have urged on this strategy.
Filed Under: china, competition, economics, innovation, patents


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Politics and dating have two rules in common. First, desperation is not an aphrodisiac — and second, don't leave "hickys" where people can see them. In the latest silly kerfuffle in midterm politics, we have a little of both. A subcontractor for the NRSC requested "hicky" looking actors for a John Raese ad without any such direction from either the NRSC or Raese, and Joe Manchin thinks he can revive his flagging Senatorial ambitions on this issue. Manchin is about to give more hickys to West Virginia than all of the pimply-faced adolescents in the state deliver all year:
Well, look, it's not exactly out of bounds to leap on embarrassing fumbles of one's opponents, but one has to do so honestly. It was neither Raese nor the NRSC that asked for "hicky" actors, or actors from Philadelphia, either. In fact, both the Huffington Post and Greg Sargent agree that this is much ado about nothing. Here's the e-mail from the NRSC's contractor, Jamestown Associates, to the casting agency it contracted, which never mentions anything about "hicks" of any kind:
Hi Kathy,
So here's what we need for casting..
2 featured characters that will be talking to each other at a diner, conversation back and forth. I will send over a script for them to read for the audition. We will need the auditions by Wednesday morning at the latest and once we have selected the actors, the shoot will be on Thursday, Sept 30th. We will also need 5 background characters to fill in the diner. The rate for the featured actors will be $400/day and $100/day for the background characters.
One male
– Age about 55.
– Looking for someone to represent the middle of the country… Ohio, Pittsburgh, West Virginia area
– Middle class
One male
– Age about 45
– Middle class
– Again, should represent the Ohio, Pittsburgh, West Virginia area of the country
5 background characters:
– Mother
– Child
– Elderly couple
– 20's-ish male
Let me know if you need any more information.
Kristen Holcroft
Production Manager
Jamestown Associates
Nothing in this e-mail even suggests a condescending attitude towards West Virginians, let alone a demand for hicks as representative of the electorate. The casting agency was a subcontractor on the project and never had any connection to either the NRSC or the Raese campaign.
Manchin, of course, can focus on whatever he wants in his campaign advertising. But Manchin runs the risk of losing the one weapon in his political career that put him in position to run in this race, which was his enormous bipartisan approval, if he continues using such a dishonest, superficial, and easily rebutted line of attack as this one. He may hope to damage Raese on the second rule of politics and dating, but Manchin appears to be providing an example of how desperation isn't an aphrodisiac instead.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Crimson is in search of its first three-match conference win streak since 2009 (Gil Talbot).
Story Line
The Harvard women's volleyball team, winners of two straight and four of its last five, will look to continue its recent trend when it hosts Dartmouth at the Malkin Athletic Center Friday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m.
A live video stream and live stats will be available through GoCrimson.com by clicking here.
Last Time Out
Senior captain Taylor Docter tallied a match-best 21 kills, two shy of the career-high of 23 she notched at Dartmouth earlier this season, to lead the Harvard women's volleyball team to a 3-0 victory over Columbia Saturday at Levien Gym. The Crimson won by set scores of 25-23, 25-22 and 25-20.
Kathleen Wallace registered 12 kills, while Erin Cooney chipped in seven and hit a team-high .462 for Harvard. Kristen Casey finished with a career-best 23 digs, and Caroline Walters tallied five total blocks to pace the Crimson defense. Hannah Schmidt and Beth Kinsella split the setting duties, dishing out 24 and 21 assists, respectively.
The Hitters
Harvard's offense has been bookended by experience, with senior captain Taylor Docter and freshman Kathleen Wallace leading the way. Docter owns a team-best 3.15 kps average, good for third in the Ivy League, while Wallace owns a .271 kps average and a .281 hitting percentage. Junior Erin Cooney is third on the squad with 2.09 kps and sophomore Caroline Walters (1.79 kps) boasts a team best .373 hitting percentage, the third highest in the Ancient Eight.
Harvard ranks second in the Ivy League as a group with a combined .222 hitting percentage, its highest mark since hitting .208 in 2008.
Setting it Up
Senior Beth Kinsella and freshman Hannah Schmidt have shared the setting duties as the team has shifted into a 6-2 offensive system. Kinsella has dished out 349 assists for an average of 5.54 per set, while Schmidt has tallied 305 assists for a 4.69 average.
On the Block
Middle blockers Teresa Skelly, Caroline Walters and Caroline Holte have helped Harvard average 2.33 bps, good for second in the Ivy League. Holte leads the team with 64 total blocks and a 0.97 bps average. Walters ranks a close second with 62 total blocks and an average of 0.94 bps with Skelly chipping in 21 total blocks and 0.88 bps in limited action.
Keep an Eye Out For…
Beth Kinsella, Taylor Docter and Teresa Skelly each have a chance to make their marks on the Harvard record books this season. Kinsella currently ranks sixth all-time with 1,586 assists and has averaged 7.14 aps for her career. Docter has moved past current assistant coach Christine Wu '12 for sixth place in career aces (95), while her career 2.64 kps are good for eighth. She is also just 15 kills shy of joining Harvard's all-time top 10 with 907. Skelly, meanwhile, is just six block assists (178) short of entering the program's top 10 and needs 35 total blocks (204) to join that list as well.
Scouting Dartmouth (2-15, 1-6 Ivy League)
Dartmouth has lost seven straight matches to fall to 2-15 overall and 1-6 in the Ivy League. The Big Green's last win came on Sept. 21 when it knocked off Harvard in five sets, 3-2, in in Hanover, N.H. Alex Schoenberger leads the attack and ranks 10th in the Ivies with 2.74 kps while Elisa Scudder owns the eighth-best hitting percentage at .300. Kayden Cook has dished out 7.41 aps, the fourth-highest average in the league, with Lucia Pohlman and Scudder ranking fourth and 10th, respectively, with 0.34 saps and 0.26 saps.
The Big Green defeated Harvard in five sets earlier this season to mark Dartmouth's seventh consecutive win over the Crimson. Despite the loss, Taylor Docter had a banner day as she recorded a career-high 23 kills, 15 digs and a .284 hitting percentage. Kathleen Wallace and Erin Cooney chipped in 14 kills and 12 kills, respectively, and Caroline Walters added 10 kills, a .444 hitting percentage and six blocks. Kristen Casey led the defensive efforts with 20 digs.
Taking Home the Honors
Senior captain Taylor Docter was named the Ivy League Player of the Week on Oct. 16 after averaging 5.00 kps and 2.57 dps with a .280 hitting percentage at Cornell and Columbia. Docter scored 14 kills and added four blocks and six digs in a 3-1 win over the Big Red, and returned to the court the following day to notch 21 kills in a sweep of the Lions. Her 21 kills were two shy of her career-high, and the most for a Crimson student-athlete in a three-set match since 2008. The senior hit .293 on the night and tallied 12 digs for her ninth double-double of the year.
Just Keep Winning
Harvard has won two straight matches and has been victorious in four of its last five. The Crimson is looking for its first three-match win streak since defeating New Hampshire, Holy Cross and Navy in September of 2011. The last time Harvard won three consecutive matches in the Ivy League was in October of 2009, when the Crimson defeated Cornell and Columbia on the road and Princeton at home.
Holte of the Block
Freshman Caroline Holte turned in a stellar performance against Brown, recording a career-high eight block assists while adding six kills and hitting .625. Holte's eight blocks were the most in a three-set match for the Crimson since 2008, and the fifth most overall.
Harvard finished the match against Brown with a season-high 15 blocks, marking the highest total for the team since turning in 17 in a 3-2 win over Georgia State in 2011.
Double Trouble
Seniors Taylor Docter and Beth Kinsella and freshman Hannah Schmidt have combined for 17 double-doubles this season. Each recorded a double-double in back-to-back matches three weeks ago against Princeton and Penn, while Docter's streak of consecutive double-doubles reached five.
2012 Double-Doubles
Career Double-Doubles
Block Party
Harvard has recorded double-digit blocks in six matches this season, most recently turning in 12.5 in a 3-1 win at Cornell. Harvard currently ranks second in the Ivy League with 2.33 bps, its highest average since 2003.
Career Night
Taylor Docter set a new career-high with 23 kills at Dartmouth and finished the evening hitting .284 on 67 attempts with just four errors. Docter's 23 kills are the second most for any Crimson student-athlete since 2008, with Kathryn McKinley's '09 total of 26 at Yale in 2008 topping the list.
Serving it Up
Taylor Docter matched her career-high with five aces at New Hampshire, marking the fourth time the senior has tallied five in a single match. Docter's five aces were also the second-highest total of any Crimson since 2008, with Katherine Kocurek's '10 six aces at Dartmouth in 2008 leading the way.
Hitting it Home
Harvard registered a .474 hitting percentage against Providence, by far the highest hitting percentage of the season recorded by an Ivy League school. The Crimson converted 40 kills against the Friars on 78 attempts while only committing three errors. Caroline Walters hit a match-high .750 (6-0-8) while Kathleen Wallace hit .667 (12-0-18), the fifth-highest individual hitting percentage with a minimum of 10 attempts in the Ancient Eight this season. Caroline Holte (7-1-10) and Jennifer Shults (4-0-7) also got in on the action, hitting .600 and .571, respectively.
Harvard last hit .400 for a match on Sept. 27, 2008, when the squad combined for a .456 hitting percentage (35-4-68) in a 3-0 win over St. Francis (Pa.).
Senior co-captain Taylor Docter was named to both the Hokie Invitational and Harvard Invitational all-tournament teams. She was joined on the Harvard Invitational All-Tournament Team by freshman Kathleen Wallace and sophomore Caroline Walters, while Kristen Casey was named to the New England Challenge All-Tournament Team, marking the first all-tourney honor of each of their careers.
Captain of the Ship
Senior Taylor Docter was voted by her teammates as the 59th captain of Harvard women's volleyball. Docter was an All-Ivy League second team and Academic All-Ivy honoree in 2011 after ranking eighth in the conference in kills per set (3.05), seventh in aces (0.27) and seventh in points per set (3.52). The Los Altos, Calif., native also averaged 1.72 dps on the defensive side of the net and finished her year with career-highs in kills, attempts, hitting percentage and digs.
"Taylor has been an impact player since her freshmen season," Head Coach Jen Weiss commented. "She came in this preseason in great shape and ready to work hard. As a second team All-Ivy outside hitter, she led our team in points scored and kills per set. She has a natural ability to lead and her peers respect her on and off the court. Taylor's composure on court has been tremendous this year and I look forward to her leading the team."
Platinum Anniversary
Head coach Jen Weiss is in her 20th season at the helm of the Crimson. Weiss owns a 248-289 record on the sidelines and guided Harvard to its only Ivy League championship in 2004. She has mentored 46 All-Ivy honorees, five Ivy League Rookie of the Year recipients and coached the program's first two-time Ivy League Player of the Year in Kaego Ogbechie '05.
Catch the Crimson in 2012
Harvard will host 11 home matches at the Malkin Athletic Center this season and each will be streamed live online through GoCrimson.com. Fans can also watch each match On Demand approximately two hours after completion. One-year subscriptions are available for $49.95 and allow access to every home event streamed by the Crimson, including football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's hockey and men's soccer. For more information or to sign up today, click here.


