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Fitness Certifications
ACE educates, certifies and represents more than 90,000 health and fitness professionals, health coaches, and other healthcare professionals who have made movement their mission. We are the largest certifier in health and fitness, offering four certifications, accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), the gold standard in the United States for assessing professional competence, and numerous specialties aimed at helping health and exercise professionals lead special populations. Our education is centered around the ACE Mover Method, our philosophy on facilitating behavior change to empower people to make healthier lifestyle choices.
NCCA Accredited Certifications
The ACE Certification process in 5 steps
Step-by-step instructions on how to move your career forward.
Get The Career Guide
Get your career in health and fitness moving with the ACE Personal Trainer Career Guide.
Get your career in health and fitness moving with the ACE Group Fitness Instructor Career Guide.
Get your career in health and fitness moving with the ACE Health Coach Career Guide.
Exam Preparation
Study Support
Your mission is our mission. We're behind you every step of the way, providing comprehensive resources and support to help you move your career forward.Visit ACE Answers
Exam Candidate Handbook
Explore the ins-and-outs of our certification and recertification exams with this easily-digestible handbook.Download
Continuing Education
Specialist Programs
Movement is universal, and often times personal. In many cases, movement requires a unique and individual approach. ACE's specialist programs offer health and fitness professionals as well as healthcare providers the opportunity to move special populations across a variety of disciplines through a focused approach.


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Our Chontales Arm Chair is handcrafted by artisans in Nicaragua from sustainably sourced wood. Featuring our Midnight Blue pattern. Modern, yet timeless, this chair will make a statement in any home.
- Dims: H33" W24" D18"
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- Handcrafted in Nicaragua
In-stock items ship in 5-10 business days.
Made to order is 8-12 weeks.

subset: commoncrawl


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Fuel Care Systems
High-Capacity Water-Separating Fuel Filter Kit
Silicone-treated media for improved water separation
Maximizes engine performance with all grades of gasoline.
Fuel additives keep your fuel optimized, protect your fuel system, and remove any leftover deposits.
Prevents gum and varnish from forming in the fuel and settling in fuel lines and tanks, carburetors and injectors.
Why Fuel Care is Important
Even more than the gas in your car, the gas in your boat needs special care to keep your engine running at peak performance. Gasoline begins to go bad within about two weeks. When left untreated, some of the fuel components begin to oxidize and form a gum-like substance. The substance settles in fuel lines and tanks, carburetors and injectors. When you try to burn this fuel, deposits can form in the combustion chamber. Over time, these deposits build up and reduce your engine's performance.
Fuel additives keep your fuel optimized, protect your fuel system, and remove any leftover deposits. With the Mercury Fuel Care System, you can trust that you're using products that are specially formulated – by your engine's manufacturer – to help you get the most from your Mercury engine.
The Mercury Fuel Care System is the first line of defense against fuel-related problems. However, Mercury also recommends the following precautions to protect your engine:
- Buy gas from known and trusted sources whenever possible.
- Keep your gas tanks clean and check them periodically for water and sediment.
- Check your fuel filter often. Fuel filters help prevent fuel contaminants from entering your engine. Under certain conditions it is possible for filters to suddenly become clogged, so always keep an extra filter on board should it need immediate replacement.
Safety Data Sheets (SDS)
A Safety Data Sheet (SDS) is a form containing data regarding the properties of a particular substance. An important component of product stewardship and workplace safety, it is intended to provide workers and emergency personnel with procedures for handling or working with that substance in a safe manner, and includes information such as physical data (melting point, boiling point, flash point, etc.), toxicity, health effects, first aid, reactivity, storage, disposal, protective equipment, and spill handling procedures. The exact format of an SDS can vary from source to source.


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Mobile Maintenance and Towing LLC
Any time, anywhere. Our towing service and fleet of trucks work around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week to give you a lift when you need it most.
At Mobile Maintenance & Towing LLC, where we've provided over a decade of towing service, mobile maintenance, and roadside assistance to Tucson motorists and heavy truck operators. Our powerful fleet of tow trucks can pull any type of vehicle, from sedans to super-duty semis hauling heavy machinery. Plus, we'll tow your vehicle to our shop if the repairs go beyond a simple roadside fix. Give us a call today!
Business Name:
Mobile Maintenance and Towing LLC
2014 W Gardner LnTucson Arizona 85705United States
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About Tucson
Tucson (; Spanish: Tucson, O'odham: Cuk-Ṣon) is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, and is home to the University of Arizona. It is the second largest city in Arizona, with a population of 542,629 in the 2020 United States Census, while the population of the entire Tucson metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is 1,043,433. The Tucson MSA forms part of the larger Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area (CSA). Tucson is the second most-populated city in Arizona behind Phoenix, both of which anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor. The city is 108 miles (174 km) southeast of Phoenix and 60 mi (97 km) north of the U.S.–Mexico border.
Neighborhoods in Tucson, Arizona
Adelanto, Alvernon Heights, Armory Park, Avondale, Balboa Heights, Barrio Anita, Barrio Blue Moon, Barrio Centro, Barrio Hollywood, Barrio Libre, Barrio Ochoa, Barrio San Antonio, Barrio Santa Rosa, Barrio Viejo, Blenman-Elm Historic District
Things to do in Tucson, Arizona
Our Newest Profiles


