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Scaredy-Cat Cupcakes
Get your kids in on the fun by letting them add the faces to these feline cupcakes. Adults can pipe on the frosting, while the kids decorate.—Taste of Home Test Kitchen
Total TimePrep: 1 hour Bake: 20 min. + cooling
Makes2 dozen
- 1 package cake mix of your choice (regular size)
- 1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting
- Orange paste food coloring
- 1 cup chow mein noodles
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking cocoa
- 48 nacho tortilla chips, broken
- Assorted candies: green M&M's, miniature semisweet chocolate chips, black licorice twists and shoestring licorice
- Prepare and bake cake mix according to package directions for cupcakes; cool completely. Tint vanilla frosting orange. Using a star tip, pipe orange frosting onto cupcakes.
- For whiskers, in a small bowl, combine the chow mein noodles, sugar and cocoa; set aside.
- For cats' ears, insert nacho chips with pointed tips up. Use M&M's and miniature chocolate chips for eyes, pieces of licorice twists for noses and shoestring licorice for mouths. Arrange reserved chow mein noodles on cupcakes for whiskers.


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Dental Hygiene Information Session - THIS SESSION IS FULL
Date: Wednesday November 20, 2019
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: Harrisburg Campus - Select Medical Rm 103
Contact Name: Jen Stutzman
Contact Phone: 717-780-2490
Contact Email: email@example.com
Open to anyone interested in the dental hygiene program.
Come learn more about the following:
the program
role of the hygienist
essential qualifications
prohibitive offenses policy
approximate costs
sample schedule and curriculum
point system and selective admission process
shadowing requirements
Students who are planning to apply for admission to the clinical program in February for the Fall 2020 class are required to attend one of these sessions (without exception). Each session will be followed by a tour of the dental clinic and lab areas. Plan to be here for approximately 2 hours. Students will not be admitted to the session late so please plan accordingly.
Send your RSVP to: email@example.com and include your name, HACCID, phone number, email address & the date and time you plan to attend.You will NOT receive a confirmation. Please keep a copy of your email for your records.
Sponsored by:
For more information:

subset: commoncrawl


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EA Sports MMA was conceived as a two-year series, alternating publication years with its Fight Night cousin. No one thought it would be getting a sequel after its major license, Strikeforce, was acquired by the UFC. But pulling the plug on MMA's servers shows the first edition's lifespan fell far short of EA Sports' expectations.
Then-boss Peter Moore admitted as much to me back at E3, saying that missed marketing forecasts were to blame for EA's faceplant with the new venture, not the product's quality. At any rate, so few players could be found online that this became one of the fastest, if not the fastest, EA Sports title to be completely shut down.
But it was also the first EA Sports title using the hated Online Pass to be have online access deactivated. And that adds a little tension in the push-pull in the gamer-publisher relationship, which is seen every year in sports video gaming as annual titles are retired.
What carries primacy? A customer's expectation of service—for a minimum amount of time, anyway; or a publisher's expectation that a worthwhile product is actually used?
One commenter on Operation Sports, who said he preferred EA Sports MMA to UFC Undisputed conceded that he never saw more than 10 to 20 players online on the PS3 version. If EA Sports was seeing numbers like this online, it's been sent a rather convincing message by the marketplace: We don't care for your game.
However, customers were sent a very clear message in June 2010, when EA Sports published its first title with an Online Pass gateway: Maintaining these servers costs money; users need to pay for that.
And yet we have an outcome that proceeded under the old rules of online support: It can be taken down at any time, with a 30-day notice, which is a reasonable prerogative if the support is implied to be free.
It was, technically, for EA Sports MMA, if you bought the retail version of the game. Those who did likely did so very early during the game's release, and moved on from it long ago. In any event, terminating the servers, however swiftly, doesn't really affect them.
It does affect those who bought the game used and then bellied up for the Online Pass, giving EA Sports what it sought, a cut of the used transaction. Though maybe they, too, played it and tossed it long ago. I am sure there is at least one person out there who bought an Online Pass for this sometime in the last six months. I'd love to talk to him.
The lawyers would hate this, but it would seem that the existence of some kind of paid online support deserves the decency of a commitment to a period of time supporting it. It doesn't have to be in writing, or a EULA that no one reads anyway. It could simply be an internal policy. 2K Sports, for example, does this.
It keeps online support active for at least the current title in any existing series—and the last title of a canceled series. All-Pro Football 2K8 and College Hoops 2K8 were both sales disappointments, yet you may still play either of these five-year-old titles online. It's more than finding a ranked match, too. Shared customization options like rosters and sliders also depend on online support. This is why our Biff Tannen's Sports Almanac simulation uses College Hoops 2K8 and not NCAA Basketball 10, whose online support was closed out sometime last year.
But there also has to be some concession and perspective from gamers. We saw a lot of heat from PC gamers on this particular subject, which is amusing because MMA was never launched on that platform. A real-world store isn't a great analogy, because while a gamer has paid money for a service, he's not continually doing so in the Online Pass case. Consider a free or subsidized community resource, like a library. If that's not being patronized, it's going to be shut down, disappointing as it is.
Gamers have to understand their moral argument is weakened if they're going to war over something they stopped playing long ago. But that doesn't diminish, whatever its contractual ones, the moral obligation for EA Sports not to cut and run so soon.


