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On the Fourth of July in 1889, Rudyard Kipling found himself near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone with a party of tourists from New England. He winced as a "clergyman rose up and told them they were the greatest, freest, sublimest, most chivalrous, and richest people on the face of the earth, and they all said Amen." Kipling—who had travelled from India to California, and then across the North American continent—was bewildered by the patriotic hyperbole that seemed to come so naturally to the citizens of the United States. There were many things about America that he loved—battling with a twelve-pound Chinook salmon in Oregon; American girls ("They are clever; they can talk. . . . They are original and look you between the brows with unabashed eyes")—and he did go and live in Vermont for a while. But he was irritated by the relentless assurances that Americans seemed to require about their country's incomparable virtue. When a "perfectly unknown man attacked me and asked me what I thought of American Patriotism," Kipling wrote in "American Notes," his account of the journey,"I said there was nothing like it in the Old Country," adding, "always tell an American this. It soothes him."
The Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun, who spent two miserable periods in the American Midwest in the eighteen-eighties—working as, among other things, farmhand, store clerk, railroad laborer, itinerant lecturer, and (more congenially) church secretary—treated the street parades of veterans "with tiny flags in their hats and brass medals on their chests marching in step to the hundreds of penny whistles they are blowing" as if the events were curiously remote tribal rituals. The fact that streetcars were forbidden to interrupt the parades and that no one could absent himself without incurring civic disgrace both interested and unsettled Hamsun. Something ominous seemed to be hatching in America: a strapping child-monster whose runaway physical growth would never be matched by moral or cultural maturity. Hamsun gave lectures about his stays in the United States at the University of Copenhagen, and then made them into a book, "The Cultural Life of Modern America," that was largely devoted to asserting its nonexistence. Emerson? A dealer in glib generalizations. Whitman? A hot gush of misdirected fervor. For Hamsun, America was, above all, bluster wrapped up in dollar bills. "It is incredible how naively cocksure Americans are in their belief that they can whip any enemy whatsoever," he wrote. "There is no end to their patriotism; it is a patriotism that never flinches, and it is just as loudmouthed as it is vehement."
By the end of the nineteenth century, the stereotype of the ugly American—voracious, preachy, mercenary, and bombastically chauvinist—was firmly in place in Europe. Even the claim that the United States was built on a foundation stone of liberty was seen as a fraud. America had grown rich on slavery. In 1776, the English radical Thomas Day had written, "If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves." After the Civil War, European critics pointed to the unprotected laborers in mines and factories as industrial helots. Just as obnoxious as the fraud of liberty was the fraud of Christian piety, a finger-jabbing rectitude incapable of asserting a policy without invoking the Deity as a co-sponsor. This hallelujah Republic was a bedlam of hymns and hosannas, but the only true church was the church of the Dollar Almighty. And how could the cult of individualism be taken seriously when it had produced a society that set such great store by conformity?
The face of the unloved American did not, of course, come into focus all at once. Different generations of European critics added features to the sketch depending on their own aversions and fears. In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naïve faith that it had reinvented politics. Later in the century, American economic power was the enemy, Yankee industrialism the behemoth against which the champions of social justice needed to take up arms. A third generation, itself imperialist, grumbled about the unfairness of a nation's rising to both continental and maritime ascendancy. And in the twentieth century, though the United States came to the rescue of Britain and France in two world wars, many Europeans were suspicious of its motives. A constant refrain throughout this long literature of complaint, and what European intellectuals even now find most repugnant, is American sanctimoniousness, the habit of dressing the business of power in the garb of piety.
Too often, the moral rhetoric of American diplomacy has seemed to Europe a cover for self-interest. The French saw the Jay Treaty, of 1794, which regularized relations with Britain (with which republican France was then at war), as a cynical violation of the Treaty of Alliance with France, of 1778, without which, they reasonably believed, there would have been no United States. In 1811, it was the British who felt betrayed by the Americans, when Madison gave in to Napoleon's demands for a trade embargo while the "mother country" was fighting for survival. But the gap between principles and practices in American foreign policy was as nothing compared with the discrepancy between the ideal and the reality of a working democracy. Although nineteenth-century writers paid lip service to the benevolent intelligence of the Founding Fathers, contemporary American politics suggested that there had been a shocking fall from grace. At one end was a cult of republican simplicity, so dogmatic that John Quincy Adams's installation of a billiard table in the White House was taken as evidence of his patrician leanings; at the other was a parade of the lowest vices, featuring, according to Charles Dickens, "despicable trickery at elections, under-handed tampering with public officers . . . shameless truckling to mercenary knaves."
A few transatlantic pilgrims, of course, saw American democracy haloed with republican grandeur. When, in 1818, the twenty-three-year-old Scot Fanny Wright, along with her younger sister Camilla, visited the Capitol, the congressional morning prayer—"may the rod of tyranny be broken in every nation of the earth!"—caused her to tremble with admiration. Only later did she concede that she might have mistaken the commercial bustle of the country for democratic zeal. And, indeed, for most European travellers extravagant idealism was followed by an equally unbalanced disenchantment. Nikolaus Lenau, a German poet who told a friend he meant to stay in the United States for five years, managed only a brief period, from 1832 to 1833. He could not tolerate a country where, he claimed, there were no songbirds. (In the eighteenth century, the Dutch naturalist Cornelius de Pauw, lecturing on America to the court of Frederick the Great, had solemnly insisted that dogs in the New World never barked.)
Other characteristics of American life alienated the Romantics: the distaste for tragedy (a moral corrective to illusions of invincibility); the strong preference for practicality; the severance from history; and, above all, what the Germans called bodenlosigkeit, a willed rootlessness, embodied in the flimsy frame construction of American houses. Europeans watched, pop-eyed, while whole houses were moved down the street. This confirmed their view that Americans had no real loyalty to the local, and explained why they preferred utilitarian "yards" to flower gardens. No delphiniums, no civility.
The British who arrived in the United States in the eighteen-thirties and forties had imagined the young republic as a wide-eyed adolescent, socially ungainly and politically gauche, but with some hint of promise. What they found was a country experiencing an unprecedented growth spurt, both territorial and demographic, and characterized by an unnerving rudeness, in both senses of the word. ladies and gentlemen dodged quids of tobacco juice and averted their gaze from the brimming cuspidors that greeted visitors to steamboat saloons and hotel and theatre lobbies. The hallmark of Jacksonian America seemed to be a beastly indifference to manners, the symptom of a society where considerateness to others was a poor second to the immediate satisfaction of personal wants.
The conduct of Americans at dinner said it all. They wolfed down their food, cramming corn bread into their sloppy maws during meals that were devoured in silence, punctuated only by slurps, grunts, scraping knives, and hacking coughs. (All those cigars.) At the Plate House, in the business district of New York, the naval captain and travel writer Basil Hall was astonished by the speed at which the corned beef arrived and then by the even greater speed at which it was demolished: "We were not in the house above twenty minutes, but we sat out two sets of company at least." Only the boy waiters yelling orders at the kitchen broke the quiet. The lack of polite conversation suggested the melancholy and dispiriting monotony of American life, on which almost all the early reporters commented. Tocqueville explained the apparent paradox of anxiety amid prosperity as the result of the relentless obligation to be forever Up and Doing.
The European commentators' dismay at the tyranny of American materialism was disingenuous, since many of them had come to the United States to repair their tattered fortunes or make new ones. Frances Trollope decided to sojourn in America when a rich uncle did the Trollopes the disservice of marrying late in life and, still worse, begetting an heir. Fanny Wright, whose ardor for America had been relit by the Marquis de Lafayette's triumphal tour in 1824 and 1825, visited Mrs. Trollope at her expensive rented house at Harrow Weald, outside London, in 1827 and persuaded her to join her. Wright had bought two thousand acres of land on the Wolf River at Nashoba, Tennessee, with the aim of establishing a communal settlement where slaves would receive the education and practical skills that would fit them for freedom. Mrs. Trollope planned to visit the Nashoba utopia, with three of her five children, and then proceed from Memphis, fifteen miles away, up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to the thriving new city of Cincinnati, where she intended to make a smart little bundle.
But Fanny Wright's settlement turned out to be a cluster of woebegone huts. Plank floors were set only a few feet above sodden mud. The chimney in the hut Mrs. Trollope shared with Wright caught fire several times a day. Instead of a model farm, there were a few slaves who were barely subsisting. Of the all-important school there was no sight and no prospect. Mrs. Trollope, aghast at the filth and the fever-bearing mosquitoes, fled with her children to Cincinnati, which was, alas, an "uninteresting mass of buildings," where hogs rooted in the streets. Together with the French painter Auguste Hervieu (who had intended to teach at Nashoba), she flung herself into show business, remodelling a "Western Museum," which had hitherto been a collection of natural curiosities and patriotic waxworks. Her son Henry became the Invisible Girl, booming prophecies in creepy darkness, and, with the help of glass transparencies, she created a vision of the Infernal Regions, featuring frozen lakes with erupting fountains of flame, and electric shocks should the customers, peering through grates, try and touch the exhibits.
Mrs. Trollope's next venture, a galleried, gaslit emporium of consumer wonders, stocked with fancy goods supplied from Harrow by her husband, ended in debt practically before it began. Mrs. Trollope was not quite prepared to admit defeat, but one of her children was seriously ill, and she decided that they had to return to England. She stopped in Washington, then spent five months with a hospitable friend in Stonington, Maryland. There, filling notebooks with a tart, vivid account of her experiences, Frances Trollope took a genteel revenge on the land that had betrayed her. "As I declare the country to be fair to the eye and most richly teeming with the gifts of plenty, I am led to ask myself why it is that I do not like it," she wrote. She is struck by the fact that servants call themselves "help," and bewildered that so many thousands of young women would rather toil "half-naked" in factories than seek to enter domestic service. When a Cincinnati neighbor, "whose appearance more resembled a Covent Garden market-woman than any thing else," made the mistake of taking her arm and walking her about, "questioning me without ceasing," Mrs. Trollope noted that, while democracy was very fine in principle, "it will be found less palatable when it presents itself in the shape of a hard greasy paw and is claimed in accents that breathe less of freedom than onions and whiskey."
"Domestic Manners of the Americans" made Frances Trollope, at the age of fifty-two, a sudden literary reputation and two hundred and fifty pounds from the first edition. Her book was popular in Britain because it documented the stereotypes of cultural inferiority and boorish materialism that the Old World was avid to have confirmed about the New. Stendhal annotated a copy and concluded that there was indeed a "smell of the shop" about the country. Baudelaire remarked that it was the Belgium of the West. But the book sold equally well in Boston and Baltimore, albeit to scandalized and infuriated readers. "Trollope" soon became a popular shout of abuse in American theatres, and on display in New York was a waxwork of the author in the shape of a goblin.
The wounds inflicted on American self-love by Mrs. Trollope were superficial compared with the deep punctures made by Charles Dickens. In 1842, when Dickens published "American Notes," an account of a visit to the United States, he had a huge American readership. His novels were instant best-sellers here, and many of them—most notably "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Oliver Twist"—had been dramatized on the popular stage. Despite, or perhaps because of, the unhappiness "American Notes" engendered, fifty thousand copies were sold in a week in the U.S.
Dickens's America is all Yankee repression and southern stupor. He saw Boston, New York, and Philadelphia through the keyhole of the prison cell and the madhouse. The Tombs, in New York, served as a metaphor for the dark, unforgiving world in which it was situated. And the geographical heart of the country, though not a jail or an asylum, or a reeking warren like the Five Points, was a river of death. Decades before Joseph Conrad steamed his way upstream into the heart of imperial darkness, Dickens, travelling from Cincinnati downstream to Cairo, Illinois (reversing mrs. Trollope's route), experienced the Mississippi as a septic ooze, a turbid soup of animal and vegetable muck. Cairo lay in the stinking belly of the beast: "The hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is this dismal Cairo."
The sense of America as a sink of contamination extended to its society and its institutions. In the Capitol, where Fanny Wright had been flooded with tremulous rapture, Dickens saw "the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought"—a clamorous gang of fakes, fools, and tricksters. His habitual outrage extended to the unrepentant practice of slavery in the South, but he never took the North's support for emancipation as evidence of moral uprightness. The North, he wrote in a letter to a friend, hates the Negro quite as heartily as the South, but uses slavery as a pretext for domination.
Many people in the governing circles of both Britain and France were sympathetic to the South, not only because of the threatened interruption of raw-cotton supplies but also because a Confederate victory would preëmpt the emergence of a gigantic and powerful nation. In November, 1861, when an American warship stopped the British steamer Trent to remove two Confederate agents bound for London and Paris, the ailing Prince Albert had to intervene to restrain British calls for war. According to Philippe Roger, whose "L'Ennemi Américain" (2002) is a brilliant and exhaustive guide to the history of French Ameriphobia, the fate of the South became a sentimental fashion in Napoleon III's Paris.
When the American republic failed to break up, the European angst about its economic transformation and territorial expansion became a neurosis. For some time, the British government, worried about the growing imperial rivalry of the new Germany and the French Republic, had complacently assumed that American expansionism could be manipulated to keep its rivals at bay. If the American fleet would, for its own purposes, prevent European undesirables from straying into the Pacific at no cost to the British taxpayer, jolly good for the Stars and Stripes. The Spanish-American War of 1898, which the French treated as the unmasking of Yankee imperialism, was looked at in London with relaxed tolerance. Rudyard Kipling's lines on "the White Man's burden" were written not in praise of some triumph of the Union Jack beneath far-flung palm and pine but to celebrate the fall of Manila.
Much as he loved the energy of America, Kipling became progressively unhappy the farther east he went. Soot-black, fog-fouled Chicago, its scummy river speckled with rust and grease, was, he thought, an apparition of the American future. He stood on a narrow beam at the Chicago stockyards, looking down on the "railway of death" that carried squealing hogs to an appointment with two lines of butchers. The fact that the stockyards were also a tourist attraction only heightened his stupefaction. Unforgettably, he saw "a young woman of large mold, with brilliantly scarlet lips, and heavy eyebrows . . . dressed in flaming red and black, and her feet . . . were cased in red leather shoes. She stood in a patch of sunlight, the red blood under her shoes, the vivid carcasses tacked round her, a bullock bleeding its life away not six feet away from her, and the death factory roaring all round her."
It is hard to know where fact ends and fiction begins in Kipling's "American Notes," but the book's bravura passages established the idées fixes of Europeans about the muscular republic on the verge of its imperial awakening: awesomely carnivorous, racially mongrel, and socially polarized, both ethically primitive and technologically advanced. At the turn of the century, that stereotype, along with America's cultural poverty (exceptions were always made for Mark Twain), imprinted itself in the literature of reporters from the old world. In an age absorbed by the physiology of national types, homo americanus seemed to have evolved for the maximization of physical force. While chewing gum was preferable to chewing tobacco, its ubiquitousness mystified French observers like Jules Huret, until he decided that it was a workout for the overevolved Yankee jaws and teeth, which needed all the power they could get to tear their way through the slabs of steak consumed at dinner.
Likewise, the appeal of American football—the Harvard-Yale game became almost as much a fixture of foreign itineraries as the stockyards—was explicable only as quasi-Spartan military training. What really startled Europeans was the blood-lust the sport seemed to provoke in spectators. At one Harvard-Yale game, Huret listened in appalled fascination as a nineteen-year-old yelled "Kill him!" and "Break his neck!" from the bleachers.
Modern anti-Americanism was born of the multiple insecurities of the first decade of the twentieth century. Just as the European empires were reaching their apogee, they were beset by reminders of their own mortality. At Adowa in 1896, the Ethiopians inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italians; in 1905, the Russian Empire was humiliated in war by the Japanese. Britain may have ruled a quarter of the world's population and geographical space, but it failed to impose its will decisively on the South African Boers. And Wilhelm II's Germany, though it was beginning to brandish its own imperial sword, remained fretful about "encirclement." The unstoppability of America's economy and its immigrant-fuelled demographic explosion worried the rulers of these empires, even as they staggered into the fratricidal slaughter that would insure exactly that future.
It was self-evident that France and Britain should have been grateful for the mobilization of American manpower in 1917, which tipped the balance against the Germans and Austrians. Colonel Charles E. Stanton's declaration "Lafayette, we are here," and the subsequent sacrifice of American lives for a European cause, seemed to herald a restoration of transatlantic good feelings. But, as Philippe Roger (and others, like the historians David Strauss and Jean-Philippe Mathy) explains, if the war created a brief solidarity, the peace more decisively destroyed it. When Woodrow Wilson failed to persuade Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and America withdrew into isolationist self-interest, all the old insecurities and animosities returned. Wilson was perhaps the most detested of all American Presidents by the French, for whom his self-righteousness was compounded by his failure to deliver results.
American generosity (in the French view) toward German reparation schedules fed into the conspiracy theories that seethed and bubbled in the anti-American press in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties. In "The American Cancer," Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu went so far as to argue that the First World War had been a plot of american high finance to enslave Europe in a web of permanent debt, a view that was echoed in J.-L. Chastanet's "Uncle Shylock" and in Charles Pomaret's "America's Conquest of Europe." The newspaper France-Soir calculated the weight of debt to the United States at seventy-two hundred francs for every French man and woman. Nor was there much in the way of sentimental gratitude for General Pershing's doughboys. Why, it was asked, had the engagement of American troops on the western front been delayed until 1918? The answer was that the United States had waited until it could mobilize a force large enough not just to win the war but to dominate the peace.
For French writers like Kadmi-Cohen, the author of "The American Abomination," the threat from United States was not just economic or military. America now posed a social and cultural danger to the civilization of Europe. The greatest "American peril" (a phrase that became commonplace in the literature) was the standardization of social life (the ancestor of today's complaints against globalization), the thinning of the richness of human habits to the point where they could be marketable not only inside America but, because of the global reach of American capitalism, to the entire world. Hollywood movies, which, according to Georges Duhamel, were "an amusement for slaves," and "a pastime for the illiterate, for poor creatures stupefied by work and anxiety," were the Trojan horse for the Americanization of the world. Jean Baudrillard's belief that the defining characteristic of America is its fabrication of reality was anticipated by Duhamel's polemics against the "shadow world" of the movies, with their reduction of audiences to somnolent zombies sitting in the dark.
The charge that the United States was imposing its cultural habits on the prostrate body of war-torn Europe returned with even more force after 1945. Americans thought of the Marshall Plan (together with the forgiveness of French debts) as an exercise in wise altruism; European leaders like de Gaulle bristled with suspicion at the patronizing weight of the program. Complaints against Coca-Colonization, the mantra of the anti-globalizers, were already in full cry in the nineteen-fifties. But as Arthur Koestler, who bowed to no one in his loathing of "cellophane-wrapped bread, processed towns of cement and glass . . . the Organization Man and the Readers' Digest," put it in 1951, "Who coerced us into buying all this? The United States do not rule Europe as the British ruled India; they waged no Opium War to force their revolting 'Coke' down our throats. Europe bought the whole package because Europe wanted it."
Yet somehow, in the present crisis, American democracy has let itself be represented as American despotism. Some in the European antiwar movement see the whole bundle of American values—consumer capitalism, a free market for information, an open electoral system—as having been imposed rather than chosen. Harold Pinter told peace marchers in London two weeks ago that the United States was a "monster out of control." And while representatives of the Iraqi exile community in Britain narrated stories of the atrocities their families had endured at the hands of Saddam Hussein, banners in Hyde Park equated the Stars and Stripes with the swastika.
These cavils are not necessarily false, just because they've been uttered by Ameriphobes. Fast-food nation was invented in the eighteen-thirties, and Captain Hall's puzzled observation that in America the word "improvement" seemed to mean "an augmentation in the number of houses and people and above all in the amount of cleared land" has not lost any of its validity with the passing of a hundred and seventy-odd years.
Early on, Europeans identified appetite and impatience as the cardinal American sins. Among the many anxieties of European friends, as well as enemies, of the United States is that Americans are not being told that what lies ahead may be much more testing than a fly-by war and a drive-through peace.
But of all the character flaws that Europeans have ascribed to Americans, nothing has contributed more to widening the Atlantic than national egocentricity (a bit rich, admittedly, coming from the French). Knut Hamsun put the emphatic celebration of separateness down to a lack of education about other places and cultures and commented, perhaps waspishly, "It is almost incredible how hard America works at being a world of its own in the world." Virtuous isolation, of course, wasn't a problem so long as the United States saw the exercise of its power primarily in terms of the defensive policing of its own continental space. But now that policing has gone irreversibly global, the imperious insistence on the American way, or else, has only a limited usefulness in a long-term pacification strategy. Like it or not, help will be needed, given America's notoriously short attention span, intolerance of casualties, and grievously wounded prosperity. Serving the United Nations with notice of redundancy should its policies not replicate those of the United States and the United Kingdom might turn out to be shortsighted, since in Europe, even in countries whose governments have aligned themselves with America, there is almost no support for a war without U.N. sanction. Perhaps Mrs. Trollope put it best after all: "If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess." ♦