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AP IMPACT: Evacs and drills pared near nuke plants
Without fanfare, the nation's nuclear power regulators have overhauled community emergency planning for the first time in more than three decades, requiring fewer exercises for major accidents and recommending that fewer people be evacuated right away.
Nuclear watchdogs voiced surprise and dismay over the quietly adopted revamp — the first since the program began after Three Mile Island in 1979. Several said they were unaware of the changes until now, though they took effect in December.
At least four years in the works, the changes appear to clash with more recent lessons of last year's reactor crisis in Japan. A mandate that local responders always run practice exercises for a radiation release has been eliminated — a move viewed as downright bizarre by some emergency planners.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which run the program together, have added one new exercise: More than a decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, state and community police will now take part in exercises that prepare for a possible assault on their local plant.
Still, some emergency officials say this new exercise doesn't go far enough.
These changes, while documented in obscure federal publications, went into effect with hardly any notice by the general public.
Michael Mariotte, director of the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, normally tracks such rules very carefully. This time, he learned of them from an Associated Press reporter.
"Unless there are public interest groups out there pointing to the things these agencies are doing, they generally prefer to be operating in quiet, especially if it's likely to be controversial," he said. "A typical American does not read the Federal Register."
The Web archives of FEMA and the NRC show no news releases on the changes during December 2011 and January 2012. The revisions took effect Dec. 23, at the peak of the holiday season when Americans tend to focus on last-minute gift shopping and social gatherings.
An AP investigative series in June exposed weaknesses in the U.S. emergency planning program. The stories detailed how many nuclear reactors are now operating beyond their design life under rules that have been relaxed to account for deteriorating safety margins. The series also documented dramatic population growth around nuclear power plants and limitations in the scope of emergency exercises. For example, local authorities assemble at command centers where they test communications, but they do not deploy around the community, reroute traffic or evacuate anyone as in a real emergency.
The latest changes, especially relaxed exercise plans for 50-mile emergency zones, are being flayed by some local planners and activists who say the widespread contamination in Japan from last year's Fukushima nuclear accident screams out for stronger planning in the United States, not weaker rules.
FEMA officials say the revised standards introduce more variability into planning exercises and will help keep responders on their toes. The nuclear power industry has praised the changes on similar grounds.
Onsite security forces at nuclear power plants have practiced defending against make-believe assaults since 1991 and increased the frequency of these drills after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The new exercises for community responders took years to consider and adopt with prolonged industry and government consultations that led to repeated drafts. The NRC made many changes requested by the industry in copious comments.
Federal personnel will now evaluate if state and local authorities have enough resources to handle a simultaneous security threat and radiation release. Their ability to communicate with onsite security officials during an attack also will be evaluated during exercises.
But community planners wonder why local forces won't have to practice repelling an attack along with plant security guards — something federal emergency planners acknowledge could be necessary in a real assault.
They said state and local police are more likely to be needed for tasks like escorting damage control teams than for confronting the attackers.
"We're assuming these guys don't want to escape, or else they wouldn't have showed up," said Randy Sullivan, a health physicist who works on emergency preparedness at the NRC. "A dragnet and security sweep is less important than saving equipment that is important to core damage."
None of the revisions has been questioned more than the new requirement that some planning exercises incorporate a reassuring premise: that little or no harmful radiation is released. Federal regulators say that conducting a wider variety of accident scenarios makes the exercises less predictable.
However, many state and local emergency officials say such exercises make no sense in a program designed to protect the population from radiation released by a nuclear accident.
"We have the real business of protecting public health to do if we're not needed at an exercise," Texas radiation-monitoring specialist Robert Free wrote bluntly to federal regulators when they broached the idea. "Not to mention the waste of public monies."
Environmental and anti-nuclear activists also scoffed. "You need to be practicing for a worst case, rather than a nonevent," said nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio of the group Greenpeace.
In a statement, FEMA acknowledged that a simulated problem during a no-release exercise is handled on plant grounds. Federal planners say this exercise still requires community decision makers to mobilize and set up communication lines with officials on the site, practicing critical capabilities, even though they won't need to measure and respond to radiation.
While officials stress the importance of limiting radioactive releases, the revisions also favor limiting initial evacuations, even in a severe accident. Under the previous standard, people within two miles would be immediately evacuated, along with everyone five miles downwind. Now, in a large quick release of radioactivity, emergency personnel would concentrate first on evacuating people only within two miles. Others would be told to stay put and wait for a possible evacuation order later.
Timothy Greten, who administers the community readiness program at FEMA, said it wouldn't be necessary to tell people to stay put "if you could evacuate everybody within 10 or 15 minutes." But he said hunkering down can be safer in some locations and circumstances, "especially for a short-term solution."
Federal officials say people could risk worse exposure in an evacuation impeded by overcrowded roadways or bad weather.
This change, however, raises the likely severity of a panicked exodus outside the official evacuation area. Even a federal study used to shape the new program warns that up to 20 percent of people near official evacuation areas might also leave and potentially slow things down for everyone — and that's assuming clear instructions.
"If it were me, I would evacuate" even without an official go-ahead, said Cheryl L. Chubb, a nuclear emergency planner with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, who is critical of the changes.
At Fukushima, more than 150,000 people evacuated, including about 50,000 who left on their own, according to Japan's Education Ministry. At Three Mile Island, 195,000 people are estimated to have fled, though officials urged evacuation only for pregnant women and young children within five miles. About 135,000 people lived within 10 miles of the site at the time.
In its series, the AP reported that populations within 10 miles of U.S. nuclear sites have ballooned by as much as 4 1/2 times since 1980. Nuclear sites were originally picked in less populated areas to minimize the impact of accidents. Now, about 120 million Americans — almost 40 percent — live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, according to the AP's analysis of 2010 Census data. The Indian Point plant in Buchanan, N.Y., is at the center of the largest such zone, with 17.3 million people, including almost all of New York City.
"They're saying, 'If there's no way to evacuate, then we won't,'" Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with the environmental group Riverkeeper, said of the stronger emphasis on taking shelter at home. The group is challenging relicensing of Indian Point.
In February, a national coalition of environmental and anti-nuclear groups asked the NRC to expand evacuation planning from 10 miles to 25 miles and to broaden separate 50-mile readiness zones to 100 miles. The groups also pressed for some exercises that simulate a nuclear accident accompanied by a natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane — akin to the combination of tsunami, blackout and meltdowns at Fukushima.
The new U.S. program has kept the 10- and 50-mile planning zones in place, as well as the requirement for one full exercise for a 10-mile evacuation every two years. However, required 50-mile planning exercises will now be held less often: every eight years, instead of every six years.
Exercises are full-blown tests, with FEMA evaluation, of the entire range of community capabilities needed in an accident. Smaller drills of specific skills are run more frequently.
In the state-led 50-mile exercises, emergency personnel practice the logistics of dealing with contaminated food and milk over a large region. They also prepare the mechanisms to relocate people, clean up contamination and later return evacuees to their communities.
Gary Lima, who manages the nuclear readiness program at the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said 50-mile exercises should be run more frequently than once every eight years. "Recovery is really your hardest work," he said.
Even when the program mandated a six-year timetable, federal authors of the 2002 program manual acknowledged that "many (first responders) have indicated a desire" for even more frequent exercises in the 50-mile zone.
The Japanese disaster reinforced such worries when officials told some towns beyond 12 miles from the disabled plant to evacuate. Soil and crops were contaminated for scores of miles around. At one point, health authorities in Tokyo, 140 miles away, advised families not to give children the local water, which was contaminated by fallout to twice the government limit for infants.
The U.S. government recommended that Americans stay at least 50 miles from the Japanese plant. Government officials said the same kind of action could be taken domestically in a similar accident, but advance planning for U.S. evacuations is, in fact, restricted to 10 miles.
Nuclear regulators advocate "one standard to protect Japanese people and one standard for the American people," said Richard Brodsky, a former New York state lawmaker who is fighting relicensing of Indian Point.
The Japanese government had budgeted $14 billion through March 2014 for the cleanup, but it's expected eventually to cost far more. And some evacuees may never return home.
Paul Blanch, a retired engineer who worked on safety in the U.S. nuclear industry, said the American government largely ignores the potential economic costs of nuclear accidents when it calculates risk. "How do you clean up trees and leaves and soil?" Branch asked referring to fallout. "How do you put a value on that?"
Officials for FEMA and the NRC said they are still studying whether Japan's experience points to the need for further changes in the United States.
Pressed on the reduced frequency of 50-mile exercises, federal planners said community personnel can practice skills as often as they like, without needing a full-blown federal evaluation each time.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main advocate, strongly backed the eight-year timetable to reduce the burden of adding the attack exercises. Asked about the other changes, NEI spokesman Steven Kerekes said they bring more federal oversight, formalizing practices already begun at many sites.
However, no nuclear plant has ever been shut down for deficiencies in the emergency response plan of surrounding communities.
Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report from Tokyo.
The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org


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I'm half asleep while I write this, so when it comes out all gobbledywompus and I say something like "complete and utter freedom" (which happened last week when I wrote in this state) just chalk it up to the fact that I'm writing with two-thirds of my brain tied behind my back.
A few weeks ago somebody posted a link to Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules for writing and I read them and got really mad because they were all those "avoid adverbs and adjectives" types of rules that apply to some people but not others. The one that really got me was EL saying something along the lines of "I tend to skip the parts the reader skips."
Well, I'm reading my first Elmore Leonard book in at least fifteen years. I checked _Raylan_ out of the library because I'm a junkie for Justified on whatever cable channel Justified is on.
Godbless, it's a good think I watch the TV show. Because if I didn't I'd have very little idea of what Raylan (the title character!) looks like. Leonard is great at the dialog, but he really can't conjure a sense of place. The only reason I have a sense of place is because I watched the bleddy thing on the television.
There's this writer guy I know through the internet and he's ALWAYS disagreeing with me about things like this. He thinks EL is genius; the fact that Leonard has a lot of money and top selling books is a point in his favour, I suspect. I maintain that I like a story to tell me where I am and what it is like in that place.
I've long thought that there are different rules from different writers precisely because there are different readers of different writers. I don't like Leonard's style as much as Argument Guy does. A lot of people think my favourites are "too wordy." So anyway. Writery Rules are not a one-size fits all thing.
And also, I don't like this book. I'm also embarassed that I keep mixing up (in my head) James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard and when I read EL's rules for writing I thought he was James Ellroy and I kept picturing _The Cold Six Thousand_ and all of its adverbs and adjectives and was really confused.


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How to Get Around in Amsterdam
With such a range of transport options available across the city, it's no surprise that driving is actively discouraged in Amsterdam. From walking tours to canal cruises, here are your best options for exploring the city's historic streets and winding waterways.
Public Transport
Amsterdam's public-transit network is extensive, but choosing the right ticket can be tricky. The contactless OV-chipkaart covers the whole system and be purchased from a station or newsagent. Otherwise, single- or multi-day tickets are available, but check that your service is included before traveling.
Hop-On-Hop-Off-Bus or -Boat Tour
You can combine city sightseeing with hassle-free transfer on a hop-on hop-off tour, zipping around by double-decker bus or canal boat. Both options allow you to freely alight at any stop of your choosing or complete the circuit in one go for an introductory overview of the Dutch capital.
Canal Cruise
No visit to Amsterdam is complete without a journey on its canals, which together comprise a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Whether you want to unwind with an after-dark aperitif on the moonlit waterways or gain insight into the city's major landmarks on a daytime voyage, you have plenty of options to choose from.
Bike or Segway Tour
As one of Europe's most cycle-friendly cities, Amsterdam is easily explored on two wheels. You can check off top attractions in just a few hours on a Segway or bike tour, or head out even farther into trendy suburbs and surrounding countryside for an authentically Dutch experience.
Amsterdam on Foot
Immerse yourself in Amsterdam's cultural heritage by exploring its narrow streets on foot. Walking tours are a staple for first-time visitors, with plenty of itineraries to choose from: city sightseeing and historical tours, tasting experiences, social-policy-themed tours, and more.


