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Listing white rhinos as endangered could save all rhinos, conservationists say
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has named southern white rhinoceros an endangered species protected under the Endangered Species Act, a move that the organization says could help protect the other four highly endangered species of rhinos.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the southern white rhinoceros as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The measure will put under the act's protection the last remaining unprotected species of rhinoceros, a move that the organization says could help protect the other four highly endangered species of rhinos – black, Sumatran, Indian, and Javan – from poaching.
The southern white rhino is not as close to extinction as its four cousins, with about 20,000 white rhinos in protected areas and private game reserves in four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. (The southern white rhino is actually a subspecies of white rhino; its northern counterpart is believed extinct in the wild.)
In contrast, the Javan rhino, the most threatened of the five rhino species, is now believed to number just 35 individuals, all living in Ujung Kulon National Park in Java, Indonesia. Vietnam's last Javan rhino was declared extinct in 2010.
But the white rhino's omission from the act had meant that traffickers, if caught during transactions, could pass off any rhino horn as a white rhino's, says Craig Hoover, head of the wildlife trade and conservation branch of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. Hoover notes that the white rhino's horns are physically indistinguishable from those cut from the other rhinos.
"This is really to address what was a loophole in how we can regulate the movement of rhino horns in the US," he says.
According to a statement from the office, the new classification "prohibits the sale or offer for sale in interstate commerce of this species and its parts and products, consistent with all other rhinos."
The announcement comes after South Africa, home to about 80 percent of the world's rhinos, reported a severe spate of white rhino killings within its borders over the last year and a half. Last year, that country alone recorded 668 white rhinos poached, as well as 446 white rhinos slaughtered in the first six months of this year, the US embassy said in a statement. That compares to 448 dead in 2011 and 333 dead in 2009.
Before 2008, the highest poaching toll since about 1990 was largely just in the single digits, says Hoover.
The dramatic uptick in killings stems from a catastrophic collision of two factors: booming wealth in Asia, especially in recently prosperous Vietnam, and the branding of crushed rhino horn folk remedies, says Hoover.
"Historically, the horn has been used as a fever reducer in Asia," says Hoover. "But that's not new. What is new is that rhino horn has suddenly became the cool thing, particularly in Vietnam, for things like a hangover cure or a cancer cure – none of which is grounded in any research or scientific fact."
At this point, a kilogram of rhino horn commands about $60,000 to $65,000, making rhino horn worth more by weight than gold, according to US Fish and Wildlife Service. Rhino horn is made of keratin, the protein in human fingernails, and, if not for the puffed-up demand, would not be valuable.
"Now you see why people are getting involved in illegal rhino horn trade," says Hoover.
Indeed, the surging price has spawned a coterie of international criminal syndicates that rival drug and arms cartels in the sophistication of their methods. The US, while not a major player in a market that largely spans from Africa to Asia, has nevertheless emerged as a worrisome linchpin in illegal rhino horn trading.
That's because Americans are the largest importers of rhino hunting trophies in the world, says Teresa Telecky, Director of Wildlife for Humane Society International, noting that hunters brought some 688 trophies into the US between 2002 and 2012.
"Basically, there are a lot of horns in this country," says Dr. Telecky.
In the US, hunting trophies from both black and southern white rhinos can be imported with proper documentation from either South Africa or Swaziland, but they cannot be sold. Those trophies consist of the full rhino head, and both black and white rhinos have two horns.
The US, then, has become a hotspot for traders looking to buy up horns that will win big cash rewards in Asia. To date, a massive, undercover criminal investigation known as Operation Crash, led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, has resulted in 14 arrests and six convictions for illegal rhino horn trading. Those convictions included two Chinese businessmen caught buying horns in the US for illegal sale in China, one of whom attempted to package the rhino in a postal box marked as bearing sweets and handicrafts.
In its March 2013 report, the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) also identified a rise in the theft of rhino horns in the US.
As the threat to rhinos becomes increasingly dire, attempts at combating the problem have also become more creative, with most aimed at curbing the ballooning price of a horn. Some conservationists have advocated legalizing the rhino trade, in hopes that doing so will convert rhino poaching into rhino farming, since rhino horns that are shaved off can regenerate, with no need to kill the animal for its horn.
That solution, though, is saddled with major questions about sustainability, as is its unclear if regenerating horns could sustain an industry that is expected to draw more participants if legalized. One Chinese pharmaceutical company is currently experimenting on how to harvest rhino horns efficiently and without injury to the animal.
In another surprising turn, private rhino owners in South Africa, who consider the animals essential to tourism, have begun poisoning the horns. The controversial practice, which does not harm the rhinos but is aimed at making those who ingest the horn powder extremely ill, seeks to warn away would-be consumers in Asia, says Telecky.
"People in South Africa are really just so desperate to protect the rhinos," she says. "They're at their wits' end about what to do."
Telecky's organization has taken a less extreme approach, attempting to rebrand how Vietnamese businessmen perceive the horns. Vietnamese businessmen are among the product's biggest buyers, purchasing horns as status symbols, she says.
White rhinos – when allowed to live – are enthralling animals. In white rhino social groups, adult males cordon off for themselves a plot of land about one square mile and rim it with dung piles to form a symbolic fence. Dominant males then patrol that land to ensure that breeding females do not leave the plot and will lunge – horn first – after any male that expresses interest in its preferred mate.
And these are big beasts: White rhinos are the second largest land mammals in the world after elephants, placing them in a group of big-boned animals that historically have not fared well on the planet. Vanished Brobdingnagian animals include the Elasmotherium, a four-ton, furry rhino that went extinct during the Pleistocene.


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Nature has a news report on a recent dust-up in the Department of Interior over its newly implemented "scientific integrity" policy:
When US President Barack Obama announced a government-wide effort to protect federal science from political interference, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) took an early lead. In 2011, it became the first agency to finalize a new policy on scientific integrity and it has hired ten scientific-integrity officers to work with staff in its various bureaus. But the DOI may also be the first to run into a problem with the way the policies are implemented, as one of those officers claims to have been fired for upholding the guidelines.What is the issue in this case?
"I thought I was doing the job I was hired to do and was doing the right thing. I was stifled," says Paul Houser, a hydrologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, who was appointed as scientific-integrity officer for the DOI's Bureau of Reclamation in April 2011. Houser was fired on 10 February and filed a complaint under the DOI's scientific-integrity policy two weeks later.
Houser says that he was asked by a press officer to check some material that the DOI planned to make public about the probable environmental impact of the dams' removal. But the material painted an overly rosy picture of the benefit, Houser says. For example, in a summary document, the DOI said that studies had shown that the annual production of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) would rise by 83% a year after the dams were removed. However, it did not include any of the uncertainties about how the population would respond that an expert panel commissioned by the DOI had listed. In the final version of the summary — which is now on a government website — the number was changed to 81.4%. "That number expresses an accuracy that's ludicrous," says Houser. The figure comes from an unpublished computer-modelling study and had an uncertainty range of −59.9% to 881.4%, which was not reported in the summary.While the various allegations are under investigation, Houser's complaint (which you can read in full here in PDF) signals that the implementation of scientific integrity policies is going to be a rocky road for federal agencies. In effect, the policy empowers all agency employees (and in some cases, like this one, a watchdog) to challenge all agency communications and decisions based on how information is presented. The Department of the Interior was the first out of the gate with its guidelines (presented at the White House here in PDF), so it is not unexpected that a controversy shows up under that agency.
Houser says that last September, his supervisor, deputy commissioner for external and intergovernmental affairs Kira Finkler, chided him for documenting his concerns. He says Finkler told him that "the secretary wants to remove those dams". Finkler did not respond to questions from Nature about the situation, but the scientific-integrity officer who is overseeing implementation of the department's policy, Ralph Morgenweck, confirms that Houser's complaint is being investigated.
Because all communication involves discretion in the section of material to include and not to include, the notion of an agency watchdog over the use of science in agency communications is likely to lead to many more such disputes.
Who decides what information should and should not be included? Who gets to second guess agency policy makers and the press office on what information should be included or not included? I testified on this issue in 2007 before the House Government Reform Committee during the period when the Bush Administration received similar criticisms (here in PDF). At the time I wrote:
[N]o information management policy can ever hope to eliminate political considerations in the preparation of government reports with scientific contentThe issues remain much the same today under a different administration. Even though the political context has changed, the underlying dynamics have not.
The Houser case will likely prompt some additional thinking about these issues and what it means to try to regulate or otherwise manage the scientific content of agency information. I suspect that eventually agencies will have to accept the reality that in many if not most cases the proper place for debate over agency decisions and communications is simply in the broader political arena as part of ongoing policy debate.
As it stands, the DOI scientific integrity policy may foreshadow ever more disputes over science between career government employees and political appointees, and perhaps even a further politicization of agency science. This is probably not the outcome expected or desired by the Obama Administration when putting forward a call for agency integrity guidelines.