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We may have had to deal with the usual April articles yesterday, but one that stood out from all the jokes was T-Mobile's plans to scrap corporate discount from Simple Choice plans. The mobile network has today confirmed a partial reversal, allowing only existing customers to retain their discount. Sorry, new subscribers.
Those who take out new rate plans will be met with a T-Mobile gift card worth $25 when purchasing a new device, while those who are already with the network will be able to continue with their general bill savings. It's a positive move, especially since discounts from T-Mobile have been up to 15 percent, depending on where you work.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere previously wrote the following in a blog post:
"The old programs were designed to help big carriers close big corporate contracts, with employees as bargaining chips. We aren't playing that game anymore. This change is about simplifying wireless for everyone… including employees of small and large companies alike."
Does this partial reversal help you out at all?
Source: Re/code

subset: commoncrawl


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|Image from here
I have learnt a lot along the way. Things like, you actually don't need to line your bins with plastic bags. And you don't even need to use plastic wrap because there are better ways to wrap sandwiches and store food (you can even make your own if you are so inclined). And you can even move through life without a ziplock bag (although I haven't conquered that habit yet).
And because this challenge helped me with my decluttering uber-challenge, I thought I would follow up with another eco-friendly, space saving one.
This one comes from the G-Magazine Online blog and it is all about going paperless. Not entirely paperless but reducing disposable paper.
I start this challenge with the following habits in place:
- About half of my bills are emailed (not posted)
- We only use recycled toilet paper
- We only use recycled printing paper
- We only use recycled paper towel
- We use the kid's paintings as gift wrap
- I rarely buy magazines or newspapers - I tend to read online or at other people's places!
- Changing as many of our bills to online
- Getting a 'no junk mail' sticker for our mailbox (have you noticed how much junk mail we get these days? My boys love the toy catalogues, but I figure I can subscribe to those online and just not get the rest of the stuff that gets loaded into our mailbox)
- Finding alternatives to using paper towels in the kitchen
- Ditching tissues in favour of handkerchiefs (once our current stash is finished)
- Cancelling the yellow pages directory and using online directories instead (I didn't know you could cancel them? Apparently you phone 1800 008 292).


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|Denon DVD-3910 Universal Disc Player
|Tuesday, 01 November 2005
Page 3 of 3
The Downside
I'm a freak when it comes to remotes. I have a projection system, so the need to operate a remote in total darkness is not a perk; it's a necessity for me. The backlighting on the remote falls short of effective, only illuminating simple functions, while leaving items such as HDMI/DVI select completely in the dark. No doubt Denon is banking on the hope that once set up, you'll discard the 3910's remote for something more upscale, like Denon's own Glow Key Remote, as I did.
Also, the 3910 has some of the slowest loading times I've ever encountered. On something as simple as a standard Redbook CD, the 3910 takes an inordinate amount of time getting to the music. This leaves even the most patient users twiddling their thumbs.
At $1,499, the Denon 3910 is a substantial investment for any sort of disc player. However, when you consider the fact that you're essentially getting up to four different players in one, the 3910 is without question a bargain. Many universal players claim to be truly universal, and while they will play most formats out there today, very few demonstrate the panache with both music and movies that the 3910 possesses. Be prepared to tell your old DVD and CD players they are the weakest link, goodbye. With a barrage of features and connection options at your fingertips, the Denon 3910 will keep you in movie and music nirvana for quite some time. With new formats like HD-DVD just around the corner some might be compelled to hold off, but when you factor in the sheer performance the 3910 brings to the table, you might reconsider. I know I did. I think I'll figure out how to hang onto this one.


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Apple's iOS platofrms are no stranger to games that borrow heavily form existing properties, so to see a League of Legends clone - called Legendary Heroes - pop up should surprise nobody.
Well, OK, maybe it should, because LoL's style of game isn't one you'd expect on the iPhone or iPad, yet here it is. You control three heroes, you level up, you defend, you attack.
Sounds good so far, but there's freemium crap attached, and for some reason, no multiplayer. Still, it's free to download, so you may as well take a look.
Legendary Heroes [App Store, via Touch Arcade]


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FDA Suggests Serving Sizes on Food Labels Should Change
(WASHINGTON) -- Despite nutritional labels on food and drinks, most of us have no clue how much we're actually consuming, according to a new study from the Food and Drug Administration.
The agency says most people don't accurately calculate what makes up a serving size.
For instance, take a bag of chips. If one serving of the snack has 90 calories, and there are 10 servings in a bag, how many chips is that exactly? Guessing the serving size may be confusing for many and could lead to people consuming more calories than they think.
To remedy that, the FDA is suggesting that labels should be modified to reflect the values for a full container. So instead of that bag of chips showing 90 calories per serving on its label, it would show 900 calories per bag.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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|Sea Cliff, N.Y.
|High School:
|North Shore
2011-12 (Freshman):
Crowned CSA individual national champion ... Finished the season 15-0 overall ... First team CSA All-America selection ... Went undefeated at 6-0 in Ivy League contests ... Named Ivy League Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year ... Selected to the All-Ivy League first team ... Opened her college career with sweeps over Nabilla Ariffin of Penn and Julie Cerullo of Princeton in the No. 1 position ... Earned a convincing 3-0 sweep of All-American Cataline Pelaez of Trinity Jan. 21 ... Contributed a 3-0 win over Millie Tomlinson of No. 2 Yale to help Harvard clinch the Ivy League championship Feb. 12 ... Went 3-0 in the Howe Cup, including a 3-0 win over Camilla Tomlinson of Yale, to help Harvard earn its 13th national championship Feb. 26 ... Swept five straight matches to win the CSA Individual championship, including a win over defending champion Millie Tomlinson of Yale in the tournament's final.
Before Harvard:
Won the 2010 Junior World Championship, becoming the first U.S. player to capture the tournament … Ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 20 in the Women's International Squash Players Association … Four-time U.S. Junior national champion … Three-time U.S. Junior Open Champion … Winner of the William T. Ketcham Award for Most Improved Player … Winner of five WISPA tour titles ... Became the youngest person to win four WISPA crowns … Winner of the PanAmerican Championships team event … Was also a four-year member of the soccer team, playing midfield … National Honor Society … Science National Honor Society … Foreign Language Honor Society … Madrigal Singers Choir … Other interests include traveling, music, playing any type of sport and going to the beach.


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Watching a Ravens game in Canton's O'Donnell Square typically means one thing: showing up early to claim a spot with a clear view of a TV. Most people head to Looney's Pub and Claddagh's Pub first, but in between them is a strong option that's often overlooked on gameday: Plug Ugly's Publick House.
I wasn't in love with the bar in my initial review from August 2012. But since then, Plug Ugly's — with its upstairs patio and above-average food and drink offerings — has emerged as a consistently viable alternative to the Square's more crowded bars.
Where other bars will be predictably cramped this Sunday for the Ravens game in Buffalo, Plug Ugly's should be a considerably more comfortable scene.
Drinks: Plug Ugly's understands there's no reason to get unnecessarily fancy on the day of the game. In terms of drafts, Miller Lite pints are $2 and Blue Moon pints are $3. If you're coming with a group, the Miller Lite bucket deal might make the most sense. It's $13 for five bottles. Finally, mixed rail drinks are $5.
Food: Plug Ugly's secret weapon is its cuisine. "We're not just a bar-food place," partner Bryan Healy said recently. He's right: The bar's take on elevated "pub grub" is often better than not, and at the very least, it adds more flair to its dishes than Plug's neighbors. On Sunday, brunch is served from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., so Ravens fans can head in early for an omelet filled with ham and aged cheddar ($9) or shrimp and grits ($10). Bottomless mimosas and make-it-yourself Bloody Marys are reasonably priced at $12.
Atmosphere: As a sports bar, Plug Ugly's operates under the radar, likely because of the nearby competition. But there's an 80-inch projection screen on the patio — easily the pub's best hangout area — and 10 TVs around the bar, so seeing the game should not be a problem. And most important, the sound for the Ravens game plays throughout the bar.
Parking: There is free street parking all around O'Donnell Square, but like all Canton parking, it can fill up quickly right before Ravens games.
If you go
Plug Ugly's Publick House, at 2908 O'Donnell St., is open 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday. Call 410-563-8459 or go to pluguglyspub.com.


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Hola, and welcome to the InterNations Community of expats in Panama City. InterNations provides you with all the support you need for a worry free relocation; from online advice to social events in person. Especially created to support expats, we have amassed an online library of resources, including comprehensive guides and invaluable advice. Find the answers to your questions such as, "are earthquakes a major concern in Panama City?" and "what international education facilities are available?". We know that making the move is exciting but can also be daunting, so we encourage you to take any concerns you may have to our forum, where our friendly and knowledgeable expats are always happy to share their insider tips. Remember, they have navigated the tricky process of relocation before, so build on their experiences as you embark on your new life in Panama City.
With InterNations, you never stand alone. Whether you move to another city or go on a business trip somewhere — our communities are there to make you feel at home wherever you are in the world. Feel free to also check out our other vibrant InterNations Communities like the ones in Stockholm or Bangalore.
Attend our monthly events and activities for Panama City expatriates to get to know like-minded expatriates in real life.
Get trustworthy advice and local insights from fellow members in our Panama City expat forums.
A city of high-rise skyscrapers surrounded by tropical rainforest, Panama City was chosen as the American Capital of Culture in 2003 and will not disappoint culture lovers. With a mix of well-preserved architectural styles, the historic center of Old Panama, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, numerous sports teams and national parks, Panama City offers a range of activities to fill your leisure time. The major industries in Panama City are banking, tourism, and commerce, with the services industry providing up to 75% of the country's GDP. Trading and shipping opportunities are also significant thanks to the Panama Canal and the port at Balboa. Expats hoping to work in the corporate world will find that English is widely spoken, especially in the business sector.
InterNations is the largest global network for expatriates, with communities in 420 cities across the globe. Get to know fellow internationals in your city, before you're moving, or when traveling somewhere and never feel like a stranger. InterNations makes it easy for you to stay in touch with your expat friends, both online and offline, so you can grow your network of friends and contacts from all over the world. Whether they live in Athens or Oslo, InterNations allows you to be close to them even if they are miles away.
With InterNations you have all the essential information to make a smooth move, but what about social opportunities? We provide them too with InterNations Events. Our regularly organized get-togethers allow our members to socialize, network, and relax in a friendly, secure atmosphere. Don't forget to also take a look at our groups to find like-minded expats to spend time with who share your interests in arts, culture, Latin dancing, karaoke, the outdoors, and poker. Whatever sparks your interest, with InterNations you can find fellow global minds and forge ahead with an exciting new life in Panama City.


