text:
Personal Injury Solicitors Porchester – No Win No Fee
Injured in an accident?
Call us now for free advice on 0800 0351 999
We'll take care of you - every step of the way
Why choose us?
Free advice
No Win No Fee
Fast and friendly
Specialist Serious Injury Solicitors
Local and national coverage
Swain & Co Solicitors are one of the leading firms of Solicitors in Hampshire specialising in personal injury and medical negligence claims on a No Win No Fee basis. Located close to Porchester, we are proud to offer our legal expertise to the residents of Porchester and to the surrounding area of Hampshire – our specialist team handles a wide range of personal injury claims including serious injury claims which may involve life-changing injuries.
We pride ourselves on treating all our clients as individuals and you can therefore be assured of a personal and professional service throughout your claim.
We understand that being involved in an accident that was not your fault is a stressful and difficult time for you and your family. At Swain & Co, you can confidently rely upon us to represent you in bringing a claim and to ensure that you receive the compensation you deserve.
Contact our Personal Injury Team covering Porchester for
free advice on 0800 0351 999
Swain & Co Solicitors, Compass House, 57 Meridian Centre, North Street, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 1UL


text:
George Lucas never figured on a 30-year career as a space pilot. Once "Star Wars" shot into hyperspace, though, he found it hard to come back down to Earth.
Making its DVD debut Tuesday, Lucas' original sci-fi trilogy — "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" — began as an experimental foray into old-time studio moviemaking for Lucas, whose first two films had been far removed from usual Hollywood sensibilities.
Lucas' sci-fi satire "THX 1138" had been a commercial dud, but the energetic "American Graffiti" with its driving soundtrack and multi-character point of view scored with audiences, giving the director clout to try something bigger that had been on his mind.
"I'd already started this other idea, which was to do a kind of a classic action adventure film using sets," Lucas said over lunch at his 2,600-acre Skywalker Ranch. "I'd never worked on a set, I'd never worked at a studio. Never made a traditional movie. So I said, 'I'm going to do this once, just to see what it's like, what it's like to actually design everything, work on a soundstage, do an old-fashioned 1930s movie.
"And I'll do it in that mode from the 1930s Saturday matinee serials, using kind of 1930s and '40s sensibilities, and I'll base it on sort of mythological motifs and icons. I'll just put it together in a modern form, and I'll have fun. That's how I got into that. I did it because it was an interesting move into an area that I thought I'd never go into."
Three decades later, Lucas is preparing to launch the last of his six "Star Wars" films. Next summer brings "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith," completing the prequel trilogy that tells the story of young Anakin Skywalker's metamorphosis into the villainous Darth Vader of the original three films.
Fans have eagerly awaited the first three "Star Wars" films on DVD, a release Lucas initially intended to delay until he finished "Episode III."
Some will be miffed that the original theatrical versions are not included in the "Star Wars" boxed set, which features only the special-edition versions Lucas issued in the late 1990s, with added effects and footage, including a scene between Harrison Ford's Han Solo and crime lord Jabba the Hutt in the first "Star Wars."
AP: Why did you change your mind and decide to put the original three movies out on DVD now?
Lucas: Just because the market has shifted so dramatically. A lot of people are getting very worried about piracy. That has really eaten dramatically into the sales. It really just came down to, there may not be a market when I wanted to bring it out, which was like, three years from now. So rather than just sit by and watch the whole thing fall apart, better to bring it out early and get it over with.
AP: Why did you rework the original trilogy into the special-edition versions in the late 1990s?
Lucas: To me, the special edition ones are the films I wanted to make. Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It's abandoned or it's ripped out of your hands, and it's thrown into the marketplace, never finished. It's a very rare experience where you find a filmmaker who says, "That's exactly what I wanted. I got everything I needed. I made it just perfect. I'm going to put it out there." And even most artists, most painters, even composers would want to come back and redo their work now. They've got a new perspective on it, they've got more resources, they have better technology, and they can fix or finish the things that were never done. ... I wanted to actually finish the film the way it was meant to be when I was originally doing it. At the beginning, people went, "Don't you like it?" I said, "Well, the film only came out to be 25 or 30 percent of what I wanted it to be." They said, "What are you talking about?" So finally, I stopped saying that, but if you read any interviews for about an eight- or nine-year period there, it was all about how disappointed I was and how unhappy I was and what a dismal experience it was. You know, it's too bad you need to get kind of half a job done and never get to finish it. So this was my chance to finish it.
AP: Why not release both the originals and special editions on DVD?
Lucas: The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I'm the one who has to take responsibility for it. I'm the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they're going to throw rocks at me, they're going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.
AP: Do you pay much attention to fan reactions to your choices?
Lucas: Not really. The movies are what the movies are. ... The thing about science-fiction fans and "Star Wars" fans is they're very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I'm making the movies, so I should have it my way.
AP: After "Episode III," will you ever revisit "Star Wars"?
Lucas: Ultimately, I'm going to probably move it into television and let other people take it. I'm sort of preserving the feature film part for what has happened and never go there again, but I can go off into various offshoots and things. You know, I've got offshoot novels, I've got offshoot comics. So it's very easy to say, "Well, OK, that's that genre, and I'll find a really talented person to take it and create it." Just like the comic books and the novels are somebody else's way of doing it. I don't mind that. Some of it might turn out to be pretty good. If I get the right people involved, it could be interesting.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
AES San Francisco 2010
Live Sound Seminar LS6
Saturday, November 6, 9:00 am — 10:45 am (Room 131)
LS6 - Subwoofer Directionality
Charlie Hughes, Excelsior Audio
Steve Bush, Meyer Sound Laboratories
Ales Dravinec, ADRaudio
Bill Gelow, Bosch/Electrovoice
Dave Rat, Rat Sound,
Directional subwoofers and subwoofer arrays can help to keep low frequency energy on the audience, where it's desired, and away from areas where it's not. This can be a great help in reducing rumble on stage and increasing gain before feedback. Single enclosure subwoofers with directivity control will be discussed along with arrays of multiple enclosures and their directional properties. Join us to find out how the spacing, loading, and signal processing of individual loudspeaker elements help to yield subwoofer directionality.


text:
'Hipster of the Decade' Shuts Down His Blog
For years, the pop culture blog Hipster Runoff has puzzled, intrigued and enraged the "alt" and "mainstream" world in almost equal measure. Gawker honored him in 2009 with the much-coveted "Hipster of the Decade" award. But this afternoon Hipster Runoff's enigmatic boss Carles has signed of forever with a short blog post:
I think I've accomplished everything I wanted to with this project. I can't imagine myself blogging about anything else ever again because I feel like I have already blogged about everything and I am just a slave to boring alt memes. It's probably time to move on and find a real career & some challenges that can actually make the world a better place.
Thanks for the memories. We had a good run. I apologize to every one who I have hurt.
Carles rose to blog stardom with his weird quotation-marks-strewn commentary on various "alt memes"—i.e. bands and trends—as they rose and fell in hipster culture. No doubt the mystery surrounding his identity helped, too. Hipster Runoff was usually pretty funny, though reading more than one post at a time was exhausting. Seems like Carles just got worn out.
Update: Carles emails us:
Sup bro.
I am closing because I don't really enjoy content farming any more. Blogging used to be a little bit more fun and rewarding when I had a more naive outlook on what modern journalism meant. Now in a world filled with tumblrs, twitters, listicles, and an intense meme cycle, I don't think there is any thing very fun or special about it. I probably started HRO when I was insecure and felt like I needed a tribe of people to understand me to feel validated, but now I have predictably 'grown up.'
The money was pretty decent (usually took a long time to actually reach my pocket due to advertisers delayed payment schedules), but being a one person blog it is probably not a solid long-term career choice. Plus on top of that, ad networks usually take at least 50% off the top.
I have a few career options, one of them being the editor of a pre-existing blog where I would basically be doing what I do now except with a little bit more stability and less pressure. The other option is working for my uncle's family business where I could have a better idea of what I am going to be doing in 20 years as opposed to trying to farm as many hits as possible and crossing my fingers every month for ad revenue.
If I could have sold out, I would have, but that opportunity never came, and probably wasn't going to for HRO.
[Illustration by Steven Dressler]


