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© 2021 CarLessOhio.org. All rights reserved.
Promoting the bicycling lifestyle in The Buckeye State
The fall cycling season is typically capped off with my traditional trip up to Northern Michigan for the Iceman Cometh Challenge mountain bike race. Brent and I headed out early Friday morning for what was to be a re-run of the first day of our Michigan trip back in August–drive to Fort Custer Recreation Area outside of Battle Creek to ride the buff singletrack there, head over the Kalamazoo for lunch at Bell's Brewery, head up to Grand Rapids for a quick refreshment at Founder's Brewing, then continue north to join the main festivities.
I decided to ride on my Salsa Fargo this year. I've given it a good workout on lots of singletrack the past two seasons, but this was its first race experience.
We woke up to some rain and wet snow in Traverse City on Saturday morning, but when we drove to the start in Kalkaska, it remained somewhat cold but sunny and dry. Brent took off in Wave 12 at 9:33am, and I followed soon after at 9:36am.
After a tough race here in 2010, I felt I had to redeem myself and turn in a good performance in 2011. This year, I didn't feel I had anything to prove. I just wanted to have a good ride and a good time and race my own race. I felt I prepared well for the day's conditions, with my SmartWool Cuff Beanie under my helmet, DeFeet DuraWool liner gloves under regular short-finder cycling gloves, SmartWool liner shirt, long-sleeve Century Cycles wool jersey, Ibex wool bib knickers, my new Surly Chainsaw tall wool socks, and Lake MX-100 cycling boots. I had on my Pearl Izumi Elite Barrier Convertible Jacket for the start, but I ended up pulling over about 5 miles into the race and stuffing it into my jersey pocket. I was completely comfortable for the rest of the race.
The Fargo performed well on the course. The rigid fork didn't feel like it beat me up as much as my rigid setup did back in 2010, and being able to ride in the drops to power through the dirt and gravel road sections was a huge benefit. As I've mentioned before, the bike climbs like a billy goat; among the many short, steep climbs on the course, I only had to dismount on one of them, and that was due to a flubbed shift.
About halfway through the race as we approached Traverse City, we got into the snow zone, which made some of the course a little more soft and squishy than usual, but the firm Michigan mud was nothing compared to the sloppy Ohio mud.
I did the usual leap-frogging against the same handful of recognizable riders throughout the race.
The course ended up as the longest ever, about 30.5 miles, so times were a little longer than usual. I ended up at 2 hours, 31 minutes, and 7 seconds, about a third of the way down from the leader within my age group, so I was satisfied with that.
On our way home on Sunday, we stopped to ride the Potowatomi Trail at Pinckney State Recreation Area, followed by post-ride dinner at the new Grizzly Peak Brewing Company in nearby Ann Arbor; about as perfect a combination of biking and beer that you'll find anywhere in the world.


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Recently, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz called out Republicans for their "war on women." House Republican women have a response to that, which boils down to, "Nuh-uh!" Or to be precise, "We are not attacking women. We are women."
Schultz had declared that "the war on women that the Republicans have been waging since they took over the House, I think is not only going to restore but help us exceed the president's margin of victory in the next election." Nancy Pelosi used similar language.
Still, the White House communications director recently squirmed when asked directly if he thought there was a war on women. The best he could manage was, "The war on women is not a phrase the president has used."
So yeah, the White House is trying to stay above the fray regarding an issue it likely wishes would go away and the ladies in the House can use attack-dog language. In the meantime, the Republican-controlled House is busily passing as many anti-choice bills as it can get away with and sneaking whatever it can into the actual budget, while their counterparts in statehouses around the country run roughshod over women's health and choices.
But! But! Some freshmen congressional reps are women. (29 of them in the House, compared to 64 Democratic congresswomen.) Thus, their response to the "war on women" rhetoric was an evening of speeches on the House floor Tuesday announcing, "I am a Republican women."
This was preceded by a mostly fluffy curtain-raiser; Politico noted their "Rosie-the-Riveter vibe" and fondness for cowboy boots, trucks, and tractors. The reporter did ask a few of them if they're feminists, a word which they were more reluctant than Sarah Palin to embrace. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler said she's "pro-woman, just like I'm pro-family, just like I'm pro-man." Rep. Diana Black said, "I can tell you I'm not a feminist; I respect both the male and the female perspective. The creator made us different for a reason, and both of those perspectives are important." Then she added, "It's just important that we have more females here, on committees and subcommittees representing our perspective. Our numbers to need to grow so we can reflect that balance." Not a feminist, huh?
Remarkably, Politico's three-page piece scarcely mentions why others might question these women's commitment to helping women, whether they use the F-word or not. That would be their party's opposition to women's health services — including the very real impact of the drive to defund Planned Parenthood — and ever-hardening commitment to limiting women's choices regarding abortion, not to mention supporting budget cuts that disproportionately hurt women. Even a direct question from home-team cheerleader Greta Van Susteren on abortion rights was evaded.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you think some think the GOP has been not the party for women? Is it abortion issue?
NOEM: There's been a lot of spin in the past. A lot of times the women that were speaking like to spin the facts to make it seem we were anti-women when the Republican Party has always stood up for men and women and equal opportunity and the fact that we all care about the great things of this country. So perhaps we've let them spin this too long and we are pushing back.
There has been a lot of spin! We personally prefer the take of EMILY's List's Jess McIntosh, who told Politico that Republicans clearly noticed the impact Democrats have when female politicians talk about women. But something gets lost in translation:
"But one of the reasons why that was so powerful is because it was women standing up to the anti-woman policies of a party of men. That's compelling. Women speaking on behalf of the anti-woman policies of a party of men just doesn't deliver the same punch."
Funny how that works.
GOP Freshman Women Go On Offense [Politico]
GOP Women Defend Party Against 'Anti-Women' Charge [AP]
GOP: We're Pro-Woman Because We're Pro-Business [Political Correction]
Earlier: The Real Cost Of Defunding Planned Parenthood
Making The Budget A Women's Issue

subset: commoncrawl


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French cave art added to world heritage list
Monique Zappa
PARIS (AP) — Drawings of mammoths, human footprints and other art carved on cave walls in southern France about 30,000 years ago have been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
The U.N. cultural agency says that the Decorated Cave of Pont d'Arc contains the best preserved figurative drawings in the world.
The agency's World Heritage Committee said in a statement that it added the cave and other sites at a meeting Sunday in Doha.
Experts have recorded more than 1,000 images from the walls of the cave, also known as the Grotte Chauvet-Pont d'Arc.
The drawings, among the oldest known human drawings, were unexpectedly discovered in 1994 by researcher Jean-Marie Chauvet in the Ardeche region.


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World's Best Dancer Stars in Promo for World's Shittiest Club Night
This promotional video for a U.K. club night called "Bounce by the Ounce" was reviewed by Vice as the worst of all time (and can you imagine how many "shite" and "fucking atrocious" club promos have graced Vice's inbox over the years?) But they are incorrect. This video is actually the best, thanks to one man.
It can't be an accident that the gent with the bald head and the googly eyes, looking like Jeffrey Tambor on PCP, ended up as the poster frame for this video on YouTube. He singlehandedly provides every part-per-ounce of bounce in this hopelessly diluted rave cocktail.
Yes, you know his style. Now check his vibe.
"Bounce by the Ounce Two coming soon," the promoters threaten as the sun mercifully rises on this tragic menagerie of partiers, who are all wondering the same thing: Will Peepers McRavesalot turn up again, to make life in Preston, Lancashire, worth living for one more club night?