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A company run by former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt is suing the Department of Public Health's commissioner in an effort to get licensed to operate medical marijuana dispensaries in Taunton, Plymouth and Mashpee.
Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts, Delahunt's group, filed a civil complaint Tuesday in Suffolk Superior Court alleging the DPH violated its own regulations in June when it eliminated dispensary applicants who had already been given provisional approval.
The document notes that Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts received the highest score of any applicant in a previous state review.
"What perplexes me is how we could be rated No. 1 by the independent group of experts that was created by the department, then have those decisions rescinded," Delahunt said in a phone interview Thursday.
When asked for comment on the lawsuit, a DPH spokesman issued a written statement.
"We are pleased that multiple courts have validated our comprehensive process to ensure patient access and public safety across the Commonwealth," the department said in the statement. "We are focused on moving forward with our inspection phase and the open county process to fulfill the will of voters."
The DPH has won court cases against four other applicants who sued it.
The Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts suit lists DPH commissioner Cheryl Bartlett as the defendant and suggests the department wrongly let negative publicity sway its actions. Bartlett removed herself from the medical marijuana licensure process after questions circulated about her past ties to Delahunt, to whom she had previously donated money.
The complaint also seeks a court injunction preventing the state from licensing any dispensary in Taunton until the dispute is resolved.
Believing the DPH erred in rescinding the provisional licenses, Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts claims it will "suffer irreparable harm" if it loses the opportunity to open the first dispensary in Taunton.
The state is currently accepting new applications in counties, including Bristol, that are currently without a provisionally licensed dispensary. The DPH has already provisionally licensed other dispensaries in Plymouth and Barnstable counties and isn't currently taking applications there.
Delahunt's applications were initially among 20 that received provisional approval in February. On June 27, however, the DPH cut the field to 11, eliminating Delahunt and several other applicants from consideration, alleging some of the applications contained irregularities and misrepresentations.
Under state law, medical marijuana dispensaries must operate on a nonprofit basis.
Delahunt disputes the concerns outlined in the June 27 letter.
"I would characterize them as inaccurate and misstated," he said. "We will respond in an appropriate way at the appropriate time."
State law calls for at least one, but no more than five, registered dispensaries per county.
Delahunt sues over denial of license for marijuana dispensary
A company run by former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt is suing the Department of Public Health's commissioner in an effort to get licensed to operate medical marijuana dispensaries in Taunton, Plymouth and Mashpee.


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Whether what they showed on TV for the Challenger explosion was real or fake, I watched it 'live', and recorded it (they showed it a lot of times) and then fired up my synthesizer, drum machine, and 4-track tape recorder and made an electro sort of track with the ground control to shuttle conversations. Not long after, Keith Leblanc released a solo album on which he had done a track exactly in the vein of my effort. Must have telepathically nicked my idea.
Anyway, back on topic - I remember at the time the blue sky somehow turning black when a long zoom of the shuttle was shown. wasn't really convincingly believable, even in 1986.


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Samsung ships more mobiles than Nokia and Apple in 2012
- 19 December, 2012 09:15
Samsung has taken out the top spot for global mobile phone shipments, according to American research company IHS.
It is the first time in 14 years that Nokia has been knocked off the number one position.
Samsung is now expected to account for 29 per cent of global mobile phone shipments, up from 24 per cent in 2011, according to IHS' iSuppli Mobile and Wireless Communications Service.
Nokia's global mobile shipments, meanwhile, dropped from 30 per cent in 2011 to 24 per cent this year.
Apple took out third place, increasing global shipments from 7 per cent to 10 per cent.
"The competitive reality of the [mobile phone] market in 2012 was 'live by the smartphone; die by the smartphone,'" Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS, said in a statement.
"Smartphones represent the fastest-growing segment of the cellphone market – and will account for nearly half of all wireless handset shipments for all of 2012. Samsung's successes and Nokia's struggles in the [mobile phone] market this year were determined entirely by the two companies' divergent fortunes in the smartphone sector."
When it comes to smartphone shipments, Samsung also retained the number one spot, increasing shipments in 2011 from 20 per cent to 28 per cent this year.
Apple came in second, increasing smartphone shipments just 1 per cent to 20 per cent this year.
Meanwhile, Nokia is losing the smartphone war, with a drop of 11 per cent in smartphone shipments from 16 per cent in 2011 to 5 per cent in 2012.
While smartphone shipments are expected to increase by 35.5 per cent in 2012, overall mobile shipments are predicted to increase just 1 per cent.
Samsung and Apple will account for 49 per cent of all smartphone shipments in 2012, an increase of 10 per cent from 2011.
Follow Stephanie McDonald on Twitter: @stephmcdonald0
Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU


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Brent Musburger found himself in hot water with ESPN last week after he talked about Katherine Webb's beauty at length on the National Championship game broadcast. ESPN issued an apology even though Webb said she found it flattering.
Well, just a week later it looks like Musburger may be at it again. It sounds like he says court-side reporter from the Baylor-Kansas game was "really smokin tonight." He may have said "and it was really smokin tonight" but we're not sure why considering the game wasn't very exciting (via Big Lead Sports).
UPDATE: ESPN PR tweeted this today:
Simply stated: "Brent said the word 'it.' We are moving on."— Josh Krulewitz (@jksports) January 15, 2013