text:
It was enough to make you vomit all over your new denim jacket. The Gap has been caught using child labor in an Indian sweatshop, and not just child labor–child slaves. As extensively reported on the news, the children, some as young as ten, were worked sixteen-hour days, fed bowls of mosquito-covered rice, and forced to sleep on a roof and use over-flowing latrines. Those who slowed down were beaten with rubber pipes and the ones who cried had oily cloths stuffed in their mouths.
But let's try to look at this dispassionately–not as a human rights issue but as a PR disaster, ranking right up there with the 1982 discovery of cyanide in Tylenol capsules. Think of this as a case study in a corporate Crisis Communication course: How is The Gap handling the problem, and could it do better?
This is not the first time The Gap has been caught using child labor, but CEO Martha Hansen went on the air to state that the situation was "completely unacceptable" and that the company would "act swiftly." Two problems here: One, she failed to detail the actions. It would have been nice, for example, if she had announced that some of the top-producing child slaves would be reassigned to manage Gap outlets in American malls, and that the under-performers would be adopted by Angelina Jolie.
The other, more serious, problem is that she got defensive about child labor. This is the mistake Kathie Lee Gifford made in 1996. When accused of using child labor in Honduras to manufacture her Kathie Lee line of clothing, Gifford broke into tears on TV. Maybe Hansen meant to cover herself by saying that The Gap would not "ever, ever condone any child laborer making our garments" rather than saying the company does not condone child labor itself. We already knew, from the rubber pipes and oily cloths, that The Gap does not condone much from its child laborers.
Hansen underestimated the potential support for a full-throated defense of child labor. More and more American children are tried and punished as adults today. And the ubiquitous conservative pundit William Kristol will surely be enthusiastic, considering his recent–though possibly facetious– statement that "whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it's a good idea."
The core of the argument, though, is that anyone who opposes child labor has not witnessed its opposite, which is child unemployment and idleness.
Hansen claims to be a mother herself, but I wonder how often she has returned home from a hard day in the C-suites to find her unemployed offspring Magic Marker-ing the walls and crushing the Froot Loops into the carpet. This is what jobless children do: They rub Crazy Glue into their siblings' hair; they spill apple juice onto your keyboard. Believe me, I see this kind of wantonly destructive behavior every day. Vandalism is a way of life for unemployed children, and they do not know the meaning of remorse.
In fact, corporate America should go further and make a strong statement against the sickening culture of dependency that has grown up around childhood. Why are jobless children so criminally inclined? Because they know that whatever damage they inflict, the Froot Loops will just keep coming. The Gap should portray its child-staffed factories as part of a far-seeing welfare-to-work program, which will eventually be extended to American children as well.
To appeal to American parents, our own child factories should be run more like Montessori schools, where the children are already encouraged to regard every one of their demented activities as "work." If they're going to pile up blocks and knock them down all day, then why not sew on buttons and bring home a little cash? But even American families will have to brace themselves for the inevitable cost-cutting measures. First the cookies and milk may have to go, then, as in India, the toilets and beds. Wal-Mart has already pioneered the price-cutting defense of human rights abuses, and The Gap should follow suit.
The company can of course expect some lingering opposition. Just as there are vegetarians and pacifists, there will always be some men, for example, who would rather wear skirts than blue jeans impregnated with the excrement and tears of ten-year-olds. Well, let them shop at American Apparel or some other "sweat-free" vendor, and if they can't find anything there, let them wear dhotis. In a nation that cannot bring itself to extend child health insurance (SCHIP) to all children in need, child-made clothes make a fine fashion statement. And why not accessorize your denim jacket with a scarf derived from one of those oily cloths stuffed in weeping workers' mouths?


text:
Kwuicq Corporate Drupal 6 Template.
1. Header Slideshow Can Be Managed From Admin, Just Need to Create New Blocks and Insert Image Path and Assign It To Header Region, Each Image Need to Have One Separate Block.
2. New Region Created, Automatically appears in block admin page after you install theme.
3. Layered PSD with Sliced PSD's Included
4. PDF Help File


text:
Growing up deep in the mountains of western North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, a young Charles Frazier couldn't wait for the sun to go down. That's when the WLAC signal would suddenly come clear out of the night sky and things would get really interesting on his radio.
"We had a little radio station that went off at dark," Frazier recalls. "So all during the day, one radio station, country music. When school was out there was two hours of teenage music. And then the sun goes down and all the sudden there's this station from Nashville pouring in. And I liked that really raw rockabilly stuff that's so hard to classify. It's definitely rawer ... than even country at the time, but it was way more country sounding than most rock 'n' roll from places outside The South."
James Brown came wailing from the speaker. That spooky voice of Howlin' Wolf added an uneasy edge to the night. Guys like Charlie Feathers and Gene Vincent would rock his world.
Those sound memories populate the pages of the author's new best-seller "Nightwoods," whose quiet, reflective moments play out to a soundtrack of rhythm and blues, early rock 'n' roll and melancholy jazz.
"Nightwoods" is the story of Luce, a disconnected young woman who is left to take care of a nearly feral set of twins after her sister is murdered by her husband. As the book opens, she has sequestered herself in an abandoned lodge far from the nearest people or town. She spends her nights listening to WLAC and waiting for life to pass her by before the children and eventually a love interest named Stubblefield somehow find her in her self-imposed exile.
Frazier assigns each of the book's main figures music that sheds light on their personalities.
"It always helps me connect with characters, to think about what music they respond to," Frazier said. "So Luce has her WLAC. She is such a closed-up inner person who is holding the world at arm's length and things like that, yet she stays up late at night listening to this really intense, energetic, passionate music and she sees them like prayers.
"Or Stubblefield with his record collection and the reference that (Miles Davis') 'Kind of Blue' is the thing that makes him think about his inability to sustain a relationship. All he can do is listen to 'Kind of Blue' and get sad."
Frazier talked about "Nightwoods" during a stop last month for a book festival in, appropriately enough, Music City. He was something of a literary rock star while in town, filling Tennessee's legislative chamber with admirers for a reading from "Nightwoods." He stopped by Third Man Records, owned by "Cold Mountain" film friend Jack White, for a look around.
Much of the time Frazier sits reserved behind a salt-and-pepper beard on a serious face. Ask him about music, though, and his eyes light. He becomes animated as if from some unseen energy source and his hands begin to move as he talks.
He's been listening to jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz and Tom Waits in heavy rotation this fall and he's been listening to new recordings from Norwegian jazz pianist Tord Gustavsen, Saharan guitar heroes Tinariwen and Nick Lowe. Until record stores began to disappear, he could be found leaning on the stacks three or four days a week.
Music is as much a part of his life as the words with which he fills his books. The two are intertwined. The stone walls in his office are lined with shelves full of CDs, vinyl and stereo equipment, and something is always playing as he taps out his books. His breakthrough debut, "Cold Mountain," in 1997, had music at its heart and has spurred a whirl of creativity as others responded strongly to the sounds in his books.
Bluegrass and roots player Tim O'Brien and friends recorded an album of music inspired by that National Book Award winner, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon is working on an opera based on the book, set to debut in 2015. It is a delightfully curious development that brings a wry smile to Frazier's face.
"So I'm going to put on the tuxedo and go to Santa Fe," he says.
Higdon was drawn to "Cold Mountain" because she grew up in east Tennessee, on the other side of the Great Smoky Mountains from the territory Frazier's characters haunt in North Carolina. She heard the melody in Frazier's prose from the moment she picked up "Cold Mountain" five years ago.
"This is going to sound really strange, but I think the way he writes is musical," Higdon said. "The phrases and the rhythm and the pacing — to me it sounds very musical. It's like a poetic kind of music, and I don't have that with all the authors I read. But it drew me in from the first line. It was that noticeable. The length of his sentences, just the way the sentences flow, to me it sounds like music."
O'Brien remembers reading "Cold Mountain" with a friend and being riveted as little bits and pieces of old-timey music popped up here and there in chapter titles and dialogue. O'Brien and Frazier have become friends and often discuss the power of music and its ability to inspire.
"Music is a touchstone like smell or color or taste," O'Brien said. "It sort of reminds you of things. And getting to know him afterward, after having read ('Cold Mountain'), it was really telling. He said that he tried to listen to the oldest recordings made by the people who were oldest in age at the time to get back to a certain way of speech and thinking. Obviously, that worked for him."
"Nightwoods" unfolds something like a murder ballad, one of those dark, often gory tales of death and deceit so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. There's tragedy and death at its heart, but there are moments of quiet strength and bravery as well, not to mention a mysterious deep, dark hole.
Frazier will soon wrap his "Nightwoods" book tour and has begun assembling a sound track that will help him craft his next book. He's looking for AM radio gems from the 1930s and 1940s that would have been played in the rural west. Think Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys.
"(I've got) these few little flickers of ideas," Frazier said. "I've lived out West some. ... I've always liked the High Plains areas — eastern Colorado, eastern Wyoming, western Nebraska. Can that factor into maybe half of this next book? I'll tinker around with that for a couple or three months and see if it's something worth spending three years on."
-- Charles Talbott, Associated Press Entertainment Writer