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There's been quite a bit of publicity about Hansen's Y2K error and the change in the U.S. leaderboard (by which 1934 is the new warmest U.S. year) in the right-wing blogosphere. In contrast, realclimate has dismissed it a triviality and the climate blogosphere is doing its best to ignore the matter entirely.
My own view has been that matter is certainly not the triviality that Gavin Schmidt would have you believe, but neither is it any magic bullet. I think that the point is significant for reasons that have mostly eluded commentators on both sides.
Station Data
First, let's start with the impact of Hansen's error on individual station histories (and my examination of this matter arose from examination of individual station histories and not because of the global record.) GISS provides an excellent and popular online service for plotting temperature histories of individual stations. Many such histories have been posted up in connection with the ongoing examination of surface station quality at surfacestations.org. Here's an example of this type of graphic:
Figure 1. Plot of Detroit Lakes MN using GISS software (from Anthony Watts.)
But it's presumably not just Anthony Watts and surfacestations.org readers that have used these GISS station plots; presumably scientists and other members of the public have used this GISS information. The Hansen error is far from trivial at the level of individual stations. Grand Canyon was one of the stations previously discussed at climateaudit.org in connection with Tucson urban heat island. In this case, the Hansen error was about 0.5 deg C. Some discrepancies are 1 deg C or higher.
Figure 2. Grand Canyon Adjustments
Not all station errors lead to positive steps. There is a bimodal distribution of errors reported earlier at CA here , with many stations having negative steps. There is a positive skew so that the impact of the step error is about 0.15 deg C according to Hansen. However, as you can see from the distribution, the impact on the majority of stations is substantially higher than 0.15 deg. For users of information regarding individual stations, the changes may be highly relevant.
GISS recognized that the error had a significant impact on individual stations and took rapid steps to revise their station data (and indeed the form of their revision seems far from ideal indicating the haste of their revision.) GISS failed to provide any explicit notice or warning on their station data webpage that the data had been changed, or an explicit notice to users who had downloaded data or graphs in the past that there had been significant changes to many U.S. series. This obligation existed regardless of any impact on world totals.
Figure 3. Distribution of Step Errors
GISS has emphasized recently that the U.S. constitutes only 2% of global land surface, arguing that the impact of the error is negligible on the global averagel. While this may be so for users of the GISS global average, U.S. HCN stations constitute about 50% of active (with values in 2004 or later) stations in the GISS network (as shown below). The sharp downward step in station counts after March 2006 in the right panel shows the last month in which USHCN data is presently included in the GISS system. The Hansen error affects all the USHCN stations and, to the extent that users of the GISS system are interested in individual stations, the number of affected stations is far from insignificant, regardless of the impact on global averages.
Figure 4. Number of Time Series in GISS Network. This includes all versions in the GISS network and exaggerates the population in the 1980s as several different (and usually similar) versions of the same data are often included.
U.S. Temperature History
The Hansen error also has a significant impact on the GISS estimate of U.S. temperature history with estimates for 2000 and later being lowered by about 0.15 deg C (2006 by 0.10 deg C). Again GISS moved quickly to revise their online information changing their US temperature data on Aug 7, 2007. Even though Gavin Schmidt of GISS and realclimate said that changes of 0.1 deg C in individual years were "significant", GISS did not explicitly announce these changes or alert readers that a "significant" change had occurred for values from 2000-2006. Obviously they would have been entitled to observe that the changes in the U.S. record did not have a material impact on the world record, but it would have been appropriate for them to have provided explicit notice of the changes to the U.S. record given that the changes resulted from an error.
The changes in the U.S. history were not brought to the attention of readers by GISS itself, but in this post at climateaudit. As a result of the GISS revisions, there was a change in the "leader board" and 1934 emerged as the warmest U.S. year and more warm years were in the top ten from the 1930s than from the past 10 years. This has been widely discussed in the right-wing blogosphere and has been acknowledged at realclimate as follows:
The net effect of the change was to reduce mean US anomalies by about 0.15 ⹃ for the years 2000-2006. There were some very minor knock on effects in earlier years due to the GISTEMP adjustments for rural vs. urban trends. In the global or hemispheric mean, the differences were imperceptible (since the US is only a small fraction of the global area).
There were however some very minor re-arrangements in the various rankings (see data). Specifically, where 1998 (1.24 ⹃ anomaly compared to 1951-1980) had previously just beaten out 1934 (1.23 ⹃) for the top US year, it now just misses: 1934 1.25⹃ vs. 1998 1.23⹃. None of these differences are statistically significant.
In my opinion, it would have been more appropriate for Gavin Schmidt of GISS (who was copied on the GISS correspondence to me) to ensure that a statement like this was on the caption to the U.S. temperature history on the GISS webpage, rather than after the fact at realclimate.
Obviously much of the blogosphere delight in the leader board changes is a reaction to many fevered press releases and news stories about year x being the "warmest year". For example, on Jan 7, 2007, NOAA announced that
The 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was the warmest on record.
This press release was widely covered as you can determine by googling "warmest year 2006 united states". Now NOAA and NASA are different organizations and NOAA, not NASA, made the above press release, but members of the public can surely be forgiven for not making fine distinctions between different alphabet soups. I think that NASA might reasonably have foreseen that the change in rankings would catch the interest of the public and, had they made a proper report on their webpage, they might have forestalled much subsequent criticism.
In addition, while Schmidt describes the changes atop the leader board as "very minor re-arrangements", many followers of the climate debate are aware of intense battles over 0.1 or 0.2 degree (consider the satellite battles.) Readers might perform a little thought experiment: suppose that Spencer and Christy had published a temperature history in which they claimed that 1934 was the warmest U.S. year on record and then it turned out that they had been a computer programming error opposite to the one that Hansen made, that Wentz and Mears discovered there was an error of 0.15 deg C in the Spencer and Christy results and, after fiixing this error, it turned out that 2006 was the warmest year on record. Would realclimate simply describe this as a "very minor re-arrangement"?
So while the Hansen error did not have a material impact on world temperatures, it did have a very substantial impact on U.S. station data and a "significant" impact on the U.S. average. Both of these surely "matter" and both deserved formal notice from Hansen and GISS.
Can GISS Adjustments "Fix" Bad Data?
Now my original interest in GISS adjustments did not arise abstractly, but in the context of surface station quality. Climatological stations are supposed to meet a variety of quality standards, including the relatively undemanding requirement of being 100 feet (30 meters) from paved surfaces. Anthony Watts and volunteers of surfacestations.org have documented one defective site after another, including a weather station in a parking lot at the University of Arizona where MBH coauthor Malcolm Hughes is employed, shown below.
Figure 5. Tucson University of Arizona Weather Station
These revelations resulted in a variety of aggressive counter-attacks in the climate blogosphere, many of which argued that, while these individual sites may be contaminated, the "expert" software at GISS and NOAA could fix these problems, as, for example here .
they [NOAA and/or GISS] can "fix" the problem with math and adjustments to the temperature record.
This assumes that contaminating influences can't be and aren't being removed analytically.. I haven't seen anyone saying such influences shouldn't be removed from the analysis. However I do see professionals saying "we've done it"
"Fixing" bad data with software is by no means an easy thing to do (as witness Mann's unreported modification of principal components methodology on tree ring networks.) The GISS adjustment schemes (despite protestations from Schmidt that they are "clearly outlined") are not at all easy to replicate using the existing opaque descriptions. For example, there is nothing in the methodological description that hints at the change in data provenance before and after 2000 that caused the Hansen error. Because many sites are affected by climate change, a general urban heat island effect and local microsite changes, adjustment for heat island effects and local microsite changes raises some complicated statistical questions, that are nowhere discussed in the underlying references (Hansen et al 1999, 2001). In particular, the adjustment methods are not techniques that can be looked up in statistical literature, where their properties and biases might be discerned. They are rather ad hoc and local techniques that may or may not be equal to the task of "fixing" the bad data.
Making readers run the gauntlet of trying to guess the precise data sets and precise methodologies obviously makes it very difficult to achieve any assessment of the statistical properties. In order to test the GISS adjustments, I requested that GISS provide me with details on their adjustment code. They refused. Nevertheless, there are enough different versions of U.S. station data (USHCN raw, USHCN time-of-observation adjusted, USHCN adjusted, GHCN raw, GHCN adjusted) that one can compare GISS raw and GISS adjusted data to other versions to get some idea of what they did.
In the course of reviewing quality problems at various surface sites, among other things, I compared these different versions of station data, including a comparison of the Tucson weather station shown above to the Grand Canyon weather station, which is presumably less affected by urban problems. This comparison demonstrated a very odd pattern discussed here. The adjustments show that the trend in the problematic Tucson site was reduced in the course of the adjustments, but they also showed that the Grand Canyon data was also adjusted, so that, instead of the 1930s being warmer than the present as in the raw data, the 2000s were warmer than the 1930s, with a sharp increase in the 2000s.
Figure 6. Comparison of Tucson and Grand Canyon Versions
Now some portion of the post-2000 jump in adjusted Grand Canyon values shown here is due to Hansen's Y2K error, but it only accounts for a 0.5 deg C jump after 2000 and does not explain why Grand Canyon values should have been adjusted so much. In this case, the adjustments are primarily at the USHCN stage. The USHCN station history adjustments appear particularly troublesome to me, not just here but at other sites (e.g. Orland CA). They end up making material changes to sites identified as "good" sites and my impression is that the USHCN adjustment procedures may be adjusting some of the very "best" sites (in terms of appearance and reported history) to better fit histories from sites that are clearly non-compliant with WMO standards (e.g. Marysville, Tucson). There are some real and interesting statistical issues with the USHCN station history adjustment procedure and it is ridiculous that the source code for these adjustments (and the subsequent GISS adjustments – see bottom panel) is not available/
Closing the circle: my original interest in GISS adjustment procedures was not an abstract interest, but a specific interest in whether GISS adjustment procedures were equal to the challenge of "fixing" bad data. If one views the above assessment as a type of limited software audit (limited by lack of access to source code and operating manuals), one can say firmly that the GISS software had not only failed to pick up and correct fictitious steps of up to 1 deg C, but that GISS actually introduced this error in the course of their programming.
According to any reasonable audit standards, one would conclude that the GISS software had failed this particular test. While GISS can (and has) patched the particular error that I reported to them, their patching hardly proves the merit of the GISS (and USHCN) adjustment procedures. These need to be carefully examined. This was a crying need prior to the identification of the Hansen error and would have been a crying need even without the Hansen error.
One practical effect of the error is that it surely becomes much harder for GISS to continue the obstruction of detailed examination of their source code and methodologies after the embarrassment of this particular incident. GISS itself has no policy against placing source code online and, indeed, a huge amount of code for their climate model is online. So it's hard to understand their present stubbornness.
The U.S. and the Rest of the World
Schmidt observed that the U.S. accounts for only 2% of the world's land surface and that the correction of this error in the U.S. has "minimal impact on the world data", which he illustrated by comparing the U.S. index to the global index. I've re-plotted this from original data on a common scale. Even without the recent changes, the U.S. history contrasts with the global history: the U.S. history has a rather minimal trend if any since the 1930s, while the ROW has a very pronounced trend since the 1930s.
Re-plotted from GISS Fig A and GFig D data.
These differences are attributed to "regional" differences and it is quite possible that this is a complete explanation. However, this conclusion is complicated by a number of important methodological differences between the U.S. and the ROW. In the U.S., despite the criticisms being rendered at surfacestations.org, there are many rural stations that have been in existence over a relatively long period of time; while one may cavil at how NOAA and/or GISS have carried out adjustments, they have collected metadata for many stations and made a concerted effort to adjust for such metadata. On the other hand, many of the stations in China, Indonesia, Brazil and elsewhere are in urban areas (such as Shanghai or Beijing). In some of the major indexes (CRU,NOAA), there appears to be no attempt whatever to adjust for urbanization. GISS does report an effort to adjust for urbanization in some cases, but their ability to do so depends on the existence of nearby rural stations, which are not always available. Thus, ithere is a real concern that the need for urban adjustment is most severe in the very areas where adjustments are either not made or not accurately made.
In its consideration of possible urbanization and/or microsite effects, IPCC has taken the position that urban effects are negligible, relying on a very few studies (Jones et al 1990, Peterson et al 2003, Parker 2005, 2006), each of which has been discussed at length at this site. In my opinion, none of these studies can be relied on for concluding that urbanization impacts have been avoided in the ROW sites contributing to the overall history.
One more story to conclude. Non-compliant surface stations were reported in the formal academic literature by Pielke and Davey (2005) who described a number of non-compliant sites in eastern Colorado. In NOAA's official response to this criticism, Vose et al (2005) said in effect –
it doesn't matter. It's only eastern Colorado. You haven't proved that there are problems anywhere else in the United States.
In most businesses, the identification of glaring problems, even in a restricted region like eastern Colorado, would prompt an immediate evaluation to ensure that problems did not actually exist. However, that does not appear to have taken place and matters rested until Anthony Watts and the volunteers at surfacestations.org launched a concerted effort to evaluate stations in other parts of the country and determined that the problems were not only just as bad as eastern Colorado, but in some cases were much worse.
Now in response to problems with both station quality and adjustment software, Schmidt and Hansen say in effect, as NOAA did before them –
it doesn't matter. It's only the United States. You haven't proved that there are problems anywhere else in the world.


