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Arcata Police Log: Expediency And Self-Centeredness Guide Majority Of Human Activity
• Monday, January 20 12:30 a.m. "I drink and drive all the time," said a man at a downtown brewery. "In fact, I'm drunk right now and am going to drive." With that, the large man in a dark coat and baseball headed out onto the road.
1:56 a.m. A man called 911 from a cell phone to report that three people were following him "with murderous intent." Police cruised the length of L.K. Wood Boulevard, but didn't find him.
3:06 a.m. The man called again from the skate park and Baldwin Street, fleeing the homicidal trio. He was located and taken to the nervous hospital.
5:19 p.m. A drunken man played his guitar in Northtown until succumbing to the pavement's sweet siren song with a full-on faceplant.
• Tuesday, January 21 8:13 a.m. A car on Anina Way was ransacked, with items left strewn along the street.
8:28 a.m. A wallet had been left in an unlocked vehicle on Janes Creek Drive, along with car and housekeys and a Bluetooth headset.
10:12 a.m. A window was smashed out at a Spring Street home, and a barbecue, guitar and .22 rifle stolen.
1:30 p.m. A man in a kayak had reportedly brought a domestic ducks for a swim at the Marsh. There were multiple off leash dogs in the area as well. The Park Ranger called in a second unit, and a public drunkenness arrest was made.
• Wednesday, January 22 7:30 a.m. A woman strolled around a 13th Street marketplace, stuffing things in her socks. She was arrested on a San Diego warrant and banished from the store.
11:58 a.m. A loose Chihuahua enjoyed scampering about Foster Avenue and Janes Road with numerous persons running out into traffic to try and catch it. The plucky pipsqueak eluded pursuers by running into a fenced pasture.
12:36 a.m. A resident at an undisclosed address found a note on a window inside the house, stating, "DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK. POLICE WILL BE WATCHING. THEY HAVE GUNS… SO DO I. [REDACTED] YOUR DAD?"
1:40 p.m. A vacant home on H Street was reported having broken doors and windows, and was full of the belongings of "vagrants."
2:58 p.m. An Old Arcata Road resident said someone, possibly a postal employee, had stolen a $300 piece of musical equipment out of a parcel.
• Thursday, January 23 11:17 a.m. A Chihuahua skittered about 11th and M streets, and that lady couldn't catch it.
11:35 a.m. A Samoa Boulevard resident found a tame rat, which she wanted to keep. The Wildlife Care Center advised against it due to rabies concerns, but said it would accept the rat. The finder theorized that it was a baby to a pet that had escaped its cage.
12:21 p.m. A stoner utterly bereft of basic judgment and oblivious to issues of stack-waftage toked up right at the Arcata Branch Library's front door. He was cited under the City's smoking ordinance.
3:04 p.m. A man in Vallley West said that three people told him to leave, and that they "own this town." The Owners of Arcata were last seen wandering around behind a shopping center, inspecting less glamorous areas of their empire.
4:54 p.m. A man decided that an O Street industrial park would be a grand place to train his bird dog, using a .22 caliber rifle that shoots blanks. But it wasn't such a good idea after all.
5:46 p.m. A man enjoyed a $19 meal at a lower G Street restaurant, then left without paying.
6:31 p.m. A suspicious man in a black hat stood in front of a Westwood Center business since 10 a.m., and by evening time, the employees were afraid to leave the place. Police searched him and sent him on his way.
7:28 p.m. A 10th Street resident recieved a package that "smells really, really bad." Police found hat the person had been mailed a box of garbage, which was disposed of.
• Friday, January 24 9 a.m. A lower H Street resident called police, wondering whether it was legal for her to own a "first generation wolf" dog with more than 50 percent "wolf blood." She was told to contact Fish & Wildlife.
9:28 a.m. A Chihuahua was reported stolen from an unlocked truck on Appaloosa Way.
10:27 a.m. A woman in her sixties driving a gold Camry sideswiped a car in the Community Pool parking lot, tearing a mirror off a red sedan. The witness told the lady that she needed to leave a not, so she did. But after the lady left, the witness looked at the "note" and it had no information on it.
2:17 p.m. Four silver dollar coins and four $50 pre-paid debit cards were stolen from a locked van on I Street, and yet there was no sign of forced entry.
3:09 p.m. A troubled youth chugged a bottle of nighttime cold remedy on Spear Avenue in order to "get high," and reported himself "tripping out." He was hospitalized.
11:14 p.m. Just because one Valley West motel guest told another lodger he was going to "shoot him in the face," the guest reported being threatened. In a face-saving move, police arrested the alleged threatener.
• Saturday, January 25 8:47 a.m. A man wearing a tarp as a shawl spat upon people in a 13th Street store. His presence was deemed undesirable.
9:51 a.m. An 11th Street resident left some size 11 boots on his prch, and they walked. He was more concerned about the intrusion on his property than the theft, since his neighbor;s home had just been burglarized.
12:50 a.m. The dog that belongs to the barefoot guy who lives in the green bus behind a Bayside Road church was again charging people and police officers.
1:12 p.m. Someone called to report a "heroin outbreak," but wouldn't give details.
2:52 p.m. A woman demanded that a J Street auto shop "priority" service her vehicle, and when refused, stormed out with the vehicle left sitting in the street. Police got the vehicle parked and warned the woman not to trespass at the shop.
5:08 p.m. A former tenant reportedly caused an argument with her ex-landlord on Shirley Boulevard, then "peeled out" and tried to run him over.
5:21 p.m. A woman said something named "Maria" was arguing with her boyfriend outside their L.K. Wood Boulevard apartment. He kept trying to get inside and away from her, and eventually did.
8:31 p.m. A large, travelerish-looking dude stole the tip jar from a Plaza Chinese restaurant.
• Sunday, January 26 2:01 a.m. Only visitors and drunks drive southbound on G Street, and this one was an example of the latter. He was arrested and taken to the hospital, where he refused a blood draw. The vehicle was towed.
2:40 p.m. A woman playing with her 12-year-old daughter pushed her off their couch, and the girl scratched her arm on a box. The woman was concerned that her ex, who has been hostile during child custody exchanges, would cite the scratch to support an allegation of abuse.
6:46 p.m. A dog-walking man in a long coat, white cowboy hat and booze-tinged breath yelled at a woman using the recycling bin at Stewart Park, alleging that she was dumping garbage. She wanted police to give him a talking-to.


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Redbox is teaming up with Verizon to create a streaming video service that will compete directly with Netflix.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Verizon and DVD kiosk company Redbox said Monday that they're teaming up on a streaming video partnership, a move that puts Netflix squarely in their crosshairs.