subset: commoncrawl


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Guest Contributor: Angela Rose Self, Brandeis University, Candidate for Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, 2022
Brandeis made the switch in the Spring of 2020 to have classes be fully online, which continued into the 2020-2021 academic school year. I was worried at first about making the switch to online courses, as were many of my peers. However, I am happy to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed online courses and the flexibility they brought to my schedule. Instead of having to commute to classes everyday, I was able to spend the extra time studying and tackling my coursework. Also, I now had time to pursue my hobbies that I had little time for before. My professors adapted smoothly to the online format and made the classes engaging. As someone who is naturally quiet in class, the online format allowed me to participate more as I had time to collect my thoughts and express myself through the "chat" function in Zoom, instead of having to speak up in front of the entire class.
Here are my tips to help you achieve success in an online class setting:
Make a dedicated work space
Now that your home is also the classroom, it is important to make separate spaces for each. Not having separated spaces can make it difficult to transition out of work, especially during periods of rest. I would highly recommend that you dedicate an area of your home, be that a desk, room, or whatever else is available, solely to schoolwork. This can help create a better work-life balance.
Take screen breaks
Staring at a computer screen can be taxing and is something that both my professors and classmates experienced. To avoid the "Zoom burnout," take breaks from screens between courses and schoolwork. This can include going on a walk, talking to your family, or anything else that gets you away from a screen. Additionally, I have found that this helps me to be more productive during the times that I am working.
Treat online class as you would the classroom
Learning from home, while it can be an amazing experience, does pose some challenges. For instance, there is easier access to distractions (like your phone!) that you normally would not have in the traditional classroom. To eliminate those distractions, I suggest putting them in a drawer or somewhere out of sight for the duration of the class. This can make it easier to focus on the material being discussed. Also, dressing as you would for a normal class can help to create that work-life balance I mentioned earlier. While it can be fun to attend class in your pajamas, long-term I found that getting dressed for class helped me to separate school from other aspects of my life.
Overall, as a student who has taken many courses over Zoom, I recommend to anyone hesitant about taking an online class to do it! Classes are much more flexible and the ability to learn from anywhere can be freeing.
If you are interested in taking an online course this summer, view the Brandeis Summer School website for more details!


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Who gets to decide what you want?
When George Washington was a teenager, did he really, really, really want a car?
In order to want something, you probably need to know it exists. But my guess is that it surely helps if you've been marketed to.
One definition of happiness is wanting the things you're likely to get (or, conversely, not wanting the unattainable). One definition of marketing is persuading the world it wants what you have, regardless of whether they can afford it or not.
We don't hesitate to motivate employees by marketing them the benefits of being promoted, even if they all can't possibly get this. We don't hesitate to tease kids by marketing every conceivable unattainable Christmas gift at them, relentlessly.
Teenage girls are taught what to want by magazines and by peers.
Patients are taught what to want by doctors who prescribe new tests. And doctors are taught to do that by lawyers eager to sue if they don't. Imagine going home and saying, "the doctor wanted to give me another test, but I said no…"
This cycle of assigned wants is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The game theory demands it.
And so, once again it seems to come down to a personal decision. If you decide what you want (instead of letting someone else decide for you) perhaps you could choose the things that would actually bring you and your loved ones the satisfaction you can live with.


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Late September, I was feeling poorly and went to see the Doc. After endless tests he said, "We don't know what you've got. It's probably viral. Maybe it'll go away." (It did.)
He added scientific words to the effect of, "You're no spring chicken though, and you do have slightly elevated blood sugar levels. If you don't lift your game, in a few years you could become part of Australia's Type 2 Diabetes epidemic."
He didn't recommend a specific diet, merely suggested that I check out Diabetes Australia, lose weight, and avoid sugary stuff and carbohydrate-rich food. "Oh," he went on, "You should also cut down on the booze intake and exercise regularly." A sobering thought. Continue reading


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Mullaney And Associates
Keeping you moving for over 40 years
Toilet Seat – Round, Bone color – 16 inches long X 14 inches wide
*PLEASE NOTE: that ALL RETURNS MUST BE sent back - UNDAMAGED, and IN their ORIGINAL/UnAltered Packages - for any Credits/Refunds to be applicable!
Also, PLEASE NOTE: that any, and all Shipping Costs/Fees incurred are NOT applicable for credit/refund, and that a Re-Stocking Fee may apply.*