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Top Items:
Chuck Hagel blocked: Harry Reid says he doesn't have the votes — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday that Republicans have told him that they plan to block Chuck Hagel's nomination to be the next secretary of Defense over demands for more information from the White House.
Kevin Drum / Mother Jones: WTF Is Going On With Chuck Hagel?
Michael Hirsh / NationalJournal.com: Hagel Not Withdrawing, Despite Renewed GOP Opposition
Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS: Defense Secretary Hagel? Not So Fast
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics: Reid: Republicans blocking Hagel's nomination
Allahpundit / Hot Air: Harry Reid: We don't have the votes to break a GOP filibuster on Hagel; Update: Senate to vote on Hagel today
Ken Shepherd / NewsBusters blogs: UPDATED | Senior Defense Dept. Official Disputes Harry Reid's Claim from Senate Floor …
Rachel Streitfeld / CNN: Hagel: McCain tells CNN he still doesn't have answers from WH
Taylor Marsh: Reid Schedules Vote on Hagel for Friday, Republicans Set to Filibuster *Update - HAGEL BLOCKED*
David Weigel / Slate:
"Friends of Hamas": The Scary-Sounding Pro-Hagel Group That Doesn't Actually Exist — Palestinian high school students show off their skills during a graduation ceremony from a military school course organized by the Hamas security forces and the Hamas Minister of Education on January 24, 2013 in Gaza City.
Discussion: Mother Jones, Little Green Footballs, The Week, A plain blog about politics, The Dish, The Maddow Blog and Daily Kos
Kevin Drum / Mother Jones: "Friends of Hamas": World's Dumbest Front Group?
Little Green Footballs: Breitbart's Ben Shapiro Makes Up Another Fake Story to Smear Hagel, GOP Runs With It
Jonathan Bernstein / A plain blog about politics: Catch of the Day — Here's some good reporting: Dave Weigel …
Andrew Sullivan / The Dish: Holding Hagel Hostage, Ctd
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: What 'Friends of Hamas' and ACORN have in common
Barbara Morrill / Daily Kos: Ever wondered how stupid Republicans are? Wonder no more ...
Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
McCain Satisfied With WH Benghazi Response, Ready To Press On With Hagel Vote — Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that the White House's response to his and other Republican senators' questions on the September attack in Benghazi, Libya was satisfactory.
Discussion: msnbc.com, The Impolitic and CNN
Libby Spencer / The Impolitic: Senate GOP invents the filibluster
Steve Kornacki / Salon:
When Republicans play with fire — Just how unprecedented is their filibuster of Chuck Hagel? In a word: Very — Whether they'll cop to it or not, Republicans are currently engaged in a filibuster of Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Defense secretary. — Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma's conservative …
Discussion: Slate, The Maddow Blog, The Plum Line, The Dish, JustOneMinute, Shakesville, The Hill, ABCNEWS, Post Politics and National Review
David Weigel / Slate: Susan Collins Will Vote for Cloture on Hagel; And, the Emerging Hagel "Delay" Gambit
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: Reid sets stage for Hagel showdown
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line: Revive the threat of filibuster reform, Harry Reid
Andrew Sullivan / The Dish: Holding Hagel Hostage, Ctd
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute: On The Island With Media Matters - It Depends On The Meaning Of "This Way"
Melissa McEwan / Shakesville: The Latest on Hagel — Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly:
Alexander Bolton / The Hill: Reid will not honor Graham's request to hold Hagel nomination for Pentagon
Sunlen Miller / ABCNEWS: GOP Resists Senate 'Jamming' Vote on Hagel
Robert Costa / National Review: The Inhofe Position — On Monday, Senator Jim Inhofe …
Fred Kaplan / Slate:
Why Republicans Can No Longer Be Trusted on National Security — Because their leaders have become shallow, ignorant, and totally unserious on the issue that matters most. — It's been clear, at least since the 2012 election, that the Republican Party has abrogated its role—really …
Discussion: Washington Monthly, Booman Tribune, Taylor Marsh, American Prospect and Politico
Paul Waldman / American Prospect: Explaining the Farce of the Hagel Hearings
Justin Sink / The Hill:
White House endorses Senate sequester plan, urges House Republicans to act — White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday Republicans face "a simple choice" now that Senate Democrats have proposed a plan that would offset the sequester with a $110 billion plan split evenly between spending cuts …
Donovan Slack / Politico: W.H. to GOP: Your turn on sequester
Fox News:
Republicans vow to go to war with filibuster over Hagel — The battle over Defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel reached a boiling point Thursday, as senior Hill sources said Republicans have told Democrats they intend to block his confirmation until more information is provided about the Benghazi terror attack.
Discussion: Fox News Insider and The Right Scoop
Ian Swanson / The Hill:
Senate Republicans block Hagel nomination for Defense secretary
Senate Republicans block Hagel nomination for Defense secretary
Ginger Gibson / Politico: Sens. to tie up Brennan over Libya
Russell Berman / The Hill:
Boehner challenges Senate Dems to take lead, pass Obama second-term agenda
Boehner challenges Senate Dems to take lead, pass Obama second-term agenda
Discussion: Politico, The Plum Line, ABCNEWS, Post Politics, BuzzFeed, Speaker Mobile and National Review
David Rogers / Politico: Senate Democrats reach sequester deal
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line: GOP approach to sequester jumps shark
John Parkinson / ABCNEWS: Boehner Challenges Senate to Enact Obama's SOTU Agenda
Ed O'Keefe / Post Politics: John Boehner: Senate must act first
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Republicans Mounting Filibuster Against Chuck Hagel: Harry Reid [UPDATE]
Republicans Mounting Filibuster Against Chuck Hagel: Harry Reid [UPDATE]
Discussion: American Prospect, Daily Kos and The Maddow Blog
Jamelle Bouie / American Prospect: The Ridiculous, Unprecedented Filibuster of Chuck Hagel
Jed Lewison / Daily Kos: With vote scheduled for Friday, Reid aides say Hagel doesn't yet have 60 votes
Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
G.O.P. Senators Block Vote on Defense Post for Hagel
G.O.P. Senators Block Vote on Defense Post for Hagel
Discussion: Weasel Zippers, NewsBusters, Outside the Beltway and The Reaction
Clay Waters / NewsBusters: New York Times Again Defends Chuck Hagel From Mean GOP; Plus Do Only Conservatives Feel 'Ire'?
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: Republicans Blocking Hagel Nomination, For Now
Jennifer Rubin / Right Turn:
Friday showdown on Hagel
Friday showdown on Hagel
Discussion: The Agonist, The Reaction, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Associated Press and CNN
Ramsey Cox / The Hill:
Dems lack 60 votes in Senate to confirm Hagel as Defense secretary
Dems lack 60 votes in Senate to confirm Hagel as Defense secretary
Discussion: NPR, Foreign Policy, Weasel Zippers and Michelle Malkin
Frank James / NPR: Hagel Becomes First Filibustered Defense Nominee
Kevin Baron / Foreign Policy: Reid sets Hagel showdown for Friday morning; DOD rejects claim U.S. left without a defense secretary today
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Why Republicans are filibustering Chuck Hagel
Why Republicans are filibustering Chuck Hagel
Discussion: Washington Post, alan.com, Taking Note and Hot Air
Andrew Rosenthal / Taking Note: More Fun With the Filibuster
National Review:
Amash Mulls Senate Run
Amash Mulls Senate Run
Discussion: Roll Call, Politico, Ballot Box and Hit & Run
Joshua Miller / Roll Call: Michigan: Amash Eyeing Senate Run?
Jake Sherman / Politico: Boehner to Reid: Senate should act on sequester
Cameron Joseph / Ballot Box: Report: Justin Amash mulling Senate run
Robert Draper / New York Times:
Can the Republicans be Saved From Obsolescence? — One afternoon last month, I paid a visit to two young Republicans named Bret Jacobson and Ian Spencer, who work in a small office in Arlington, Va., situated above an antique store and adjacent to a Japanese auto shop.
William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion: NY Times digital trolling
Noah Rothman / Mediaite: S.E. Cupp's Advice To GOP In NY Times: Don't 'Be Afraid To Call Out Rush Limbaugh'
James Joyner / Outside the Beltway: Republican Obsolescence: Ideas, Not Technology
Betsy Newmark / Betsy's Page: Cruising the Web — Why are we sending $700 million to the Palestinian Authority?
Charlie Spiering / Washington Examiner: Former Senior White House adviser: Hispanics 'don't give a damn' about Marco Rubio
Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
The Cool Kids of the GOP Show the Christian Right the Door — Today's Big Read for those who are bored with the regular news (or lack thereof) is Robert Draper's very long piece in the New York Times Magazine about the difficulty the Republican Party is experiencing in keeping up with the Obamas.
Discussion: Mother Jones and The Mahablog
Kevin Drum / Mother Jones: GOP Not in Kansas Anymore
Mike Allen / Politico:
Discussion: Reuters, National Review, The Week and Israel Matzav
Alexander Burns / Reuters: The anti-establishment establishment
Andrew Stiles / National Review: Hagel Halted, For Now — Senate Republicans have …
David Corn / Mother Jones:
FreedomWorks Made Video of Fake Giant Panda Having Sex With Fake Hillary Clinton — The investigation at the influential tea party group could get weird. — An internal investigation of FreedomWorks—the prominent conservative advocacy group and super-PAC—has focused on president Matt Kibbe's management …
David Edwards / The Raw Story: Report: FreedomWorks video featured a 'panda' performing oral sex on 'Hillary Clinton'
Lorraine Devon Wilke / Addicting Info: Tea Party Group FreedomWorks Under Investigation For Crude Panda/Hillary Clinton Video (VIDEO)
Zerlina / Feministing: Conservative SuperPAC interns make a fake sex tape with a panda and Hillary Clinton
Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite: Conservative Group FreedomWorks Made Fake Sex Video Featuring Hillary Clinton And A Panda, Report Says
Brett LoGiurato / Business Insider: REPORT: Top Tea Party Group Made A Fake Hillary Clinton Sex Video
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics: FreedomWorks produced Clinton sexual parody video
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: Stay classy, FreedomWorks
Jed Lewison / Daily Kos: FreedomWorks used female interns to film fake sex scene of a panda having sex with Hillary Clinton
Susie / Suburban Guerrilla: FreedomWorksPAC used interns to make simulated sex video with Hillary Clinton and panda bear.
Kevin Robillard / Politico:
Report: FreedomWorks made fake Hillary Clinton sex video
