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Do people like certain wines because certain critics tell them they should?
This question's been in my mind for a long time. I think that when people are confused about what they should or shouldn't do or like, in this information-overloaded, sensorily-saturated culture, they look to the authority of others to tell them. You want to go to the movies on Friday night, but there are 18 flicks playing at the theatres in your city. How to decide? Go to Rotten Tomatoes. If Roger Ebert, whom you trust, tells you J. Edgar's pretty damned good, that may decide the case for you–and I would argue you're more likely to like it because you know Roger does.
This is a subdivision of the old "argument from authority" hypothesis. Briefly, it states that, if people think that ___ [an authority on something] is usually correct, then if he pronounces on a specific topic in his area of expertise, he's correct. We see this all the time in matters ranging from politics to religion to esthetics. It's a fundament of human nature to turn to shamans or soothsayers to make sense of the chaos of existence.
Imagine if you will a wine tasting. One hundred people have gathered in a hotel ballroom, after paying good money for the privilege of being taken through a guided tasting by a famous wine critic (or F.W.C. for short). Eight glasses, each containing a different wine, are arranged on the table in front of them. The moderator, who will later introduce the F.W.C., first tells the audience to quietly experience the wines, making notes if they wish. Perhaps the audience doesn't know what the wines are, or, if they do, they do not know what the F.W.C. thinks of them. So they eye the wines, swirling and sniffing, taking little tastes and, hopefully, spitting in dump buckets. You look around and see them concentrating. That guy over there, he's got his eyes closed as he sloshes the wine. That lady is licking her lips as she writes, probably figuring out what adjectives to use. You, yourself, go back to each wine a second time, maybe a third, depending on how much time you have. You make detailed, thoughtful notes. Wine number three is stupendous, rich and velvety and fruity. Wine number five is tannic and shut down. Wine number one seems rather tart. And so on.
Then the moderator says time's up for tasting; the F.W.C. is about to say what she thinks. You're in awe of this celebrity. She's as famous, in the little world of wine writing, as Bono is in rock and roll. Everybody else in the room feels the same way; otherwise they wouldn't have paid to be there. A hush falls. The F.W.C. makes a little throat clearing sound, audible through the sound system. Then she thanks everyone for being there, maybe making a self-deprecating remark to let you know she doesn't take herself too seriously even if you do. Then it's game on.
F.W.C. starts with wine number one, the one you thought was rather tart. She loves it! She says it's a grand cru quality wine. She waxes on about the pedigree of the vineyard, the talent of the winemaker who happens to use biodynamic methods, how verticals of the wine prove that it is stupendous after 15 or even 20 years in a good vintage–and this vintage happens to be the greatest in the region in decades! You slouch a little in your seat, dejected. You hadn't thought much of the wine. But the F.W.C. did. She must be correct, because she's the F.W.C. and you're just, well, the guy who would have liked to have the F.W.C. verify each of your opinions, but of course, it never happens that way. So there's this place in your brain that flares up whenever this happens–a place of self-doubt. You realize how meaningless your own opinions are in such matters, and that casts a pall of dubiousness over all your other impressions of the remaining wines. If the F.W.C. actually happens to agree in large measure with you on, say, wine number three, you're ecstatic. But in this world where your expectations are so often thwarted, she says that wine number three is a simple villages-style wine, nowhere near as great as any of the others.
This is how the argument from authority works. The F.W.C. cannot be wrong. You can. Therefore, you must be wrong, and she's right.
I've seen this phenomenon many times in my own guided tastings. I'm not saying I'm a F.W.C. but if I'm the one up there at the front of the room, facing an audience that's looking at and listening to me, then I'm the one who's invested with authority. And so often, when I say I selected a certain wine to include in the tasting because I think it's fabulous and a value and one that might ordinarily get overlooked, I see heads nodding in agreement with me, and then the hands go up and people start saying how much they like the wine, and how much does it cost, and where can they get it, and what's the alcohol, and what kind of barrels was it aged in, and I know that the wine has been a hit. And I go away wondering, once again, if the people liked the wine because they thought they should based on my assessment, or if they liked it because it really is as good as I thought.
I don't suppose there's any way to answer that question.
The same question has surely been asked in every realm where the guidance of critics is followed by a public which believes itself less knowledgeable.
Especially contemporary art…
as I read your latest essay I began to "listen" as it were to the Merovingian, maybe reading Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift, but no matter, as advertizing links faces and celebrities to sell everything, not to mention MSM's self-appointed role as social architects, so shall it be with wine; that silly human-nature. I like and repeat the phrase: "Drink what you like and not what your told."
That having been said, Roger Ebert (MSM again) is not my only guide to movies, I consult several movie reviewers, and as with wine it's usually ex post facto.
Hi Steve
Fantastic point of view. I totally agree with you on this matter. This is the same thing I bring up when I teach waiters: you have the authority card, please use it so your guests will have a good time. The waiter claims the wine is perfect with the food, and then it is.
All the best from Denmark
Frederik Kreutzer
Don't think this is much of an argument. Psych studies have shown a tendency to make things meet your expectations, so if FWC thinks its a great wine this will inform your expectations then you, or at least a significant number of people, will try to congruous with their review. Others are simply contrarians and others independent thinkers that may not go along, and I believe these types have more resistance or suspect of evaluations and may not go along but all of us are probably subject to this tendency on some level.
Personally I don't look at the descriptors when I buy wine. I look at the score, particularly if it's cheap wine and then +/- 3 pts to give me a ball park and then compare the notes to avoid too much expectation, flavor profiles, and of course not waste $$$. Expensive wine (which I call >$30) I almost exclusively have to taste first, which makes mailing lists difficult, but I make a few rare exceptions for my favorite winemakers or certain types of wine with universally high scores. Simply can't trust critics (especially with Pinot) to match my tastes to try a $50 wine.
Most wines taste good and the chances that a FWC would pick a wine that tasted bad are pretty slim. So the marginal difference between a wine that is preferred by the FWC and the others tasted is pretty small. When you consider that a placebo is nearly as effective as a NSAID in pain relief, the positive influence of the critic's choice is comparatively small in the brain of an member of the audience. Most make the leap in acceptance.
The real question comes up later for the audience member. After buying a case of that wine, and opening a bottle several months later has the critic's influence diminished and the reality of their own preference set in?
I would guess that most people who spend $400 for a 100 point wine are never going to drink it, so they probably won't ever know if they agree with the critic.
"I don't suppose there's any way to answer that question."
Of course there is, but to do it, you risk destroying the very idea of the FWC. How? Here are a few different ways.
1. Don't get up in front of the crowd. Don't make introductory remarks, or present yourself as an expert. If the tasting is supposed to be "WITH the FWC," sit with everybody else. Taste the wine at the same time. Take your notes at the same time. Participate in the conversation instead of leading it. Ask people "what do you think?" before telling them what you think.
2. If you must pontificate, start by telling them the truth. Nobody is right, but perhaps somebody is right for you. Sure, a good critic can tell you if a wine is well made or flawed, but she can't tell you what you will like. If she tries, she's telling what you SHOULD like, and the snobbery takes off from there. Start by telling them, "I might be the FWC, but there is at least as good a chance that gentlemen sitting next to you has a palate that matches yours as that mine does. So let's not talk about what's 'good.' Let's talk about what we like. Maybe you'll make a new wine friend in the process." Shouldn't a tasting, even one with an FWC, be about the wine and the people?
3. If you really want to know the answer to the question, test it. Send in a ringer. Wear a Groucho mustache and sit with the proles for a while. Or pronounce something terrible that you think is wonderful. Will some people follow suit? Of course. Why? Well, at least in part you are enabling it by presenting yourself as the FWC.
Dear Steve: As always, insightful, informed commentary; thank you. I maintain that as students we are almost never taught to discriminate: I like Bach, and here's why; I prefer Monet, and here's why. I had an excellent education (50s/60s) in top-flight schools where I had to think and write seriously, but almost never was asked to defend an aesthetic judgement. No wonder we reach for an "expert" for guidance in a field so complex (and delightfully so) as wine; we have not been trained to trust our own judgement. Cordially, Jan Wells
One would probably say, "You better hope so," or there would be a lot less blogs to read….
