text:
Lightning doesn't often strike twice, but in the case of the father-and-son team of David and Orion Hindawi, founders of Tanium, Inc., that's exactly what has happened. Tanium — an enterprise-scale real-time security and systems management company — is a prime example of a modern enterprise software company: solving the new generation of today's problems using skills and experience gained from being successful founders in the previous generation.
David Hindawi, a Ph.D. in Operations Research from U.C. Berkeley is an entrepreneur who led the creation of several successful companies through the earliest days of the PC era. His early efforts focused on getting PCs connected to the "net" and keeping them running smoothly. In 1997, David teamed up with his son Orion, then an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, to form BigFix.
BigFix solved the problem of communicating with all the endpoints (PCs, servers, virtual machines, and more) on enterprise networks to gather configuration data and deploy product updates. BigFix was a remarkable product for the time routinely scaling to 100,000 endpoints. In 2010, IBM acquired BigFix and integrated it into the Tivoli Software portfolio.
Some might have been content to rest on their laurels having invented a technology, built a company, and scaled a business to the most elite of enterprise success stories. Instead, David, Orion, and the key architects of BigFix had an even bigger idea.
Forming Tanium came about as the team reflected on shortcomings. "We recognized that enterprises needed endpoint control that was much faster than they could get with existing tools, and challenged ourselves to leapfrog the state of the art, including BigFix, where basic management queries could take days," Orion recounted. "We knew that nothing short of a 10,000 times speed improvement over the state of the art at the time would solve the problem, and we needed to fundamentally change the paradigm of systems management and endpoint security to accomplish that. We are lucky to have one of the few engineering teams in enterprise management who are smart and ambitious enough to do that".
The team, mostly members of the original BigFix engineering group and all experts with years of experience in large enterprise management, worked in their Berkeley, CA offices for almost two years before the first customers saw the early results of their new product. When seeing the product in action, it was clear to early customers that the team had in fact built a better mousetrap. Tanium was born.
When Orion first came to Andreessen Horowitz to meet us and introduce Tanium we had no idea what a surprise we were in for. Collectively we are many old hands at systems management and security. Many folks at a16z share the experience of having built Opsware — and my own experience at Microsoft — make for an informed, and perhaps tough, audience.
Orion popped open his laptop and navigated to Tanium's web-based "console". At the top of the screen, we saw a single edit control like you'd see for a search engine. He started typing in natural language questions such as "show computers where CPU > 75%" and "show computers with a process named WINWORD.EXE". Within seconds — just like using search — a list of computers scrolled by as though it were an existing spreadsheet or report.
At this point we reached the only reasonable conclusion: Orion was showing us a simulation of the product they hoped to build. After all, we were all quite familiar with the state of the art (represented by the likes of BigFix) for this type of telemetry and we knew that what we were seeing was just not possible.
But the demonstration was not a simulation or edited screen capture. In fact, Tanium was running on a full-scale deployment of thousands of endpoints. This wasn't even a demo scenario, but a live, production deployment … the magic of Tanium. As we learned more about Tanium and how it easily scales to 500,000 endpoints (not theoretically, but in practice) and the breadth of capabilities, we were more than intrigued. We were determined to invest in David, Orion, and team.
In enterprises, one team is generally responsible for securing endpoints, while another is responsible for managing them (systems management). Typically, each team uses its own tools, and each is independently struggling to keep pace with modern network security threats and the scale of modern networks.
Today's IT pros on both security and management teams know the types of information they need from their network. With current tools these questions require careful planning, significant infrastructure, and a fine balance between what IT needs to know and the cost to the end user who is working on the computers that are being queried — if you get it wrong, you can cause slow logons and sluggish performance at inconvenient times.
However, to effectively manage and secure networks and provide assurance of compliance with government and industry regulations IT pros absolutely require information such as hardware configuration, software inventory, network usage, patch and update status, and more. In addition, today's socially engineered security risks are often combinations of seemingly simple combinations of running programs, files, or attachments on the system, and a few other clues. An IT pro walking up to a PC or Mac could easily obtain all of this information, but for all practical purposes it is impossible for them to gather that data from the thousands of endpoints they are responsible for with any level of ease or timeliness.
Getting that data at scale is typically hard and slow because almost every Systems Management tool uses a classic hub (servers) and-spoke (endpoints) architecture. IT pros deploy multiple servers running on network segments with high-end databases and significant networking hardware combined with fairly elaborate endpoint runtimes. Even when this state of the art deployment is carefully tuned, the best case at very large scales can be three days to "compute" the answer to critical operational questions — assuming you knew ahead of time you were going to ask those questions. By this time, the information would be out of date and by then the whole problem likely changed.
As a result most IT pros know that best case, the data is approximate; and worst case, it's just worthless. For mission-critical problems, such as compliance with HIPAA (healthcare) or PCI (electronic payment) regulations, this is more than just inconvenient for IT — it can cause a painful failure with board-level visibility.
The state of the art for security is all about building stronger and taller walls between the enterprise network and the internet. We're familiar with these approaches across the basics of firewalls, more sophisticated security appliances, and adaptive architectures, and of course the typical security suites that run on endpoints. Unfortunately, the bad guys are wise to that game, and modern threats anticipate that these protections are in place — in many cases, the bad guys actually "QA" their attacks against the systems enterprises use before they release them. In addition, today's malware is targeted to particular organizations, and is often put in place by a series of seemingly benign or undetectable actions.
Malware, a bot, or a backdoor make their way onto the network leaving behind a series of benign clues: a running process, a changed file, a memory signature, or a specific network packet. It is only taken together that a pattern emerges. It is only after the fact or with an IOC (indicator of compromise) in hand that IT pros can potentially track down endpoints that have been compromised. Unfortunately, IT is literally swamped by IOCs to investigate and there are no effective tools that support this wide range of questions.
And even if you could, the state of the art would give answers in days, long after the damage was done.
Even with these challenges, both of these state of the art approaches have their place in a modern network. It would be irresponsible to run a network without basic asset management or network firewalls and endpoint protection such as anti-virus. Unfortunately, however, for the vast majority of both threats and systems management, the needs of IT pros are far more dynamic and complex than existing systems can provide. This is the opportunity where Tanium adds unique value to the tools of the modern IT and security professional.
At 16z, we love the opportunity to partner with enterprise companies that are either working to radically improve the way a given IT need is met with software — or transforming the IT landscape by re-creating or re-defining the traditional categories with unique software. Tanium is magical because does both.
In practice, the Tanium team accomplished nothing short of a complete rethinking of how IT pros manage, secure, and maintain the endpoints in their network — every node on the network can now be interrogated, managed, updated, and secured, instantly from a browser.
You can literally ask almost anything of an endpoint — such as configuration, patch status, software inventory compliance, performance, reliability measures, telemetry, network activity, files, and more (basically anything you can ask of a running system) — and get answers back in seconds. Not only can you ask questions, but you can take actions as well: distribute and install updates, shut down processes or executables, remove or quarantine files, and so on. All of this happens in seconds, across your entire network of endpoints, across LAN segments and the WAN, from branch offices to headquarters to the data center.
David, Orion, and team have invented a completely new way to think about managing and securing a network of computers. The magic of Tanium is built out of four innovative technology pillars:
1. Runtime. The Tanium runtime builds on the endpoint management lessons of BigFix. The runtime serves as the platform for asking the endpoint questions in the scripting language of your choice (VBscript, Powershell, WMI, Python, Unix Shell, and most any other language), packaging up the answers, and getting them to a single server/VM that coordinates the activities. The runtime also provides actions allowing you to make changes across your entire network, instantly. The endpoint runtime is a couple megabytes, takes almost no CPU or RAM, and incurs nearly imperceptible network usage.
2. LP2P Networking: Endpoints secured by Tanium do not drive up costly WAN traffic but instead communicate between endpoints on the local area network. Expensive WAN load is vastly reduced because rather than all endpoints trying to reach a single data center across the WAN, answers and actions are coordinated across an incredibly efficient LP2P (linear peer-to-peer) architecture — an innovative hybrid of mesh and peer-to-peer concepts designed and validated for the enterprise. LP2P is self-healing and architected for fault tolerance, transient endpoints, and global WAN segments connected in a typical manner.
3. Natural Language. The interface to Tanium is through a simple text box where you can use natural language to ask questions of the entire set of endpoints. Just like using web search, each question gives you suggestions for follow up questions, refinements, and ways to improve your queries. You use natural language questions to generate tables, charts, time series, and other representations of your near real-time network status — instantly.
4. Security. The entire Tanium platform was architected from the ground up to be secure enough for the largest enterprise and federal networks. Tanium affords IT pros incredible power and flexibility in managing and securing endpoints, and recognizes the need to ensure that power stays in the right hands. As a result, all traffic is FIPS-level secured, actions are controlled and validated by signed certificates, and administrators have fine-grained control over the types of queries and actions permitted by different users within IT.
If you're running existing state of the art tools for managing and securing your endpoints, you have a fixed set of diagnostic questions that you routinely ask and then store the answers in a database for later analysis. Even if it's a simple question like what version of OS software your computers are running, it will take a few days or more to get answers. If you have a crisis requiring new information, you're likely push out an emergency logon script or dreaded background process to add a new question to the list of slowly collected answers, and days later you know the approximate answer.