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New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario is speaking publicly about sexual aggression she experienced while detained in Libya last month by forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi. Addario was held for six days with Times colleagues Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, and Tyler Hicks, all of whom were subjected to physical abuse. In this interview with CPJ, Addario speaks candidly about the brutality, focusing particularly on the groping and other sexual aggression she endured. Farrell, her colleague, also spoke briefly with CPJ. All forms of anti-press violence are abhorrent, but the issue of sexual aggression has not been as widely documented or discussed as other types of attacks. Since CBS News disclosed in February that correspondent Lara Logan was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted while on assignment in Cairo, more journalists are starting to speak out in hopes the issue can be more fully understood. Here is Addario's story:
Lauren Wolfe: What did they do to you physically?
Lynsey Addario: Physically we were blindfolded and bound. In the beginning, my hands and feet were bound very tightly behind our backs and my feet were tied with shoelaces. I was blindfolded most of the first three days, with the exception of the first six hours. I was punched in the face a few times and groped repeatedly. Basically, every man that sort of took us over and was bringing us all to the next--wherever they were taking us--they just basically touched me over my clothes.
It was incredibly intense and violent. It was abusive throughout, both psychologically and physically. It was very chaotic and very aggressive. For me, there was a lot of groping right away. Sort of everyone who had to pick me up and carry me somewhere, they would reach around and grab my breasts and touch my butt--everyone who came near me. There were inevitably hands on my body. I mean I--in my experience working in the Muslim world--I don't scream and kick and try to be very aggressive back. I usually just plead, because I find the weaker I show myself to be the more sympathy I get. For example, whenever I started crying, they would usually back off. Like, "Please don't, I have a husband, please don't."
It's something we can't really conceive of until it happens, what it's like to be blindfolded and bound. We take for granted how much it's really demoralizing to not be able to see or move your hands and feet. So, for example, for the first 10 minutes, the people who had me were groping me. I was punched in the face several times, really sort of roughed around, then it would mellow out for some time and in fact, they would come and bring juice and water and a few dates. And then when they moved us, like, for example, on the first night, they moved us from the position we were at in the middle of the of fighting. They put us in an armored personnel carrier, and there were new guys who then took us to wherever they took us--because we were blindfolded again--but they took us to the side of the road somewhere about a 15-minute drive away, and in the APC again then it all started happening again. A guy covered my mouth. He said, "Don't speak." He started grabbing me and was, like, spooning me from the backside and touching me all over, and I was really pleading, but he just kept at it the whole time we were in the tank.
That night we were in the back of a Land Cruiser. This guy was caressing my face and telling me I was going to die. Then when we were put in a prison cell in Surt--we were loaded in the back of a pickup truck and driven six hours, from Ajdabiya to Surt. In that drive, it was very violent. Every checkpoint we came across, which was every 45 minutes or so, we were literally blindfolded and bound in the back of a truck. We looked like prisoners being paraded through the streets, and people would just come over and punch us in the face or smack us and they were screaming, "You dogs." It was just very, very violent. Tyler could see out from under his blindfold, and he saw that on one occasion at least, there were 20 men at least who started chasing after us in the truck. You know, we were scared we were going to get lynched and pulled out of the truck. It was very scary.
LW: You write in your account in The New York Times that the first thing that went through your head is that you didn't want to get raped. Why was that your first thought?
LA: Because that sort of line, that sort of boundary, of not getting touched, was crossed. Immediately, it started happening. There are countries I work in, like Afghanistan--I've been working in Afghanistan for 11 years now--and no one, except for one occasion where I was sort of grabbed at a rally, I've never been touched. Afghans, there's a line between men and women. Men don't touch women who are not their wives in that country, and the minute we were taken and they were searching our pockets and they started grabbing me all over, I felt that set a precedent. That set a tone for how the next three days were going to be.
LW: Why three days?
What about the next three days?
LA: Because then they flew us to Tripoli. Once we got to Tripoli, we were put in the hands of the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry, and they actually took good care of us. They didn't beat us. They gave us food, they gave us water, and they put us in a safe house. The treatment changed dramatically.
LW: And what about when all this violence was happening--did anyone try to intervene or protect you?
LA: In the back of the armored personnel carrier, actually, when a guy was groping me and I was crying, one of the soldiers actually pulled me away from him and put his arms around me to sort of protect me from him. And the other soldier pulled me back from him. There was fighting over me. And then the guy came and put his arms around me so the other guy couldn't touch me anymore. Yeah, I do feel like when it got bad, usually someone would intercede and say, "Hey, lay off." I mean, I couldn't understand, but that's what I inferred.
LW: So the whole time you were there you thought the level of sexual violence might escalate but it didn't?
LA: Yeah, I mean, I did. Look, you just don't know. And that's part of the problem. The worst thing about this experience is not knowing what's to come. Not to say that it doesn't suck getting groped while you're blindfolded and bound, but at the same time, my big fear was, would they then start going underneath my clothes, would they then start taking off my clothes? Would they then drag me away and start doing things to me? Your mind races when you're in the situation. You just don't know what to expect.
LW: A lot of people are commenting on the fact that you've been saying that what happened to you was no worse than getting smashed in the head, which your male colleagues were. At the Columbia event on Thursday, Tyler Hicks interrupted you and said it was worse for you.
LA: Well, that's his perception. Who can qualify what's worse? Who has the right to say what's worse? For me, when I was getting groped, I was listening to them--and I could only listen because I was blindfolded--I was listening to them get smashed on the head and I can hear them scream, like, grunting, and to me that was so painful. I kept thinking, My god, this is so horrible. Yeah, it was horrible. It was horrible for all of us. I don't understand why this is so much worse for me? Is it because I'm a woman? I don't know who has the answer to that question.
LW: I'm curious if you thought twice about mentioning this part of the ordeal.
LA: You know, I actually wanted to shame the Libyans. It's very important that they understand how embarrassing, how gross it is, and what a bad name it gives to other Muslim countries. I've gotten emails from translators and drivers all around the Middle East just saying, "I'm so sorry that this happened to you," and "I'm so embarrassed that this has happened to you. We are not like that." Libyans need to be a little more introspective about what kind of society produces these kinds of people. So when I went forward I wanted it to get out that this kind of behavior, which is just unacceptable, is going on.
LW: I'm wondering what you think about the argument being put forward by some women who work in the news business that we really shouldn't say anything about minor sexual aggression, that groping is part of the job.
LA: I've been groped in a million countries and had men grab my crotch and grab my breasts. In Pakistan, they're incredibly aggressive. But I've never said anything because I just say, it's not the end of the world--it sucks, it's disgusting, but it's part of the job. In this particular instance, I was with the country's military. We were taken by a government military. If soldiers are supposed to be some of the most disciplined people in the country, what does that say? This is not acceptable. It's not acceptable under any terms, but this is at least an instance where I knew who the people were and you can affect--you can come out on the record and say, look, we know who they are: They're Qaddafi soldiers.
LW: Right, because if you can come out as a foreign correspondent with a high profile and point fingers it shames them.
LA: That's exactly why I'm doing it. Because I'm sure it is a huge shame on Libya. You know, I've gotten emails from Libya, from Libyan men saying, "I'm so embarrassed." To me, I've worked long enough in the Muslim world to know that it is grossly, grossly embarrassing to hear that men in your country have been touching women who are not their wives. I knew it would shame them, and that's why I've come forward.
LW: So what next--you're going back?
LA: This is what I cover. I'm not going to turn back to war tomorrow. No, of course, I'm going to take some time and reflect, see my family, spend some time with loved ones. Maybe do some non-conflict-related assignments for a little bit. But I do think that I cover these stories. I will go back, and I'll exercise as much caution as I can, but I cover conflict.
LW: Is this something you would seek some kind of counseling for now that you're back?
LA: Yeah, definitely. I think that we should all speak to someone. I mean, it's a personal decision. I think that we all handle things in a different way. For me, I don't want to speak to someone who's never left the U.S. and who doesn't know anything about being a journalist. If I'm going to speak to someone, it's got to be someone who has experience with journalists, and especially war correspondents.
LW: When you say you'll go back and be cautious, what does that mean?
LA: The important thing is to just constantly monitor how far to go forward and to listen to fixers and translators and what reporters on the ground are telling you and to listen to your instinct.
LW: Do you think you would do anything different as a woman? As a correspondent?
LA: As a woman? No. It's taken me many years to figure out how--what my behavior can be that minimizes the way that I get sort of accosted in the field. I wear hijab, I wear very conservative clothes, I wear long shirts, I cover my butt. I do all these things that sort of minimizes the attention that's drawn to me.
LW: Is there anything that you'd do differently now then?
LA: No.
LW: I thought it was interesting that Stephen Farrell wrote in your Times piece that a soldier tried to put a rifle in his rear, yet that's not part of the public conversation. Was that just part of the same kind of torture you went through?
LA: That's exactly my point. Steve had a rifle butt... I mean, I do understand it's natural to put all the attention on the woman but I do think it's important to not discount what happened to my male colleagues. It was traumatic for all of us. It's important to talk about what happened to me in terms of women's issues and so people pay attention to these things, but to have a gun put in your rear is not something that's pleasant.
[To Stephen Farrell]
LW: People are focusing on Lynsey's sexual assault, but what about this incident?
Stephen Farrell: It was in armored car. It was pitch black. We were blindfolded. My hands were tied; I think my feet were tied. I can't remember, but I was completely powerless. Yeah, I remember fairly vividly, surprisingly. I was lying face down, I couldn't see my colleagues. Everyone was terrified and we were keeping really quiet. And these guys were complete thugs--I think the worst we'd met in the whole ordeal. They slapped me once or twice. I felt something go in the vicinity, certainly touch, my rear. I could feel sort of the butt of his Kalashnikov, it was gun-related. It didn't feel like a barrel--it felt like a sheathed knife or bayonet, and he pressed it in between ... hang on, let me get it straight.
First of all, he started fondling my buttocks, I mean really extensively. I was wearing really thin trousers, and he was just stroking one and moving to the other. It was really extensive. He was following the curves. Not like for two seconds or so, this was a good long while. Frankly, that's not going to hurt me. It's weird, it's not desirable, but on the other hand, it's not as painful as a rifle butt in the face. At a time like that you're just, like, it's not hurting me, so I'm going to put it in a place that I'm not too bothered by it.
He didn't get any reaction. I think all of this is about power. So the stroking of my buttocks got no reaction. Then he took his hand away and I felt a sheathed bayonet or the knife of his gun go into my rear, between the buttocks. I made no reaction. And then he pushed it farther in, and at that point I'm calculating, this guy is a sadist. Is this guy going to get more gratification from me if I scream? Is that going to give him more gratification that he'll push it farther in? If I don't scream, will that anger him and he'll push it farther in? You're making that calculation. So I thought, I'm going to stay quiet.
And at this point, the trousers were nearly breaking. The seam of the trousers, I could feel them begin to go. Again, same calculation. This is getting dangerous now. I scream or I don't scream. Which is going to provoke him? One step further and it's going to be injurious. Not going to give you the satisfaction. I didn't say anything. I thought I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. It was a 50-50 call anyway. And he was clearly angry.
So I waited and waited and waited. It was a very tense wait. I was really worried at this point. And then either he, I think it was he, or somebody else, then switched tactics and thumped me really hard between the shoulder blades. Now, I played rugby for years. It didn't hurt remotely. But I thought, you know, I'm going to give him a really hard scream on that, because clearly no scream is not working. So I went "Ahhhh!" and he went, "Wahhh!" clearly in a mocking way, and that was that.
LW: So he wanted to provoke you and he used this way to do it.
He wanted a reaction of pain and fear. What I didn't know was, was giving him pain and fear provoking him to go one step further or satisfy him?
LW: Do you think that's along the lines of what they were doing to Lynsey, or do you think that's a separate power game?
SF: What he was doing to me was totally about power. There was absolutely no sexual gratification from pushing a third-party object into somebody's trousers. It wasn't like he was raping me. It was just about making me afraid. And as soon as I let out a sort of roar he was both happy and contemptuous. He laughed and then he went "wahhh," as in, stop crying like a baby.
LW: In all your years of reporting on conflict, is this the first time you've had something like this happen? Something so sexual like that?
SF: Yes. In Iraq they didn't do anything like that, in Afghanistan... . I mean, I have actually been groped before, but not in a conflict situation. That was on a train in India. Not a threatening situation. This was clearly very, very different.
LW: I'm glad you're all okay--it is good to see you are all in good health.
SF: It was scary. Unfortunately, I've been in this sort of situation before. Fear is kind of pointless. The thing you've got to do is work out the situation that will get you out of this. When he thumped me on the back I let out a really loud scream, gratified his power lust, and, thankfully, I was able to do it in a way that didn't involve a dilemma about whether it was going farther up my rear or not. And it didn't start again.
LA: See what Steve said? A man getting groped as well. He said that it wasn't painful, it was better than getting smashed in the face. I mean, that's my, that's why.... Do you understand? Does that put it in perspective at all? Steve just explained to you that he too got, you know, he had whatever he had put in his .... I do think it's important to not make this like, "Oh, the poor woman" thing. Yes, it was horrible but, at the same time, it's important to bring this up.