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Freeview 'corgi' by 18 Feet & Rising
Agency18 Feet & Rising
SectorMedia / Entertainment Brands and Television brands
Freeview, the free to air digital TV service, has launched a new royal wedding themed ad campaign to promote its high definition service, Freeview HD.
The £1.8m ad campaign, by 18 Feet & Rising, aims to encourage viewers to upgrade to Freeview HD in time for the wedding.
The TV shows corgi dogs as they journey across the countryside, over the Dartford Bridge, hitch a ride with a lorry driver and hop on a boat to watch the service on Freeview. The soundtrack is a remix of 1987 rave track 'Strings of Life' using brass intruments.
The dogs used in the spot also starred in 'The King's Speech'. The TVC was directed by Daniel Wolfe through Somesuch & Co. The campaign will be supported by additional national and consumer press ads, advertorials, radio and digital activity.


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On Hiatus
Another Interactive Comic. Stuff to know: 1. Post what you want the main character to do. 2. This is a bit more serious. Your guy can actually die. Forever. Loose three characters and the comic shuts down. 3. I'll do anything really. If the situation permits, and it's not creating things out of mid-air, I'll let you do anything. 4. Your actions are your own. If you mess up, I won't give you a plot device every time you do it. I'll mainly do it if you were being good and accidentally messed up in the progress. 5. If you make constantly stupid choices, I will stop taking your requests and may ban you from posting. If you wish to understand what an item is or does, type "help ____" And you will be given an in-comic explanation what the character knows. If some people ask, I'll post a mental map your character has made on a separate page. If you want to command someone if you gain any party members, you cannot control them, only tell them what to do. You are not in control of the world around you, and can only control your characters actions.


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Former abortion clinic workers detail conversion stories :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
"We wanted to better understand the mindset of people who work in the abortion industry," said conference planner Ann Scheidler, who serves as the vice president of the Pro-Life Action League.
She told CNA that the purpose of the "CONVERTED: From Abortion Provider to Pro-Life Activist" conference was to hear what former abortion workers had to say about why they entered the abortion industry and what led them to leave it.
While abortion doctors and clinic workers are sometimes viewed as heartless by pro-lifers, some are actually "extremely compassionate people" who are misguided and believe that they are "helping women," she explained.
"It's very good for us to understand where these people are coming from," she said.
The Sept. 22 conference was held Crowne Plaza O'Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Ill., and featured eight former abortion workers who told their personal stories of conversion.
Scheidler said that each one had a different story, but they shared the experience of realizing, "This isn't what I thought."
The decision to leave can be "difficult," she continued. They often find that "everybody they know is pro-abortion," so leaving their job means finding an entirely new community and peer group.
"That's asking a lot," she said. "That's hard to do."
While the lack of resources has made this transition especially difficult in the past, a new ministry by former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson is now helping those who wish to leave the abortion industry but are struggling in their decision to do so.
Johnson spoke about her ministry, And Then There Were None, which has had contact with 30 abortion workers in recent months.
Drawing about 100 attendees, primarily pro-life advocates who talk to women outside abortion clinics and sometimes speak with clinic workers, the conference was deemed a success by organizers.
One presenter, Dr. John Bruchalski, is currently a pro-life OB/GYN in northern Virginia. However, he performed abortions during his first two years of residency.
Although Bruchalski grew up in a Catholic household, he lost his faith in the 1970s and '80s. Wanting to be a "great" doctor, he felt that he needed to perform abortions, which he believed would help women to be "happier" and "healthier."
It was a combination of factors that changed his mind, he told CNA. Part of it was the experience of performing abortions.
"As you do the procedure, you begin to kill another human being up close," he said, describing the experience of watching "the life drain from them" from just inches away.
"That reality goes through your hand and into your heart," he reflected.
Performing abortions "hardens your heart every time," because you have to continually justify your actions to yourself, he explained.
In addition, he said that there was more and more emerging data showing that abortion and contraception were not healthy for women, but had some "pretty significant side effects," both physically and psychologically.
There was also a relational aspect to his conversion, as a neonatologist whom he worked with challenge him to re-think his ideas.
Finally, he said that he experienced a spiritual renewal, brought about in part by two pilgrimages he attended.
"All those pieces came together in 1989," he said, explaining that he was forced to "adjust my heart and my whole outlook."
Now, he tries to witness to others, helping them to see the reality of abortion. In 1994, he founded Tepeyac Family Center, a pro-life practice in Fairfax, Va.
"If it's so darn good, why do so few doctors perform abortions?" he asks medical students when he gives talks.
Bruchalski said that he knows other former abortion doctors who have converted, and each has a different story. He believes that God speaks to each person in his or her own way.
"He spoke to me in a language that I intrinsically understood," he said.
Tags: Abortion