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HTTP/1.1 -1 Read error in cache disk data: SuccessContent-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Last-Modified: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 07:03:39 GMT Content-length: 3169 Connection: Close Proxy-Connection: Close X-Cache: HIT from web1.osuosl.org Server: ProxyTrack 0.5 (HTTrack 3.49.2) This page is a personal todo list for me, cotto. Others are welcome to take on any tasks mentioned here, but the primary purpose for this page is to keep track of what I intend to do. Because of that, I haven't spend much effort on breaking tasks down into bite-size chunks or made much of a concrete plan. If you are interested in helping but don't know where to start, catch me on #parrot and I'll put you to work. == profiling todo (important, in decreasing order): == - Annotations are slow. Make it possible to avoid a Schlemiel the Painter algorithm by getting annotations from bytecode iteratively. - http://irclog.perlgeek.de/parrot/2009-12-12#i_1828456 - Get to know the PackFile code. - Read through the bytecode pdd (13) and make it match the current implementation. - Focus on annotations, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to raise the PackFile bus number. - test profiling output (pprof format) - test pprof to callgrind conversion and callgrind-style output - Create an efficient binary output format with optional compression, similar to NYTProf. - Alternately, consider moving the Callgrind output code into the profiling runcore and using the pprof output only for testing. - Look into spitting out NYTProf-compatible output too. - Optimize the profiling runloop code. Major refactors should wait until some tests are in place. - ~~Abstract output in the profiling runcore to minimize the amount of code that cares about the output format.~~ - ~~Figure out a nice way to integrate annotations into the profile.~~ == profiling todo (would be nice): == - Fix CLI argument parsing so that options can be passed to the profiling runcore. - It'd also be nice if parrot were smart enough to treat -Rp or -Rprof to the same as -Rprofiling - This is a trivial change to compilers/imcc/main.c - Switch to a Configure.pl-based approach for finding the appropriate timing functions. == profiling testing todo: == - Figure out what to test. (see [wiki:TestingProfiling]) - Write some fake tests to figure out what the profiling testing interface should look like. - pprof2cg (split into a module, test individual components, multiple output formats (when implemented)) - The Callgrind output code may end up in C since nqp is way too slow and even the Perl 5 version isn't very fast. This would make testing more interesting, though I'd still have a way to produce either the pprof or the callgrind formatted output. - There's now no reason that multiple output formats can't coexist apart from the extra testing burden. - specific test cases - test all output types (currently none and pprof, possibly cg and nytprof if I get ambitious) - hello world - profiling a pbc without line information (if possible) - proper namespace support - threads == Questions: == * What are "basic blocks" in Callgrind's format? Callgrind's docs aren't at all helpful here. RTFS applies. * A basic block is a straight line piece of code without any branches or branch targets. It's the smallest individual unit of code to which you can apply a compiler optimization.
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Feature Summary | Adobe Muse CC | 2015 releases
2015.2 & 2015.1 releases of Adobe Muse CC
Adobe Muse is no longer adding new features and will discontinue support on March 26, 2020. For detailed information and assistance, see Adobe Muse end-of-service FAQ.
New features in previous versions
System requirements
The Adobe Muse CC (2015.2 & 2015.1) release brings in several exciting new features and enhancements, including integration with Adobe Comp CC, improved In-Browser Editing workflows, scroll effects in responsive layout, the new Elliptical tool, enhancements to CC Libraries. Continue reading for more information about the new features, and links that offer more learning resources.
New features and enhancements in Adobe Muse 2015.2
Integration with Adobe Comp CC
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
Adobe Muse is now integrated with Adobe Comp CC, an app that is available for iPhones and iPads. This app bridges the gap between mobiles and desktops, allowing you to create your layout anywhere, anytime.
Comp CC allows you to add components like rectangles, image placeholders, or text boxes by using hand gestures. The app converts these gestures into crisp graphics, enabling you to complete your layout within minutes.
Comp CC is also integrated with Creative Cloud Libraries. This means that you can design your menus or labels in an app like Photoshop and use the assets for your Adobe Muse layout. You can also use widgets like Maps or Contact forms from Adobe Muse while wireframing your layout in Comp CC.
With the integration of Adobe Muse with Comp CC, you can create a draft of your layout and bring it to Adobe Muse in a single click. You can then add the finishing touches to your layout in Adobe Muse. To know how to use Comp CC with Adobe Muse, see Integration of Adobe Muse with Adobe Comp CC. You can also see a sample workflow on creating an Adobe Muse layout using Comp CC.
In-Browser Editing
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
In-Browser Editing in Adobe Muse now has a new and improved user interface. In-Browser Editing in this version of Adobe Muse supports the following new features:
- View editable items: You can long-click on the In-Browser Editing page to view all the items that are editable.
- Edit text on page: You can edit text within the In-Browser Editor, and view your changes as you type.
- Undo/redo changes: You can now undo and redo your changes.
- Faster loading time: In-Browser Editor now loads faster than before.
- Choose layouts while editing: You also have a drop-down list for styling sites created using alternate layout in Adobe Muse.
To view detailed information on each of these features, see Editing site content using In-Browser Editing.
New start screen
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
The Welcome screen or the Start screen in Adobe Muse has been updated to include new functionalities like New and Open menus that are common across all the Creative Cloud apps. The start screen displays recently opened files and details like Name of the File, Last Opened, Size of the File, and the File Type.
Asset Collector
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
Use the new Asset Collector tool from the Assets panel to move all your assets from one location to another. You can now copy all your assets to a single folder, on your computer or on your hard disk. Save your files to a single destination, and move your Adobe Muse project with just a few clicks.
Ellipse Tool
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
Make your websites look even better with the new Ellipse tool. Use this tool directly to create ellipses, and hold the Shift key with the tool to create circles. To know how to use the Ellipse Tool, see Working with Objects.
Responsive design improvements
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
Responsive widgets
Now, YouTube and Vimeo widgets are responsive by width and height. Use these widgets in your responsive sites, and watch them scale in proportion to your browser width.
Rectangle frames are now responsive by both height and width.
Vertical Move Handle
The new Vertical Move Handle in Adobe Muse allows you to easily move objects as a group. When you select an object in Adobe Muse responsive layout, the Vertical Move Handle appears in the left margin. This handle allows you to simultaneously select and move the selected object and objects below it.
Edit Minimum Page Width
You can now directly edit the Minimum Page Width using the Breakpoint bar. Move your mouse to the edge of the minimum page size area in the breakpoints bar. When the cursor changes to a resize cursor, click and drag to adjust the Minimum Page Width.
See Laying out objects in a responsive layout, for more information about each of these enhancements.
CC Libraries improvements
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
You can now add swatches from CC Libraries to the Swatches panel. Further, you can select multiple colors from CC Libraries and add them to the Swatches panel.
You can also choose a color from CC Libraries, and set it as Stroke or text color in Adobe Muse.
To see how you can use colors in Adobe Muse CC Libraries, see the section on Using Colors in CC Libraries.
Plan View enhancements
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
Plan View in Adobe Muse now includes a vertical layout option. Until the previous release, you could view the hierarchy and the structure of your website only in the horizontal view. Now you can simply click (vertical site map display icon) and view complex site plans vertically.
Improved Google PageSpeed ranking
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
New and existing sites currently wait for the web fonts to be available before displaying the page. Now, you can choose whether you want to allow your page to load faster using fallback fonts. You can enable this option through the Site Properties dialog box, Advanced tab > Web Fonts menu.
Improved Illustrator workflows
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
You can now directly import Illustrator (.ai) files from your computer, or hard disk into Adobe Muse without exporting them as SVG files first.
Image frame enhancements
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.2 | June 2016
The new image frame tool in Adobe Muse lets you create both rectangular and elliptical frames. You can now easily create image placeholders for your site, by clicking the frame from the Tools panel, and placing the frames in your Adobe Muse project. You can use the frames to create a wireframe or layout, and fill the frames when your images are finalized.
New features and enhancements in Adobe Muse 2015.1
Responsive web design
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.1 | February 2016
You can now create unique, responsive websites for different screen sizes without any coding. Adobe Muse provides a blank canvas without restrictive templates or grids for designing responsive websites.
In the earlier versions of Adobe Muse, you could only create adaptive sites. That is, websites that adapted to the browser widths of different devices. The page and the page elements were not fluid, or did not scale for each browser width. The page layout was fixed for specific browser widths.
With responsive web design in Adobe Muse, you can create use a single Muse file to create different layouts for different browser widths. The pages are fluid. That is, they scale in proportion to the browser width. So, you do not have to create and maintain separate pages for mobiles, tablets, and desktops anymore.
If you are new to designing or prefer to get a jump-start with your design, you can use the starter templates for responsive websites. If you prefer to start off with a blank canvas, you can do so by creating a site with a fluid layout. Want to convert your existing websites to responsive layout? Yes, Muse lets you do that as well.
To know how to create and update responsive sites, see Creating responsive sites in Adobe Muse. You may also want to watch a video tutorial on creating a responsive site in Adobe Muse.
Starter files for responsive web design
Get a jump-start to your design with responsive starter templates. Adobe Muse offers customizable, responsive starter files that you can access from the Adobe Muse website. Choose an appropriate template, open it, and add content to suit your requirement. If required, add new breakpoints or edit the default breakpoints. Customize the design and publish your responsive website with a few clicks.
For more information on responsive designs in Adobe Muse, see Using responsive starter templates.
Creative Cloud Libraries in Adobe Muse
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.1 | February 2016
Creative Cloud Libraries, powered by Adobe CreativeSync technology, enable you to access your favorite assets from home, office, or even when you're on-the-go. Create images, colors and more using Photoshop, Illustrator, or mobile apps like Adobe Capture CC. Access these assets across other desktop and mobile apps for a seamless creative workflow.
Creative Cloud integration in Adobe Muse allows you to create your own assets and share these assets with other Creative Cloud users across the globe. You can also access, import, and use all the assets that are available through the Creative Cloud Libraries. Use the CC Libraries Panel (Windows > CC Libraries) to access Creative Cloud Libraries from Adobe Muse.
You can now access Creative Cloud Charts through the Creative Cloud Libraries. Creative Cloud Charts enable you to create charts and insert them in Adobe Muse as linked assets. This means that your charts in Adobe Muse are auto-updated every time the data in the chart changes.
For more information on using Creative Cloud Libraries in Adobe Muse, see Creative Cloud Libraries in Adobe Muse.
To see a video tutorial on Creative Cloud Libraries, click this link.
State transition
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.1 | February 2016
You can make your design more interesting and engaging by applying transitions to different elements on your web page. You can also set the delay, duration, and timing options for each state transition, in each element.
Select a menu or button for which you want to set the transition state. Choose Window > State. When you click the Normal, Active, or Rollover states from the Menu Item on the top panel, you can see the Transition options.
State transition in a published site depends on the browser's ability to support W3C specification for CSS3 transitions.
To easily implement state transitions in your site, watch this video.
SVG graphic improvements
New in Adobe Muse CC 2015.1 | February 2016
Adobe Muse 2015.1 allows you to import SVG files into an image frame, crop the image, and apply fill and stroke. If there are no frames, you can now import an SVG file directly, create a frame, and then crop the image. You can also add SVG images to slideshows. These SVG graphic improvements give you additional flexibility while designing slideshows.
Learn more on SVG enhancements by watching this video tutorial.
Enhancements in Adobe Muse 2015.1
Enhanced in Adobe Muse CC 2015.1 | February 2016
In the Swatches panel, you can now import and export Swatch libraries through the Context menu.
Adobe Muse 2015.1 supports rotation detection in Exif content. Images that have rotation information embedded in them, will now be rotated to landscape when placed.
You can now create empty image frames by deleting the image content of an existing image frame. Double-click an image you have placed, and press Delete. The empty image frames will have placeholders.
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AUSTIN, Texas – Some are wondering if Texas coach Mack Brown might be closing in on his last rodeo.
After all, Brown is heading into his 16th season, the last three ending far below expectations, and he is one of the longest-tenured coaches in the country.
Don't count on it. There's little indication that Brown is ready to saddle up and ride off into a burnt-orange sunset of retirement, whether voluntary or forced. In fact, to hear Brown talk, the coach sounds like Texas may be on the verge of another run of dominance.
"I think we've got it fixed," Brown said as the Longhorns opened practice with 19 returning starters.
"It's been a fun challenge for me. I like fixing things. I don't like messing them up, and obviously I was involved in messing it up for whatever reason," Brown said.
It definitely got messy for a while.
Over a decade, Brown built Texas into the powerhouse fans had waited nearly 20 years for. The Longhorns won at least 10 games every year from 2001-2009, a run that included a national championship in 2005, playing for another in 2009 and playing in two more BCS bowl games (2004, 2008).
But just when Brown settled into cruise control, the wheels fell off in 2010. The Longhorns crashed to a 5-7 record before clawing back to 8-5 and 9-4 the last two seasons as Brown overhauled his staff and his playbook. Instead of reloading for another title run, Texas was mired in a long-haul rebuild.
And while many question whether the program can regain its spot among the national elite, Brown heads into this season with a quiet confidence that his team is underrated and ready to win again.
"Everything is in a better place that it was three years ago," Brown said. "I'm in a good place going forward. I like our staff, I like our kids. ... People ask if we have a chance to win all the games: we do."
Brown even took the unusual step of inviting the media to watch the first six practices, and opened the doors to the public for three of them. Brown has generally kept practices closed in recent years, particularly when he was trying to push younger players, such as quarterback David Ash, into starring roles.
"We played a lot of young guys that would take some hits early. When they got older we would be better and they are older. That's why I'm more confident this team will be the best one we've had in the last two years or three years," Brown said.
On paper, the Longhorns are getting a harder look as Big 12 contenders in a league that lost most of its stars from a year ago and would seem ripe for the taking. And while that boosts the energy around the program, it also raises the stakes again for Brown, who is facing a fan base increasingly frustrated by the slide into mediocrity and one that will only grow more impatient if the Longhorns don't win the Big 12.
But absent another disaster like 2010, Brown's tenure in Austin would appear safe.
Brown already ranks fourth nationally among current coaches for the most years with one program and is under contract until 2020. His salary is $5.3 million this year with $100,000 annual increases, making him one of the highest paid coaches in the country.
That deal was pushed through in early 2012 in part to quell any rumors that Brown might be on his way out. Brown enjoys solid support from school President Bill Powers, athletic director DeLoss Dodds and the program's biggest donors.
"If he feels pressure, it's unwarranted," said billionaire Houston attorney Joe Jamail Jr., one of Brown's closest advisers and friends whose statue stands next to that of Darrell K Royal at the stadium that bears Royal's name.
"Even Darrell Royal had some bad years," Jamail said. "Mack believes he's going to have a good football team this year. I do, too."
And even frustrated fans don't seem to be doing much beyond their complaints on online message boards. Texas recently ranked No. 1 nationally in merchandising sales, according to the Collegiate Licensing Co., topping even two-time defending national football champion Alabama. And driven by football, Texas remains the wealthiest athletic program in the country. In 2012, Texas reported to the NCAA revenue of more than $163 million, with nearly $104 million from football.
In other words, while the product on the field has taken a dip, there's still a lot of power in the Texas brand fueled by Brown and his football program.
"He's a fighter," Jamail said. "He doesn't back up from anything."
Brown still finds himself dismissing the rumors that he would have retired after the 2009 season if Texas had beaten Alabama for a second national title. Not a chance, Brown said. The success only left him wanting more.
Brown said Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden had warned him about winning a national title
"It will ruin your life," they said, "because once you win one, you always want to win another."