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Pocono Summit man killed in crash
Staff Writer
Pocono Record
A Pocono Summit man died Thursday afternoon after a crash in Tobyhanna Township.
Walter Spencer, 94, was the driver of a car involved in a two-vehicle crash at the intersections of Route 115 and Commercial Boulevard in Tobyhanna Township, according to Monroe County Coroner Bob Allen.
Spencer was taken from the scene by Pocono Mountain Regional EMS to Pocono Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 3:48 p.m.
Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department and Tobyhanna Township Volunteer Fire Company also responded to the scene.


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This is a tough year for "Aisle Hogs."
These "Hogs" — famous for staking out aisle seats so they can get a special, solo moment with the President of the United States as he walks down the center aisle of the House of Representatives before delivering the annual State of the Union address — are legendary in Washington.
And thanks to YouTube (see video below), they are famous worldwide.
But the Aisle Hogs have been decimated this year by departures from Congress.
Four of the six most famous Aisle Hogs — as they were semi-officially dubbed by Salon.com — are gone in one year. Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan retired. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio was defeated. Rep. Jean Schmidt of Ohio was defeated. And Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois resigned amid a criminal investigation.
That leaves just two of the Hall of Fame hogs: Houston's own Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and the ever-reliable Eliot Engel of New York.
All of these lawmakers (with the except of Schmidt) are Democrats.
Rocker gets invite: Friendswood lawmaker makes date with Ted Nugent tonight
"I'm always working on behalf of my constituents," Jackson Lee told the National Journal when asked why she stakes out an aisle seat each year. "I am working on their behalf, and they are seeing me work on their behalf. Many of them are moved by the moment."
Last year, as we reported here on Texas on the Potomac, Jackson Lee used the opportunity to invite Obama to Texas. From our report:
She got a kiss on the cheek from the president.
And she used her moment of quality time to invite President Obama to Houston to visit M.D. Anderson medical center and NASA.
She promised Texas on the Potomac that she'd do that. And if we're any good at lip-reading, it looks like she kept her promise.
No word on whether the leader of the free world accepted.
With the Aisle Hog Caucus decimated, who's likely to replace them?
Among those who have secured close-up seats in recent years are Reps. Al Green of Houston, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Bobby Rush of Illinois, Barbara Lee of California and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. Salon has nominated Todd Platts, a Pennsylvania Republican, to replace Schmidt as the GOP's best bet to grab an aisle seat.
But not everybody in Congress wants their moment on national TV.
"I keep a busy schedule, I don't have an extra eight hours to keep a seat warm," Rep. Gerald Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, told the National Journal.
"I'm not giving up eight hours of my time for a minute on national television," Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, added.
Tune in tonight at 8 p.m. CST and check out the Aisle Hogs before the big speech begins.
Here's a time-lapse view of Sheila Jackson Lee's aisle seat locations, 2000-2010.
SEAL funeral: Procession begins in North Texas
Ship stranded: Horror stories on Carnival Triumph
Prius owners: Here's why they drive that way
Law limits soldiers: May not hunt LA gunman


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Monday, June 25, 2012
Trulia's New Commute Time Maps
Trulia Local has today added a new feature that allows users to check out commute times in a number of U.S. cities.
Using the map house hunters can now check out how long it takes to commute to or from any location by public transit or by car. For example you can center the map on your place of work and find out all the areas within your choice of commute time.
A slider tool allows the user to adjust the time of the commute and it is possible to select either driving on public transit times. You can drag and drop the map marker to set the center point of your commute time request.
Posted by Keir Clarke at 11:55 AM
Labels: real estate, USA
1 comment:
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Overpainting Muntins
Multipane windows and doors are beautiful things. They let plenty of light through and make a compelling architectural statement at the same time. If you are fortunate enough to have newer windows or doors on which the dividing muntins are clad in vinyl, you never have to worry about paint peeling. This is a good thing because painting them can drive you nuts. It's not that it's hard work--it isn't. It's just very time-consuming, especially if you want to coat both the outside and inside surfaces. The biggest time and patience consumer is painting along the glass, usually called cutting in. One way to avoid this tedious work is to simply throw caution to the wind and overpaint the muntins and not worry about spreading paint on the glass. Once the paint is dry to your touch--usually about 30 minutes if you're using latex--come back with a razor blade and scrape the paint off the glass. Just make sure that you don't wait too long. If the paint is completely dry and hard, it will take you almost as long to scrape it off as it would have to carefully cut in around each muntin.
Homemade Wood Filler
If none of us ever made a mistake when working on a project, there wouldn't be much need for wood filler. But the out-of-square cut, the pilot hole bored in the wrong place, the hammer dent that's just too deep to leave, all demand relief. There are a lot of commercial products out there. Some can be used straight out of the can, others are 2-part formulations that require mixing before use, and still others are tinted to match the color of the wood being repaired. All are good ideas. But if none are on hand, you don't have to live with your mistakes. Just take some fine sawdust from the wood that needs repairing and mix it with some plain wood glue (white or yellow) until the mixture is the consistency of a thick paste. Then, fill what needs filling and strike the surface smooth with a putty knife. When the glue is dry, sand the filler flush to the surrounding surface. This mix will remain workable only until the glue starts to set--about 30 minutes for most wood glues--so don't mix up more than you can use at one time.