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Samsung Galaxy Camera: What's the point?
I was looking for a cheap MID, like a 7" tablet, on a cell phone-company plan�the likes of S3 or Note or OneX were better factor for pocketability, but out of price range. Then I realized the G-cam hit the stores, and went for some hands-on experience: the 4.8" screen is pretty much enough for my browsing [AND email] needs, and�guess what�costs the same as a 7" tablet in the plans! > So, ta da!, I get the P&S camera for free�no extra cost! I'd rather see it slimmer, but it's more pocketable than a tablet [in terms of (gorilla) glass breaking], and besides, I still have in the closet all those leather belt-bags from when cell phones were a different form-factor [I kinda miss that going-for-the-gun movement].
Also, no one of you guyz thought of using this camera for video streaming? Like, on Ustream, Livecast, etc. Somebody is probably already working on a G-cam optimized video-streaming uploader.
On the other hand, the thing that does bother me at this point is the constant getting-out-of-focus while zooming, as well as the JITTERS that are obvious when the zoom extensions move (forward or backward) and hit the mechanical limits--it all STAYS on-the-record. Tell me what to do about THAT? Just don't say I should first zoom, and then shoot. [As the jitters are more pronounced at wider angles, it could also be that the image processor is not on par for smoothly recalculating 30fps of the greater number of objects in the wider picture. � A possible improvement is, obviously, to use the zoom from 4 to 21x, instead of 1-21x.] The other pain-in-the-ass defect has not been solved in HDV video either�and probably won't be by any upcoming G-cam upgrades: the video pan movements are more than noticeably rickety! I gave up on that one, but still have to ask: does anyone have any tips?