Insert mega-ultra-famous Bob Johnson cartoon for the late Pacific Wine Company here:
"Geez, this wine is repulsive"
"The Wine Advisor gave it a 96"
"I'll take a case"
I'd intended to type a longer response, actually, but "no" really sums it up so I'll stick with that. 🙂
"I had an excellent education (50s/60s) in top-flight schools where I had to think and write seriously, but almost never was asked to defend an aesthetic judgement"
Ah – one of the benefits of an Oxford education, chaps!
The answer is obvious but the implications are daunting. Too many ill-informed individuals wield authority further confusing an already intimidated public. People need to be given more tools to trust their own palates, not wait for pronouncements from on high.
The subject of wine being the way it is, anyone can be an "FWC" of sorts. They're called "gatekeepers." You find them in stores, restaurants and hotels of good repute everywhere you go: wine buyers, sommeliers, even waiters or sales people who are identified immediately by customers or guests as authorities on the subject; which is why in the business it is commonly known that "you can sell anything to anyone," as long as you've established your integrity and credibility.
After over 30 years in the restaurant trade, this is why I am puzzled by the notion that wine critics (or "FWS") holds any real sway in any given "moment of truth," when a wine is being recommended and sold. In restaurants we obviously don't put numerical scores or quote wine critics on our wine lists, as is commonly done on retail store shelves. We sell and serve the wines we believe in, not what someone else has told us to believe in; and when this is done well, guests have a tendency to respond positively.
In retail stores that like to do their own selecting and create their own POS material sans quotes or scores from popular wine critics, it's obviously been proven that you can sell just as much wine without any "help" from well known wine critics. In the Bay Area, for instance, Ferry Plaza and Kermit Lynch obviously don't need FWCs — just two of many, many more stores like this.
If anything, FWCs are like well known film critics: yes, people read them, but obviously they don't pay *that* much attention to them or their ratings. This explains why critically panned films like Immortals, Dumb and Dumber, and Chucky can be box office smashes. People don't need film critics to tell them what they like.
Unlike films, however, Americans don't grow up drinking, thinking, knowing wine, and so their grasp of wine quality is inherently more infantile in the beginning, and it takes a while for the everyday consumer to come to grips with his/her own taste. But eventually they do, and after that — as we know in the market — it really doesn't matter what an FWC says: they'll go by their own instincts, while also starting to trust the gatekeepers at hand.
I must be an over-confident ass since I trust my own palate. When the FWC shares her thoughts about what she tastes and any history about the vintner, great…but it's meaningless to me whether she "likes" it.
Anyone who buys a 100 pt wine for $400 without being able to taste it first, the risk is on their shoulders. I don't get why they'd think they'll like the wine any more than they would like someone else's expensive decorating taste? It's okay to buy a wine based on a recommendation to see if you like it of course.
Though your readers have moved on, I just saw this post. Since you brought up Rotten Tomatoes of course I have to comment. I would go to Rotten Tomatoes to learn 'the wisdom of the crowd', both the pros and the ams. If I wanted to know what Roger Ebert thought I would go his site. Ideally one selects a movie when the critics and those who pay to see a film are above 70% and close together. So the Tomatometer showed that Puss n Boots merited 'Fresh' (thumbs up) from 77 critics and Rotten (thumbs down) from 17 for a composite score of 82% "Certified Fresh". 79% of 25,414 audience liked it. The Descendents has even higher numbers. Wouldn't game theory recommend following the crowd?
Unfortunately, they do. Working as a Somm I always ask customers what kind of wine they like in order to give them something that will enjoy, and more often than not I hear, "I like Napa Cabs". When I ask which ones, I hear frequently, it doesn't matter as long as it is from Napa.


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I will never contest again after 2019 election – Buhari
On Sunday, President Buhari vowed that the forthcoming 2019 presidential election would be the last he would contest.
Speaking at a meeting with the royal fathers in the Government House, Buhari promised not to abuse the constitution, noting that he would stop contesting after this coming election.
He said the 2019 election would be the fifth time he is contesting for Presidency after he ran for the office of the president under All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP), in 2003 and 2007 and failed.
He changed to Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), in 2011 and equally failed. But in 2015 when he changed to APC, he won and took the mantle of leadership from Ex-president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
In a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the president charged traditional rulers to do more in curbing banditry and kidnapping in their communities, saying that he felt disappointed that people close to some of them were found to have a hand in such criminality.
His words, "We are determined to defend the nation and its people. We are disappointed with some of the things going on. You are responsible for the security of your neighborhood. Being close to your people, you know them. You are still relevant. I am sorry this has extended to some of your families.
President Buhari said he was contesting this election as his fifth and the last, because as he noted, "a second term is what the constitution allows, and I will not abuse the constitution."


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|Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
Business data analysis
Before the New York Association for Business Economics, New York, New York (via videoconference)
June 13, 2000
This afternoon, bearing my old business economist credentials, I would like to discuss productivity. In particular, I will emphasize the potential to improve our understanding of the performance of productivity from delving into the microeconomic details of our current business environment. I believe the gains from this approach are likely to be greater than those from efforts to squeeze additional insight out of a limited number of macroeconomic statistics.
Until recently, much of the professional debate on the performance of productivity centered on whether there had been any meaningful acceleration of nonfarm business sector output per hour--a standard measure of aggregate productivity. That there has been some underlying improvement in the growth of aggregate productivity is now generally conceded by all but the most skeptical. The discussion has shifted to the extent and nature of that acceleration. A great deal of the evidence offered by the participants in this debate focuses on examinations of very aggregative measures of productivity. However, while the application of sophisticated filtering techniques, cyclical adjustment procedures, and other statistical tools to the analysis of aggregate productivity may improve our understanding in some respects, these approaches ultimately have significant limitations.
Only when data are disaggregated can we reasonably hope to tie productivity performance directly to business practices in our offices, on our plant floors, and through our distribution channels. Evidence developed at this level, recalibrated to an economywide scale, is, for reasons that I will discuss, more persuasive than that offered by the aggregate figures. Both the extent of the acceleration we are experiencing and the forces that underlie this improvement can be brought into sharper focus using a disaggregated approach.
To make any headway toward understanding productivity trends, one must first understand the data. In that regard, disaggregation often uncovers troubling implications of the underlying data that are not immediately obvious. For example, separating nonfarm business sector output per hour into nonfinancial corporate, financial corporate, and noncorporate sectors has revealed disquieting problems with the measurement of productivity, especially in the noncorporate sector.1 The Commerce Department will soon release data on output by industry, or "gross product originating," which will allow this decomposition to be updated to more fully reflect the benchmark revision to the national income and product accounts (NIPA) published last fall. Taken at face value, the prerevision data suggested that the level of noncorporate output per hour was no higher in the late 1990s than it had been in 1985. Indeed, the data pointed to falling levels of productivity for many years in such industries as construction and medical, legal, and business services--areas that are important in the noncorporate sector. These statistics, however, are wholly at variance with our casual day-by-day experiences. Perhaps this Thursday's re-benchmarked GPO data will paint a significantly different picture. But, their doing so would only reinforce the argument for downweighting from our analyses sectoral data that are subject to such large revisions.
Putting aside the issue of data revisions, some analysts argue that such disaggregation of national productivity measures is inappropriate. They point out that inaccurate estimates of intermediate inputs and prices can shift measured value added from one sector of the economy to another without affecting the total. The implication is that aggregate productivity is measured more accurately than sectoral productivity. This concern clearly would be relevant if one sector were all, or predominantly, an input into the other. But in the case at hand, many of the types of firms that are important in the noncorporate sector--such as self-employed construction contractors, small retail stores, individual insurance agents, and doctors' offices--typically do not supply their output to the corporate sector. Consequently, the hypothesis that the currently estimated flat productivity of the noncorporate sector in recent years largely results from output misattributed to the corporate sector seems improbable.
The sources of the productivity measurement problems in the noncorporate sector are not entirely clear. Interestingly, value added per hour in nominal terms has risen at about the same pace in both the noncorporate and the corporate sector since 1992. Although it is conceivable that the problem could be mismeasurement of nominal incomes, difficulties with price measurement likely are the more important factor. The 1996 Boskin Commission documented widespread upward bias in estimated price change. If the biases are greater in the price indexes that implicitly are employed to deflate nominal noncorporate incomes, as I suspect, the output and productivity growth of this sector would be understated. Whatever the source of the measurement error, it simply is not credible that for many years the noncorporate sector has experienced no productivity growth.
