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There can be various choices for dog fences and it comes in different styles and models. It may be a bit expensive when you purchase a dog fence especially those that come with the use of technology. But for the sake of ensuring that your dog is in its right place during your busy times, it will worth all the expenses. Having electric fence for dogs is particularly installing it isn't a hard task to do and actually you can do it by yourself.
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Who: Lauren Bradshaw, founder of Walnut Animal Society, which makes darling wool stuffed animals in the United States
Secret Travel Spot: Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida
Why Visit: "You can eat a delicious meal on a cozy couch while watching an independent film!" says Bradshaw of the nonprofit that's been around since 1985. Enzian's menu goes beyond movie theater classics like popcorn and nachos, with pear-prosciutto pizza, roasted portobello sandwiches, crab cake sliders, even beer and wine. "Afterward, head to the attached Eden Bar, which has a great cocktail selection."
More From Country Living
If You Go: Spend the afternoon walking along Park Avenue and New England Avenue in historic Winter Park, Florida, where you'll find small restaurants and shops, like Barnie's CoffeeKitchen and Rifle Paper Co.
Want to share what's special about your state? Post in the comments below, or tell us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, using the hashtag #clstatesecret.
See more state secrets from our CL Across America virtual road trip! »
37 ways to make something new out of something old »
70+ delicious Thanksgiving side dishes »
101 holiday decorating ideas »
30+ pro tips to host a stress-free Thanksgiving dinner »

subset: commoncrawl


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Enjoy EZCast App's fantastic functions for EZCast dongles, Chromecast dongles and Apple TVs now.
EZCast devices, in the forms of dongles or boxes, are the remote-free cross-platform (iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac) wireless display products, which receive and display the contents you love from internet and your own portable devices (smartphones, tablets, notebook and Mac).
EZCast APP for Android, developed by WinnerWave, displays documents and multimedia from Internet or your Android Pads/Smartphones wirelessly in cooperation with EZCast devices.
In addition, EZCast APP switches wireless display standards (DLNA, Miracast…) and control the setting through remoting the EZCast devices.
Since March 15, 2014 (App version 1.1.159+), EZCast APP (both Android/iOS version) supports Chromecast dongles and Android EZCast receivers.
Now Chromecast and Android dongle users can use EZCast to cast documents, multimedia from your devices, internet, cloud storages and social networks to the large display.
Check www.iezvu.com for complete user manual and related information.
Please report your issues by EZCast Comment function (Comment icon on the EZCast desktop). We will check the issues and answer you directly.
Android 4.2+ above(1GHz CPU and 1GB+ DDR are prefered) An EZCast dongle or box
Local photo display, Local Music/Video Streaming
Web browsing and Internet Video Streaming
Office document presentation
DLNA as a render (DMR)
Miracast mirroring
Setting control for the EZCast devices
Current Possible Connections are as follows:
Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Windows Phone EZCast App to EZCast dongles/boxes
Android/iOS EZCast App to Chromecast dongles
Android EZCast App to EZCast Screen App in Android devices (iOS version will be soon released)
Airplay/DLNA/Miracast to EZCast dongles
Airplay to EZCast Screen App in Android devices
For more information, please refer to EZCast official site: www.iezvu.com
EZCast, Happy Casting
If you encounter error code 963 / 903 from google play:
1) Clear the application Cache / Data for the Google Play Store and Google Play Services through the Application Manager in Settings.
2) Reopen the Play Store, navigate to Settings and scroll to the bottom of the page, if you're on build 5.5.12, you're OK to proceed. If your device is on an older revision, please wait a bit until the Play Store automatically pushes the latest build to your device.
3) Navigate to Settings -> Storage and select: "Unmount SD Card"
4) Navigate back to the Play Store and attempt to download updates, or any other application /game you were previously having issues downloading.
5) Observe the results, if the problem goes away, great! If not, try physically taking the SD card out of your device, rebooting and following all of the above steps in order.
What's New
support dropbox new SDK
Additional information
1,000,000+ downloads
Winner Wave Co.,Ltd.


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Google Earth is used when you want to explore rich geographical content, want to see satellite images, maps, landscapes, 3D buildings or view satellite images from galaxies in outer space. It also lets you search the whole planet within seconds without requiring you to leave your comfortable room. You can search for anything on this planet whether it is a building, a landscape or anything else, Google Earth will help you. In this post we have collected some bizarre and interesting Google Earth photos, we hope they will impress you.
Just so you know
Sign up for a free Jotform account to create powerful online forms in minutes — with no coding required.
Google Earth Photos
Will U Marry Me
Marriage proposal seen on a rooftop via Google Maps.
Google Escher Effect – Paris, France
Stitching together satellite pix and aero pics of cities can result in situations like this where the different aerial vantage points result in buildings' pictures being taken at different angles. Once stitched together, the taller buildings at the edges of each of the pictures appear to be leaning toward or away from one another at pronounced angles.
Graffiti in Google Maps
Site of an extinct volcano crater, the Cerro Prieto, located near Mexicali in Baja California (Mexico). Apparently, a lot of visitors to the site have decorated it with their graffiti, drawn huge enough to be seen from high above. The graffiti appears to have been drawn with the intention to be seen by people looking down into the crater from the eastern rim of the crater. Here's a closeup shot of it, taken from the ground.
Mystery Stone Arrow
Auto Antics
Think parking is tough where you live? In Westenbergstraat, Netherlands, drivers apparently have to park on the sides of walls.
Localised Black Hole Discovered
As we all know, the general theory of relativity states that a black hole is a region of space from which nothing can escape – including light. Astronomers have identified lots of places where black holes may exist, but apparently they missed one – about 60km north of Tokyo.
Internet fan says he found the face of Satan using Google Earth
Heart-shaped island highlighted by Google Earth becomes hit with lovers
The 130,000 square yard islet of Galesnjak came to prominence after its unusual shape was highlighted on Google Earth.
Man-Shaped Lake in Brazil
Iraq's Bloody Lake
This blood-red lake outside Iraq's Sadr City garnered a fair share of macabre speculation when it was noticed in 2007. One tipster told the tech blog Boing Boing that he was "told by a friend" that slaughterhouses in Iraq sometimes dump blood into canals. No one has offered an official explanation, but it's more likely that the color comes from sewage, pollution or a water-treatment process.
Issaouane Erg desert – Dunes (Algeria)
The shapes and colors of the dunes in this desert are amazing. Notice that the three dunes have almost identical shapes. And there are tens of thousands just like those all around.
Giant Gulliver from Google Earth, Hunters Hall Park, Craigmillar, Scotland.
Terrain Face in Google Maps
The terrain in Alberta, Canada accidentally forms what looks like a human face when viewed from the air or when viewing the satellite pic in Google Maps.
Osmington White Horse
The Osmington White Horse, outside Sutton Poyntz, UK. This prehistoric figure is carved into the white chalk of the hillside – such horse carved shapes are called "Leucippotomy".
Google Escher Effect pic from Houston
Here's another weird satellite pic from Google Maps of some downtown Houston skyscrapers. This effect has become known as the "Escher Effect", or the "Google Escher Effect".
Land Art near Munich Airport
Land Art or "Earth Art" appearing in a field near the airport in Munich, Germany.
KFC space logo
Yum! Brands Inc created the logo near Rachel, Nevada, and claimed it's the first ad that can be seen from space. If you recall, the same company had previously wanted to beam a laser ad up onto the moon for Pizza Hut, but had later scaled back to buying ad placement on the side of a Russian rocket.
Firefox Logo
Crop circle art made in the shape of the iconic Firefox Logo near Portland, Oregon.
Where's Waldo in Google Maps?
Canadian artist Melanie Coles built a large image of the iconic "Waldo" onto a rooftop at an undisclosed location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Bunny in Google Maps
Giant Pink Bunny created by a group of artists near Artesina, Italy.
Coca Cola Logo in Google Maps
This Coca-Cola logo in Google Maps was apparently created out of coke bottles just outside of Arica in Chile.
Portrait of Ghenghis Khan in Google Maps
Out of some sort of fear that they might forget who he was, the people of Mongolia have carved the likeness of Ghenghis Khan onto a hillside outside of Ulaanbaatar.
The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man – one of the world's most recognizable illustrations – is rendered here in crop art in Germany.
The Palm Islands of Dubai
The Palm Islands are artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the United Arab Emirates, who hired Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractor Jan De Nul and Van Oord, some of the world's specialists in land reclamation. The islands are the Palm Jumeirah, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira.
Oprah Maze
She's got a massive syndicated show and a magazine called O, and she was dubbed the most powerful celebrity in the world by Forbes. Why shouldn't Oprah get her own corn maze? An Arizona farmer created this 2004 tribute to the TV talk-show host.
World's Largest Fingerprint
Guitar-Shaped Mansion
I lOVE u
Crop Circles
Without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to crop circles is Google Earth. This circle in the desert just outside Beatty, Nevada.
Roof Ad, New York City
Roof ad seen via Google Maps in New York City, apparently for a "Roller Skating" rink.
Likely intended to target LaGuardia Airport passengers, but many rooftop ads like this are starting to provide impressions through users of Google Maps and other popular online mapping systems which include aerial photos and satellite photos.
Show Me a Sign
Ghost Town: Prypiat, Ukraine
Ni Pena Ni Miedo (No Shame Nor Fear)
Written in the sands of the Atacama Desert, Chile, are the words "ni pena ni miedo" which translate more or less as "No shame nor fear", and together they form what must surely be the world's largest poem.
Giant of Córdoba takes a bath
Giants have a hard time getting clean. I mean, baths aren't usually built big enough to fit your average giant, right? Which is the only sensible explanation as to why there's a giant sitting in the Guadalquivir river in Córdoba, Spain.
Google Maps Oddity
This is a very strange picture from Google Maps satellite picture of downtown Dallas. The rounded top building in the upper middle is the JPMorgan Chase Tower. Next to it is the tall rectangular 2100 Ross Avenue building (dead center). Catty-cornered from those two on the left side is the pointy-topped Trammell Crow Center which appears to be leaning at a sharp angle compared with the other buildings.
Brunel 200th Birthday Maze
This maze in the UK was made to celebrate Brunel's 200th birthday.
Land Art – Bug in Illinois
Effigy Tumuli, by Michael Heizer, are a few different land art pieces built on Buffalo Rock in Buffalo Rock State Park, overlooking the Illinois River. (Built between 1983-1985) The animal shapes are barely visible now from satellite pics, though you can see the beetle or roach shape outline in this screengrab.
Karl's Maze, Germany
Karl's Maze in Purkshof, Germany. Since 1921?