The companies said that the joint venture will launch in the second half of the year, but were otherwise very short on details. The service will offer "subscription services and more," and it will be available on multiple platforms like smartphones, tablets, and televisions.
Citing competitive concerns, Verizon executive Bob Mudge said the partners are "limiting our description to 'streaming services and more,'" with more details to come soon.
The service will be available to everyone, not just Verizon customers.
Few other details on how it will work are available. Coinstar CFO Scott Di Valerio wouldn't comment to CNNMoney about "specific parts" of the service, or on the ways in which it will differ from behemoth Netflix.
But he land one jab that seemed aimed at Netflix (NFLX), which features a trove of past-season TV shows and older movies but has been criticized for its lack of newer content.
"With Redbox, you get this great, great new-release content," Di Valerio said. "Beyond that, we're not going to speak to that because of competitive reasons."
Though the companies aren't ready to share details, Di Valerio said Coinstar decided to announce the service now because it found a partner in Verizon -- the conclusion to a search that Coinstar had already announced publicly.
Redbox said a year ago that it would team with "a partner or partners" to create a streaming service.
Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) will own 65% of the company and Coinstar (CSTR), Redbox's parent company, will control the other 35%.
Shares of Coinstar closed 1.8% higher on Monday.
The streaming service will leverage content provider relationships that Verizon has built up through its VCast streaming video business for mobile phones, as well as its large cloud computing infrastructure. It will also take advantage of Redbox's 28,000 kiosks around the country to supplement streaming video options.
That's not exactly the never-leave-your-home promise of Netflix, but customers won't have to wait a day or two for the mail to arrive.
"By offering instantly available online and mobile content with immediate access to physical media through rental kiosks, Verizon and Redbox will be uniquely positioned to deliver the best of both worlds -- digital and physical," the companies said in their partnership announcement.
Despite Netflix's dominance in streaming video, it has a growing field of challengers.
Amazon's (AMZN, Fortune 500) Instant Video service and Hulu Plus have each tried to take on the streaming video leader. So far, they haven't been able to muster up much of a fight: Netflix said last month that its chief competition's streams represented about 10% of Netflix's.
-- CNNMoney staff writer Julianne Pepitone contributed to this report.
|What we want Apple to unveil at WWDC
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|Your car is a giant computer - and it can be hacked

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Monday, May 28, 2007
Happy Revisionist History Day
Since, as Paddy Chayefsky has his main character say in his movie The Americanization of Emily, " We...perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices" (see this and this), I've long thought that what is called Memorial Day would be better recast as Revisionist History Day. The state inculcates an unquestioning faith in its war-making by associating it with patriotism, heroism, and the defense of "our freedoms." This strategy builds in its own defense against any criticism of the government's policies. Anyone who questions the morality of a war is automatically suspected of being unpatriotic, unappreciative of the bravery that has kept us free, and disrespectful of "our troops," in a word, un-American.
To counter this we should do what we can to teach others that the government's version of its wars is always self-serving and threatening to life, liberty, and decency. A good way to spend part of the day would be to pick a war and read a high-quality revisionist account of it. Here are some books (in no particular order) you might use as a guide:
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, by Paul Fussell
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, by William Appleman Williams
The Civilian and the Military: A History of the American Antimilitarist Tradition, by Arthur Ekirch
The Politics of War: The Story of Two Wars which Altered Forever the Political Life of the American Republic, 1890-1920, by Walter Karp
The Costs of War, edited by John Denson
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, by Stephen Kinzer
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, by Chalmers Johnson
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, by David Fromkin
The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, by David Hirst
A good place to start is this article by Robert Higgs: "How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor" (The Freeman, May 2006).
Many other books and articles could be added to the list. The point is this: if we are to prevent wars in the future, we must self-educate and then, when opportune, teach others.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Congrats, Grandpa Cheney
Rembering the Dead
I second Arthur Silber's motion here:
Our national media remain cowed and intimidated, and they refuse, a few honorable exceptions aside, to provide details of the daily and hourly horrors in Iraq to the public. A single major newspaper could provide a noble and invaluable service: if they gave a damn at all about unnecessary death and suffering, they would select the most awful and horrifying picture they could find -- a body with its guts falling out, a bloody corpse shorn of arms and legs, a mutilated face made unrecognizable -- and fill up their entire front page with it, a new one every day. Perhaps after a month or two, enough Americans would demand that their government stop butchering people who never harmed us. [To achieve the sought-for effect, the pictures obviously should be of Iraqis, and only Iraqis. The Iraqis had no choice about our criminal war of aggression, and the endless destruction we have unleashed; the United States did -- and does, even today. We could leave, as we quickly would if we had any remaining decency and humanity, but we won't.]
So Why Is It Outrageous When Ron Paul Says It?
Hat tip: James Ostrowski
"National Continuity Policy"
From The Progressive:
More here.
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a "catastrophic emergency."
Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility "for ensuring constitutional government."
He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20."
The White House released it on May 9.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Perpetuating War by Exalting Its Sacrifices
The quote, the best summation of why we should not honor the war dead, comes from the great antiwar movie The Americanization of Emily, script by Paddy Chayefsky. The lead character American Charlie Madison (James Garner) speaks to to his English girlfriend's (Julie Andrews) mother, who lost her husband, son, and son-in-law in the World War II:
I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it's always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades . . . we shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows' weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices.In other words, it is we who must stop the madness because it is we who make it possible in the first place.
More on Immigration
The new compromise immigration bill is drawing lots of flak, not least from conservatives who object to granting amnesty to millions of so-called illegal aliens in the country. (I prefer to think of them as independent migrants.) Here I have to agree with the conservatives. The illegals shouldn't be granted amnesty. Amnesty connotes forgiveness for doing something wrong — and they have done nothing wrong. Indeed, the government should be asking forgiveness from them.The of my op-ed, "Immigration Policy Reveals What We Are," is at The Future of Freedom Foundation website.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Be Our Guest (Worker)
The so-called guest-worker program, part of the controversial new compromise immigration bill now before Congress, sums up everything that is wrong in how many people think about immigration. On one side are those who want to keep foreigners out of the country on grounds that they will compete against American workers without providing offsetting benefits to the U.S. economy. On the other are those who want to admit some magic number of the right kind of foreign workers because it will benefit the U.S. economy. While they sling endless econometric studies at each other, some of us wonder: What about freedom? That question may seen quaint in the Age of Scientism, when economists and other practitioners of social science assume the role of high priests, but it's still worth asking, because a tower of statistical studies showing adverse effects on wages does not trump individual rights.The rest of this week's TGIF column, "Be Our Guest (Worker)," is at the Foundation for Economic Education website.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Now Anarchy at the New York Times?