None of the available measures of productivity are without drawbacks. But I prefer to focus greater attention on the productivity measure for the nonfinancial corporate sector, which accounts for some 70 percent of total nonfarm business product. These figures eliminate the clearly mismeasured productivity of the noncorporate sector and avoid the thorny conceptual issues surrounding measurement of the financial sector. The remainder, while far from perfect, may provide a better representation of productivity developments in the economy. Moreover, in the national accounts, the gross product of the nonfinancial corporate business sector is measured from the income side. In my judgment, this income-side framework has the advantage that it is better suited to identifying the forces of cost containment that have been so critical in engendering productivity growth at the company level.
Conceptually, of course, there is no distinction between gross domestic product and gross domestic income. In practice, their difference in measurement is reflected in the NIPA statistical discrepancy. In the past, the year-to-year changes in the discrepancy generally have fluctuated around zero. Hence, over most of the past half-century the average growth rates of output and productivity measured from the product and the income side usually have not differed by much. Data for the most recent years, however, trace a different story. The statistical discrepancy has swung sharply since late 1992, reflecting an annual growth rate in real gross domestic income that has been 0.4 percentage point higher than the growth rate of real gross domestic product. This seven-year change is the largest in the statistical discrepancy, viewed in real terms, in the postwar period. This difference is reflected directly in faster growth of productivity measured on the income side than that measured on the product side of the accounts.
Faced with a formidable data collection challenge, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) does a commendable job in limiting the discrepancy to so low a level; despite the recent widening, the discrepancy is little more than 1 percent of the total nominal annual GDP of nearly $10 trillion. But that said, the differences in productivity growth measured on the product and the income sides of the accounts are large enough to be economically meaningful. And in my view, insufficient attention is paid to the economic signal provided by the income-side measures.
To be sure, for some purposes, the product-side estimates of necessity play the central role. For example, most of our structural econometric models seek to explain the dynamics of spending behavior utilizing the structure of the product side of the accounts.
But for understanding the behavior of prices, costs, and productivity, using the consolidated and internally consistent income-side accounts, unencumbered by a changing statistical discrepancy, has advantages. To illustrate with recent developments in the nonfinancial corporate sector, for about four years price inflation has remained subdued--with prices rising on average about 1/2 percent per year. During that period, growth in hourly compensation has stepped up, and profitability has been strong. How are these observations reconciled? In the framework of this income-side system, the answer is an acceleration of labor productivity; indeed, for the nonfinancial corporate sector, output per hour has accelerated from around a 1-1/2 percent pace in the first half of the 1990s to more than a 4 percent pace over the past couple of years. Of course, this is precisely the story told repeatedly by businesspeople in recent years, and that also is apparent from a microeconomic examination of firm performance. Indeed, one need not have adverted to the national income and product accounts at all to surmise the early emergence of productivity acceleration. Domestic operating profit margins, rising as they did from 1995 into 1997 in an environment of falling inflation, necessarily implied falling rates of total unit cost increases--most credibly the consequence of rising productivity growth.
Substantial increases in U.S. capital investment, and the accompanying faster growth of our capital stock relative to labor input--so-called capital deepening--explain a large part of the pickup in underlying growth in output per hour over the past five years, irrespective of how measured. But there has also been a marked step-up in the growth of so-called multifactor productivity (MFP). MFP is, of course, that portion of labor productivity that cannot be explained by other identifiable inputs into the production process. To a significant extent, MFP captures technological and managerial advance. These influences are very difficult to quantify, and we can only indirectly check that the resulting performance of other economic measures conform with our judgments about underlying efficiency gains in the production of specific goods and services.
There is considerable evidence at the microeconomic level that companies have continued to reap ample returns on capital outlays. In that regard, the rate of return on capital has been well maintained in recent years, despite the huge expansion of the capital stock. This conclusion runs counter to our usual expectation that increased supply brings down the marginal product of capital and is certainly consistent with some continuing improvement in multifactor productivity.
Indications that something unusual was afoot surfaced as early as 1993 when, a full two years after the 1991 recession, a significant rise in new orders for high-tech equipment unexpectedly emerged. Plant managers must have been inferring large increases in projected rates of return on these capital outlays, a judgment supported by subsequent increases in MFP and a high-tech order flow that is still increasing at an elevated double-digit annual rate.
In retrospect, it is evident that we were in the early phases of a major expansion and diffusion of new technologies. These developments allowed firms to boost earnings in the face of intense competitive pressures through a reduction in the growth of unit costs. Moreover, despite a huge increase in the supply of high-tech capital assets, there is little evidence of a noticeable reduction in prospective rates of return on the newer technologies. What differentiates this period from other periods in our history is the extraordinary role played by information and communication technologies. The effect of these technologies could rival and arguably even surpass the impact the telegraph had prior to, and just after, the Civil War.
The important contribution of these new technologies is quite evident from another interesting disaggregation of the macroeconomic data, carried out by Stephen Oliner and Dan Sichel at the Federal Reserve Board in some recent research.2 Their paper shows that much of the jump in productivity growth since the mid-1990s can be explained by two factors related to new information technologies. Most important, businesses throughout the economy have installed a great deal of information technology capital in recent years, which has boosted productivity growth through the associated capital deepening. In addition, the companies that produce computers and the embedded semiconductors appear to have achieved major efficiencies in their own operations, which have boosted MFP growth for the economy as a whole. Taking these two effects together, the authors estimate that since 1995 information technologies have contributed about one-half of the acceleration of productivity measured on the income side and about two-thirds of the acceleration of productivity when measured on the product side. Much, if not all the remainder, reflects improvements beyond information technology narrowly defined and presumably reflects the managerial synergies that have resulted from an innovation-driven reorientation of business practice.
The results of the Oliner-Sichel analysis confirm what we could already sense from observation of company performance--that information and communication capabilities are currently expanding at an awesome rate.
Ever more sophisticated laser, computer, and satellite technologies, together with innovations in fiber optics, have significantly altered the way goods and services are produced and have improved the associated effectiveness with which we are able to allocate and utilize scarce labor and capital resources.
At the most basic level, the major contribution of information innovation is to reduce the number of worker hours required to produce a given level of the nation's output. Yet, in the vibrant economic conditions that have accompanied this period of rapid gains in productivity, labor resources freed up by technical advance have found ready opportunities elsewhere. Indeed, many more jobs have been created than have been lost, and our unemployment rate has fallen notably as technology has blossomed.
The more-rapid pace of IT and other high-tech innovation also has been accompanied by a visible acceleration of the process of "creative destruction," a shifting of capital from failing technologies into those technologies at the cutting edge as differential rates of return among prospective investments widened. The resulting process of capital reallocation across the economy has been assisted by a significant unbundling of risks in capital markets made possible by the development of innovative financial products, many of which themselves owe their viability to improvements in IT.
Before this revolution in information availability, most twentieth-century business decisionmaking had been hampered by wide uncertainty. Owing to the paucity of timely knowledge of customers' needs and of the location of inventories and materials flowing throughout complex production systems, businesses, as many of you well remember, required substantial programmed redundancies to function effectively.
Doubling up on materials and people was essential as backup to the inevitable misjudgments of the real-time state of play in a company. Decisions were made from information that was hours, days, or even weeks old. Accordingly, production planning required costly inventory safety stocks and backup teams of people to respond to the unanticipated and the misjudged.
Large remnants of information void, of course, still persist, and forecasts of future events on which all business decisions ultimately depend are still unavoidably uncertain. But the remarkable surge in the availability of more timely information in recent years has enabled business management to remove large swaths of inventory safety stocks and worker redundancies.
Information access in real time--resulting, for example, from processes such as electronic data interface between the retail checkout counter and the factory floor or the satellite location of trucks--has fostered marked reductions in delivery lead times and the related workhours required for the production and delivery of all sorts of goods, from books to capital equipment.
The dramatic decline in the lead times for the delivery of capital equipment has made a particularly significant contribution to the favorable economic environment of the past decade. When lead times for capital goods are long, the equipment must have multiple capabilities to deal with the plausible range of business needs likely to occur after these capital goods are delivered and installed.