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Discussion in 'Archived Threads 2001-2004' started by Michael St. Clair, Oct 28, 2001.
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On Wednesday, Jonathan Cohn asked if Paul Ryan's address was "The Most Dishonest Convention Speech … Ever?" Now that Mitt Romney had his turn, I decided to answer the question.
After reviewing presidential and vice-presidential nominee acceptance speeches throughout the era of the modern Republican Party, back to 1980, I present to you: the Top 13 Republican Convention Speech Lies.
To make this list, the candidate had to deliver a stone-cold, unequivocal, shameless brazen lie. Being misleading but technically true, or using disingenuous qualifiers wasn't good enough.
For example, Vice-President Dick Cheney does not make the cut for saying in 2004 "we dealt with a gathering threat and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein" shortly after saying "the president made clear that the terrorists would be dealt with". Sure, he's suggesting a false connection between 9/11 and Iraq, but he didn't explicitly state the lie … at least, not on the convention stage.
With that in mind, here we go.
13. Bush 2000: The Gore Invented The Internet Lie
George W. Bush wrapped the lie in a joke, but it's still a lie.
After riffing about all the inventions in history Gore would call a "risky scheme," -- a way to deflect criticism of his own conservative proposals -- Bush said, "if he'd been there when the Internet was invented … well, I understand he actually was there for that."
It's about as good as a birth certificate joke. And just as much of a lie.
12. Bush 1992: The Clinton Will Raise Your Taxes Lie
George H. W. Bush also sought to wrap his lie in a joke.
Bill Clinton campaigned on raising taxes for the "wealthy" and cutting taxes for the "middle class." He did not precisely define the income levels for those terms. But there was nothing in his platform that justified Bush saying, "He says he wants to tax the rich. But folks, he defines rich as anyone who has a job."
As it happened, Clinton largely followed through on his promise, raising taxes only on household income over $140,000 a year, and on individual income over $115,000 (note that these values are in 1993 dollars). While deficit concerns persuaded him not to push for a broad middle-class tax cut, he did expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
11. McCain 2008: The Original ObamaCare Lie
Sen. John McCain started the health care lies early, saying: "His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."
Of course, Obama's proposal then, as his law now, included exemptions for small businesses from complying with coverage mandates, as well as special tax credit. And there never was a plan to force anyone into a "government-run" system or have bureaucrats meddle with medical decisions.
10. Palin 2008: Bridge To Nowhere? Who Me?
You might not remember this, but there once was a woman named Sarah Palin who was nominated for vice-president.
And there was once as a public works projects that was pilloried as the "Bridge to Nowhere" because of how few people it serve in a remote part of Alaska.
In her acceptance speech, Palin claimed to be above grubbing for such pork, saying, "I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere."
Except that she had campaigned for governor supporting the project in 2006, then accepted federal funds that were available to used on that bridge. She chose to divert the funds to other transportatation projects, she did not send the money back saying "no thanks."
9. Bush 2000: The Not Ready For Duty Lie"If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report. 'Not ready for duty, sir.'"
Three weeks later, Cheney conceded in a series of interviews that the statement was based on outdated data and any such readiness problem was brief and had been corrected.
Though he still sought to maintain, "the military is in decline" under the Clinton administration.
8. Romney 2012: The Apology Tour Lie
Romney said: "I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators."
This is perhaps the dumbest lie, but a lie nonetheless. Obama has never gone to another country and apologized on behalf of America, ever.
Furthermore, Obama played a direct role in dislodging dictators in Egypt and Libya, without misguided unilateral military action, without suffering the international backlash we did following Bush's invasion of Iraq.
So he really doesn't need a lecture on the subject from an opponent with no foreign policy experience at all.
7. Reagan 1984: The Social Security Tax Lie
In the summer of 1984, Reagan's re-election campaign got a little shaky after Democratic nominee Walter Mondale said at his convention: "Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."
As I wrote in my book "Wait! Don't Move To Canada!," this gambit caught the Reagan team off guard: "[The campaign] couldn't get its story straight whether it was promising no tax hikes in the second term no matter what, or leaving the door open a crack for a change in course." Mondale cut Reagan's lead by 6 points in one poll and took the lead in another.
Reagan had to respond. And he did by lying.
Some who spoke so loudly in San Francisco of fairness were among those who brought about the biggest single, individual tax increase in our history in 1977, calling for a series of increases in the Social Security payroll tax and in the amount of pay subject to that tax. The bill they passed called for two additional increases between now and 1990, increases that bear down hardest on those at the lower income levels.
The Census Bureau confirms that, because of the tax laws we inherited, the number of households at or below the poverty level paying Federal income tax more than doubled between 1980 and 1982. Well, they received some relief in 1983, when our across-the-board tax cut was fully in place. And they'll get more help when indexing goes into effect this January.
But his description of the "amount of pay subject" to the 1977 tax referred to an increase of the payroll tax cap, subjecting more wealthy income to Social Security taxes and making the overall system more progressive.
Now that by itself would not meet our strict lying standards. Misleading perhaps, not outright prevarication.
But then Reagan went on to say "they received some relief in 1983, when our across-the-board tax cut was fully in place." That is false. As Paul Krugman pointed out back in 2004, Reagan's income tax cuts for "many middle- and low-income families" were negated by Reagan's own Social Security payroll tax increase. And his was regressive, not progressive.
… the Social Security Reform Act of 1983 [included] an increase in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance. For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent -- but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down.
6. Ryan 2012: The GM Plant Lie
Obama has been hammering Romney for opposing his successful efforts to save the America auto industry. So Ryan tried to whitewash that by blaming Obama for a GM plant that announced its termination before he took office.
Ryan said: "Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day … the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."
Well yes, the government wasn't there to support the auto industry … in 2008, before Obama became President, when the announcement was made to close the plant.
Further, those comments were made before there was any talk of a "recovery" because they were made in February 2008, before the financial crisis, before the Great Recession that pushed the American auto industry to the brink of extinction.
5. Bush 2004: The Weapons Inspectors Lie
Grappling with the unpopularity of the Iraq war, President Bush sought to deflect that charge that he had gotten American stuck in a foolhardy war of choice, saying "After more than a decade of diplomacy, we gave Saddam Hussein another chance, a final chance, to meet his responsibilities to the civilized world. He again refused."
But Saddam did not refuse to let international inspectors in. After inspectors were struggling to find anything, Bush forced the inspectors out before they could formally conclude that Saddam was not stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Yet the claim is still embraced by Republicans today. In fact, FactCheck.org dinged Mitt Romney in 2007 for repeating it:
That the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency was not permitted to make inspections might come as a bit of a surprise to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, who reported on March 17, 2003, that "late last night…I was advised by the United States government to pull out our inspectors from Baghdad." Inspectors had been in Iraq since November 2002. They remained until U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered their evacuation on March 17, 2003, just three days before U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq.
4. Ryan 2012: The They Stole Your Medicare Lie
Ryan said, "the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn't have enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed…"
He packed many of the health care lies from the right-wing fever swamp into one passage.
That a plan where people choose between private insurance plans somehow is a government takeover. That the law raises taxes on small business when it includes tax credits for small business. And that shoring up Medicare's solvency by reducing wasteful spending to hospitals and insurance companies -- reductions which Ryan kept in his own budget -- is somehow the same as cutting seniors' benefits.
All to falsely turn a plan that strengthens Medicare's financing into one that "sacrificed" our "obligation" to our elders.
3. Cheney 2004: The Kerry Won't Kill Terrorists Lie
Cheney said, "He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked. Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve, as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics … George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people."
But Kerry explicitly said "I will never give any nation or any institution a veto over our national security." And he did not say he would only defend America "after" an attack. He also said he would use force "against a threat that was real and imminent."
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public at the time, the Bush administration had already given Pakistan a veto over any operation to pursue Osama Bin Laden, a policy that ended with President Obama.
2. Ryan 2012: The Obama Did Nothing On Debt Lie
Ryan said, "He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing."
Again, Ryan packed a lot of lies in a short paragraph.
First, the debt commission did not come back with an urgent report. They were three votes short of getting the supermajority support needed for the report to be sent on to Congress for a vote.
Second, one of members of the commission that voted against the report was Paul Ryan.
Third, Obama responded to the failure of the debt commission to produce a report by prodding Congress to pass "sequester" legislation forcing $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts if Congress is unable to come up with legislation to produce a similar amount of deficit reduction via spending cuts and tax increases.
Fourth, one of the members of Congress that voted for that legislation was Paul Ryan.
1. Romney 2012: The Middle Class Taxes Lie
Romney said, "unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class."
This is the big lie. The Full Orwell.
Obama has cut taxes for the middle class, period. Politifact did a comprehensive analysis of all the tax changes made by Obama and concluded: "The changes to the tax code made under Obama and the analyses by the Tax Policy Center show that for the middle 60 percent of the income distribution, both the average tax paid and the average tax rate fell between 2008 and 2011."
And as it widely known now, despite Romney's furious attempt to deny it, his own stated plans for across-the-board income tax cuts, corporate tax cuts and estate tax repeal, combined with a pledge to offset the cost by ending unspecified tax deductions, is impossible to achieve without raising taxes on the middle class while cutting taxes for the wealthy.
So, to answer Jonathan Cohn's initial question, with the most outright lies of any Republican nominee's acceptance speech since 1980, Paul Ryan in fact does deserve the honor of "Most Dishonest Convention Speech Ever."
But Romney's audacious attempt to project his own regressive tax plan on Obama, and reject the mathematical truth of Obama's own tax record, deserves the honor of the single biggest convention lie by a Republican nominee for president in modern times.


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Prof Andrew Stirling
|Professor of Science & Technology Policy (SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School, The Sussex Energy Group)
Telephone numbers
|01273 877118
|+44 1273 877118
Research expertise:
|download vCarddownload vCard to your mobile
Growing up around southwest England and in Singapore in the 60s and 70s, my undergraduate studies at Edinburgh started out in astronomy, then shifted thro' 'science studies' to a masters in archaeology and social anthropology. I then worked as a field archaeologist and ecology and peace activist in the 80's, going on to co-ordinate the nuclear, disarmament and energy campaigns for Greenpeace International, then later serving on national and international Greenpeace boards. I've also worked variously as a building labourer, laboratory technician, hospital porter and factory, farm and mental health care worker. Returning to academia, my doctorate at SPRU was in science and technology policy, where I've worked since 1995 as an interdisciplinary "policy-engaged" researcher, trying to wrestle with challenges of empowerment, environment and human wellbeing in the politics of knowledge and innovation. The 'research' tab here gives key research questions, but the general idea is to assist in efforts to 'democratise progress'.
Formerly Research Director for SPRU (2006-13) and the University of Sussex Business School (2009-2012), my current work here involves research and postgraduate teaching on democracy and sustainability in science and technology. Among many projects, I co-direct the ESRC-funded joint IDS-SPRU STEPS Centre, am Deputy Director for the DEFRA-funded joint Surrey-Sussex Research Group on Sustainable Lifestyles, and the Director of a spin-off University Enterprise on Multicriteria Mapping. A longstanding member of the Sussex Energy Group, I'm SPRU PI for collaborative initiatives on governance of climate geoengineering and the discontinuing of technological systems. I'm also involved in projects on reframing general concepts of security, understanding energy security, mapping science systems and exploring 'responsible innovation'. I serve on the Research Committee of the ESRC and on editorial boards for the Journal of Risk Research, Minerva, Nature EMBO Reports, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management and Environmental Innovation and Societal Transition.
Community and Business
Over the years, I've collaborated with a variety of public, business and civil society organisations, serving on several governmental advisory bodies. Internationally, these include the UN IHDP Integrated Risk Governance Initiative, the EU Energy Consultative Committee, Science in Society Advisory Committee and Expert Groups on 'Science and Governance', 'co-operative research' and the Future of Science in Society. In the UK, I've served on the statutory Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances, the DEFRA Science Advisory Council, the GM Science Review Panel, the Royal Society 'Brainwaves' project and the Nuffield Council Emerging Biotechnologies Working Group. I'm presently on the steering group for the UK BIS Sciencewise Programme. Work with civil society organisations includes memberships of Boards for Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK and the Global Energy Observatory. I'm presently seeking to build a non-profit, public interest enterprise to develop and establish a novel tool for 'opening up' strategic appraisal, called multicriteria mapping.