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The Goodwood Festival of Speed, held annually on the grounds of Goodwood House in West Sussex, England, is a mecca for speed freaks. Started essentially as a showcase for historic marques, it has ballooned to include all manner of wheeled lunacy, and this year's event includes the debut of the refreshed 2015 Ford Focus ST. A definite C/D favorite, the current Focus ST is both a 10Best winner and a member in good standing of our long-term test fleet.
Native Son, World-Class Reputation
Although Ford was born in America, the brand has long reserved a special place in its heart for the U.K. (and Britons a special place in their heart for the brand), so it makes sense that the latest ST would make its debut there.
As with the already revealed 2015 hatchback and sedan, the new ST's tweaks start with a refreshed front fascia. The look includes a set of sleeker headlight units that imbue it with a squintier and slightly more aggressive countenance. LED running lamps are standard, while the ST2 and ST3 trim levels have HID headlights. The grille is slightly larger, but it retains approximately the same overall shape. Gone, however, are the thin, fanglike elements that split it into three sections.
The lower area adopts an egg-crate look, and the fog-lamp lenses are now polygonal in shape instead of round. A newly sculpted hood plays nicely into the more aggressive look. Out back, a deeper blackout panel now spans the entire fascia, and the trademark twin hexagonal exhaust finishers carry over.
Gray, 18-inch Rado aluminum wheels are standard, and an additional new wheel design and red painted calipers are optional. Magnetic Metallic replaces Ingot Silver in the exterior color palette, and buyers can now add stripes—in Satin Black and High Gloss Red—to their cars. Doing so also nets matching mirror caps.
The interior gets a few updates of its own, including a redesigned center stack with new finishes and a supposedly improved climate-control interface, a new center console with more storage and a "smart charging" (Ford claims it charges twice as fast as the old one) USB port, and revised door inners with integrated cup holders. A new flat-bottomed steering wheel covered in "soft-feel" leather arrives (with heating as an option), and an eight-way power-adjustable driver's seat makes it easy for drivers of all sizes to get comfy and to find an optimal driving position.
The basic ST1 gets seats covered in dark fabric, while the ST2 adds partial leather and gives buyers the choice of Tangerine Scream, Performance Blue, Smoke Storm, or Race Red accents for the bottoms and side bolsters. In the ST3, the seats are upholstered in no-nonsense, full-on black leather. Aggressive Recaro front seats are standard in the ST2 and ST3.
Dynamically Speaking
To keep the Focus ST's driving dynamics on point, the maker asked Ford Team RS—the European arm of Ford's Global Performance Vehicle group—to give the chassis a onceover. The result includes new springs up front, sportier damping characteristics, and retuned electric power steering for better feel. Back for '15 is the 252-hp, 2.0-liter EcoBoost turbocharged four and six-speed manual transmission—after all, why mess with proven combo? That is, unless you're talking about the highly anticipated Focus RS, a car that promises to top the ST in raw performance. In that case, mess away.
It goes without mentioning that Ford Sync will be onboard for 2015, complete with the developer-friendly Sync AppLink. Ford says there are currently more than 60 AppLink-enabled Android and iOS apps available, which, okay. For us, the real beauty of any Focus ST has nothing to do with apps or touch screens. Nope, the beauty is in firing it up, grabbing a gear, and letting 'er rip.
Andrew Wendler brings decades of wrenching, writing, and editorial experience with numerous outlets to Car and Driver. A rust-belt native and tireless promoter of the region, he once won a $5 bet by walking the entire length of the elevated People Mover track that encircles downtown Detroit.


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The fight for catalytic converters has moved to America's backyards – literally. The EPA and state regulators in California, are calling for mandatory converters in lawnmowers to cut down on their surprisingly high amount of emissions (according to the New York Times, putting catalytic converters on lawnmowers in California would be the equivalent of taking over 800,000 cars—daily!—off the road—a testament to how clean cars have become). Engine makers, on the other hand, argue that these converters will create a fire hazard in owner's sheds, similar to the debates that raged in the '70s about fire hazards from automotive cat converters.
The problem isn't limited to lawnmowers—just about all 2-stroke engines without a converter (such as most portable generators) can also produce disproportionately high emissions—a health risk that's starting to get addressed by engine manufacturers.
In March, the EPA gave a green light to catalytic converters on lawnmowers and small engines, saying they were safe and would improve the air. (Catalytic converters reduce smog-forming nitric oxide and nitric dioxide, and other toxic byproducts of engines.)
More From Popular Mechanics
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a lawnmower cat converter advocate, said that studies have shown that cutting grass with a gas powered lawnmower causes as much pollution as operating a car for 13 hours.
In the meantime, check out these tips on tuning up your current, converter-free mower
and our mower test drives. —Tyghe Trimble
Turf War: The battle for clean air comes to your backyard.


text: Beth Filar Williams is Coordinator of Library Services for Distance Education at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously she was a library consultant in Colorado working with all types of libraries. She was also a Map/GIS Librarian and a middle school librarian. Beth holds a BA in Geography from the Johns Hopkins University and an MLS from the University of Maryland.