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Egypt keeps Muslim Brotherhood boxed
Egypt keeps Muslim Brotherhood boxed in
(CAIRO)Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazief is explaining to a small
group of
reporters his government s commitment to democracy. He promises that
restrictions on political parties will soon be eased to allow for real
political competition.
But when asked if the regime will legalize the Muslim Brotherhood,
Egypt s most popular and best-organized opposition group, a bit of
steel creeps into his congenial tone. "Never, he says. The
Brotherhood "will never be a political party."
The Brotherhood – which has provided the intellectual seeds for
peaceful Islamist political organizations throughout the world as well
as Islamist terrorist groups – is at the center of calls for more
democracy not just in Egypt, but in much of the Arab world.
And in this restless Arab spring, the 77-year-old organization, which
favors Islamic law and says it s committed to democracy, has been
roused from a public slumber. Worried that the proactive steps taken by
secular Egyptian reformers like the Kifaya (Enough) Movement could cost
the Brotherhood its position as Egypt s leading opposition movement has
stirred the organization into action.
In recent months it has organized demonstrations and in turn been hit
hard by the government. Thousands of leaders and activists have been
arrested in the past two months and more than 800 remain in government
custody. In an interview, senior Brotherhood leader Abdul Moneim Abul
Futuh alleges one of the arrested, who has since been released, was
"severely" tortured while in custody.
Brotherhood leaders say democracy isn t possible unless they and their
vast constituency are allowed a voice. The Egyptian government is just
as forceful in asserting that any system that allows them a route to
power will end in a new form of dictatorship.
A violent past
In most of the Arab dictatorships, Islamist organizations are the
principal opposition, and if they come to power are likely to
dramatically reconfigure their societies and their relations with the
That unpredictable potential shift frightens not only entrenched
regimes but the US and secular opposition groups. While the US has
spoken out against Egyptian attacks on secular demonstrators, the words
"Muslim Brotherhood" rarely pass US officials lips in public. Both
Arab regimes and secular opposition groups say the stated support for
democracy by Islamists is a chimera.
The Brotherhood, which has branches in almost every Muslim country,
favored assassination of political opponents and violent tactics in its
early decades, but abandoned terrorism in the 1950s. It hasn t been
involved in political violence in Egypt since, though it does support
political violence by Palestinians and by Iraqis, which it views as
legitimate resistance.
Egypt is not alone in outlawing the group. In Syria, where the local
Brotherhood is one of the strongest opposition groups, the movement is
illegal and membership is punishable by death.
On a day-to-day basis, the Brotherhood s leaders in Egypt have adopted
a discourse of democracy – both practical and ideological, if their
leaders are to be believed. "For the Brotherhood, the issue of freedom
is at the top of our agenda now, says Mahdi Akef, the Muslim
Brotherhood s soft-spoken supreme guide. "Freedom is at the heart –
it s the principal part – of Islamic law."
According to Mr. Akef, the Brotherhood has evolved a fairly unusual
view of Islamic law. Most Islamic orthodoxy holds that apostasy –
leaving Islam – is a punishable crime, and is never to be allowed. But
asked if his idea of freedom includes allowing a Muslim to choose
another religion, or no religion at all, he says, "of course."
Yet almost every non-Islamist in Egypt fears them. "I m not ready to
sacrifice my nation to these people, says Said al-Kimmi, an author
and historian of Islam who says he favors democracy for Egypt, but
limits on religious parties.
"They may say to you they support democracy, but if you look at the
history of their beliefs, democracy really doesn t fit with Islam. The
sharia is antidemocratic – the rights of women would be attacked and
they d cut people s throats. If my choices are Mubarak s corrupt regime
or them, I ll stick with what we have now."
Brotherhood s quandary
While the secular democracy activists of Kifaya are a narrow and elite
strata in Cairo and a few other large cities, the Brotherhood s roots
run deep throughout the country. There are 7,000 official chapters and
a network of mosques and charities that run schools, provide medical
services, and give aid to the poor.
No one knows precisely how many members the movement has, but a
Brotherhood rally against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 drew more
than 100,000 protesters. Prime Minister Nazief says he thinks that 10
percent of Egyptians support the group, at most.
Ali Abdel Fatah, the Brotherhood s burly and gregarious chief organizer
in Egypt s second city of Alexandria, laughs at the quandary of his
organization. He says the Brotherhood is doing everything in its power
to convince Egyptians of its commitment to democracy, but concedes that
it s difficult to disprove allegations that every democratic promise is
part of a conspiracy to trick the people and seize power.
"The Brotherhood should be the ones who are afraid, he says. "We
haven t had the trial of power, we aren t the ones who ve formed
military courts to jail opponents, executed peaceful activists,
destroyed Egypt s civil society, or transformed the state into a series
of personal fiefdoms. All we want is an open and fair system."
Mr. Fatah grew up in a secular household, and became religious at
college in the 1970s, at first under the influence of the Gamma
Isalmiyah, a more radical group that favored political violence. Like
many in his generation he was disillusioned with secularism after
Egypt s defeat in its 1967 war with Israel.
By the late 1970s, he d grown closer to the Brotherhood because of what
he said was its more humane and open approach. "For instance, if
someone was drunk in public, the Gamma would want to have him whipped.
The Brotherhood, instead, would want to talk to him and explain [that]
what he s doing is wrong."
Fatah and other Brotherhood leaders point to their management of
Egypt s professional syndicates as evidence that they re committed to
democracy. The syndicates – quasiofficial professional groups that are
a cross between unions and licensing organizations – hold periodic
elections. Members pay fees to the syndicates, which run both charities
and pension plans for their members.
An Islamic democratic model
In the 1980s, the Brotherhood began organizing to take control of the
syndicates at the ballot box under the tutelage of Mr. Futuh, a member
of the Brotherhood s organizing board and a probable successor to Akef,
who is 83, as the organization s supreme guide.
Futuh, who once ran the doctor s syndicate and remains a senior
official there, points out that when the Brotherhood has lost syndicate
elections it peacefully ceded control. In recent doctors and lawyers
syndicate elections, the Brotherhood ran fewer candidates than it could
have, essentially inviting representation from both pro-government
factions and secular opposition groups onto the boards.
"We changed from wanting to dominate the syndicates to allowing more
plural boards because, even though we know we could win control easily
with total Brotherhood slates we d be excluding a lot of people, he
says. "What we want out of our involvement in the syndicate is to give
an Islamic democratic model, to show that it works in practice."
Brotherhood leadership of these organizations has generally reduced
mismanagement and improved their financial condition, but has also
provided the Brotherhood with a source of funds to advance its own
agenda. In recent years, the doctor s syndicate, for instance, has sent
a large amount of aid to Palestinians, winning goodwill for the
Brotherhood in the process.
And while the doctor s syndicate board may have fewer Muslim
Brotherhood members than it used to, the organization s downtown
offices remain a bastion for the brothers. The hallways are covered
with panoramic photos of the Brotherhood s 2003 protest against the
Iraq war and pictures of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the assassinated leader
of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The pace of change
Futuh says Egypt s President Hosni Mubarak is so deeply opposed to his
organization because of America, which he claims largely controls the
Egyptian regime. He says the US knows the Brotherhood would change
Egypt s policy toward Israel and probably overturn the two countries
20-year peace deal if it won power.
But while he and other Brotherhood members express frustration at the
slow pace of change, they also say they remain committed to the
organization s long-term strategy in Egypt, which has put preservation
of the movement s core above risking an all-out conflict with the
government that could see them destroyed. Fatah says the organization
expects it to take decades to rise to power, but it s willing to wait.
Ibrahim al-Hudaiby, a Brotherhood member whose grandfather and
great-grandfather ran the organization until their deaths, is a student
at American University in Cairo. The movement s democracy rhetoric is
no trick, he says, and that the Brotherhood is unlikely to push for
more open conflict with the government.
"Revolutions don t really lead to democracies, just look at Iran, he
says. "The Brotherhood really wants a democracy in Egypt, and it s
willing to wait to make that happen peacefully."
Christian Science