As a result of the innovations above, Tanium completely upends the thinking about how this should work. By analogy, if you think about the current state of the art as a printed set of classic encyclopedias, then Tanium is like having the entire internet at your disposal through a search engine.
Rather than a set of fixed questions and answers, you use Tanium to explore your endpoints. When new security threats arise you can immediately explore your risk by using any telemetry to diagnose your risk and then using any mechanism to take corrective actions — instantly. A top of mind example for all of us is the outbreak of Heartbleed. As soon as your operations center received notice of this vulnerability, there was one simple question "what variants and versions of OpenSSL are we running across all servers and VMs". Almost no management and inventory system would have this readily available. Many would have first relied on what was believed to the "standard" images, but later would find out that isn't enough. With Tanium, you just ask a question in natural language and within seconds you can have any level of details required on the servers and VMs running OpenSSL. You can then shut those servers down, deploy updates, or monitor actions — instantly.
Identifying and securing endpoints for compliance with regulations, software licensing, or corporate policy is equally simple. When talking to Orion about Tanium, I searched my own experience for what I thought was a trick question. I wanted to know "how many endpoints had attached USB memory stick and written to it recently" (a potential information leak, compliance issue, or malware vector all in one simple and common operation). Once again Tanium's magic delivered an answer from a natural language query in just a few seconds for thousands of computers.
In addition to all of this, Tanium is also a true platform. IT pros can utilize mature REST, SOAP, and syslog APIs to connect the results of Tanium queries to their favorite big data destination and develop time-series models of their endpoints and mine the data for patterns. Because the Tanium runtime has such a minimal impact it is possible to collect thousands of independent data points continuously from hundreds of thousands of endpoints, feeding the predictive analytics and big data systems that enterprises are building today with extremely valuable data. This type of analysis allows for finding points in time when the network changed, identifying malware, bots, and other exploits that we all know escape traditional firewalls and anti-virus. Using the platform, IT can also create tailored dashboards and custom actions that enable monitoring and guarantee compliance of endpoints with standards.
I could continue going on and on about the magic of Tanium that David, Orion, and the amazing team created.
When we talk about Tanium we describe it as an entrepreneur "trifecta": First, David and Orion are experienced and successful entrepreneurs. Second, Tanium is a product that builds on innovative and inventive technology that could only come about from a team with experience and depth of understanding the enterprise. And third, Tanium is already a successful and profitable company with dozens of customers in massive, mission-critical, and global deployments.
With this incredible story, Andreessen Horowitz could not be more excited to be leading an investment in Tanium. I'm personally super excited to be joining the Tanium board where I will work closely with David, Orion, and the team.
Steven Sinofsky is a board partner at Andreessen Horowitz, an adviser at Box Inc., and an executive-in-residence at Harvard Business School.


text:
Most City bankers who left jobs in the past year haven't resurfaced
It's become a cliché, but if you work in banking and are dissatisfied with the state of your bonus feel thankful that you have a job. An examination of the re-employment rates of people leaving nine major banks in London since January 2012 reveals that 72% of them have yet to resurface in comparable roles in the City.
The figures, derived from the the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) Register, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, 2,872 FSA approved people left the combined entities of BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse International, Goldman Sachs International, J.P. Morgan Chase National Bank Association, Merrill Lynch International, Morgan Stanley International, Nomura International, Societe Generale and UBS (some of the names seem dated as this how each bank originally registered with the FSA).
Of these 2,872 leavers, only 807, or 28% have re-emerged in FSA approved roles elsewhere in the City. Last time we looked, in October 2012, the rate of re-employment was 25%. Things have improved, but not much.
The rate at which people have found comparable new roles varies from firm to firm. People leaving US banks are most likely to find new roles. J.P. Morgan's investment bankers appear to be the most employable. Swiss and French banks' staff appear to be the least. The poor re-employment rate for bankers at UBS may be attributed to the fact that many have been let go since December 2012, giving them little time to find alternatives. It's equally conceivable that French bankers leaving BNP Paribas have returned to Paris and found new work there, rather than remaining in London.
More positively, some of the of bankers who haven't found comparable roles may have retired, or decided to leave banking and do something different entirely. Others, however, will be waiting in the wings - more than happy to take the role of anyone complaining about their zero bonus.
The re-employment league table for bankers
Percentage of FSA approved staff leaving each bank between January 2012-February 2013 and moving into alternative FSA approved jobs in London
1. JPMorgan Chase= 36%
2. Morgan Stanley International= 31%
3. Goldman Sachs International= 30%
4. Merrill Lynch International= 29%
5. Societe Generale= 29%
6. Nomura International= 28%
7. Credit Suisse International= 24%
9. BNP Paribas= 23%

subset: commoncrawl


text:
- Home
- City Hall
- Departments & Divisions
- Fire
- Our Department
Our Department
Our Mission Statement
The mission of the city of Marietta Fire Department (MFD) is to effectively prepare, provide and promote services that minimize the loss of life and property resulting from fires, medical emergencies and other disasters.
The Community We Serve
The Marietta Fire Department serves nearly 62,000 residents and approximately 7,300 businesses in 22.78 square miles. According to the 2000 census, the daily population increases to more than 97,000 when non-residents commute into the city of Marietta.
Fire personnel respond frequently to the highways that pass through Marietta. According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, approximately 250,000 vehicles traveled daily on I-75 between I-575 and the South 120 Loop in 2005.
About Our Department
The Marietta Fire Department was officially formed in 1854 following a massive fire that destroyed most of the Marietta Square. During this time of the mid 1800s, Marietta citizens relied on volunteer bucket brigades to pass water hand to hand from a water source to the fire as their only form of fire protection.
ISO 1 DepartmentFast forward to today, the Marietta Fire Department is an ISO 1 (Insurance Services Office) department, that employs, full-time, two civilians and over 130 sworn personnel. The rating of ISO 1 is the highest rating achievable for a fire department. The City has six fire stations that respond to around 13,000 total emergency calls per year. We have a state of the are fleet of apparatus including nine fire engines, three ladder trucks, two advanced life support rescues, a technical rescue truck, and a hazardous material response unit.
ServicesThe Marietta Fire Department provides many services to its community to not only protect but prepare its citizens for an emergency. These services include:
- Building Inspections
- Community Outreach
- Emergency Medical Service
- Emergency Pre-Planning
- Fire and Safety Education
- Fire Investigations
- Fire Suppression and Rescue
- Hazardous Materials Response
- Plan Reviews
- Technical Rescue


text:
VIRGINIA WATER, England – Two-time defending champion Luke Donald and Ryder Cup teammate Ian Poulter missed the cut Friday at the BMW PGA Championship.
Donald (72) was 6 over overall after two rounds in the cold and rain at Wentworth.
Donald's round of 78 Thursday was Donald's worst at Wentworth by four shots.
Poulter (76) is planning to make the most of his free weekend, going to the Champions League final at Wembley Stadium on Saturday and the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
Francesco Molinari (68) is the clubhouse leader with a 138 total, but overnight leader James Kingston has yet to start his second round.


text:
Inspirational Haiku: Stand Still – Hurricane Sandy…
"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." Gautama Buddha
If Lost…Stand still – Arrangement by David Wagoner
A native American Elder was asked,
"What shall we do if we get lost?"
Stand still. The trees before you and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is a place called here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger
both asking to know and be known.
Listen. The forest whispers,
"I have made this place, you can leave and return once again
saying, here."
No two trees are the same to Raven,
no two branches the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you,
you are truly lost.
Stand still. Listen.
The forest knows where you are.
Let it find you.
When fear calls… Stand still.
Divine guardians comfort you
Winds, Storms, turn within…
Wherever You are…
Pray, Sandy's dark storm be still.
Blizzards, Black outs, keel…
Hurricane Sandy's Path: I wish I were … here… however, "Wherever you are is a place called here" at least, I am home. As the winds howl around our home and the heavy rains beat down on us, I cannot help but acknowledge how powerful nature is and how much we depend on her grace for each moment … for each breath. Mother Nature continues to show her might in a complicated universe with divergent desires and right now, the word – compassion – comes to my mind…
When will we start showing all of our fellow men and women compassion and respect? The winds and the rains don't know what color or creed we are. As they sweep through cities and villages, they will spare or tear asunder whatever stands in their way… regardless of our political leanings or personal prejudices. We are all human first, let's start from there and just show we care. Stay safe and give a helping hand to a neighbor, a stranger, a friend today. More below!
"Sit, be still, and listen, because you're drunk and we're at the edge of the roof." Rumi
I said to my soul – T.S. Elliot
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,
for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.
And wait without love. For love would be love,
of the wrong thing.
Yet there is faith.
But the faith and the hope and the love, are all in the waiting.
And the darkness shall be the light
and the stillness the dancing.
Hurricane… Stand still.
Dissipate Sandy's harsh dance
Give Faith, Hope, Love's glance…
In a place called here…
Heart, May Sandy's storm retract
Post debris, we'll heal…
If we still have power later, I'll update this post with what I see. I wish I were … here but I'm staying faithful right here. Yes, I know, "Wherever you are is a place called here." It remains windy outside and the rains continue. There is a stillness in the air; a sense of anticipation all around and the trees that have given us shade and golden leaves brace to protect us; to counter the fury. Thank you trees, thank you hearth and home for covering us, news stations for keeping us updated, and thank you Tangy for being calm too. Thank you Mother Nature/Earth, we are your children so protect us too. Wherever you are, everyone in the path of the storm, I send you prayers of protection and love… Be safe… All will be well!