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It may feel like you were just at the pediatrician's office and now you're headed back again. Your baby will visit the doctor for more routine checkups in his first year than in any other year of his life.
The point of these visits is to make sure your baby is growing, developing normally, and staying healthy. They are also a great opportunity to ask any questions you have about your child's development, safety, immunizations, and nutrition.


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Secrest Resources is a family-owned Canadian company that has been supplying learning and assistive technology products to individuals, schools and other organizations for over a decade. Our software and hardware products are consistently effective, reliable, and cost-competitive.
We ship our products across Canada. All items are shipped by Canada Post, with a flat-rate shipping fee of $5.99 per order.
We recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of our website, Secrest.ca. After thousands of orders and just as many satisfied customers, you can have confidence in our order fulfillment process and our attention to the security of your personal information.


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Poll Shows Romney Leading in California
Republican presidential candidate front-runner Mitt Romney is comfortably leading in support from registered GOP voters in California, but his likely win in the June 5 primary will be without much enthusiasm, a new poll has shown.
Romney got support from 42 percent of registered Republican voters and his main rival, Rick Santorum, was trailing by as much as 19 points, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released Saturday. However, half of the state's Republican voters said they wished other candidates were running for president.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul were a distant third and fourth place, according to the poll conducted for The Los Angeles Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences about three months ahead of the scheduled primary in California.
The Times quoted Barbara Foley, a 73-year-old Republican, as saying that she decided to vote for former Massachusetts Gov. Romney by process of elimination. "I vote the lesser of two evils, unfortunately," she said, complaining that America under President Barack Obama had grown increasingly socialist. "Mitt Romney is the lesser of the evils."
However, the poll found that Romney's prospects against Obama among voters in California were not bright. Obama led Romney by 21 points, Paul by 28 points, former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum by 29 and Gingrich by 32.
Overall, 57 percent of California voters approve of the job being done by President Obama, up seven points among Californians since the previous USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll conducted in November 2011. Thirty-eight percent of voters said they disapprove of the president's job performance.
On the other hand, voters in the state had an overall negative impression of all of the Republican candidates. Romney was most liked among the voters, with 37 percent saying they had a favorable view of him. Paul was viewed favorably by 30 percent, Santorum by 28 percent and Gingrich by 25 percent.
The poll surveyed 1,500 registered voters by phone between March 14 and 19. The survey has an overall margin of error of 2.9 percentage points in either direction.
As of Saturday, Romney had 478 bound delegates, Santorum 182, Gingrich 133 and Ron Paul 26. Another 322 delegates are unbound, mainly from states that held caucuses. While Romney is clearly the front-runner, Santorum is trying to prevent him from getting the required 1,144 delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.


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Topic: P.A. Semi
Google buys mysterious firm run by former Apple employees
04/20/2010, 11:04 pm
Google's window-shopping for high-tech acquisitions has reportedly netted the search giant yet another asset -- a little-known firm spearheaded by former Apple employees who are working on technology no one knows about.
Apple's iPad A4 processor X-rayed to reveal three-layer design
04/06/2010, 12:04 pm
iFixit and Chipworks this week X-rayed and dismantled the Apple A4 processor that powers the new iPad, discovering a three-layer design with two layers of Samsung RAM and one with the actual microprocessor.
Former P.A. Semi chief leaves Apple for chip startup - report
03/13/2010, 02:03 pm
P.A. Semi founder and chief executive Dan Dobberpuhl, who joined Apple as part of the acquisition of his company two years ago, has since left the iPhone maker for a startup venture, according to a published report.
Apple exec Tim Cook talks Apple TV, iPad A4 processor, more
02/23/2010, 05:02 pm
Speaking in San Francisco Tuesday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook explained why the Apple TV is still considered a "hobby," and talked about custom-built chips in future products.
Photo of Apple's next-generation iPhone in the wild - sources
02/02/2010, 10:02 am
A photograph containing one of Apple's fourth-generation iPhones has been lingering undetected on the web for nearly a week now thanks to having been overshadowed -- quite literally -- by the company's new iPad, AppleInsider has learned.
Latest Snow Leopard build resurrects Atom compatibility
11/04/2009, 06:11 pm
Development build 10C535 of Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 retains Intel Atom support after the previous build had killed compatibility with the processor.
New ARM chips offer glimpse of future Apple products
09/17/2009, 10:09 am
Chip designer ARM announced this week new dual core Cortex-A9 processors capable of breaking the 2GHz barrier, perhaps foreshadowing the muscle behind Apple's future mobile devices.
Latest Apple tablet rumor: Feb. 2010 launch for $800-$1,000
09/15/2009, 07:09 am
A new report on Apple's long-rumored tablet device cites Taiwanese suppliers with a number of alleged specifics, including price, launch window and parts.
Apple's much-anticipated tablet device coming early next year
07/24/2009, 11:07 am
Exclusive: After four years of meticulous development riddled with setbacks, Apple is now racing toward an early 2010 launch of a device that may see the electronics maker redefine the portable computing market for the second time in twice as many years.
Multi-core ARM chips bound for Apple's next-gen iPhones
06/16/2009, 01:06 pm
Apple's new iPhone 3G S hasn't hit store shelves yet but already there's talk of next year's models, which are expected to leverage ARM's multi-core processor designs in giving the touchscreen handset a significant performance boost while simultaneously increasing battery life once again.
Apple's future iPhones may leverage ARM's v7 Cortex designs
05/21/2009, 01:05 pm
With Apple's first proprietary system-on-a-chip designs still rumored to be under active development, the iPhone maker may turn to ARM's standard v7 Cortex designs for multi-touch devices it plans to launch this year before building off the platform next year.
Apple's proprietary iPhone chips may not surface till next year
04/30/2009, 08:04 am
Apple's fairly public plans to design a family of exclusive chips to power its next-generation iPhone and multi-touch handheld products may not fully materialize until sometime next year, according to the Wall Street Journal, which provides an overview of the matter with a few additional details.
Apple reportedly adding more graphics chip experts to team
04/29/2009, 12:04 pm
Apple isn't done building its arsenal of chip designers, according to a new report, which claims the company will acquire the services of yet another expert who's enjoyed a long and successful tenure with the ATI/AMD camp.
Future iPhones to wield OpenCL acceleration
12/20/2008, 11:12 am
Imagination Technologies has posted a series of job openings for OpenCL engineers, indicating that the open, general purpose GPU parallelism technology Apple spearheaded for use in Mac OS X Snow Leopard is destined to also play a significant role in boosting embedded graphics and video acceleration on the company's future handheld products.
Intel ups stake in Imagination following Apple's buy-in
12/19/2008, 03:12 pm
Two days after Apple purchased a 3.6 percent share in Imagination Technologies, Intel increased its own stake in the British graphics chip design firm to a comparable share, filings show.
Apple puts former IBM exec in charge of handheld products
11/04/2008, 09:11 am
Apple on Tuesday confirmed the imminent departure of iPod chief Tony Fadell, saying he'll be replaced by a former IBM executive who'll oversee engineering of the company's handheld products.
Apple recruits top chip designer, IBM responds with suit
10/30/2008, 09:10 pm
Apple recently recruited a top chip designer from IBM, resulting in a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the executive from taking his knowledge as "IBM's top expert in Power architecture and technology" to the Mac maker.
Intel gets foot in mouth about ARM-twisting iPhone comments
10/24/2008, 03:10 pm
Damage control kicked into overdrive at the world's largest chipmaker this week in the wake of comments from two Intel executives who had a field day badmouthing the iPhone and its embedded ARM processor during a public developer forum, apparently without the company's blessing.
Intel says iPhone not capable of 'full Internet'
10/22/2008, 09:10 am
Intel Corp. this week used a developer forum in Taipei to tout its upcoming Moorestown platform for next-generation mobile Internet devices (MIDs) while slamming Apple's iPhone as a device bogged down by its use of ARM processors.
Intel shows off working Moorestown MID device
10/20/2008, 10:10 am
Intel on Monday showed off a prototype handheld based on Moorestown, its upcoming Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform designed to enable a new generation of ultra-thin, touchscreen devices with extensive battery life.