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The Blair House Inn is a charming Texas bed and breakfast located in the heart of the Texas Wine Country. Don't let these colds months discourage you from visiting one of the top wine destinations in Texas and in America. Home to over two hundred wineries and vineyards, each winery is unique with their own special varietals and techniques for producing wines.
Explore the Texas Wine Country, book your next vacation at the Blair House Inn. Throughout the months of January and February, we will be hosting our Annual Vintner Dinner Series. The Blair House Inn invites the areas Vintners to showcase their wines at our weekly Saturday Day Evening Dinners. This is a great opportunity to learn about the winemaking process, discover the fascinating history of Texas grapes, enjoy a five-course gourmet dinner and take pleasure in the company of your loved one.
Join us for our Vintner Dinner Series in a special Texas bed and breakfast venue, the Blair House Inn. We are located on 22 beautiful acres with gorgeous hill country vistas. Our Inn is the perfect setting for a romantic getaway, this Blair House is a recipe for love. Surprise that special someone with a weekend of food, wine, and luxury accommodations.
We are pleased to have the following wineries join us of the Vintner Dinner Series:
Duchman Family Winery – January 26
Bella Vista Ranch – February 2
Westcave Cellars – February 9
Bell Springs Winery – February 16
Pleasent Hill Winery – February 23
If you just can't get enough of wine. Be sure to get tickets to Uncork an Adventure: A Taste of Italy hosted by The Leaning Pear. This event will be held Sunday, February 10 from 5-8pm. Enjoy eight pairings and antipasti all in support of St. Stephen's Episcopal School.
Don't miss out on this great event, make your reservations early these dinners sell out quickly. Contact the Blair House Inn to make reservations or for more details call us at 512-847-1111.
Explore, savor, and relax at the Blair House Inn, a Texas bed and breakfast located in the heart of Wine Country.


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text:
How Apple & Google Failures Will Revolutionise TV
Your television is a mess. It may look gorgeous, the picture quality may be jaw dropping and the price a bargain, but the whole sector is so badly unfocused, so entrenched in industry dogma and so distracted by gimmicks that even the most influential players will soon be swept aside by products initially deemed failures. Their most likely names? Apple TV and Google TV.
Need proof? The arrogant language from Google chairman Eric Schmidt this week was telling. Speaking at the Le Web conference in Paris he made the sweeping statement that: "By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it."
Critics laughed, but they missed the point – whether Google TV achieves a 51 per cent or greater share in the next six months is immaterial. The point is Google believes the sector is such a lame duck it can use an abject failure to walk over multimillion dollar television platforms in the blink of an eye.
Schmidt isn't alone, none other than Steve Jobs was on his side. "He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant," explained Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson recently. "'I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,' he told me. 'It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.' No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. 'It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.'"
The furore which surrounded Isaacson's words has caused rampant speculation that Apple is about to build a television. Again these voices miss the point. The point was the same as Schmidt's: a major technology leader saw the television sector and its surrounding infrastructure as so fundamentally flawed that its own historical shortcomings meant nothing and it anticipates it can still walk in and take over.
So what are these terrible flaws? Jobs gave detail to Schmidt's general disdain: televisions are unintuitive and inelegant, fundamentally isolated from other devices and software, their control systems are outmoded and their content sources complex. But why would Google TV or Apple TV – both little more than hobbies for their respective companies – be deemed to have such easy routes to success? The answer lies in their programming cores, Android and iOS. The ubiquity of these platforms, along with their hardware agnosticism means consumers, developers and manufacturers will know what they're getting and that what they're getting is easy to use and upgradeable. Much like phone manufacturers' roles in the smartphone wars saw them pushed to being essentially hardware only companies, TV makers – in lacking industry-wide, consumer accepted platforms – will be forced eventually to yield to this cross platform future. As for the content providers, in the big picture they are but apps anyway.
Naturally enough, however, there are significant bumps in the road…


text:
Click here to download Patriotic Rail Fence (PDF file)
AccuQuilt GO: You can use the 3.5 inch half square triangle die, and the 3 and 6 inch finished squares die for the Sawtooth Stars.
Rotary Cutting for Sawtooth Star
If you have problems opening the above link, right click on it and save it to your computer and then open it. Email me with any questions or problems at firstname.lastname@example.com
Here's a view of the full top.
Here's my latest top. I changed the row of stars to Ohio Stars and made it scrappier.
Here's my EQ drawing for the 12 inch Ohio Stars. I used the GO Baby and the 8 inch Qube to make my stars – it takes the 4 inch finished quarter squre triangle and 4 inch finished square dies.
Quarter Square triangle (QST) – (cuts 4 at a time)
- Cut 32 white QSTs
- Cut 28 red QST
- Cut 20 blue
Squares – 4 inch finished
- Cut 12 blue
- Cut 11 white
- Cut 2 red squares
I'd made a different version of this quilt in 2001 and I found a photo of my top online at an old site I hadn't visited in years.


text:
Here's an engaging read from this AMs NYT on why economics doesn't qualify as a science, and, more fundamentally, asking what is it good for, anyway?
On the first point, you'd probably be hard pressed to find even many economists willing to defend our discipline as a science, or at least anything resembling a hard science. As the Times piece points out, "The trouble with economics is that it lacks the most important of science's characteristics — a record of improvement in predictive range and accuracy."
Right…there's that. And this fundamental limitation grows from the fact that the theories, variables, concepts, even the most fundamental building blocks of economics are social, not physical constructs. You drop a stone, known forces determine its trajectory. You change a price, and economic theory can tell what might happen. It can even tell you—with mathematical precision—what should happen if that price change is met by fully rational actors with full information.
But it cannot tell you what will happen, nor will it ever be able to do so.
But that doesn't mean economics is useless. The authors come up with some compelling ways in which it can and does help improve society which I'll get to in a second. But first, at least for my money, they actually didn't go nearly far enough in indicting the way the discipline is misused and abused in the real world.
Because economics both poses as a hard science and fails to generate reliable predictions, establishing economic facts is an elusive exercise. Battling statistical analyses come to opposite conclusions on the impact of fiscal stimulus, changes in tax rates, wage mandates, regulations, and so on. Into this void steps money and power, such that today we find ourselves with think tanks staffed by economists who provide their clients with the answers they seek. And since those with the deepest pockets can buy the results that best serve their goals, it is increasingly difficult to generate the wealth of evidence needed to offset market failures, inequities, and even existential threats.
Suggest that more progressive taxation is necessary to raise revenues for productive investments or social insurance, and some group of economists will line up to explain how that will backfire (what we really need to do, they'll helpfully point out, is to cut taxes on the wealthiest). Deficit alarmism, often based on faulty pseudo-science about the impact of deficits on interest rates and growth, has contributed to the current moment, wherein governments in most advanced economies are pursuing austerity measures that are clearly contraindicated—i.e., they're not working!
One doesn't even have to look far to find pseudo-economic science trumping real science. The costs of global warming are heavily "discounted" by economists who present "hard numbers"—many of which come with decimal points!—representing the real growth and jobs we'll lose if we try to regulate carbon or other environmental threats.
So what good is economics?
Since Hobbes, philosophers have been concerned about the design and management of institutions that will protect us from "the knave" within us all, those parts of our selves tempted to opportunism, free riding and generally avoiding the costs of civil life while securing its benefits. [Philosophers] recognized that an economic approach had much to contribute to the design and creative management of such institutions. Fixing bad economic and political institutions (concentrations of power, collusions and monopolies), improving good ones (like the Fed's open-market operations), designing new ones (like electromagnetic bandwidth auctions), in the private and public sectors, are all attainable tasks of economic theory.
A key component of the above is the part of economics that I think is the most important: identifying market failures. The best and most useful economists these days are the ones who spot ways in which markets are working badly or not at all. How financial bubbles, output gaps, high unemployment, and poverty can be avoided or offset. How taxing carbon could internalize a negative externality. How financial market regulation could reprice risk that's underpriced by markets. How investments in disadvantaged families and children could offset the opportunity deficit they're born into in ways that rob both them and the broader economy of their realized potential.
There's irony to all this. The most useful economists today are the ones who can most clearly see through pseudo-scientific evidence purporting to show that unfettered markets will self-regulate and that interventions will do more harm than good. In this regard, our best economists are the ones who look upon today's economic science with a very jaundiced eye.