Report: FreedomWorks made fake Hillary Clinton sex video
Discussion: The Other McCain, Washington Monthly and Crooks and Liars
Robert Stacy McCain / The Other McCain: Liberals Outraged Like It Was a Bad Thing for Hillary to Have Sex With Animals
Matt Friedman / New Jersey Online:
Lautenberg will not seek re-election next year — Photos: Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey — TRENTON — U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a pugnacious and plain-spoken Democrat who has represented New Jersey for three decades, will not seek re-election to a sixth term next year.
Discussion: BuzzFeed, Roll Call, Firedoglake, LifeNews.com, Daily Kos, Outside the Beltway, The Maddow Blog, Mediaite, Post Politics and ViralRead
Ruby Cramer / BuzzFeed: Frank Lautenberg Retires To Avoid The "Silly Season"
Abby Livingston / Roll Call: New Jersey: Lautenberg Won't Seek Re-Election
Jon Walker / Firedoglake: NJ Sen: Frank Lautenberg Will Not Run Again
Steven Ertelt / LifeNews.com: Pro-Abortion New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg to Retire
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: Frank Lautenberg Will Not Seek Re-Election In 2014
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: New Jersey's Lautenberg won't seek re-election
Noah Rothman / Mediaite: New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg Will Not Seek Reelection In 2014, Paving Way For Cory Booker To Replace Him
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics: Frank Lautenberg will not run for re-election
Oliver Barie / ViralRead: New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg Will Retire
Cameron Joseph / Ballot Box:
Lautenberg to retire from Senate, opening a path for Cory Booker
Lautenberg to retire from Senate, opening a path for Cory Booker
Maggie Haberman / Politico: Frank Lautenberg will not seek re-election
Ian Swanson / The Hill:
Senate Dems unveil $110B sequester-replacement bill — Senate Democratic leaders unveiled a $110 billion sequester-replacement bill at a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday that would replace $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set for March 1. — The Senate Democratic package …
Discussion: The Heritage Foundation
Patrick Louis Knudsen / The Heritage Foundation: Senate Sequester Plan: They Can't Be Serious
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Sequester Cuts: Senate Democrats Settle On Replacement Plan
Sequester Cuts: Senate Democrats Settle On Replacement Plan
Discussion: Daily Kos
Martin Peretz / Wall Street Journal:
The New New Republic — I don't recognize the magazine I used to own. We were liberal but not narrowly partisan. — Like many readers of the New Republic, I didn't at first recognize the most recent issue of the magazine. The stark white cover was unlike anything the New Republic ran during my 35 years as the owner.
Mark Judge / The Daily Caller: The new New Republic and its gutless toadies
Ed Morrissey / The Greenroom: Former TNR owner/publisher has seller's remorse
J. Bradford DeLong / Brad DeLong: When Did Martin Peretz Become This Crazy?
Robert Stacy McCain / The Other McCain: Stormfront for Liberals: The New Republic
Noel Sheppard / NewsBusters blogs: Peretz on New New Republic: 'I Don't Recognize Magazine I Used to Own. We Were Liberal But Not Narrowly Partisan'
Dylan Byers / Politico: Peretz: TNR has gone from 'liberal' to 'leftist'
Jonathan H. Adler / The Volokh Conspiracy: Peretz on the New New Republic — Last year, Martin Peretz sold …
Alana Goodman / Washington Free Beacon:
Report: Hagel Said State Department Controlled by Israel — Fox News Channel on Tuesday reported that secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel failed to disclose to the United States Senate speeches delivered to controversial groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee …
Discussion: First Read, Roll Call, National Review, BREITBART.COM, Politico, Power Line, Right Turn, Weasel Zippers, The PJ Tatler, Prairie Weather and Israel Matzav
Domenico Montanaro / First Read: Hagel nomination hits a wall
CQ Roll Call / Roll Call: Reid: Republicans Are Filibustering Hagel
Andrew Stiles / National Review: GOP to Filibuster Hagel Nomination
Joel B. Pollak / BREITBART.COM: EXCLUSIVE—THE HAGEL SPEECH THAT 'WASN'T': MORE EVIDENCE EMERGES OF FAILURE TO DISCLOSE
Paul Mirengoff / Power Line: Report: Hagel Said State Department Controlled by Israel
Jennifer Rubin / Right Turn: Hagel vote delayed, new outrageous statement alleged [Updated]
Bryan Preston / The PJ Tatler: Senate Republicans Filibuster Hagel Nomination (Update: Another Hagel Speech Surfaces)
Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:
Hagel Spoke Of Cooperation With Iran In 2007 Speech
Hagel Spoke Of Cooperation With Iran In 2007 Speech
Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, American Spectator, Weasel Zippers, Washington Examiner and The PJ Tatler
Adam Kredo / Washington Free Beacon: Hagel Cloture Vote Fails 58-40-1
ZIP / Weasel Zippers: Newly Uncovered 2007 Speech: Hagel Called For Opening U.S. Consulate In Iran...
Wayne LaPierre / The Daily Caller:
Stand and Fight — Before I tell you how the NRA and our members are going to Stand And Fight politically and in the courts, let's acknowledge that all over this country, tens of millions of Americans are already preparing to Stand And Fight to protect their families and homes.
Discussion: Talking Points Memo, CNN, Addicting Info, Mediaite, Hot Air, Business Insider, msnbc.com, No More Mister Nice Blog, AMERICAblog, The Week, Twitchy, Washington Monthly, Little Green Footballs, Balloon Juice, The Raw Story, The Maddow Blog, Angry Black Lady Chronicles, Daily Kos, TheBlaze.com and Althouse
Egberto Willies / Addicting Info: Wayne LaPierre Writes Racist Op-Ed - Joe Scarborough Takes On GOP For Non-Response (VIDEO)
Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite: Scarborough Hammers 'Shameful,' 'Scared' GOP For Not Condemning NRA's LaPierre's 'Racial' Arguments
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air: Live stream: NRA response to SOTU
Brett LoGiurato / Business Insider: Joe Scarborough Explodes At NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre's 'Racial,' Paranoid Arguments
Jane C. Timm / msnbc.com: Pro-gun policies, NRA, may undercut GOP Latino outreach
Steve M. / No More Mister Nice Blog: JOE SCARBOROUGH DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIS OWN PARTY'S BRAND PROLIFERATION STRATEGY
Sarah Desprat / Twitchy: Joe Scarborough, Piers Morgan attack Wayne LaPierre for pro-gun-rights op-ed
Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly: Wayne Lapierre's Dystopia
Betty Cracker / Balloon Juice: Wayne's (Insane) World
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: NRA's Wayne LaPierre: Be afraid, be very afraid
The Nine Most Insane Quotes From The NRA's New Apocalyptic Op-Ed
The Nine Most Insane Quotes From The NRA's New Apocalyptic Op-Ed
Discussion: The Daily Caller, msnbc.com, No More Mister Nice Blog, Booman Tribune and Prairie Weather
Jeff Poor / The Daily Caller: Scarborough blasts NRA's LaPierre for 'racially-tinged' op-ed doubting 'America's greatness' [VIDEO]
Aliyah Frumin / msnbc.com: The NRA's plan of attack: Pro-gun groups kick into high gear after Obama's SOTU
Michael Tabb / Student Life:
Nate Silver talks politics to filled Graham Chapel — New York Times writer and statistician Nate Silver told a full Graham Chapel audience that he might stop writing his renowned blog should his analyses ever start affecting election results. — Silver spent an hour minimizing his achievements …
Discussion: AMERICAblog, Outside the Beltway, Politico and The Daily Caller, more at Mediagazer »
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: Nate Silver Might Give Up Blogging If He's Impacting Elections
Matt K. Lewis / The Daily Caller: Nate Silver is worried that his polling might actually influence election results.
Jim Hoft / The Gateway Pundit:
Missouri Democrats Introduce Legislation to Confiscate Firearms - Gives Gun Owners 90 Days to Turn in Weapons — Missouri Democrats introduced an anti-gun bill which would turn law-abiding firearm owners into criminals. They will have 90 days to turn in their guns if the legislation is passed.
Discussion: protein wisdom, The Right Scoop, The PJ Tatler and NRA-ILA News
Jeff G. / protein wisdom: "Missouri Dems Introduce Legislation to Confiscate Firearms — Gives Gun Owners 90 Days to Turn in Weapons"
The Right Scoop: Missouri Dems introduce a bill to confiscate firearms, gives gun owners 90 days to turn in weapons
Bryan Preston / The PJ Tatler: Missouri Dems File Bill to Confiscate 'Assault Weapons'
Nra-Ila / NRA-ILA News: Missouri: Anti-Gun Legislation Introduced That Would Turn Law-Abiding Gun Owners into Felons
Dana Radio / The Dana Show:
Missouri Democrats Introduce Gun-Grabbing Legislation
Missouri Democrats Introduce Gun-Grabbing Legislation
Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers
Elon Musk / Tesla Motors:
A Most Peculiar Test Drive — You may have heard recently about an article written by John Broder from The New York Times that makes numerous claims about the performance of the Model S. We are upset by this article because it does not factually represent Tesla technology …
Discussion: Wheels, Talking Points Memo, The Atlantic Wire, Wired, New York Times, TechCrunch, Wonkblog, Guardian, Gawker, Mashable!, Brad DeLong, Balloon Juice and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »
John M. Broder / Wheels: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn't
Igor Bobic / Talking Points Memo: Tesla's Elon Musk & NY Times: Disturbing Discrepancies On Model S Range Reporting
Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
Margaret Sullivan / New York Times: Conflicting Assertions Over an Electric Car Test Drive
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That New York Times Tesla Model S Test Drive Was "Fake"
Max Read / Gawker: Elon Musk Defends Tesla, Says the Times Mistreated His $100,000 Electric Supercar by Driving It at Highway Speeds
Pete Pachal / Mashable!: Travel Logs Shed Light on Tesla vs. The New York Times
J. Bradford DeLong / Brad DeLong: Hoisted from Comments: Tom Redburn on Elon Musk of Tesla Motors vs. the New York Times
Doug Galt / Balloon Juice: Green ideas sleep furiously
Sam Byford / The Verge: Tesla's scathing response accuses NYT of 'changing the facts' in Model S review
Godfrey Hodgson / Guardian:
Ronald Dworkin obituary — Brilliant philosopher of law who put human dignity at the centre of his moral system — Ronald Dworkin, who has died aged 81, was widely respected as the most original and powerful philosopher of law in the English-speaking world.
Discussion: Crooked Timber and Althouse
Chris Bertram / Crooked Timber: Ronald Dworkin has died of leukaemia at the age of 81.
Ann Althouse / Althouse: Ronald Dworkin — a giant among law professors — has died.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Ronald Dworkin, Legal Philosopher, Dies at 81
Ronald Dworkin, Legal Philosopher, Dies at 81
Discussion: TalkLeft
Big Tent Democrat / TalkLeft: Ronald Dworkin, RIP