text:
Monday, March 29, 2010
Easter time -2
34 comments:
That was awesome feast to the eyes as well as the stomach. Very creative.Loved it.ReplyDelete
Thanks a lot for sharing such wonderful creations . I always admire ur works for their simplicity n divine presentation. i'm sure my kids will love it. thanks again !!ReplyDelete
So cute Smitha!!ReplyDelete
You are damn creative lady.. looks so cute. I am loving the idea of potato nest. will try to adapt it for some recipe for sure :)ReplyDelete
So cute, really very creative..ReplyDelete
makhana as eggs! ingenious!ReplyDelete
i know you must have become tired of hearing this, but you're really creative!
Extremely wonderful !! really admire your creativ brain - Makhana as eggs - SUPERB !!ReplyDelete
awesome awesome smitha,,,,both are amazing....esp the potato nest nd fox nut eggs are great.....love your creativity....ReplyDelete
Happy easter :) love them!!ReplyDelete
Thats so cute. Oh i do make potato basket for snack an fill with chaat fillings. Yummy !!!ReplyDelete
Very creative. Thanks for dropping by my blog and helping me discover yours.ReplyDelete
wow.. very creative!! thxs for visiting my site & lovely comment.. added u in my blog list..ReplyDelete
Very Innovative you dear,, beautiful blog each n every recipe got uniqueness ,,love you space n i saved ur blog in my list sure visit u often,,ReplyDelete
Those are sooo cute! I wish I was that creative. Thank you for stopping by my place!ReplyDelete
awesome..that's so creativeReplyDelete
You are really an artist.....fantastic presentationReplyDelete
Fantastic Smita. Love the nest and Makhana egg.... Gr8 idea:)ReplyDelete
I loved ur creations. Very artistic and creative innovations. My fav pic is the sparrow nest! It's beautiful!ReplyDelete
Makahana as eggs was really brilliant idea! Great presentation as usual.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 31, 2010 at 8:39 PM
Hi Smita,ReplyDelete
I loooooooooooooove your blog and each and every one of your creations! They are all simply amazing and Im sure your little one loves her food all the more, with mommy presenting each bite so beautifully! Im adding you to my blogroll. Keep the yummy posts coming!
You site is such a joy to watch. I've been through all your posts now - wish I have the time to comment on each one! I need a whole day to do that - maybe one day I will!
All of your food creations are a treat to the eyes as well I'm sure to the mouth! Many are my favs but to choose among them - I'm going to go with the kutty krishna and the pirate pizza! I think you outdid yourself there! WOW!
Hy Smita,ReplyDelete
First time to your space. Very lovely dishes with cute pics. Love to follow u. Do drop in at my blog sometime...
Hey Smita... you perhaps have the most creative blog space that I have ever come across till date. Simply AMAZING work. I am sure your lil one loves all the colourful (and healthy!) food she gets everyday. Keep up the great posts.ReplyDelete
And needless to say, I am gonna join your already over-flowing blog followers list!
Thanks for your lovely comments. your blog looks very beautiful.A true piece of artReplyDelete
wow!!! iam really impressed by u r blog.. it is so lovely and beautiful...ReplyDelete
what a wonderful presentation...really liked the easter eggs the best part we can eat the basket too..really liked it...ReplyDelete
first time here...u have a wonderful space with lots of creativity
this is a nice dish...yout site is wonderfulReplyDelete
Hey Smita...I have a little surprise for you on my blog. Do hop in when you get a couple of minutes - www.somesalttotaste.blogspot.comReplyDelete
Very creative work! wonderful..ReplyDelete
Olá, amiga!ReplyDelete
Passei para uma visitinha.
Seu cantinho está lindo, nutritivo e de bom gosto.
Muita saúde, paz e sucesso!
( ),,( )
Com carinho, para você e sua família...
Itabira - Brasil
Luv ur creativity...potato nest looks so cute!!ReplyDelete
Riquismo!!! es lo que estaba buscando para mis niñas. Gracias.ReplyDelete
I just discovered your blog. I love it. So cute and maybe I can get my toddler to eat more this way! BTW- I featured a couple of this for my fun Easter Food post, hope you like it:) happy friday!ReplyDelete
Just stopping by to let you know that I've featured your craft on Family Fun Crafts! You can see it here:ReplyDelete
If you have other kid friendly crafts, I'd love it if you would submit them. :) If you would like to display a
featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above.


text:
Ex-Marine acted alone in California bar shooting: FBI
A former U.S. Marine combat veteran opened fire in a Los Angeles area bar packed with line-dancing college students, killing 12 people in a mass shooting that stunned a bucolic Southern California community with a reputation for safety.
The gunman, identified by police as 28-year-old Ian David Long, was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound following the Wednesday night massacre at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, a suburb 40 miles (64 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, law enforcement officials said.
Paul Delacourt, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said it was too early to speculate on the shooter's motives but that he appeared to have acted alone.
"We will be sure to paint a picture of the state of mind of the subject and do our best to identify a motivation," Delacourt said, adding that the FBI would investigate any possible "radicalization" or links to militant groups.
Long opened fire, seemingly at random, inside the barn-style, Western-themed bar at about 11:30 p.m. PST (0730 GMT Thursday), using a .45 caliber Glock handgun equipped with a high-capacity magazine, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.
Long was in the Marine Corps from 2008 to 2013, reaching the rank of corporal and serving as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, and the sheriff said he may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Obviously, he had something going on in his head that would cause him to do something like this," Dean said.
Dean told reporters that in April officers had gone to Long's home in nearby Newbury Park, about 4 miles (6 km) from the bar to answer a disturbance call and found him agitated. Mental health specialists talked with Long and determined that no further action was necessary, the sheriff said.
"He was raving hell in the house, you know, kicking holes in the walls and stuff and one of the neighbors was concerned and called the police," Richard Berge, who lived one block away from the home, told Reuters. "They couldn't get him to come out, so it was like a standoff for four or five hours."
Berge, who took care of Long's mother's dogs, said she told him following that incident she worried her son might take his own life but did not fear he would hurt her.
Dean said he had been told that 150 to 200 people were in the Borderline at the time Long opened fire, adding: "It could have been much, much worse."
Asked what the scene inside the bar was like, Dean said, "Like … hell." Earlier he had described it as "a horrific scene in there. There is blood everywhere and the suspect is part of that."
The Ventura County Sheriff's Department said 21 people had been treated for injuries and released at area hospitals.
The massacre was the latest shooting rampage in the United States amid a fierce debate over gun control.
After a man fatally shot 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said their deaths could have been prevented if an armed guard had been stationed inside the temple.
Long shot an unarmed security guard outside the bar before going inside, where he fired on security staff, CNN reported. Ventura County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran, was killed inside. He and a California Highway Patrol officer were the first to arrive at the bar just before 11:30 p.m. PST (0730 GMT) to confront the gunman.
The Borderline is popular with students and was hosting a College Country Night at the time of the shooting. Nearby California Lutheran University canceled classes on Thursday while Pepperdine University, about 20 miles away, planned a prayer service.
Cole Knapp, 19, was inside the bar when the shooting began and told Reuters he saw the gunman walk in and stop at the counter as if to pay a cover charge before he heard gunshots ring out and a young woman at the counter hit with multiple rounds.
"It took a couple of seconds for people to realize what was going on and once that happened it was just utter chaos," he said.
Knapp said he helped people hide behind a pool table and then fled outside, alerting people on an outdoor smoking patio and helping carry a victim to an ambulance.
Thousand Oaks, a leafy, sprawling suburb of 127,000 people, was named the third safest city in the United States for 2018 by the Niche research company.
"I've learned it doesn't matter what community you're in," Dean said. "It doesn't matter how safe your community is. It can happen anywhere."
In the hours after the shooting concerned family members gathered at a nearby teen center waiting to learn the fate of loved ones.
Jason Coffman wept as he told reporters that his son, Cody, 22, was among the dead.
"Only him and I know how I love, how much I miss him," he said. "Oh, son, I love you so much."
Actress Tamera Mowry-Housley confirmed in a statement to ABC News that her niece, Alaina, was killed at the bar.
Among those outside the hospital was Ellen Rivera, who said she had survived the October 2017 slaughter of 58 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
At nightfall more than 2,000 mourners gathered at a local performing arts center for a candlelight vigil on behalf of the victims, singing "Amazing Grace" and praying. Loud sobs could be heard throughout the 45 minute vigil.
Want to send us a story? Submit on Wananchi Reporting on the Citizen Digital App or Send an email to email@example.com or Send an SMS to 25170 or WhatsApp on 0743570000
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.


text:
Availability: In stock
- Format:Paperback
- Subject(s):Classics
- Author(s):James Morwood
- Available from: December 2007
An exciting series that provides students with direct access to the ancient world by offering new translations of extracts from its key texts.
Availability: In stock
Send a Query×
Virgil is to Latin literature what Homer is to Greek and Shakespeare to English. He is both the supreme poet of Rome's greatness and its most profound exponent of the suffering involved in human experience. This book enables students to explore the issues at the heart of his work. It is built around substantial excerpts from his three great poems: the Eclogues, his highly original pastoral collection; the Georgics, his work about farming described by Dryden as 'the best Poem of the best poet'; and the Aeneid, the supreme Roman epic.
- Contents
Clear, user-friendly layout is accessible for a range of students, both Classicists and those studying more general topics in Classical and ancient history and civilisation.
New translations of key passages of Latin and Greek written in approachable, readable English that can be easily accessed by all students.
Translation and commentaries by key scholars in the Classical field provide readable, informative texts with broad appeal.
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Eclogues
- 2. Georgics
- 3. The Trojans come to Cathage
- 4. The fall of Troy
- 5. Dido and Aeneas
- 6. Aeneas goes down to the underworld
- 7. The Trojans in Italy
- 8. Aeneas and Turnus
- Recommended reading.
Advice on useful tools, activities and timetabling from teachers experiencing school closures.Read more
All our supporting resources have now moved to Cambridge GO – the new home for your Cambridge digital content.Find out more
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.×


text:
Join our Tweetchat this Thursday at 12:00 pm Pacific for lively conversation and a chance to win prizes! Use #WBChat to participate.
This week's topic: Having a Frugal Halloween! Share tips on DIY costumes, saving on candy, and keeping things frugal when throwing a Halloween party!
For an easy way to keep track of the conversation, try using our special Tweetchat Chatroom.
Anyone can participate, but you must be following @WiseBread and RSVP below to win our prize!
To make it easier for us to keep track of attendees and pick our winners, please RSVP below with your twitter ID (put that in the "Link Title" field), email address, and your twitter URL (put that in the "URL" field, do not put your blog's url in there). Winners will be selected at random from RSVPs. If a winner is chosen who RSVPed but did not attend a 2nd winner will be chosen.
New Parenting Chat Immediately Before #WBChat
Our sister blog Parenting Squad (@ParentingSquad) will be hosting a parenting chat every Thursday at 11:00 am Pacific. Drop by for fun parenting conversations and a chance to win prizes! Use #PSChat to participate.
Disclaimer: The links and mentions on this site may be affiliate links. But they do not affect the actual opinions and recommendations of the authors.
Wise Bread is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.