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The rest of the lessons I have to upload are all drawn out of request. I received some really cool suggestions for lessons and today I will upload them. I will start by showing you "how to draw Piglet easy", step by step. Piglet is one of those characters that you can go through the movie and not remember there is a pig named Piglet by you know someone is missing. Even though this figure from Winnie the Pooh isn't memorable to me, but he may be the opposite to you. No matter what one thing is certain, drawing Piglet easy is going to be fun because he is still cute. I hope you enjoy this tutorial, I will be back soon so I hope you stick around.
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In the first days of March, 2007, agents from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, made a daring raid on the Vienna home of Ibrahim Othman, the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission. Othman was in town attending a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, and had stepped out. In less than an hour, the Mossad operatives swept in, extracted top-secret information from Othman's computer, and left without a trace.
In recent months, Israel and the United States had become worried by Syria's nuclear ambitions. In the nineteen-nineties, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad sought to buy nuclear research reactors from Argentina and Russia, but the deals fell through under U.S. pressure. Toward the end of 2006, Israel began to pick up intelligence of possible renewed nuclear activity. There were also suspicions about a large, "enigmatic" building under construction in the desert of northeastern Syria, General Michael Hayden, the director of the C.I.A. at the time, told me.
The information the Mossad operatives recovered was damning: roughly three dozen color photographs taken from inside the Syrian building, indicating that it was a top-secret plutonium nuclear reactor. The reactor, called Al Kibar, was nine hundred yards from the Euphrates River and halfway between the borders with Turkey and Iraq. The photographs showed workers from North Korea at the site, which was far from Syria's biggest cities. The sole purpose of this kind of plutonium reactor, in the Mossad's analysis, was to produce an atomic bomb. Inside, the reactor had many of the same engineering elements as the North Korean reactor in Yongbyon—a model that no one but the North Koreans had built in the past thirty-five years.
Two and a half decades earlier, Israel had dispatched bombers to Iraq to destroy the Osirak nuclear reactor. That strike marked the rise of the Begin doctrine, named for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which held that no Israeli adversary in the Middle East should be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel itself has reportedly possessed nuclear weapons since roughly 1967, although it has never either admitted or denied it; the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that today Israel has as many as two hundred nuclear warheads. Off the record, Israeli officials reject any claim of moral equivalence between their reputed possession of nuclear weapons and Syria's. One reason, officials say, is Syria's relationship with Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department.
On March 8th, days after the raid, Meir Dagan, the director of the Mossad, and two senior officials met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and presented the findings from the raid. During a courtroom appearance last year, at which Olmert was facing corruption charges (he was largely acquitted), he never directly mentioned Dagan or the Syrian site, but he referred obliquely to "a piece of information" that had been put on his desk "such as rarely happens in the country." He added, "I knew from that moment, nothing would be the same again. The weight of this thing, at the existential level, was of an unprecedented scale." Olmert pledged to destroy the reactor as soon as possible; if it went "hot," radiation from its destruction could contaminate the Euphrates.
Five years later, the Al Kibar affair is still not discussed on the record in Israel. When referred to by journalists or military analysts, reports are usually credited to foreign sources. Word has gradually leaked out that Israel destroyed the Al Kibar reactor. Some of the details of the operation have been published. In April, 2008, after several months of secrecy, U.S. intelligence officials finally briefed Congress on their evaluation of the reactor. The most senior members of the Bush Administration, including Bush himself, mentioned in their memoirs how the U.S. responded to the evidence on the reactor. In recent months, I have spoken with about two dozen Israeli and American officials who were knowledgeable about the fate of Al Kibar, to learn exactly what happened and why details of the affair have remained so closely guarded. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government consider how to confront Iran's nascent nuclear program, Israel's response to Al Kibar has emerged as both an exemplary and a cautionary tale.
The small suite of offices where Prime Minister Olmert and a half dozen of his aides worked, in a nondescript government office building in Jerusalem, sits behind glass doors and was so closely watched that it was nicknamed the Aquarium. For that reason, in the days after the discovery of the Syrian installation, Olmert began hosting important meetings at his official residence, on Balfour Street, a couple of miles away.
Olmert, a former cabinet minister and onetime mayor of Jerusalem, had come to power in early 2006 on a platform of peace, and the war that summer with Hezbollah, in Lebanon, had been disastrous for his popularity. In December, in an attempt to restore his focus on peacemaking, Olmert had begun holding regular meetings with Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, to address the establishment of a Palestinian state. On February 15, 2007, a few weeks before the Mossad raid in Vienna, Olmert met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara, and asked him to explore whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—the son of Hafez—would be willing to open secret peace talks with Israel. After meeting with Assad on April 3rd, Erdogan reported back to Olmert that Assad was willing. By that time, Israel had discovered evidence of the Syrian reactor, and a grim resolve had set in.
The briefings on Balfour Street began with Israel's former Prime Ministers, including Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and Netanyahu, Olmert's political rival. The leaders were summoned one by one, to insure confidentiality and to prevent leaks. A second group—including Amir Peretz, the Defense Minister; Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israel Defense Force's chief of staff; Amos Yadlin, the I.D.F. head of military intelligence; Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet, Israel's security service; and Dagan, of the Mossad—met most Fridays from late March of 2007 through early September. Each member signed a secrecy agreement.
The time came to inform the Americans. On April 18th, during a routine visit to Israel, Robert Gates, George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, met with his Israeli counterpart, Peretz. Because Peretz does not speak English fluently, an index card was prepared for him, which he could refer to as he divulged the news about the reactor. Olmert also dispatched Dagan, along with two of Olmert's top personal aides, Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turgemen—nicknamed TnT by U.S. officials—to Washington, to report the news to other senior U.S. officials. Dagan briefed his U.S. counterpart, Hayden, the C.I.A. director. Dagan, Turbowicz, and Turgemen met with Vice-President Dick Cheney and the national-security adviser, Steve Hadley. Dagan presented them with the photographs of the site and other information. According to one former senior U.S. official, Cheney, who had been urging the intelligence community to investigate a link between North Korea and Syria, was vindicated by the news.
President Bush instructed his intelligence chiefs to verify the Israeli claims; the disastrous intelligence failure on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was fresh in everyone's mind. Bush's words, according to the former U.S. senior official, were "Gotta be secret, and gotta be sure." A C.I.A. crisis task force was established, and, according to the same official, the C.I.A. compared "handheld" photographs of the site with "overheads" taken by American satellites. The photographs were then given to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes imagery and map-based intelligence for policymakers and the national-security community. The N.G.A. determined that the two sets of photographs were valid, as did nuclear experts at the Department of Energy and an outside nuclear-proliferation authority. Finally, an ad-hoc C.I.A. "red team" concluded, according to the former senior U.S. official, "If it's not a nuclear reactor, then it's a fake nuclear reactor."
While U.S. intelligence officials scrambled to confirm the Israeli report, Hadley, the national-security adviser, directed an interagency deputies committee—known, with deliberate blandness, as the Drafting Committee—to develop policy options. The committee's members included Elliott Abrams, a deputy national-security adviser; James Jeffrey, a top Middle East specialist at the State Department, who was later the deputy national-security adviser; Eric Edelman, a senior aide to Gates who had previously served as the Ambassador to Turkey; and Eliot Cohen, who was counsellor to the State Department under Condoleezza Rice. No personal aides were included in the group's secure government e-mails. The policy options were not circulated on any government computers, and the committee's members were forbidden from taking any relevant documents out of the White House Situation Room.
From the start, several members of the Drafting Committee were skeptical that diplomacy could neutralize Syria's nuclear program. The fear was that Assad would stall in order to buy time for the reactor to go hot, at which point military action would become too risky. Over several Tuesday afternoons, an even more senior national-security group gathered in Hadley's office in the West Wing of the White House. At the time, few from the group advocated American military action. "Every Administration gets one preëmptive war against a Muslim country," Gates told Edelman, half in jest, "and this Administration has already done one."
Moreover, Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah had weakened Rice's faith in Israel's military judgment. "Condi thought that the Israeli military was unreliable and that they were no longer the ten-foot giants that we had grown up with," a former senior Administration official told me. Rice feared that a strike would lead to a wider conflict, including war with both Syria and Hezbollah. She was also invested in two diplomatic initiatives: six-party talks with North Korea about its nuclear program and a Middle East peace conference that would be held later that year, in Annapolis. Meanwhile, the Administration was staring down the end of its tenure. "We were just turning the corner in Iraq, and there was an uneasy sense about Afghanistan," Eliot Cohen told me. "Many in the Administration were deeply reluctant to start what they thought would be a third Middle Eastern war. They thought the American people would have no patience for it, quite apart from their own aversion to such a prospect."
On June 17th at the White House residence, just before a scheduled visit from Olmert, Bush met with advisers in the Yellow Oval Room, which encouraged intimacy and informality, and which allowed Bush to "be in a listening rather than deciding mode," according to another former senior official. Recounting that period for a 2011 Washington Post article, Hayden said that he "told the President that Al Kibar was part of a nuclear weapons program" and that "we could conceive of no alternative uses for the facility." But, because they "could not identify the other essentials of a weapons program," such as a reprocessing plant or active work on a warhead, Hayden wrote, "we cautiously characterized this finding as 'low confidence.' "
The Administration conceded that the reactor could go hot in the coming months, but, once the term "low confidence" had been invoked, Bush no longer felt he had the political cover to justify a preëmptive strike. In his memoir, Bush says that he told Olmert, "I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it's a weapons program." David Albright, a nuclear-proliferation expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, told me that a reprocessing plant has yet to be found; then again, he noted, Syria has not granted anyone permission to look for one.
Olmert met with American officials in Washington on June 19th. He told reporters that he was there to discuss Iran and the Palestinian peace process, but, in his meetings with Bush and Cheney, he urged that the U.S. lead the attack on the Syrian reactor. Olmert argued that a U.S. strike would "kill two birds with one stone," allowing Bush to remind the international community of Assad's villainy and send a message dissuading Iran from pursuing its own nuclear program. Olmert told Bush that if the U.S. did not destroy the reactor, Israel would, even if it lacked support from the Americans. Bush promised an answer shortly.
On July 12th, Bush convened a second meeting, and declared that he would send an envoy to Syria with an ultimatum for Assad to begin dismantling the reactor. The five permanent members of the Council, or P5—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France—would oversee the dismantling.
Bush called Olmert at eight o'clock the next morning. If the Americans were to hit the reactor, he said, the Administration would have to explain to Congress that the intelligence had come from Israel. Was this what Olmert wanted? Bush offered to send Rice to the region, but Olmert replied that he was not interested in a visit from Rice, and said he feared that a diplomatic route would simply enable Syria to stall until the reactor went hot. In his memoir, Bush wrote that "the prime minister was disappointed" at the U.S. preference for diplomacy, adding that Olmert told him, "This is something that hits at the very serious nerves of this country." The American nuclear-prevention policy toward North Korea and Pakistan was characterized as "too early, too early—oops—too late," Ariel Levite, a nonresident senior associate in the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment, told me. The Israelis also believed that a diplomatic focus would undermine the surprise of a military operation. Once Assad realized that he had been caught, as Abrams put it to me, what would stop him from putting a kindergarten near the site, or from deploying anti-aircraft weaponry?
Although the U.S. and Israel agreed on the fundamental facts and risks, they had reached opposing policy conclusions. Until the phone call from Bush, Olmert hoped that the United States would lead the attack. Now he was worried that any U.S. official who was not on board with the Israeli strike would try to sabotage it by leaking information, and he expressed his fears to Bush. The President promised Olmert that the American side would remain "buttoned up."
Bush probably did not relish further military action and feared a repeat of the intelligence debacle in Iraq, but he seems to have understood Olmert's position. At no point did Bush suggest that the U.S. would block Israeli action. "Olmert said he did not ask Bush for a green light, but Bush did not give Olmert a red light," an Israeli general told me. "Olmert saw it as green."
The Israelis began preparations for a unilateral attack. The I.D.F. and the Israeli Air Force considered three possible strategies: a wide strike by the Israeli Air Force, nicknamed Fat Shkedi, after Israel's Air Force chief, General Eliezer Shkedi; a narrower strike, nicknamed Skinny Shkedi; and a ground attack by special forces.
A key consideration was the desire to minimize the potential of a response from Damascus. Since discovering the reactor, many Israeli officials had concluded that the lower the signature of the attack the less likely Syria would be to retaliate. By failing to report the presence of a nuclear reactor, Assad would be violating his obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. To avoid drawing further attention to this violation—not to mention the humiliation of having its nuclear ambitions exposed and thwarted by Israel—Assad might prefer to bury the matter. Psychologists consulted by the I.D.F., who had profiled Assad for years, argued that Syrian retaliation might be avoided if Israel did not corner the President by publicly claiming credit for a strike, thus preserving for Assad what Israeli security officials called a "zone of denial." Assad's decision not to take any direct hostile action against Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah, in Lebanon, demonstrated that he saw the advantage of avoiding military confrontation with Israel. Also, from what the Israelis could discern, the Al Kibar reactor was in a remote location; a strike would be unlikely to cause civilian fatalities or even draw public attention.
Given these factors, the I.D.F., the Mossad, and the Foreign Ministry, led by Tzipi Livni, all favored a low-signature attack on the reactor. Back in June, an Israeli special-operations unit had been dispatched to within a mile of the site to take and transmit additional photos, bring back soil samples, and provide Israel with other information it needed for a strike.
By June, Peretz had lost the Labor Party leadership and the position of Defense Minister passed to Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister, former Army chief of staff, and one of the most decorated soldiers in Israeli history. The "two Ehuds," Olmert and Barak, had a cordial relationship, despite belonging to different parties. When Olmert was the mayor of Jerusalem, in the nineties, he defended Barak, then the Prime Minister, from the usual refrain from the right that a Labor leader would cede half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. (In fact, Barak did offer significant parts of Jerusalem during the Camp David summit in 2000.)
But the friendship did not endure. Barak told his fellow cabinet ministers that he feared a repeat of the 2006 war, and thought it would be better to delay the attack on Al Kibar. This would give Israel's military command in the north sufficient time to prepare for possible Syrian retaliation. For Olmert, the 2006 Lebanon war had established deterrence; Hezbollah had not openly fired a shot at Israel since then. Olmert suspected that Barak had another reason for putting off an attack on Al Kibar. The final report of the Winograd Commission, a government-appointed inquiry into the decisions involved in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, was anticipated around the end of the year and was expected to criticize Olmert for his handling of the war and weaken him politically. Olmert worried that Barak would seize upon the report's findings, trigger Olmert's ouster as Prime Minister, and lead the operation against the Syrian reactor himself.
In Israel, all major military actions that could lead to war must be approved by the security cabinet. Olmert invited several members of the security cabinet separately to his home and briefed them on Al Kibar. Each signed a written vow of secrecy, agreeing to face investigation if he or she leaked information. Over the next five weeks, a half-dozen extraordinary security-cabinet meetings unfolded. Barak argued that a careful attack in the early phases after the reactor went hot would not contaminate the Euphrates. Olmert gave a long and persuasive rejoinder. "It may have been the most dramatic set of sessions that I can ever recall in the security cabinet," one of the cabinet ministers in attendance told me.
On September 1st, Turbowicz told the White House that preparations were almost complete. Israel informed one other country's intelligence service before the strike—Britain's MI6—but did not share the exact timing of the attack with either country.
On September 5th, the security cabinet deliberated for the last time, and voted to strike. (The only minister to abstain from voting was Avi Dichter.) The cabinet also voted to grant Olmert, Barak, and Livni sole power to approve the military approach and the timing of the strike. Barak and Olmert had made several handwritten amendments to the text of the resolution that ordered the strike, explicitly indicating the potential for war. After the cabinet session, Olmert, Barak, and Livni reconvened in the briefing room adjacent to Olmert's office. The chief of staff came into the room and recommended attacking that night, using the Skinny Shkedi approach. After the chief of staff left, Olmert, Barak, and Livni voted unanimously to proceed.
Just before midnight on September 5, 2007, four F-15s and four F-16s took off from Israeli Air Force bases, including Ramat David, southeast of Haifa. After flying north along the Mediterranean Coast, the planes turned east and followed the Syrian-Turkish border, to avoid detection by radar. Using standard electronic scrambling tools, the Israelis blinded Syria's air-defense system. In Tel Aviv, in a room of the underground I.A.F. command-and-control center known as "the pit," Olmert, Barak, Livni, and senior security officials followed the planes by radar. The room would serve as a bunker for Olmert in the event that the strike sparked a war; the Israelis had also prepared a military contingency plan.
General Shkedi tracked the pilots by audio in an adjacent room. Sometime between 12:40 and 12:53 A.M., the pilots uttered the computer-generated code word of the day, "Arizona," indicating that seventeen tons of explosives had been dropped on their target. "There was a sense of elation," one participant recalled. "The reactor was destroyed and we did not lose a pilot."
The next day, the Syrian Arab News Agency announced that Israeli planes had entered Syrian airspace but had been repelled: "Air-defense units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage." The Israelis say that not a single Syrian air-defense missile was launched. At least ten, and perhaps as many as three dozen, workers were killed in the strike.
As the planes returned to their bases, Olmert went to his secondary office, at the Kirya defense complex, in Tel Aviv, and asked to be connected to Bush, who was in Australia. "I just want to report to you that something that existed doesn't exist anymore," Olmert told him. "It was done with complete success."
Syria has consistently denied that it had a reactor, and the responses from its administration officials have been contradictory. Three weeks after the strike, President Assad told the BBC that Israeli warplanes had attacked an unused military building and said that Damascus reserved "the right to retaliate," though not necessarily in a "bomb for bomb" manner. Meanwhile, Bashar Ja'afari, the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, continued to insist that nothing was bombed in Syria and that Israeli planes "were encountered by our air defense fire" and were forced to drop their ammunition and fuel tanks.
"Nobody in Syria believed that Israel did this," Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert who is a fellow at the Washington Institute and was in Damascus at the time, told me. "People believed the regime." Syrians were incredulous on two accounts, Tabler said: that Assad had secretly built a reactor and that Israel had demolished it. Even as confirmation of some sort of strike came out in the world press, Syria did not strike back. This reinforced Israel's initial psychological reading: as long as Assad could deny the existence of the reactor, he would not feel pressured to retaliate.
The Israelis helped secure that zone of denial. They briefed their regional allies, including Egypt and Jordan, and urged their leaders to refrain from making public statements about the strike. Olmert flew to Moscow to brief Russia, which has close ties with Assad. Dick Cheney was eager to expose the flagrant role of North Korea in the Syrian project and argued for disclosure. But Condoleezza Rice, keen to preserve the six-party diplomatic talks with North Korea, urged that the request for silence be honored. She prevailed.
On October 23rd, Olmert met Erdogan in London to brief him on the attack and on Israel's motives. During the meeting, Olmert asked Erdogan to gauge Syrian interest in re-starting peace negotiations. Assad agreed to indirect peace talks, which began in Ankara in February, 2008; they ended that December, when Syria and Turkey withdrew in protest over Israel's war against Gaza. Israelis say the two sides never discussed the Al Kibar strike.
As the months went by, and the odds of Syrian retaliation diminished, Bush asked Olmert for permission to tell certain senators and representatives what had happened. Details had begun to leak out, and members of the congressional intelligence committees were upset that they had not been briefed. Moreover, there was a fierce debate within the Administration over the decision not to go public about North Korea's role in the construction of the Syrian reactor. Olmert relented; in Israel, however, official restrictions remain.
After rebuffing repeated requests by the I.A.E.A. to visit the site, Syria ultimately permitted a small group of inspectors, including Olli Heinonen, to visit for one day in June, 2008. The inspectors found particles of man-made uranium in the samples, which Syria claimed were the residue of the bombing. In 2009, the inspectors reported that graphite had also been found at the site; Syria again issued a denial. In its most recent report, the I.A.E.A. concluded that the site was "very likely" a nuclear reactor.
When I met with Heinonen this past spring, he told me that the site had been cleaned up before the inspectors' visit. His statement echoed a cable, released by WikiLeaks in 2010 to an Israeli daily, that Condoleezza Rice sent to State Department representatives around the world on April 25, 2008, after the congressional briefing. "Syria's concealment and lies about what happened for months now after the Israeli air strike is compelling proof that it has something to hide," Rice wrote. "In fact, after the attack on the site, Syria went to great lengths to clean up the site and destroy evidence of what was really there." Syria's cleanup effort was also monitored and confirmed by I.D.F. satellites.
Heinonen said that one of the inspectors' escorts at the site was General Mohammed Suleiman, who served as a primary regime contact on various issues related to Iran. An Israeli general called him the head of the Syrian "shadow army," meaning he dealt with issues unrelated to Syria's conventional Army, such as transferring Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. Israeli officials say that Suleiman, a fellow-Alawite and longtime friend of the Assad family, was believed to be one of the very few senior regime officials who knew of the reactor's existence.
On August 1, 2008, Suleiman was killed by snipers while hosting a dinner at his weekend home overlooking the sea at the Syrian port city of Tartus. The operation is believed to have been carried out jointly by the Mossad and the Shayetet 13, or Flotilla 13, an élite commando unit of the Israeli Navy that specializes in sea-to-land incursions and counterterrorism. Nobody else was injured. Israel has never acknowledged the assassination.
Olmert's poll numbers did not recover after the fallout of the 2006 war, and the rest of his term as Prime Minister was marred by corruption charges, even as he continued Palestinian peace talks with Abbas. In July, 2008, he announced that he would resign his position, and he left office after elections the following February. This July, Olmert was cleared of charges of receiving illicit cash payments and of double-billing Israeli organizations for travel expenses, but convicted on breach of trust. He faces another trial on corruption charges related to a Jerusalem real-estate deal, but some recent polls show that if Olmert were to head a new centrist coalition it would run strongly against Netanyahu's party. If he is acquitted of the final charge, many analysts in Israel expect him to attempt a political comeback, though he has denied it in public.
For Israel, the raid on Al Kibar was an unparalleled success. The Begin doctrine was reaffirmed, and neither Syria nor Hezbollah has encroached on Israel since. The pressing question today is whether the lessons of that success can be applied to Iran, which has insisted, against all evidence, that its nuclear ambitions are limited to civilian purposes, and whether Israel and the U.S. view the threat the same way.
Barak is a leading proponent of a possible unilateral strike on Iran. In his public statements and in private conversations, he has referred to the "sword on Israel's neck"—the prospect of a regional neighbor and an outspoken enemy of the state acquiring the ability to destroy it. He cites a May 20th statement by Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, that his country is committed to the "full annihilation of Israel." Olmert told me, "Israel cannot tolerate an enemy with militarized nuclear power. We did not tolerate it in the past, whether it was in Iraq or Syria, and we cannot tolerate it in Iran."
A nuclear Iran also poses a considerable threat to American interests. "The entire world has an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," President Obama said in a speech on March 4, 2012. "An Iranian nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of a terrorist organization. It is almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon, triggering an arms race in one of the world's most volatile regions. It would embolden a regime that has brutalized its own people, and it would embolden Iran's proxies, who have carried out terrorist attacks from the Levant to southwest Asia." It would also undermine American credibility. Nuclear nonproliferation is a signature issue for Obama and has been for the U.S. since the Second World War. The last three Administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have pledged that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear program.
Yet the situation in Iran differs fundamentally from the Syrian case. The Syrian affair was known to only a small number of officials in Damascus, Israel, and Washington, whereas the prospect of striking Iran's nuclear program has been vigorously discussed in public. Experts have pointed to the risk of civilian casualties and prolonged retaliation. What's more, a key Iranian site lies deep underground outside the holy city of Qom, and it is strongly fortified; an attack on it would run a higher risk of failure. A strike might set back the Iranian program, but for how long, and at what cost? Some Israeli officials have expressed concern that a strike would only provide Iran with justification to pursue its nuclear program.
The issue in Israel is whether the Americans have sufficient resolve to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Obama has declared, "I don't bluff," and has said that all options are on the table, including the use of force. So far, efforts by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany have focussed on diplomacy and U.S.-led sanctions on Iran's export of oil and other economic sectors. Israel may not be so patient. "Israel often believes it stands alone," one official who deals with national-security issues told me. "If there are differences with the U.S. over Iran, Israel will assume, as it has in the past, that whoever's national security is most directly impacted will have to act even if the other does not agree."
Olmert was more cautious. "Each case must be examined separately," he said. "The Iraqi case was different from the Syrian case, and the Syrian case is different from the Iranian case." Olmert placed himself in the camp of former high-ranking officials, including Ashkenazi, Dagan, and Diskin, who are openly opposed to unilateral Israeli action against Iran; he has publicly urged Netanyahu not to pursue that approach. "Worse comes to worst, and all options have been tried, then, naturally, it may force Israel to act to defend its existence," he told me. "But it must be clear that we tried with the international community, and particularly with the United States, to act together before we resort to the last option of an Israeli military operation."
As in 2007, Israel is likely to assess the situation in Iran with an eye to its own security. Speaking to Israel's National Security College in July, 2012, Barak declared, "I am well aware of the depth and complexities involved in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, I am certain beyond any doubt that dealing with that challenge" of a nuclear-armed Iran "from the hour of its emergence—if it emerges—will be far more complicated, far more dangerous, and far more costly in human lives and resources." ♦