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Driven: 2013 Mercedes-Benz G-Class
As we noted when we first sampled the slightly-revised 2013 Mercedes-Benz G-Class earlier this year, the G's "off-road ability is the only rational reason to choose it over Mercedes' far more modern SUVs." But just what exactly can the G-Class do off-road? Mercedes-Benz invited us to Graz, Austria, to see for ourselves.
Behind The Curtain
As Austria's second-largest city, Graz is home to more than 290,000 people, but for the past 33 years, it's also been home to G-Class production. The Gelandewagen was developed in partnership with local firm Steyr-Daimler-Puch, which specialized in off-road vehicles like the Pinzgauer, Haflinger, and Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro. Although the firm was taken over by Canadian supplier Magna in 1998 and renamed Magna Steyr, it's still responsible for cranking out nearly 54 G-Class vehicles each day.
Interestingly, it still builds G-Class models in the same manner it did three decades ago. If you're looking for automation or robotic aids, you'll find precious little along the G-Class assembly line. The vast majority of each truck is hand-built, including the body: after receiving panels from a stamping facility, workers position them in place by hand, and perform each and every weld manually. Employees hand-prep the body for priming and painting, and bustle to push shells to the paint line - which may be the sole automated portion of the line. The G-Class's boxed-frame chassis is assembled manually on a separate line, and workers mate the built-up frame with the painted body in an old-fashioned "marriage" at a later point on the line.
Commercial-grade and military-spec vehicles - including some wild 6x6 chassis cabs destined for the Australian army - are built right alongside G550 and G63 models. Presently, the new G63 AMG accounts for roughly 60 percent of production, but officials tell us that's mostly due to the fact there wasn't an AMG-branded G-Class last year. Expect that figure to drop to roughly 40-50 percent once that pent-up demand is satisfied.
Das Iron-Schoekel
With a 34-degree approach angle, a 29-degree departure angle, and eight inches of ground clearance, Mercedes-Benz says the G-Class is capable of scaling 45-degree inclines - and a short run up the Iron Schoekel course proves that. Looking like a two-story Erector set with a teeter-totter placed on top, the steel structure essentially serves as a jungle gym, allowing the G-Class to flex its muscles. The climb on either side forces you to scale a 45-degree incline, and doing so points you toward the sky in roller-coaster fashion. Dramatic, but you're not done yet: scale the summit, and the see-saw points you back down again, forcing the G to descend a 45-degree incline. Our driver wanted to show off, and stopped the vehicle on the descent, and then casually backed the G550 wagon up the same slope.
Although the G-Class gains a number of electronic goodies for 2013, terrain response and hill descent controls aren't part of the list. The G-Class's off-road prowess is the result of some sophisticated hardware. The full-time four-wheel-drive system can function in an automatic mode, which is suitable for most on-road situations, but the driver can manually lock three differentials. Locking the center permanently splits power 50/50 between the front and rear axles. Lock the rear axle, and power is split evenly between the rear wheels; lock the front axle, and the same happens to the front wheels. Disable ESC, engage low-range, and the G-Class is more than happy to crawl up and down most anything you throw at it, especially if you manually keep the seven-speed automatic in lower gears.
The Real Schoekel
We had our first opportunity to put all this to the test 35 miles outside of Graz, when we drove to the real Schoekel- a local ski resort that's also popular with alpine hikers and mountain bikers. For the past fifty years, it's also served as a proving grounds for Magna-Steyr, allowing it to hone its products on the rocky, rutted paths that bisect paved main roads. While Magna Steyr teams maintain these trails by clearing trees and replacing chunky gravel, they're hardly cultured as a result.
This venue offered our first chance to play with the differential locks. Operating these takes some thought and practice: the center diff should be locked for most off-road ventures, but locking the front or rear differentials will affect the G's steering - and in some very narrow spots, where we're forced to thread between rows of slender pine trees, that's an important consideration. We typically stayed away from the front lock, save for a few spots where we needed to scale tall rock faces, or climb uphill while one front wheel was raised.
We were impressed with the G's ability to settle down and scamper over terrain that would be incredibly difficult for a human to traverse by foot, but the demonstration wasn't over yet. A factory driving team then proceeded to race us down the mountain on the same paths, but at a seemingly suicidal 35-40 mph. I've yet to examine my x-rays, but I'm certain a few of my internal organs appear as if they went three rounds in a UFC octagon. The G-Class? Though it bounced, shook, and swayed its way down the mountain, the G was no worse for the wear. Impressively, there were no buzzes or rattles during the whole ordeal, and the only squeaks came from the mortified passengers, grabbing any available handle with snow-white knuckles.
All For Naught?
Outside of the armed forces or, conversely, smugglers, we've no idea who would really need to drive a G-Class in such a manner, let alone who would be skilled enough to manage one driven at its ultimate limit. Regardless, it's clear the G remains one of the most rugged off-roaders available - even if its opulent leather-trimmed interior, chromed exterior bits, and - on AMG models - lowered bumper fascia aren't as trail-friendly as they could be. Mercedes-Benz does sell a more rudimentary, commercial-grade G-Class abroad that would likely appeal to the hardcore off-road set abroad, but Mercedes-Benz USA won't sell it here.
And why would it? North American owners don't necessarily use that prowess to its fullest, and they're not necessarily looking to. They instead want a status symbol; a vehicle that's solid, capable, opulent, and handcrafted to their exact taste. But they also want an icon; an authentic vehicle whose ability has been proven time and again. Even after 33 years on this planet, it's hard to argue the 2013 G-Class doesn't tick each and every one of those boxes.
On sale: Now
Base price: $113,395 (G550); $134,395 (G63 AMG)
Engine: 5.5-liter V-8 (G550); 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-8 (G63 AMG)
Power: 388 hp @ 6000 (G550); 544 hp @ 5500 rpm (G63 AMG)
Torque: 391 @ 2800-4800(G550); 560 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm (G63 AMG)
Transmission: 7-speed automatic
Drive: Four-wheel; two-speed transfer case
Curb weight: 5578-5625 lb
Tires: 265/60R18 (G550); 275/50R20 tires (G63 AMG)
0-60 MPH: 6.0 seconds (G550), 5.3 (G63 AMG)