The Insurgent Advantage
By DAVID BROOKS
The war on terror has shredded the reputation of the Bush administration. It's destroyed the reputation of Tony Blair's government in Britain, Ehud Olmert's government in Israel and Nuri al-Maliki's government in Iraq. And here's a prediction: It will destroy future American administrations, and future Israeli, European and world governments as well.
That's because setbacks in the war on terror don't only flow from the mistakes of individual leaders and generals. They're structural. Thanks to a series of organizational technological innovations, guerrilla insurgencies are increasingly able to take on and defeat nation-states.
Over the past few years, John Robb has been dissecting the behavior of these groups on his blog, Global Guerrillas. Robb is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and Yale University, and he has worked both as a special ops counterterrorism officer and as a successful software executive.
In other words, he's had personal experience both with modern warfare and the sort of information management that is the key to winning it. He's collected his thoughts in a fast, thought-sparking book, "Brave New War" that, astonishingly, has received only one print review — distributed by U.P.I. — in the month since it's been published.
Robb observes that today's extremist organizations are not like the P.L.O. under Yasir Arafat. They're not liberation armies. Instead, modern terror groups are open-source, decentralized conglomerations of small, quasi-independent groups.
There are between 70 and 100 groups that make up the Iraqi insurgency, and they are organized, Robb says, like a bazaar. It's pointless to decapitate the head of the insurgency or disrupt its command structure, because the insurgency doesn't have these things. Instead, it is a swarm of disparate companies that share information, learn from each other's experiments and respond quickly to environmental signals.
For example, the U.S. has spent billions trying to disrupt attacks from improvised explosive devices, but the I.E.D. manufacturing stream has transmogrified and now includes sophisticated metallurgy, outsourcing and fast innovation cycles. The number of I.E.D. attacks has remained pretty constant throughout the war.
Superempowered global guerrillas — whether it's Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, Nigerian oil fighters or the Brazilian gang P.C.C. — specialize in what Robb calls systems disruption. They attack the networks that support modern life. In one case, Iraqi insurgents spent roughly $2,000 to blow up an oil pipeline in Southeast Iraq. It cost the Iraqi government $500 million in lost revenue. For the insurgents, that was a return on investment of 25 million percent.
The 9/11 attacks, the Madrid bombings, the Niger Delta oil well attacks and even the Samarra mosque bombing were all attempts to disrupt the economic and social systems of target nations.
But, Robb continues, these new groups are not seeking to take over their countries the way 20th-century guerrillas did. They have a prenational, feudal mind-set to go along with their postnational Silicon Valley-style organizational methods. They merely seek to weaken states, so they can prosper in the lawless space created by collapse of law and order. That way the groups don't have to construct anything or assume responsibility for anything.
In fact they've learned, as Lawrence of Arabia learned decades ago, that it's better to weaken target governments, but not actually destroy them. When nations don't feel existentially threatened, they don't mobilize all their resources to defeat their foes. They try to fight wars on the cheap, and end up in a feckless semibelligerent state somewhere between real war and nonwar.
Robb is pessimistic (excessively so) that top-heavy, pork-driven institutions like the Defense Department or the Department of Homeland Security can ever keep up with open-source insurgencies. Since 9/11, he believes, big government institutions have engaged in a process of hindsight re-engineering designed to reduce future risk, when in fact, the very nature of the threat is that it's random and cannot be anticipated.
He thinks democratic nations need to build their own decentralized counterinsurgency networks, though he goes over the top in imagining local squads of grass-roots terror fighters.
But time and again, he hints at the core issue, which is that nation-states are inefficient learning organizations, at least compared to their feudal and postnational foes. If the Iraqi insurgents defeat the U.S. then every bad guy on earth will study and learn their techniques. The people now running for president will find themselves in bigger heaps of trouble than the current one now is — trouble that this presidential campaign hasn't even dealt with.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Anarchy at the Washington Times
[W]hy is law enforcement so political and has it always been this way? No.The full article is here.
Several hundred years ago, English law enforcement was a private system that included dispute resolution and closely resembled modern arbitration and mediation. The system was very different from today's adversarial system of criminal prosecution. When an injustice occurred, people would bring their dispute to private informal courts where the victim was compensated by the perpetrator.
Private law enforcement worked quite well until the Normans invaded England and the government decided to use the system to collect revenue, passing laws prohibiting private restitution and requiring all compensation be made to the king.
Eventually, when parties could no longer resolve disputes on their own, the system of private law enforcement disappeared. Only later did theorists develop arguments justifying why a government monopoly over law enforcement is allegedly necessary....
Government monopolies are not responsive to consumer needs in other areas, so we should not expect them to be responsive in the area of police and courts.
Luckily nongovernment alternatives do exist. The more we move away from a government monopoly, the less we are likely to see repeat tragedies such as the wrongful prosecution of the Duke lacrosse players.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
He Is the Very Model of a Modern Major Liberal
Reason Sets the Record Straight on Ron Paul
Malkin tries to make much out of Paul's stated mistrust of government and his belief that government investigations often cover things up. Wow! These are things conservatives find subversive? Have they fully embraced the Fuhrer principle? I guess so. All the more reason for kudos to Ron Paul.
Bill Maher on Ron Paul
Giuliani, Radical Free-Marketeer?
What? Are we to conclude that Giuliani -- the persecutor of Michael Milken -- or anyone else who was on that stage, favors an unfettered free market? (Only Ron Paul comes anywhere near that position.)
Cross-posted at Liberty & Power.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Paul's 9/11 explanation deserves to be debated
Another is here.
And if you can bear to be disgusted by the smearing of Paul, see this.
My own defense of Ron Paul is here.
Political Science
"[I]t would be quite illogical to believe that a scientist may without inconsistency subscribe to any value-position whatsoever...." That provocative sentence is found in an article by Belgian liberal legal scholar Frank Van Dun, "Economics and the Limits of Value-Free Science." What does it mean and how is it relevant to economic and political freedom?The rest of this week's TGIF column, "Political Science," is at the Foundation for Economic Foundation website.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Game Is Rigged
Did you notice how Sean Hannity immediately changed the subject on Paul after the debate? Hannity first asked him how he can blame America for the 9/11 attacks. And when Paul tried to repeat what he had actually said, Hannity switched gears and asked whether "we" should do nothing when dictators mistreat their people?
Pardon, Sean. But one subject at a time, if you please. Are we to conclude that you concede Paul's point that U.S. policy seeded the ground for terrorism and now you want to argue that terrorism is the price we must pay for an interventionist foreign policy? If so, say so.
Or do you just have attention deficit disorder?
Andrew Sullivan and Ron Paul
Go, Ron, Go!
From last night's GOP "debate." Kudos to Ron Paul! But will this be the excuse for ignoring him and excluding him from future debates? Let's hope not. A good account is here.