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Originally designed for performers in Italy's piazzas, the family-run label Anniel Sport has been producing extremely pliant ballet and gymnastics shoes in streamlined silhouettes since 1976.
The rubber-soled shoes gained popularity in Japan, setting off the idea of using them as streetwear and spawning even more styles and colors. Today, the collection consists of shoes and handbags in saturated jewel tones and buttery-soft Italian leather.
While still more or less under the mainstream radar, the brand exhibits at smaller tradeshows such as Bread & Butter in Berlin, Pure London and Salon Premiere Classe in Paris and sells at independent boutiques like Pico in Copenhagen and Kiss Polly in Genoa, Italy, building slowly on their cult status.
Shoe styles span diminutive lace-up flats to fringe moccasins to knee-high boots, all with a distinctively effortless aesthetic. The recently added collection of bags has a similar feel, keeping the quality of the craftsmanship as the focal point.


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Roundtable on ::ahem:: Non-Western SF
Fabio Fernandes is in the middle of a fundraising effort to support a special International issue of the magazine Future Fire. Here's a description of his project:
We are still at war in many places around the world, but something is a-changing: the socialist Second World has ended almost 25 years ago, and the First World and the Third World are, if not changing places, suffering major alterations in their structure. I think it's past time we discuss that in our fiction, and what fiction suits best the discussion of the zeitgeist, our times and the times to come, than science fiction?
We are raising funds to publish a special issue/anthology of colonialism-themed speculative fiction from outside the first-world viewpoint, co-edited by Fabio Fernandes and published by The Future Fire.
They're looking to raise $3000 through Peerbacker, and the last time I checked they had raised a little over $2000. Fabio sent in a question for the Locus Roundtable, and folks got busy deconstructing it. Siobhan Carroll, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Cecelia Holland, Terry Bisson, Marie Brennan, Guy Gavriel Kay, Brit Mandelo, Russell Letson, Rachel Swirsky, Alan Beatts, E. Lily Yu, and Karen Lord all discuss the following:
SF is the literature of the imaginary. How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to this literature?
As always, this discussion is broken up into multiple pages for ease of reading. If you'd like to read it all on a single page, select 'View All' from the drop down menu above. If you don't see the drop down menu, please click here.
Siobhan Carroll
SF is the literature of the imaginary. How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to this literature?
I think I get what Fernandes is driving at, but I might as well start by worrying at the question.
1) If SF is the literature of the imaginary, surely all imaginations contribute to it regardless of where they're located? Or are we merely identifying "SF" (the genre) with the North American and British publishing houses that publish "science fiction"? Can there be no such thing as Indian SF, for example, or do the productions of these authors only "exist" when translated into English and distributed in Barnes & Noble?
2) Is there a monolithic "Western narrative"? If so, on what is it based? Who participates in it? Are we talking about a historical narrative or a literary one? Is the "Western narrative" reducible to the history of Western Europe? To the British Isles? Does it include literatures not in English? Or does "Western narrative" merely = the cultural history of Britain and the United States?
3) Given the role played by the "East/West" axis in the Cold War, does Russia and Eastern Europe participate in this "Western narrative"?
4) Does the "Western narrative" encompass former European colonies?
5) Is there an "Eastern narrative"? A "Southern narrative"? Is there a "Northern" narrative?
How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to this literature?
6) Are we talking about living writers or dead writers? Would the Vedas-inspired fantasies of a 19C British orientalist count as a "contribution" from outside the Western narrative? Or are we thinking of contemporary "non-Western" (not Anglophone? not British/American/European?) writers who write SF published in English translation in the U.S.A.?
I think Fernandes is driving at the latter. But I think before diving into an answer it might be useful to hammer out what we're asking.
I guess I also think the hoary old "Western narrative" needs to be interrogated. Not only do we have the legacy of Oriental/Occidentalism to consider, but the 20C Cold War East/West binary also underpins this phrase, tying "Western" (I think) to "'developed' nations recognized by the U.S.A. as its non-subject allies in a communist/capitalist ideological conflict." By that measure, is China Mieville, for example, a "Western" writer or an "outsider"?
But I'll leave that question to a future roundtable. Personally, I'd like to talk about the SF influence of writers who hail from outside the United States and the Anglophone Commonwealth, and I'd like to talk about writers who are alive and making their own contributions to SF.
Cat Rambo
I've always thought of the imagination as one of the few forces that can overcome the blinders and definitions of "normal" that get put on us by society. To me, visions that come from outside my norm are particularly good at doing that: stirring up my ideas about what constitutes "ordinary" and making me aware of things I hadn't seen before. That's one reason I enjoy reading spec fic from outside my own borders.
Click here to continue reading.


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Students nervously return to school after shooting
Victoria Millon bowed her head during a moment of silence at her Miami elementary school on Monday and thought about the 20 children nearly her age who were killed in their classrooms in Connecticut last week.
They wouldn't be able to open their Christmas presents, the 11-year-old thought. And they would never grow up.
"They had their whole life ahead of them," the girl said.
The principal assured Victoria and her classmates they were all safe, and afterward the students talked with their teacher about the shooting and the disturbed man who fired the shots. When someone started to talk about how some of the kids in Newtown, Conn., saw their friends and teacher die, Victoria started to cry.
The horrific shooting that left 26 people dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday reverberated in the nation's classrooms Monday. Students worried about their safety, teachers faced difficult questions, administrators reviewed security plans. and police responded to reports of new threats. Worried parents considered keeping their children home, only to painfully conclude they could only shelter them so much.
"Ultimately, if this is going to happen ... nowadays, it could happen in a movie theater, at the mall, anywhere," said Lilly Rosell as she nervously surveyed her 7-year-old daughter's Miami elementary school. "It's now about being in the prayer closet a little more often."
At least three schools were on alert in Ohio after threatening comments were made on Facebook and Twitter. In suburban Philadelphia, officers rushed to a high school after security officers mistook a student's umbrella for a gun. In Tampa, Fla., the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office questioned students after a bullet was found on a school bus.
And in Ridgefield, Conn., swarms of parents picked up their children and police were dispatched to every school after a report of a suspicious person at a nearby train station.
Emily Pambianchi, a third-grade teacher at a private school there, said she and her students sprang into action when a lockdown was announced in response to the threat. Lights went off, blinds were shut, doors were locked and students were ushered into safe areas.
"We read books, talked about holiday traditions and shared ideas about the holidays with one another in the dark," Pambianchi said.
An officer later came and unlocked their door. He was introduced to the children and helped explain the lockdown as a safety procedure, similar to what they do during a fire drill.
Some parents decided not to take their kids to school at all. Camille Lacroix-Moulton said her two children woke up feeling a bit under the weather, so she decided to keep them home. Her daughter is in kindergarten, her son in fifth grade.
"Mainly because of my little one. She just turned 6, and I don't want her to hear about it," the Milford, N.H., mother said. "It wasn't really me thinking, 'Today's the day that something bad's gonna happen to her.' It was more like, a lot of this stuff is going on today. I'm sure a lot of kids know about it, even at her age."
Chicago resident Melissa Tucker said she only sent her children to school after assurances from administrators that extra safety precautions had been taken.
"I was actually going to keep them home today," she said.
One school district in western Pennsylvania went so far as to get a court order allowing armed officers in each of its schools on Monday. The board had recently voted to let officers carry guns but decided to expedite the process after Friday's shooting. The court order affected the Butler Area School District and the South Butler County School District, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.
Many schools held a moment of silence and flew flags at half-staff. Teachers and administrators tried to handle the psychological toll, many opting for routine rather than a discussion about the shooting.
Kit Bell, 65, a second-grade teacher at Sunnyside Elementary School in San Francisco, said she didn't talk to her students about the shooting, but that teachers were discussing it among themselves and questioning safety procedures.
"You're responsible for these children," she said. "It crosses your mind where it didn't cross your mind before. It's stressful. It's painful. It's sad."
At the Global Concepts Charter School in Lackawanna, N.Y., near Buffalo, Principal David Ehrle fielded calls from parents who told him they had shielded their children from news coverage over the weekend. The parents wanted to know whether the kids would hear about it from their teachers. He told them they would not.
"Certainly, you can't stop kids from talking on the bus or at the lunch table, but as a school we're not, if you will, sponsoring educating about it," he said.
Rosell said she didn't tell her daughter about the shooting but did try to prepare her in case there is ever a dangerous situation. She advised her daughter to dive onto the floor if she saw someone with a gun or people screaming.
"You mean like hide under my desk?" the girl asked.
No, Rosell said, explaining that she should pretend to be lifeless on the floor and not move. Her daughter looked confused.
"You could tell she was lost," Rosell said.
Victoria, the Miami 11-year-old, was sent to speak with the guidance counselor, who told her some people are bad, but not most, and there are some things no one can prevent.
"I just try not to think about what happened," she said.
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh; Michelle Nealy in Chicago; Carolyn Thompson in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Samantha Critchell in Ridgefield, Conn.; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Terence Chea in San Francisco.