What are your thoughts? How do you handle impending danger? What has helped you? Do share! Thank you. 🙂
This post was inspired by a prompt from WP Daily Post: Weekly Writing Challenge: I Wish I Were In honor of Daryl's post, we ask you to finish the following sentence for this week's writing challenge: "I wish I were." Do you wish you were able to go back and visit that beautiful country you saw 10 years ago on vacation? Or do you wish you were more like a superhero and could reads minds as a special power? Or maybe you wish you were a famous writer, so you could share your voice with the world? (And if so, what would you want to say if you knew the world would listen?) The sky is the limit, so dream big and let us know what you wish for. Just don't forget to use what we learned. It's "I wish I were," not "I wish I was"!
*Please bear with me as I catch up on your blogs and commenting… I'm back on track with reading and responding to your blogs; albeit at a slow pace. Thank you all for your patience! 🙂
Positive Motivation Tip: Stand still when fear grips you and turn within… there are divine guardians reaching out to you.
PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: All Photos Sandy's storm, East River at 11am today via D. Shankman, via Wikipedia, Family watching the waves via CNN.com, via Flickr, or via my personal collection
Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet
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29/10/2012 2:43 pm
Stay safe and take care!
29/10/2012 2:49 pm
Yes I hope it passes quickly for you and all in the States, take care.
Oh and you actually appeared in my reader for the first time in months 🙂
29/10/2012 2:58 pm
Great post, very heartfelt, and I share those sentiments, Elizabeth!
29/10/2012 3:03 pm
Nice post. Calming and uplifting. For me it was chicken soup – because that always makes things better. Ditto cookies. A lot of watching out the window and watching on TV to stay aware. In and out a few times with my dog, Cupcake who thought the rain and wind were spanking her. I'm ready for Sandy to go away, now.
29/10/2012 3:11 pm
Calming words. I share your heartfelt sentiments. I"m in Southwest, Florida and have endured storms, but I am always at vigil for those in the path.
29/10/2012 3:14 pm
Lots of positive energy in this post, Elizabeth. Thank you for your compassion, insight, and humor. I'm not sure if it was meant to be funny, but the Rumi quote had me laughing out loud. Stay safe and be still. Love, Kozo.
29/10/2012 4:01 pm
Great post!
29/10/2012 4:03 pm
Calming and wise. Take care!
29/10/2012 6:33 pm
Love this positive post, Elizabeth. Thinking of everyone up there.
29/10/2012 7:00 pm
Hope you are safe and well.
29/10/2012 9:13 pm
Lovely post, Eof. I hope you are safe and well. My thoughts and prayers go to you.
29/10/2012 9:13 pm
I wish I were able to know all will be safe with you and all in Sandy's path. In prayer…
29/10/2012 9:43 pm
It's like you to send peace when you are in the middle of your own storm. I care about you…and hope you and yours are indeed safe! oxo
29/10/2012 10:55 pm
My best wishes to you E…..thinking of you tonight….
29/10/2012 11:28 pm
A beautiful, calming post Eliz. Praying for everyone in Sandy's path too. Hope the worst is over.
29/10/2012 11:30 pm
Lovely post. Stay safe!
29/10/2012 11:34 pm
Of course we cannnot begin to imagine….
Take care
30/10/2012 1:32 am
Be safe!
30/10/2012 2:47 am
Oh please stay safe!
30/10/2012 2:57 am
i hope everything is alright.
faith on mother earth and the creator will take us a long way.
very inspiring post.
30/10/2012 3:39 am
Great post ! Ive been hearing from friends and relatives on the east coast , all worried about Sandy. Do Keep safe. Our prayers with you.
30/10/2012 6:50 am
I hope you weathered Sandy safe and sound. I'm feeling so blessed at the moment. We haven't gotten final word on the shore house but it looks positive. Stay safe my friend. Sending love your way!
30/10/2012 7:13 am
beautiful, heartfelt words. I hope you and your family made it safely through the storm. sending lots of love your way.
30/10/2012 7:14 am
I hope you can keep us posted as I know I will be worrying. Last week when we got caught in a blizzard while driving home at night. I found my self thinking of things that I could be greatful for I was greatful there wasn't many cars on the road, I was greatful we had 4 wheel drive and so on. I was saying these things out loud. It did help me relax as I was going down the list. Navar said it was helpful. I see you did that in your post as well. Also when I'm really stressed I do the breath in to a count of 4 hold for a count of 4 and breath out for 4. When I'm super stressed some times this helps. Any way your on my mind and in my prayers. Stay Safe and dry!
30/10/2012 7:16 am
On the News I just heard the news man say" he just saw a little rainbow" maybe there is hope that the storm is passing soon! :+) I sure hope so.
30/10/2012 6:53 pm
This is a wonderful & inspirational post. Love the TS poem! Be safe!
31/10/2012 6:18 am
I just couldn't resist Eliz…..Congratulations!
14/11/2012 2:46 pm
TY for the award and for thinking of us during the hurricane. It meant a lot to me.
16/11/2012 5:43 am
I hope things are back to normal now. How is your home impacted? Your neighborhood? Hope ok. I can't even imagine.
31/10/2012 6:51 am
Nicole pointed me in this direction. It's been like watching a disaster movie on TV. Without power I guess many of you have seen Sandy in close up. Watching and hoping with bated breath.
31/10/2012 12:50 pm
It is truly unreal, isn't it? Great post.
01/11/2012 5:37 am
I do hope you are safe, Elizabeth. Great post, as usual.
01/11/2012 8:02 am
Praying for you all.
Bree permalink02/11/2012 11:01 pm
What a terrifying experience. I don't know how you found the courage to write and share the impending storm and its terror. Glad you made it and praying all will heal. My heart goes out to all!
05/11/2012 11:49 pm
Your words of stillness in the midst of the literal storms of life is an inspiration and healing to all who enter here. I have missed you and my thoughts keep you and hope all will be restored after the storm. I hope you are doing good. So many hugs to you Elizabeth! I will be back to catch up more. Warmest blessings, Sharon
15/11/2012 1:14 pm
These storms show us how connected we are in the world. I'm still amazed that the storm that started just south of us here traveled so far and did so much damage.
Thank goodness you're okay, Elizabeth, and thanks for this thoughtful and beautiful post.
Lyosha Varezhkina (@lyoshathegirl) permalink25/11/2018 2:05 am
what a terrifying experience! I hope none of us will ever experience it in our lives.


text:
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Excerpted from Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler. Copyright © 2013 by Katherine Anne Butler. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc
On the idealistic and hopeful day in 1958 when the forty-three-year-old Swedish ice-skater and businessman Arne Larsson was given the world's first fully implantable pacemaker, few in the worlds of business, engineering, or medicine foresaw a time when there would be a need or a market for hundreds of thousands more. Potential customers seemed at first glance few: a handful of "blue babies" and adults emerging from pioneering heart surgeries with unintended cardiac damage, and another handful of fatally ill people like Larsson who got dizzy and fainted multiple times a day because their hearts failed to maintain normal beats.
Things were about to change. Two years after Larsson's surgery, the pacemaker moved out of the hands of tinkerers and onto small assembly lines. By the end of December 1960, Medtronic's cofounder Earl Bakken—who'd been persuaded by a Lutheran minister when he was a teenager to turn his inventiveness away from tasers and toward helping people and who did not even mention "profit" in his company's original mission statement— had taken orders for fifty pacemakers, priced at $375 each.
In 1961, Bakken bought the licensing rights to a fully implantable pacemaker similar to Arne Larsson's, designed by the American inventor Wilson Greatbatch in a converted barn behind his house in Buffalo, New York. Sales were slow at first. In 1962, Medtronic lost $144,000. The next year, when U.S. health care spending was 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and the average American life span was close to seventy, Medtronic sold only twelve hundred pacemakers and edged barely into the black. The start-up was so starved for capital that Bakken considered selling it to the Mallory Battery Company, but the deal fell through after the Arthur D. Little consulting company estimated that only ten thousand people worldwide would ever need pacemakers. Then, in 1965, Medicare—the Great Society insurance program bitterly opposed by the American Medical Association (AMA) and championed, like the 911 system, by the heart attack survivor President Lyndon B. Johnson—was established. It approved the pacemaker for reimbursement the following year for any American over the age of sixty-five with a medical need for one, and Earl Bakken's world changed.
In the first full year of Medicare reimbursement, when health care consumed only 5.9 percent of GDP, Medtronic sold seven thousand four hundred pacemakers, six times as many as it had three years before. It made a profit of nearly $308,000. Two years later, in 1968, it reported annual sales of $10 million and profits of more than $1 million. By 1970, health care spending was consuming 7.2 percent of GDP, and Medtronic's annual sales had more than doubled, to $22 million. Pacemakers had become the company's cash cow.