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Can anyone point me to an online database of Steiner triple systems?
My Google-fu is only getting me to descriptions of the few smallest ones, mostly Google book scans (which are rather useless to process using a computer...)
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Can anyone point me to an online database of Steiner triple systems?
My Google-fu is only getting me to descriptions of the few smallest ones, mostly Google book scans (which are rather useless to process using a computer...)
The first answer is not a database of the Steiner triple systems, but rather how many there are up to isomorphism. It is known that they there are 2 of order 13, 80 of order 15, and 11084874829 of order 19. The last number was computed by Kaski and Ostergard, and I suppose that the best approach is to ask them for their data. It's more or less the end of the story, because it is easy to make larger Steiner triple systems, but impossible to compile them into a complete database.
Actually this paper describes a compressed 39-gigabyte file with the Steiner triple systems of order 19, and says that it is available by e-mail request from three of the authors (including Kaski and Ostergard).
It looks like a number of people have the Steiner triple systems of order 15, but I didn't find a paper that simply lists them.
Update 1: It seems that everyone works from the paper "Small Steiner triple systems and their properties", by Mathon, Phelps, and Rosa. This paper is basically an encyclopedia of the 80 Steiner triple systems of order 15 and many of their properties. It also introduces a somewhat standard numbering. The thing to do at this point would be to transcribe the data in this widely cited paper into a file. Google seems to indicate that no such file has been posted to the web.
Update 2: It was done! See file data/steiner.tbl in this GAP package by Nagy and Vojtechovsky. For some reason, a Steiner triple system of order $n$ is also called a Steiner loop of order $n+1$, and that is the terminology that they use. They copied the data from Colbourn and Rosa, Triple Systems, which presumably is the same as in Mathon, Phelps, and Rosa.
How I found it: I Googled one of the hexadecimal strings used to describe one of the STS(15)s. None of the Google's heuristics worked for me, so instead I used the old-fashioned trick of searching for a very specific keyword. It also shows up in a LaTeX PHD thesis, but the GAP file, which has almost the same syntax as Python, is better.