text:
Photovoltaic cells tap underwater solar energy
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Electronics Science and Technology Division, dive into underwater photovoltaic research to develop high bandgap solar cells capable of producing sufficient power to operate electronic sensor systems at depths of 9 meters.
Underwater autonomous systems and sensor platforms are severely limited by the lack of long endurance power sources. To date, these systems must rely on on-shore power, batteries or solar power supplied by an above water platform. Attempts to use photovoltaics have had limited success, primarily due to the lack of penetrating sunlight and the use of solar cells optimized more towards the unimpeded terrestrial solar spectrum.
"The use of autonomous systems to provide situational awareness and long-term environment monitoring underwater is increasing," said Phillip Jenkins, head, NRL Imagers and Detectors Section. "Although water absorbs sunlight, the technical challenge is to develop a solar cell that can efficiently convert these underwater photons to electricity."
Even though the absolute intensity of solar radiation is lower underwater, the spectral content is narrow and thus lends itself to high conversion efficiency if the solar cell is well matched to the wavelength range. Previous attempts to operate solar cells underwater have focused on crystalline silicon solar cells and more recently, amorphous silicon cells.
High-quality gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) cells are well suited for underwater operation. GaInP cells have high quantum efficiency in wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers (visible light) and intrinsically low dark current, which is critical for high efficiency in lowlight conditions.
The filtered spectrum of the sun underwater is biased toward the blue/green portion of the spectrum and thus higher bandgap cells such as GaInP perform much better than conventional silicon cells, states Jenkins.
Preliminary results at a maximum depth of 9.1 meters reveal output to be 7 watts per square meter of solar cells, sufficient to demonstrate there is useful solar power to be harvested at depths commonly found in nearshore littoral zones.
Provided by Naval Research Laboratory


text:
|» Summary
|» License
|Class to read RDDL (Resource Directory Description Language) documents.
|PHP License
|» Current Release
|» Bug Summary
0.9 (beta) was released on 2003-09-06 by schst (Changelog)
Easy Install
Not sure? Get more info.
pear install XML_RDDL
No open bugs
Report a new bug to XML_RDDL
|» Description
|XML_RDDL provides an easy-to-use interface to extract RDDL resources from XML documents. More on RDDL can be found at http://www.rddl.org/
|» Maintainers
|» More Information


text:
Philadelphia, PA – Let's face it, All-Star games, no matter the sport, are tedious, often mind-numbing exhibitions.
Even when bumbling Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig comes along and tries to make the actual athletic contest mean something, it rarely has much of an affect. Unless, of course, your favorite baseball team finishes 10 games ahead of its competition and loses home-field advantage in the World Series because a reliever from a last place club didn't get the memo that said "Now it counts."
NFL commish Roger Goodell isn't quite as obtuse as Mr. Selig but he gave it the old college try on Wednesday, teaming with the NFLPA to gut what was already a loser of an idea.
Let's face it, the Pro Bowl is probably the worst of the major All-Star games simply because the game of football doesn't lend itself to a free-wheeling, laissez-faire atmosphere. The game is what it is, and many of us have politicked for its removal from the calendar.
As bad as it has become, though, the Pro Bowl is still a viable television vehicle and more often than not is the highest-rated All-Star contest.
Instead of building on that or just keeping the status quo, the National Football League decided to make sweeping changes to the Pro Bowl in hopes of increasing its popularity and, of course, creating more programming for the NFL Network.
No longer will the contest feature a matchup between the AFC and NFC. Instead, players will be assigned to teams through a draft. The two leading vote- getters will join two NFL.com fantasy football champions in building the squads. Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders will assist in the draft process.
"We were very receptive to the ideas that (NFLPA president) Domonique (Foxworth) and the players put forth," said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement Wednesday. "From there, our office worked closely with him in developing the concept. The players made it clear that they wanted to continue the Pro Bowl and were committed to making it better than ever. We think these changes will enhance the game for both fans and players."
Is anyone excited by this?
Full disclosure rules force me to admit a deep hatred for fantasy football, an activity that's lone contribution to society is FX's brilliant sitcom "The League."
But even if you're a real life Rodney Ruxin or Dr. Andre Nowzick do you have any interest in watching two NFL.com fantasy football geeks live out their wet dream while Rich Eisen pretends it's relevant?
The madness doesn't stop there, however. In addition to the new team format, there are several other bastardizations to the game itself:
There will be no more kickoffs and the coin toss will determine which team is awarded possession first. The ball will then be placed on the 25-yard line after scoring plays. Possession will also change hands after each quarter and the clock will stop if the offense does not gain at least one yard following the two-minute mark of every quarter.
People always questioned whether the Pro Bowl was really football. We now know unequivocally, it's not.
In fact, all we need now is a carnival barker in between plays.
"Step right up and watch Adrian Peterson conquer the Bottle Ring Game."
"At the 20-yard line it's Aaron Rodgers and the Milk Can Toss."
Or how about watching J.J. Watt swing the mallet and ring the bell?
All of that sounds far more entertaining that what the NFL just did.
So, what's the answer?
Simple. Keep the honor, kill the game.