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'56 Up,' the latest in Michael Apted's series, confronts middle age and what it means to make a life
There have been complaints, I have noticed, made in anticipation of the release of 56 Up, the eighth installment in Britain's ongoing experiment in social portraiture, that there's not much new to learn about the half-dozen or so subjects Michael Apted has been following, at seven year intervals, for half a century.
Admit it, goes a typical remark, this was all more interesting during the years inevitably and literally marked by change. Now they're all middle-aged, with nothing much to show for it. The implication lingers: story's over.
It's safe to assume, I think, that the people making those remarks were born after the series began filming, as I was, and watched the first six or seven installments, as I did, in concentrated batches, skipping through decades like so many video discs. Whole lives seem to pass before us in a matter of hours; impatience for the good parts is natural enough. But the complaint doubles as a critique of the Up format: shaped by concerns about class and social determinism, the series is itself destined to reduce its subjects to clichés about childhood, youth, adulthood, and now middle-age.
And indeed, these are not in-depth biographies of thirteen British baby boomers with pointedly disparate economic backgrounds. Any of its subjects, several of whom have dropped out and then back in over the years and all of whom we know only by first name, will tell you that. "It's not a picture of me," one of them observes this time around, "but it's a picture of somebody."
The Up project was conceived to render and compare a small bunch of somebodies in broad strokes. Some Victorian residue clings to the idea that a life should be determined by accidents of birth or the marriage one makes. But there is also something of the modern fondness for defining life in terms of milestones nailed and five-year plans in the structure of the series, which mixes pop philosophy ("Give me a child until he is seven," the voice-of-God narrator intones in the first program, "and I will give you the man") and social studies with a healthy dose of voyeurism. As much as they sketch the contours of how life was lived by a certain demographic in a certain time, the Up films document the way stories were told at the dawn of the media age.
The series traditions are enforced in 56 Up, beginning with the participants' ritual statements of reluctance and capitulation. Series dropout Peter, last seen ripping on the Thatcher regime at 28 and now a government worker, admits his renewed participation is mainly a means of publicizing his new band. Suzy, the well-bred rebel-turned-cheerful housewife, compares the series to a bad book she's compelled to finish.
Some of the most fascinating reflections on the forces that have shaped the subjects' lives from within and without have to do with this ambivalence at being documented, represented, judged from a retrospective distance. Here as always Apted jumps between his subjects' variously aged selves with hypnotic, occasionally ruthless dexterity, mapping new narrative sequences and creating damning or salubrious conversations. Where we might project our hopes and disappointments onto various subjects at various stages in our lives, the Up series offers its participants coldly struck but irrefutable evidence of their former selves.
Several admit they no longer recognize themselves at seven, but only one disowns his buoyant mini-me. This is Neil, the dark and necessary heart of a group shown here anyway to have passed through life's tests, as articulated by Apted's marriage-, children-, and income-focused questions, with flying or at least flickering colors.
At seven, Neil was among the most exuberant of the kids, a charming Liverpool lad with a high-voltage flop of hair and a square-toothed, friendly-muppet smile. Unlike his comically posh counterparts John and Andrew, whose futures unfolded almost exactly as they (or more likely their parents) predicted, down to the Cambridge prefecture, at age seven, things didn't turn out the way Neil hoped. Shut out of Oxford, he dropped out of another university and is shown homeless and wandering the Shetlands at 28.
Plagued by what he calls "a nervous complaint" since 16, when Apted asks the 28-year-old where he sees himself seven years down the line, Neil, his fretful rocking barely contained by the frame, is piercingly frank: "I could think of all sorts of things I'd like to be doing; the real question is what am I likely to be doing?"
Though careers and benefits cut short by post-crash austerity measures forms one theme in 56 Up, along with aging parents, dependent adult kids, dreams deferred or unfulfilled, and second tries at wedded bliss, Neil's story chalks one up for Britain's thickly webbed social safety nets. Not homeless but lodged in a London council flat at 35, Neil went on to a career in municipal politics and is now a lay minister at his local church. (A notable number of the participants work(ed) in public or social service.)
Powerfully dignified and self-aware, Neil acknowledges that he has refused treatment for his mental issues but shuts down any further questions. "It's not for this program to expose my private feelings," he says. It might have been for the program to help Neil achieve his dream of becoming a published author, however. As he suggests with some bitterness, the public was not interested enough in his private feelings to seek them out in anything more than tightly bound and mediated form, once a decade.
It's for those moments and many others that I found the stories revisited and refreshed in 56 Up anything but stagnant. If the lives it profiles feel settled, the questions troubling the Up project only deepen. Is Apted God or just a prying aunt? Is the Jesuit quote underlying the whole thing pompous and cruel or cruelly accurate? A particularly British mixture of bureaucratic and artistic enterprise, the films favor statistics over psychology, perseverance over insight, a bird's eye over the secret heart. In this way their somebodies tell the story of us, how we wish to be seen and remembered, perhaps even known, and the many ways in which we'll fail.


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"Mr. Neil's wife says he finally crossed the line when he made their children put the families CD's back into their proper CD cases in order to earn lunch money for the day. The task had to be accomplished before the school bus arrived at 7:30 a.m."Evil taskmaster, that Mr. Neil.
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(b) Spore IP Rights. EA owns all of the right, title and interest in the Spore Creature Creator, the assets included in the Creature Creator for building and animating creatures and for creating backgrounds and video clips, and all derivative works comprised of those assets, including the Spore creatures that you create, animate, and capture in screen shots or video clips using the Spore Creature Creator. You may use only the assets supplied with the Creature Creator to create Spore Creatures. You may not further modify Spore Creatures with any other materials, tools, or software programs. All rights not expressly granted herein, are reserved by EA.
(c) Your Contributions. In exchange for use of the Spore Creature Creator, and to the extent that your contributions through use of the Spore Creature Creator give rise to any copyright interest, you hereby grant EA an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable and sub-licensable worldwide right and license to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Spore Games and related merchandise, including the rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable laws and international conventions.