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PARK CITY, Utah<br/> Jan. 25, 2013 — -- It sounded simple enough. A well timed, if somewhat out of place, gig during the Sundance Film Festival; a chance to play songs she loved that never became hits; an opportunity to debut her upcoming fashion line.
But nothing involving Courtney Love is simple. The woman is a bonafide, badass rock star, a sun around which a solar system of crazy revolves, and by the end of the night, Love would be pantsless, threatening a restraining order against a screaming woman who called her the cruelest person on earth.
* * *
Love's Jan. 21 show in Park City, Utah, was announced 12 hours before she went on stage. It was her first official solo performance since her 2010 tour with Hole, the band she formerly fronted.
It was also the first concert at the refurbished Star Bar, a rock 'n roll dive on Park City's Main Street that re-opened under new management one week ago. Its walls are lined with old-timey portraits of Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and, right above the steps heading down to the entrance, Love's former husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. But on Monday night, the bathroom doors still smelled like cedar, and the bar's hard plastic glasses were unscratched. It was a rock bar through which few had rolled.
Love's management said she had five minutes to do an interview before a sound check with her band at 5:45 p.m. At 5:40, she wasn't there. Word on the street (literally – this came from a man on the sidewalk, and was later verified by a publicist) was that Dave Grohl, the former Nirvana drummer who debuted the documentary "Sound City" at Sundance, would be next door at the bar Cisero's during Love's performance. Grohl is, by Love's own account, her enemy. The two have been embroiled in legal battles over rights to Nirvana royalties for years, and last year Love accused Grohl of hitting on her 19-year-old daughter, Frances-Bean Cobain. (Grohl's publicist and Cobain denied Love's claims, and Love later apologized.)
Outside the Star Bar, owner Bill Johnson wondered if Love and Grohl would cross paths and brawl. "That would be great press for me, huh?" he laughed.
With or without Love, soundcheck had to start. Micko Larkin, Love's guitar player, screamed into the mic: "Check. CHECK. ARRRAAAUUUGH." To the left of the stage, a man wearing a wool coat and beanie slept, face up, on a couch. A woman named Caroline Egan introduced herself as Love's "friend, one of the few she has left," and paced the length of the bar, calling and texting Love and her manager, Rob Hoffman. She suggested talking to Love's sister -- really, her half-sister, but more on that later -- Nicole Jon Carroll, who was texting on a sofa a few feet from the stage, seemingly impervious to the guttural screams.
Carroll is the founder of Stand for Courage, a charity that works with celebrities to publicly recognize young people who do good things. She said she was really excited to see Love perform. I asked her what else Love was working on. "Oh, you know, Courtney is always doing a lot of things," she said.
Egan returned to say Love and Hoffman were two minutes away. It was 6 p.m. She pulled me to the door. "When you talk to Courtney, don't mention Stand for Courage," she said. "She doesn't want Nicole using her to get publicity."
Egan handed me off to Johnson, who would show me to the dressing room where Love would do the interview. As we walked to the back of the bar, Johnson whispered, "How did you get involved in all this?" I explained that I asked Love's publicist if I could do an interview and he put me in touch with her manager. "So where does that one come in?" he asked, gesturing to Egan.
Me: "She said she's Courtney's friend and she's finding her and Rob."
Johnson: "Well, she's crazy. Stay away from her." Then he pointed his finger to his head like a gun.
First, Johnson opened the door to the liquor closet. "Well, there's this," he said. I asked if this was where Love was going to get ready. "Of course not!" he laughed. The liquor closet was quieter than the dressing room. If I wanted to interview Love in a cave of Jack Daniels and Grey Goose, that was ostensibly a possibility.
The dressing room was next to the stage. A tiny, dingy space, it had a leather loveseat and two smaller armchairs. A moving blanket was duct taped over the single window in place of a curtain. But the room's pièce de résistance was the bodegalike stock of food and vegetables laid out over two folding tables and, because those didn't have enough room, the floor. Sundries included Thomas' bagels, Cool Ranch Doritos, Kettle Cooked Lays, Arnold's sliced bread (two varieties), Agave sweetener, a tower of individually wrapped candies, a juicer, and a cooler of kale.
But there was no coffee, and that was about to be a major issue.
* * *
When I first saw Love, she was on stage, at the mic her guitarist had so heartily been screaming into. Her voice, softer than his, draped the bar with a chilling beauty. She wore a long green cardigan, torn jeans and a handful of necklaces. Her fingers played host to an assortment of crystal-studded flower rings. Her hair was uncombed.
After one song, her manager, a slim, stylish man in leather pants and studded black boots, ushered her back to her dressing room for the interview. She wasn't happy.
"There's someone in my eyeline that's really f**king me," she said to Hoffman. "It creeps me out, alright?" Hoffman tried to calm her down but Love was adamant that the creepy people not watch her soundcheck: "Tell them I have a terrible case of stage fright. The worst. I hate people watching soundchecks." She turned to me: "I don't actually have stage fright." No one on earth thought she did.
There was a bigger problem. "I need some coffee really, really badly," Love wailed. After going to rehab for a "very gnarly drug problem" in the early '00s, Love has insisted she's been sober since 2007, and her substance of choice is now caffeine. "What the f**k with the coffee? This is a nightmare. Everywhere I go in the world, and I don't even drink, there's no coffee, please. …"
Hoffman: "Courtney, we just walked in, do the interview, I'll get you your coffee, please --"
Love: "You'll get me the coffee right now."
Hoffman left, shutting the door behind him. Love slumped onto the couch. I had been told to ask Love about her book. Her appearance at Sundance didn't make a lot of sense -- she wasn't promoting a movie or looking to buy one. But, according to her publicist, her book was her latest project. What was it about?
"Well, what do you think it's about?" she shot back.
The door opened and in came Johnson, the Star Bar manager. Love cooed, "Baby, I need some coffee like I'm going to die, like I'm getting my head chopped off. How is there no coffee in here, Billy?" Johnson promised to get her coffee. "See?" she turned to me. "I like him better than my own family members."
Johnson smiled, clearly happy with his status in the book of Love, and sat back in one of the armchairs. Love snapped: "You can't sit in, you've got to go. It's a f**king interview. I just do interviews privately." Johnson protested -- "What? Are you gonna talk s**t about me?" -- but Love didn't budge. He shrugged, got up and left. As he walked out, Love demurred, "It's just a space thing."
Back to the book. It's about her life. She had thought about writing fiction for The New Yorker, a short story called "Blanche Dubois' Lover," in which "A Streetcar Named Desire's" Southern belle "moved to Greenwich Village and hung out with Anne Sexton and would do reefer. It was a pretty good trope and kind of New Yorker-ish."
But Love said she didn't get the story done on time. So she's writing about herself. She's also developing a clothing line, Never the Bride, photos of which appeared on Twitter last year.
That led to a conversation about Yves Saint Laurent, which Love had chosen to wear for the first part of her show, and Gwen Stefani, who wears a Saint Laurent jacket Love covets on the January cover of Vogue.
"Funny thing, you know, I would've never really bet on Gwen," she said. "Not back in the day." Love attributed Stefani's success -- her "f**king empire" of a clothing line, L.A.M.B. -- to her husband Gavin Rossdale, whom Love said she dated before he got together with Stefani.
"His band never did that well but he is very, very smart," she said. "He runs the Gwen show, that's him. He runs the clothing line, he f**king built that up, he has nothing else to do."
She smiled, shuffling through her purse for a lighter, remembering her relationship with Rossdale. "He was so good looking, but I kind of envisioned that me and Gavin Rossdale would end up on the French Riviera, like, taking tennis lessons and f**king our respective polo teachers."
Hoffman arrived with a 16 ounce cup of coffee, deposited it on a folding table, and left. Love started smoking and pacing the room. Talking about Stefani and Rossdale got her thinking about music. Bush, Rossdale's band, is back together and she wants to tour with them. She has a new single coming out next month, "This Means War," and though "it rocks so hard," she refused to play it at the Star Bar because "then it'll leak. I mean that's sort of self-evident."
"What I'm sort of playing tonight is a set of songs that I think really, really should've been hits and just weren't for marketing reasons," she said, like "Mono," the first single she released as a solo artist in 2004.
I asked if she knew Dave Grohl would be next door during her gig.
Love: "Playing?"
Me: "No, I heard he's checking out a band."
Love: "What band?"
Me: "I don't know … I could find out."
Love: "That's awesome. I love that. Dave, next door, within f**king … however many feet of me throwing a very, very sharp razor blade at his neck."
Love's beef with Grohl has been well documented. She believes he is hoarding Nirvana's royalties and not splitting the profits fairly. She hired Egan, whom she described as her banker, to figure out what she's owed. "The point is, it's about a very large sum of money that they have taken and it's incredibly sophisticated," she said. "So the problem with me and Dave is, he is mindlessly rich just from the Foo Fighters. My question is, why does he need all the Nirvana money?"
Love was worked up now. One hand -- and her hands are quite large -- was on the handle of the dressing room door. The other balanced a cigarette, gesticulating wildly as she explained the Nirvana financials. I thought it would be a good idea to change the topic -- what else was she working on?
"I've been doing," Love paused to exhale, "a lot of fine art lately. I have a really good art dealer. I have a show called 'And She's Not Even Pretty.' Look it up on Vogue.com."
Hoffman came in, asked if we're done, and Love started freaking out because she told me the name of the art dealer and she didn't want his name published. I assured her it wouldn't be. I asked if we could take a picture together. I left.
* * *
The show's official start time was 10 p.m., but it was a given that Love wouldn't be on until at least 11:30. Her warm up acts fell flat. The chorus of one song went, "I'd like to barbecue you lady all night long." Two hundred or so people milled about the bar, ordering beers and vodka sodas from servers wearing name tags.
Near midnight, Love sauntered onstage, groomed and glamorous in a three-piece suit and red lips. Camera phones came to life, the crowd roared. She rocked like others cannot, un-self conscious, without pomp and circumstance. For the first half of the show, besides the lyrics she sang, the only words she said to the crowd were "hi" and, in response to a fan, "You don't know me, how can you love me?"
It felt like the crowd was waiting for something. These were not diehard fans, they were people who happened to be in or near Park City on the day her show was announced, a handful who knew her music well and the rest hoping for a spectacle that could make them YouTube or Instagram famous. (One concert-goer nudged me and whispered with glee, "Just think -- she could OD tonight. This could be the last time anyone ever sees Courtney Love!")
But there was no meltdown. She dropped jaws with a cover of Jay-Z's "99 Problems," a genius rendition that evoked Johnny Cash covering Depeche Mode. She came out for multiple encores, and during one, said, "You can't be a rock star unless you have a f**ked up family. Some of mine are here tonight, and I was told to say hello. So, my f**king family members, hello."
I waited to return to Love's dressing room for a post-show interview. Next to me, by the door that led backstage, stood Pauly Shore. A girl in a backless velvet dress kept trying to sneak through the door but got rebuffed by a very large bouncer. It was after 1 a.m. and unclear when Love would leave the stage.
She packed it in after three encores. Hoffman emerged to pull me back to the kale and coffee abyss. Love stood in the middle of her dressing room wearing a large grey t-shirt and no pants. I told her how much I liked her "Jay-Z" cover. She hugged me. She sat down in an armchair in a pile of what appeared to be sawdust and lit a cigarette. Hoffman rumaged through her bags, asking her to put on pants.
More men came in: the members of Love's band, guitar player Larkin, Shawn Dailey, Scott Lipps, and an unaffiliated curly haired guy named Bob. Johnson and a buddy of his appeared. Love and I were talking about and trying to find the Never the Bride dress she wore for the encore when there was a banging at the door. One of the guys opened it.
It was Egan, and the drama that the camera phone holders craved was about to commence. "Courtney -- you have to come back here," she yelled. Love told her manager to get rid of Egan. The door slammed in Egan's face. Love started pacing, talking about what a "psychopath" Egan was. She raised her voice. She was upset Egan brought Carroll and that Carroll was introducing herself to people as Love's sister. "She's not my sister," Love said, "she's my half-sister. I didn't see her from when I was seven to when I became a rock star."
The banging began again. Hoffman opened the door. Egan started shrieking, Love started screaming, and everyone ducked for cover, trying to avoid the confrontation as best as possible in a room that was crowded with couches, clothes, and a cooler formerly filled with kale.
Red-faced and enraged, Egan admonished Love as "the cruellest, worst person in the world" for not saying hi to her sister. Love told Egan she never wanted to see her again. Hoffman said they'd get a restraining order. He stormed out the door and announced moments later that Egan had been kicked out of the Star Bar. He smiled. Love looked unamused.
If this kind of episode was anything out of the ordinary, Love didn't show it. She still couldn't find the dress. She said it was time to go home. She wanted someone to guard her as she walked out so that Egan couldn't ambush her. Hoffman and the band guys gathered Love's things and assured her they'd be able to make a clean getaway through the back of the Star Bar. A white van awaited their arrival.
Love shrugged on a fur coat and slipped into flats. She smiled, said goodbye, and walked out the back door into the below-freezing night, triumphant, kale-fed and caffeinated.
Whatever happened to Egan? Did Love really fire her? I emailed her publicist to find out.
"I have no idea," he wrote back. "Can we just leave that out?"