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The Beauty Con Summit Event was held on August 24th at Siren Studios- Hollywood, California, Hollywood, CA. Every floor was filled with professional education sessions in Hair, Nails, Skin & Wellness that was tailored to each individual that attended the event.
Upon entry I noticed that the demographic was 12 to mid-20's female. There were several tables set up for www.iamthatgirl.com. I Am That Girl is a Philanthropic organization that connects young women towards a healthy lifestyle. Their creed: As a member of this community, I promise to collaborate instead of compete and remind other girls of their worth when they've forgotten. I'm on a mission to turn self-doubt in to self-love, to use my voice, to share my truth, to love others, and to leave this world better than I found it.
I was greeted by several cheery women from the organization, all dressed in pink and bought a $10 I Am That Girl bag of goodies contained Big Sexy Hair Spray, CyndiBands by Style Haul, Lash Domination, City Color Cheek Stain, American Apparel Nail Lacquer and LA Colors eye shadow.
That set the tone of the entire show where each person (predominantly young female) who that entered the show was treated individually, at each spot by each vendor. The hair care room by Bellami, http://www.bellamihair.com, included hands on lessons on how to use and pick hair extensions and hair styling sessions for each person with their 6 in 1 complete curler kit. The setting was a salon with mirrors and chairs so each person could sit with their stylist during their session. Bellami is launching their new line of Christina Milian hair pieces which will be out for retail soon.
Another launch was a company called The Epic Seed, http://launch.theepicseed.com, a Greek yogurt company which was founded by Jesse Rudolph. Epic Seed is based upon "Chia" which means strength.
When I came to the epic counter, I thought that he was a celebrity because he was surrounded by fans but it turns out the fans like yogurt and his cute dog.
The Bare Minerals Cosmetics is approved by makeup artists and dermatologists alike and is the perfect type of makeup for young skin. The vendor took up a whole room and was spacious enough to accommodate several girls at once, each again having a personal consultant.
The next room was a Q & A with Kelly Osborn (Pics did not turn out) who diligently answered each question from the girls. I was impressed once again by her warmth and the personal nature of this beauty show.
Other Internet celebs included Shenae Grimes, Jeannie Mai, Edy Ganem, Fernanda Romero, Cassie Scerbo, Audrina Patridge.
Hands down, this was the best beauty show that I have attended in years because of the gentle nature of the celebrities that really love to help young women bloom both inside and out. For more information on Beauty Con visit www.beautycon.com.


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Aussie town warns that Apple map leads drivers astray
Police rescued several drivers who were stranded for hours without food or water in a park wilderness 40 miles from intended destination.
Police in the Australian town of Mildura are warning drivers to be careful when using the new mapping system on the Apple iPhone after having to rescue several motorists sent by mistake to a national park wilderness 40 miles away.
"Some of the motorists located by police have been stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water and have walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception," the police department said in a statement, according to the official Victoria police website.
Apple's maps app was released in late September as part of the iOS 6 system.
The department said tests confirmed that the mapping system lists the town in the middle of the Murray Sunset National Park, about 40 miles from the actual location.
Police say they are "extremely concerned" because there is no water supply in the park and temperatures can hit 114 degrees.
Police say they have have contacted Apple regarding the issue "and hope the matter is rectified promptly to ensure the safety of motorists traveling to Mildura."
Australia's ABC News quotes one traveler, Victoria Wake, as saying she and her partner traveling from Adelaide to Mildura for a wedding two weeks ago got lost in the wilderness for five hours without food or water after they blew a tire and got bogged down.
"We had the shelter of the car, but obviously you don't want to keep running the car and putting the air conditioner on because you don't know how long you're going to be there," Wake said. "So five hours in the heat working to try to get your car out was scary."
Mildura, with a population of around 30,000 people, is 330 miles northwest of Melbourne in the southeastern state of Victoria.
Bloomberg reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook has apologized to customers over the glitch in the mapping. The news agency also reported that the bungled introduction of the new mapping features contributed to the ouster of Apple's mobile-software chief in October.


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Endorsed by Octavia Spencer, Academy Award-winning actress, Sensa is one of the most controversial dieting products available on the market. Discover what the Sensa weight loss system is based on and find out if it's right for you. "Sensa changed my life, not my lifestyle. I lost 20 pounds", claims Octavia Spencer regarding the dieting product that's added to solid foods to trick the dieter into eating less.How Does Sensa Weight Loss Work? According to Alan Hirsch MD, neurologist and author, sprinkling Sensa on your food can lead to ... Read More


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The transaction volume of hotels in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region is expected to remain flat at $11 billion (Dh19.46 billion) in 2012, on par with 2011 volumes, according to the latest study by global consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.
In its 2012 outlook for Hotel Investment, JLL Hotels says that as banks take a stronger stance on bringing hotels into receivership positions this year, investment activity will be driven by "debt restructuring deals" and an "influx of distressed assets" brought to the market.
Meanwhile, the hotel investment market in the region remained solid in 2011 with hotel transaction volume having reached $10.9 billion last year, a moderate increase of five per cent over the prior year. Besides, growth in international arrivals and a rebound in business travel enhanced trading performance last year as increasing liquidity accelerated hotel investment activity.
But despite a positive year, "investors have become more cautious, especially in the last quarter [of 2011], with deals generally taking longer to close than originally expected," JLL points out.
It added that in 2011, hotel investors shifted to an acquisition strategy which is expected to continue into 2012 with the buying sentiment firmly based on an expectation that prices will fall.
"High net worth individuals and sovereign wealth funds are expected to seek trophy assets in key markets, which are regarded as a secure and long-term investment. This will result in strong competition for the few assets that match these criteria," JLL predicts, while also warning that raising capital for acquisitions and developments will remain "very difficult until a firm recovery is established". However, on a more positive note, JLL says that insurance companies are expected to emerge as alternative lenders.
"They are attracted by the relatively higher returns achieved in hotel investments, and will therefore become more active in lending capital to potential investors — both in senior and mezzanine loans," JLL says.
Hotel receivership occurs when a hotel lender removes borrower control and seeks a receiver (court-appointed third party). As receivership deals increased by 26 per cent in 2011, the number of distressed assets brought to the market is, therefore, likely to increase this year, according to JLL.
It states in its report that assets with attractive yields will appeal to investors, as they are assured of vendors' commitment to sell, coupled with the difficulty in developing new properties directly due to the limited availability of financing and high construction costs. Dubai is expected to bene-fit from being a safe haven and attract some investor interest, given that its occupancy has recovered to 2008 levels this year, the report points out.
Trading fundamentals posted solid growth rates in 2011, but the economic headwinds will dampen growth expectations for 2012, according to JLL's outlook for the year, adding revenue per available room growth is expected for EMEA in 2012, albeit at a slower pace than in 2011.
However, growth will be mixed, with markets such as Dubai, Morocco and Qatar expected to benefit from the political unrest in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
Via SyndiGate.info
© Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2019. All rights reserved.