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Emily Badger
Emily Badger is a former staff writer at CityLab. Her work has previously appeared in Pacific Standard, GOOD, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
America hasn't had a rash of mass urban violence in a generation. In fact, the scene of burning inner cities is commonly linked with a single, now distant moment in U.S. history, at the height of racial unrest in the 1960s.
Urban riots, though, have periodically broken out around the world since then. Athens is on fire again. London combusted last summer, right around the same time violent protesters assembled in the streets of manufacturing cities in southern China. And then there was Paris in 2005. In many ways, it's curious this hasn't happened more recently in U.S. cities (or with the Occupy movement for that matter).
"Alienation, youth unemployment, distrust of police," says University of Pennsylvania historian Michael Katz, "these things are surely as prevalent in the U.S. as they were in France."
If anything, the conditions that fuel urban violence – income inequality, poverty, joblessness – are as disheartening in America as ever, in the wake of a deep recession.
"So why," Katz asks, "had collective violence more or less disappeared from the streets of American cities?"
He tackles this question in a new book, Why Don't American Cities Burn?, which he discussed Friday in Washington at a forum hosted by the New America Foundation. What's so striking about his answer is that many of the trends implicated in our quiet streets are not necessarily good ones. It's true, American cities aren't burning. But we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back just yet.
Some of Katz' explanations are good news: Previously marginalized groups that once felt they had no other outlet now have more voices in the political process. White flight ceded whole cities – and their governments – to African Americans in the U.S. And this left neighborhood boundaries less contentious, Katz argues, eliminating one of the causes of urban friction. In the 1960s, by contrast, large numbers of African Americans were moving into the city at a time when whites had not yet left.
Minorities are also more incorporated into high-end jobs, universities and neighborhoods today. Katz adds, though, that this selective incorporation (which has benefited black women much more than men) has fractured minority communities, and eroded their potential for collective action.
Some of his other explanations are decidedly more troubling. Populations that once rioted have now joined the "consumer republic," in which more people are able to buy material symbols of the good life, if not the good life itself. Authorities have ramped up their surveillance and control tactics – along with the country's prison population – which puts a damper on organizing in the first place. And Katz points in particular to a general de-politicization in American life that undercuts communities' likelihood for civil action. It's not that our urban problems have gone away (while they remain in Athens, London and Paris). But some of the capacity to fight them has.
"It's good that we don't have mass civil violence, for sure," Katz says. "But the question is: Why don't we have more political mobilization?"
Top image: Protesters hurl rocks at police during a violent anti-austerity demonstration in central Athens February 12, 2012. (Reuters/Yannis Behrakis)
In an era of austere federal funding for urban public transportation, light rail seemed to make sense. Did the little trains of the 1980s pull their own weight?
A different kind of wealth distribution in 17th-century Amsterdam paved the way for its quintessential home design.
Livability indexes can obscure the experiences of non-white people. CityLab analyzed the outcomes just for black women, for a different kind of ranking.
Tiny upper-floor "maids' rooms" have helped drive down local assumptions about exactly how small a livable home can be.
The pioneering festival marketplace was among the most trendsetting urban attractions of the last 40 years. Now it's looking for a new place in a changed city.