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A gallery of beautiful photos of cast ironwork friezes in Australia with a mathematical discussion of the classification of frieze patterns.
Patterns that repeat in a line are strangely interesting. How many types are there and how do you tell one type from another?
Some local pupils lost a geometric opportunity recently as they surveyed the cars in the car park. Did you know that car tyres, and the wheels that they on, are a rich source of geometry?


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- 0-62
- Max Speed
- Insurance
So what is it?
It's the Soul EV, which is, as your logic faculties may have deduced, an all-electric version of Kia's mini-MPV.
I'm literally frothing with excitement.
Thought you might be. This shall be Kia's first globally-sold, mass-produced electric motor, following the little Kia Ray (a Nissan Cube-like box-on-wheels) that's been quietly drumming up support for electric cars in South Korea for little over three years now.
It sits on the standard front-wheel-drive Soul platform - engineered so a battery pack could be installed with minimal intrusion into the cabin - itself the same platform as the new Cee'd. So a fair base to start from.
That battery is mounted in the floor of the Soul, to lower the centre of gravity. It offers 0-62mph time of under 12 seconds, a giddying top speed of 90mph, and a motor output of just under 110bhp and 201lb ft of torque.
And how quickly will it recharge?
Charge it using a 240V socket and you've got full power in five hours; switch to the 100kW fast charger and you're looking at 25 minutes.
This EV is, however, some 300kg heavier than the regular Soul. Kia is still trying to figure out the battery/motor technology, and hasn't yet decided on a supplier at the moment.
How far will it go?
Top Gear
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Kia estimates a range of over 124 miles when it goes on sale next year. Which is good.
So what's it like to drive?
Quiet. The Soul feels composed, refined, and on our test route, seemed a soft, comforting way to stroll through the city. On dual carriageways we got an inkling of some body roll and a soft suspension setup; floor the throttle from zero and that instant torque rocked the Soul back on its springs and shocks.
But that torque. It's the best thing about electric motors. Lots of torque from thin air means decent 0-30mph pace, good overtaking ability and even a nice little 'bullet-train' whine from the motor.
How far did you get?
On the first leg of our test drive, we covered just over 16 miles, with the range dropping from 103 to 78 miles. The second leg recorded a drop in range from 77 to 67 miles, though we covered 13 miles. All achieved with a combination of thoughtful start-stop driving and, ahem, a heavier right foot.
Should I buy one?
We'd wait and see. Final tech spec still needs to be confirmed, and on the strength of this first prototype test drive, the Soul EV isn't very involving. But it may all come down to money: if Kia can figure a way to offer a city EV for a price close to its petrol Soul, it could be onto a winner...


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Its net loss was down to INR 7.5 billion ($125 million) in the three months from April, compared with INR 10.6 billion in the same period last year. Revenue was up to INR 46.7 billion from INR 39 billion, while costs increased slightly.
However, a more worrying indication came in the form of a reduced order book. This was down to 4.9GW at the end of the period, from 5.36GW a year before.
But Suzlon said that it believes it is well poised to improve its position, particularly in Indian home market, where a number of recent policy changes have made the regulatory environment more conducive to stronger growth for the wind industry.
The company valued its order book at $7 billion, with $ 1.1 billion in the emerging markets of India, Brazil and Uruguay. Another $4.7 billion is expected from "developed onshore markets", while the remaining $1.2 billion should come from offshore projects being installed by its German subsidiary, Senvion (formerly Repower).
During the quarter, Suzlon staved off immediate crisis when it agreed the terms of a restructuring of its bond debt, which will see the Indian manufacturer issue $547 million in new bonds.
However, in order to win over bondholders, the company had to issue bonds with a value well over that of the defaulted bonds, which were worth $285.8 million.