With lead times foreshortened, many of the redundancies built into capital equipment to ensure that it could meet most plausible alternatives of a defined distant future could be sharply reduced. That means fewer goods and worker hours are caught up in activities that, while perceived as necessary insurance to sustain valued output, in the end produce nothing of value.
Those intermediate production and distribution activities, so essential when information and quality control were poor, are being reduced in scale and, in some cases, eliminated. These trends may well gather speed and force as the Internet continues to alter relationships of businesses to their suppliers and their customers.
The process of innovation goes beyond the factory floor or distribution channels. Design times and costs have fallen dramatically as computer modeling has eliminated the need, for example, for the large staff of architectural specification-drafters previously required for building projects. Medical diagnoses are more thorough, more accurate, and far faster, with access to heretofore unavailable information. Treatment is accordingly hastened, and hours of procedures eliminated.
Indeed, these developments emphasize the essence of information technology--the expansion of knowledge and its obverse, the reduction of uncertainty. As a consequence, risk premiums that were associated with many forms of business activity have declined.
Because the future is never entirely predictable, risk in any business action committed to the future--that is, virtually all business actions--can be reduced but never eliminated. Information technologies, by improving our real-time understanding of production processes and of the vagaries of consumer demand, are reducing the degree of uncertainty and, hence, risk.
In short, information technology raises output per hour in the total economy principally by reducing hours worked on activities needed to guard productive processes against the unknown and the unanticipated. Narrowing the uncertainties reduces the number of hours required to maintain any given level of production readiness.
In economic terms, we are reducing risk premiums and variances throughout the economic decision tree that drives the production of our goods and services. This has meant that employment of scarce resources to deal with heightened risk premiums has been reduced.
The expanding opportunities for e-commerce are already changing the relationship between businesses and consumers. The networking forces unleashed by the Internet are almost surely to be even more potent within and among businesses, where uncertainties are being reduced by improving the quantity, the reliability, and the timeliness of information. This is the case in many recent initiatives, especially among our more seasoned companies, to consolidate and rationalize their supply chains using the Internet.
Not all technologies, information or otherwise, however, increase productivity--that is, output per hour--by reducing the inputs necessary to produce existing products. Some technologies bring about new goods and services with above-average value added per workhour. The dramatic advances in biotechnology, for example, are significantly increasing a broad range of productivity-expanding efforts in areas from agriculture to medicine.
In summary then, most of the gains in the level and the growth rate of productivity in the United States since 1995 appear to have been structural, largely driven by irreversible advances in technology and its application--irreversible in the sense that knowledge once gained is almost never lost. Having learned to employ bar code and satellite technologies, for example, we are not about to lose our capability in applying them.
To be sure, some of the increase in output per hour may well reflect cyclical rather than structural changes. Output can be stretched beyond sustainable capacity for a time, raising measured output per hour. And, on the other side, a cyclical slowing in demand is not usually matched by a prompt scaling back of employment, resulting in a temporary decline in output per hour or, at best, a significant slowing in its growth rate.
But cutting through the inevitable cyclical fluctuation of measured output per hour, the evidence of a decided improvement in the growth rate of structural productivity from the macro data has continued to strengthen. And, an examination of the micro level evidence is even more compelling. Disaggregative probings of the productivity data, as well as direct observation of the performance of U.S. businesses lend considerable credibility to the notion that our economy is benefiting from structural gains in productivity that have been driven by a remarkable wave of technological innovation.
1 The initial work in this area by the Board=s staff appeared in 1996 in Lawrence Slifman and Carol Corrado, "Decomposition of Productivity and Unit Costs," available at www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss. An updated version of the paper was published as Carol Corrado and Lawrence Slifman, "Decomposition of Productivity and Unit Costs," American Economic Review, vol. 89 (May 1999), pp.328-332.
2 See Stephen D. Oliner and Daniel E. Sichel, "The Resurgence of Growth in the Late 1990s: Is Information Technology the Story?", available at www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2000/index.html.


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The Dead Rising 2 dress-up fun never stops, as Capcom reveals four themed packs of downloadable content that add new looks and new abilities to Chuck Greene's arsenal.
Capcom is releasing a fresh set of gear for Dead Rising 2's protagonist on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network every week through November 2, starting with next week's Psychopath Theme Pack. Fans that purchased the High Stakes edition of the game from Capcom already have a voucher good for the October 12 release, which decks Chuck out in a hockey mask and arms him with a chainsaw, cleavers, and more.
On October 19 the Soldier of Fortune Theme Pack hits, giving Chuck a new Rambo look and a special spray attack with automatic weapons.
October 26 brings the Sports Theme Pack, giving Chuck increased damage with sports-themed weapons, while introducing new weapons like the basketball, which bounces when thrown, taking out multiple zombies at once.
Finally on November 2 Chuck gets a new stealth mode in the Ninja Theme Pack. Along with making him look amazingly cool, Chuck will also get increased damage with throwing weapons and swords, with some new moves and a faster throwing rate adding a little extra ninja to the pack.
Players can freely mix and match outfits as well, meaning my dream of a psycho football ninja is finally coming true.


text:
Trapiche Torrontes 2012
Трапиче Торонтес 2013 2012
How to drink it
Food: -
Cheese: -
Temperature: 12 °C
Red or White
From the Reading Room
From the Reading Room
The color of wine comes from the skin of the grapes. The juice that comes from nearly every variety of grape when pressed is white or clear. This is true of red grapes as well as white wines. The color or pigments of red grapes are found in the skins of the grapes. In order to make a red wine from ...
Comments & Ratings
You know this wine? Please, tell us what you think. Rate it.


text:
The mice are out to play! This class is suitable for students of all ages and levels. What students will learn:
- Carve and decorate wedges of realistic looking cheese
- How to make a wooden cheese board
- Hand mould adorable mice
When: Saturday, 10 August 2013
Time: 10 am – 4 pm
Fee: RM450
or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com with header "Mice & Cheese Class"


text:
Border shootout: Dept. of Justice denies gun claim.
Feb. 8, 2011 01:11 PM
Associated Press
The U.S. Justice Department denies a claim that two guns sold in purchases sanctioned by federal firearms agents were later used in a shootout that left a Border Patrol agent dead near the Arizona-Mexico border.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ronald Weich says in a letter obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press that the claim is false. The letter was written to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
Grassley has said he received information that appeared to partially corroborate the claim received by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the guns.
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was waiting with other agents on Dec. 14 near the Arizona border city of Nogales when a shootout with bandits erupted. Terry died in the attack.
Within minutes of receiving this story, I got a copy of the letter from a source and David Codrea has posted it on Scribd, here.
The ATF is "lawyering up." We will have some agent reaction to this stonewall attempt shortly. Here's David's take.
LATER: Received this quick analysis from someone well experienced in the ways of DC:
I'm on my way to (REDACTED), but quickly:
1. Denial of the allegation in absolute terms is intended to stop this from going anywhere.
2. Being pleased to Dog & Pony show "what's working well with our program" while obviating all the negative possibilities is the usual plan for ANY kind of Congressional testimony. In other words, controlling the agenda.
3. In case #2 isn't clear, DOJ is clear about saying any OTHER questions about Project Gunrunner are not on the table is out and out stonewalling. It also means that if any such questions are asked, DOJ will refuse to answer them.
. . . But this is standard coverup material that even a boy of 8 would laugh at. Entirely predictable, however; DOJ wants to stop this in its tracks before it fucks up Foreign Relations.
The Mexicans may get bought off or promised to be bought off; and may be exercising "leverage" about this to get political power or concessions or both from Uncle Sam. Gonna be vicious politics, but we already knew that.


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Ford expects to remain top-selling car brand in North America
DETROIT — Ford has sold more than 2.4 million vehicles in 2013 and expects to retain its best-selling title in North America in 2013 over Toyota.
The automaker expects to widen its lead with record sales of the Fusion, Escape and Fiesta, strong demand for the Focus and a tripling of hybrid sales in 2013. Ford also has the single-best selling vehicle in the U.S. with the F-Series pickup. sales of which will easily exceed 700,000 this year, boosted by an improving economy with more housing starts and increased commercial construction.