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The Pandoras met at my house today to make paper-cloth decorations for The Day of the Dead (El Dia de Los Muertos). We followed directions in Kelli Perkins' wonderful book Stitch Alchemy (Interweave, $22.95).
Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico on Oct. 31 - November 2, and honors deceased relatives. The website azcentral.com has great information on the history, events, crafts and foods associated with the holiday.
Here is DeLane working on hers:
After you cut out the pieces of paper-cloth, everything gets stitched down on black card stock with black thread. Precision stitching doesn't matter because the uneven stitching adds to the folk art effect.
Trish sketches out a design on the back of the paper-cloth before cutting it out:
I made three skulls and cards to put at each end:
I think I'm going to stitch them with a black ribbon across the top, and hang it over a door. If you are intrigued with this, I highly recommend Kelli's book. It has so many wonderful techniques for coloring the paper-cloth, and really cool projects you can make with it.


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350 gram taro – peels and cut into small cubes
3 1/2 - 4 cups water (more or less)
4 tbsp sago pearl – soak in cold water for 15 minutes
¼ cup sugar
½ cup thick coconut milk
½ cup gingko nuts
2. Steamed the taro roots until soft. Mash it with a fork or a potato masher (I left some chunks in as I find it taste better this way.
3. Bring the 3 1/2 cups of water to boil, Add in the gingko nuts, coconut milk and sugar and bring it up to boil over medium heat. Add in the mashed taro. Stir well and bring it up to boil again. Taste and check the sweetness to your liking. Turn off the heat.
4. Add in the pearl sago, stir well and set aside to let cool. Chill in fridge before serving. Enjoy!!
Note: You may substitute coconut milk with evaporated milk and the sugar with rock sugar. The amount of sugar can be adjusted to your liking. The soup tends to get thicker once it is cool because of the pearl sago and the starchiness of the taro. If that happens just add a bit of coconut milk or water to it.


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With 35 percent of U.S. companies relying on smaller staffs since the recession, the landscape of the labor market is changing substantially and more employers are beginning to emphasize the contingent, flexible workforce.
A recent survey from CareerBuilder finds that this trend is fully expected to continue through 2012, as 36 percent of responding companies said they planned to hire temporary or contract workers this year. This number is up from 34 percent last year, 30 percent for 2010 and 28 percent for 2009.
In addition to demonstrating the idea that the flexible workforce is beginning to take hold, the results of the survey are also positive for the individual workers themselves as 35 percent of these employers said they ultimately planned to hire their temporary employees on a permanent basis.
Why has there been such expanded use of contingent workers by U.S. business? It is largely due to pressure on corporate CEOs to slash costs and increase corporate earnings in a recession.
The new workforce
The traditional and primary target for cost cutting has always been administration costs. In the 1980s, 1990s and early part of this century, the mechanism for cutting those costs was layoffs. Although businesses still rely on layoffs to reduce costs, the use of contingent (temporary) workers is a popular alternative.
To cut costs, management changes the status of select full-time employees to temporary, part-time or independent contractor. This change in status is often times done without the consent of the affected employee. Unless one desires this change in status and can afford to forego reduced income and in many cases benefits, employees consider this change in status undesirable.
However, there are men and women who choose this lifestyle. We often refer to them as consultants, freelancers, temps, temporary workers, independent workers and seasonal workers. In some cases, workers are forced to become a part of the contingent workforce or face having no income.
Before you decide to add "consultant" to your résumé, here are a few items to consider. If you have significant experience in a particular area, consider leveraging your employment experience as a consultant, but keep in mind the following industry standards and likely client expectations for consultants:
• You have at least 10 years of progressive experience in your specialty area.
• You have credibility and your advice is sound.
• Your work or research has been documented.
• You are considered an expert in your field of knowledge.
• Others can vouch for you as references (this will come as you build your consulting practice).
In addition, consider obtaining a phone number where prospects can reach you, a business card, mailing address and a website to promote yourself. As a consultant, your clients look to you for detailed guidance on a particular area of expertise.
For example, you may be hired as an organization development consultant or a merger strategy consultant providing advice to the client. In many cases, the scope of the project is broad, and could include several smaller projects within the overall agreement. For that reason, the work may occur as part of an ongoing commitment, as opposed to having a short-term assignment.
Finding the work
Just as volunteering often leads to employment, so does being a contingent worker. If you find yourself displaced or without a job, a contingent role could bridge the income gap until you find permanent employment. Many people find that they enjoy the flexiblity and freedom of working contingently and they start their own businesses. Check sites such as Guru, Craigslist and SoloGig for project-based work.
Becoming part of a network affiliated with your services can be very useful for finding work independently. You should also post a profile on social networks, such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). Maintaining your membership with professional organizations and attending network meet-ups are advantageous ways to spread the word to possible clients.
Be sure to sign up with temporary agencies such as Kelly Services, Agile 1 and Manpower. A significant number of temporary workers have landed full-time employment within organizations that use these temp agencies.
Some agencies, such as Lab Support and Lab Staffing, are specialized for life science-related fields, so be sure to approach agencies that have high odds of placing you in your area of skill.
Tammy McIntyre is owner of McIntyre Employment Service, an agency providing individuals and small businesses with career development services. She welcomes reader responses to email@example.com.
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Beck campaigns against food safety bill
On his radio show today Beck repeatedly urged his listeners to "get on the phone and call your senator" to tell them to vote against the Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill that would boost the FDA's authority in an effort to prevent incidents of food-related illness. Beck's remarks echo his sponsor, FreedomWorks, which currently has a letter writing campaign against the bill.
First, Beck suggested that the U.S. doesn't have a food safety issue requiring stronger regulation, stating, "Our food is the safest in the world." He added, "What is it about our food supply that is so very, very dangerous that we need to move on this right away?"
But According to the Centers for Disease Control, foodborne illnesses kill 5,000 people every year. A CDC report last year also indicated that "After decades of steady progress, the safety of the nation's food supply has not improved over the past three years," as reported by the New York Times. The GAO has also been warning about problems with insufficient food safety oversight for years.
Beck went on to claim that the bill will "at best increase the cost of food dramatically" and suggested that the legislation is related to efforts to "nudge us out of meat":
BECK: What is that going to do to the cost of food? Corn is already way up. Corn price is going up. That doesn't just mean your popcorn prices is going to be more expensive at the movie theater. We feed our beef, chickens, everything but fish corn. So what does that do to the beef price? Oh you know what that does? That probably nudges you out of meat. Which is weird that I would use the word nudge because doesn't Cass Sunstein, he doesn't want us to eat meat? He says that is bad for us.
PAT: Bad for us and the planet.
BECK: He'd like to see us nudged out of meat.
BECK: This is going to at best increase the cost of food dramatically, at best. At worst, it gives the government complete control over farmlands. No thank you.
But Craig Harris of the Food Safety Policy Center at Michigan State University reportedly said that the bill is unlikely to raise consumers' food costs:
Although costs of food production may rise as a result of the bill, the amount isn't likely to make a huge dent in most large food companies' profits, Harris said, so the added costs shouldn't trickle down to the consumers. For small companies and local farmers, the bill includes exemptions and special accommodations, recognizing that some companies may not be able to keep up with the costs of adopting new safety practices.
And contrary to Beck's suggestion that this bill is somehow related to efforts to reduce consumption of meat, the Food Safety Modernization Act reportedly does not affect the Department of Agriculture, which regulates meat and poultry. The Christian Science Monitor has reported:
The USDA's costly carcass-by-carcass inspection soaks up about 60 percent of US food-safety funding, even though it covers only about 20 percent of the food Americans eat (mostly meat). That leaves the FDA with only around 40 percent of the funding, even though it's responsible for ensuring the safety of 80 percent of the food supply. With less funding, it's difficult for the FDA to inspect food facilities on a regular basis.
Beck claimed that the bill could "[give] the government complete control over farmlands." Someone should really tell the numerous Republican co-sponsors and the Chamber of Commerce, which says the bill "will reduce the risk of contamination and thereby better protect public health and safety, raise the bar for the food industry, and deter bad actors."