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comic for Kramers Ergot #5
Helge Reumann makes wordless strips in an Art Brut style. He studied Decorative Arts in Geneva from 1985 to 1990. After his graduation, he participated in the creation of different graphic studios. In 1996, he created the Elvis Studio, where he specialized in illustration and graphic arts.
He started to create comics for various magazines, like Strapazin, Drozophile, Le Courrier, Psikopat and Lapin. His work has been published in albums starting in 1998, including such titles as 'Camions', 'Poursuite', and 'Bagarre'. Reumann participated on several collective albums ('Comix 2000', 'Tati') and his work has been exhibited in various expositions.


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Mavericks drop Hornets behind Terry's 25
DALLAS (AP) -- Dallas coach Avery Johnson let his players know they needed to improve defensively after a rugged stretch last week. The Mavericks showed they received the message loud and clear.
Jason Terry scored 25 points and the Mavericks held the New Orleans Hornets to just 36 percent shooting in an 89-80 victory Friday night.
Dallas had given up an average of 112 points in games against San Antonio, Denver and Utah last week. The Mavericks also had lapses in the second half Monday that didn't please Johnson, who has been critical of his team's defense in recent days.
But the Mavericks locked down the Hornets from the start, holding them 17 points below their season average.
"We just took pride in our defense," Johnson said. "I thought we were alert and into the game. They made a little run in the third. But we were able to stay strong throughout the game."
Dallas reserve Jerry Stackhouse scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half.
Josh Howard added 15 points for Dallas, but reigning league MVP Dirk Nowitzki continued to struggle. He had only seven points on 2-of-8 shooting, and is 8-of-23 from the floor over the last two games.
Chris Paul scored 22 points for the Hornets on 9-of 21 shooting. Tyson Chandler had 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Peja Stojakovic chipped in 10 points.
"We knew we were coming into a hornet's nest," New Orleans coach Byron Scott said. "They did a heck of a job defensively. And we did a poor job of executing and matching their intensity."
New Orleans had taken its first lead midway through the third before Terry scored eight points in a 10-5 spurt that gave Dallas a 61-57 advantage heading into the final quarter.
The Mavericks opened the fourth by scoring the first six points to stretch the lead to 10. New Orleans got within 83-78 in the final minute before Dallas put it away by hitting six straight free throws in the final 30 seconds.
"I had fun tonight," Stackhouse said. "There have been too many despondent faces on this team lately. We get paid well to play ball."
Dallas, which led 43-35 at halftime, went ahead 51-44 on Howard's layup with 8:09 left in the third. The Hornets answered with an 8-0 run to take their only lead of the game.
Stojakovic hit a pair of 3-pointers, then Paul stole the ball from Nowitzki and made a nifty layup to give New Orleans its first lead of the game with 5:38 left in the third.
Before Terry took over the game offensively, Stackhouse blocked the 7-foot-1 Chandler's layup attempt. Terry followed with a 3-pointer to give the Mavericks a 54-52 lead.
"That was really a turning point of the game," Johnson said.
Stackhouse then blocked Bobby Jackson's shot and fed Terry for another 3-pointer to put Dallas on top 57-54.
"We know we can [play good defense]," Dallas center Erick Dampier said. "We have to make up our minds to do it. If we take care of business defensively, the offensive end will take care of itself."
After taking the lead, New Orleans missed nine of its final 10 shots to end the third.
New Orleans was just as cold in the first quarter, hitting just 5-of-25 shots, and finished the half 14-of-45 from the floor.
Dallas took advantage, building a 41-25 lead in the second quarter on Terry's layup.
The Hornets' struggles were epitomized in a four-possession stretch in the second quarter.
Rasual Butler and Stojakovic airballed short jumpers on consecutive shots. Two possessions later on a pass seemingly intended for no one, Chandler fired the ball into the second row of seats.
"We made too many mistakes," New Orleans forward David West said. "You hold that team to 89 points, that should be enough to win."
Game notes
Harris returned to the starting lineup after missing Wednesday's game against Toronto with a stomach virus. ... New Orleans reserve Melvin Ely missed the game with a fractured left eye socket he sustained Wednesday against Denver. ... Morris Peterson (back) and Stojakovic (groin) returned for the Hornets after each missed the last two games. Scott said Stojakovic is questionable for Saturday against Phoenix after leaving the game late.
Regular Season Series
Series tied 1-1
Game Information
- Referees:
- Scott Foster
- David Jones
- Eric Lewis
2022-23 Southwest Standings
|New Orleans
|San Antonio