In 2012, customers bought 329,677 more Fords than Toyotas. While December sales are not released until Friday, Ford expects a much bigger lead. Through November, the Ford brand had sold 396,041 more vehicles than Toyota.
"The great news is that we are not overly reliant on any one segment – we're seeing double-digit sales growth in cars, trucks and utilities," said John Felice, Ford vice president, U.S. marketing, sales and service.
Detroit's automakers traditionally have larger fleet sales than their Japanese competitors, but Ford said retail sales have risen 15 percent this year, better than any competitor over the same period. Total Ford sales were up 12 percent, including fleet sales. But Toyota executives this month said the Toyota division should end the year with the retail sales crown.
The most significant gains came from the import-dominated coastal markets, Felice said. Ford retail sales are up 23 percent on the West Coast and up 18 percent in the Southeast. Ford expects retail sales to exceed 1.7 million vehicles this year. That would be the best in six years.
To meet demand for the Fusion, Ford added production at its Flat Rock plant in the fall and total sales. While total Fusion sales are expected to exceed 290,000 in 2013, they still fall short of the top-selling Camry which had sold almost 379,000 through November.
"With 16 launches next year, we're looking to keep our sales momentum going," Felice said of the record number of new vehiclesslated to be launched in the new year in North America.
©2013 Detroit Free Press
Visit the Detroit Free Press at www.freep.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Topics: g000362661


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Welcome to Hearing Works
Hearing Aid Center in Fort Myers
We invite you to treat your hearing with the same care and concern you give the rest of your healthcare. Each time you come to our office our goal is for you to have a pleasant and wonderful experience.Your satisfaction and care is our top priority. We set a high standard for excellence in healthcare with a commitment to our patients and we are driven solely by the special needs of each one of them.


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Sure, you can be a regular Joe and set up a couch and chairs around a crappy projection TV with a tiny grill on the deck, but who wants to look like a loser? If you really want to impress your friends and family, simply follow some steps and become the Unofficial Lord of the Party. The latest technology and gadgets are key to an awesome Super Bowl party this Sunday.
Step One: TV
There is a lot more that goes into selecting a TV for the Super Bowl than you may think. If you are thinking about going low-def, then close the browser now, because you have lost all of my respect and I would prefer you not reading my guide.
Fortunately, this year CBS has the honors of broadcasting the Super Bowl. It will, of course, be in HD. I like to call this the first year the Super Bowl will truly be in HD. Last year FOX had the rights to the Super Bowl broadcast, and even though they did air it in HD, many markets at the time did not have FOX in HD. Hell, I still don't have FOX in HD on my cable service one year later (Cox, you listening?).
Now, on to the HDTV choices. There are a handful of things to shop for in an HDTV for the Super Bowl and more. If you are watching the Super Bowl I would like to also assume you are a sports fan and if you have never experienced sports in HD, it is one hell of a treat. Picture quality is key—specifically accurate colors, ability to produce deep blacks and adjust primary colors. If money isn't a concern then the Pioneer Elite Pro-FHD1 may be for you. This 1080p 50-inch plasma is the top of the line for picture quality. You will pay for it, though. This plasma carries a list price of $8,000, but in all reality will cost you closer to $6,000 at most places.
Don't worry, there are cheaper options out there. For a party environment you can't go wrong with the Sony XBR2. This is the little brother of the XBR3 that we reviewed back in December, but it is able to get the job done and impress your friends with the nice silver bezel that just makes this 40-inch LCD just plain beautiful. One feature that makes this LCD stand out is that the picture quality is always the same when viewing from off-angles. So at a Super Bowl party not everyone will be able to view the HDTV from a direct angle, but with the XBR2 from Sony, they will not be screwed with poor picture quality. This TV is a little more manageable with a price around $3,000.
Still too expensive? Okay, how about the Panasonic TH-42PX60U. This is a 42-inch plasma from Panasonic that still has pretty good colors with a price of $2,000 so (it was seen as low as $1,350 at some online retailers).
You aren't limited to the choices above, I just tried to help narrow it down to some superb TVs in specific price ranges. Just remember, it is key to find an HDTV with the best picture quality. Often you get what you pay for with HDTVs, so that $800 off-brand may seem appealing but it won't look as good.
Step Two: HD Content
This is an easy one. HD channels don't magically appear on your brand new HDTV—you have to buy (or rent) more gear. First step is to call up your cable provider. Whether it is Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, whatever—they will have HD digital cable tuner boxes that can be rented on a month-to-month basis. Be sure and call now to make sure you get one because Time Warner has supposedly run out of HD DVR boxes for rent, but that may not be true in your area or with a different provider. If your provider is out of HD DVR boxes, there is still another option. and it is the Series 3 TiVo, but that badboy runs a solid $800 or so.
You can always go the audiophile way and pick up a nice, high-end receiver and a handful of high-end speakers and try to wire it all together, but we only have a few days left to prepare so the best bet right now is a HTIB, or home theatre in a box. These are surround sound systems that come with everything you need from the speakers to a receiver, etc. The audiophiles out there may be cursing my name, but the HTIB is the best bet for the home entertainment center amateur who needs decent surround sound, quick.
For top of the line with sound quality, and ease of setup the Sony DAV-X1V is where it is at. This is a 2.1 channel system that creates a virtual surround sound environment. It is easy to set up and can provide sound for those bone-rattling hits from Brian Urlacher. It does carry a high-end price at $1,000 list price from Sony.
If style is the name of the game, the Pioneer HTS-560DV is one of the best looking HTIBs for your party. The four tower speakers can make your system look damn good, just watch out for knocking them over in a drunken rage after your team loses. These carry a more reasonable price of $550.
If you are looking for a more cheap solution, the Samsung HT-DB600 is it. For a budget HTIB, this is the only option with superb midranges and powerful bass. This HTIB lists for $350, but you may be able to find it cheaper than $300.
Step Four: Be Prepared for the Worst
Power and cable outages are always a potential problem and there is only one solid way to save your Super Bowl party if outages were to happen. First, invest in an HD antenna. If that cable goes out you can still receive HD goodness over the air with this basic HD antenna that can be found at any radio shack. And to prevent power outages from stopping your Super Bowl party, a back-up power generator is the only way to go.
Step Five: Food and Drink
Grilling and food is essential for any Super Bowl party. Unfortunately, I can't help much when choosing a grill. If you happen to be a chef, you probably already have a grill or know what kind you like. Some people swear by charcoal, personally I am a gas grill guy (for ease) or hell, you may even want to bust out a hibachi, smoker, PS3 or USB grill. Regardless of how you do it, here are some accessories that can help.
Wireless thermometers are becoming all of the rage. The best one out there is the AW131 from Oregon Scientific. Stab the meat on the grill and set the wireless monitor with what kind of meat it is and how you like it looked. Go back, enjoy the game and wait for the receiver to give you word that the meat is done.
If going wireless is a bit too high-tech for you, this spatula with built-in meat thermometer may be a bit better. Don't forget about the classic beer-can chicken.
Grilling at night is only inevitable, so a cordless electric knife with LED lights and lighted salt-and-pepper mill could definitely help out.
Whether it is beer, wine, water, soda or juice, there isn't much that can be done to improve drinking. Sure, there are tons of beer drinking gadgets out there, but you have teched the hell out of this Super Bowl party already, and sitting back and cracking open a cold one may be the perfect remedy to wind down and forget about all of the technology involved in making this party happen.
Step Six: Have Fun
Regardless of how much you want to show off the latest and greatest tech at your party, it is important to have fun. The Super Bowl is more than just a football game, it is a time where you can gather with people and have one hell of a time while watching football, entertaining commercials and a half-time show featuring Prince. So gather up the friends, fire up the grill and enjoy yourself—you have earned it. Super Bowl Party image via Roger Mommaerts Jr


text:
By Larry Shaughnessy
One part of the prosecution's case against Maj. Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter, is a series of e-mails between the Army psychiatrist and the now dead radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki.
An unclassified FBI report released Thursday includes those e-mails.
Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel told the Dallas Morning News shortly after the shooting, "E-mailing a known al-Qaeda sympathizer should have set off alarm bells."