MR. GOLER: Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as -- almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?
REP. PAUL: Well, I think the party has lost its way, because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy.
Senator Robert Taft didn't even want to be in NATO. George Bush won the election in the year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy -- no nation-building, no policing of the world. Republicans were elected to end the Korean War. The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War. There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.
Just think of the tremendous improvement -- relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution.
And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly. (Bell rings.) When we do, the wars don't end.
MR. GOLER: Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9/11 attacks, sir?
REP. PAUL: What changed?
MR. GOLER: The non-interventionist policies.
REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East -- I think Reagan was right.
We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?
REP. PAUL: I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, "I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier." They have already now since that time -- (bell rings) -- have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary.
MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)
And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: Congressman?
REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.
They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if we were -- if other foreign countries were doing that to us?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
The "Debate"
Moreover, with ten candidates on the stage, we knew going in there would be no time for any positions to be developed. The whole thing was a joke, more precisely, a media event that MSNBC could milk for ratings.
If that network (and the others) were serious about informing people about who was running for these nominations, they would do, let's say, one-hour interviews with each candidate -- one on one. But no, for a couple of reasons they won't do that. First, they know the ratings would be too small to justify the time. How many people will tune it for ten long interviews?
Second, that format would require that "minor" candidates -- such as Ron Paul, an antiwar Republican who thereby doesn't fit most people's worldview -- would have to be given equal time.
So that's why we were stuck with the joke we saw the other night. I despise what most people call "democracy." And so do the television news people. But at least I admit it. I don't play Chris Matthews's game and pretend to be gaga about the process.
Speaking of Chris Matthews, who says he was against the Iraq was from the start: why does he say the troops are serving "their country." If the war is against the interests of most Americans, which Matthews says he believes, they can't be serving the country. At most they are serving the president. (I e-mailed this to Matthews. So far no answer.)
Friday, May 11, 2007
That Mercantilist Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution has been used to justify a wide expansion of government power, from antidiscrimination laws to drug prohibition to a ban on guns near schools. In objecting to use of the Commerce Clause for such remote purposes, some constitutionalists rely on a particular historical interpretation of both the Clause and the Constitution as a whole. Could that interpretation be wrong?The rest of this week's TGIF column, "That Mercantilist Commerce Clause," is at the Foundation for Economic Education website.
Cross-posted at Liberty & Power.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Herbert Spencer on Labor's Predicament
In their [workers'] social relations, too, there has been an entailed retrogression rather than a progression. The wage-earning factory-hand does, indeed, exemplify entirely free labour, in so far that, making contracts at will and able to break them after short notice, he is free to engage with whomsoever he pleases and where he pleases. But this liberty amounts in practice to little more than the ability to exchange one slavery for another; since, fit only for his particular occupation, he has rarely an opportunity of doing anything more than decide in what mill he will pass the greater part of his dreary days. The coercion of circumstances often bears more hardly on him than the coercion of a master does on one in bondage.From Chapter IX of Principles of Sociology. The mainstream critics of Spencer, ignorant as they are of what the man actually wrote (see this New York Times article), would be surprised by this passage. Spencer does not appear to attribute the workers' predicament to government intervention, but rather treats it as something inherent in the nature of things. At the end of the chapter he wrote, "...there appears to be no remedy."
Friday, May 04, 2007
De Jasay on Limiting Power
Anthony de Jasay, an occasional contributor to ... The Freeman, is a refreshing political thinker. His classic, The State, asks questions few have asked since Thomas Hobbes assured us that swapping freedom for security under Leviathan was a slam dunk. De Jasay never fails to challenge his readers. Leave it to him to ask, "Is limited government possible?The rest of this week's TGIF column, "De Jasay on Limiting Power," is at the Foundation for Economic Education website.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Higher-Education Scam
Here's an excerpt from "Higher Education Conformity":
[T]here are ways in which the higher education industry is becoming a racket: Buy our product or be condemned to life of penury, and our product can easily cost well over $100,000.
The pundits keep chanting that we need a more highly skilled workforce, by which they mean more college graduates, although the connection between college and skills is not always crystal clear. Jones, for example, was performing a complex job requiring considerable judgment, experience and sensitivity without the benefit of any college degree. And how about all those business majors -- business being the most popular undergraduate major in America? It seems to me that a two-year course in math and writing skills should be more than sufficient to prepare someone for a career in banking, marketing, or management. Most of what you need to know you're going to learn on the job anyway.
But in the last three decades the percentage of jobs requiring at least some college has doubled, which means that employers are going along with the college racket. A resume without a college degree is never going to get past the computer programs that screen applications. Why? Certainly it's not because most corporate employers possess a deep affinity for the life of the mind. In fact in his book Executive Blues G. J. Meyers warned of the "academic stench" that can sink a career: That master's degree in English? Better not mention it.
My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one's ability to obey and conform. Whatever else you learn in college, you learn to sit still for long periods while appearing to be awake. And whatever else you do in a white collar job, most of the time you'll be sitting and feigning attention. Sitting still for hours on end -- whether in library carrels or office cubicles -- does not come naturally to humans. It must be learned -- although no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming.
Or maybe what attracts employers to college grads is the scent of desperation. Unless your parents are rich and doting, you will walk away from commencement with a debt averaging $20,000 and no health insurance. Employers can safely bet that you will not be a trouble-maker, a whistle-blower or any other form of non-"team-player." You will do anything. You will grovel.
I don't think much of her proposal in the final paragraph:
"[W]e need a distinguished blue ribbon commission to investigate its role as a toll booth on the road to employment...."
That's like trying to use a pea shooter to kill an elephant.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Scratch a Conservative and You Find a ...
When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.You fill in the blank in the title.
Weren't the American Revolutionaries Disloyal?
Loyalty Day, 2007
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America
America was founded by patriots who risked their lives to bring freedom to our Nation. Today, our citizens are grateful for our Founding Fathers and confident in the principles that lead us forward. On Loyalty Day, we celebrate the blessings of freedom and remember our responsibility to continue our legacy of liberty.
Our Nation has never been united simply by blood, birth, or soil, but instead has always been united by the ideals that move us beyond our background and teach us what it means to be Americans. We believe deeply in freedom and self-government, values embodied in our cherished documents and defended by our troops over the course of generations. Our citizens hold the truths of our founding close to their hearts and demonstrate their loyalty in countless ways. We are inspired by the patriotic service of the men and women who wear our Nation's uniform with honor and decency. The military spouses and families who stand by their loved ones represent the best of the American spirit, and we are profoundly grateful for their sacrifice. Our country is strengthened by the millions of volunteers who show deep compassion toward their neighbors in need. All citizens can express their loyalty to the United States by flying the flag, participating in our democracy, and learning more about our country's grand story of courage and simple dream of dignity.