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For reasons we can't really grasp, Marvel decided to announce their new character on The View. And here SHE is in her thunderous glory.
That's right, the new Thor is a woman! And she looks pretty great in this preliminary art:
While details are scarce, we now know that this new Thor was saved by her predecessor, the former male Thor, who is no longer worthy to wield Mjolnir. The only other details we have is that this #1 issue will premiere in October under the supervision of Jason Aaron and Russell Dautermann.
Marvel's press release quotes writer Jason Aaron as saying: "This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is Thor. This is the Thor of the Marvel Universe. But it's unlike any Thor we've ever seen before." The press release also says that whoever is worthy to hold the hammer gets to have the name Thor, so this really is Thor.
[Via Comic Book Resources]


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Using your account: SSH FAQ
- What is SSH?
- Why SSH?
- Where can I get an SSH client?
- What about FTP?
- Where can I learn more about SSH?
- Is there anything else I can do to improve security for the server and my web site?
What is SSH?
SSH stands for secure shell.
It looks like telnet.
It works like telnet.
It feels like telnet.
It even smells like telnet.
The difference between SSH and Telnet is that SSH transparently encrypts the data between the client and the server.
Why SSH?
When you telnet to a machine and, say, type your password, every keypress of your password is relayed across the Internet to our server in cleartext. This means that if some nefarious person on one of the routers through which the information passes sniffed the packets (the Internet equivalent of "tapping" a phoneline), then they'd suddenly know your password, letter for letter!
With SSH, the information is encrypted. So when you type your password, each letter is "scrambled" before it's sent over the Internet, and decoded at the other end. The encryption method is such that, if someone in between the servers stumbled upon the information, they'd just see a jumbled noise.
As you might imagine, this increases your security significantly.
Where can I get an SSH client?
Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
If you're using Windows, you can download a fast, small, free ssh client (which can also do telnet) called Putty. See our software page for details.
There's also an excellent shareware client called SecureCRT which can be downloaded from: http://www.vandyke.com/products/securecrt/index.html
You'll find there's more SSH clients listed at Tucows: http://www.tucows.com
If you're using Linux, you'll probably have ssh installed already. If not, it'll certainly be available for installation with your distribution. Then, at the command line, simply type ssh -l USERNAME SERVER, replacing USERNAME with your Positive Internet username and SERVER for the Positive Internet servername. For example ssh -l fredb muon.positive-internet.com
There's also a number of X SSH clients - see Tucows, http://www.tucows.com
"Nifty Telnet" is a freeware client that can handle SSH and is available from here:
If we hear of other Macintosh SSH clients (we hear there are more) then we'll post the links.
What about FTP?
FTP shares the same sniffer problems with telnet. Because FTP remains so popular, we won't be turning it off, of course! But there is a secure version of FTP called scp (secure copy) and if you want the ultimate in security, use ssh and
scp together for a complete replacement for telnet and FTP.
A free basic windows graphical interface for scp is available here:
This is the graphical front end for pscp.exe at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ and this is already included as part of the above mentioned iexplorer package.
Where can I learn more about SSH?
Is there anything else I can do to improve security for the server and my web site?
Well, the first and most important thing to consider is your passwords. We automatically assign what we consider to be reasonably secure passwords. Passwords should be primarily made up of dictionary words, should include letters or other characters and should not be related to your login name or domain name. You can change your passwords on any of our servers, by first using ssh to connect, then enter the word:-
(Note this is not the standard unix passwd command).
We would recommend that you assign different passwords to your Mysql database, web page logins, and your main FTP/ssh facilities. You should also ensure all your POP3 passwords are different, and do not match your main password.
If your passwords are different, you keep them secure, you use ssh and scp regularly, you will find that security is greatly enhanced.
If you have any further questions please mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com


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27% of Surgeons Still Think Obamacare Has Death Panels
A new study finds a quarter of head and neck surgeons believe one of the biggest lies about the health reform law.
Sarah Palin introduced the idea of the Obamacare "death panel" when, in a 2009 Facebook post, she wrote, "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
Her statement was named "Lie of the Year" by PolitiFact in 2009, but four years and endless online Obamacare explainers later, many doctors still think it's true.
In a new survey of head and neck surgeons—the doctors who work on complex oral cancers and sinus problems—27 percent said they believe the Affordable Care Act creates death panels. Among those who said they were Republicans, 40 percent thought so.
As Sarah Kliff writes, "The journal Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery recently sent a questionnaire to to 9,972 head and neck surgeons that had 10 basic questions about the health-care law. It's one that Kasier Family Foundation created in 2010, which you can take yourself here."
The question about death panels was phrased, "Does the health reform law establish a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare?" Though the law originally had a provision that would pay Medicare doctors for having discussions with patients about end-of-life care, the measure was taken out after an uproar among some policymakers and the general public.
Though the doctors surveyed were more knowledgeable about other aspects of the law, the poll results indicate that the surgeons are in line with everyday Americans, 30 percent of whom still believe in death panels.
What's scary, though, is that doctors are the ones in charge of determining and dispensing health care, including deciding the extent to which they'll cooperate with Obamacare's myriad provisions (among which "death panels" are not, I assure you, included.) Head and neck surgeons of America: Behold the article, "What is Obamacare?" Seriously, you might really think about beholding it.