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To the Editor:
I read the article in the Bayonne Community News regarding the Bayonne tax-card program. It puzzles me greatly that our elected officials could not come up with one plan to help the residents lower their property taxes other than this. I have come to the conclusion that this is not a good plan, just like many of the bright ideas our elected officials of this city have put out there for us to pay for over and over again.
It says in the article that 25 percent of the discount goes directly to the firm that operates the program. Then they tell you that there is a $10 a month processing fee. Oh, but wait, there will not be "per swipe" fees. Wow!
They claim that this program is geared to get residents to shop on Broadway. Can someone please tell me where are we supposed to shop? If you want to buy shoes for anyone in your family, we cannot shop in Bayonne because there are no shoe stores. If you want to buy clothes for your children, where can you go? If you don't have a budget, you can shop at Baby Barn or Different Strokes, but if you are on a budget, you are out of luck. Teenagers have no place to shop for decent clothes and neither do adults for that matter. Growing up here all your life, people remember what was here years ago. Instead of focusing on filling the back highway with mini malls, how about putting more attention on bringing back stores that make a difference to Bayonne? To look at Broadway now is a disgrace.
How about instead of building more housing, try to get back major companies. I remember when the industrial companies were the big tax payers, and homeowners weren't picking up the brunt of the taxes. The politicians have allowed the industrial businesses to leave Bayonne, raised our taxes, which have gone up consistently over the last three years, and in the last year our municipal and school taxes went up, and by our taxes going up, the store owners raise the rents of the stores so renters could not afford to continue to do business. That means more boarded-up buildings.
Where have our elected officials been? Do they really know what is going on in town with the real people? I don't think so. Do they really care? They only care during an election year. Next year we will see them scurrying all over town opening car doors and bringing the seniors goodies. They should take public-speaking classes. Maybe when they lie to us, it won't sound like it is coming from the uniformed idiots.
Thank you


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In 1741, New York had a population of around 10,000 people, some 2,000 of whom were slaves. In a winter of harsh weather, food shortages and difficult economic times, worries about attacks on the Province by the Catholic countries of France and Spain abounded. Reports of slave revolts in other colonies added to the tension.
On March 8, 1741, a fire broke out at Fort George, the official residence of the Province's governor, and the building burned to the ground. Nine more serious fires occurred in the weeks that followed, and the population of the city was in a state of panic. Supreme Court of Judicature Justice Daniel Horsmanden, was charged with leading an inquiry into the origins of the fires. The court convened in City Hall on April 21, 1741 and a grand jury was empaneled for the investigation. One of the first witnesses to be examined was a young servant named Mary Burton. She was indentured to John Hughson who ran a bar frequented by slaves and sailors in the vicinity of Trinity church.
Initially, Mary was reluctant to testify, but when she was threatened with confinement in the jail in City Hall, she gave evidence about a robbery that had occurred in February of that year at a small shop owned by Mrs. Hogg in Broad Street. The robbery was instigated by a sailor named Wilson but was carried out by three slaves, Ceasar, Prince, and Cuffee, whom Wilson had met at John Hughson's bar. She also testified against Hughson, who was suspected of receiving stolen property.
Following further threats from Justice Horsmanden and inducements that promised an end to her indenture and financial award, Mary Burton began to testify to a plot that up to then, she had never mentioned. She told of a plan by a group of people to burn the city and murder its inhabitants. Those she named included the three slaves against whom she had testified on the charge of stealing, and John Hughson and his wife. Based on her testimony, the slaves named Caesar and Prince were charged with the February burglary (but not with the alleged plot), found guilty and sentenced to death. The following day, a fire resulted in the destruction of several barns and two slaves caught in the vicinity were immediately burned at the stake.
On May 11, the trials of the others accused by Mary Burton of involvement in the plot commenced. The judges of the court were James De Lancey, Daniel Horsmanden, and Frederick Philipse. Ever-escalating rounds of arrests, naming of others as conspirators, further arrests and further accusations, began. By the time it ended, some two hundred people had been tried in the Supreme Court of Judicature. Although many appeared for the prosecution, none of the lawyers in New York were willing to represent those accused in the plot, whether slave or white. Based upon questionable testimony, thirty people were sentenced to death and seventy others to slavery in the Caribbean. Among those executed were John Hughson, his wife Sarah and his daughter, also called Sarah.
Judge Horsmanden, as indicated above, served as both principal investigator and a judge of the court that heard the cases. With his professional reputation at stake, he published a journal describing the proceedings, which historian Jill Lepore described as "one of the most startling and vexing documents in early American history."
Historians William Bryant and Sydney Gay condemned the entire proceedings, stating that "its disregard of all rules of legal evidence, for its prostitution of the forms of law for the perpetration of cruelty, for popular credulity and cowardice, for the abnegation of all sense of mercy, for the oppression of the weakest and most defenceless, it was without precedent, and has had no parallel in any civilized community."
Paul Finkelman. Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, Volume 2 (2009)
Jill Lepore. New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century New York (2005)
William Cullen Bryant, Sydney Howard Gay. A Popular History of the United States. Volume 3 (1879)