The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as "Loyalty Day." This Loyalty Day, and throughout the year, I ask all Americans to join me in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2007, as Loyalty Day. I call upon the people of the United States to participate in this national observance and to display the flag of the United States on Loyalty Day as a symbol of pride in our Nation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.


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LL-37 Nasal Spray United Kingdom
This product is intended for research and medical purposes only, to be only used by trained professionals.
LL-37, also known as CAP-18 (Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide 18), is a 37 amino acid cationic peptide. It is an antimicrobial peptide that through research has eradicated various pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites [1,2,3,4].
This peptide represents the series of the very first amphipathic alpha-helical peptide separated from a human. LL-37 is produced by a variety of cells, including neutrophils, monocytes, mast cells, and epithelial cells [1,2,3,4,5].
It plays a crucial role in the initial line of protection against infection as well as the systemic attack of viruses at sites of swelling as well as injuries. Cytotoxic to both typical as well as microbial eukaryotic cells, LL-37 is substantially immune to proteolytic destruction in remedy [4].
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346901/
- https://www.jimmunol.org/content/191/10/4895
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836506/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000527360600126X
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16716248
Sequence: Leu Leu Gly Asp-Phe-Phe Arg Lys-Ser Lys-Glu Lys.11e-Gly Lys Glu Phe Lys-Arg Ile Val-Gln Are Ile-Lys Asp Phe Leu Arg Asn Leu Val Pro-Arg Thr-Glu-Ser
Molecular Formula: C205 H340 N60 O53
Molecular Weight: 4493.342 g/mol
Storage: Lyophilized peptides to be stored below -18°C
Research use only. Not for human or animal consumption!
DISCLAIMER: We do not supply peptides to Any individual under the age of 18. You must be a licensed and qualified healthcare practitioner. Our team of dedicated professionals are committed to providing an extensive range of products used in the process of medical research by responsible trained and professional individuals. All products listed on this website (https://united-kingdom.direct-peptides.com) and provided through Direct Peptides are intended for medical research purposes only. Direct Peptides does not encourage or promote the use of any of these products in a personal capacity (i.e. human consumption), nor are the products intended to be used as a drug, stimulant or for use in any food products.
Buy LL-37 Nasal Spray ONLINE today From United Kingdom Direct Peptides


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in order to make rbldnsd as rhsbl authoritative nameserver for unbound, the simple way is to create stub-zone like this:
stub-zone: name: "rhsbl.example.com." stub-addr: 172.18.1.1@530
if we configured unbound as iterator and validator, this minimal configuration will not work. when you query for example:
# dig blacklisted.domain.com.rhsbl.example.com
we will get "SERVFAIL" replied.
the simple way is by turned off validator function in unbound, but if we still want validator function in unbound, we can simply exclude our rhsbl zone in stub-zone as insecure domain.
domain-insecure: "rhsbl.example.com."
now, we wlll get reply as expected
# dig blacklisted.domain.com.rhsbl.example.com +short 127.0.0.2
and in rbldnsd start up config
RBLDNSD="dsbl -r/var/lib/rbldnsd -t 300 -b 172.18.1.1/530 rhsbl.example.com:dnset:hosts"
happy blacklisting 😀
combined with checkdbl.pl script here: http://www.kutukupret.com/2010/12/03/postfix-header_checks-using-tcp_table-and-checkdbl-pl-script/ we can use it as header_checks map. here's the result:
May 25 19:11:31 mx1 postfix/cleanup[146988]: 68A203080DD: reject: header From: Dominic McXXX <email@example.com> from sub.domainspammer.com[xxx.xxx.xxx.xx]; from=<firstname.lastname@example.com> to=<firstname.lastname@example.com> proto=ESMTP helo=<spammer>: 5.7.1 domainspammer.com, which appears in the 'From' header, is listed on rhsbl.example.com


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ReSharper 6 Bundles Decompiler, Free Standalone Tool to Follow
Previous posts introducing ReSharper 6:
What's going on here?
We've recently hinted on a new kind of functionality that's being developed within ReSharper 6 EAP. Those of you who saw that post got the message right: ReSharper 6 will feature a decompiler. More than that, it is already available in ReSharper 6 EAP builds that you can download and try.
As if it isn't enough, we have more great news: make sure to read on to the end of this post.
How do I invoke the decompiler in ReSharper?
There are several ways you can navigate to decompiled code in ReSharper:
- You can navigate to a decompiled library symbol right from its usage in the source code. This should be done via ReSharper's Navigate To feature. To invoke Navigate To, press Alt+` and select Decompiled sources:
- You can jump to the declaration of a specific library type from anywhere within Visual Studio using ReSharper's Go to Type menu (Ctrl+T in Visual Studio layout). You can even go further by jumping to a specific library method or property using Go to Symbol (Shift+Alt+T).
- If you prefer browsing library types using the Object Browser, you can invoke Navigate To Decompiled Sources right from there:
Will common ReSharper features be available with decompiled code?
Well naturally, you can't refactor decompiled libraries, generate new code in them, or run code inspections (though it would be fun in some cases).
However, most navigation features that ReSharper normally provides in source code are equally available in decompiled code. For example, you can:
- Navigate to declarations and implementations:
- Search for usages, inheritors, and base symbols:
- Explore a decompiled type with File Structure:
- View type hierarchy or even see incoming calls to library symbols from your source code:
- Highlight usages of symbols:
Where can I configure the behavior of ReSharper decompiler?
Decompiler is configured in the same group as other features from the External Sources feature group, namely ReSharper | Options | Tools | External Sources | Decompiled Sources.
If you're trying to get ReSharper show decompiled code but it's failing to do so, make sure that Decompiled sources is selected as an external sources data provider in ReSharper | Options | Tools | External Sources. By the way, if Decompiled sources is at the top of the list, you can navigate to decompiled code with Go to Declaration (F12 or Ctrl+click).
How sophisticated is ReSharper decompiler?
Let's just say, ReSharper decompiler is sophisticated enough to correctly infer lambda expressions and yield returns. Some things are not yet supported, for instance auto-properties, but that's only a question of time.
Why has ReSharper moved in this direction?
Source code management has been in focus of the developer community for ages. We have lots of source code storage systems with histories and branches, distributed and personal, tools ecosystem, and what not. However, many applications are quite large today, and handling them in source form tends to get more and more complicated. Setting up binary reusable libraries even inside a single business entity can be a very painful thing to perform.
ReSharper started assisting developers with this in version 5, by introducing navigation to and within external sources. The External Sources feature brings code available through information in PDB (Program DataBase) files straight into Visual Studio editor. For example, when Microsoft releases another library in Reference Source form, they publish PDB files having links to their Source Servers. ReSharper can parse this information, download source files and display them for a developer to explore.