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By Jason Jeffrey, New Dawn Magazine
"There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge." – Britain's Queen Elizabeth II speaking to Paul Burrell, former butler to the late Princess Diana
On July 7, 2005 bombings on the London subway system and a bus killed 52 people and injured 700. As the list of unanswered questions and inconsistencies about the attacks continued to grow, blame was quickly laid on 'al Qaeda'.
The effects of the London bombings were immediate: There was a renewed commitment by Western leaders to the 'war on terror'. Most other stories and scandals were wiped off newspaper front pages, including UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's plummeting popularity.
The bombings occurred while the G8 Summit was going on in nearby Gleneagles, Scotland. It was here the topic of terrorism was beginning to seem tired amid broadening demands for debt cancellation for impoverished countries.
US President George Bush's priority – the 'war on terror' – was moving out of the limelight.
Afterwards, with London smoking and bleeding, Bush and Blair were able to stand up tall and look strong as they declared the 'war on terror' would be won: "we will prevail and they will not," and, "we alone are fighting" to defend "the values of Western civilisation."
Terror returned to front and centre and further debt cancellation was forgotten.The bombings were the green light for Tony Blair to introduce draconian anti-terrorism legislation which had previously been thwarted by judicial rulings designed to protect human rights.
Blair said he plans policies for deportation of people who "foster hatred." Parliament will also be asked to pass a law against "condoning" or "glorifying terrorism" anywhere in the world, and giving the government the power to close places of worship. Lists are to be drawn up of 'extremist' websites, bookshops and centres.
A clampdown on words or actions likely to be seen as 'glorifying terrorism' could affect groups and individuals unconnected to 'Islamic extremism' – animal rights activists, for example, may have to change much of what they write if they are not to fall foul of the legislation.
British MP George Galloway, a vocal supporter of the Iraqi resistance movement, could be charged under the new law because the government has demonised the resistance as 'terrorists'.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard also announced a similar review to 'tighten up' anti-terrorism legislation.
Who was ultimately responsible for the July 7 bombings remains a mystery. But authorities seemed to know who was behind it soon after the attack. London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair had already made up his mind when he said the investigation into the bombs will uncover a "clear al Qaeda link."
Responding to news of the July 7 bombings, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads Iran's top legislative watchdog the Guardian Council, said the British had themselves to blame.
"One possible set of culprits is al Qaeda. But al Qaeda is Bush and Blair. Who launched al Qaeda? You must be tried, you who are the mothers of al Qaeda," he told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran.
"The other likelihood is that the British regime may have carried out the attack itself… because it benefits most… They want to justify their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan," he added.
July 7 Anomalies
Independent researchers across the world have uncovered information which contradicts the official version of events and points to the involvement of intelligence agencies in the bombings.
Hardly any mainstream media picked up the news that 'bombing exercises' were being conducted in the London Underground at the same time as the actual attack.
Only hours after the July 7 bombings, in an interview on BBC radio, Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, made the extraordinary admission that at precisely the time the London bombings took place, his company was running an exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life on July 7. Visor Consultants is a "crisis management advice company" or PR firm.
Power said the drill focused around "simultaneous bombings." Originally the London bombings were thought to have been spread over an hour, but later it was revealed they were in fact simultaneous. Also, they were easier to execute as Britain's terror alert level had just been lowered.
"We had to suddenly switch an exercise from fictional to real," said Power who is a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch.
Responding to a deluge of emails after his admission, Power strenuously denies any truth to "conspiracy theories" tying his company to the attacks, but he does confirm the exercise involved a "short number of 'walk through' scenarios for a private company in London as part of a wider project that remains confidential."
Some investigators suspicious of Visor Consultants suggest the company might have released information to the media that the bombings were a power surge. For the first hour this was the explanation given, and one that would give authorities time to manage the release of information about the explosions.
Power has been hired by the British government before and has on previous occasions released information after terrorist incidents in London. This is all too close to dismiss as simply coincidence.
A news report which almost went unnoticed hints intelligence agencies had prior knowledge of the attacks.
Arutz Sheva, pegged as Israel's national news Internet site, stated on the day of the July 7 bombing:
"Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources reported a short time ago that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred. The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address an economic summit."
This report was subsequently refuted and changed to say Netanyahu was warned after the first blast.
The importance of Visor Consultant's training exercise cannot be understated because the exact same scenario played out in the United States on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The Pentagon and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) conducted drills involving multiple hijacked planes on the morning of September 11, 2001.
And in what the US government called "a bizarre coincidence," the US National Reconnaissance Office had planned an exercise for September 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into an office tower.
American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, took off from Dulles at 8:10 AM on September 11 – 50 minutes before the exercise was said to begin.
On the morning of 9-11, NORAD radar screens showed as many as 22 hijacked airliners at the same time, but they had been briefed this was part of the exercise drill and therefore normal reactive procedure was forestalled and delayed.
The two scenarios are comparable in that it is a tried and tested method of navigating around everyday security services, and, more importantly, if the perpetrators get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence, they can just claim they were taking part in an exercise.
What are the odds of coincidental 'drills' going on at the exact same time real life events were taking so many human lives in two terrorist attacks?
We are also faced with the scenario of four men, one of whom had a new family, and another whose wife was pregnant, carrying bombs set on timers and calmly waiting for them to explode.
A statement issued by the family of the so-called "fourth suicide bomber", Jamaican-born British resident Germaine Lindsay, said he "had a kind, caring and calming presence about him."
"He was a good and loving husband and a brilliant father, who showed absolutely no sign of doing this atrocious crime. We as a family had no idea of his plans and are as horrified as the rest of the world."
The incongruities of the case have already prompted even some official investigators to suggest the men were not 'suicide bombers' but may have been duped by their "al Qaeda handler" into believing they would only place the explosive devices and not be killed in the blast.
But it also makes sense if the men thought they were carrying fake bombs as part of a terror drill.
Lending weight to this theory is the fact all four men had paid up their parking tickets before boarding a train at Luton for King's Cross and they all bought return tickets to the capital.
The lack of video taped evidence revealing the alleged bombers' movements is also suspicious. Every London bus and Underground train carriage is said to have multiple video cameras, but the one on the bombed bus apparently "malfunctioned." Videos of the other men have not been made available, only a few grainy images of the men at the start of their journey boarding the train at Luton.
Another piece of the jigsaw being pieced together by independent investigators is the testimony of 32 year-old dance instructor Bruce Lait, who was just metres away when a bomb ripped through his train carriage. He miraculously escaped with only minor injuries.
Speaking from his hospital bed in an interview with the British newspaper Cambridge Evening News of July 25, Lait recounts what happened after the bomb went off and how a policeman helped him out of the carriage, adding that:
"The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag."
Then on July 21, two weeks after the July 7 bombings, four attempted bomb attacks disrupted part of London's public transport system. By July 29, police had arrested all four of the main bombing suspects and numerous other people.
The July 21 attacks were immediately linked to the previous bombings, however it is has now been established there was no connection between the men involved in both attacks.
The police operation that quickly rounded up all the suspects of the copycat July 21 attack succeeded in monopolising media coverage and taking attention away from growing doubts about the official version of the July 7 bombings.
Hamdi Issac, one of the July 21 bomb suspects held in custody in Rome, says his backpack contained only flour and was designed merely to frighten. This explains why the so-called bombs let off a small bang followed by some smoke smouldering from their backpacks.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, he claims not to have planned to kill anybody in the attack, "let alone myself." He added that the July 7 bombings in London, "happens every day in Iraq."
The difference between the two bomb attacks could not be starker. The bombers of July 7 are all dead and police have made no arrests of significance in connection with it. The attacks of July 21 led to the arrest of all those directly involved including dozens of people who supposedly are 'connected'.
Perhaps one of the biggest indicators of an intelligence agency link to the July 7 bombings is the revelation that Haroon Rashid Aswat – allegedly the "mastermind" of the attacks – is controlled by MI6, Britain's external security service.
Speaking on July 29 to Fox News channel, former US Justice Department prosecutor and terrorism expert John Loftus discussed Aswat's relationship to British and US intelligence, through a British based organisation Al Muhajiroun.
Loftus added that:
"the entire British police are out chasing him [Aswat], and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him…" Loftus adds that Aswat's role as an informer or a 'double agent' had protected him from being arrested by the CIA because he "was working for British intelligence."
Arresting and putting Aswat on trial in a secret tribunal for organising the July 7 attacks could be turned into a two fold victory for the intelligence agencies: al Qaeda is proved to be responsible, and a blowback remnant and potential whistleblower from their past operations is taken out of circulation.
Space does not permit a full accounting of Britain's creation and manipulation of certain so-called 'Islamic' organisations in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Close to a century ago the British began cultivating Islamic groups to counter the rising tide of Arab nationalism which demanded independence from colonialism. Suffice to say, as masters of political manoeuvring and intrigue, British geostrategists have for many years struggled to control events in the oil rich Middle East.
Up until recently, this strategy allowed a flood of 'Islamists' from Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, to live in Britain, a safe haven where they could further promote their various causes.
By the 1980s and 90s, foreign intelligence services were complaining about the policy. The French were particularly incensed, tracing the origin of the 1995 bombings of the Paris Metro to cells operating, with apparent impunity, from London.
The Russians repeatedly expressed displeasure over Britain providing asylum for Chechen separatists, which they say is a double standard in the fight against terrorism. Two of the terrorists behind the massacre of 300 people, half of them children, in Beslan, Russia in 2004, were British citizens.