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I've got to say that I'm so excited to garden this year! I'm excited to be pushing my own boundaries and learning how to become better at it. Not only have I started some new seedlings inside and outside this week but I've also done a bit of research into learning companion planting. I'm so excited to you you guys what I've planted this week and how I'm going to use my garden beds.
So for this week I started planting one of each of my fruits and vegetables. I've also planted out some different types of flowers as well. Inside I planted Roma tomatoes. I'm really excited to be growing this variety so that I can make pasta sauce. However, outside I've planted strawberries and Danver carrots. I don't know the variety of straw berries because they are store bought ones that started to go bad and well I just really wanted to at least not let the seeds go to waste. We go through a lot of strawberries so I really didn't want those ones that went bad to go to waste. I've also started planting flowers as well too. The flower seeds that I've planted are echinacea, painted daisy, lupine, asylum and ornamental grass (a smaller variety). I've selected those flowers for two reasons. The first is that I wanted something that is a perennial and would come back year after year. The second is that they can attract pollinators (bees) and fight off unwanted pests too. I do not want to use any pesticides on my plants. I planted my perennials in two different spots and for slightly different reasons. The first is the obvious in my planter bed to help pollinate my garden and the second place is in the bed in my front yard for aesthetic reasons. Also, I wanted to make sure to tell you guys as a tip when you planting new seedlings inside or outside is to make sure you water your soil first before planting. The is so that your seedlings don't become washed out and "misplaced". You defiantly don't want that to happen.
Another important aspect of gardening is what is called companion planting. Companion planting can help your crops grow by not only sometimes giving it nutrients but it can help ward off unwanted pests. Take for example tomatoes and basil. The herby smell of the basil helps repel bugs and more specifically hornworms. I've learned how important companion planting for your garden is. In the next few weeks you guys are going to see me do a lot of companion planting with different herbs and plants.
I can already feel that this year is going to be a big year for growing my garden. Especially with what I've learned on how much companion planting and having pollinators (flowers) in your garden can help in the growth of your harvest. I'm not that great with growing flowers but it is something that I'm willing to learn. I'm just hoping that all this rain that we have had this week is going to help with the seeds that are germinating outside.


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I met Nora Ephron at one of those parties where women like her will be accosted by people trying to slip their Chardonnay into her circle, where women like me will get her eyes for four anonymous minutes, and go home grateful.
She was with her husband Nick Pileggi and a few years ago I'd read Heartburn and so on this evening I thought, Good, you have it right now and you deserve it, because when he put his arm around her shoulder and she moved into it like routine, she seemed to understand that she wasn't lucky, she was deserving.
We talked about Citarella, the best places in the city to buy cheese, some quiet Italian on the Upper East Side. The silly standard New York things that I would repeat later to girlfriends I knew would care not because Nora Ephron was a bold name but because she was that girl-woman sitting in the front of the lecture hall, in funny shoes with perfectly imperfect hair or something less banal because she is Nora Ephron and not someone trying to do her justice when she's just died. Not because she was "one of us" but because she was better than one of them.
There's a line in Heartburn, "Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I'll show you a real asshole."
No shit. But nobody writes that. Women don't write that stuff. And she wasn't some anti-feminist cynic either. She wrote some of the best romantic comedies of the past two decades. Sleepless in Seattle is something you can watch when you're sick, when you're in love, when you're in hate, when you're in loss. You can watch it a thousand times and visit Seattle because of it and come home and watch it again and think you must have missed the right certain pier. She wrote about orgasms like a woman who was smart enough to understand everything about an orgasm. She wrote for Cosmopolitan under Helen Gurley Brown in a way that would make me read women's magazines today.
In Heartburn she talks about her famous vinaigrette. About making that vinaigrette through the pain of having been left by her husband (a man "who is capable of having sex with a Venetian blind") for a woman who looked like a "giraffe with big feet." What you have to understand if you're a man is that Heartburn is more than an anthem for women who have been cheated on. It's the epitome of making lemonade. It's for every time you have been stomped on and whining about it, it's for having some unseen force with the heart and bosom of your mother but the deadpan shoulder shrug of the grim reaper saying, Okay so get over it already.
So the vinaigrette is more than a salve, it's a freaking recipe and not in a metaphorical sense. A recipe in a book about cheating. Because when all is said and done, you come out with yourself, and you make your coq au vin and you make your Julia Child opus and you say Fuck you to the people who hurt you, you say it in a million different ways and fifteen unique evenings of roux. Because it was a book about love, like almost every heroine in every movie and every book she wrote, Nora Ephron knew how to be in love and then she knew how to love herself more for not being an asshole, for being, as she once said, "not the victim of your life, but the heroine."
So I didn't know Nora Ephron. I wouldn't rank on the top fifty conversations she's had with anonymous aspirants at a Tuesday night awards dinner. So talking about her, I feel silly, like I want to talk about her right, like as one of the ten billion younger women who want to one day be a woman like her, I want to not be a leaf-gaping asshole.
In an old issue of Esquire, there's a story about Helen Gurley Brown that made me fall more in love with Helen Gurley Brown but even more than that it made me fall in love with Nora Ephron. It was just cool, it was a cool story about a cool woman written by a cool woman. It made me sad that there aren't more of them around, but it made me grateful that Nora Ephron was around. So right now I'm as sad as someone can be, who didn't know her. Sad in that way you can feel general loss in a specific coring way, the loss of an intelligent cool breath in a city of falling leaves.
Nora Ephron died tonight, and if you're a man you lose a woman that if you're lucky, should remind you of your wife. If you're a woman you lose a woman that, if you're smart enough, should remind you of what you can hope to be, if you cast the bullshit aside and say what's on your mind and feel what's in your heart, and don't mind writing the romantic comedy for a bunch of leaf-changers who will love you even if they don't understand precisely why they do. You lose someone who didn't mind the Chardonnay in her face, because she was going home anyway to make the vinaigrette.
TOM JUNOD: Nora Ephron's Afterlife
TOM CHIARELLA: Nora Ephron, Everything Woman
CHARLES P. PIERCE: Nora Ephron and the Rowdies at the Brim
STEPHEN MARCHE: What Was Nora Ephron's Greatest Line?
AND DON'T FORGET: ...What She Was Having
Lisa Taddeo is an author and two-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize—her book Three Women can be purchased here.


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Some people will do just about anything to raise money for a good cause – even jump out of a perfectly good plane.
WGNTV's Dina Bair and Marcella Raymond fell out of the skies over Rochelle for Operation Pink Sky.
Local celebrities took the plunge at Chicagoland Skydiving Center to raise money for Northwestern Memorial Hospital and a breast cancer vaccine trial.
They even raised more than $17,000 dollars for the cause.


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The main card is set for Cage Warriors Fight Night 3, which features UFC vets such as Kyle Watson and Tommy Speer.
The show, which kicks off the organization's 2012 schedule, also features two opening-round matchups from the organization's eight-man middleweight tournament.
The event takes place Feb. 11 in Beirut, Lebanon, and streams for free on MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).
Headlining the event is a lightweight bout between Watson (13-7-1) and Juha-Pekka Vainikainen (18-5-1). Watson, a cast member on "The Ultimate Fighter 12," defeated Sako Chivitchyan at the show's live finale, but the UFC released him following a UFC 129 loss to John Makdessi. Vainikainen, a Finnish fighter, enters the fight undefeated (7-0-1) in his past eight fights.
Speer (19-5) was was released from the UFC following a runner-up finish to Mac Danzig and a subsequent defeat to Anthony Johnson. But he's since rebounded with an 8-2 run that he'll bring into his middleweight fight with Mats Nilsson (7-1-1), a Swedish competitor and promotional newcomer who's riding a three fight win streak.
Also slated for the card are tourney bouts of Victor Cheng (7-2) vs. Matt Gabel (7-2) and Gareth Joseph (9-4) vs. Faycal Hussin (6-2). The winners advance to the semifinals on April 12.
Rounding out the main card are welterweights Ben Alloway (10-3) vs. Mauro Chimento (14-8), featherweights Matteus Lahdesmaki (11-7-3) vs. Graham Turner (18-6), and welterweights John Donnelly (7-4) vs. Domingos Mestre (8-4).
The latest Cage Warriors Fight Night 3 card includes:
- Juha-Pekka Vainikainen vs. Kyle Watson
- Mats Nilsson vs. Tommy Speer
- Victor Cheng vs. Matt Gabel (middleweight-tourney opening round)
- Ben Alloway vs. Mauro Chimento
- Matteus Lahdesmaki vs. Graham Turner
- John Donnelly vs. Domingos Mestre
- Faycal Hussin vs. Gareth Joseph (middleweight-tourney opening round)
For more on Cage Warriors Fight Night 3, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Kyle Watson)