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Too Much of a Good Thing?
Classic Dr. Phil
Do you know people who use work, food, shopping, money to the extreme? When does it become too much? Our guests are self-proclaimed work-, shop- and food-aholics. They say their incredibly strong need for these things feels almost like an addiction.
Today, our guests have written in using the word addictions. Often people use the term addiction when they feel they just can't live without something like a food, their money, or their coffee. But, an addiction is actually when you are physically dependent on a substance. What our guests are actually experiencing are impulsive disorders, and the term addictions today is more of their feeling about their need, as it has become psychologically addicting to work, eat, or spend money.
Guests work to break an abusive cycle.
See Rod's update.
How is he two years later?


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Diabetes on Your Wedding Day
A million things are on your mind on the big day—and fretting about your diabetes shouldn't be one of them. So what can you do? Read on for tips no bride with diabetes should be without.
The last thing you want to stress about when getting married is your diabetes—counting carbs, testing your blood sugar, hiding a pump. The good news? You can tie the knot without worry, thanks to these tips from Susan Weiner, author of The Complete Diabetes Organizer: Your Guide to a Less Stressful and More Manageable Diabetes Life (Spry Publishing), and Natalie Strand, MD, an assistant professor in clinical anesthesiology at University of Southern California in Los Angeles. A winner of The Amazing Race, Dr. Strand also happens to have type 1 diabetes—and managed to have a picture-perfect wedding.
Before your wedding . . .
Camouflage your diabetes supplies
Hidden pockets can be created in your wedding gown to hold your pump or other diabetes tools. "I had a pocket sewn into my gown so that I could reach down and casually pull out my continuous glucose monitor or insulin pump," Dr. Strand explains. The best part? "The pockets didn't change the look of the dress!" Hint: If the fabric of your dress can't be easily snipped, invest in a medium-sized chic clutch that can hold your meter case.
Adopt this mantra
Practice makes perfect! "Do a run-through schedule for your wedding day," says Weiner. That'll help you figure out when and what to eat and when to test your blood sugar. One caveat: "Don't expect it to go exactly that way—chances are you won't feel the nerves on the trial day that you'll feel on your wedding day," Weiner warns. "But you can still figure out what problems may pop up when it comes to the timing of blood sugar testing or meals."
Put safe indulgences on the menu
Dr. Strand didn't eliminate elegant meals—rather, she chose fare with few carbs, but lots of flavor. For example, she opted for hand-passed hors d'oeuvres over a pasta station, so portions were smaller and healthier. "And instead of mini pizzas or quiches, I chose things like shrimp and fish—foods that taste great, but don't severely affect blood sugar." She also picked trout over steak for the main course, which has less fat and calories.
…And that includes cake!
Have your cake and eat it, too: "There are tons of sugar substitutes for baking," says Dr. Strand. As for frosting, a whipped instead of a thicker style is key. "Whipped means less volume, which means less sugar and calories," she explains.
Buy shoes in twos
It's important for people with diabetes to keep their feet healthy, and that means avoiding blisters and cuts. So if you want to dance the night away, comfy heels or flats are a must. "I had a cute pair of shoes for pictures, and another pair for dancing," says Dr. Strand.
On the day of your wedding . . .
Jump-start the day
Dr. Strand knew she'd be "distracted in the morning worrying about hair, makeup, getting ready and running around," but she made sure to eat a filling breakfast. A protein-and-fiber combo (think eggs or Greek yogurt and fruit) can help keep your blood sugar stable throughout the day. Adds Weiner: "The day of your wedding is not the time to try new foods. If you're used to eating oatmeal with walnuts and cinnamon for breakfast, continue with that."
Hide your glucose here
Your bouquet! That way, you can easily treat a low, without having to run off—especially if you're already down the aisle or in the middle of taking pictures. "Stashing glucose inside the stem of the bouquet meant I could reach in and pull it out if needed—with no one noticing!" says Dr. Strand. Men, tuck some glucose into a pocket on your pants or jacket.
Designate a helper—or nine!
Enlist the help of someone who's willing to remind you to test your blood sugar at certain times (such as before the walk down the aisle or first dance). "With everything going on, my bridesmaids agreed to keep an eye on me, reminding me to focus on testing," Dr. Strand says. "I had nine bridesmaids, so each reminding me once was more than enough!"
Make sure to eat
Whether due to nerves or too much going on, many brides and grooms barely get a chance to eat at their wedding. "You don't want to go too low, get dizzy and faint!" says Weiner. Tip: Have your entertainer halt the music as a cue to sit for dinner. That way, you'll feel less pressure to get up and mingle, and you'll enjoy your meal.
Pay attention to alcohol
If your healthcare provider says it's okay, one alcoholic drink with a meal is fine. But alcohol adds lots of empty calories and sugar and may affect blood sugar levels. Your best bet: Drinks that have less sugar—small amounts of liquor mixed with club soda or diet soda, light beer, dry wines or wine spritzers (wine mixed with club soda).
"I had skinny margaritas instead of the sugary ones that can top 40 grams of sugar per drink," Dr. Strand says. "I had many nonalcoholic beverages as well—sparkling sugar-free lemonade being my favorite." Note that the American Diabetes Association endorses a one-glass maximum for women and two for men per day.
Keep cool, calm and collected
It's normal to have wedding-day jitters. "But because your blood sugar may go up due to the stress, you must test your blood sugar to make sure you're in a target range," says Weiner. "And speak to the people around you. Let them know you want to remain calm, and that they should, too!" If you're noticing the stress building, try going into a room away from the crowd, taking a few deep breaths and thinking positively.