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Deep brain stimulation helps severe OCD, but caution and compassion advised
For patients most severely afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder, electrical stimulation of a brain network can rebalance their emotional state, helping them respond to conventional therapy when it never worked before. New long-term results show that patients' improvements remain if the treatment continues. But, as with other OCD treatments, DBS is not a cure and can have side effects.
When obsessive-compulsive disorder is of crippling severity and drugs and behavior therapy can't help, there has been for just over a year a thread – or rather a wire – of hope. By inserting a thin electrode deep into the brain, doctors can precisely deliver an electrical current to a cord of the brain's wiring and soften the severity of the symptoms. "Deep brain stimulation" therapy for OCD won Food and Drug Administration approval in 2009 for extreme cases under its humanitarian device exemption.
On 18 February at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Benjamin Greenberg, MD, a psychiatrist at Brown University and at Butler Hospital, will discuss the longest-term results so far of the technique he's helped pioneer during the last decade. Encouraged as he is with the progress, Greenberg will address how to best apply it, and how basic and clinical researchers are working to understand the changes in brain networks and behaviors that occur when patients improve.
"These techniques are promising but must be used with an abundance of caution," said Greenberg, associate professor of psychiatry and human behaviour at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and chief of outpatient services at Butler Hospital. "This is reserved for the small proportion of people who are severely disabled and have not benefitted anywhere near adequately from very aggressive use of conventional treatments."
Just over 50 patients have had DBS for OCD in the United States since the work began in 2000. The procedure involves surgically placing electrodes just over a millimetre thick into the brain's ventral capsule and nearby ventral striatum, which contain fibres carrying signals between the thalamus, parts of prefrontal cortex, and other nodes in a network thought important in OCD and related neuropsychiatric illnesses. While DBS's mechanism of action remains unknown, Greenberg said, he and collaborators from many disciplines are making progress in understanding the anatomy, physiology, and behavioural changes underpinning DBS for OCD.
Although OCD affects about 1 per cent of the adult population in a given year, only a small subset of patients might be eligible for DBS. To qualify, they must have very severe and chronically disabling illness despite at least five years of aggressive treatment by experts.
Intractable, sometimes also called "malignant" OCD profoundly degrades a person's quality of life. The combination of intrusive, highly distressing obsessive thoughts, powerful compulsive urges, and, commonly, avoidance of situations that would trigger those symptoms leaves no time for anything else. Patients stay up late at night and get up before dawn to do their daily "work" of compulsive behaviours, which they know is senseless but can't stop. Many are housebound. What they hope to gain from any treatment, including surgery, is simply a little more time to live.
The FDA's humanitarian device exemption is meant to allow the use of a promising technology in patient populations that are so small (less than 4,000 patients yearly) that the manufacturer might not otherwise recoup the development cost if it had to run extensive trials. In a recent paper, some researchers have questioned whether granting the exemption for DBS for OCD was appropriate because the potential patient population was too large.
But Greenberg said he disagrees. He noted that only about 15 patients nationally have received DBS in each of the last two years despite extensive outreach to clinicians for his current National Institute of Mental Health-funded DBS clinical trial, and the separate humanitarian device exemption approval.
"In the real world, the group of patients meeting appropriate selection criteria is truly small," he said.
Taking the edge off
In 2008, Greenberg and colleagues at three other test sites – Leuven, Belgium, The Cleveland Clinic, and University of Florida – and at Medtronic, the device company that makes the electrodes, published results in the journal Molecular Psychiatry from 26 severely afflicted patients who had been carrying the implant for as long as three years. Using the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale as their main benchmark, they found that 73 per cent of patients showed at least a 25 per cent reduction in their score.
The newest results, presented in Greenberg's AAAS talk, show that the patients who improve initially and continue to receive stimulation generally remain improved for eight or more years of followup.
DBS might be righting an imbalance in patients between avoiding situations and goal-directed activity, or it might be that DBS bolsters an OCD sufferer's ability to learn that feared situations are safe. Both these changes could help severely afflicted and otherwise treatment-intractable patients better endure the difficulties presented by their illness and the work of undergoing conventional behaviour therapy, which Greenberg noted is generally the treatment of choice for OCD.
"What DBS really does is make you into an average OCD patient," Greenberg said.
But the difference between being an extreme OCD patient and an average one, Greenberg said, is the difference between being nearly unable to function in society and being able to integrate into more a normal life. Even after the surgery, that's still a challenge for severe OCD patients. The onset of the disease can be as early as the preteen years, so even when their symptoms improve, patients may still face the problem of catching up in education and socialisation.
There are other challenges, too. Patients must either undergo repeated surgeries to replace batteries or continuously maintain a rechargeable battery pack. Especially in the early days of this research when higher levels of current were used, some patients suffered side effects including excessive behavioural activation, or hypomania.
When the stimulation stopped, whether due to battery depletion, a broken stimulating wire, or device shutoff from a metal detector, return of pre-DBS depression, anxiety, and OCD symptoms occurred. (That symptoms return when DBS is interrupted and neither patients nor their study doctors know that stimulation has stopped is good evidence that symptom improvements are in fact due to DBS, Greenberg noted.)
Greenberg said that psychiatrists using the technique need to keep a close eye on patients, who should continue receiving ongoing therapy and support after the procedure. Greenberg's treatment center at Butler Hospital includes a full-time clinical nurse who is available around the clock and other psychiatrists who can be called upon as needed.
In all, Greenberg said, the potential complications are very similar to those observed among the tens of thousands of patients who have undergone DBS treatment for Parkinson's Disease. He and colleagues have observed no clinically important new kinds of side effects not already seen in such movement disorder patients.
Greenberg also noted that OCD patients selected for this study have an excellent understanding of the risks, burdens, and potential benefits of DBS.
"They clearly know exactly what they're signing up for," he said. It was not unusual for patients to have read his scientific papers on DBS, he added, and all have scored perfectly on a test of comprehension of study details after informed consent.
"This was no surprise, really, but it highlights the fact that these OCD sufferers are no more vulnerable to misunderstanding when confronted by a complex study design than anybody else," Greenberg said. "In fact, they might actually be better at this than other patient groups."
Brain circuit insights
For all the help the treatment seems to give the most chronically suffering patients, a second outcome of the work may be even more valuable in the long term, Greenberg said. Researchers are gaining a better fundamental understanding of the physiology of OCD and related illnesses.
Greenberg is the co-primary investigator at the Conte Research Center for OCD, based at the University of Rochester, where researchers, including Brown neuroscience chair Barry Connors, have begun six projects that use DBS to tease out the specific brain circuitry underlying the disease.
"We've learned that our conception of the brain circuitry that's involved in OCD and in depression and other illnesses can be tested directly, and that we are on the right track with the anatomical models we are creating for this circuitry," said Greenberg.
As a result, future therapies might be even more precise and effective, giving even greater hope to patients for whom peace of mind is so tragically elusive.
(Source: Brown University: AAAS Annual Meeting, Washington)
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Drinks with friends
Punch bowls at the ready for parties, barbeques, games, celebrations or Saturdays. We'll help you keep your friends even closer with this guide to making tasty whiskey cocktails for groups, the easy way. You can probably guess the Bloody Molly is our version of the Bloody Mary, in tribute to Dublin's favourite and most famous daughter. Superstar inspiration aside, here's a list of whiskey cocktails easy to whip up for a group of friends, and tasty enough to win over a group of enemies.


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Jeep Wrangler Sport S 2 Door WeatherBeater Cargo Liner 2019 - 2021 / 2071 (2071)
Protect the cargo area of your 2019 - 2021 Jeep Wrangler Sport S 2 Door with the help of a Husky Liners WeatherBeater Cargo Liner
If you're having trouble keeping the cargo area of your Jeep Wrangler clean, then this WeatherBeater Cargo Liner is the product for you. WeatherBeater Cargo Liners feature a raised edge to contain spills and prevent them from staining the carpet of your Jeep Wrangler. This WeatherBeater Cargo Liner has been manufactured to fit your Jeep Wrangler perfectly, and will not shift around while driving. Made using high quality materials, WeatherBeater Cargo Liners are rugged enough to take years of abuse. Husky Liners backs their promise of amazing floor liners by offering a lifetime guarantee, if you have a problem with your WeatherBeater Cargo Liner, they will replace it without hassle. Protect the interior carpet of your Jeep Wrangler with the assistance of a WeatherBeater Cargo Liner. Order yours today!
- Lifetime warranty
- Made in the USA
- Raised edges contain liquids to prevent carpet damage
- Made of durable materials to withstand mud, snow, rain, chemicals, and other spills
- Easily cleaned, simply shake and rinse with a hose
- Constructed of quality materials and made to last
- Will not shift around
- Custom-molded and manufactured to fit your Jeep Wrangler perfectly