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Surprise Party
Dismayed by the system they helped to create, some veteran political strategists are out to subvert it—and create a better choice for 2008.
The unelected professionals who run campaigns compete in a fiercely Darwinian system. Most can expect a career arc and professional longevity similar to the latest Hollywood starlet's, and even the best are routinely replaced. Ideology and technology change with election cycles, and failure can strike suddenly. It's a cutthroat calling—and when you're finished, and everyone else has moved on, you may well harbor lingering regrets about the tactics you've used to win races. If you've worked in national politics at almost any point in the last forty years, chances are things got worse, not better, on your watch. That can gnaw at you.
The ranks of voters who are neither Republicans nor Democrats have grown dramatically over the years.
It certainly gnawed at three diners gathered in a downtown Washington restaurant on a chilly October evening just before the 2005 elections, as an unlikely scene unfolded. Over dinner, some of the best political minds of the 1970s, Republican and Democratic, reached bipartisan consensus: none could any longer recognize the political parties in which they had once been major players. The cynical focus on divisive "wedge" issues and the ferocious negativity of recent campaigns, which fed in to an inability to govern once elected, dismayed everyone at the table.
Doug Bailey had pioneered modern political consulting, working with his late partner John Deardourff on behalf of Gerald Ford and other Republicans. Joining him were Jerry Rafshoon and Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter's brain trust in the 1976 election that deposed Ford. Graying now, each successful in a career after politics, the three had assembled to discuss plans to produce a book and a documentary film about television's impact on the political process—something each had helped bring about, and each had found cause to regret. During the course of a year spent researching their project, even these veterans had been alarmed to discover just how dysfunctional the system had become.
As the evening wore on, a sense of frustration pervaded the gathering, until finally Jordan exclaimed, "Why are you guys just writing a book? Can't we do something about this? The country is in serious trouble here!" And then came the leap. The three decided on the spot that they would create a third party to represent the center in the 2008 presidential election. To guarantee that it would, they decided that the ticket itself would be bipartisan: one Democrat and one Republican. And if independents with bipartisan tendencies were interested, they'd be welcome, too. They called their new party "Unity08" and resolved that it would operate on the Internet. That way everyone could join the party online and participate as a delegate, helping to build the party's platform collectively rather than ceding that task to interest groups, as both major parties tend to do. Ultimately, they hoped, these delegates would select a presidential and vice-presidential candidate in an online convention to be held in 2008, just after the major-party primaries determined the Republican and Democratic nominees. This will be a period of maximal importance to Unity08's founders, who believe that many voters will be dissatisfied with the available choices, and that ambitious candidates—Republicans and Democrats who didn't quite make it, as well as independents—will seriously consider a third-party alternative.
Bailey had been experimenting for years with the Internet applications of politics, in a series of civic-minded youth projects he'd embarked on after retiring from politics. All of the founders recognized that this new technology was poised to transform politics, just as greatly as television had in their own era. They had seen television's effect on the political process grow more and more pernicious as the years went by, poisoning the dialogue while forcing candidates to raise ever-greater sums of money to pay for it. They recognized that the Internet, in its political infancy, was a force that could still be shaped for good.
The three parted ways that evening scarcely believing what they'd decided to do. But in the months ahead, as they studied the feasibility of their plan, they became convinced it could work. Being political consultants, they commissioned a national poll to examine the mood of the electorate and gauge its willingness to accept an independent party. The nation appeared willing indeed: 82 percent of respondents agreed that the country was too polarized to make progress solving problems, and three-quarters wanted more choices than just the Democratic and Republican candidates. The three persuaded Roger Craver, a pioneer in the field of cause-oriented fund-raising, to join them with the object of financing the effort through online donations, and they recruited an executive committee to raise a $1 million bridge fund. They also hired the prominent Washington law firm of Steptoe and Johnson to advise them on ballot access in all fifty states. To establish the appearance of sober competence, they enlisted the actor Sam Waterston, a friend of Rafshoon's best known for his role as a principled district attorney on the television show Law & Order, to appear in Internet promotions. "I'm one of those people who have been watching politics from the outside with a typical mix of horror and fascination," Waterston told me recently. "The idea is so simple, yet if it works, it's one of those things that will change the direction of the river."
The timing seemed auspicious, less because of the originators' own career stages than because of the current evolutionary stage of the Internet itself. "During the 2004 election," George Vradenburg, a former general counsel for America Online who is advising Unity08, told me, "people's perception of the Internet started shifting dramatically, from the idea that it is an information source to the idea that it is an empowerment tool through which they can impact politics. The Internet has democratized American society in a number of ways. But it has not yet democratized our democracy."
Vradenburg explains that the Internet is a "disruptive technology," meaning one that upsets an existing system in the way that cars replaced horses and digital images are replacing film. Vradenburg and other theorists argue that in the case of the Internet, the disruption occurs in two distinct phases. In the first, the technology mimics a function that already exists, only faster and better (accountants can work from home). In the next, it transforms that function outright (accounting moves to India). He suggested how this might apply to politics: "Howard Dean showed that the Internet can be a great tool for fund-raising and organizing—existing functions performed in a political campaign. The next step is rethinking entirely how you go about the whole functionality you're talking about. That's what's happening here: How do you transform the entire nominating process?"
The creators of Unity08 believe that the answer is to open the process to the Internet masses, causing a tectonic shift powerful enough to disrupt the two-party system. They have not, however, lost faith in that system—merely in its power to correct itself. "The two-party system has worked well for 200 years and can continue to do so," Bailey says, "but only when elections are fought over the middle. Our goal is to jolt the two parties into recognizing this, by drawing them into a fight over the middle rather than allowing them to keep maximizing the appeal to their bases at the extremes."
Bailey and his confederates envision their enterprise not as the establishment of a permanent third party but as a one-shot affair—a dose of medicine strong enough to bring the two parties to their senses. Only then, they believe, can things truly improve. In other words, they are attempting nothing less than to rescue American politics and put the country back on the right track.
Of course, Unity08's formal launch this month also promises its founders the rare shot at a second act on the national political stage and a chance, all these years later, to atone for the past. "They were the first political consultants to grasp the power of the tube to both convince and convert," says Dick Wirthlin, a contemporary who was Ronald Reagan's pollster and chief strategist. "But I would attribute at least part of the tremendous cynicism we're experiencing today to the way politicians and campaigns exploit the dark side of television." The Unity08 principals seem to feel this way, too, which may explain their eagerness to once again harness a powerful new technology to political ends—this time with the wisdom of experience.
"We didn't recognize it at the time," Bailey told me, "but television just ran over us all: it changed our culture, our habits, our mores, our politics—it changed everything. None of us ever asked how we could use this wondrous new technology to improve our democracy. Well, we have another new technology that is going to change everything. If you recognize that right now our politics is as empty as at any point in my adult lifetime, and the issues are as serious as at any point in my adult lifetime, what choice do you have but to try to do something about it?"
One of the many things that differentiate Unity08 from earlier third-party movements is that its founders aren't putting forward their own candidate. What they have in mind might instead best be thought of as the "Field of Dreams" model: build a mechanism whereby qualified individuals of insufficient partisanship to win the Republican or Democratic nomination gain a legitimate shot at the White House, and trust that the best candidates will come. The beauty of the whole thing, Rafshoon explained one day over lunch in a Georgetown restaurant, is that it completely upends the way Americans currently choose their presidential nominees. "The 2004 presidential election cost $2.2 billion, and the parties left choosing their candidates to a handful of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire!" he exclaimed. "If we do it over the Net and succeed—we think it'll cost less than $10 million to set up—then we'll have proved that you don't need $2.2 billion to win the presidency, and we'll have thrown open the process to an online army of millions." As soon as frustrated citizens have that kind of power, the possibilities for electoral upheaval are practically limitless. "It's the perfect vehicle for voters to start a draft movement," Rafshoon said.
"Kerry's Consigliere" (May 2004)
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House. By Ryan Lizza
During our lunch, Rafshoon spotted Bob Shrum, the manager of John Kerry's failed presidential campaign, peacocking across the room in an expensive suit and a fine silk tie. Shrum has grown rich through politics—his firm is believed to have pocketed $5 million from the Kerry campaign alone—even though he's lost every presidential race he's been associated with. Rafshoon, by contrast, wore a bright-red sweater and flashed a sly grin as he laid out his plans, resembling nothing so much as a mischievous grandpa about to pull off some bit of deviltry with his cronies at the expense of swells like Shrum (whose job Rafshoon performed for Carter, it bears noting, successfully and for a lot less money). There is something touching about the civic-minded impulse behind Unity08—about its founders' faith, even after a lifetime in politics, that given the means, a kind of ordinary human decency will prevail over the cynical forces that are inflicting such damage on the polity.
There's something touching, as well, about the spectacle of a flock of wise old owls coming out of retirement for one last shot at greatness. It sounds like a Hollywood movie—and was one, if you substitute astronauts for political consultants. Several years ago, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, and Donald Sutherland starred in Space Cowboys, whose unlikely plot bears a healthy resemblance to the story of Unity08. The movie concerns a group of hotshot young test pilots in the 1950s—the Air Force's top guns—who are poised to become the first astronauts, until their brash break-all-the-rules attitude gets them replaced (by a monkey). Flash forward forty years, and the buddies are in dissatisfied retirement when fate comes knocking. The monkeys running NASA have bollixed things royally, and a rogue satellite strapped with nukes threatens life on Earth. The astronauts alone possess the wisdom to save it. So, aging and ornery but giddy at having one more chance, they blast off into space.
What has propelled the principals of Unity08 to a launch this month is not fate so much as lifetimes spent innovating for their vision of the greater good. Evident throughout this grand experiment are the career threads of its primary participants and the aspirations that brought them together. After Jimmy Carter lost, Hamilton Jordan returned to his native Georgia, where he became a business consultant (specializing in start-up companies) and a noted author. In his memoir of battling cancer, No Such Thing as a Bad Day, he attributes his survival through three bouts with cancer to his own aggressive intervention, undertaken when he lost faith in his doctors' approach. Jordan displayed an early tendency toward the third-party solution when he co-managed Ross Perot's presidential campaign in 1992. Jerry Rafshoon, though he has remained in Washington, left politics with Jimmy Carter to become a Hollywood producer, making documentaries and movies for television; his 1995 film Joseph, starring Ben Kingsley, won him the Emmy for best miniseries.
Roger Craver is reputed to have raised more than $6 billion in small-dollar donations during a career in which he helped start or build many grassroots organizations, including Common Cause, Handgun Control, Inc., the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and the National Organization for Women. He is famous among his friends for periodically selling his fund-raising firm to his employees and retiring to Martha's Vineyard, only to be lured back into ownership and activism by the latest cause.
Doug Bailey enjoyed an uncommonly long career as a consultant to moderate Republicans, even as the species grew endangered in the 1980s. He quit in 1987 to co-found, with Craver, The Hotline, a political tip sheet zapped to subscribers each morning through the then-innovative technology of the fax, and later over the Internet. (It is now owned by Atlantic Media.) A classic early adopter, Bailey was among the first to marry politics and the Web. In 1999, again with Craver, he founded the Freedom Channel, the first attempt to provide online video-on-demand campaigning by offering candidates for the House, Senate, and presidency the opportunity to post clips of themselves speaking directly to the camera about a list of issues the channel provided—an early experiment in dictating the agenda. Through various youth programs, Bailey also experimented with online elections. In 2000, he held a Web-based presidential vote for 1.3 million high-school students, at the time the largest online vote ever taken. He followed that with an effort designed to involve students from 2,500 high schools in the political process by getting them each to obtain voting pledges from ten adults. Several of the students, now in college, have joined one of Unity08's roughly 200 campus affiliates (listed at collegeunity08.com), which are expected to double in number by next year.
If things go according to plan, the next two years will unfold something like this: When Unity08 formally launches its Web site this month, it will begin signing up delegates online. Any registered voter can be a delegate, and can join without having to give up a prior political affiliation. At the same time, the new party's leaders will begin the process of qualifying Unity08 on all fifty ballots for the 2008 presidential election. The requirements for ballot access vary dramatically from state to state, so delegates and other volunteers will perform the work of gathering the necessary signatures. The party hopes to qualify for twenty-five ballots by June.
Intermediate goals like this one are crucial to the movement, because its success will depend on building and sustaining momentum—much as Howard Dean's momentum in the last presidential primary carried him from dark horse to Democratic front-runner in a matter of months. The hope is that the online participatory element will turn Unity08 into a cultural phenomenon. "Younger people, especially, gravitate toward technology, and if it's married to political reform, so much the better," Craver says. "At the risk of drawing too close a comparison to American Idol, it's a voting process that will take place technologically, rather than in some smoke-filled back room."
Bailey is drawing on his experience teaching young activists to organize online, and he hopes to set off a viral effect through a "One-a-Week Club," whose members will commit to signing up one new member a week for six months. (Nobody expects this to happen, but if every pledge were to be fulfilled, one delegate would become 34 million delegates in those six months.)
By the time of their convention, a year and a half from now, the founders hope, the party will have signed up as many as 10 million delegates and will be well on its way to qualifying for all fifty ballots, making Unity08 a formally viable path to the presidency. Candidates could gauge their support, and lobby for more, by making traditional appeals and by participating online. As was the case with the Freedom Channel, an important intention of the new party will be to wrest control of the agenda from the candidates and turn it over to the delegates, who will collectively hash out an "American Agenda"—a party platform that Bailey says will be a list not of answers but of questions. This agenda-building process, like all of the party's activities, will be refereed by an internal rules committee. "If we do it right," he says, "these questions will get addressed to candidates on the Unity08 Web site, and the candidates will post a video answer." Bailey is betting that the media will seize on these same questions and put them to all candidates—thereby injecting the American Agenda into the national debate.
Unity08's online convention will be the first party convention since 1952 to feature runoff balloting for a presidential candidate. The rules committee is still nailing down specifics, but the working plan calls for interested candidates—including those who have been the subject of a draft—to declare themselves at the outset of the convention. Once the balloting has winnowed the field to four, each of the remaining candidates will have to choose a running mate from the opposite party: Democrats must choose Republicans they can work with, and vice versa. Independents can choose someone from either party, but in the spirit of unity, they must also name a senior Cabinet officer from the remaining major party—for instance, a Democratic running mate and a Republican secretary of state. Whoever is slated on the official Unity ticket will take on the Democratic and Republican tickets in November. "We're not in this to play around," Bailey vows. "We intend to elect the first truly bipartisan presidential ticket in American history."
For plenty of reasons, this idea might not work. It's never been tried before, for one thing, and the history of third-party candidates is not encouraging. The whole thing may fail to gather speed, and its founders acknowledge that without momentum it won't work. "Third parties are like organ transplants—they're not tolerated well and are often rejected," says Lance Tarrance, a veteran Republican consultant working for John McCain. "These are good people, but they have been relegated to the sidelines by the new American politics, which is more ideological, more partisan, and certainly has created a new generation of operatives. I can only assume that they're trying to influence the system rather than take it over."
Even if the Unity ticket doesn't win, its creators insist, the mere fact of its presence could force the other parties to return to the vast, forgotten middle or risk losing the next election. The Rovian strategy of division might disappear. Or it might not: partisan strategists might instead decide simply to cede the middle and ratchet up partisanship to excite their bases, on the assumption that with Unity08 on the ballot, they'll need only a little more than one-third of the vote. "Once you put the tool out there, it's going to take twists and turns that nobody can predict," Vradenburg admits. "That's some of what the excitement is about."
But it's also possible to envision scenarios—quite a few, in fact—in which the Unity ticket might work, or might at least become a significant force in the 2008 campaign. If the parties can't work together on Iraq by then, despite the new Democratic Congress, voters might see Unity's fusion ticket as a way to make them. Centrists in both parties, from Joe Lieberman to Chuck Hagel, are known to harbor presidential ambitions that have little chance of being fulfilled along current paths. If Michael Bloomberg really is considering a self-financed run as an independent, he couldn't possibly prevail in a four-way race against the Democratic, Republican, and Unity contenders—and he's already been a Democrat and a Republican, so why not pursue the Unity nomination? If John McCain loses the Republican nomination, he'll be too old to try again in four or eight years and would loathe waiting around—why not take a final shot at the White House? If Barack Obama concludes that his time is now and yet can't stop the Hillary juggernaut, might he cash in his chips before his popularity wanes? And isn't Jack Welch looking for something to do? Or—heaven forbid—Donald Trump?
It will be a while longer before anyone knows whether Unity08 can live up to its founders' ambitious hopes. But here's how the Hollywood version ends: the aging astronauts become overnight media sensations, and on their final mission, against very long odds, they save the world from certain doom.