That's cool, but what about home-built libraries? What if your company doesn't have Source Server infrastructure in place and doesn't want to invest into getting one? How to get seamless integration with source code and binary libraries referenced in projects?
That's exactly the task that the decompiler in ReSharper 6 is going to solve. Adding to the Source Server support, the new ReSharper reconstructs source code from compiled assemblies and enables all code reading features in such files.
Say, one department in your company builds a framework, and another department uses it to create an end-user application. You can reference assemblies for the framework and avoid bloating your workspace with files and projects that you don't really need. However, when required, you can easily jump into decompiled sources and explore internals. Should you need further details — comments, real variable names, exact code — you can go and check out sources for that project, but in fact it is quite rarely needed.
Another point is the emerging market of packaging solutions: NuGet and OpenWrap to name a few. Packages (or wraps) contain binaries and tools, but not source code. However, many of them are open source and it is perfectly legal to look for sources, even reconstructed. We would like to talk to providers of packaging solutions and ask them to include information about source code locations into package descriptors, so that everybody can get the exact source code for a specific version of binaries.
Will the decompiler be only available as a part of ReSharper?
At this point you are probably asking yourself "Well, but what about a standalone solution? I don't need ReSharper!".
Bad news is you should only not need ReSharper if you're not doing .NET development.
Good news is that we're preparing a standalone binary-as-a-source application, i.e. a decompiler + assembly browser to explore whatever .NET compiled code is legal to explore. We don't have any specific date for release, but it's going to be released this year, and it's going to be free of charge. And by saying "free", we actually mean "free".
UPDATE (May 12, 2011): Standalone decompiler called dotPeek is now available for download!
If you've read it up to this point, you completely owe it to yourself to try ReSharper 6 EAP builds with decompilation engine right now!
Let us know what you think about the quality of the decompiler and overall source-binary integration experience and how we can make it even better for you.
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Eager, Lazy and Explicit Loading with Entity Framework Core
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OSS Power-Ups: bUnit – Webinar Recording
The recording of our webinar, OSS Power-Ups: bUnit, with Egil Hansen and Steven Giesel, is available. This was the twelfth episode of our OSS Power-Ups series, where we put a spotlight on open-source .NET projects. Subscribe to our community newsletter to receive notifications about future webi…
Accelerating Your Testing Workflow with Unit Test Creation and Navigation
Unit tests play an important role in our daily development workflow. They help us ensure our codebase's correctness when writing new functionality or performing refactorings to improve readability and maintainability. In the process, we often create new test files that accompany the p…
Introducing Predictive Debugging: A Game-Changing Look into the Future
With the introduction of debugging tools, software developers were empowered to interactively investigate the control flow of software programs to find bugs in live environments. At JetBrains, we've always strived to improve the art of debugging. Besides the more standard things you expect from a de…


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Docker, an open source project providing a way to automate the deployment of Linux applications inside portable containers, is generating a lot of excitement. The underlying approach is not new: We've been using containers for years to componentize whole systems, abstracting them from the physical platform, so you can move them from platform to platform. But Docker brings the container approach to the cloud, so you can move Linux applications from cloud to cloud.
Docker is a much lighter-weight approach to application portability than we've had before. Docker extends a common container format called Linux Containers with a Linux kernel and a high-level API that together run processes in isolation: CPU, memory, I/O, network, and so on. Docker also provides namespaces to completely isolate an application's view of the operating environment, including process trees, network, user IDs, and file systems.
[ Cloud computing shares resources that were never shared before, creating a new set of risks and demanding a new set of security best practices. Learn those new security practices from Cloud Security Digital Spotlight PDF special report. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]
Docker's lightweight platform abstraction is much more efficient than traditional VMs for creating workload bundles that are transportable from cloud to cloud. In many cases, virtualization is too cumbersome for cloud portability.
However, it will take some time before we see developers and cloud platform providers getting good at using Docker. Thus, you may want to take a wait-and-see approach, at least this year. Chances are more technology will hit the streets using Docker, making it more bulletproof.
But as Docker matures, it'll become a key part of your cloud environment.
This article, "Docker will make cloud apps portable -- next year," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of David Linthicum's Cloud Computing blog and track the latest developments in cloud computing at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.


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Toasting Season's End
On my last ski day of the season, I raised a glass (shocking, I know) with dear friends and Ski Dad (we'd spent the morning showing off our dueling mad-skill-sets for the first time since we had completed our respective three-day clincs), feeling quite satisfied. Not only because I'd tackled endless crazy terrain all morning with my favorite people, but because, whee!, I'd discovered a new favorite libation at Royal Street Café. I'd like to think that every patron who sits down at RSC at 11:30 gets the same question from the servers: "Would you like to put in a cocktail order now, so that it's ready for you at noon when we can serve it," but I suspect that Rebecca, our fabulous server that day, has been reading my blog entries.
I, of course, insisted that my friends have the Blueberry Mojito, but determined that I was under professional obligation (to you, dear reader) to test a new beverage—The RSC St. Germain Elderflower Cocktail. It is the winner of the 2010 Park Cit Cocktail Contest and it's a winner in my book, too.
The very prospect of a new drink prompted me to look at the menu in a new light, and indeed order something new—the RSC Fish and Chips. Made with Steelhead Trout, the team at RSC takes this pub standard to a new level.
Our server, Rebecca, (did I mention that she's awesome?) insisted that we have dessert—and so, the mini ice cream sandwiches were ordered, and devoured.
As I licked the last of the decadent fudge dipping sauce off my spoon, I worried that I might have après lunch legs awaiting me for the afternoon. Turns out, that St. Germain cocktail offered a certain salvo for that particular ailment. I was, it turned out, refreshed and recharged.
We found some lovely powder (yep, there was still fresh stuff) and more than one "Woo hoo," was heard from our crew.


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Hacking the SoundCloud player (part 1)
A lot of people ask me about customizing the SoundCloud player, "I love the player but could you just add this…" or "the player doesn't quite work with the background of my blog, is there a way to tweak it". Well actually there are quite a lot of options so I thought I'd summarize a few of them here.
Hopefully you should all know by now, but SoundCloud currently has three really great players that can be customized in a number of ways. There is the mini, waveform and artwork player. Each can be used to great effect in different scenarios. And there are several standard customizations you can do with each. Please note, to access the mini and artwork players you'll need a premium account.