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Well, folks, it's been a long week, and while I wasn't able to post anything due to technical difficulties, I was (of course) still partaking in some interesting beer. The most exciting thing that happened was a quick Philly Beer Week preview event in which I got to try Brasserie Dupont's first collaboration beer, made specially for Philly Beer Week 2012 in collaboration with Iron Hill's brewer. I won't belabor the story about how the collaboration came to pass, but while the beer was made specially for Philly Beer Week, I've also heard that it will be getting a wider distribution (according to the PBW website, it will be available "coast to coast" after its introduction in Philly).
For the uninitiated, Iron Hill is a local chain of brewpubs that's become quite popular and well respected around here. I like them a lot, and Dupont makes some of my favorite beers, so I was quite looking forward to this beer:
Iron Hill and Dupont Spéciale Belge - I should probably explain at this point that my notes here are sparse, so take this review with a grain of salt. The short story is that I really enjoyed the beer. It's a pale amberish color with tons of head, but it's brewed with Dupont's distinctive yeast, and that pleasant Belgian yeast spice and ester character is the driving force behind this beer. Lots of spice in the nose, and compared to Dupont's bigger saisons, it's got a lighter, fruitier felling to it (from the yeast, not the hops). According to the story, it's made using smoked malt, but I wasn't really picking up any smoke at all (a friend who was also in attendance didn't pick up on it either, but I've resolved to buy myself a bottle of the stuff and try it again anyway, so I'll have to look a little harder next time). Light to medium bodied, it's actually very refreshing, which was really nice because this event was outside and it was quite warm. Overall, a really nice beer. Does it rival the classic Saison Dupont? Well, maybe not, but that's a pretty high bar to clear. I'll give it a tentative B+ or maybe even A-, though again, I'd love to try this again.
Beer Nerd Details: 5.75% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute? Goblet? Whatever that glass in the picture is... on 5/16/12.
I'm trying to decide how active to be during Philly Beer Week. A lot of the events are in the city, which aren't really that convenient for this suburbanite, but who knows, maybe I'll hop on a train or two and attend some events. Definitely looking forward to the Hill Farmstead event at Teresa's, but as of right now, I haven't really planned out anything else for the week.


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Passionate Leadership Can Be Learned
I've always said that if you want to learn about leadership talk to someone who has actually led something. James (Jim) Quigley, Global CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited is just such a leader, and the "something†he leads is a global professional services juggernaut with more than $26 Billion in revenue, and 170,000 people located in more than 150 countries worldwide. What I most appreciate about Jim is his almost evangelistic zeal in championing the Deloitte brand. Jim is a fully engaged CEO who leads by example. You'll also find Jim to be among the most transparent CEOs you'll encounter. If you don't believe me just go looking for him – he's not that hard to find. Jim has a new book out (As One), you can find him on Twitter @DeloitteCEO and Jim is a frequent presenter at conferences such as World Business Forum and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Enough with the background – on with the interview…
What does it take to be a CEO of a global professional services firm, and why should anyone be led by you?
CEOs today need to model and advocate mutual trust between employees and leadership. I believe that successful CEOs will be judged on long-term sustainable performance and the stewardship of their organization's mission, rather than on short-term performance and results.
One of my main focus areas is to increase my leadership team's ability to be effective. One way to achieve that is by respecting your people, helping them find their authentic voice and leadership style, and demonstrating a genuine advocacy of their professional development.
It is absolutely critical for leaders to lead by example and foster a culture of values and respect. If I empower my leadership team and instill the organization's values in them, they in return will do the same with their teams. That's why I spend a lot of time talking to my partners about culture and our values, and the importance of articulating a clear vision and strategy.
Your new book 'As One' is receiving rave reviews. What inspired you to author a book at this time?
I've been fascinated by leadership for a long time, and I've had the privilege to be in a leadership position for much of my career. Over the years, through my many conversations with C-level executives, it became clear to me that galvanizing large groups of people to work together toward a common purpose was not just a challenge for me, but it was a prevailing challenge for executive leaders.
The actual idea to write a book evolved from a conversation with Mehrdad Baghai, my co-author, where we realized that although we were thinking similarly about leadership, we were coming at it from two very different perspectives. Yet we both shared the belief that leaders from all walks of life are searching for a pragmatic and tested approach to help them realize the full potential of their people. That's when we agreed that it was time to take a new look at collective leadership.
You say that 'As One' challenges conventional thinking with regard to leadership styles. Can you share your thoughts on this?
'As One' is unconventional in that it has brought about a much-needed depth to the way we classify different approaches to collective leadership. Historically, management theory has tended to present a binary view of leadership—command-and-control vs. collaborative. In reality, we discovered that there are multiple styles of leadership, some or all of which may lead to more effective collaboration, depending on the situation. As One provides a leadership discourse with a rich taxonomy that captures the distinguishing features of different leader-follower models. It is also an approach that is robust in its measurement elements and both actionable and adaptable to a wide range of leadership scenarios.
You talk a lot about collective leadership – why is this important?
Collective leadership is important because in a rapidly globalizing world where technological advancements are continually redefining how we do our jobs and how we interact with each other, it is no longer possible to assume that you have the full commitment and loyalty of your people. Today, more than ever, leaders need the full commitment and engagement of their people if they are to succeed in an intensely competitive world.
Collective leadership defines how individuals, leaders, and organizations need to interact to achieve common goals. By establishing a common framework for how to work together, leaders can achieve a productive and sustainable form of engagement, creating a culture where members choose to participate in and contribute to the organization's performance.
How has social media affected you as a CEO?
Social media has created a number of opportunities and challenges for the business community, changing the way they communicate with their customers, suppliers, and employees.
As CEO, it is incumbent on me to understand and support the new and emerging ways our teams collaborate and communicate with potential talent, each other, thought leaders, business leaders, and all of our stakeholders. It starts with awareness—for example, Deloitte has the second largest corporate presence on LinkedIn—and then moves deeper, into strategy, execution, and measuring results.
Personally, my experience with social media took a step forward this year when I started my Twitter handle (@deloitteceo) to share some thoughts on topics that are important to me and our organization.
What has been the most difficult decision you've had to make as a leader?
One of the most difficult decisions the leadership team had to make was the decision to keep consulting as a service line at Deloitte when I was the CEO of the U.S. firm. The Enron scandal and the ensuing passage of Sarbanes-Oxley opened a new chapter in the accounting profession. One after another, our competitors began shedding their consulting arms due to limits placed on accounting firms' providing consulting services to audit clients. For us, too, all signs pointed to a separation. But after a lengthy consideration, we made the difficult, strategic decision to keep consulting as part of Deloitte.
Looking back, we realize that we made the right decision. Today, consulting is a critical part of our business. Having a strong consulting practice enables us to recruit and retain diverse talent with varied expertise, which ultimately benefits all our business lines and enhances the value we deliver to clients.
What do you see as the primary role of a leader?
Leadership is an evolving discipline. Some believe leadership is about people, and leaders must develop people's sense of belonging to their group and cultivate a strong shared identity among members of their group. Many think leadership is connected to productivity, and leaders must effectively coordinate activity so members of a group have a common interpretation about how to work together. Others think leadership is about purpose, and leaders should inspire commitment to drive people's dedication to achieving defined goals with directional intensity.
I believe the primary role of a leader is to bring these three components together to help unleash the full potential of their people.
How has 'As One' affected you personally?
I've become an even stronger advocate of measurable data and actionable information. As One's diagnostic provides specific metrics that leaders and organizations can assess, and the insight from this can be extremely valuable.
For example, 'As One' retaught me the dangers of making assumptions. In environments that appear to have common roles and large numbers of employees in common tasks, individual needs for how to be led differ. When leading large groups of people, leaders have to see the various ways their people are experiencing the environment today and understand how, given the opportunity, they would change that environment to make it be more conducive to their choosing to collaborate. Sometimes, this will involve epiphanies that can be summed up as "I was wrong about what I thought†or "my assumptions were incorrect.â€
What are the biggest challenges you are facing as a leader today?
One of the key challenges I face today is maintaining our leadership position in the market. For example, to support our growth we are looking to hire 250,000 people to join our workforce over the next five years. I believe creating a uniform culture and aligning our people across borders, functions, and disciplines will be a critical component of our long-term success. That's why I chose to invest in 'As One'. I think through our 'As One' strategy, we will be able to further strengthen the commitment of our people to our brand and, most importantly, to our clients, in every single one of the 150 countries where we have a presence.
If you could give our readers advice on leadership, what would that be? Any parting thoughts?
1) Believe in your people, 2) give them ownership and empower them to realize their full potential, 3) have a genuine interest in them and respect their ideas and how they want to be led, and 4) model the accountability and values you expect of the organization.
In the long run, these are the attributes that will enable leaders to increase employee engagement and create an environment where their people are proud to be a part of the organization and are fully and wholeheartedly committed to its goals and success.
Final Thoughts
After reading this interview, it should come as no surprise why Deloitte is so successful. Jim is a great leader with a strong vision. He values his people and is committed to fulfilling Deloitte's brand promise. Please leave your questions/comments for Jim below – He's a social media guy so I'm sure he'll respond…
Disclosure: Deloitte is a client.
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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters…The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.
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PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide: Using Numbers
Chapter 2, "Variables," briefly discussed the various types of variables, how to assign values to them, and how they're generally used. In this chapter, you'll work specifically with number variables—both integers (whole numbers) and floating-point numbers (aka floats or decimals).
The chapter begins by creating an HTML form that will be used to generate number variables. Then you'll learn how to perform basic arithmetic, how to format numbers, and how to cope with operator precedence. The last two sections of this chapter cover incrementing and decrementing numbers, plus generating random numbers. Throughout the chapter, you'll also learn about other useful number-related PHP functions.
Creating the Form
Most of the PHP examples in this chapter will perform various calculations based on an e-commerce premise. A form will take price, quantity, discount amount, tax rate, and shipping cost , and the PHP script that handles the form will return a total cost. That cost will also be broken down by the number of payments the user wants to make in order to generate a monthly cost value .
The PHP script performs a series of calculations on the submitted data and outputs the results. The results should look like this by the end of the chapter.
To start, let's create an HTML page that allows the user to enter the values.
To create the HTML form:
- Begin a new HTML document in your text editor or IDE, to be named calculator.html (Script 4.1):
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/> <title>Product Cost Calculator </title>