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Radiant Foliage Planter
Radiant Foliage Planter
Radiant Foliage Planter$89.95
Fresh cut pink Asiatic lilies brighten assorted foliage plants in a ceramic dishgarden to honor their life, send your deepest sympathy and hope for the days ahead. Style of container may vary depending on availability. Appropriate for the family's home or the funeral home....
The Peace Lily
The Peace Lily
The Peace Lily$94.95
The Peace Lily is a popular arrangement to send a message of tranquility and serenity. White blossoms emerging from dark leaves set in a natural wicker basket convey lasting peace and elegance....
Stately Croton
Stately Croton
Stately Croton$79.95
The croton is dignified and delightful. Its glossy green leaves carry vibrant accents of red and orange, making it the perfect plant for a wide variety of locations. Easy to care for and easy to love, this is one plant that is sure to brighten everyone's day. An impressively graceful croton is deliv...
Small Garden Dish
Small Garden Dish
Small Garden Dish$74.95
A lovely array of cheerful plants is just the right size for a mid-size desk or table. It's also just the right choice for that special someone. Dracaena, ivy, palm, dieffenbachia, peperomia and philodendron plants arrive in a low decorative bowl.Style and color of container may vary...
Amazing Arboricola
Amazing Arboricola
Amazing Arboricola$119.95
Also known as the umbrella plant due to its lovely arching leafy branches, this is an amazing gift. It can last for years and lend its graceful beauty to any home or office. Standing almost three feet tall in its olive green ceramic planter, this arboricola is a natural.Color and style of container ...
Large Basket Garden
Large Basket Garden
Large Basket Garden$104.95
This impressive garden of indoor plants will be a warm welcome to any home or office. And you'll get glowing reviews for sending it. Croton, ivy, pothos, dieffenbachia, schefflera and syngonium plants arrive together in a wicker basket with handle....
Medium Dish Garden
Medium Dish Garden
Medium Dish Garden$99.95
This low bowl filled with living plants will also carry comfort and compassion for many months to come. Perfect to send to the home or service. One planter arrives filled with dracaena, ivy, palm, spathiphyllum and syngonium plants....
Simply Elegant Spathiphyllum - Standard
Simply Elegant Spathiphyllum - Standard
Simply Elegant Spathiphyllum - Standard$84.95
Also known as the peace lily, this dark leafy plant with its delicate white blossoms makes a simply elegant gift. There's nothing small about the sentiment delivered along with this pretty plant. A brilliant green spathiphyllum is delivered in a natural wicker basket. Long live elegance!...
Living Spirit Dishgarden
Living Spirit Dishgarden
Living Spirit Dishgarden$79.95
The Living Spirit Dishgarden is a wonderful display of our finest plants to honor the life of your loved one. A palm plant, peace lily plant, dracaena plant and a philodendron plant are lush and lovely accented with stems of pink Peruvian lilies. Seated in a 7-inch woodchip rectangular basket, this ...
Peace & Serenity Dishgarden
Peace & Serenity Dishgarden
Peace & Serenity Dishgarden$79.95
The Peace & Serenity Dishgarden is a gorgeous way to convey your deepest sympathies for your special recipient's loss. A collection of incredibly beautiful plants accented by stems of white Peruvian lilies. The presentation arrives in a natural woodchip rectangular basket accented with a white satin...