The atmosphere in what would later be nicknamed "Medical Alley"—Minnesota's cluster of high-tech medical start-ups— soon rivaled that of the nascent semiconductor industry near Stanford University in northern California's Santa Clara Valley. In small towns on the outskirts of Minneapolis and St. Paul, engineers, visionaries, and salespeople rented offices; wooed venture capitalists; invented, borrowed, and stole innovative technologies; and sued one another for patent infringement and theft of intellectual property. Members of a new breed of sales man—part electrical engineer, part medical paraprofessional, and part Willy Loman—fanned out across the country, entering operating rooms dressed in scrubs just like doctors, to show eager but ignorant physicians how to implant the new devices. Big corporations bought out small companies. Initial public offerings showcased shares that doubled in price within hours of hitting the stock market and stayed high.
Four Medtronic engineers and salesmen, frustrated with Earl Bakken's cautious approach to technological innovation, left his company to manufacture a slimmer pacemaker also designed by Wilson Greatbatch but powered by a longer-lasting, hermetically sealed lithium battery. (The earlier models had mercury-zinc batteries, which released small amounts of hydrogen gas and lasted only a year or two before needing replacement.) The start-up, Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc., was financed with $50,000 in bank loans and $450,000 in venture capital. Its pacemaker was barely more than a prototype, and at first its salesmen had nothing to show doctors but a wooden mock-up. It had almost no sales in 1972, its first year.
Four years later, with health care now consuming 8.4 percent of GDP, and the average American life span creeping up toward seventy-three, Cardiac Pacemakers had $47 million in sales. "The profit margins were beautiful in those days," said one of the company's founders, Manuel Villafaña, a colorful former Medtronic salesman born in the South Bronx who'd earlier introduced Medtronic pacemakers to doctors in South America and Europe. Cardiac Pacemakers' after-tax profits were 20 percent. Two years later, its founders sold the company to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company for $127 million. Renamed Guidant, it would later branch into coronary stents and other cardiac hardware and become the world's third-largest manufacturer of cardiac-surgery devices—and would employ Katrina Bramstedt, who later became a bioethicist. In 2004, it was sold to Boston Scientific and Abbott Laboratories for $27.2 billion.
Spin-offs begat spin-offs. Manuel Villafaña left Cardiac Pacemakers to found St. Jude Medical, Inc., which developed and promoted a new heart valve made of stone-hard pyrolytic carbon, a major advance over the bulkier metal and plastic ball-and-ring models, prone to clotting, then being used by surgeons such as Dwight Harken at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. The St. Jude valve became the most commonly used in the world; in one of its early years, after-tax profits hit 48 percent. St. Jude would use those accumulated profits a couple of decades later to buy a thriving international pacemaker company called Pacesetter, part of the German industrial and health behemoth Siemens, which had earlier swallowed Elema-Schönander, the Swedish company whose inventors saved Arne Larsson's life.
The secret to success from the first was a guaranteed market and close-to-guaranteed prices. Unlike the tightly controlled, government-run variants of universal health care then being pioneered in many European countries, Medicare functioned more like a government-funded insurance company. Thanks to intense lobbying from the AMA, it was never given authority to negotiate bulk discounts, to request bids for standardized models, to second-guess a doctor's decision, to control prices, or otherwise to interfere with what the AMA called the "doctor-patient relationship." In the United States, a handful of pacemaker companies, enjoying a near monopoly, essentially set prices. Individual doctors decided independently who needed the devices and billed Medicare their "usual and customary" fees. Hospitals provided operating rooms and ancillary services, exercised little control over the doctors who used them, and billed Medicare separately. Medicare simply paid. Thanks to this unique financial structure—a griffin-like hybrid with neither the marketplace checks and balances of capitalism nor the top-down government controls of socialism—pacemakers and other emerging medical technologies were delivered practically cost-free to the hospital, surgeon, and patient. The system had no brakes.
As profits grew and sales forces expanded in Medical Alley, the thinking and practice of many cardiologists across the country changed. In its pioneering days, the pacemaker was regarded as a specialized lifesaver for a handful of otherwise healthy people with fatal disturbances in heart rhythm. After Medicare, as the devices improved technologically and inserting them became simple and profitable, the rationale changed. Doctors began inserting them to improve "quality of life" in a much larger pool of older people with minor heart arrhythmias. They next began inserting them on a "just in case" basis in relatively healthy people whose hearts were slowing down naturally with age but who had no symptoms at all. People like my father.
In 1974, a Columbia Medical School cardiologist named Irene Ferrer, a sister of the actor Mel Ferrer, argued that "periodic or sustained sinus bradycardia [that is, a slow heartbeat] can no longer go unchallenged, even if asymptomatic." Pacemakers, she said, should be implanted on a "prophylactic" [preventive] basis, particularly in patients in a broad new diagnostic category called "sick sinus syndrome," characterized by a variety of modest disturbances in the heart rhythm revealing themselves on newer, ever-more-sensitive diagnostic machines. Pacemaker implantations doubled year by year. The guiding principles of the day were maximum promotion and maximum treatment.
Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Medicare—which paid for about 85 percent of pacemaker insertions and thus was primarily responsible for the explosive growth of the industry—was changing the shape of American medicine. Medicare's framers had hoped to provide better medical care for the elderly. They did. The average life span increased from sixty-five in 1940 to seventy-one in 1970. Deaths from heart disease fell. But because Medicare mimicked the fee-for-service structure of existing private insurance plans, it paid better for procedures than for time. It starved doctors who provided hands-on primary care and overrewarded specialists who churned out procedures. Pay for primary care doctors was so poor that some of them refused to take Medicare patients at all. Doctors peddled their wares on a piecework basis; communication among them became haphazard; thinking was often short-term; nobody made money when medical interventions were declined; and nobody was in charge except the marketplace.
Fueled not only by Medicare but also by private health insurance, doctors' average incomes quintupled—from $50,000 a year in 1940 in 2011 dollars to nearly $250,000 in 1970. Most of the increase went to specialists. Doctors flocked to where the money was: by 1969, there were nearly three specialists for each primary care doctor in America. When Medicare approved coverage for routine colonoscopies, gastroenterology incomes rose, and so did the number of gastroenterologists.
Newly enlarged high-rise hospitals—technological palaces fueled by private insurance and by federal dollars for research, construction, and patient care—were built in cities across the country. In their shadows often lay neighborhoods of the impoverished and the working poor, served, if at all, by a dwindling pool of underpaid and low-status internists and family doctors who maintained close emotional relationships with their patients throughout their lifetimes. Among those who suffered most, along with the poor, were the chronically ill and elderly of all classes: those with problems that couldn't be fixed, who most needed the soft technologies of thoughtful, old-fashioned doctoring; advice on lifestyle and adaptation; and the time-consuming hands-on attention of a general practitioner. Despite the best intentions of its framers, Medicare's payment structure punished doctors who practiced the Slow Medicine the elderly often needed and rewarded those on the hard-tech cutting edge.
Cardiac hypermarketing, meanwhile, grew so outrageous that it drew attention outside the hermetically sealed worlds of the operating room and Medical Alley. In what turned out to be the first of repeating waves of scandals similar to those in the pharmaceutical industry, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee in 1981 that some doctors were deliberately performing unnecessary pacemaker implantations in return for device industry kickbacks. Sales reps at one pacemaker company—a company, as it happened, with a terrible product-safety record—gave their most "productive" doctors free stays at the company hunting lodge and on the company yacht. Others hired the comedian George Burns and the cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys to regale doctors at free dinners and parties. "In all my twenty years experience in the medical sales field, I have never seen a business so dirty, so immensely profitable, and so absent normal competitive price controls as this one," one former salesman told the Senate subcommittee.
The subcommittee issued a tough report entitled "Fraud, Waste and Abuse in the Medicare Pacemaker Industry." The FBI investigated. Medicare drastically revamped its payment system in an attempt to get a handle on costs. In 1983, several executives of Siemens-Pacesetter, Inc. (the pacemaker company later acquired by St. Jude, which made my father's pacemaker) pled guilty and its former CEO pled nolo contendere to federal charges that they'd paid kickbacks to doctors for implanting pacemakers. They were given suspended sentences and fined.
Some troubled cardiologists—often those paid salaries by universities rather than earning a living in private practice—had growing doubts about where the whole enterprise was leading. At a cardiology conference in Manhattan devoted to the elimination of fatal heart attacks, Henry Greenberg, the director of a hospital coronary care unit, delivered a contrarian and prescient paper called "In Praise of Sudden Death." He'd informally polled his cardiologist friends and their families, he said, and "not one wished anything but a sudden, unexpected exit while in the pink of health. There were not even any votes for a classic death-bed scene, with the family gathered." The preferred age for this death, he said, was around eighty. "We all want to live to the fullest extent of our capacity as a sapient being capable of joy and delight, but at the proper time life can be quickly and gently rounded with a sleep," he told his cardiology colleagues in 1982:
What if we are fully successful in the purpose of our gathering? Will we devoutly wish for a new risk factor to call into play as we see memory slipping as our dotage arises? Will we avoid physicians and hospitals for routine ailments because we are afraid that unacceptable illnesses will be prolonged interminably?
In the aftermath of the pacemaker scandal, a committee appointed by the American College of Cardiology wrote a set of clinical guidelines in 1984 intended to discourage overtreatment. On a logic that boiled down to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," the committee advised against implanting the devices in patients with no troubling physical symptoms and no sign of dis- ease beyond slightly irregular cardiograms, slow heartbeats, or vague diagnoses such as sick sinus syndrome. Over the next five years, pacemaker implantations in Medicare patients dropped by 25 percent. But the basic pattern—maximum promotion, the creeping expansion of diagnoses for which pacemakers and other cardiac devices were supposedly warranted, disguised gratuities to cardiologists, and cat-and-mouse games with Medicare—did not end. No matter how Medicare tried to change its rules and tighten the spigot, money continued to flood into the device companies, and like water seeking its own level, some of that money trickled down to cardiologists. By 1987, the median income of cardiovascular surgeons was $271,555, while most primary care doctors earned considerably less than $100,000.