As well as the standard player customizations there are a number of other ways that you can hack the SoundCloud player. You just need to know where to look in the embed code. There are a range of different parameters that you can change in the embed code when you share a player:
buying = true/false (show hide buy buttons)
sharing = true/false (show hide share buttons)
download = true/false (show hide download buttons)
show_bpm = true/false (show hide bpm display in player)
show_playcount = true/false (show hide number of track plays)
text_buy_track = string (e.g. 'Tweet' and it goes to your buy link)
text_buy_set = string (for the buy all button)
You can of course also change the height and width.
height = number of pixels
width = number of pixels
But one hidden little feature that we wanted to tell you about are our new double height (or width players). All you need to do is double the number of height (or width) pixels eg.
height="600″ width="300″
In the above example I've changed two things. Example code is below.
1) I've changed the height to make a tall player
2) I've hidden the play count
3) I've turned the share option off
<object height="600" width="300">
<param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fsmashingpumpkins%2Fa-stitch-in-time&color=ff7700&sharing=false&show_playcount=false"> </param> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> </param> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="600" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fsmashingpumpkins%2Fa-stitch-in-time&color=ff7700&sharing=false&show_playcount=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300"></embed> </object>
So that's it. Fairly straight forward once you know how, but very handy. In part 2 we'll share some more tips.


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Senior recital performed by Bryan Chong '13, M.Eng '14 and Weijia Chen '14, May 25, 2014.


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India-born crop scientist who is credited with developing hundreds of varieties of disease-resistant wheat adaptable to many climates and difficult growing conditions was named the 2014 recipient of the World Food Prize. Sanjaya Rajaram, 71, wins the $250,000 prize founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug that honors vital contributions to improving the quality, quantity or availability of food throughout the world.Rajaram, a citizen of Mexico, began research and field work with Borlaug in 1969. He successfully crossed varieties of winter and spring wheat with his own plant breeding techniques, which led to the development of plants that have higher yields and dependability under a wide range of environments -- important in keeping pace with the growing world population.He is credited with developing 480 wheat varieties that have been released in 51 countries on six continents. "It's a great honor," Rajaram said. "I'm a very humble person but very honored the World Food Prize committee has recognized me for the work I have done." The next big challenge, Rajaram believes, is developing plants with more drought tolerance, staving off the effects of salt water intrusion as oceans rise, and other issues related to climate change. "Future crop production is bound to decline unless we fully factor in the issues related to climate change, soil fertility and water deficits, and utilize advanced genetics in the next 20 to 30 years," he said in a telephone interview.Rajaram was born in a small village in the Uttar Pradesh state in northeast India, where people lived on very little. He expanded upon his mentor Borlaug's work with his own achievements, said World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn. "His breakthrough breeding technologies have had a far-reaching and significant impact in providing more food around the globe and alleviating world hunger," Quinn said in a statement.Quinn said it's fitting that the prize be awarded to Rajaram as the Des Moines-based organization celebrates the centennial of Borlaug's 1914 birth in Cresco, Iowa. Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel for boosting agricultural production in what has become known as the Green Revolution, launched the World Food Prize in 1986. He died in 2009.Borlaug once referred to Rajaram as "the greatest present-day wheat scientist in the world," Quinn said. Rajaram succeeded Borlaug in leading wheat research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, which was founded in 1966 through an agreement between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Secretariat of Agriculture.Prior to Rajaram's research, winter wheat and spring wheat were distinct gene pools. Rajaram's new varieties can be grown in marginal areas, such as small mountain plots in Pakistan, remote areas in China, and in the acidic soils of Brazil, the foundation said.Rajaram said he plans to give some of the money from the prize to private organizations in India who work with the poor and use the remaining money for plant breeding research. The announcement was made at a ceremony in Washington featuring Secretary of State John Kerry.He said by inventing heartier crops and new species, Rajaram led an effort to save 1 billion lives. With projections that the global population will grow by 2 billion more people in the next three decades, "it's not hard to figure out this is the time for a second Green Revolution," Kerry said. "Innovation and invention are the way forward and the way that we can face the challenges of food security and climate," Kerry said. "When it comes to climate change, when it comes to food security, we are literally facing a moment of adversity perhaps even dire necessity."Rajaram will receive the award at an Oct. 16 ceremony in Des Moines.
For the latest food news, health tips and recipes, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and YouTube.


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Industry Insights
Robotics in the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Industry
| By: Bennett Brumson, Contributing Editor
Robots in laboratory, life science and pharmaceutical applications perform tasks at rates beyond human capability. These robots function in potentially hazardous settings in proximity to biological dangers, the threat of radioactive contamination, and toxic chemotherapy compounds. Robotics are called upon to assemble and package a variety of medical devices and implants as well as preparing prescriptions for mail-order pharmacies or hospitals.
"Robots are doing assay analysis and automating the movement of test tubes in research laboratories. Because of the high number of samples that need analysis and the amount of data collection required, the process and costs are easily validated with robotics," says Chetan Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer of Agile Planet Inc. (Austin, Texas) "In pharmaceutical applications, hospitals use robots to mix potentially hazardous cancer drugs and those associated with radiation."
"Laboratory automation is a growing field for robotics, from drug discovery to pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, to performing blood sample testing," says James Shimano of Precise Automation Inc. (San Jose, California) "I see more interest in robotics by pharmaceutical companies for scientific research." Robotics have considerable potential in life science applications, says Shimano. "Consumers do not directly see the impact of robotics in life science applications but robots lead to better and less expensive pharmaceuticals. Robots also dispense medications in pharmacies."
Similarly, DENSO Robotics (Long Beach, California) finds more business in the medical and pharmaceutical markets. "We are heavily involved in manufacturing eyeglasses and a variety of other medical devices," says out Peter Cavallo, North America Robot Sales Manager. "Biological, pharmaceutical and chemical testing are growing areas of robotics. In the life science and pharmaceutical industries, robots play a key role in liquid handling."
Cavallo delineates how robots can accommodate a wide variety of products that change frequently. "Integrators use tool changers and vision to recognize and react to different parts. Robots with vision and tool changers are flexible and able to accommodate multiple configurations of items on the same production line."
Richard Motely, Senior Account Manager at FANUC Robotics America Corp. (Rochester Hills, Michigan) says the benefits of robotics in traditional industries are replicated in the life sciences sector. "In clinical laboratories, robots are used for drug discovery and research and provide similar benefits as in other industries. These benefits include achieving higher consistency, product integrity, better record-keeping and traceability."
Motely says robotics assist pharmaceutical manufacturers in defending against fraudulently produced and marketed medications. "The pharmaceutical industry places an increasing emphasis on traceability for product safety and defense against counterfeiters. That emphasis on tracing the manufacturing through the supply chain to the point of sale has lead pharmaceutical companies towards increased use of robotics."