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School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Mathematical Sciences (B.S.)
Mathematics is both a profession and an indispensable tool for many types of work. As a tool, mathematics is a universal language which has been crucial in formulating and expressing ideas not only in science and engineering, but also in many other areas such as business and the social sciences. As probably the oldest and most basic science, it provides the key to understanding the major technological achievements of our time.
Of equal importance, knowledge of mathematics may help provide a student with the type of uncompromising and clear-sighted thinking useful in considering the problems of many other disciplines. The Mathematical Sciences degree program encompasses mathematics, statistics, and applied mathematics.
Applied mathematics and statistics continue to enjoy a rapid growth. Students have the opportunity of applying their expertise to any of a number of fields of application. For the student to be more effective in such applications, Mathematical Sciences also offers degree programs allowing additional emphasis in the areas of actuarial science, computer science, electrical engineering, and management.
Those interested in obtaining both a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences and Teacher Certification in the state of Texas should consult the Office of Teacher Education for specific requirements as soon as possible after formal admission to the University. See the Teacher Education section of this catalog for additional information.
The Mathematical Sciences degree program also prepares students for graduate studies. An accelerated B.S./M.S. Fast Track program is available which provides the opportunity for undergraduate students to satisfy some of the requirements of the master's degree while they are completing the bachelor's degree in Mathematical Sciences.
Professors: Larry P. Ammann, Michael I. Baron, Sam Efromovich, M. Ali Hooshyar, Wieslaw Krawcewicz, Patrick L. Odell (Emeritus), Istvan Ozsvath, Viswanath Ramakrishna, Ivor Robinson (Emeritus), Robert Serfling, Janos Turi, John W. Van Ness (Emeritus), John Wiorkowski
Associate Professor: Pankaj Choudhary, Mieczyslaw Dabkowski
Assistant Professor: Yan Cao, Tobias Hagge
Affiliated Faculty: Herve Abdi (BBS), Titu Andreescu, Alain Bensoussan (SOM), Thomas Butts (SME), Raimond Ober (EE)
Senior Lecturers: Frank R. Allum, Malgorzata Dabkowska, Nermine El Missi, Anatioly Eydelzon, Bentley Garrett, Yuly Koshevnik, David L. Lewis, Charles R. McGhee, Joanna R. Robinson, William Scott, Paul Stanford
The Programs in Mathematical Sciences
Students seeking a degree in the Mathematical Sciences may specialize in Mathematics, Statistics, or Applied Mathematics, and receive a B.S. degree in these areas. Each specialization allows some flexibility in electives so that students can better adapt their degree plans to their educational goals.
Mathematics: For students interested in a career in mathematics and for students interested in continuing on to graduate work in mathematics, applied mathematics, math education, and related areas.
Statistics: For students interested in probability and statistical models and their use in data analysis and decision making and for students interested in continuing on to graduate work in statistics, biostatistics, actuarial science, and other statistics related areas.
Applied Mathematics: For students interested in mathematics for the purpose of using it broadly in various areas of application and for students interested in continuing on to graduate work in applied mathematics and related areas.
Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences Degree Requirements (120 hours)
I. Core Curriculum Requirements1
- Communication (6 hours)
- Social and Behavioral Sciences (15 hours)
- Humanities and Fine Arts (6 hours)
- Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning (6 hours)
- Science (9 hours)
Statistics Option
or PHYS 2421 Honors Physics I - Mechanics and Heat with Laboratory and PHYS 2422 Honors Physics II -
Electromagnetism and Waves with Laboratory
or CHEM 1311/1111 and CHEM 1312/1112 General Chemistry I and II with Laboratory
1 Curriculum Requirements can be fulfilled by other approved courses from accredited institutions of higher education. The courses listed in parenthesis are recommended as the most efficient way to satisfy both Core Curriculum and Major Requirements at UT Dallas.
II. Major Requirements: 48 hours
Major Preparatory Courses (15 hours)
- CS 1337* Computer Science I
MATH 2417 Calculus I3
MATH 2418* Linear Algebra
MATH 2419 Calculus II3
MATH 2420* Differential Equations with Applications
MATH 2451* Multivariable Calculus with Applications
Major Core Courses (21 hours)
- MATH 3310 Theoretical Concepts of Calculus
MATH 3311 Abstract Algebra I
MATH 3379 Complex Variables
MATH 4301 Mathematical Analysis I
MATH 4302 Mathematical Analysis II
MATH 4334 Numerical Analysis
NATS 4310 Advanced Writing in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics 2
STAT 4351 Probability
Major Related Courses (12 hours)Applied Math Specialization
- MATH 4341 Topology
MATH 4355 Methods of Applied Mathematics
MATH 4362 Partial Differential Equations
STAT 4382 Stochastic Processes
- MATH 3312 Abstract Algebra II
MATH 3321 Geometry
MATH 4341 Topology
3 hours upper-division guided elective 4
- STAT 3355 Data Analysis for Statisticians and Actuaries
STAT 4352 Mathematical Statistics
STAT 4382 Stochastic Processes
3 hour upper-division guided elective 4
2 A Major course requirement that also fulfills a Core Curriculum requirement. If hours are counted in the Core Curriculum, students must complete additional coursework to meet the minimum requirements for graduation. Course selection assistance is available from the undergraduate advisor.
3 Two hours of Calculus are counted as electives; six hours are counted in Core Curriculum.
4 Approval of Mathematical Science department advisor required.
* Indicates a prerequisite class to be completed before enrolling in upper-division classes.
III. Elective Requirements: 30 hours
Advanced Electives (6 hours)All students are required to take at least six hours of advanced electives outside their major field of study. These must be either upper-division classes or lower-division classes that have prerequisites.
Free Electives (24 hours)
Both lower- and upper-division courses may count as electives, but the student must complete at least 51 hours of upper-division credit to qualify for graduation.
Mathematical Sciences Programs with Actuarial Science EmphasisStatistics Specialization together with following courses:
- AIM 2301 Introductory Financial Accounting
BA 3341 Business Finance
BA 3351 Introduction to Management Information Systems
BA 4345 Financial Markets and Institutions
BA 4346 Investment Management
STAT 4372 Actuarial Science
- AIM 2302 Introductory Management Accounting
AIM 3331 Intermediate Financial Accounting I
BA 4347 Applied Corporate Finance
ECON 4330 Law and Economics
Notes: AIM 2301 must be taken before BA 3341, 4345, 4346 and 4347.
MATH 1325 or MATH 2417 relates to Exam 100 of Society of Actuaries (SOA) and Exam 1A of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and MATH 4334 relates to Exam 135 of SOA.
STAT 4351 and STAT 4352 relate to Exam 110 of SOA and Exam 1B of CAS. STAT 3355 and STAT 4382 relate to Exam 120 of SOA and Exams 3F, 3G, 4A, 4B, 4C of CAS. STAT 4372 relates to Exams 3E, 3H and the rest of Exam 4 of CAS and Exam 150 of SOA.
Mathematical Sciences Programs with Computer Science EmphasisApplied Mathematics Specialization or Statistics Specialization together with following courses:
- CS 2305 Discrete Mathematics for Computing I
CS 2336 Computer Science II
CS 3305 Discrete Mathematics for Computing II
CS 3335 C and C++
CS 3345 Data Structures and Introduction to Algorithmic Analysis
CS 4337 Organization of Programming Languages
CS 3340 Computer Architecture
Mathematical Sciences Programs with Electrical Engineering EmphasisApplied Mathematics Specialization or Statistics Specialization together with following courses:
- EE 3101 Electrical Network Analysis Laboratory
EE 3111 Electronic Circuits Laboratory
EE 3120 Digital Circuits Laboratory
EE 3301 Electrical Network Analysis
EE 3311 Electronic Circuits
EE 3320 Digital Circuits
EE 4301 Electromagnetic Engineering I
Mathematical Sciences Programs with Management EmphasisMathematics Specialization, Applied Mathematics Specialization or Statistics Specialization together with following courses:
- AIM 2301 Introductory Financial Accounting
AIM 2302 Introductory Management Accounting
BA 2301 Business and Public Law
BA 3341 Business Finance
BA 3351 Introduction to Management Information Systems
BA 3361 Organizational Behavior
NOTE: Students transferring into Mathematical Sciences at the upper division level are expected to have completed all of the 1000- and 2000- level mathematics core course requirements.
Minor in Mathematical Sciences
Students not majoring in Mathematical Sciences may obtain a minor in Mathematics or Statistics by satisfying the following requirements:
18 credit hours of mathematics or statistics, 12 hours of which must be chosen from the following courses:
- Mathematics Minor: MATH 3310, MATH 4334 and two more upper-division mathematics courses that satisfy
degree requirements by students in Mathematical Sciences.
Statistics Minor: STAT 4351, STAT 4352 and two more upper-division mathematics courses that satisfy degree; requirements by students in Mathematical Sciences.
Fast Track Baccalaureate/Master's Degrees
For students interested in pursuing graduate studies in Mathematical Sciences, the Mathematics Department offers an accelerated B.S. /M.S. Fast Track that involves taking graduate courses instead of several advanced undergraduate courses. Acceptance into the Fast Track is based on the student's attaining a GPA of at least 3.20 in all mathematics classes and being within 30 hours of graduation. Fast Track students may, during their senior year, take 15 graduate hours which may be used to complete the baccalaureate degree. After admission to the graduate program, these 15 graduate hours may also satisfy requirements for the master's degree. Fast Track programs are offered in math, applied math, and statistics.


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Avoiding Roadblocks to Stress Reduction
If you recall your last attempt at losing a few pounds or getting rid of all the clutter in your house, you may recognize that good intentions do not always guarantee success. Usually, you encounter one or two roadblocks. However, being aware of potential obstacles in your path and figuring out ways of avoiding them makes reaching your goal more likely.
Following are some of the more commonly experienced roadblocks and some ways to help you avoid them.
- I don't have time.
- I'm too busy.
- I have too much stuff to learn.
- It's too much work.
- It's not my cup of tea.
- I tried it once and it didn't work.
Each of these excuses contains at least a grain of truth. Nevertheless, each of them can act as a roadblock, slowing or stopping you from getting the most out of your stress management efforts.
Take it a step at a time
Mastering any new skill takes time. The trick is not to tackle everything at once but instead spread your learning out over time. Start slowly. Don't overwhelm yourself. Set aside 15 or 20 minutes in your day and practice a stress reduction method or technique. That time could be during a coffee break, your lunch hour, after work when you come home, or on your way to work in the morning.
Different strokes
No two people are exactly alike. One size rarely fits all. For one person, the picture of ideal relaxation may be lying on a beach in the Caribbean with a page-turner in one hand and a piña colada in the other. For someone else, this scenario may trigger some an eye-rolling "Do I have to?" His or her idea of a relaxing vacation may be visiting every museum that's open. Some people are hares and others are tortoises. What works for one, may not work for the other. The idea of meditating for 20 minutes may not fill you with anticipatory delight. Mental imagery may not be your cup of tea. Fine. The general rule is, if you aren't comfortable with a technique or strategy, you're less likely to use it and make it a part of your life. You need to put together a package of tools that reflects your personality and lifestyle.
Give it a try
A few stress reduction approaches may feel a tad foreign and not immediately comfortable. Yet, with a little getting used to, these techniques are likely to become routine later on. You may not think, for example, that the breathing exercises are "your thing." Yet, you may be pleasantly surprised to find them wonderfully calming and relaxing. Keep an open mind. Give everything at least one good try.
Practice makes perfect
Most methods and techniques require some practice before you can master them. Even though they can be quickly understood at an intellectual level, to truly reap their benefits, you need to spend some time repeating a particular exercise or technique until it has the desired effect. Some techniques can be mastered quickly. Others may take a little more time. Don't give up too easily. Learning to ride a bike, drive a car, and play tennis all take time. Why should learning how to manage the stress in your life be worth a lesser amount of time and effort?
Find a quiet place
You need a place to do all this practicing. Try to find a place that's relatively quiet and relaxing, at least for a short time. Given the realities of your life, your quiet place may have to be a setting that is far from ideal. Your office — when the door is shut — may work for you. It could be your bedroom at home. Or your car, when you're stopped in traffic, or commuting to work.
Get a stress buddy
Doing something by yourself can be hard. Losing weight, going to the gym, stopping smoking are all easier when you do them with a friend. The same holds true for stress management. See if you can interest a friend in joining you. Your stress buddy can make your relaxation tape for you and gently prod you to practice and put your new skills into daily use.
Don't expect overnight results
Let's face it. It took you years to create your stress-producing styles and patterns. Fortunately, changing these patterns takes a lot less time, but it still takes some time. You need to change your behaviors and thinking, and modify your lifestyle and work style. You get there step by step. See yourself as being part of a program that looks at your daily encounters and experiences as opportunities for growth and change.