text:
Oklahoma State crushes Oklahoma, makes case for BCS title game
STILLWATER, Okla. -- Mike Gundy didn't feel comfortable campaigning for No. 3 Oklahoma State to play for the national title until his Cowboys had at least won a conference crown.
His team made a better case than anything he could have ever said.
Joseph Randle ran for 151 yards and two touchdowns, Richetti Jones returned a fumble for a score and No. 3 Oklahoma State throttled Oklahoma (No. 10 BCS, No. 13 AP) 44-10 Saturday night to win the Big 12 championship and make its case to play for the BCS national title.
"I don't think there's any question Oklahoma State should play in the big game," Gundy said.
The Cowboys (11-1, 8-1 Big 12) snapped an eight-game losing streak in the Bedlam rivalry and won their first outright conference title since 1948 in the three-team Missouri Valley.
Oklahoma State's defense, badmouthed much of the season while giving up big yardage but leading the nation in takeaways, forced the Sooners (9-3, 6-3) into five turnovers -- four of them by quarterback Landry Jones.
Fans started chanting "L-S-U!" midway through the fourth quarter with the victory well in hand, then stormed the field and tore down the goal posts when it was over.
The top-ranked Tigers could be next up for the Pokes, but only with a boost in the BCS standings due out Sunday night.
"If that's the way it works out, absolutely. We took care of what we could take care of," quarterback Brandon Weeden said. "We had to worry about us and control what we could control, and if we were able to do that, we were conference champs."
While the top-ranked Tigers won the SEC championship Saturday to lock up a spot in the BCS title game, No. 2 Alabama sat at home idle after finishing second in its division. Oklahoma State, meanwhile, proved itself the best team in its state and its conference. But it's up to the voters, who had the Cowboys fifth in the coaches' poll and Harris poll, to decide whether Oklahoma State will play for the highest stakes.
Gundy proclaimed earlier this week that he considered the Crimson Tide to be the second-best team in the nation "right now" -- but that's what he thought his team needed to hear at the time.
"I have to make that decision and I wasn't raised that way. I'm not comfortable standing up and beating our chests and saying that we needed to play somebody when we hadn't even won this game," Gundy said.
"That was what we were telling the team in here every day. ... I said, 'Look, I'm not going to go stand up and say we need to go play somebody else until you guys beat Oklahoma."
Afterward, he proclaimed on the field that "there's no question Oklahoma State should be No. 2 right now."
"The honest answer is we didn't deserve it. We do now," Gundy said. "And if we'd have won this game 17-14, I don't know if I'd have said it. ... When you win by 34 points, we deserve the right."
The Cowboys won over at least one voter: Sooners coach Bob Stoops said he'd put them at No. 2 on his ballot.
"I'm sure they're going to have some great opportunities from here," Stoops said. "I don't know what will happen."
For most of the 107 years of the Bedlam rivalry, the Sooners had the better team and more on the line.
But each of the past two years, Oklahoma came in with a lower ranking and still found a way to derail a couple of the best teams in Oklahoma State history -- first dashing any hopes of a BCS at-large berth two years ago and then taking away the Cowboys' shot at the Big 12 championship last season.
With all that history on their side, the Sooners came out looking to intimidate.
After coming onto the field, players ran into the west end zone for a pregame prayer and then lingered after it was over -- right outside the gate where the Cowboys were getting ready to run out. Coaches, game officials and security officers made them get out of the way.
The Sooners couldn't back up the pregame bluster, though.
Brandon Weeden's 53-yard pass to Tracy Moore set up Jeremy Smith's 9-yard touchdown run, and the Cowboys defense -- which entered the game ranked 107th out of 120 teams in the nation -- never needed any more than that.
Brodrick Brown outfought Jaz Reynolds to pick off Landry Jones' pass in the end zone and prevent an Oklahoma score, and Alex Elkins stripped the ball from the quarterback on a sack to set up a TD for the Cowboys.
Jamie Blatnick picked up the fumble and returned it 59 yards to the 1-yard line, and Randle scored on the next play to make it 17-0. Randle added a 2-yard run after Sam Proctor's holding penalty on a kickoff return backed the Sooners up, and they went three-and-out -- punting it back to Oklahoma State on a shortened field.
Richetti Jones made it 34-3 after Landry Jones reached back to pass the ball and fumbled it onto the turf, with the OSU defender bobbling it and then finally controlling it for a 5-yard return.
The Sooners got their only points on Michael Hunnicutt's 48-yard field goal at the end of the first half and Blake Bell's 28-yard TD scamper with 2:25 left in the game.
It ended up as Oklahoma's most lopsided defeat since losing the 2005 Orange Bowl against Southern California, and the second-biggest margin of victory for the Pokes in the series -- behind only a 47-0 shutout in 1945.
"That was a convincing win over OU, who is a great team. We were in the No. 1 power-rated conference, we won it outright and we held them to 10 points," Blatnick said.
"We beat them convincingly. What more do you need than that? I don't think anybody wants to see another rematch with no touchdowns."
The Tide's only loss was at home against LSU, 9-6 in overtime. Alabama has the nation's top defense and LSU is second, while Oklahoma State has the nation's No. 2 offense.
"They had their opportunity. I've got all the respect in the world for Alabama, all the respect in the world for LSU, but we need our shot," Gundy said. "There's talk all year about offense in this league, defense in that league and all that. Well, let's find out."
Oklahoma State's case to play against LSU in New Orleans next month will be hurt by a double-overtime loss 15 days earlier at Iowa State, which finished its season 6-6. It'll be bolstered by five wins against teams in the BCS Top 25, compared to two for Alabama.
And, of course, the Cowboys will have the momentum from not only winning a conference title but doing it in dominating fashion against a team that was ranked No. 1 earlier this season.
"They had their shot," Gundy said. "Give us ours."
Game Information
2023 Big 12 Conference Standings
|Kansas State
|West Virginia
|Iowa State
|Oklahoma State
|Texas Tech


text:
Mama's Cranberry Sauce
1-pound fresh cranberries
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan.
Place over medium heat and bring to a boil.
Allow ingredients to boil until skins begin to pop open on berries and allow to boil for 5 minutes afterward. [Sauce will begin to thicken. Be very careful not allow this splatter on you! Will cause severe burns!]
Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.
Sauce will gel. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Serves 8.


text:
All content of this Internet site is owned or controlled
by Integra LifeSciences Corporation and is protected by
worldwide copyright laws. You may download content only
for your personal use
for non-commercial purposes but no modification or further
reproduction of the content is permitted.
The content may otherwise not be copied or used in any
Unless otherwise indicated, the information
contained in this site is for medical professionals only.
This web site does not provide medical advice. Should
you have
any questions regarding your medical condition and/or
the use of the contents of
this website, please consult a physician. This web site
should be used for general educational information only.
Complete information regarding these products is included
as a package insert with the products
when they are shipped.
The information contained in this web site is intended
for residents of the United States only.
The owners of this site will use reasonable efforts to
include up-to-date and accurate information in
this Internet site, but makes no representations, warranties,
or assurances as to the accuracy, currency, or completeness
of the information provided. The owners of this site shall
not be liable for
any damages or injury resulting from your access to, or
inability to access, this Internet site, or from
your reliance on any information provided at this Internet
This Internet site may provide links or references to
other sites but the owners of this site have no responsibility
for the content of such other sites and shall not be liable
for any damages or injury
arising from that content. Any links to other sites are
provided as merely a convenience to the users
of this Internet site.
The trademarks, service marks, trade names, trade dress
and products in this Internet site are protected in the
United States and internationally. No use of any of these
may be made without the prior, written authorization of
the owners of this site, except to identify the products
or services of the company.
Any personally identifiable information in electronic
communications to this Internet site is governed by this
site's Privacy Policy. The owners of this site shall be
free to use or copy all other information in any such
communications, including any ideas, inventions, concepts,
techniques or know-how disclosed therein, for any purposes.
Such purposes may include disclosure to third parties
and/or developing, manufacturing and/or marketing goods
or services.
The sender of any communications to this Internet site
or otherwise to the owners of this site shall be responsible
for the content and information contained therein, including
its truthfulness and accuracy.
© Copyright 2010 Integra LifeSciences
Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use • Privacy


text:
Why Is Damning New Evidence About Monsanto's Most Widely Used Herbicide Being Silenced?
Dr. Don Huber did not seek fame when he quietly penned a confidential letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in January of this year, warning Vilsack of preliminary evidence of a microscopic organism that appears in high concentrations in genetically modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans and "appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings." Huber, a retired Purdue University professor of plant pathology and U.S. Army colonel, requested the USDA's help in researching the matter and suggested Vilsack wait until the research was concluded before deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa. But about a month after it was sent, the letter was leaked, soon becoming an internet phenomenon.
Huber was unavailable to respond to media inquiries in the weeks following the leak, and thus unable to defend himself when several colleagues from Purdue publicly claiming to refute his accusations about Monsanto's widely used herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) and Roundup Ready crops. When his letter was finally acknowledged by the mainstream media, it was with titles like "Scientists Question Claims in Biotech Letter," noting that the letter's popularity on the internet "has raised concern among scientists that the public will believe his unsupported claim is true."
Now, Huber has finally spoken out, both in a second letter, sent to "a wide number of individuals worldwide" to explain and back up his claims from his first letter, and in interviews. While his first letter described research that was not yet complete or published, his second letter cited much more evidence about glyphosate and genetically engineered crops based on studies that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals.
The basis of both letters and much of the research is the herbicide glyphosate. First commercialized in 1974, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and has been for some time. Glyphosate has long been considered a relatively benign product, because it was thought to break down quickly in the environment and harm little other than the weeds it was supposed to kill.
According to the National Pesticide Information Center, glyphosate prevents plants from making a certain enzyme. Without the enzyme, they are unable to make three essential amino acids, and thus, unable to survive. Once applied, glyphosate either binds to soil particles (and is thus immobilized so it can no longer harm plants) or microorganisms break it down into ammonium and carbon dioxide. Very little glyphosate runs off into waterways. For these reasons, glyphosate has been thought of as more or less harmless: you spray the weeds, they die, the glyphosate goes away, and nothing else in the environment is harmed.
But Huber says this is not true. First of all, he points out, evidence began to emerge in the 1980s that "what glyphosate does is, essentially, give a plant AIDS." Just like AIDS, which cripples a human's immune system, glyphosate makes plants unable to mount a defense against pathogens in the soil. Without its defense mechanisms functioning, the plants succumb to pathogens in the soil and die. Furthermore, glyphosate has an impact on microorganisms in the soil, helping some and hurting others. This is potentially problematic for farmers, as the last thing one would want is a buildup of pathogens in the soil where they grow crops.
The fate of glyphosate in the environment is also not as benign as once thought. It's true that glyphosate either binds to soil or is broken down quickly by microbes. Glyphosate binds to any positively charged ion in the soil, with the consequence of making many nutrients (such as iron and manganese) less available to plants. Also, glyphosate stays in the soil bound to particles for a long time and can be released later by normal agricultural practices like phosphorus fertilization. "It's not uncommon to find one to three pounds of glyphosate per acre in agricultural soils in the Midwest," says Huber, noting that this represents one to three times the typical amount of glyphosate applied to a field in a year.
Huber says these facts about glyphosate are very well known scientifically but rarely cited. When asked why, he replied that it would be harder for a company to get glyphosate approved for widespread use if it were known that the product could increase the severity of diseases on normal crop plants as well as the weeds it was intended to kill. Here in the U.S., many academic journals are not even interested in publishing studies that suggest this about glyphosate; a large number of the studies Huber cites were published in the European Journal of Agronomy.
If Huber's claims are true, then it follows that there must be problems with disease in crops where glyphosate is used. Huber's second letter verifies this, saying, "we are experiencing a large number of problems in production agriculture in the U.S. that appear to be intensified and sometimes directly related to genetically engineered (GMO) crops, and/or the products they were engineered to tolerate -- especially those related to glyphosate (the active chemical in Roundup® herbicide and generic versions of this herbicide)."
He continues, saying, "We have witnessed a deterioration in the plant health of corn, soybean, wheat and other crops recently with unexplained epidemics of sudden death syndrome of soybean (SDS), Goss' wilt of corn, and take-all of small grain crops the last two years. At the same time, there has been an increasing frequency of previously unexplained animal (cattle, pig, horse, poultry) infertility and [miscarriages]. These situations are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers."
Some of the crops Huber named, corn and soy, are genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with glyphosate. Others, like wheat and barley, are not. In those cases, a farmer would apply glyphosate to kill weeds about a week before planting his or her crop, but would not spray the crop itself. In the case of corn, as Huber points out, most corn varieties in the U.S. are bred using conventional breeding techniques to resist the disease Goss' wilt. However, recent preliminary research showed that when GE corn is sprayed with glyphosate, the corn becomes susceptible to Goss' wilt. Huber says in his letter that "This disease was commonly observed in many Midwestern U.S. fields planted to [Roundup Ready] corn in 2009 and 2010, while adjacent non-GMO corn had very light to no infections." In 2010, Goss' wilt was a "major contributor" to an estimated one billion bushels of corn lost in the U.S. "in spite of generally good harvest conditions," says Huber.
The subject of Huber's initial letter is a newly identified organism that appears to be the cause of infertility and miscarriages in animals. Scientists have a process to verify whether an organism is the cause of a disease: they isolate the organism, culture it, and reintroduce it to the animal to verify that it reproduces the symptoms of the disease, and then re-isolate the organism from the animal's tissue. This has already been completed for the organism in question. The organism appears in high concentrations in Roundup Ready crops. However, more research is needed to understand what this organism is and what its relationship is to glyphosate and/or Roundup Ready crops.
In order to secure the additional research needed, Huber wrote to Secretary Vilsack. Huber says he wrote his initial letter to Secretary Vilsack with the expectation that it would be forwarded to the appropriate agency within the USDA for follow-up, which it was. When the USDA contacted Huber for more information, he provided it, but he does not know how they have followed up on that information. The letter was "a private letter appealing for [the USDA's] personnel and funding," says Huber. Given recent problems with plant disease and livestock infertility and miscarriages, he says that "many producers can't wait an additional three to 10 years for someone to find the funds and neutral environment" to complete the research on this organism.
If the link between the newly discovered organism and livestock infertility and miscarriages proves true, it will be a major story. But there is already a major story here: the lack of independent research on GMOs, the reluctance of U.S. journals to publish studies critical of glyphosate and GMOs, and the near total silence from the media on Huber's leaked letter.