One former Medtronic sales rep told me that in the 1980s he was sent to a three-day course in fine wines, all the better to wine, dine, and knowledgeably converse with the upscale cardiologists who were his sales prospects. In the early 1990s, one of pacemaking's pioneers, a respected university-based cardiac surgeon, saw how far things had gone wrong when he flew from the east coast to Los Angeles to supervise the placement of a pacemaker in his mother-in-law, who was then in her early nine- ties. "I went out there on a Saturday to Cedars Sinai, I guess in February," said the east coast surgeon, who asked to remain anonymous. "It was a very quiet day, and the surgeon and I were sort of waiting around. It turned out we were waiting for the sales rep, and finally he arrived. The doctor put in the pace- maker adequately, and the sales rep handed the surgeon a pack-age and left. The surgeon opened it in front of me, seemingly not at all embarrassed; it was a nice gold wristwatch, as a present."
Time passed. Things changed. Things stayed the same. The number of transistors in a typical pacemaker grew from only two to more than four million. U.S. health care costs kept rising, to nearly double those in some European countries, without a corresponding gain in health. In 2003, the year my father got his device, when health care was consuming 15.9 percent of GDP and the average American life span had risen to seventy-seven, a Medicare study found that medical device companies were enjoying average net profit margins of nearly 20 percent. It was, the New York Times pointed out, more than twice the average for all other companies in the S&P 500. Cardiac surgery was so profitable that many hospitals relied on it to subsidize their emergency rooms and other money-losing departments and ran full-page ads in major newspapers to attract new customers. Cardiologists published a flurry of journal articles about successful surgeries in patients over eighty and over ninety. Device-related heart surgeries alone in 2003 cost Medicare nearly $15 billion.
By then, there were all kinds of devices: stents, little cage-like tubes to prop open clogged arteries; drug-coated stents, less prone to clogging than bare metal ones; external heart pumps like the one that would later be attached to former Vice President Dick Cheney, each one costing Medicare more than $500,000. There were chemically pickled and sterilized heart valves taken from human cadavers and from pigs, and delicate bionic valves hand sewn in Southern California factories by Vietnamese-American and Cambodian-American women working with the sterilized heart tissue of cows.
In May 2003, Michael N. Weinstein, a senior analyst at J.P. Morgan, called the cardiac device business "an area of tremendous interest." Medical devices of all sorts had become a $170 billion global industry, and cardiac devices alone generated $14 billion in worldwide sales. Weinstein's "top pick," he told an interviewer for the New York Times's Market Insight column, "is St. Jude Medical. They are a play on the cardiac rhythm market."
The market was not pleased, however, in the spring of 2006 when Medicare proposed yet another change in the formulas under which it reimbursed hospitals, in hopes of reducing payments for implanted devices and raising payments for under- compensated services like stroke care. Payments for pacemaker surgeries were expected to drop by about 13 percent, defibrillators by 25 percent, and stents by 33 percent. AdvaMed, the device industry's primary voice in Washington, pushed back. In April, AdvaMed hired two former health care staffers from the House Ways and Means Committee and another who'd once worked in health policy for Senator Ted Kennedy.
Over the next few months, AdvaMed spent $1 million on what its chief called "inside the Beltway advertising and extensive media outreach, 'grass tops' advocacy efforts, and intense lobbying of key House and Senate Members." It created a photo exhibit on Capitol Hill featuring enthusiastic patients such as Reagan administration official Michael Deaver, who had an artificial knee; former Olympic skater Bonnie Blair, who'd benefited from an implanted anti-incontinence surgical device; and a former NBA basketball player who had a pacemaker. It held a press conference featuring the heads of two nonprofit, apparently grassroots, groups—the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association, a defibrillator-promoting group funded mainly by the cardiac device industry; and the Society for Women's Health Research, which got most of its grants from big medical players, including the Medtronic Foundation and Boston Scientific.
What went unremarked was the eternal background music of Washington. The makers of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies constitute one of the capital's three biggest lobbies, rivaling the defense industry and Wall Street. In 2006, AdvaMed, the Big Three pacemaker companies, and other medical technology and supply companies spent at least $27 million on lobbying Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, Congress, and other parts of the federal government. They contributed another $1.5 million to federal political campaigns.
The money and attention were well spent. After two hundred members of the House and Senate from both parties wrote to Medicare questioning the proposed cutbacks, its top administrator, Mark McClellan, said he had taken the objections "to heart" and essentially gutted the plan, making changes that in the estimation of AdvaMed, recaptured $3 billion in at-risk sales revenues. Shares of Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and Boston Scientific rose on the news.
Business as usual continued, and money continued to flow and drip from device companies to cardiologists. In 2007—the year that my father forgot the purpose of his dinner napkin—a registered nurse named Charles Donigian resigned from his job in the regional sales office of St. Jude Medical in St. Louis, Missouri, where he'd helped administer follow-up surveys of patients who'd been given pacemakers and defibrillators. Donigian said he resigned because he thought he'd soon be fired for refusing to bend ethical rules. He subsequently filed a lawsuit seeking damages under the federal law that protects whistle- blowers.
In his suit, which the Justice Department later joined, Donigian said that St. Jude had essentially paid kickbacks to doctors who chose its products, in the form of what he called "sham fees for phony postmarket clinical research studies." In one study, St. Jude paid the doctors $2,000 per enrolled patient. The doc-tors mainly provided the names, Donigian claimed, while he and others at St. Jude did the paperwork as well as the doctors' Medicare billings.
St. Jude salesmen also gifted doctors with fishing trips to Canada, tickets to St. Louis Cardinals games, airline tickets to Las Vegas, and dinners at steak houses, Donigian said. One sales representative, he said, had an expense account of $250,000 a year, mainly to entertain and reward cardiologists. The corruption went both ways: one cardiac catheterization lab, he claimed, told St. Jude sales reps they expected a catered lunch for the entire office each time they implanted a St. Jude product.
Donigian said that St. Jude employees ghostwrote two research presentations summarizing the results of one cardiac follow-up study (the RARE trial), and paid one of the doctors named as a lead investigator to travel to the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society, the cardiac device specialist's group, and present the findings in a scientific poster session in the exhibit hall as if they were his own.
Donigian said that St. Jude planned to spend $158 million on educational and career guidance programs for "fellows," young cardiologists training in electrophysiology, the subspecialty that manages cardiac devices. An internal marketing document estimated that each of the one hundred fellows who became a full-fledged electrophysiologist and conservatively prescribed St. Jude products could generate $2.7 million in device sales a year. After the Justice Department joined the case, St. Jude, without admitting wrongdoing, settled the lawsuit in early 2011 for $16 million, of which Donigian received $2.6 million. The Code of Business Conduct on the St. Jude Web site states that sales- people's gifts to doctors should not be "extravagant" or "beyond that which is customary," but those terms are not defined.
In 2008, a year after Donigian quit, the American College of Cardiology, the Heart Rhythm Society, and the American Heart Association issued the latest update of their treatment guidelines for pacemakers. The list of diagnoses for which they were strongly or mildly recommended had grown since the guidelines were first issued in 1984. The 1984 guidelines recommended pacemakers for fifty-six heart conditions. The 2008 guidelines recommended them for eighty-eight. The research backing the expansion was weak, with only 5 percent of the positive recommendations backed by medical research's "gold standard": multiple randomized double-blind studies. Most were based only on a consensus of "expert opinion." Of the seventeen cardiologists who wrote the 2008 guidelines, eleven received financing from cardiac-device makers or worked at institutions receiving it. Seven, due to the extent of their financial connections, were recused from voting on the guidelines they helped write.
This pattern—a paucity of scientific support and a plethora of industry connections—held across almost all cardiac treatment guidelines, said cardiologist Pierluigi Tricoci of Duke University and his coauthors in an article published in 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Experts are as vulnerable to conflicts of interest as researchers are," they wrote, and added that the current cardiac-research agenda was "strongly influenced by industry's natural desire to introduce new products."
That desire would be on full display in the spring of 2011, two years after my father's death, when I parked in a municipal parking garage on Mission Street near the San Francisco Chronicle, my old newspaper, and walked toward the Moscone Convention Center, where the Heart Rhythm Society was holding its annual conference. It was a sunny, windy day in the South of Market district. The first thing that caught my eye was a fleet of black motorcycles repeatedly circling the block, each one towing a shiny black minitrailer bearing the logo of St. Jude Medical ("More Control! Less Risk!"). Towering above me on the side of a two-story building were five orange, turquoise, blue, and purple billboards, each bigger than a movie marquee, trumpeting the behemoth Medtronic's implantable cardiac defibrillators ("Fewer Shocks! MRI Access!"), its surgical tools for a heart procedure called cardiac ablation ("Inflation/Ablation!"), and its corporate logo ("Innovating for Life!"). A commercial white stretch limousine idled by the curbside, trolling for customers.