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Repost: Routes to Independence: Beyond Ye Olde Skool Tenure Track Assistant Professorships
June 26, 2008
This is a followup to an older entry I recently reposted following a post from the Mad Hatter on alternate careers. I thought perhaps this was relevant to the ongoing discussion we've been having about postdoctoral views on the dismal prospects for transition to independence.
Still not done with the issue of nontraditional entries to independent research positions. "Independent" here being somewhat narrowly defined as the ability to submit and hold research grant funding (not just fellowships) as a Principal Investigator. I've been advocating postdocs to look beyond the traditional route to independence, i.e., applying for hard money salary, tenure track assistant professorships (with startup funds!) advertised halfway across the country. Physioprof is most familiar with the more traditional route to independence but is, I hope, being won over a bit. S/he asks:
Drugmonkey, if you personally have taken a "non-OldeSkool" route, would you mind summarizing your path?
I thought I'd try to outline the various routes to independence with which I am familiar. This may help the postdoc to keep his or her eyes open to opportunity as it presents itself. First, some usual situations in which "the offer" arises. The majority of these are some version of the promote-from-within meaning a postdoc, already present in the University/Research Institute (institution), is offered the chance to write a research grant and thereby launch an independent research career. Your Humble Narrator received such an offer. A second category which is not unheard-of, is a solution struck for the dual-career or two-body problem [Update: Good news on 2-body]. This occurs when one half of a scientific couple is being recruited for a more traditional position and negotiations begin for what to do about the spouse. In some cases (depending on relative negotiating positions, relative career status of the two members of the pair, institutional hardassness, etc) the spouse may receive some sort of non-tenure-track offer. A third category is a subset of the first, in which someone is recruited as a postdoc with a rather explicit arrangement that this will eventually turn into "the offer" of transition to independence. This can work via the actual "postdoc/research associate" solicitation (yes, I've seen these) or in the negotiation process for a more typical postdoctoral appointment. In case it is not obvious, one of my goals with this whole discussion is in increasing the number of postdocs on their second postdoc search who are alert to this potential.
The details of the career being offered can vary tremendously. As I mentioned in a footnote to the previous post, the job title matters little to the question of whether a grant may be submitted with a given individual as PI. These details may matter tremendously to your career.
The Deal.
The best version of "the deal" is being offered the chance to go straight to tenure track assistant professor status no different than anyone else. YHN was so fortunate. The reason why this is non-traditional, of course, is that the promotion was contingent upon getting funded, meaning the whole salary funded (we're generally talking soft-money positions here so this will be common) with one's own grant. [I will note this is one area where institutions are in a very grey area with NIH. If I have the official NIH line down properly, contingent offers should not be occurring. It is not clear to me whether institutes have staked out wiggle room, know they are violating policy OR whether lower level POs don't really know the difference between tradition and regulation.] One popular variant is that the transitioning scientist need only figure out how to cover the salary and hold some research grant, meaning it is sufficient to get a smaller award and then participate on someone else's grant. This is one of the details to understand clearly in your particular situation because it gives you an idea of how possible your transition will be and how long it will take. Not to mention whether to bother with R21s or only shoot for R01 apps. Whether the K01 counts. Whether non-NIH funding counts. Etc.
Slightly Less-Good.
A less good, but still decent category of offer will be for non-tenure track positions. Instructor. Assistant Research Professor, Research Scientist, Project Scientist, Staff Scientist, Assistant Professor (non-tenure track). Different institutions use different terms and sometimes multiple terms to differentiate those with grant-submitting rights from those who do not have such privileges. Apart from the ego thing of what your title is, there is frequently a difference in rights to research space. Not always. In some cases the non-tenure-track thing is similar save but in name. "Tenure" tends to mean little in soft-money jobs, for instance. Some institutions couldn't care less about extending you your space rights, particularly when you keep pulling in the funding and publish nice papers.
Nevertheless, these categories are going to be more likely to leave you "under" your current PI (or perhaps the Chair) to a greater extent. Consequently there is no real need for a "contingent" offer of promotion, one is just extended the permission (sometimes on a case-by-case basis via Chair letter) to submit a grant. No need to change anything until the grant is awarded. It is obviously more risky for the transitioning investigator to be tied to a bigger PI for space, but then there are no guarantees even with traditional offers. How many times does that promised space suddenly disappear or receive mysterious reclassifications into "shared space"? How often does a loss of funding mean a loss of space no matter what your job title or how long you've been using it? The practical on this is that if this is the route available, you are going to have to have pretty full and enthusiastic support of the PI. It also means you are relatively more likely to see this as a very temporary stepping stone, which is ok. Some situations I've heard of make this very explicit, as in "we expect you to use this opportunity to get a grant and then get a real tenure track job somewhere else within 4-5 years". Again, compare this to the alternative of more postdoc'ing and a job search without a grant rather than comparing with the traditional appointment.
A Note of Caution.
Get as much as you can in writing with the appropriate signatures from the administration of your institution. I've seen institutions change "rules" many times over the past five years alone. Whether promotions from within are allowed or not. Can go to tenure track or not. Need any research grant so long as it covers the salary (and is fully overheaded!), whoops, no can only qualify with R01 because R03/R21 are not renewable. Any research funding versus NIH funding only. Given that it is going to be a two year proposition from rounding up the appropriate permission to submit until you finally get a fundable score on that A1 revision, well, things can change. I've seen some unpleasantness over the old "you promised me a year ago and now you are reneging because of changed institutional policy" resolved in the jr scientists favor because of the paper trail.
Half a Loaf is Better than None.
"I'm not going to bother with all that because it seems too uncertain and I'm outta here in two years anyway". Error. First, one of YHN's firmest beliefs is that you should do what you can with where you are now instead of looking over the horizon; you never know what is going to come up. It isn't the slacking postdoc that is extended these contingent offers, it is the one that is producing for this PI, right now. Sure you are going to look for a job but how much more competitive will you be if you have a quasi-independent position and/or actual grant money. [And yes, you can take research funding with you. Despite the fact that the award is to the institute, in all cases I've ever heard of when the PI wanted to take the money they were able to, although this may be pointless if there is less than a year to run on a given award.] But half a loaf is good too. Perhaps you'll not have a grant but have a score to show a search committee. This should mean something. Heck, just the fact that you've written a proposal that you can in good faith say is your own work should be respected. Anything to put you ahead of the next applicant. And, you just never know. It may take your three years on the job market to find anything, maybe more. You might as well also be doing what you can on the home front. You never know when someone might die (I'm not kidding. Freak accidents took big names in neuroscience (Goldman-Rakic) and aging (Thal) in very recent memory. Random illnesses have taken some in the less well known field of drug abuse (Fischman, Segal)) or leave science and open up an opportunity for the best-prepared trainee around…
Stupid Grant Tricks.
There are many ways to skin a cat. I have seen several instances of people getting "their grant" via participation on a big Center or Program Project type mechanism as the PI of a subcomponent, most often a service Core. This has implications, one of the surest killers of your launch is to get loaded with a lot of service work for ungrateful, more senior investigators. On the other hand, sometimes this is the opportunity to launch so whadda ya gonna do? You take it and make it work. This relationship holds in traditional hires too, btw, where sometimes a department is really, really keen to get a new model/technique that the newly recruited scientist brings. Another way is PI-substitution. Remember that the institution holds the grant, not the PI? This means they decide who the PI is. Now, let's admit that the NIH IC is going to take a strong interest in this and they can refuse to award the grant in the first place or refuse to continue a noncompeting interval. But PI substitution does happen, particularly when someone dies (morbid, yes, but it happens people) or leaves academic science and agrees totally with the swap. It can happen at the competing continuation stage, probably this is one of the most frequent PI swaps. Strategically, the best way is to do the swap formally in an existing year of funding so that the newly transitioning investigator can claim to have been running the show for a year or more. It also presents a fait accompli to the IC. This happens more frequently than you think. A little judicious CRISP searching can tell you some interesting things about who, even of the luminary variety, got launched by taking over a grant or two from an even more senior luminary.


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In the last few weeks I've started to riff on James Govenor's meme, that of developers becoming the new kingmakers. I recently wrote a post discussing what I saw happening with Salesforce – how the combination of force.com and Heroku was creating a real gravity pull for developers and that Salesforce was primed to be at the epicenter of this development. A number of people pushed back on that theme, in particular questioning how force.com – a business centric PaaS that is admittedly highly proprietary, can constitute anything compelling for developers.
Not being a developer – my comments come from a business perspective. That might be anathema to most developer purists, but I sense that what we're seeing with high level PaaS' like force.com (and, for that matter, the other SaaS-based highly flexible platforms, is an uber-democratization of development that will prove even more revolutionary for developers and business than IaaS has been for operational teams within an IT organization. That's the reason I started differentiating application PaaS (aPaaS) from infrastructure PaaS (iPaaS)
Let's see how that works. With cloud, organizations no longer need to think about procuring, racking and stacking servers. Rather they obtain their server needs on a utility basis from a cloud provider (in the case of the public cloud at least). CapEx is removed, the need for large operational teams goes, and all of a sudden the ability to acquire server time moves from central IT, down to tech teams within a business unit. All fine and good so far, but let's get to the next stage, PaaS.
In the old days, a business that wanted to, for instance, create a custom application that integrated with its ERP or CRM, would have needed to engage a developer with a deep understanding of both development languages and the hooks into the software package being integrated with. With aPaaS that is no longer the case. The platform itself is built upon the application and hence is already integrated with the core data the organization is trying to use. The language is easy enough for most business people to use and hence they do, creating applications at will.
This concept, of aPaaS being the catalyst for massive democratization, was well articulated in a recent post that went out on a significant limb by saying that "Force.com is the next Visual Basic". Rather than an insult however, the author stresses that reactions to force.com replay many of the those that went alongside the introduction of VB a couple of decades ago:
- Most professional C++ programmers dismissed it. VB was a "toy language" or a "glue language" for components – not for serious software development.
- Increasing number of software engineers embraced the language because, to put it simply, when it came to desktop applications you could be an order of magnitude more productive in VB than in C++. It may not have had the stature and features of a "real" professional language, but it sure was profitable to work in it.
- VB was easy enough for anyone to use, so everyone did. Doctors, lawyers, students – millions of VB developers sprang up out of nowhere and wrote a lot of code. Much of it was very bad code, but that's what happens when a bunch of amateurs get in the game. Entire book, magazine and training industries grew up to help them get better, and many of them did and built entire careers around the platform.
The very reason VB was productive is important to remember in light of the rise of PaaS generally and these high level aPaaS' in particular. The original post detailed the traits that force.com shows that were so starkly on display at this year's DreamForce:
- A web based GUI environment that provides a high level of abstraction for developing real applications that seamlessly integrate core features like database, email, reporting, the web, chat and mobile.
- An environment that lets you do a great deal without code, but provides the language and "hooks" that allow serious programmers to go much farther.
- A flood of non-programmers who are using the environment to solve real problems, and who are stumbling into actual programming.
- Lots of truly awful code being written, so there's a huge need for training and a thirst for knowledge on how to do things correctly.
- A language and platform that doesn't seem to get much respect from the "real" programmers doing Java, C# or other languages, even though the demand (and pay) for Force.com and Apex programmers is huge.
It is true that, just like VB being under powered for some applications and needing a product like .NET to fill the gaps for particular needs, so too does force.com have its limitations. We're always going to see "real" developers do the complex stuff – just look at the amazing number of applications being built of Heroku, AppFog, EngineYard et al – but that's not the key point here. The key point is that the number of people globally who are now developing applications is ballooning, while the number of so called "professional" developers remains fairly stagnant. The thing that allows this to occur is a democratization, an increasing utility and, yes, a return to the simplicity of the Visual Basic days. It may not be a "real" development tool, but it's one that is changing the very essence of what development is.