Motely explains when an over-the-counter medication is purchased, bar code scanners can determine if that product was legitimately sold. "If a bar code that should have gone to New York shows up in Michigan, the system can flag that product as counterfeit. That trend is interesting, particularly for packaging applications."
The use of robotics to thwart counterfeit pharmaceutics is important to end-users of robots made by Adept Technology Inc. (Pleasanton, California) says Rush LaSelle, Adept's Director of Global Sales and Marketing. "Driven by intellectual property concerns, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers are re-shoring, bringing production back to the United States. Off-shore pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing is coming back and robotics act as a vehicle for re-shoring." LaSelle says robotics help general industry manufacturing move production back to the United States, although the process is occurring more rapidly in the medical devise and pharmaceutical sectors.
Research laboratories are often located within tight quarters. To address this issue, robot makers strive to downsize their product offerings. "The trend is towards decreasing the size of the equipment. Equipment takes up a fair amount of space and laboratories are usually not very large. I see a trend towards minimizing or miniaturizing the equipment, or 'lab on the chip'," says Dr. Andrew Goldenberg, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and President of Engineering Services Inc. (ESI, Toronto Ontario, Canada).
The "lab on the chip" are small devices that look similar to microchips but are etched with very tiny vessels into which liquid is pumped for biological tests, expounds Goldenberg. "The 'lab on the chip' uses much less quantity of material as well as being physically small and portable. The small size uses precious and expensive bioassays more efficiently and facilitates field tests," Goldenberg says. Miniaturization of equipment, transportability and minimizing quantities used is particularly important to laboratories that perform many thousands of experiments, while minimizing waste, concludes Goldenberg.
Integrated robotic systems using laboratory equipment are capable of impressive throughput. A biochemical assay can be read out in a tenth of a second per well. An entire 1,536-well microtiter plate can be analyzed in just over half a minute.
Despite high levels of general unemployment, clinical laboratories have difficulty recruiting new technicians to staff them, points out Craig Rubenstein, Life Science Technology Leader with Motoman Robotics Division of Yaskawa America Inc. (West Carrollton, Ohio) "The average age of technicians in clinical laboratories is in the 50's. Because these technicians are rapidly reaching retirement age and few people come in to take their place, the robotics industry sees an increased adoption and acceptance of robots in laboratories. Technician work in laboratories is unglamorous because the work is done at night or early in the morning."
Continuing, Rubenstein says, "Technician pay is okay but laboratories are generally located in windowless basements and is not an appealing environment to work in. Because of a gradual but consistent decline in the number of people trained in these positions, degree programs for these positions dried up and closed." Without a sufficient number of new people becoming laboratory technicians, robotics help fill the void, says Rubenstein.
Related to aging technicians, the general population is aging as well, comments Rubenstein. "As the population ages, more clinical testing is ordered by physicians. Because the demand for testing is going up and the availability of human resources to do the work has been declining, robotics offer an opportunity to meet that demand." In short, the trend in diagnostic laboratories is fewer people doing an increased amount of work with robotics helping to meet that increased demand.
Throughput and capacity are the leading justifications for end-users to invest in robotics, not elimination of labor. Laboratories would rather have scientists interpreting data the system produces rather than running the system itself.
Robotic Pharmacies
Due to the potential hazards and high volumes, some hospitals and larger health care clinics utilize robotics to dispense medication. "Robotic pharmacies are expanding rapidly within hospitals and clinics. Several companies are servicing that market and the interest level will only increase," says LaSelle. "On the retail level, robotics in local pharmacies will be a challenge. The technology is available but regulation will pace the growth of robotic pharmacies more than the technology."
Motley has a similar outlook as LaSelle. "Robotic pharmacies have been adopted in high-volume settings, such as mail-order pharmacies and by hospital and clinics with a high patient count," says Motley. "To make robots attractive to the local pharmacy, the robotics industry must implement another layer of cost-reduction for the overall system. Someone clever could put together a system at a reasonable cost, but robots are still only in higher volume pharmacies."
Lab Work
Robotics play key functions in assembly and packaging of medical devices, says Agile Planet's Kapoor. "In medical device manufacturing, robotics play an active role in assembly. The manufacturing process is highly regulated and must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Manufactures use robotics to reduce cost."
Kapoor also says robotics perform important tasks in surgical procedures. "Tele-operated surgical robotics are used to augment the surgeon. Robots are used for delivery of radiation and for proton therapy. The goal is to administer the smallest dose of radiation as possible to the precise location. Robots are very precise, positioning equipment and patients accurately in three-dimensional space."
Sylvie Algarra, Life Science Activity Manager with Stäubli Corp. (Duncan, South Carolina) says, "Robots are loading and unloading injection molding machines, assembling medical devices and polishing implants. In pharmaceutical production, robots handle bottles in the cell culture process, loading and unloading autoclaves and packaging machines, as well as de-nesting syringe tubs."
Applied Manufacturing Technologies Inc. (AMT, Orion, Michigan) works with companies that produce dental appliances. Jordan Merhib, AMT's Director of Business Development, describes a typical application. "A dental appliance manufacturer uses several robots primarily for sorting and packing at the end of the production line. Another company making personal medical devices and eyeglasses use robots for machine tending, loading raw materials into machines, and unloading finished product." Merhib states that personal medical devices have many unique parts and their assembly and packaging is especially suited to robotics.
Robots help researchers perform a sufficient number of experiments to ensure valid conclusions, says Goldenberg. "A robotic micro-array can put 40,000 dots of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) no more than 75 microns in diameter onto a single slide. That cannot be done with a human hand. Using vision, a robot can identify an object of interest on a petri dish."
Citing an example, Goldenberg relates that, "In cloning, robotic vision identifies what part of the colony bacteria comes from. Vision helps identify the quality of the bacteria and helps direct the robot with special tooling to move the high quality bacteria into another petri dish. Vision is used to identify what part of the colony needs removal for different processing or for disposal."
Robotics have a certain future in laboratory, life science and pharmaceutical applications. "I see increased activity for bench-top robotics performing various protocols. These stations are reprogrammable and many are complex," says Goldenberg. "Robotics are essential to modern scientific or commercial research and experimentation."


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/ Source: The Associated Press
Police say a new father faces drug charges because he lit up a marijuana joint while waiting for his wife to give birth at a western Pennsylvania hospital.
Police aren't identifying the man found smoking the pot in a designated smoking area of Uniontown Hospital Tuesday morning, but say he'll face marijuana possession charges.
Uniontown police Sgt. Jonathan Grabiak tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that a nurse smelled the marijuana when she took a cigarette break in the same area, and a hospital security guard called police about 3:20 a.m.
Grabiak says the man told him, "I'm having a baby and wanted to get a buzz" and then pulled a bag of marijuana from his shoe.
The man was released to a family member and made to leave the hospital.