While the content of the e-mails was varied, ranging from Islamic theocracy to the search for a wife for Hasan, it was not always alarming. However, the very first one was.
On December 17, 2008, about 11 months before the shooting, Hasan sent his first e-mail to al-Awlaki, to the cleric's website. In it he wrote: "There are... many Muslims who join the armed forces for a myriad of different reasons. Some appear to have internal conflicts and have even killed or tried to kill other us soldiers in the name of Islam i.e. Hasan Akbar."
(The FBI report notes that Hasan's e-mails contained many errors and typos. They did not correct them, nor has CNN.)
Akbar was an American Army soldier who killed two fellow soldiers and wounded 14 others in an attack in Kuwait at the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Akbar wrote in a diary before the attack, "I may not have killed any Muslims, but being in the army is the same thing. I may have to make a choice very soon on who to kill."
Hasan went on to write in that first e-mail:
"Would you consider someone like Hasan Akbar or other soldiers that have committed such acts with the goal of helping Muslims/Islam (Lets just assume this for now) fighting Jihad and if they did die would you consider them shaheeds (martyrs)?"
Hasan's second e-mail was a question regarding whether Muslims should identify themselves as Sunni or Shiite.
At that point al-Awlaki had not responded.
But an FBI agent in San Diego who was investigating the e-mails wrote to his colleagues:
"While e-mail contact with (al-Awlaki) does not necessarily indicate participation in terrorist-related matters, (al-Awlaki's) reputation, background and anti-U.S. sentiments are well known. Although the content of these messages was not overtly nefarious, this type of contact with (al-Awlaki) would be of concern if the writer is actually the individual identified above."
By then, the FBI was trying determine if the e-mailer "Nidal Hasan" was as an American military officer as he hinted in his first message to al-Awlaki. The e-mails were written when Hasan was stationed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, before he was transferred to Fort Hood.
Hasan's next two e-mails focused on Israel and Palestine and the concept of an "eye for an eye."
The two e-mails after that focused on a very different issue: money.
"Please have alternative to donate to your web site. For example, checks/money orders may be sent to. This can assure privacy for some who are concerned."
The next e-mail was nearly identical; a third e-mail sent the same day addressed a different financial question: "A $5,000.00 scholarship prize is being awarded for the best essay/piece entitled "Why is Anwar al-Awlaki a great activist and leader"
Also in that message, for the first time, Hasan reminded al-Awlaki that they had met when the cleric was still in the United States:
"PS-We met briefly a very long time ago when you were the Imam at Dar al Hijra. I doubt if you remember me."
After seven messages from Hasan to al-Awlaki, who by then was in hiding in Yemen, al-Awlaki wrote back.
"I pray this message reaches you at the best state of emaan and health. Jazakum Allahu khairan for thinking good of me. I don't travel so I wont be able to physically award the prize and I am too 'embarrassed' for a lack of the better word to award it anyway."
Within hours of al-Awlaki's reply, Hasan wrote back saying the scholarship contest was running into problems, but he promised to be a help to al-Awlaki.
"If you need any assistance, Allah willing I will be able to help. I believe my biggest strength is my financial situation. Of course, and this goes without saying, that everything should be legal and in accordance with the u.s. Law."
At the end of that e-mail he also wrote for some dating advice.
"I'm looking for a wife that is willing to strive with me to please Allah (SWT). I will strongly consider a recommendation coming from you."
Three days later, al-Awlaki wrote his second and final e-mail to Hasan.
"I kind of felt that the contest would end up running into red tape. People in that part of the world are becoming very timid and it doesn't look it's getting any better.
Thanks for the offer for help."
Al-Awlaki's final thought was about the search for a wife for Hasan.
"Tell more about yourself. I will keep an eye for a sister."
Hasan wrote back with an e-mail that might be confused with a profile for an online dating site.
"In regards to a sister for marriage. My name is Nidal Hasan. If you google 'CSTS and Nidal Hasan' you will see a picture of me. I currently reside in Silver Sping MD; 301-XXX-XXXX. I was born and raised in the U.S. Both, of my parents are from Palestine... If you know someone that you feel that will be compatible and complement my endeavors to please Allah (SWT) please let me know."
Hasan continued to write al-Awlaki. He discussed Muslims in the news in America, more about how to safely send al-Awlaki money, suggesting using PayPal, and he asked al-Awlaki to keep Hasan's information in his Rolodex and suggested that he call collect if need be.
Hasan's next e-mail, on May 25, 2009, seems more ominous in hindsight.
"Allah (SWT) makes it clear that most wont believe and of those that do; the ones who struggle for his cause are greater in his sight then those who sit back and pray."
Six days later, his next e-mail specifically addressed violence, mentioning "a recent incident were an American Soldier jumped who on a grenade that was thrown at a group of soldiers. In doing so he saved 7 soldiers but killed himself. He consciously made a decision to kill himself but his intention was to save his comrades and indeed he was successful. So, he says this proves that suicide is permissible in this example because he is a hero. Then he compares this to a soldier who sneaks into an enemy camp during dinner and detonates his suicide vest to prevent an attack that is know to be planned the following day. The suicide bombers intention is to kill numerous soldliers to prevent the attack to save his fellow people the following day."
On June 16, 2009, Hasan wrote his final e-mail to al-Awlaki, writing in part: "If we ignore Allah (SWT) like Adam we will have no exuse if we end up in hell fire."
Less than six months later, 13 people died at Fort Hood. Hasan will be tried on murder charges in August.
He faces the death penalty if convicted.
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In 2012, Dan Bethards had been a special agent in the Wisconsin Department of Justice for 14 years. But his career and life were upended after he reported his direct supervisor and friend, Jay Smith, for making and selling firearms without a license — a possible federal offense.
Since blowing the whistle on Smith, Bethards has been fired. He lost his home to foreclosure. He figures his future in law enforcement is over.
Bethards says he regrets his choice to report Smith, and wouldn't do it again.
"In particular with me, it wasn't a good thing because the 'thin blue line' became a negative thing. You don't snitch on cops. That's just the way it is, you just don't. Otherwise, bad things happen. And bad things happened for me," Bethards said.
Bethards says he was aware of Smith's activities for several years before he decided to report him. He was prompted to blow the whistle after Smith approached him asking for help to modify an allegedly stolen government-issued AR-15 rifle to become a fully automatic machine gun. Bethards says this was "the straw that broke the camel's back."
Even more disturbing to Bethards, he knew that then-Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Division of Criminal Investigation administrator Ed Wall both had bought guns from Smith.
Bethards says he reported the activity — despite the risk to his career — because, "We are the cops, we are supposed to do the right thing every time all the time without question, right? That's what you expect from your police officers."
After Bethards made his allegations, he was put on paid leave and later fired. In response, he filed a series of retaliation complaints, which sparked a legal battle between the former narcotics agent and DOJ.
In May, the state Court of Appeals ruled against Bethards. The court found that the way Bethards reported his allegations — by notifying both his superiors and the head of DOJ's human resources department — nullified his whistleblower protection.
The agency had argued Bethards notified the wrong people at DOJ of his allegations, that only members of his chain of command should have been informed. The appeals court found that Bethards' "interpretation of that (whistleblower) statute is not more reasonable" than the state's.
DOJ spokesman Johnny Koremenos declined comment on the litigation.
Bethards says he cannot afford to take the case to the Supreme Court.
"The chances of even getting heard are minimal, and the chances of winning there are miniscule," he said. " You can't go up against the government and win. They are just too powerful —and arrogant. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and nobody is strong enough or rich enough to stop them."
Strife in DOJ's Superior office
Jim Ohm was a special agent who worked in the same office as Bethards. Their bureau in Superior, Wisconsin, was made up of only four agents including Smith and Smith's wife, Michelle.
Ohm says the work environment changed for the worse after Smith was promoted to supervisor in 2011 and his wife joined the office. Ohm started recording some conversations and meetings with DOJ officials — including one discussion in which Wall joked about a gun he had bought from Smith.
Attempts to reach Smith through the DOJ were unsuccessful.
"As special agent seniors, our responsibility and our authority was to be self-motivated and your expected level of supervision is very minimal, and we were being treated as though we had just been hired, as if we were probationary agents. There were a lot of conflicts and confrontations from both Jay and his wife,' " Ohm said.