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Fashion Week Street Style Game | Fall 2014
Cast Your Vote in the Street Style Final Two!
Who's Fashion Week's biggest street style star? After a month of surveying some of the best street style from fashion insiders around the globe, we asked you to pick a winner from the 64 best looks in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Now, it's down to just two favorites — the incomparable Miroslava Duma and the ever-chic Olivia Palermo. Need more proof of their style prowess? Just check out each of their style profiles and click through to crown this season's street-style star when you play our bracket right here!


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This adorable fork & spoon has soft side grips so it's easy for little ones to hold. Stainless steel heads make the utensils feel very grown up for little ones!
Features signature Zoo characters
Perfect chunky for growing toddlers
Stainless-steel heads
Soft sides for easy grips
BPA-free, Phthalate-free, PVC-free
Size (inches): 1.25l x 4.75h
Stainless Steel


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Controlling the police may be the toughest management job there is. Every patrol study ever done shows that street cops work most effectively when they're given the discretion to respond instantly to trouble. As University of Chicago law professor Kenneth Culp Davis pointed out years ago, the police make far more discretionary determinations in individual cases than any other class of administrators. Culp said there was no close second. Yet police commanders need to know that cops are out there actually working productively and treating community residents fairly. The inevitable tensions are immense and made workable in New York only by the NYPD's evolving structure of carefully selecting, testing, and training recruits - and then supervising them under a chain of command. But in the end, decades of enhanced professionalization and reform mean little without one basic principle: trust. We all have to be able to trust that police officers -- armed and authorized by us to patrol our neighborhoods -- are honorable, decent, sensible people worthy of positions of trust.
The police commissioner's management authority has been undermined by federal Judge John Sprizzo's June 23 ruling, following a non-jury trial, that the city did not have the right to fire a police officer and two firefighters who rode in blackface and wore Afro wigs on a parade float in 1988. Police Officer Joseph Locurto and the two firefighters were punished, wrote Sprizzo, "in retaliation for engaging in protected speech." This "protected speech" involved being part of a float with the banner "Black to the Future: Broad Channel 2098," which the defendants said was a parody of black racial integration into the mainly white Broad Channel neighborhood. They threw watermelon and fried chicken at parade goers and, as the parade was ending, a firefighter grabbed the back of the truck and dangled himself toward the ground, re-enacting the brutal dragging murder of a black man in Texas two months earlier. (You can decide for yourself what you think of the activities on the float by watching the video offered by ABC News/Channel 7's web site.)
This activity constituted protected speech "on a matter of public concern," wrote Sprizzo, because the float sought "to comment on the future racial integration of Broad Channel" and to win the prize for the funniest float, "a prize the group had won in the past with other ethnicity-parodying floats." The group's earlier efforts included "The Gooks of Hazzard," which parodied Asian Americans, and "Hasidic Park" about Jewish Americans. Sprizzo rejected the city's claims about the management consequences of such public behavior going unpunished, writing that this "concern was unreasonable and, in any event, insufficient, as a matter of law, to outweigh plaintiff's constitutionally protected speech rights." The men are all seeking reinstatement in their jobs, back pay, and money damages. A hearing will be scheduled on remedies in the case. Corporation counsel says it will appeal.
Cops and firefighters were also in the news for another unfortunate conjunction of the two agencies. An inept burglar who had lowered himself into a chimney in Luigi's Italian Restaurant in Queens started screaming when he found himself stuck. A passerby called 911, which dispatched regular firefighters and police officers from the local 115th precinct, as well as members of two rescue units, the police Emergency Service United and fire's Rescue 4. Once on the scene, rescuers from the two agencies disagreed on how to extract the burglar from the chimney. Firefighters wanted to pull him out from above, while the police decided to rip out the wood paneling covering the shaft inside the restaurant, hacking through a layer of bricks. During the rescue, the police sealed the restaurant as a crime scene and ordered firefighter John Gaine to leave, resulting in a fight and Gaine's arrest. "Well, it's the kind of thing you simply hope would never happen," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the police and fire commissioners are meeting to sort things out.
The daughter of the restaurant's owner had suggested pouring olive oil into the shaft to grease the burglar and pop him right out without smashing walls, according to the New York Times. On reflection, though, she decided the cops were right to ignore the idea: "Virgin olive oil is expensive. My mother would have been annoyed."
Luigi's owners told New York 1 that they had been watching "Stupid Acts Caught on Tape" when the whole caper started. They also said they were left with rubble at their restaurant. "Not I've got a hole, destruction, and a mess," said co-owner Josephine Napolitano.
Supporters of dance in New York -- and who isn't? -- were elated when they heard that the city's Department of Consumer Affairs was going to be holding hearings on New York's repressive 77-year-old cabaret laws on June 24. Representatives of Legalize Dancing jubilantly predicted that the city's days of regulating, and banning, dancing were over.
The hearings proved to be no such thing. Formal and stale in format (all questions from the audience had to be submitted in writing), the hearings mainly provided a forum for a few important nightclub owners and representatives to complain about their main beefs. Thus David Rabin, owner of the humongous but fully licensed Lotus and president of the New York Nightlife Association, took the opportunity to protest the mayor's anti-smoking legislation, which nearly everyone in the industry regards as a lethal, business-killing law. One of these days New York is going to end up looking like Cleveland, he told Newsday's Dennis Duggan.
He also noted that the main problem for most neighborhoods is what he called "outside noise," rather than the noise from music and dancing in the club itself. The outside noise problem has been greatly exacerbated, of course, by the smoking ban, since smokers now congregate in the streets. Rabin said, however, that no nightclub owner calls the cops because that will only produce a "disorderly premise" ticket, which will then be used against the club's license renewal. Does Yankee Stadium get tickets, he asked, for disorderly patrons? Or Madison Square Garden? Not at all. Both of these are patrolled by cops -- some on duty, some as part of the NYPD's paid detailed unit of off-duty cops. Rabin would like nightclubs to be able to hire off-duty cops (preferably in uniform) to patrol outside the clubs, a proposal supported warmly by the police union, the PBA.
Under the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, which forbids cops from being associated with alcohol sales, police officers are now prohibited from doing security work outside bars.
Sean Schwartz, owner of Halcyon, which lacks a cabaret license, argued that dancing should not be part of the equation to begin with. "It was wrong 77 years ago," said Schwartz, and wrong a few years ago for Giuliani to dust off and enforce the cabaret laws. Indeed, so far this year, the city has padlocked 11 places that permitted dancing without a cabaret license. Between 1999 and 2003, the city had closed 20. According to the New York Times, the Giuliani administration tended to remove or threaten places that held licenses as punishment for a range of violations, from inadequate exits to drug use by patrons.
Passed in 1926 to regulate (some historians say to suppress) jazz in Harlem, the cabaret laws targeted the "social mixing" that seemed to accompany jazz, says NYU Professor of Law Paul Chevigny, author of "Gigs: Jazz and the Cabaret Laws in New York City." The cabaret laws restrained jazz by requiring that a hard-to-get cabaret license be held by any restaurant that had live music.
In May 1986, the Musicians Union, represented by Chevigny, sued on First Amendment grounds. After a five-year legal battle, New York Supreme Court Judge David Saxe declared the three-musician rule unconstitutional, ruling that live music had to be allowed in zones permitting bars and restaurants. It was a great triumph, but the suit left alone the regulation of dancing, which remained subject to the cabaret license requirement.
Thus restaurants that allow dancing are still held to more stringent zoning requirements than other restaurants, which are permitted in all commercial and manufacturing zones. With their odious history, the cabaret laws have frequently gone unenforced. The Dinkins administration, for example, ignored them altogether. They were resuscitated, however, by the Giuliani administration, which saw them as a potentially powerful tool for shutting down huge, noisy, drug-infested nightclubs.
Relief from the city is not on the immediate horizon. Gretchen Dykstra, the consumer affairs commissioner, said that unless the laws change, which is doubtful, members of the nightlife task force (called March for Multi-Agency Response to Community Hotspots) will continue to crack down on unlicensed cabarets.
Julia Vitullo-Martin, a long-time editor and writer on urban affairs, is the former director of the Citizens Jury Project at the Vera Institute of Justice. She is now writing a book entitled The Conscience of the American Jury.