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The International Space Station is always circling the Earth but isn't always exactly visible to us. In the daytime the Sun drowns it out, at night the Earth shadow usually covers it. This week though, you'll be able to see the ISS streaking across the evening sky.
How do you tell? Well, it's going to be the brightest object up there other than the Moon (and maybe UFOs).
Plug in your location here to find out when it crosses your way and be sure you look up when NASA tells you to because it'll only be going around for minutes at a time (it moves fast, that space station). [NASA via Wired]


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I knew it!
I knew something was deeply rotten in the state of Climate Science. I knew it years ago, and all these emails and computer files released from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia just confirm it.
I knew it when I first heard that so-called scientists wouldn't release their data. Originally it was just Penn State's Michael Mann, the guy who came up with the so-called "hockey stick" graph (debunked), refusing to give his data to Stephen McIntyre. Now we know that the CRU did the same, and I read today that James Hansen's GISS at NASA has refused requests for so long that they're being sued under the Freedom of Information Act.
Look, folks, real scientists don't keep their data secret. If it's secret, then they could have done anything to it (and the infamous Harry_ReadMe file shows exactly that). A real scientist (or, if you like and you think this stuff isn't junk science, an honest scientist) puts all their data out there first, and then tells you what their conclusions are. And if there are questions, they can point to their data and show how their methods lead to their conclusions out in the open. If there's a question or different interpretation, that can all be hashed out in the open. But if they hold something back, then they look like there's something to hide. Which, apparently, there was at the CRU, and it sure smells like there is at the other database holders.
I knew it when I first heard of peer-review shenanigans. First, there's the happy little club of GW climatologists who all review each other's papers, no skeptics allowed. Second, there's the attempts to prevent skeptics (or even just different interpretations orthogonal to the advocate-skeptic dimension) from even getting their papers peer-reviewed at all — and then claiming that their arguments are illegitimate because they're not peer-reviewed. Convenient, that. And now we hear about Phil Jones et al. trying to punish journals for accepting papers from skeptics.
Maybe this is how academic types do their thing on a regular basis, but it ain't science.
I knew it when ad hominem became the standard mode of debate. Real/honest scientists don't stonewall critics with the argument that they're all just ideologically-motivated deniers who just want to waste the scientists' time. Real/honest scientists point to the data (that's already public) and say "Got a case? Go ahead, make it and we'll see." (And the very term "denier" is clearly loaded.)
The second part of this is the argument "well, they're all funded by the oil companies, so we know their criticisms are dishonest and shouldn't even be considered." Really? So if we find out that the GW climatologists were funded even in part by Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace or Al Gore or George Soros, then can skeptics legitimately use the same argument? Didn't think so.
Argument by motivation is just as invalid as argument ad hominem. Look at the actual argument itself and see if it's valid. Tobacco company "scientists" are a joke not because they were funded by the tobacco companies, but because their "science" was laughable. And as has been pointed out elsewhere, pharmaceutical companies have a profit motive, but if we threw out every study from a pharmaceutical company scientist on motivational arguments we'd have a whole lot less beneficial medical knowledge.
But when we're not allowed to see the proponents actual argument in full, then we can't see if it's valid. At that point, it becomes legitimate to say "what's your motivation for hiding?"
I knew it when "there's a consensus" became the standard mode of refutation. Science doesn't operate by consensus — Einstein was very much alone when he proposed the theory of relativity, but who looks stupid now: him or the luminiferous ether advocates? "The consensus is clear" is another way of saying "if all my friends jumped off a cliff, I would too."
Certainly there is an assumption of trust: we all have a presumption that properly-trained scientists will be reasonably honest and that their findings can be trusted, especially if it's in a field in which we're not expert ourselves. But again, this depends on scientists acting like scientists and not like lawyers or evangelists. How many of the consensus members are only members because they believed the possibly-cooked data and possibly-bogus conclusions? How many will retract their approval now?
But it still goes on: the Obama Administration's "Climate Czar" just announced that she was going to ignore Climategate because she was on the side of the "thousands of scientists" who believed in Global Warming. The fact that there are thousands of scientists — including climatologists, just to kill that argument — who don't believe in Global Warming is apparently irrelevant.
I knew it when they crucified Bjørn Lomberg for having the temerity to suggest that there might be better ways to handle climate change than massive economic disruption. Look, Lomberg agreed with the IPCC conclusions (that were, of course, heavily based on the now-suspect CRU data) that said average temperature would go up. He just disagreed that massive statist solutions like, specifically, the Kyoto Protocol were the way to go — instead, he argued that mitigation was a much better road to follow than attempted (and doomed to fail) prevention. And further, that there were a lot of problems in the world that were a lot more pressing than global warming that could be addressed, and millions of people's lives improved, by spending a whole hell of a lot less money.
And that's when they excommunicated him.
I knew it when everything became evidence of Global Warming. If it was really hot in June, then "well, it's Global Warming". If it was really cold in January, then "well, Global Warming means more extreme temperatures, not just everything gets hotter". If it was cold in June or hot in January, then "well, Global Warming means the climate's going to be chaotic". All said, of course, with an air of total certainty.
I know weather isn't the same as climate (although there certainly seems to be a pennies-make-pounds sort of relationship). But if every piece of anecdotal weather evidence points to Global Warming, then it looks more and more like an unfalsifiable theory. To once again paraphrase one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies, when everything is evidence of Global Warming, then nothing is.
I knew it when every "adjustment" went one way toward more warming; when known climate events like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were airbrushed out of the record; and when every so-called solution only went one way toward more and more socialist control of the economy and thereby of people's lives. It's that last that really makes me think the whole thing was politically-motivated from the beginning.
Climategate pisses me off, but only to the extent that it's proof of the kind of bullshit that I've been pretty damn sure has been going on from the beginning.
I wonder what their backgrounds were before getting into climate science. Were all of them frothing greenies like Hansen or just radical socialists? How many had no preconceived notions about their subject matter, or more importantly the policy ramifications thereof? I know I said that argument by motivation is illegitimate, but their case is already suspect — if they came out with ironclad data and solid mathematical conclusions I wouldn't be wondering.
I was eventually planning to put this into a "This I Believe" post before this blog went on "indefinite hiatus" (Long story short: politics got depressing, we had a baby, we bought a house and started renovating it. But mostly politics got depressing, and I took a long break from even keeping up with the news.) But here's my short form take on climate change:
I don't believe that the Earth is heating up (note the word "believe"). I don't even think there's a good scientific case that it is. It may be doing so nonetheless, or it may be cooling off heading for the next ice age. Right now it's still "not proven."
The Earth, however, has endured much warmer periods than currently without planetary catastrophe, from the weak version of the Medieval Warm Period (a nice English wine, anyone?) to the strong version of the Cretaceous Period. "Endured" could easily be rewritten "enjoyed" in that sentence, since the evidence of the past is that warm is better than cold for humans specifically and the biosphere generally.
Since it's kind of presumptuous to declare that now is the bestest temperature ever and any deviation from it is proof of the evil of humanity, I follow Lomberg in saying that if things do get warmer and that has negative consequences for some people, then it's a whole lot better to mitigate those peoples' problems than it is to figuratively put on a civilizational hairshirt and hurt millions in America and by extension billions in the Third World by cutting way back on energy production here and preventing the Third World from ever having enough energy to get out of poverty.
Actually, it's far better and more moral to figure out a way to stop putting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere (because it's plausible that it's adversely affecting the climate even if not proven yet) that doesn't make everyone poorer. That means we have to figure out how to generate lots and lots of energy from something other than fossil fuels. Every serious look at wind/solar/geothermal/etc. comes to the conclusion that there's no way in hell those sources will ever cover our day-to-day base load of necessary power. That's why we need to go nuclear in a big way.