Bethards went on stress leave in October 2012 as he was contemplating whether he should speak up about Smith. Two months later, Bethards sent an email to two DOJ officials notifying them that Smith may have been violating state and federal firearms laws. The two officials were David Matthews, then-administrator of the Division of Criminal Investigation, and Mary Casey, director of human resources.
After several months on leave, Bethards asked to return to work. At the request of Matthews, the division administrator, Bethards was evaluated by a DOJ-appointed psychologist, who verified he was fit to return to duty. Bethards went back for one day — but he was put on leave the following day, June 2, 2013, while the agency then investigated him. Bethards was fired Oct. 10, 2013.
No charges, no internal investigation
Under DOJ policy, "all suspected violations of laws … brought to the administrator's attention shall be investigated." According to Bethards, that was never done. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did investigate.
Bethards — who was a witness in the investigation — says the ATF determined Smith had built and sold some firearms but that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota — which handled the case because of a potential conflict of interest — did not routinely prosecute such violations. Smith was never charged.
(This March, ATF warned about an emerging program in several police departments in California of officers selling firearms without a license.)
The decision not to prosecute Smith is puzzling to Kyle Torvinen, the attorney representing Bethards in his whistleblower lawsuit. Torvinen says he was never able to get copies of the ATF's investigative reports.
In Bethards' termination letter, the DOJ cites numerous alleged rule violations. Among them was allegedly using his work email to purchase parts for his own private firearms business. Bethards says he bought the supplies for guns used at work.
Another claim was that Bethards lied when he claimed his former boss possessed a stolen semi-automatic weapon — an accusation Smith denied.
"Somebody had to be lying, and they picked Dan and that was another reason that they fired him for," Torvinen said.
Bethards says he knew blowing the whistle would have significant consequences. He knew his friendship with Smith was going to be destroyed as well as his career. He was right.
"Everybody turned their back on me," Bethards said.
In the four years since being fired by DOJ, Bethards says he has been mostly unable to find work.
He briefly worked for Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Police in Hayward, Wisconsin. He said the job lasted just six months until a local district attorney refused to prosecute any of his cases. Bethards acknowledged that if called to testify, a defense attorney could raise his firing to damage his credibility as a witness.
Long legal battle ends in defeat
Bethards filed multiple complaints of retaliation with the state Department of Workforce Development. The agency initially determined Bethards may have been subjected to illegal whistleblower retaliation.
However, when the three complaints were consolidated into a single case, Administrative Law Judge Allen Lawent determined that Bethards did not qualify for whistleblower protection because he had notified Casey, the human resources director, who was not in his "supervisory chain of command."
Bethards then took the matter to Douglas County Circuit Court. Judge George Glonek disagreed with Lawent's ruling and found in 2015 that Bethards had not violated the procedure in the state Whistleblower Law. DOJ appealed that decision to the state court of appeals, which in May ruled against Bethards.
According to Torvinen, if the appeals court had sided with Bethards, the case would have been sent back for a hearing before an administrative law judge where Bethards would have been able to present the evidence supporting his allegations.
"I believe the Department of Justice is using the system itself … as kind of a weapon to deplete (Bethards') motivation," Torvinen said. "The hardest part for me is the justice system being utilized in a way that essentially denies the benefit that it sort of promises."
Whistleblowing a hard road
Bethards says the experience of being a whistleblower has been devastating.
"I wasn't much of a father to my son and daughter this last, probably, five years," he said, confessing that he initially turned to alcohol for comfort.
Those children are now working in a factory to save up money for college; Bethards says he is not able to support them financially anymore. He says he is grateful that he is still married but added, "I don't know why she's still with me."
Others have witnessed the hardships Bethards has gone through.
"His home went into foreclosure because he couldn't make payments and he's had to move all over the state and just take any jobs he can get, and it's sad," Torvinen said.
Jeff Bethards, Dan's brother, a detective with the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, has seen it, too.
"There was almost an immediate change in Dan when he blew the whistle," Jeff Bethards said. "He started receiving messages from friends and coworkers questioning his actions. Dan knew how serious the accusations were and understood under DOJ policy, an investigation would be opened."
Bethards says he stopped coaching basketball and baseball out of embarrassment. Jeff Bethards says it has been "heartbreaking" to watch the impact on his brother, who was a decorated and successful agent.
"The DOJ did everything they could to destroy or discredit Dan," he said. "I have been forced to watch as Dan has been humiliated and ruined financially and professionally. Dan is not the same person he was when all of this started."
Bethards would like to return to law enforcement. But he wonders if it is too late.
"So I want to go back in," he said, "but I do not want to be the guy who is calling on the radio for backup but nobody is coming."
This story was produced as part of an investigative reporting class in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication under the direction of Dee J. Hall, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism's managing editor. The Center's collaborations with journalism students are funded in part by the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment at UW-Madison. The nonprofit Center (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.


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Lesson #1: Your Parents Did The Best They Could
My parents separated when I was 13 years old and eventually divorced. It first took me years to acknowledge and cultivate awareness of how that circumstance affected me and shaped how I related to myself and others. Once I finally faced the immense sadness I felt inside it took me half of my 20s to process how what I needed as child from a parent was perhaps not what I received.
Our parents are always doing the best they could with what was set as an example to them from their parents in how to be a parent and the wounds and struggles they are sometimes processing throughout their entire life. When we fight internally who our parents are this ultimately causes strife and struggle within us. It took a lot of grieving on my own to grieve for what my parents were not, for the family dynamic I would never have, and to appreciate who my parents just naturally are and acknowledge all the ways that they did show up for me in their own unique way. As adults at some point, when we are ready, we have to take responsibility to heal our internal wounds. Finger pointing ultimately does not solve anything but pushes us further away from ourselves and owning our perspective in how we processed our past.
The wonderful thing about being an adult is that we get to meet our inner child the ways we always wished we were met when we were younger. We all have an inner child inside of us. I have a picture of me roller skating when I was about 5 years old on my fridge to stay connected to her. Sometimes she is still sad and sometimes she needs my attention. In this journey in fostering a deeper connection with ourselves, we get to tell our inner child all the things they needed to hear when you were younger. So you can tell them how wonderful and amazing they are just as they are and imagine giving them a big hug and taking time to hear what they have to say so that they can feel heard, and seen, and acknowledged.
Our first form of love often came from nourishment from a parent so for the rest of life food can be connected to am I loved, am I seen, am I supported, am I heard? When our relationship perhaps does not feel nourishing with our parents or when we are not feeling those emotions and sensations in our life it is completely natural for food to then come into that space. It is when we cultivate awareness of our emotions around how we were seen and held as a child and just allow our emotions to be there without trying to change them or make them go away that our relationship with food can find a very different place in our life as we nourish and satiate ourselves emotionally.
If you have wounds around your parents, I offer this suggestion to allow yourself to feel your wounds, feel the pain, feel the sadness, feel the anger. It was in feeling these emotions and no longer pushing them down that I felt more and more connected to myself again. When we push down our emotions we disconnect ourselves from our aliveness and from accepting and embracing our human experience as is. I know it can feel intense but just like a wave does not keep getting bigger and bigger the more we feel our emotions the waves eventually crest and calm down into gentle waters once again. I want you to know I have been through that process and am completely here for you.


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One more take on the imitation fish…
2 (200-gram) packages imitation shrimp, defrosted
2 (12-ounce) bottles of beer
2 cups flour
2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
2 tablespoons peanut oil (use grapeseed if you have allergies)
Accompaniment: Cocktail Sauce (add a little fresh cilantro to the cocktail sauce for some extra zing!)
In a large bowl, soak shrimp in beer for about 3 hours.
In a large freezer-strength Ziploc bag, mix flour and seasoning. Remove shrimp from beer and add to flour mixture. Shake to coat.
Heat oil to medium-high in wok or large frying pan. Sauté shrimp until crisp; 3 to 5 minutes per side. Serve immediately or at room temperature with cocktail sauce.


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I have to admit, I totally underestimated the popularity of this offer after putting it up. I've decided to pick the first six images to critique, in a more brief fashion than the previous two – it does take time, after all.