text:
WHEN one considers the bulk of commentary that has grown up about the Constitution, it is surprising how little abstract political speculation accompanied its making and adoption.. It was the first response to the current liberal demand for written constitutions as a safeguard against tyranny, but it was aimed at the encroachments of agrarian majorities rather than at Tory minorities. It was the work of able lawyers and men of affairs confronting a definite situation, rather than of political philosophers; and it was accompanied by none of that searching examination of fundamental rights and principles which made the earlier Puritan and later French debate over constitutional principles so rich in creative speculation. Not a single political thinker comparable to the great English and French philosophers emerged from the struggle. The debate drew freely upon the materials supplied by those thinkers, but it added little that was new.
The Constitution was a venture in republicanism, on a scale and under conditions without historical precedent. It was inevitable, therefore, that the debate should concern itself greatly with the nature of republicanism and its adaptability to American conditions. As the argument developed, two major questions assumed critical importance: the question of the powers of the Federal state, and the question of the sovereign rights of the majority; and in dealing with both the debaters were on ground inadequately surveyed. Of definite republican theory little was available except the writings of a small group of seventeenth-century republicans. Of democratic theory, on the other hand, even less was available. American democratic aspiration had far outrun old-world liberalism, and had produced no independent speculation of its own. French democratic theory still awaited the rise of Jacobinism to clarify its principles. The party of Commonwealth Levelers, to be sure, with their doctrines of a "paramount law," manhood suffrage, and annual parliaments, offered much that might have proved suggestive; but the literature of the Levelers was buried too deep under Tory obloquy to be resurrected, and nowhere else was to be found any considerable body of democratic theory. It was inevitable, therefore, that the debaters should go back to the English liberals of the preceding century.
Consider for a moment the authorities bandied to and fro in the great debate. With such exceptions as Machiavelli, Vattel, Pufendorf, Montesquieu, they were the well-known English theorists, Hobbes, Harrington, Milton, Sidney, Halifax, Hume, and Blackstone. Unhappily for the democrats every one of these great names counted against their aspirations. Hobbes was a state absolutist whose Leviathan provided sharp weapons for those who wished to tone the government high; Hume was a Tory who accepted the traditional interpretation of human nature in the light of which democracy was the open door to anarchy; Blackstone was a Tory lawyer, who interpreted the British constitution by a narrow legalism that was obsolete before the Commentaries came from the press. Harrington, Milton, and perhaps Sidney, were republicans of strong aristocratic bias, and Halifax and Locke-the latter by much the most influential of allwere constitutional monarchists.1 Every one of these great authorities either distrusted or violently condemned democracy, yet they provided the major body of theory made use of by the Federalists.
On the other hand, the slowly accumulating democratic theory was unknown to the members of the convention. In 1761 Robert Wallace had advanced an Owenite theory of property, attacking the principle of economic individualism as responsible for the current evils of government by landed property; but his book, Various Prospects, made no ripple on the placid waters of English liberalism.2 In 1768 Joseph Priestley, a thinker who later was to exercise great influence in America, who lived here for a number of years and was intimate with Jefferson, published his essay, First Principles of Government, a work embodying the first English interpretation of the perfectibility of man, the rule of reason, the theory of the diminished state, and the Benthamite principle of utilitarianism or expediency in statecraft, which struck at the principle of coercive sovereignty. But the ideas of Priestley were probably little known in America in 1787, and his influence undermined further by a theological attack which sought to fasten upon him the stigma of atheism. In short, in this war of ideas the democrats were provided with little ammunition and fought at a great disadvantage. If the debate had taken place five years later, after the French Revolution had provided new democratic theory, the disparity of intellectual equipment would have been far less marked.
One other fact must be kept in mind, namely, that the great debate was in reality two, debates, one carried on in the quiet of the convention hall, the other in the open. Each interprets the other, and taken together they reveal the conflict of forces and ideas that determined the form of the Constitution. In the privacy of the convention the speakers were free to express their views frankly, and in consequence a loose rein was given to the play of ideas; fundamental principles were examined critically and economic motives and class interests openly acknowledged. But in arguing the case before the generality of voters without doors a more cautious approach was necessary; arguments must be tempered to well-known prejudices, and circumspection must take the place of frankness. In the earlier debate, among innumerable lesser problems, two main questions dominated the argument: the question of the form of the centralized state--whether it should be aristocratic or republican; and if republican-as was inevitable--the question of what should be done about the majority will-how representation should be so refined as to guarantee stability to the government and security to the minority. In the second debate the appeal was to expediency rather than to principles, and turned on three chief points: the need of adoption in view of the desperate condition of the country; the a adaptation of a proposed republican form to the vast extent of territory and diversity of interests; and the necessity, of providing checks upon political parties if anarchy were to be avoided.
In the convention the need of a strong state, with powers beyond local legislatures, was not so much debated as assumed. By common consent it was agreed that the present lack of a centralized, coercive sovereignty, was the source of all current evils. How many members preferred monarchy to republicanism, in principle, it is impossible to determine; but they all realized the inexpediency of attempting to set it up; even Hamilton yielded to the logic of Colonel Mason's argument: "Notwithstanding the oppression and injustice experienced among us from democracy, the genius of the people is in favor of it, and the genius of the people must be consulted." Accepting then the principle of republicanism as a compromise between the extremes of monarchy and democracy, the practical problem remained of erecting a system that should secure the minority against the aggressions of political faction. If the danger lay in an uncontrolled majority will, the way of safety lay in imposing restraints upon that will. In elaborating a system of checks and balances the members of the convention were influenced by the practical considerations of economic determinists more than by the theories of Montesquieu. They were realists who followed the teachings of the greatest political thinkers from Aristotle to Locke in asserting that the problem of government lay in arranging a stable balance between the economic interests of the major classes. The revolutionary conception of equalitarianism, that asserted the rights of man apart from property and superior to property, did not enter into their thinking as a workable hypothesis. The very conditions of the unsettled times were an argument against it. Property, they argued, is the stabilizing force in society; it is conservative and cautious; having everything to lose by social upheavals, it is a restraining force upon factional unrest. The propertyless, on the other hand, having nothing to lose, easily become the victims of demagogues and embroil society with foolish experiments. The republican experiment might work in America because property was widely distributed, but in the course of time a propertyless majority would arise, whose fickle and subversive will must be held in check. The problem, therefore, was to provide in time against such an eventuality. Certain members of the convention did not go so far in their fear of the propertyless, but relied upon the ability of property to protect itself by extra-legal means. "Give the votes to people who have no property," argued Gouverneur Morris, "and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them." 3 But the more general view was expressed by Madison:
'The landed interest, at present, is prevalent, but in process of time . . . " when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small . . . will not the landed interests be overbalanced in future elections? and, unless " wisely provided against, what will become of our government? In England, at this day, if elections ctions were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the o opulent against the majority. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.4This conception of the natural sovereignty of the landed interest with its stake-in-society theory of political rights, America inherited from England; and although the new Constitution professed to rest on the sovereignty of the people, the men who framed it refused to interpret the term, sovereignty of the people, in an equalitarian sense. They did not profess to be, in the words of John Quincy Adams, "slavish adorers of our sovereign lords the people." Every principle of their social and political philosophy taught them the desirability of limiting the majority will in order that the wiser minority will might rule. Paul Leicester Ford has asserted that "the Federal compact was the first deliberate attempt and assent of a majority to tie its own hands; to give to the minority guarantees of fair and equal treatment, without which democratic government is well-nigh impossible, save when developed along the lines of socialism." 5 Such partisan misinterpretation of plain historical fact is characteristic of our Federalist historians. If the hands of the disfranchised majority were tied by the voting minority, it is a bit absurd to attribute the resulting guarantees to an altruistic sense of justice, deliberately expressed by the former. Very possibly in a world so aristocratic as was America in 1787, no other course would have succeeded; but there is not a single historical fact to justify so naive an interpretation, and the bitter partisan warfare which followed is sufficient to disprove it.
We are too prone to forget the wide popular disfavor with which them Constitution was received. No sooner did the second debate open than it became evident that the majority opinion held quite a different conception of the sovereignty of the people than was expressed by the convention. It had no desire to tie its own hands; it did not take kindly to the proposal to transfer power from the several states to the Federal government. The villagers and small men were afraid of the new instrument; thev asserted that it had been prepared by aristocrats and moneyed men, and they repudiated the stake-in-society principle.
"The Constitution," said General Thompson in the Massachusetts Convention, "and the reasons which induced gentlemen to frame it, ought to have been sent to the several towns to be considered by them. My town considered it seven hours, and after this there was not one in favor of it." In Rhode Island, where it was thus submitted, it was rejected "by a very great majority." The state of mind of the agrarian majority was thus expressed by Amos Singletary, of Sutton, Massachusetts:
These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us, poor illiterate people, swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great leviathan.6Among the host of pamphlets and newspaper articles that quickly appeared, The Federalist written by Hamilton and Madison with some help from Jay, and Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, by Richard Henry Lee, fairly adequately present the opposing arguments. By common consent The Federalist was at once accepted by its party as an unanswerable defense of the Constitution; and its fame has grown greater with the passing years. No other work on political theory in the American library has been rated so high, or been more frequently cited. From the mass of contemporary pamphlets it emerges like a colossus. It "has been seriously and reverently called the Bible of Republicanism," says a legal historian, which "for comprehensiveness of design, strength, clearness, and simplicity . . . has no parallel among the writings of men, not even excepting or overlooking those of Montesquieu and Aristotle,"7; and a literary historian pronounces authoritatively, "it is so wisely thoughtful that one may almost declare it the permanent basis of sound thinking concerning American constitutional law."8
The Federalist was the work of able lawyers, with whom was joined a notable political thinker. In very large part it is of interest only to students of early constitutional theory and practice. It was designed as a frankly partisan argument to appeal to an influential group in New York, many members of which had followed George Clinton and Robert Yates in opposition to the Constitution. On the political side it develops four main theses: the necessity for taking effective action in view of the self-confessed failure of the Articles of Confederation; the urgent need of a sovereign, unitary state, to avoid the horrors which must follow from "the political monster of an imperium in imperio"; the necessity of providing that justice shall prevail over the majority will; and the adaptability of the republican form to a great extent of territory and divergent, interests. Of these the second and third lay bare the heart of Federalist political theory; and in the treatment of them there is no shrinking from the conclusions of the earlier debate, although the tone is conciliatory.