Outside the convention center, the sides of official shuttle buses were covered with company logos. Inside the hall were more logos—for Biosense, Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, Zoll, and Greatbatch—plastered on water coolers, on piles of complimentary tourist maps of San Francisco, on Internet access booths, and above laptop charging stations. A sign above the couches of the Infinity Circle where tired cardiologists checked their e-mail read, "Year Round Support: Infinite Gratitude: Heart Rhythm Society," followed by a list of its top corporate contributors, including Medtronic, Boston Scientific, St. Jude Medical, and Sanofi Aventis ("Because Health Matters"). All told, medical technology companies paid the Heart Rhythm Society $5.1 million—nearly a third of its $16.8 million annual budget—to rent exhibit booths and otherwise promote themselves to the more than three thousand physicians attending the four-day convention. This was the sea in which cardiologists swam.
St. Jude Medical, the maker of my father's device and the conference's third-biggest spender, paid $653,000, including $15,000 for ads on the risers of stairs, $45,000 for the privilege of hosting complimentary dinner seminars and other educational events for doctors in hotel banquet rooms, $55,000 to hang banners above stairways, $70,000 to put its logo on the cardiologists' hotel key cards, and $308,000 for exhibit booth space on the showroom floor. The company was on Fortune's list of the world's most admired companies. It employed about thirteen hundred sales representatives and was a member of the Fortune 500, with a market capitalization of $13 billion.
Wearing my press badge and carrying the complimentary tote bag I was handed in the well-stocked press room, I walked into Moscone's huge underground commercial exhibit hall. It reminded me of a combination of a carnival midway, an auto showroom, and the largest Apple store on earth. Everywhere I looked, flat-screens glowed and pulsed, displaying loops of medical-technology advertising. The average American life span was now seventy-eight and a half, and health care was consuming 17.9 percent of America's GDP per year. Salesmen and saleswomen with expensive haircuts circled clutches of slim, vital doctors in sharp dark suits. Suspended above our heads in the hangar-like space were gigantic plastic signboards in whites and cool blues and greens, reading, "St. Jude Medical," "Medtronic," and "Biotronik: Excellence for Life."
A kind and handsome sales engineer at the St. Jude Medical booth—it wasn't a booth, really, it was at least four times the size of my living room—handed me a pacemaker much like the one Dr. Aranow had tucked into the pocket of skin beneath my late father's collarbone years before. It was flattish, roughly ovoid and encased in titanium, the color of dull silver. About the size of a pocket watch, it looked a little like a silver dollar that had been flattened on a railroad track. "St. Jude Medical, TM," was engraved on its side, along with the location of the factory where it was made: Sylmar, California. It fit into my palm.
I closed my hand around the tiny little machine that had saved many a life, made many a fortune, and led my family to so much unnecessary suffering.


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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr seeks to discover whether the Department of Homeland Security has been keeping tabs on the Drudge Report and other prominent media outlets who have spearheaded a nationwide revolt against invasive TSA airport security measures.
The FOIA request, filed by Barr's Liberty Guard organization (PDF here), demands that the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the DHS, turn over all information related to "Matt Drudge," the "Drudge Report," along with other media personalities and websites that have been at the center of the TSA controversy, including "Alex Jones, "John Tyner" and "prisonplanet.com".
The request seeks to ascertain whether any of these names have been linked with the term "domestic extremist," in reference to a reported TSA memo that was leaked last week which, according to Doug Hagmann, "officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as 'domestic extremists'."
Numerous confirmed memos originating out of federal or state law enforcement agencies, such as the infamous MIAC report, have listed conservatives and libertarians as "domestic extremists" and even potential domestic terrorists for opposing big government and supporting Constitutionally-minded campaigns and causes.
Barr's attempt to discover whether the federal government is treating critics of the TSA as domestic extremists is key in light of TSA chief John Pistole's announcement yesterday that all travelers flying in US airspace would be checked against a government watch list before they are given permission to board an aircraft, a system some have likened to Communist-style internal checkpoints.
The notion that Matt Drudge, a constant thorn in the side of 'Big Sis' Janet Napolitano, along with other prominent media critics of the TSA, could be the target of DHS surveillance is hardly far fetched considering the fact that Homeland Security was caught recently spying on Tea Party groups as well as State Representative Daryl Metcalfe.
The TSA is turning into an arm of the DHS' political police force – how long before Matt Drudge, Bob Barr and Alex Jones are put on a list and prevented from flying? Will everyone who opposes being radiated in a naked body scanner or having their kids felt up by TSA goons be put on a list?
Drudge has been at the forefront of a national rebellion against the TSA's new enhanced pat down procedures which subject travelers, including children, the disabled and the elderly, to humiliating treatment which falls not far short of sexual molestation.
The Freedom of Information Act request also aims to uncover why the TSA made the decision to "stand down" on its normal security procedures the day before Thanksgiving in what was a blatant public relations ploy to deflate the impact of the national opt out day protest which had been scheduled for the same day.
"We'd like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned about being given a choice between naked imaging or pat down searches of people's private parts," said former Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Guard's Chairman. "If this is the indeed the case, we'd like to commend the TSA for applying a bit of common sense to the controversial situation. However, it's far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country's security chiefs."
As we highlighted on Monday, according to numerous reports, major airports around the country roped off body scanners and refrained from conducting the more invasive pat downs on national opt out day. Our own reporters, who were flying from Denver International Airport, confirmed that the body scanners were out of use and pat downs were either light or non-existent.
This was later spun by the TSA and the establishment media to claim that the body scanner opt out protest had been a total failure, when in fact that majority of the body scanners were not even in use and millions more had boycotted airports altogether and traveled via clogged highways.
"Considering recent hardline statements made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole, this apparent sudden reversal in the TSA's direction warrants additional scrutiny," said Joe Seehussen, President of Liberty Guard. "We'd like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures."
Statement from Alex Jones, one of the individuals named in the FOIA request.
"If the TSA really believes that the terror threat is so imminent that old ladies have to have hands put down their pants, then why did they turn off scanners on the busiest travel day of year?"
"This is right out of the old Soviet Union and then some, the TSA is boldly going where no police state has ever gone before, sticking hands down people's pants and radiating them, and when the public speaks up about it and the press reports on it they're labeled extremists and spied on?"
"The TSA needs to be investigated by Congress and grand juries for standing down and removing security on the busiest travel day of year, security that they say is so vital to prevent terror attacks."
"They didn't announce they had changed security, then simply lied to everyone while mockingly taunting critics in claiming that the public loved the pat downs and scanners."
"This is a group of bureaucrats gone wild, Big Sis is developing the TSA as a Gestapo force to be used on the streets of America, trained to humiliate Americans on highways, at shopping malls, sporting events and any other public gathering. Regardless of your political persuasion, me must stand up to this tyranny in unison."
"Now the TSA is talking about putting its critics on lists? How about we put everyone who's a real American on a list and then we can see who's not on the list and find out who the real enemies are. Let Matt Drudge and Alex Jones go down in history as being at the top of the list when it comes to opposing sticking hands down children's pants and groping them."
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America's most listened to late night talk show.


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Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
Can you please elaborate as to how I can set an MD to boot from a network? I was under impression that I need LinuxMCE to be setup on all machines. Also, how does the fact that the Core, which is an older AMD machine with an ATI card, running 7.10, allow newer Zotac board with an Nvidia 9400 video card to run? How do I set up the correct video drivers? If I can get the MDs to boot up and act as slaves with the Core pushing the content would be ideal! Thank you,LevPS. OK. I looked up the info about the network boot, and will definitely try it. Still, how do I make sure that the newer video card is supported?


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Ex-Toronto police officer slams OPP for 'incompetence' after accident
Former Toronto police officer James Lowry has traveled from Ottawa to Toronto three times to testify as the main witness in an unsafe driving case. Every time, it's been put off because an OPP officer failed to show.
Retired Toronto police officer James Lowry, who is now studying law at University of Ottawa, was hit by a flying tire as he drove on Hwy. 427 in March 2011. That's when his judicial nightmare began.
The large tire flew off the tow truck barreling south on Highway 427, bounced into the northbound collector lanes, and was speeding directly towards James Lowry's windshield.
It was March 21, 2011, and Lowry, a retired Toronto police officer of 33 years, was driving to Pearson International Airport to pick up his wife from work.
In the split second he had to act, Lowry braked and swerved. There was a "terrible smash" as the tire slammed into the front-right corner of his Mazda Tribute, but Lowry escaped unharmed.
Stunned, he pulled to the side of the road. The Ontario Provincial Police arrived moments later, and the driver of the truck was charged under the Highway Traffic Act for operating an unsafe vehicle.
Lowry had just survived a life-threatening accident, but his judicial nightmare was about to begin — one that threatens to have a chilling effect on witness testimony in Ontario.
In August 2011, five months after the accident, Lowry moved to Ottawa to study law.
That same month, his wife — still living in the couple's Toronto home — informed him a subpoena had arrived in the mail, summoning him to testify. The case would be heard at a Toronto courthouse on Oct. 13, 2011.
As a former cop and future lawyer, Lowry felt it was his civic duty to testify.
"With my background, I thought there's no way I could just say 'Oh, I didn't know,'" he said.