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Reversible Check Wool Blend Poncho
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- A reversible poncho made in Italy from an insulating wool blend. Adjust the relaxed fit by fastening the underarm button-tab closures.
- Poncho length: 93.5cm/36.8in. This is based on a size XS/S as proportions change slightly according to size.
- Model's height: 191cm/6ft 3in
- 78% wool, 22% polyamide
- Buttons: buffalo horn
- Single-breasted closure
- Patch pockets
- Side button-tab adjusters
- Specialist dry clean
- Made in Italy
Item 80098621


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WEST POINT — Only people with the hardest of hearts will come away from watching the heroic pursuits of handicapped athletes and feel nothing.
WEST POINT — Only people with the hardest of hearts will come away from watching the heroic pursuits of handicapped athletes and feel nothing.
The natural inclination is to see a disabled person and assume there is no way they can compete in sports. But tune in to watch a Paralympics competition and you can't help but admire these athletes for who and what they truly are: a triumph of the indomitable human spirit.
The sight-impaired can still run with guides. Volleyball can be played from a sitting position. Sledding devices help skiers traverse gates and hockey players to maneuver for shots on net. Basketball players race up-court, stop on a dime and often clash wheelchairs as they battle for position.
The Paralympics movement was born in 1948 in London as a showcase for handicapped British soldiers. The Paralympics are now linked with the quadrennial Olympic Games, in addition to annual world championship events, such as this week's athletics (track and field) meet in Lyon, France, and next month's swimming meet in Montreal.
Current Army track and field coach Troy Engle was introduced to the Paralympic movement in 2006 when the U.S. Olympic Committee recruited him in an effort to improve the American medal hopes. Engle headed into his assignment believing this was an opportunity to help the disabled. He came away a changed man and a changed coach.
"I think the misimpression is that it is an entirely feel-good experience from a coaching perspective,'' Engle said. "For me, the feel-good experience was working with athletes who had a challenge, who were every bit as serious as the athletes I coach at the college level. I didn't go into it thinking that or expecting the competitive fire that the world-class Paralympic athletes had. That was exciting.''
Engle prepared the American team for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, coaching the athletes through World Cups and the Pan American Games.
"One of the exciting things was reintroducing competitive sports to men and women who were hard-bodied warriors and had a setback,'' Engle said. "In the short term, they thought it ended their competitive sports career, and we re-engaged them into a competitive lifestyle. That was pretty cool.''
Engle reluctantly gave up his duties with the Olympic committee so he could accept his dream job as coach of the Army track and field and cross country teams, filling the shoes of one of his mentors, Jerry Quiller.
At West Point, however, the ravages of war are hard to miss. The cemetery is brimming with fallen warriors and tales of combat are plentiful in the wake of two wars. To its credit, the U.S. Military Academy does not shy away from the horror stories; rather, leadership invites veterans to paint a realistic and sobering picture of what cadets may face when they become officers.
Engle describes West Point as the crown jewel of the larger U.S. Army, and realizes there remains a growing number of Paralympic-eligible athletes coming out of war. Combined, the total of wounded American military from Operation Enduring Freedom (the action in Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom had reached 40,190 by late last year, with 1,910 from New York state. Engle has brought both of his coaching worlds together by introducing Paralympians to his Army teams.
"It's opened the eyes of the kids on our roster,'' he said. "At some point they may, unfortunately, have to deal with a soldier who has had a setback or injury and if they have been exposed to a Paralympian, they can talk to them about that.''
This week Engle is in Lyon, France, serving as an official at the Paralympic track and field World Championships, and then he is off to Moscow to serve as a coach with Team USA at the able-bodied World Championships. Working with the Paralympians, though, gives Engle a new angle on his profession.
"At the end of a long season,'' Engle said, "when we gauge our value as athletes or our value as coaches on the successes and failures of the season, whether we won the Patriot League or beat Navy, it reminds me there are bigger challenges in life and bigger rewards in sport that you can have. If I can get a week or two of them in the summer, it gives me perspective.''


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The first billboard painting to come out of the new studio… more soon.
new billboard painting
One Comment On "new billboard painting"
I love your use of the wood grain for both flesh and desert expansiveness. My vote goes to you for best use of plywood 2011- keep up the great work, it's ever-inspiring!
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text: why is it that when i try to use the drawtext or textout function within WM_PAINT message it puts it behind the background that i have set up as a static with SS_BITMAP? and when i take out the background static window, i can see the text. i am using the windows.h api and c++.


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(NSFW, as if there were any question.)
The rest of the week's top videos, including the new Andy Rooney, bad luck reading names, and a word from the Steamrolling industry, can be found over at Splitsider.
Arrested Development is coming back! We took a tour through its possible new homes, and we checked in on its recurring characters.
- In sadder news, The Simpsons might be ending this season, and probably won't continue for more than one season.
- We learned to diet by being depressed.
- We talked to the hard-working Nick Swardson.
- We searched for comedy in The Binding of Isaac.
- We wondered why Anna Faris isn't in many good movies.
- We went behind the scenes of The Onion News Network.
- We wrote the definitive guide to building the ultimate black comedian.
- We remembered SNL's Gilda Radner.
- We speculated on what an NFL lockout would've meant for The League.
- We spoke with stand-up Andrea Andrassy of Croatia.
- We found the lost roles of Tim Allen.
- We excavated the first appearance of The Honeymooners.
- We made a comedy Venn diagram!


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January 9, 2009 · Lessig
Here's the original segment.
Sam did the first remix of my Colbert appearance.
Jim Vanaria did another.
This is the first video remix I've seen.
Here's a remix from the Eclectic Method Mix.
And the audio to the show is available to be remixed on ccMixter here.
Colbert says (or more accurately, "says") you can't remix this. I say please do.


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By Chris Francescani
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - George Zimmerman's chief defense lawyer on Monday called Florida prosecutors "a disgrace to my profession" for holding back evidence for months and pledged a new effort to impose sanctions against them.
Mark O'Mara and co-counsel Don West argued the self-defense case that helped Zimmerman win an acquittal of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges on Saturday for the 2012 shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.
The law requires prosecutors to share evidence with defense attorneys, especially if it helps exonerate defendants. The requirement is known as the Brady disclosure.
O'Mara accused prosecutors of several Brady violations, which were heard by Judge Debra Nelson before the trial. Nelson postponed some of her decisions on sanctions until after trial, saying the process was time-consuming.
"This is not acceptable, and is not going to be tolerated in any case that I'm involved in," O'Mara told Reuters in New York on Monday, accusing special prosecutor Angela Corey and lead trial attorney Bernie de la Rionda of Brady violations.
"They are a disgrace to my profession," O'Mara said, referring specifically to de la Rionda and Corey. "They said my client was 'lucky' to have been acquitted. Really?"
Corey responded that O'Mara's comments were unprofessional and challenged him to point to any judge's ruling that her office improperly withheld evidence.
"Our office adhered to the highest standards of ethical behavior," Corey told Reuters in a telephone interview. "Our rules of professional conduct regulate comments like that. I don't think those are the kind of comments that are appropriate."
Her office confirmed last week that it had fired its information technology director, Ben Kruidbos, who had testified in a pre-trial hearing that files he created with text messages and images he retrieved from Martin's phone were not handed to the defense.
Kruidbos testified last month that he found embarrassing photos on Martin's phone that included pictures of a clump of jewelry on a bed, underage nude females, marijuana plants and a hand holding a semi-automatic pistol.
O'Mara said he intends to amend his request for sanctions against the prosecutors in light of testimony from the trial, calling prosecutors' failure to turn over data from Martin's phone records for months "an undeniable Brady violation."
Prosecutors handed over raw data from Martin's phone, but O'Mara accused them of withholding additional data that had been extracted by Kruidbos. Corey countered that the judge determined the defense was in possession.
O'Mara has quarreled with the prosecutors since they charged Zimmerman last year and has become increasingly aggressive in his criticism of the prosecution since his client's acquittal.
A jury in Sanford, Florida, found Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter after a three-week trial in which defense lawyers argued that the neighborhood watch volunteer, shot Martin in self-defense. (Additional reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Christopher Wilson)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.