The argument for a unitary, sovereign state, developed by Hamilton, and the argument for justice, developed by Madison, rest upon the same basis and are regarded as the twin problems of government. The true sanction of government is found, not in good will, as Bentham and later democratic thinkers have urged, but in coercion;9 and coercion is accepted as necessary because of universal selfishness. "Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without restraint."10 Granted coercive sovereignty, government must guarantee justice to all; and justice demands that the majority shall suffer needful restraint equally with the minority. The great and insidious danger to good government has always been faction, the argument runs, and a chief merit of the Constitution lay in its provisions to lessen the disasters of factional ambition. "Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."11
No theory is more representative of the time than the theory of faction. It was a first line of defense thrown up against the advancing democratic movement. The term had long served conveniently to stigmatize any popular unrest, the "factious multitude" having been held synonymous in earlier usage with mob; but in the eighteenth century the word was applied generally to political parties. In a world moving inevitably towards manhood suffrage, a sharp alignment of parties with definite platforms was greatly feared by the minority, for the organization of the rank and file of voters must end in majority control. An honest appeal to the people was the last thing desired by the Federalists, and the democratic machinery of recalls and referendums and rotation in office, which had developed, during the war, was stigmatized as factional devices which in the end must destroy good government. "As every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government," argued Madison,12 "frequent appeals would in a great measure deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on everything, and without which the wisest and freest govern ments would not possess the requisite stability." "The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decisions of the whole society."
In the remarkable tenth number, which compresses within a few pages pretty much the whole Federalist theory of political science, Madison has explained the Federalist objections to political parties and party government.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community . . . . If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister . views by regular vote . . . . When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of her citizens. To secure the public good and private rights, against the danger of such a faction, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed . . . . By what means is this great object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented; or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered by their number and local situations, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know, that neither moral nor religious motives . ,tn be relied on as an adequate control.In full agreement with the greater political thinkers of the past, Madison then traces political parties to economic sources. Since in every society the diversity of economic groups creates diversity of political programs, party divisions and party alignments are inevitable in the ordinary course of events. The unequal distribution of property is the realistic basis of all politics, and the "sentiments and views which arise from the possession of different degrees and kinds of property form the stuff of so-called `political psychology.'"13
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is . . . an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.As a means of securing a necessary balance between rival interests, Madison approved a republican rather than a democratic form of government:
The two great points of difference, between a democracy and a republic, are, first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine or enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose . . . . The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens, and extent of territory, which may be brought within the compass of republican, than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former, than in the latter . . . . Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their strength, and act in unison with each other.14In such argument Madison was adapting to his purpose the view of Milton and other seventeenth-century republicans, to whom in the dangerous days when the Puritan Commonwealth was breaking up, the "noise and shouting of the rude multitude," the drunken ribaldry of the London rabble, was prophetic of "new injunctions to manacle the native libertie of mankinde." But it has long since become a commonplace of political observation that the minority and not the majority is the more dangerous to the common well-being, for it is, the minority that most frequently uses government to its own ends.
The contrast in temper and argument between The Federalist and Richard Henry Lee's Letters from the Federal Farmer,15 is striking. The calmness and fair-mindedness of the work persuade one that it ill deserves the name partisan; it comes near to being a frank and disinterested examination of the proposed instrument of government. Its sharpest strictures are tempered by ready acknowledgment of excellent features. The burden of Lee's accusa tion is that the instrument is undemocratic; that it must result in placing the majority under control of the minority; and that it in no wise reflects the sober judgment of the body of the people. He is more restrained than Elbridge Gerry, who asserted that it was the outcome of a conspiracy hatched in secret, a work of "such motley mixture, that its enemies cannot trace a feature of Democratic or Republican extract." But the Farmer's restraint adds weight to the serious charges which he brings against the instrument, and the unseemly haste of its advocates in urging its speedy adoption. It was not to destroy the work of the Convention that he pleaded for delay; but that it should receive full and fair consideration, and be disposed of as its merits or defects should warrant.
His first concern is that the Constitution should not, be adopted with the_innconsiderate haste for which The Federalist was pressing. "The first principal question that occurs, is, Whether, considering our situation, we ought to precipitate the adoption of the proposed Constitution?" Hamilton had made much of the desperate state of affairs that admitted of no delay; Lee replied by, denying, with Franklin and, other competent observers, that the-present state was desperate..,. Matters were improving daily, peace was restoring the ravages of war.
I know uneasy men, who with very much to precipitate, do not admit all these facts; but they are facts well known to all men who are thoroughly informed in the affairs of this country. It must, however, be admitted, that our federal system is defective, and that some of the state governments are not well administered; but . . . we impute to the defects in our governments many evils and embarrassments which are most clearly the result of the late war . . . . When we want a man to change his condition, we describe it as wretched, miserable, and despised; and we draw a pleasing picture of that which we would have him assume . . .. It is too often the case in political concerns that men state facts not as they are, but as they wish them to be . . . . Men who feel easy in their circumstances, and such as are not sanguine in their expectations relative to the consequences of the proposed change, will remain quiet under the existing governments. Many commercial and monied men, who are uneasy, not without just cause, ought to be respected; and by no means, unreasonably disappointed in their expectations and hopes . . . . It is natural for men, who wish to hasten the adoption of a measure, to tell us, now is the crisisnow is the critical moment which must be seized or all will be lost; and to shut the door against free enquiry, whenever conscious the thing presented has defects in it, which time and investigation will probably discover . . . . If it is true, what has been so often said, that the people of this country cannot change their constitution for the worse, I presume it still behoves them to endeavor deliberately to change it for the better.Granted that experience has demonstrated the need, of revising the Articles of Confederation in certain essential points, Lee main maintains that the enemies of democracy have been making undue capital out of the shortcomings of an emergency government, in the hope of subverting the democratic state governments and substituting a more aristocratic form.
The confederation was formed when great confidence was placed in the voluntary exertions of individuals, and of the respective states; and the framers of it, to guard against usurpation, so limited, and checked the powers, that, in many respects, they are inadequate to the exigencies of the union . . . . During the war, the general confusion, and the introduction of paper money, infused in the minds of people vague ideas respecting government and credit. We expected too much from the return of peace, and of course we have been disappointed. Our governments have been new and unsettled; and several legislatures, by making tender, suspension, and paper money laws, have given just cause of uneasiness to creditors. By these and other causes, several orders of men in the community have been prepared by degrees, for a change of government; and this very abuse of power in the legislatures, which in some cases has been charged upon the democratic part of the community, has furnished aristocratical men with those very weapons, and those very means, with which, in great measure, they are rapidly effecting their favourite object.The methods by which the convention was brought together at a time when the "idea of destroying ultimately, the state government and forming one consolidated system, could not have been admitted," is traced briefly with penetrating comment, and the unfortunate decision of some excellent republicans to take no part in the work is regretted:
Here the favorable moment for changing the government was evidently discerned by a few men, who seized it with address . . . . Tho' they chose men principally connected with commerce and the judicial departments, yet they appointed many good republican characters had they all attended we should see, I am persuaded, a better system presented. The non-attendance of eight or nine men, who were appointed members of the convention, I shall ever consider as a very unfortunate event to the United States. Had they attended, I am pretty clear that the results would not have had that strong tendency to aristocracy now discernible in every part of the plan . . . the young visionary men, and the consolidating aristocracy, would have been more restrained than they have been.Lee frankly concedes that the instrument possesses many excellent features, but he considers it greatly vitiated by the "want of that one important factor in a free government, a representation of the people." "Because we have sometimes abused democracy, I am not among those who think a democratic branch a nuisance." "Every man of reflection must see, that the change now proposed, is a transfer of power from the many to the few." The present agitation may be traced to its source in "two very unprincipled parties," between whom stand the great mass of honest and substantial people:
One party is composed of little insurgents, men in debt, who want no law, and who want a share of the property of others; these are called levellers, Shaysites, &c. The other party is composed of a few, but more dangerous men, with their servile dependents; these avariciously grasp at all power and property; you may discover in all the actions of these men, an evident dislike to free and equal government, and they go systematically to work to change, essentially, the forms of government in this country; these are called aristocrats, m-ites, &c. Between these two parties is the weight of the community: the men of middling property, men not in debt on the one hand, and men, on the other, content with republican governments, and not aiming at immense fortunes, offices and power. In 1786, the little insurgents, the levellers, came forth, invaded the rights of others, and attempted to establish governments according to their wills. Their movements evidently gave encouragement to the other party, which, in 1787, has taken the political field, and with its fashionable dependents, and the tongue and the pen, is endeavouring to establish in a great haste, a politer kind of government. These two parties . . are really insignificant, compared with the solid, free, and independent part of the community.Calm voices such as Lee's were few in those strident days, and the Federalists fairly overwhelmed the silent majority with clamorous argument. Polite culture and professional learning joined forces to write down the agrarians. The Hartford Wits dedicated smart couplets to the cause; Francis Hopkinson made merry over their ways; Noah Webster confuted them with his economic interpretation of politics; lawyer-scholars like James Wilson and John Dickinson exposed their heresies; solid business men like Peletiah Webster contributed after the measure of their intelligence. In their ardor the Federalists went further. "What can be the views of those gentlemen in Boston," asked Lee pertinently, "who countenanced the printers in shutting up the press against a fair and free investigation?" From the strident debate emerged not only the Constitution, but political parties, no longer to be spoken of as factions, but eventually to be accepted as necessary agencies in republican government and to understand their rival policies we must turn to examine the political philosophies of the outstanding leaders.
1 These English liberals have been often regarded as democrats. Thus Merriam says of Locke, "He was the most famous of seventeenth century democratic thinkers." American Political Theories, p. 90.
2 See Laski, Political Thought from Locke to Bentham, p. 188.
3 Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p. 386.
4 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 449-450.
5 The Federalist Introduction, p. viii.
6 Quoted in Harding, The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts.
7 Carson, History of the Supreme Court, quoted by Ford, The Federalist, p. xxix.
8 Wendell, Literary History of America, p. 118.
9 Number 15.
10 Ibid
11 Number 10.
12 Number 49.
13 Beard, The Economic Basis of Politics, pp. 29-32
14 Number 10.
15 The full title is: Observations leading to a fair examination of the system of government, proposed by the late Convention; and to several essential and necessary alterations in it. In a number of Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican. Reprinted in Ford's pamphlets.