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Nonresident Alien Tax Withholding
Federal Income Taxes and Your Social Security Benefits
A portion of your Social Security retirement, survivors, or disability benefits may be taxed. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Special Veterans benefits are not taxed. Currently, no one pays federal income tax on more than 85 percent of his or her Social Security benefits based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules.
The federal income tax rules and filing requirements are different for U.S. persons and foreign persons. To learn about your tax status, visit IRS's website.
U.S. Persons
IRS's definition of U.S. persons includes citizens of the United States and aliens who meet the tax definition of U.S. resident alien. Generally, if you are a U.S. person, you are subject to U.S. income tax filing requirements and your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you live.
SSA will not withhold tax from your benefits if you are a U.S. person. If you find that you do have to pay taxes on your Social Security benefits, you can make quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS or choose to have federal taxes withheld from your benefits.
You can read more about income taxes for U.S. Persons in the Benefits Planner: Income Taxes And Your Social Security Benefits page on SSA's website, U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad (IRS Publication 54), or on IRS's website.
Foreign Persons
If IRS considers you to be a foreign person (or nonresident alien) for tax purposes, SSA is required to withhold a 30 percent flat income tax from 85 percent of your Social Security retirement, survivors, or disability benefits. This results in a withholding of 25.5 percent of your monthly benefit. You may be exempt from this tax (or subject to a lower rate) by treaty. To learn more about nonresident alien tax, you can review U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens (IRS Publication 519) or visit IRS's website.
- Social security benefit statement:
Each January you will receive a Social Security Benefit Statement (Form SSA-1099 or Form SSA-1042S) showing the amount of benefits you received in the previous year. You can use this Benefit Statement when you complete your federal income tax return to find out if your benefits are subject to tax.
- Taxation of U.S. Social Security benefits by foreign governments:
Many foreign governments do tax U.S. Social Security benefits. U.S. residents planning to live in another country should contact that country's embassy in Washington, D.C., for information.
- IRS website: www.irs.gov.
- U.S. Tax Treaties (IRS Publication 901).
- Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits (IRS Publication 915).
- U.S. Income Tax Treaties and Technical Explanations.


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A man accused of holding three women captive in his home for more than a decade has pleaded not guilty to 512 counts of kidnapping and 446 counts of rape.
Ariel Castro previously pleaded not guilty to charges in a 329-count indictment. The 53-year-old entered a plea on an expanded indictment.
The judge continued his bond at US $8m. She repeatedly told Castro to raise his head and keep his eyes open during the brief court appearance.
The earlier indictment reflected only part of the alleged crimes' time frame.
Amanda Berry, Gina Dejesus and Michelle Knight disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. Each said they had accepted a ride from Castro, who remained friends with Ms Dejesus's family and even attended vigils over the years marking her disappearance.
Castro has been in custody since his arrest on May 6 shortly after the women escaped to freedom. In past court appearances, he has kept his head down, typically responding to a judge's questions with one-word answers.
He has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder related to one act, saying he purposely caused the unlawful termination of the pregnancy of one of the women.
Besides kidnapping and rape, the new indictment also charges him with seven counts of gross sexual imposition, six counts of felonious assault, three counts of child endangerment and one count of possessing criminal tools.
The women appeared in a YouTube video last week to thank people who donated to a fund created to benefit them. They otherwise have sought to stay out of sight and have appealed for privacy.
Castro is scheduled for trial on August 5, a date that could be delayed if the defence requests more preparation time.
He pleaded not guilty to the earlier indictment of 329 counts. His legal team has hinted Castro would plead guilty if the death penalty was off the table.
Castro is accused of repeatedly restraining the women, sometimes chaining them to a pole in a basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. The charges say one of the women tried to escape and he assaulted her with a vacuum cord around her neck.
Ms Berry has a six-year-old daughter fathered by Castro, authorities said.


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Who will your baby look like?
When I was pregnant with my first child, I thought it was a given that my baby would have curly, strawberry-blond hair. Based on my faint recollection of science classes, I figured that's what you'd get by mixing my husband's a curly red hair with my straight blond locks.
So when my daughter arrived with a shock of dark-brown hair, I was truly amazed. You may be just as surprised by what your baby looks like at birth. The so-called classic model of genetics—that curly hair is dominant over straight, for example, doesn't hold up anymore.
"Genes are much more complicated than we ever imagined," says Vivian Weinblatt, a certified genetic counselor and former president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. Researchers now know that there isn't just one dominant or recessive gene for hair color, eye color, and the like, but a large group of them. The genes that ultimately get expressed overpower or outnumber the others.
It's still fun to guess who your baby will take after as you wait for his arrival, but it helps to have some general rules in mind. Here, experts spill their secrets about the science of good looks.
Gender Genes
Your baby's gender is set when sperm and egg connect at conception. A woman's egg carries one X gender chromosome, and the father's sperm carries either an X or a Y chromosome. If an X-carrying sperm fertilizes the egg, the baby will be a girl; if a Y-carrying sperm fertilizes the egg, it will be a boy. In other words, girls have two X-gender chromosomes and boys have an X and a Y.
At conception, the cards are also dealt for your baby's build and appearance, explains Jill Fonda Allen, a certified genetic counselor at the Greater Washington Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Genetics Center, in Rockville, Maryland. That's because your baby also inherits 22 other pairs of chromosomes (one set from each parent for a total of 46), which largely determine growth and development, as well as everything from eye and hair color to skin tone, eye lash length and nose shape.
Hair Apparent
What color will your baby's hair be? Here's a general rule: "Two blond-haired parents are likely to have a blond-haired baby, especially if there are many people with light hair in their families," says Joann Boughman, Ph.D., executive vice president of the American Society of Human Genetics in Bethesda, Maryland. The same holds true for two brown-, black-, or red-hair parents with family members with similar hair color. But if Mom and Dad come from different ethnic backgrounds—say, Mom's distant relatives came from Sweden, Dad's from Italy—all bets are off.
Scientists used to believe that if one parent had brown or black hair and the other had red or blond hair, their baby would have dark hair because brown or black was dominant. Now we know that these parents could have a blond or a red-haired child, depending on how powerful and plentiful those lighter-haired genes are, Weinblatt says. She adds that in some cases, there may be a co-dominance, in which red and blond genes are equally strong or numerous.
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Baby
Will your delightfully chubby baby grow up to be a chubby adult? It's less likely if he develops good diet and exercise habits. Researchers estimate that weight is only 40 percent determined by genetics. It's the environment and human behavior that determine the rest. "You definitely have an edge over your genes," says Jana Klauer, M.D. a research fellow at The New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, in New York City.
So even if there's a legacy of overweight people in your family, or if you have personally battled weight problems your whole life, your child isn't necessarily destined to follow suit. But it's all the more reason to help your child establish healthy diet and exercise habits by setting a good example early on.
The Eyes Have It
Many newborns, especially those not of Asian or African American descent, are born with light-blue or gray eyes. But they won't necessarily keep them. Throughout a large part of your baby's first year, as pigment-containing cells concentrate and distribute themselves in the iris, his eyes will continue to develop.
Final eye color isn't set until about 6 to 10 months. Two brown-eyed parents could have a child with vivid blue eyes, and vice versa. It all depends on the cocktail of genes for eye color your child receives from you and your spouse. "There's just no way to predict exactly how that mixing is going to occur," says Weinblatt.
Show Those Dimples
The likelihood that your baby will have freckles, dimples, or a cleft chin depends on whether these traits are dominant in your family and also depends on the gender of your baby. Cleft chins, for example, are more common in boys than in girls. And some traits, like your baby's adorable dimples, may become less marked with age or disappear completely.
Spitting Image
Why do children tend to look so much like their brothers and sisters? Approximately half of a baby's genes are exact copies of a sibling's genes, explains Virginia Corson, a certified genetic counselor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "But you can still have a child who doesn't look like anybody else in your family," says Bruce Lahn, Ph.D., an assistant professor of genetics at the University of Chicago and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in Chicago. In that case, your baby may share less than 50 percent of his genes with his siblings. How? During conception, genes can mutate (change slightly) or combine in a novel way, dramatically affecting your child's appearance, Dr. Lahn explains.
The Long and Short of It
Will your baby grow up to be tall like your husband, or short like you, your mother and your grandmother? Or will she wind up somewhere in the middle? "Tall parents tend to have taller children and short parents tend to have shorter children," says Dr. Boughman. Still, two short parents could have a tall child, and vice versa. And a tall and short parent could have a short, tall or medium-height child. Environment can also influence height. A poor diet, for example, can keep tallness genes from fully expressing themselves.
Bald Statements
To predict whether your son will be bald one day, look to Mom's father. There's an increased chance of baldness if a baby's maternal grandfather is bald. Why? Male-pattern baldness is inherited on the X chromosome, which is passed from fathers to daughters to sons, and so forth. In other words, if Mom's father is bald, he passed an X chromosome with the baldness gene to her. She then passes the baldness gene to her sons through the X chromosome she contributes at conception.
In the end, the one thing you can bet on when it comes to genes is that your child will resemble you or your husband in plenty of ways—but he'll also have a look that's all his own.
Sandra Gordon is a journalist specializing in health and a frequent contributor to national magazines. She is the mom of two children and author of Consumer Reposrts Best Baby Products.