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Every McLaren is created special, but owners still want to put their own stamp on their cars, to tailor them to match their own tastes. MSO Defined offers a range of personalisation beyond the factory options packages for Super Series and Sports Series owners, with choices for other models to follow. These enable owners to both customise the appearance of their cars, with carbon fibre parts and accents, but also to improve performance with aerodynamic kits and lightweight components.
Extended Carbon Fibre Paddles
Details count, and the gear-change paddles are one of the most important tactile interfaces of any McLaren. These optional carbon paddles are longer and ergonomically formed to make them easier to reach and operate.
Formula 1™ - Inspired Shift Lights
Produced in response to demand from track day enthusiasts, these Formula 1™-inspired shift lights are a popular choice for those who want to take their 650S to the limit. They illuminate progressively as the engine approaches its red line, and brightly enough to be seen without taking your eyes off the road.
Paul Mackenzie, Executive Director of MSO said:
'We don't just do styling changes. There is real engineering substance behind the work carried out by the MSO team. We're an engineering and design operation, as well as offering extra levels of hand craftsmanship.'
Carbon Fibre Rear Diffuser
This lightweight rear diffuser is part of a full aerodynamic kit, which was first offered on the 650S MSO and is now available for other versions. Not only does it look great, but it also saves weight and improves performance.
Carbon Fibre Air Vents
Personalisation means the ability to change small things, not just big things. You will find carbon-effect trim in many cars, but in a McLaren carbon fibre is always the real thing.
Carbon Fibre Mirror Arms
Carbon fibre is stronger than steel or aluminium and weighs far less. MSO Defined components, like carbon fibre mirror arms or full carbon fibre rear deck, don't just look good but reduce weight too.


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Is everyone truly equal under the eyes of the law? When Sun Man Kwan "MK" (Kenneth Ma) was young, he was wrongly accused of using drugs but was successfully defended by the famous lawyer, Tsui Ching Ping "Brandon" (Waise Lee). MK grows up to become an attorney just like his new idol and gets hired at Brandon's law firm after MK beats Brandon's wife, Chin Siu Haam "Brenda" (Rebecca Chan), in a court case. There, he meets fellow attorneys Suen Lei Lei "Lily" (Ella Koon) and Cheuk Wai Ming "Vincent" (Sammul Chan). MK becomes smitten with Lily but she doesn't return his feelings. And although he has a rocky start with Vincent, he and MK eventually become best friends. As MK and Vincent get entangled in matters of the heart and the law, can they prove that everyone gets a fair shake through the justice system? "Survivor's Law II" is a 2007 Hong Kong drama series directed by Kwan Wing Chung. It is the sequel of "Survivor's Law," which originally aired in 2003.
This show does not have any episodes


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Max does a lot in Max Payne 3. He shoots guys, tries not to be shot by guys, shoots other guys... you know, like you do.
But behind all of the action making Max Payne tick are dedicated voice and motion-capture actors whose performances, with digital skins on, make the game. Rockstar has posted a behind-the-scenes glimpse at a piece of the process, showing how Max Payne came to be.
Actor James McCaffrey performed both the voice and the body work for the titular antihero. And when Rockstar needed to fill a virtual São Paulo with plausible Brazilians, they went to Brazil to cast and record the roles. Over a number of extensive voice acting and body-scanning sessions, Rockstar recorded everyone from a Ju-Jitsu world champion to a pageant queen to a local rapper.
It's a neat look at just how much work it can be to fill a video game with the wide cast of extras you'd expect to find on a normal city street. When every aspect of your story's world has to be crated from scratch, assembling your actors can be an ordeal indeed.
From NYC to São Paulo: Behind the Scenes of Max Payne 3's Voiceover, Mo-Cap & Scanning Sessions [Rockstar blog, via Game Informer]
Photo: Rockstar


text: You love the protection of long-fingered gloves, but worry about those long, hot summer rides. Worry not, Bontrager has you covered with their Evoke Gloves. The backs are made with cooling mesh for unsurpassed breathability. They're super lightweight, but that doesn't mean they skimp on the benefits. The palms are made with synthetic leather, with double layers in key wear areas for serious durability. Silicone grippers keep your grip on the bars and levers and you've got absorbent fleece panels for face wiping. The only thing that will heat up is the action.


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The reason for the continued delay is not clear, even given that statistically there is little to choose between the candidates beyond (in my opinion) Armstrong, Neighbour and Forrest. Did performances at the Richmond event suggest the need for a rethink?
Will past practice be followed with two women making the squad? Will non-BC members Chris Sobkowicz and Bruno Yizek be included to give them the benefit of meaningful international competition prior to 2010? Or a compromise - Sonja Gaudet plus either Chris or Bruno? Or will experience win out and Gary Cormack and Gerry Austgarden hold on to their spots?
With six of the squad from BC and entries for the BC playdowns for the Canadian Nationals due by December 22, the choice has implications for BC's playdown teams who will be allowed only two Team Canada members on any one side.
You can add your choice for Team Canada 2009 by adding a comment to the couple of dozen guesses already posted on the December 10th Blog post.


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You can try to find somewhere better to watch the rugby, but why risk it?
We will be ready to welcome you to every Six Nations game this year so you can watch all the action from the comfort of your favourite pub.
Find your local to see if they're showing the rugby.
What's more, We've teamed up with Guinness to offer you the chance to win a trip to Dublin as well as tickets to an Autumn rugby international game.
To enter, visit your favourite Nicholson's pub this weekend and order a pint of the black stuff to start collecting your stamps to be entered into the prize draw*.
Scotland v Ireland BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh 2:25pm
England v France Twickenham Stadium, London 4:50pm
Italy v Wales at Stadio Olimpico, Rome 2:00pm (GMT)
Italy v Ireland at Stadio Olimpico, Rome 2:25pm (GMT)
Wales v England at Principality Stadium, Cardiff 4:50pm
France v Scotland at Stade de France, Paris 3:00pm (GMT)
Scotland v Wales at BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh 2:25pm
Ireland v France at Aviva Stadium, Dublin 4:50pm
England v Italy at Twickenham Stadium, London 3:00pm
Wales v Ireland at Principality Stadium, Cardiff 8:05pm
Italy v France at Stadio Olimpico, Rome 1:30pm (GMT)
England v Scotland at Twickenham Stadium, London 4:00pm
Scotland v Italy at BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh 12:30pm
France v Wales at Stade de France, Paris 2:45pm (GMT)
Ireland v England at Aviva Stadium, Dublin 5:00pm
Terms & Conditions:
*Buy a pint of Guinness or Nicholson's Pale Ale during any Six Nations game and receive a stamp. Collect 5 stamps to be in with a chance of winning a prize. One stamp per customer visit per Six Nations Match Day. Stamps available between 4th February and 18th March 2017. Completed loyalty cards must be handed in before midnight 18th March 2017. Photocopies will not be accepted. The winner will be notified after the end of the Six Nations tournament.


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Geek Pro Logo Template is An excellent logo template highly suitable for online business, website, blog, media, club, school or anything related to computer and digital.
These files onsists of resizable vector format files like AI, EPS , and PDF .
Also PSD format for raster version alternative.
font used Aller


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Safety Information: Meets all US, Canadian and European safety standards The CPSC recommends the top bunk for children 6 and older. Weight limit for the top bunk is 250 lbs. Sturdy frame and solid rails on top bunk. Angled ladder, with safety tread for safer climbing, can be securely attached on either side of the bed. Optional guard rails for lower bunk available. Lower than a conventional bunk bed, improving accessibility. Loft and twin bed can be separated at any point.
Eco-friendly: Made of Baltic birch plywood and eco-MDF. Finishes are non toxic, water-based and free of VOC health hazards. Made under European environmental standards. Packaging made of recycled cardboard. Responsible recycling through licensed collecting facilities.
Other Info: Assembly required. Top bunk mattress should be no more than 8" thick. The mattress for the lower bunk must be between 5-8" deep when using the guard rail. Both upper and lower bunks take a standard twin mattress (not included).
US Delivery Time: Most often furniture is in stock at Oeuf and available for immediate delivery in the US only. Orders are generally shipped from the warehouse within 3 to 5 business days, unless otherwise indicated. Please consider this packing time when placing your order. Also remember to not include weekends or holidays in calculating the estimated transit time for your shipment. Once your order has shipped, you will receive an email notification with tracking information. Most items ship via FedEx and take 7-10 business days. Freight items can take 1-3 weeks, but sometimes sooner. Once your freight order reaches the local hub, you will receive a phone call to schedule a delivery time and date. Please include your phone number at check out. Items are shipped from Yardville, NJ or Brooklyn, NY.
Please note that furniture orders are final sale.