text:
Gene Control, Delivered Directly to the Brain
A biotech company called Alnylam announced today that a small clinical trial for a genetic therapy based on RNA interference, or RNAi, suggests that the technique can have a powerful effect on its target gene. The therapeutic effect lasted for over a month with just one dose. The company is also working with a medical device maker, Medtronic, on a way to deliver RNAi treatment directly to the brain, in order to treat the degenerative brain disease Huntington's.
The patients in the trial have a genetic disorder that originates in the liver and leads to the buildup of protein deposits in many organs. Alnylam, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, says its RNAi therapeutic, given at its highest dose, reduces the amount of the faulty protein that spurs the disease by almost 94 percent.
The positive results add weight to the notion that RNAi therapeutics could eventually help patients with a range of genetic diseases. RNAi therapy involves researchers producing snippets of RNA, a close relative of DNA, that match a portion of a gene of interest. When administered, this so-called small interfering RNA (siRNA) causes the destruction of that gene's products before it can be turned into a protein. The specificity of RNAi for targeting particular genes has attracted a lot of interest from people who want to use it as a clinical treatment (see "Prescription RNA").
"Today's platforms target the protein that causes the disease and bind to that protein. We stop the protein from being made in the first place," says Barry Greene, president and chief operating officer of Alnylam.
But a recurring challenge for the therapeutic RNAi field is how to deliver the siRNAs to the right place in the body. On their own, the small molecules do not survive long in the bloodstream, so simply injecting a patient with a solution of unprotected siRNAs is not effective. "The key technical hurdle is getting the siRNA [inside] the right cells," says Greene.
For several of its projects, Alnylam uses nanoparticles to protect and deliver its siRNAs, which can then be delivered by injection. But for genetic diseases that originate in the brain, the body's own defenses, namely the blood-brain barrier, complicate delivery further. To circumvent the blood-brain barrier, which prevents most molecules from leaving the bloodstream and entering the brain, Alnylam has looked to a different delivery mechanism: direct dosing of unpackaged siRNAs.
Medtronic, a Minneapolis company that designs and manufactures medical devices, has devised a way to allow this. Together, the companies have developed a treatment that combines Alnylam's RNAi therapeutic with Medtronic's drug delivery technology to treat Huntington's.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Huntington's, for which there is no cure, is caused by the loss of neurons due to a toxic protein made by a tainted gene. The idea behind the new treatment is to stop at least some of that protein's production so that it cannot damage the brain.
The treatment would use a device made by Medtronic that is already implanted in more than 250,000 patients to treat chronic pain and spasticity. The device features a catheter connected to a drug pump that's surgically implanted into the abdomen. The pump pushes drugs through the device and into the fluid around the spinal cord. In the case of the Huntington's RNAi work, the system is adapted to deliver liquids directly into the brain tissue.
"To create pressure, it actively pumps the drug into the brain, and that pressure really moves the drug into the brain and further away than the drugs would otherwise go based on diffusion," says Lothar Krinke, vice president and manager of Medtronic's deep brain stimulation projects.
In a study published earlier this year, the researchers showed that the device can distribute the siRNA to around six cubic centimeters of brain tissue in a rhesus monkey. The results of the study suggest the treatment was safe over 28 days of infusion and showed that the protein product of the Huntington's-type gene in the monkeys was nearly halved, says Krinke.
Medtronic is currently leading the effort to push the device-drug treatment into the clinic. Although the company will not say when it anticipates initiating clinical trials, the work has been funded by CHDI, a nonprofit foundation focused on developing cures for Huntington's.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
DeepMind's cofounder: Generative AI is just a phase. What's next is interactive AI.
"This is a profound moment in the history of technology," says Mustafa Suleyman.
What to know about this autumn's covid vaccines
New variants will pose a challenge, but early signs suggest the shots will still boost antibody responses.
Human-plus-AI solutions mitigate security threats
With the right human oversight, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence can help keep business and customer data secure
Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation
From million-dollar slide shows to Steve Jobs's introduction of the iPhone, a bit of show business never hurt plain old business.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.