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Welcome to the fifth of a few sponsor interview posts from SQL Saturday 99. After reading Arnie Rowland's (Blog | @ArnieRowland) Paying For Free post, I thought it might be worthwhile to do a little bit more to interview our attendees and others to the sponsors that enabled us to have our Minnesota event.
In today's post, I have an interview with Emergent Networks. Emergent Networks was one of the Gold sponsors for the SQL Saturday event. They are a returning sponsor from last year. This year they brought out a race track to the event. This was pretty cool, I saw a lot of people hanging out and playing with the cars.
1. Thank you for sponsoring our SQL Saturday. Why did you sponsor the Minnesota SQL Saturday? Last year was excellent. The people from Emergent who attended last year were surprised at how good it was and how great an opportunity there was to connect with a different kind of customer – highly technical, self-motivated, and non-managerial. For 2011 we wanted to be involved as soon as possible.
2. What services/products does your company offer? We design, build and support SANs, Servers, Networks, Unified Communication systems. We are partners with and/or certified by EMC, Juniper, Dell, and Microsoft. We provide website and .Net development, plus SQL Server DBA/BI Consultation. We also have a full managed services/helpdesk offering.
3. Have you sponsored other SQL Saturday events? Yes. Bronze – SQL Saturday 58 (Minnesota), Bronze – SQL Saturday 98 (East Iowa), and Gold this year.
4. What are your thoughts on SQL Saturdays? A pretty amazing event, more impressive than expected. Surprised there weren't MORE vendors – WAY MORE vendors, given the quality of people walking through the halls.
5. Anything else you'd like to share about the event? The morning check-in was really busy. Well-handled given the huge volume of traffic that came in such a small amount of time. SQL Saturday volunteers were very helpful and professional.
Lunch-in-a-box was efficient and easy. It seemed that the lunch sessions were not well planned out – people didn't know where the speakers were and the rooms were empty for quite a while.
[We] really liked Grace Church as a location. No distractions, lots of room, and very low-key/efficient. The people at the Church were attentive and helpful when we needed anything.
At times it felt hurried between sessions. Not sure if 60 minute sessions would be better or worse.. Only change this if it would not diminish the sessions.
One suggestion – maybe do not give vendors tickets for the drawings. We did not feel right handing in tickets to win prizes being offered from other vendor companies, and felt it was weird when other vendors entered tickets for our drawings.
Having the prize draw tickets already pre-cut for the attendees would be easier. People were fumbling with the sheets trying to tear the tickets off.
Thank you again to Emergent Networks for sponsoring our event and for some great suggestions. There were definitely a few logistical issues that we'll be trying to iron out for next year. If you receive an after event e-mail from them, please give them a couple minutes to see if they may be offering just the class you are looking for.


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Washington Post: The Arab Awakening has caused a crisis in the Middle East that will take years to sort out. There is one Middle East crisis, however, that must be resolved in months, not years.
The Washington Post
By Stephen J. Hadley
The Arab Awakening has caused a crisis in the Middle East that will take years to sort out. There is one Middle East crisis, however, that must be resolved in months, not years.
Every American committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon should urge Congress to grant President Obama authority to use military force against the Assad regime in Syria.
The inauguration of Hassan Rouhani, Iran's new president, offers some hope of a diplomatic settlement that eliminates the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. But Rouhani will need the approval of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who has made confrontation with the United States the centerpiece of his rule. Only internal pressure and the threat of U.S. military action will cause Khamenei to accept a nuclear deal. That is why Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton have emphasized that all options — including the use of military force — are on the table.
Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly and flagrantly crossed a U.S. "red line" by using chemical weapons against his own people. If the United States does not take military action, how credible will be the U.S. threat to use military force if the Iranian regime continues to pursue nuclear weapons? If that threat is not credible, then only months from now our nation could face the prospect of accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or having to resort to military force to prevent it.
If the Obama administration had aggressively trained and armed moderate elements of the Syrian opposition during the past 18 months, our country probably would not have to contemplate military action now. But one does not have to concur with past Syria policy to agree that, once established, U.S. red lines cannot be crossed without consequence.
Enforcing the red line against chemical weapons use is not the only U.S. national interest at stake in Syria. There is the moral claim presented by a humanitarian disaster that has killed more than 100,000 people, created more than 2 million refugees and internally displaced an additional 4 millionpeople. Refugee flows and the increasingly sectarian conflict could destabilize Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey — creating a regional war pitting Sunni against Shiite. There is the real prospect of al-Qaeda establishing a haven in Syria from which to launch attacks against U.S. allies — and Americans. Or Iran and its Hezbollah allies could succeed in saving the Assad regime and establishing a broader hegemony in the Middle East, thereby threatening U.S. allies, including Israel.
To protect these U.S. interests, U.S. military action in Syria must go beyond a few missile strikes designed to deter or degrade future chemical weapons use. It must be robust enough to erode the Syrian regime's military advantage.
This does not mean U.S. troops on the ground or a Kosovo-style weeks-long bombing campaign. But it does mean hitting aircraft, missile and artillery systems and their bases — the weapons Assad uses to cause mass casualties among innocents.
Responsible people have called for diplomacy and negotiations, but those have been tried and failed. Assad is not willing to negotiate because he is too strong, the opposition because it is too weak.
A negotiated outcome becomes possible only by changing the balance of power: a limited U.S. strike that sets back Assad's military, followed by the training and arming of those vetted elements of the opposition that support a democratic, inclusive Syria and oppose al-Qaeda and other extremists.
Congress should adopt legislation that authorizes and urges the Obama administration to pursue such a policy.
The goal is fracturing the Syrian regime so political and military elements of the regime can join with moderate and democratic elements of the opposition to establish an interim government that can begin to wind down the war, protect all Syrians (including Alawites and other minorities) and go after al-Qaeda.
Such an outcome will be hard to achieve, and it will take time. The alternatives — an Assad military victory, a takeover by al-Qaeda and other extremists, a prolonged stalemate or descent into chaos — all threaten U.S. interests.
Having asked Congress for authorization, it will be virtually impossible for President Obama to take military action if Congress votes no. To mitigate the adverse consequences of a "no" vote, the administration would have to take bold action. Most are steps the administration should take anyway, but after a rebuke from Congress, they would be even more important.
In Syria, this means expanding and accelerating the training and arming of moderate, democratic elements and the provision of humanitarian assistance, especially to areas liberated from the regime. In Afghanistan, this means leaving a significant U.S. military force after 2014 to help stabilize the country and check Iranian activity. In Iraq, this means shoring up U.S. support for the government as it battles a resurgent al-Qaeda and seeks to resist Iranian pressure. In the region, this means strengthening diplomatic and security support to allies nervous about Iranian hegemony.
Otherwise, lack of U.S. military action in Syria will be read as a victory by Iran — making a nuclear-armed Iran and Iranian hegemony more likely.
Stephen J. Hadley was national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.


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Hersheypark's been putting its new roller coaster, Skyrush, through the paces. Sporting Intamin's new 4-across seating and floorless outer seats, Skyrush can be seen zooming through its yellow track in these two videos.
Skyrush's First Test Run: A Keystone Milestone
The first video is described as Skyrush's first ever test run, but I'm not sure how enthusiasts would know that unless they've literally camped out right outside of Hersheypark for days…. Which come to think of it, isn't that unlikely for us geeks. Okay, so it's probably the first test run like the videos says.
Here's a video of Skyrush testing at Hersheypark courtesy of All American Thrills.
Skyrush's Second Test Run: G-Forces & OMG's
The more entertaining of the two videos is the one below which is allegedly the second ever test run. I much prefer this video with its numerous "OMGs" from the videographers. There's also a bit of drama when at the 1:08 mark something falls off of the train. I'm guessing that hill produces some real airtime! At least it didn't appear to be one of the dummy's limbs like in the wacky publicity stunt Thorpe Park did promoting The Swarm.
The filmers probably fall into the general public (GP) category. At one point someone says that the U.F.O. (unidentified falling object) was: "probably loose screws". Let's hope Skyrush will be designed better than that. Here's a video of Hersheypark's Skyrush second test run. You can skip to 1:00 as that's when it crests the lift hill.:
Skyrush looks a lot more interesting to me than it did in its first animation video. The trees and terrain look like they may add a lot, especially for outer-seat riders. Hersheypark may have a great ride on their hands. We'll see soon as Skyrush is scheduled to open May 26th.
For more, check out Hersheypark's official Skyrush page. Also read more about my take on the ride when it was announced: Skyrush to Fly Over Hersheypark
How do you think Skyrush looks? Can you count the OMG's or guess the age of the filmers in the second video. Leave a comment below.