It is well known that for more than two centuries, the West has been engaged in breaking up – or thwarting – the presence and extension of Russian influence southward to the Black Sea and beyond. Destabilising the Russian republic of Chechnya is a key aspect of this strategy, part of the 'New Great Game'.
The New Statesman revealed in December 2002 that, even a year after September 11, Britain was still seen as excessively tolerant.
In a cover piece entitled 'Londonistan', the Statesman quoted European and American officials as suggesting the UK "had come to a non-aggression pact with Islamist oppositionists dating back to the mujahedin rebellion against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan": a deal that might explain British immunity from 'Islamic' attacks.
Years before September 11 there were calls for Britain to give up harbouring certain groups, but these pleas fell on deaf ears.
Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, at the 1997 summit of the Organisation of Islamic Conference decried "Western democracies," meaning in this case, Britain, which "give refuge to those of our people who promote disruptive activities in our countries," even while accusing Islamic nations of promoting "terrorism."
The 'Islamic Group' that claimed credit for the November 1997 shootings in Luxor, Egypt which killed over 60 people, mostly foreign tourists, had its international headquarters in London.
Al Ahram, the Egyptian government daily, in a feature entitled 'How Can We Surround and Extradite London's Lords of Terror?' published on December 7, 1997, documents how London became an "Islamic" terrorist haven following the war in Afghanistan, when "legions" of unemployed mujahideen, who had been drawn to Afghanistan from all over the Muslim world, flocked to London for protection, and for new assignments.
Al Ahram quotes an unnamed security source, in its analysis of British motives in making London the "world's terror capital," which partially describes the thinking of British intelligence. "The British expect to reap a great advantage through controlling the most dangerous terrorists on its soil," it quotes the source as saying.
"Through this logic," the source continues, "British intelligence works contrary to all its counterparts in the world. The information British intelligence has acquired about these groups and its members, is an invaluable card, which it can use to either negotiate, or put pressure on, Middle East states."
Al Ahram adds that part of the purpose is to manipulate these groups and take them over, on behalf of British geopolitical aims.
Al Ahram's source concludes:
"London's 'permanent interests' have always converged with the lords of terrorism who live in Britain, and who never underestimate what their existence represents for British interests.''
After September 11, French intelligence officials again angrily accused Britain's internal security agency MI5 of failing to cooperate in stifling 'Islamic' terrorist groups. The level of assistance received from British intelligence in tracking down terror cells was described as being worse than before September 11.
The mid-1990s witnessed a series of vicious wars that led to the break up of Yugoslavia. The Pakistan-based militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUA) was one of the many organisations to send a contingent to help Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
They were sent by the Pakistan government of Benazir Bhutto at the request of the US administration under Bill Clinton.
The contingent, which was raised and trained by Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul, former director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), included a large number of British Muslims of Pakistani origin.
According to estimates, about 200 Muslims of Pakistani origin living in the UK went to Pakistan, received training in the camps of the HUA, and joined the HUA in Bosnia with the blessings of London and Washington. Among them was Omar Sheikh, who went on to mastermind the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Related: 22 Jihad Terrorist-Training Centers Discovered in America
In the late 1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) also attracted many foreign fighters, encouraged by an outpouring of Western support to help defeat an alleged Serbian genocide. One of those fighters was David Hicks, who is now locked up in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
In Crossing The Rubicon, investigative journalist Mike Ruppert notes:
"Great Britain – one of the major players supporting the KLA in Kosovo – also maintained secret relationships with bin Laden… In 1996, Britain's exterior intelligence, MI6, actually funded and worked with al Qaeda in a plot to assassinate and overthrow Libya's Muammar Qadhafi.
"Details of the relationship emerged after a British domestic intelligence (MI5) officer, David Shayler, went public with documents detailing the relationship between Britain and bin Laden."
A decade before Bosnia and Kosovo, the West had raised and funded a large corps of fighters – including Osama bin Laden – to help the mujahideen in their jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Related: Proof that Osama bin Laden Was CIA and Died in 2001! Bush – Laden – CIA Connections
Most of these 'Freedom Fighters' returned home, but many remained under Western intelligence agency control. Some were soon redeployed to North Africa and the Middle East, to carry out terrorist actions ascribed to 'Islamic terrorist groups', on behalf of Western geopolitical aims.
Question is: Are some of these fighters participating in the 'war on terrorism', and who do they work for?
Who Benefits?
After September 11, terrorism suddenly became enemy number one. The threat was conflated into the proportions of an alien invasion. However, whether it was real or not, the powers-that-be promptly took advantage of the terrorist bogeyman.
Armies could be mobilised against any country alleged to be 'harbouring' the new terrorist enemy (ie. Afghanistan and Iraq). An elusive enemy could strike anywhere at anytime, which meant sacrifices at home (anti-terrorism laws).
Such an enemy of vague and ambiguous proportions could be easily stage-managed. It is now irrelevant whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead, or that he controls an actual organisation with certain objectives. The myth is born.
And now those with real power – military force and 'informational dominance' – easily direct the outcome of the new game.
With 'jihadists' on the loose worldwide, we would expect to see many attacks. Instead, despite the mainstream media's duplicity, since September 11 the Western world has witnessed only a few spectacular attacks supposedly carried out by small groups 'connected' to 'al Qaeda'.
With great fanfare in the corporate controlled press, large numbers of Muslims have been rounded up in raids across Britain, Europe, the US, and Australia.
But most were later released and no one has been proven to be an 'al Qaeda' operative. For example, following the well publicised 'ricin affair' in the UK in January 2003, it was later established there was no 'ricin', no 'cell', and no 'al Qaeda' connection.
The independent British journalist William Bowles notes that, "with hundreds arrested under anti-terror laws but not a single conviction of anyone actually proved as being a member of al Qaeda or even being caught red-handed with a bomb, it's safe to assume that it's unlikely al Qaeda actually exists as an effective organisation, let alone operates an 'international terror network'."
Statements of responsibility made in the name of 'al Qaeda' or the fact an individual claims to be acting on behalf of it (after being 'softened up' at a secret prison camp), does not prove such an organisation exists.
Official briefings about terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become dramatic press stories. Few of these ominous announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless. Almost no one questions the myth of 'al Qaeda' because so many people have got an interest in keeping it alive.
It is not too difficult to understand the relative ease in which intelligence agencies, with all their financial and information resources, can manipulate data (as we saw in the recent WMD justification for war on Iraq) and people to achieve objectives.
Is the 'war on terror' running a little flat? Let's raid the homes of some Muslims and then leak to the press that 'Muslim extremists' were planning 'terrorist attacks' on Australia's Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge (such raids actually occurred in Melbourne on June 22). What's even better, the families whose homes were raided are prevented from speaking out by new anti-terrorism laws.
Thus, we never know if the raids prevented a terrorist plot or they were a publicity stunt for the 'war on terror'. But headlines have the desired effect, the not so subtle reminder there's a 'war' going on and it might one day come to your home, your office, or your child's school – just as it did to commuters in London on July 7.
Can we say the cause of Islam benefits from terrorist attacks that kill civilians? No, of course not. The beneficiaries are governments who can 'justifiably' continue to support Bush's 'war on terror' (which enriches the military-industrial complex) and introduce long sought laws that curtail civil liberties and limit dissent.
In London today they are now implementing intrusive surveillance and policing of Muslims and the Muslim community. The attacks have justified the introduction of ID cards, which will hold substantial personal information.
New 'anti-terror' laws being rushed through the UK Parliament include rules allowing the government to impose curfews and the electronic tagging of people suspected of terrorism.
A Phoney 'War on Terror'
It goes without saying that the overwhelmingly majority of Muslim organisations are entirely legitimate and also it cannot be assumed that all groups cited in this article are simply the products of Western intelligence.
What the evidence reveals is that intelligence agencies have tirelessly worked to infiltrate groups of all political and religious persuasions in an effort to achieve their objectives.
The use of agent provocateurs is a well established method that many states still use against their perceived enemies.
It would be child's play for well established spy agencies such as Britain's MI6, America's CIA, and Israel's Mossad to control 'al Qaeda', which barely exists at all, except as an idea or a myth about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, argues the recent TV documentary 'The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear', "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media."
"In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power," it says. A perpetual war against an invisible and entirely fictitious enemy.
Five continuous years of a 'war on terrorism' past the point of no return have left the line between fabricated (intelligence agency-orchestrated) terrorism and any 'real' terrorism (a response to the provocations and policies) irrevocably blurred.
As a willing partner in this enterprise, the mainstream media has distorted the truth by 'pre-packaging' language in a way that paints the world into black ('terrorist') and white ('us').
Shades of grey (where truth and reality normally reside) are difficult to describe in just a few words. Terms such as 'terrorist', 'act of terror', 'fundamentalism' or 'threat' act as familiar signposts for the public, to be regurgitated in social discourse without any knowledge of the semantic meaning of the language being employed.
George Orwell warned that an individual's thought processes were undermined by what he disparaging termed 'journalese' or 'officialese'. When an individual becomes a slave to official jargon they are, in a sense, gagged.
Individuals are prone to use 'officialese' and follow the 'mindless thought grooves' which, in Orwell's opinion, could easily be replaced with more accurate and thoughtful terms.
In George Orwell's classic novel 1984, the totalitarian state of Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Although the enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true purpose is to control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing popular fear and hatred.
Newspeak, the "official language" of Oceania, reduced the number and variety of words in use to render dissenting thought obsolete. Closely related to Newspeak is Doublethink, in which someone is conditioned to either say the opposite of what he thinks or think the opposite of what is true.
By the devious abuse of language and spreading the fear of more terrorist attacks, the government and the corporate media are numbing us into blindly accepting the emerging totalitarian state.
Continue reading: The Top of the Pyramid: The Rothschilds, the British Crown and the Vatican Rule the World
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