A thank you to our generous donors is in order – you have sacrificed your images on the altar of photography for the education of the greater good, and that's a commendable thing. Thank you to everybody who took the time to submit – I'm sorry I don't have time to do a detailed critique of all of the images, but I will reply all of your emails – that's the least I can do.
Here goes.
Untitled / Roland Tetenbaum
I'll start with the good things. It's a well exposed frame, has a clearly defined subject, and said subject is well isolated from the background. Kudos for getting the focus point right: for all living things, if there's a face in the image, you should focus on the eyes. (I've tried to think of an exception to this rule, but I simply just can't come up with any.) Similarly, well done for capturing some of the subject's soul – great expression on the dog's face.
However, there are thing thats that could use some improvement. The placement of the corners and edges is distracting: that green triangle top right is just odd. It should be a little more to balance out the empty squares bottom-left, or left out altogether. A square crop with the dog slightly off-center to the right might actually work better in this case; you wouldn't get that feeling of emptiness which those particular bottom-left squares of lino suggest.
I can't speak too much of the processing, because in many ways that's to personal taste; I'm not sure I like the level of saturation that much, but it's tastefully done and there aren't any blown channels.
One final detail: the sliver of little blue tag on the dog's collar is a little distracting – pulling it all the way out, or tucking it back in first or cloning it out (it's not photojournalism, so it's acceptable) would probably be better.
Untitled / Brad Radcliffe
For some odd reason I can't put my finger on, this is a very familiar looking image. I can't claim to have a photographic memory, so perhaps I came across it while browsing Flickr or something.
In any case, the first thing that hits you is the color – quite literally. I've never seen blue chocolate before (or at least I assume that's what it is). The macaroon appears to be its native color, though; it's an interesting counterpoint as the yellow macaroon stands out well against the cool blue of the background. However, with food photography, the point is usually to make the subject seem appetizing – I'm honestly not sure the photograph achieves that intention because I don't really want to eat something blue; I suppose it must be human conditioning. If heavy hue shifts are to be used in one channel, you have to watch the other channels – colors are a mixture of channels, and you may land up having odd effects in other areas of the image if things aren't masked off properly – note the slight green/cyan cast to the top right of the macaroon.
From a technical point of view, subject placement is good, though the in-focus area at the bottom of the frame feels cut off. Focus point for this image would be trick to select – it's a smallish subject and relatively near, so DOF would be limited; if you pick the front of the macaroon, the edges won't be well defined and vice versa; tough choice but I think the one used by the photography was the correct one. However, to avoid that awkward cut-off in focus area in the foreground, I'd try positioning the camera at a lower angle so the focus plane on the background chocolate is closer to the macaroon; this would work better with this composition.
Untitled / Choohaw Ding
I'm going to assess this one as a family snapshot – the subject looks pretty candid, and the positioning is somewhat casual – though the perfect straightness of the vertical elements suggests otherwise. Kudos for the latter, by the way. The telephoto perspective separates the frame into several distinct zones, which do not intrude onto each other, for the most part; the only area where this becomes an issue is the background tree that very nearly encroaches onto the head of the subject. The wire in the background to the top left of the subject is also distracting because it breaks the strong verticality of the scene – it's fine if it's part of your subject because the eye is naturally drawn to it; it isn't if it's just a background element.
Shifting the camera position down and to the right would have placed the girl nicely in the gap between the tree and the pillars, also conveniently blocking out the horizontal wire.
The only other odd intrusions into the frame are bottom right (should have been cloned out or framed slightly higher, or taken care of by the previously suggested framing) and an odd dangly immediately above the tree. Some shadow recovery on the door at right would have also removed the heavy blockiness from the right hand side of the frame, which would also reduce the confined vertical feeling of the subject and allow a bit more breathing room.
To be honest, however, the image as a whole appears flat – it's the lighting, or lack of any strong dynamic to it. This is also the number one reason the shot doesn't really work for me as a whole. Unfortunately, if you're shooting available light, there's not a lot you can do in a flat lighting situation like this other than move on and find another location to shoot in.
Untitled / Juraj Balaško
Although it doesn't look it, there aren't any truncated elements in the scene – the cranes just meet the edge of each side of the frame. And that's a nice bit of framing precision – well done. The sky adds interest, though I personally think the color may be a little overdone – but it's quite tasteful and works.
There are three things I'd change with this composition, none of them major. The first is the position of the central crane – I don't know if it would have been possible to wait for it to move, given the time of day and probably rapidly changing sky, but it would be nice if all three were aligned in a row. The second, is the slightly empty central portion of the frame; if the load on the third crane were in the middle and partially hoisted, that would also be ideal – however, I can imagine this would also be unlikely as it doesn't appear that there is any reason to raise the load up. The final thing is perspective correction: keystoning with wide angle lenses is common; correcting it is not. There are two ways of doing this: tilt/shift lenses, or go a bit wider to leave room for correction at the edges of the frame, and use Photoshop to distort the whole image.
Overall though, nice job – especially considering the equipment choice (Canon S95) – compact cameras are not really suited for capturing tonal subtlety in skies; the color gamut required is far beyond what the sensor can capture, and certainly beyond the range of the ADC converter when saving.
Klara / George Gravett
Nice strong colors and light; there's a nice variety of texture in the wood of the ship's hull, the sea in the foreground and the buildings in the background. Exposure and focus are both good. Overall, this is a competent snapshot. What prevents it from being a great shot – the critical elements of clear subject and dynamic lighting are all present – is the framing. The image feels weighted down at the bottom left; the right side and top portion are both quite empty and simply do not balance what's going on in the remainder of the frame. Furthermore, there are odd intrusions at top left (leaves), top center (cut off rope ladder horizontals) and right side (buildings on the hill?).
An alternative framing that would have been stronger would be to aim the camera to the left and down slightly; this would show some of the dock and sea in front of the boat to better frame it. I can see hints of a reflection at the bottom center edge, too; a lower angle would definitely have captured this and further improved the overall visual texture of the image.
If you wanted to push it a bit further, I'd go in closer and with a wider focal length to emphasize the ship a bit more; I'm guessing this would have been possible because the EXIF data reports an odd focal length and aperture (38mm f4.4) which can only be the result of using a zoom lens – and since zooms seldom start at 35mm, there's probably a bit more width to be had.
Rapeseed Runner / Christoph Papenfuss
I really like this image – the strong color and repeating geometry make it visually arresting. However, I suspect it's one of those shots that is really best appreciated as a large print – you can't really make out the runner at web sizes. Exposure and processing are both good, so let's get that out of the way.
The framing is strong, with minimal intrusions at the edge to distract the viewer. However, the plow line on the left side of the frame that intersects the left edge feels truncated; I'd either crop that bit off, or move the camera to the right to frame the runner and only two plow lines. I suspect the hill probably sloped to the left a little, but without the context of the greater landscape, the image feels like the camera wasn't held straight. Although the orientation may be technically correct, sometimes we need to use a little artistic license; I'd rotate the whole thing to the left slightly to create the perception of a flat horizon. You'll notice I don't have a lot to say about this image – it's really quite good.
Overall tip: Watch your perspectives. If you're going to shoot something shorter or lower than you, come down. If it's higher, move up if you can. Not moving results in a human but very standard perspective to your images – if you saw one in a pile of other shots, you probably wouldn't stop to give it a second glance because the perspective is very familiar. Even if you have a strong subject, a change in perspective can only help. This is especially important when using wide angle lenses. MT
Shameless plug for Ming Thein's Email School of Photography:
I would love to help you all improve your work by critiquing, but the reality is that if I opened up my email box for everybody, I wouldn't have time to do anything else – and that includes commercial work that now pays the majority of my bills. However, I was asked by a couple of readers if I'd consider doing this on a more formal basis: the answer is sure.
Here's the proposal: I will do a highly detailed, offline (i.e. individual over email) analysis of your image for a small PayPal donation of US$50, with of course personal follow up to any ongoing questions. I'll also open up a bulk rate of US$350 for ten images, which you don't have to submit at once – it doesn't expire. I'm open to how people would like to learn; if you want me to do a detailed portfolio review, that's fine; if you'd like me to set you a ten-image assignment which you do image by image and revert back for feedback/ tips etc., that's fine too. Please drop me an email at mingthein(at)gmail.com if you're interested. Thanks! MT