Lowry rearranged his schedule and travelled the 450 kilometres to Toronto — only to have Const. Randy Clarkson, the OPP officer who inspected the tow truck, fail to attend court. The case was put off until spring.
In December 2011, a subpoena summoning Lowry for an April 23, 2012 court appearance arrived at his Toronto address.
Wanting to be sure his transportation costs would be covered, Lowry wrote a letter to both the provincial prosecutor's office and the OPP's investigator on the case, Const. Jean-Michel Valade. In it, he complained that he had not been contacted about convenient dates; when possible, Crown counsel usually make reasonable efforts to respect a witness's availability, according to a Ministry of the Attorney General official.
"You have set the trial date in the middle of my final examination week. I find it incredulous that no one attempted to contact me, as a victim, to determine my availability for court," he wrote in a letter to the provincial prosecutor dated Jan. 2, 2012.
One week later, Lowry says an OPP court officer contacted his wife to tell her to disregard the subpoena, saying Lowry did not have to attend. Hours later, Lowry says, Valade then contacted his wife with a contradicting message: there was no money for witness fees, but Lowry still had to attend court.
Dave Woodford, spokesperson for the OPP, said he could not comment on whether Lowry was told he had to attend and wouldn't be paid, but said it is the Crown that must authorize an out-of-town subpoena, since the ministry would be footing the bill.
In April, Lowry took the train to Toronto. But for the second time, Clarkson did not attend court, prompting yet another rescheduled date.
Upset that he was being made to travel yet again, Lowry said he spoke to Valade in court that day, reminding him he was not living in Toronto, and requested the next subpoena be sent to the Ottawa address he provided.
That summer, Lowry was contacted by phone and told the new date was Feb. 11, 2013. He then spoke to several OPP officers to express frustration that he had not been consulted on the date, especially when he had to travel from Ottawa. Lowry told one officer Mondays and Tuesdays were especially inconvenient, as he had several classes.
Nonetheless, a third subpoena landed in the mailbox at Lowry's Toronto address in December 2012, and the original court date was kept — a Monday.
When the day came, neither Clarkson nor Valade were in attendance.
"It was like a bad dream. I thought, 'Surely this isn't happening again,'" Lowry said.
A fourth date has been scheduled for August. Clarkson, meanwhile, has retired.
Despite three needless trips, Lowry has not been compensated for the approximately $1,000 he has spent on travel. He feels he has been re-victimized by the "incompetence" of the OPP officers involved.
"I would never, ever have done this to a victim, and then to have that happen to me …" he said.
Following the second needless court appearance, Lowry called the OPP to complain. When he was dissatisfied with the response he got from the officer he dealt with, he filed a complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which probes incidents involving police that do not involve death or serious injury.
The grievance — alleging Clarkson was neglectful for missing the court dates — prompted an internal investigation that found the subpoenas summoning Clarkson were twice mailed to the wrong detachment.
Det. Sgt. Kevin Connor, the OPP's professional standards officer who investigated the complaint, wrote in his report that Clarkson said he had "never failed to attend court when he was aware that it was his obligation to do so" and kept four calendars tracking court dates.
Connor cleared Clarkson of any wrongdoing for missing the first two court dates because he hadn't been aware of them in the first place.
Why both Clarkson and Valade missed the third court date last month is not known.
Woodford, the OPP spokesperson, told the Star the OPP could not look into what happened unless a request came from Lowry.
"There's no investigation ongoing because nothing has come forward to us," he said. "All he has to do is come in and say he is concerned, he wants to know why no one was in court, and I can guarantee you it will be looked into.
"We're not going to look into something just because the Toronto Star says look into it," he said.
Lowry has since said he will issue another complaint to find out what occurred.
Woodford, as well as another OPP officer, said the newly retired Clarkson may now be out of the country. He said retired officers are still subpoenaed to testify, but as civilians.
Attempts to reach Clarkson and Valade directly were not successful. Woodford said individual officers are not compelled to speak to the media because he is the spokesperson.
Questions also remain about how Clarkson's subpoena was twice sent to the wrong detachment. Lowry, who served with the Toronto police's traffic division for six years, questions why Valade did not follow-up after the first missed court date; if it had been him, he would have found the absentee officer and asked why he wasn't there, Lowry said.
But Woodford said it sounded as though Valade had followed the proper process. Once the subpoenas are served, the attendance of the witnesses is the responsibility of the Crown.
It's also difficult for officers to know the locations of other officers, Woodford added.
"(Valade) probably wouldn't even have known that he retired," he said. "All we can do is try and serve the person, just like we do with civilians, and a lot of times we can't."
Fed up and wanting to be compensated, Lowry has hired Toronto lawyer Barry Swadron and begun the process of suing the Crown for damages.
Last week, Swadron gave the required 60 days notice in a statement of claim, alleging abuse of power and process, misfeasance in public office, negligent infliction of mental anguish, and more.
"In the course of his involvement as a responsible citizen in (the accident's) aftermath, (Lowry) has been dealt with by officers of the Crown in a summary, dismissive and abusive manner," Swadron writes in the claim.
In a separate statement to the Star, Swadron said he worries about the precedent set by failing to compensate Lowry. If witnesses — whom the courts rely upon to support the prosecution of offenders — are not paid back expenses, there is a major deterrent to come forward with information, Swadron said.
He is particularly concerned about incidents that occur on highways, where there is a higher likelihood witnesses would be from out of town and thus have to travel.
"A system that will not, at the very least, reimburse civilian witnesses for their travel expenses will surely undermine the administration of justice and foster disrespect for the rule of law.
"Would-be Good Samaritans will avoid being good. People witnessing emergencies will be reluctant to call 911. Victims will be further victimized. The innocent will suffer," he writes.
Sgt. Al Walker in the OPP court office said the Lowry case was brought to the Crown, who then made the decision not to subpoena him at his Ottawa address.
"The Crown would not authorize to pay (Lowry) to come from Ottawa, and he got a subpoena to his address in Toronto where he lives — he's just going to school in Ottawa," Walker said.
Brendan Crawley, the Ministry of the Attorney General spokesperson, said that in general out-of-town Crown witnesses are entitled to payment of approved costs for travel and accommodation, as stated in Ontario's Administration of Justice Act.
He could not comment on what occurred in Lowry's case because it is before the courts.
Due to the three needless court dates, the Justice of the Peace has ordered that the Crown must proceed with the case at the next date, Aug. 7.
Though that may sound like good news for Lowry, it could also mean the case will be thrown out if the OPP officers do not attend.
That would be a shame, Lowry said, particularly given the effort the provincial government has made to eradicate incidences of flying tires — which included the introduction of stiff new regulations in 1997.
The charge in this case, operating an unsafe vehicle, is not the specific truck wheel-off law that came into effect in that year — a provision that has decreased the number of reported truck wheel separations from 215 in 1997 to 97 in 2012.
But Lowry still worries about the message that will be sent if the case gets tossed.
"They made a big cry about the truck tires," he said. "But yet when incidents happen, are they properly funding the system?"
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03 ... ident.html
http://oped.ca/Toronto-Star/ex-toronto- ... -accident/


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OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee insists that it is "now or never" on securing $450 million in state money for the replacement of the bridge connecting Interstate 5 between Vancouver and Portland.
It appears that supporters of the Columbia River Crossing had best hope that is not the case.
Two key members of the Washington state Senate on Friday threw cold water on the prospects for putting up the money that Inslee says is necessary to keep the estimated $3.1 billion project on track — and to attract up to $1.2 billion in federal support.
Oregon lawmakers in March committed $450 million toward the project, contingent on Washington state doing the same.
Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, co-chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said that "we will not pass hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Legislature this session" for the project.
Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina, said that any transportation revenue package — such as the one floated in the Democratic-controlled House that would include a 10-cent hike in the gas tax — would have to be "decoupled" from the Columbia River Crossing project.
Project supporters argue that the current bridge is a congestion point on a key corridor connecting Canada to Mexico and is built atop nearly 100-year-old wooden pilings that are reaching the end of their useful life. They note that more than a decade of planning has gone into the project, and that the Obama administration has labeled it one of the nation's key transportation priorities.
Accepting an invitation from Inslee, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Wednesday visited Olympia, telling state lawmakers that it is time to "fish or cut bait" on the project, which he said was unlike any other in the country in terms of potential for spurring economic activity.
Calling LaHood's visit "a power play," King said he did not believe the "now or never" message to be credible.
"(LaHood) comes in and says if you don't do it now you're going to lose it," King said. "We've heard that for five years. You're telling me that if we decide we want to do this (at a later date) that the federal money is not going to be there? Where's it going to go?"
Opposition to the project largely comes down to the inclusion in it of light rail. Project opponents, notably Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, point out that Clark County voters last November rejected a 0.1 percent increase in their sales tax to help pay for the light rail aspect of the project.
They also say the bridge as currently conceived is too low, and that three businesses upriver of the bridge would likely have to relocate because they would be unable to fit their goods under a bridge with 116 feet of clearance. The current span is roughly 50 feet higher and, unlike its planned replacement, is a drawbridge.
The main problem with raising the bridge, those involved with the project say, is making it too steep to safely include light rail.
The Senate majority, consisting of 23 Republicans joined by two Democrats, also called on Friday for Inslee to initiate an investigation into what they describe as suspected cost overruns in the project thus far.
Inslee spokeswoman Jaime Smith, responding to King and Tom's comments, said the governor remains steadfast in his commitment to the project.