Fill out this form to calculate the total cost:

Script 4.1. This basic HTML form will be the origination of the numbers on which mathematical calculations will be performed in several PHP scripts.
1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 2 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 3  4  5 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/> 6 <title>Product Cost Calculator </title> 7  8  9

Fill out this form to calculate the total cost:
 10 11 <form action="handle_calc.php" method="post"> 12 13
Price: <input type="text" name="price" size="5" />
 14 15
Quantity: <input type="text" name="quantity" size="5" />
 16 17
Discount: <input type="text" name="discount" size="5" />
 18 19
Tax: <input type="text" name="tax" size="3" /> (%)
 20 21
Shipping method: <select name="shipping"> 22 <option value="5.00">Slow and steady </option> 23 <option value="8.95">Put a move on it.</option> 24 <option value="19.36">I need it yesterday!</option> 25 </select>
 26 27
Number of payments to make: <input type="text" name="payments" size="3" />
 28 29 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Calculate!" /> 30 31 </form> 32 33
 34  35
- Create the initial form tag:
<form action="handle_calc.php" method="post">
This form tag begins the HTML form. Its action attribute indicates that the form data will be submitted to a page named handle_calc.php. The tag's method attribute tells the page to use POST to send the data. See Chapter 3, "HTML Forms and PHP," for more details.
- Create the inputs for the price, quantity, discount, and tax:

Price: <input type="text" name="price" size="5" />

Quantity: <input type="text" name="quantity" size="5" />

Discount: <input type="text" name="discount" size="5" />

Tax: <input type="text" name="tax" size="3" /> (%)

XHTML has no input type for numbers, so you create text boxes for these values. A parenthetical indicates that the tax should be entered as a percent.
Also remember that the names used for the inputs have to correspond to valid PHP variable names (letters, numbers, and the underscore only; doesn't start with a number, and so forth).
- Add a field in which the user can select a shipping method:

Shipping method: <select name="shipping"> <option value="5.00">Slow and steady</option> <option value="8.95">Put a move on it.</option> <option value="19.36">I need it yesterday!</option> </select>

The shipping selection is made using a drop-down menu. The value of the selected option is the cost for that option. If the user selects, for example, the Put a move on it. option, the value of $_POST['shipping'] in handle_calc.php will be 8.95.
- Complete the HTML form:

Number of payments to make: <input type="text" name="payments" size="3" />
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Calculate!" /> </form>
The final two input types take a number for how many payments are required and then create a submit button (labeled Calculate!). The closing form tag marks the end of the form section of the page.
- Complete the HTML page:

- Save the script as calculator.html and view it in your Web browser.
Because this is an HTML page, you can view it directly in a Web browser.


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If you haven't yet heard of the African-American Film Critics Association, you probably will in the very near future. The AAFCA consists mainly of African-American journalists dedicated to exploring the cinematic arts.
The AAFCA recently announced its top 10 films of 2011. Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, topped the list, followed by Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, and Pariah, directed by Dee Rees and starring Adepero Oduye. The AAFCA Awards will honor iconic actors Richard Roundtree, Hattie Winston and legendary filmmaker George Lucas on Jan. 8.
Founded in 2003, the AAFCA honors excellence in cinema by creating awareness for films with universal appeal to black communities, while ensuring that films about the black experience and those starring or produced, written and directed by people of African descent receive media coverage. By and large the organization is made up of arts and entertainment journalists with a particular interest in film.
Recognizing that there was a void in the market in terms of critics who were exploring issues related to films from and about people of African descent, film critic Gil Robertson IV and other cinephiles came together to create an organization to fill the void. Additionally, the AAFCA provides a "hands-up" opportunity for younger people of African descent to pursue a career in film criticism. Members include Margena A. Christian of Ebony magazine; K.J. Matthews of CNN; Jamal Munnerlyn, West Coast editor for Vibe magazine; and Deirdre Childress, entertainment editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Currently there are 17 members, and the organization is growing. If you think that's a small number, it is by definition (black media critics are grossly underrepresented in mainstream media outlets) and design (AAFCA is interested in members who are serious journalists who demonstrate excellence in film history, aesthetics and criticism). The organization's members represent a geographically diverse cross section of media covering the cinematic arts.
The association actively reviews the quality and standard of black talent, content and media coverage, even offering a "Seal of Approval" for films with a good message and that are of high quality, regardless of genre. The AAFCA casts an eye on all cinema, regardless of the race, nationality or religion of the filmmaker or producer; however, it gives special attention to films by filmmakers of African descent.
We caught up with Robertson, president and co-founder of the African-American Film Critics Association, to find out more about the organization and who it thinks will take filmmaking to the next level.
The Root: Do black film critics have any added responsibility to provide exposure for black film?
Gil Robertson: Absolutely. That is one of the reasons why we were founded. Very often, African-descended filmmakers may lack the resources needed to create awareness about their films. We are in the unique position to offer the type of support and exposure that will hopefully translate into the films generating a bigger audience for their projects.
GR: Absolutely not. As you can look at previous years when we have announced our top 10 award winners, for many of those years there were no black films on the lists at all. Our expectations for black film and black filmmakers are the same that we would have for any type of film. The stories, cinematography and acting should be on par with Scorsese, Fellini or Spike Lee. The only difference is that we're willing as an organization to work with black filmmakers to provide them with the perspective and insight on what good filmmaking is all about.
That is why AAFCA issues a Seal of Approval to some films, distributors and production houses to demonstrate that a group of educated, alert and competent film critics has seen the film and that we approve of the message and quality of the film, such that it is worth consumers spending their hard-earned money to watch the film. Our goal is to give it to you straight in the hopes that the filmmaker will improve where necessary.
TR: What period do you consider the heyday of black film, and what's the status now?
GR: I don't know if there has ever been a heyday. Black film seems like it has always been in a precarious position. If you look at how blacks in popular culture translate in other areas like sports and music, or even that Will Smith is the biggest star in Hollywood, you would think there would be more black films in Hollywood.
You just don't see the same volume of stories in Hollywood, and we don't see the same level of detail and sensitivity given to our stories when they are made into films. Far too often, films about blacks seem like they are thrown together as an afterthought. I don't know what it's going to take for Hollywood to change and offer and support a wider range of stories that are starring or depict people of African descent.
You have Red Tails, a film about the Tuskegee Airmen, that is being told from the perspective of the black characters, which is rare in Hollywood. Often films involving historical events relating to people of the Diaspora are told through a European lens. While this [change in perspective] is finally happening, it is an exception, which is why black independent film is important.
Take Kinyarwanda, which was released by the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement; it's a story told from the Rwandan perspective. Hollywood has to do a better job of telling real stories about people of African descent from their perspectives. This doesn't only pertain to blacks — it pertains to Asians and Latinos as well. Hollywood needs to realize that this world is full of color and varied stories that should be represented on film.
TR: What up-and-coming black filmmakers or actors should we be watching?
GR: There is an Afro-Brit named Steve McQueen, who did a film named Shame, who is one to watch. His films are not necessarily populated by black people or necessarily black stories, but he shows the world as it really exists — blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics — diverse groups of people interacting and living life.
Ava DuVernay has her second film, Middle of Nowhere, which was invited to Sundance in 2012. That's pretty major — for your second independent film to be invited to Sundance. You're talking about a woman who is making films on her own terms, the way that the Warner brothers and Coen brothers started in the business. Black filmmakers like DuVernay, McQueen and Rees are making it happen through blood, sweat and tears, and the AAFCC will be here to make sure that their films receive the coverage and exposure that they deserve.
Nsenga Burton is editor-at-large for The Root.