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Please Note: These questions and answers supplement the revised qualification standard that went into effect for GS-1102 contract specialist positions in non-Defense agencies as of January 1, 2000. The standard was developed by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 433.
Issues that arise in implementing the standard should be addressed to the human resources specialists in your agency who will be able to seek the advice and assistance of OPM and OFPP, as necessary.
The answer to this question first requires an understanding of the purpose of the 24-hour coursework requirement, which is to provide a person with a minimum amount of business knowledge. This is particularly important because the primary function of contract specialists is to negotiate and execute business relationships on behalf of the Government. The eleven fields listed in the standard are identical to those set forth by Congress in DAWIA, and presumably they were selected because they capture the types of knowledge and skills desired for members of the acquisition workforce to execute this function.
Colleges and universities do not use a standard convention for course numbering aligned to the eleven fields. For example, one institution identifies its accounting curriculum as "AMIS" courses, standing for "accounting and management information systems." Therefore, it is neither practical nor reasonable to restrict interpretation of the word "fields" to institutional programs using precisely the same language. Instead, it is appropriate to consider the identified fields as general subject areas. If the content of a course arguably fits within the general subject area represented by one of the fields, it should qualify toward the 24-hour requirement. A human resource specialist, or whoever in your organization credits completion of the 24 hours, may need to review the course syllabus whenever it is not obvious from the course title that content fits the field. Consider these examples: a sociology course in statistics; a public administration course in quantitative techniques; a psychology course in organizational behavior. If the content of these courses is comparable to, or perhaps is recognized by the academic institution as a substitute for, courses clearly resting in the listed fields, you should receive credit toward the 24-hour requirement. It is your responsibility to furnish supporting descriptive information if credit for a course is being questioned.
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The answer depends on the circumstances. A "lateral" is a reassignment into a position at the same grade. If you meet the qualification requirements, obviously you can lateral into positions within your own agency or other agencies without a waiver. If you do not meet the qualification requirements, the rules vary by grade and circumstances as described here. There is no waiver provision applicable to grades GS-5 through GS-12, only for grades GS-13 and above. Below GS-13, the "exceptions" language of the standard permits you to lateral into a position at any agency and then to continue to be eligible for promotions through GS-12. For grades GS-13 and above, the "exceptions" language permits you to lateral into positions at your agency or other agencies at the grade you occupy as of January 1, 2000 without a waiver. These "exceptions" are "grandfathering" features afforded to the existing workforce.
Suppose you are promoted into grade GS-13 or above after December 31, 1999 on the basis of a waiver. The need for a waiver for a subsequent lateral in this circumstance depends on whether you are changing agencies. If another agency wants to lateral you into one of its GS-13 or above positions, that agency must grant a waiver in order to give you the lateral. If your own agency (the one that gave you the waiver for the position you now occupy) wants to lateral you into another position within the agency, it may do so without processing a new waiver, even if geographic relocation is involved. For example, if you were promoted to a GS-13 Contract Specialist position at NIH-Bethesda MD based on a waiver, you could be selected for a lateral into a GS-13 Procurement Analyst position at CDC-Atlanta GA without the HHS senior procurement executive granting another waiver (since both organizations are within HHS). However, you could not lateral from the NIH position into a GS-13 Contract Specialist position at EPA unless the EPA senior procurement executive granted you another waiver.


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This site is privately owned and is neither affiliated with, nor endorsed by, nor operated by any government agency. Visit healthcare.gov
Call Us For your Health Insurance Quote: 866-932-7461
get a free quote for affordable healthcare online
Because of the Affordable Care Act, Washington residents who have insurance are granted more choices and stronger coverage than ever before. Additionally, Washington residents who don't have insurance or have, but are not satisfied with it, can now receive new rights, protections and benefits.
Things you should know:
The new online Health Insurance Marketplace provides individuals, families and small businesses who are looking for a better deal a new way to find health coverage that fits their needs and their budgets.
The official ObamaCare enrollment period ended on March 31, 2014. Important Notice: Its urgent, to avoid future fines and penalties, to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Health Care Act.
Washington Individuals & Families: Find out the most cost efficient healthcare insurance for you.
The 80/20 Rule
Health insurance companies now have to spend at least 80 cents of your premium dollar on health care or improvements to care, or provide you a refund.
Promoting Health
The health care law promotes better health by increasing support for community health centers and investing in the primary care workforce.
The health care law increases the funding available to community health centers nationwide to:
Investments are also used by The National Health Service Corps to repay educational loans and provide scholarships to primary care physicians, dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, behavioral health providers, and other primary care providers who practice in areas of the country that have too few health care professionals.
As of September 30, 2012, there were 325 Corps clinicians providing primary care services in Washington, compared to 115 in 2008.
The Marketplace
To check your options you can visit your state's Marketplace. For Washington it is Wahealthplanfinder.org
What if I can't afford coverage?
The Affordable Care Act provides two programs to help individuals afford coverage through the Marketplace:
Subsidies are aimed at people with incomes between 139% to 400% of the FPL (federal poverty level).
*Current 139% FPL is $23,050 for a family of four and the 400% is $92,200.
Families who make more than the current FPL will get considerably less cost assistance.
Subsidies are given as refundable tax credits.
The Tax Penalty
If someone can afford health insurance and decides not to have coverage in 2014, they may have to pay a fee also known as Tax Penalty. The penalty can be any of the options explained below (whichever is higher):
*This fee increases every year.
*If you're uninsured for less than 3 months, you don't have a make a payment.
To avoid the fee you need insurance that qualifies as Minimum Essential Coverage.
You're considered covered and don't have to pay a penalty if you have any of the following:
Some people are exempted from the fee.
These include:
• Individuals whose health coverage may cost more than 8% of their household income.
• Individuals with incomes too low for filing taxes.
• Individuals with religious exemptions.
• Undocumented immigrants.
• Individuals who are incarcerated.
• Members of Native American tribes.
To explore health insurance options access the Marketplace by visiting HealthCare.org
Individuals and Families living in Washington can utilize www.coveredca.com in an effort to secure health insurance for themselves and their loved ones.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the national health reform, which includes new responsibilities and opportunities for employers.
The Affordable Care Act offers new benefits, rights and protections that affect you, your family and/or your business.
Thanks to ObamaCare, people who don't have insurance or have, but are not satisfied with it, now have new rights, protections and benefits.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, people who have insurance are granted more choices and stronger coverage than ever before.
The Health Insurance Marketplace is sometimes known as the health insurance "exchange." It is a state's price comparison website for subsidized health insurance.
Simply complete the information, and we will inmediately coonect you with a healthcare advisor who can provide the bes options available for you!
We know how important it is to understand what the Affordable Care Act offers. There are new benefits, rights and protections that affect you, your family and your business.


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The Hillsdale County Sheriff's Office works closely with educators in our county to provide assistance in areas relating to school security, drug prevention, gun safety, strangers on school property, bicycle and pedestrian safety and many other services relating to school age children.
We have joined in a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to highlight these issues within our homes and community. We feel that early detection and prevention starts with the safety programs such as Eddie Eagle GunSafe, Stranger Danger and Internet Safety Programs that we offer to our community schools. For more information check out the links below or call the Sheriff's Office at (517) 437-7317.
- Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program- Teaches children pre-K through 3rd grade four important steps to take if they find a gun. Call the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Office at (517) 437-7317 to schedule the Eddie Eagle program for your school.
- Stranger Danger- Using materials from the popular McGruff the Dog material, the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Office conducts training in the schools in our county to help children understand potentially dangerous situations.
- Safe School Program - The Hillsdale County Sheriff's Office conducts school security assessments and incident training for the schools in Hillsdale County.
- Internet Safety- Current resources for parents and educators regarding Internet safety and tips.