"The CRC is absolutely one of the pieces we want to see included in a transportation revenue package," Smith said. "At this point, that's what we're going to be working toward."


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Beginning yesterday, just after my previous post about my work with a child homicide survivor, my phone lines and emails have been chaotically inundated with fallout from the mass murders in Connecticut.
I want to say publicly: I have no answers for such trauma. I have no directives, no real consolation. What can one offer at a time like this?
I will not publicly bring people together in a formal way without the express permission of the families affected by this. In my humble opinion, to do so without their consent is an overstep that may not be appropriately sacred for such a horror.
What I can offer is that people take this time to understand what it means to be traumatically bereaved, for self and for other.
What I can offer is some wisdom that comes, not from the DSM or any other book or manual about how people should and shouldn't react in such a time of incomprehensible suffering, but from the wisdom of the ages and cultures and from the bereaved themselves, the initiates:
Be careful of the questions we ask.
Be mindful of how we speak of this to others and to our children.
Be aware of how we show up in the world because of this.
Be circumspect about the ways in which we publicly mourn and share information.
Be sensitive to the suffering of these families by honoring their privacy.
Be circumspect about the ways in which we publicly mourn and share information.
Be sensitive to the suffering of these families by honoring their privacy.
Be attentive to our own losses and how this type of trauma reignites our sense of vulnerability and grief.
And so, quietly, quietly, quietly... this is my way to pause and honor the families and children who were murdered and assaulted in their schools in both Connecticut and in Nanping, China, both on the same unforgettably painful morning on opposite ends of the globe:
I will sit in meditation and prayer for them. I will light my candle for them and burn sage. I will set intentions of kindness and compassion while holding their pain. I will pay attention to my words, my deeds, and my thoughts. I will hold them all in my heart, leaving space for whatever of my own emotions may rise and fall in the aftermath of the unspeakable. I will be still, for them.
Then, if and when the families are ready to speak about their losses, we will be there to embrace them with unconditional love and allow them - perhaps join them - to honor their children in the way they want, according to their own way... as those of you who have suffered this type of loss know,
time alone does not heal, contrary to popular belief. And they will likely need much support in the coming weeks and months and years. A parent's grief is timeless.
For the providers who have contacted me around the world and want to know how to support bereaved parents, your full presence and civic love is the greatest offering of all. Here are some words of wisdom, not intended to direct or command, but rather intended to get us thinking about the ways in which we care for others:
|We invite you:
|We invite you not to:
Show them your unconditional love and support for as long as they need it, even years later.
Do ask, "How are you really doing?"
Do remember that you can't take away their pain, but you can share it and help them feel less alone.
Do let your genuine concern and care show.
Do call the child by his or her name.
Do treat the couple equally. Fathers need as much support as mothers.
Do be available...to listen, to run errands, to drive, help with the other children, or whatever else seems needed at the time.
Do say you are sorry about what happened to their child and about their pain.
Do accept their moods whatever they may be, you are not there to judge. Be sensitive to shifting moods.
Do allow them to talk about the child that has died as much and as often as they want.
Do offer practical aid or just drop off meals at the front door (careful not to disturb them).
Do talk about the special, endearing qualities of the child.
Do give special attention to the child's brother and sister--at the funeral and in the months to come (they too are hurt and confused and in need of attention which their parents may not be able to give).
Do reassure the parents that they did everything they could, that the care the child received was the best possible.
Do put on your calendar the birth and death date of the child and remember the family the following year(s). Remembering with them is important. They will never forget.
Do extend invitations to them. But understand if they decline or change their minds at the last minute. Above all continue to call and visit.
Do send a personal note or letter or make a contribution to a charity that is meaningful to the family.
Do read literature from the real experts (parents themselves) about the grief process of a bereaved parent to help you understand.
Don't avoid them and don't be afraid to talk to the parents. They do not have a communicable disease- they are mourning.
Don't be afraid to ask about the deceased child and to share memories.
Don't think that the age of the child determines his or her value and impact.
Don't be afraid to touch those who are mourning, as it can often be more comforting than words.
Don't avoid them because you feel helpless or uncomfortable, or don't know what to say.
Don't change the subject when they mention their child.
Don't push the parents through the grieving process, it takes a long time to heal and they never forget.
Don't encourage the use of drugs or alcohol.
Don't ask them how they feel if you aren't willing to listen.
When in doubt, don't say anything. Just be present and listen to their pain with love and compassion, nonjudgmentally.
Don't say you know how they feel.
Don't tell them what they should- or shouldn't- feel or do.
Don't try to find something positive in the child's death.
Don't point out that they have their other other children.
Don't say that they can always have another child.
Don't suggest that they should be grateful fo their other children.
Avoid the following cliches:
"Be brave, don't cry."
"It was God's will" or "it was a blessing."
"It's time to get on with your life.
You have to life for him/her." or "He/She wouldn't want you to be sad."
"God needed another flower or angel (or whatever) in his garden."
"At least he/she wasn't older."
"You must be strong for your other children."
"You're doing so well." or "You're so strong!"
"You're young, you'll get over it."
"Time will heal."


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Wired for change: Gene expression study reveals first steps of evolution in gene regulation
A study of gene expression led by scientists at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the University of Cambridge has revealed the first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice. Published in the journal Cell, the research has implications for the study of differences in gene regulation between people.
"We found an impressive amount of variation between these apparently very similar mice in terms of transcription-factor binding, which is an important indicator of gene-regulation activity," says Paul Flicek of EMBL-EBI. "Often you'll see a specific combination of these transcription factors acting in concert – and it was fascinating for us to see just how important these combinations are. They're much more likely to be conserved over the course of evolution than whatever DNA sequence they might be binding to."
The team studied gene expression in five very closely related mouse species in order to pinpoint changes at the very earliest stages of evolution. To do this, they compared the way that three transcription factors (TFs) bind to genes to control if they're turned on or off in liver cells in the different mouse species.
"By looking at mice that are very closely related to each other, we were able to capture a snapshot of what regulatory evolution is happening," explains Duncan Odom of the University of Cambridge. "That's important because it's much harder to see how something has evolved when you don't have a clear picture of the starting point."
Say you wanted to know how an orange tree evolved, but you could only compare it to an elm or oak. You'd have greater insight into how an orange tree evolved if you could compare it to much more closely related plants like grapefruit and lemons, which could give insight into how each came from an ancestral citrus plant. In this study, instead of comparing leaf and fruit shapes, the team looked at gene regulation in mice that had only recently diverged from one another. They demonstrated that TFs work in clusters that are conserved in order to ensure genetic and evolutionary stability.
The researchers contrasted their findings with gene-regulation data from another model organism, Drosophila, to see where the similarities lay. They found that there were a lot more differences between closely related mouse strains than there are between distantly related fruit-fly strains.
"Mammals have lots of DNA kicking around that doesn't code for proteins, while fruit flies have relatively little. So a mouse's regulatory wiring will just have a lot more wiggle room than a fruit fly's," says Paul. "That gives us a clearer picture of what we can expect to learn about mammalian genetic regulation from fruit flies."
The study could help scientists understand how gene regulation differs from one person to the next, explaining why genes that cause disease in some people don't have that effect in others.
More information: Stefflova, K., et al. (2013) Cooperativity and rapid evolution of co-bound transcription factors in closely related mammals. Cell, published online 1 August 2013. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.07.007
Journal information: Cell
Provided by European Molecular Biology Laboratory


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http://www.blogtalkradio.com/matrixfile ... aquaponics
The archive for the show is here: http://matrixfilesradio.com/shows/17May ... y-2014.mp3
I have not been able to go over last weeks show yet due to problems with my forum site, matrixfiles.com, but I will go over the golden nuggets for the show from the 3rd of May.
Then I will discuss Aquaponics which allows plants and fish to be grown and harvested in a nearly unlimited capacity once the process is started. This is a technology that is only now taking off but has been studied and utilized for at least 25 years.
Whatever size garden you have you can start growing your own food to make sure that the food you eat is uncontaminated with GMOs as well as being nutritious and delicious.
With this method you can grow food in larger quantities and much faster than the traditional way, without the use of pesticides or other additives.
Nuggets of gold - for the 17th May show
- Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in a greenhouse with a nutrient liquid).
- The waste from the plants feeds the fish and the waste from the fish feeds the plants.
- A 1/8 acre of land will produce an estimated 25,000 lbs of food per year, 1 acre an estimated 200,000 lbs of food per year.
- The amount of water waste is very little to none depending on how the system is built.
- IBCs (Intermediate Bulk Containers) are the easiest items to use to start your own aquaponics system.
- It may be that aquaponics was created in Farmington, Michigan, by a physicist.
- Check out Tom Murphy and the reclaimator.
- By growing your own food you reconnect with that which gives you sustenance.
Bonus - 77 Cancer treatments Mortgage Fraud article from Salon.com Aquaponics The IBCs of Aquaponics
A 187 page document that is an excellent source of material for a thorough and in-depth look at 'backyard' aquaponics. You can download it from here: http://matrixfiles.com/Aquaponics/IBCofAquaponics1.pdf
OR- the pdf itself here Google Sketchup - the program that is used to create the system designs in the link at the bottom (30 PDFs)
A directory of 30 pdf files including the above on Aquaponics