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Ky considering roadside driver drug tests
FRANKFORT, Ky. – State officials are evaluating a roadside drug test that could help police counter the growing number of drivers who are high behind the wheel, a problem that kills more than 200 people each year in Kentucky.
The state Office of Highway Safety is partnering with authorities in Louisville, Paducah and Madison County to try out portable kits that police officers could eventually carry into the field to test drivers for controlled substances.
Kits include a mouth swab and screening device that, within minutes, can analyze saliva samples for up to 10 drugs, providing police with more confidence to arrest suspects for driving under the influence, supporters say.
"We just want to find another tool for law enforcement to help make better decisions and more accurate decisions ... and to remove hazards off the road," said Mike Schwendau, assistant director of Highway Safety Programs.
Right now, officials are only testing the kits for accuracy and reliability, administering them to volunteers after an arrest is complete. If they prove reliable, lawmakers say they will consider legislation next year to expand their use as a common part of police work.
Schwendau says police might soon use the swab kits in the same way they rely on roadside breath tests to identify drunken drivers, adding one more step to "remove that question of doubt" during a traffic stop.
Defense attorneys are more skeptical, warning that the tests could lead to invasive searches or give officers false pretense for arrests.
"They are chipping away at our rights — I just don't know how else to put it," said Larry "The DUI Guy" Forman, an attorney in Louisville who specializes in impaired driving cases.
Damon Preston, deputy public advocate at the Department of Public Advocacy, cautions that the courts still need to determine the reliability of the kits and what circumstances warrant their use in the field.
"The ease or simplicity of a sobriety test should never infringe upon the rights of persons to be free from unwarranted or invasive searches of their bodies," he said.
The side of safety
The swabs don't show a person's level of impairment — only that drugs are present in their system. Supporters say Kentucky law would not allow them as evidence in court, and to build a case, police would still rely on the same process they currently use in investigations.
That typically involves a field sobriety test followed by an evaluation from a drug recognition expert, who is trained to monitor the suspect's behavior and physical condition to determine their level of intoxication. Police also collect blood samples, which are much more conclusive.
Schwendau said the roadside tests could help police narrow down which drugs to test for in a blood sample. He said the kits already have proved successful in other states, particularity in California where authorities have upped the ante with digital devices precise enough to provide court evidence. That has saved the state money in the long run because more suspects are pleading out cases, he said.
On his website, Forman advises people to refuse field sobriety tests and breathalyzers to improve their chances of a successful defense in court. If swabs become commonplace in Kentucky, Forman says, drivers should refuse them as well.
One problem, he argues, could occur when people use drugs earlier in the day but are pulled over after the effects have worn off. He cited concerns that the swab could still test positive even though a driver is no longer under the influence.
Forman also questions how variations in temperature or allowing kits to sit in a hot police car for long periods might affect the results.
"It just gets really, really hairy, really fast," he said.
But Schwendau points out that drivers who are not impaired will be vindicated in later tests. He also worries that while most people know it's wrong to get behind the wheel drunk, many still think it's OK to take an extra prescription pill before driving.
"We are doing it to save lives and get risks off the road," he said. For police, "the best decision I think always is to err on the side of safety."
Deadly risks
According to Kentucky State Police, authorities suspected that drugs were a factor in nearly 1,600 traffic collisions across the state last year, resulting in 939 injuries and 214 deaths.
In some areas struggling with epidemic drug abuse, high drivers are more common than drunken drivers, according to Van Ingram, head of the Office of Drug Control Policy. A lot of areas are having problems with drivers who are intoxicated on both drugs and alcohol, he said.
House Judiciary Chairman John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville, said lawmakers will want to look at the highway safety office's pilot project before putting forth any legislation. Still, he reasons that the swabs also could help exclude drivers who might otherwise fall suspect because they swerved accidentally.
Officials have distributed 100 kits for the pilot tests, which they hope to wrap up in October.
Schwendau said he will bring the results to a state task force on impaired driving along with the Governor's Executive Committee on Highway Safety.
Even if the kits are approved and adopted, police face a cost of $7 per unit.
Schwendau said local communities would have to choose whether to use them since the kits are too expensive for the state to provide. But departments could apply for federal grants, he said.
"It's not our place to force it on them," Schwendau said. "We just want to offer them a better tool."
Reporter Mike Wynn can be reached at (502) 875-5136. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeWynn_CJ.


text: Radiological Health is a program within the State Public Health Laboratories which is responsible for safe use of radiation sources within the state of Alaska. Under Alaska statute the Program is responsible for Radiation Protection which includes the development of policies for evaluating radiation hazards, conducting surveys/investigations and training. This includes measurement and safe use of radiation, reviewing plans and shielding specifications for radiation sources, inspecting facilities where radiation sources are used, and contracting with other agencies where a cooperative effort is required in order to address radiation hazards. These responsibilities include both ionizing and non-ionizing sources, and radiation producing devices as well as radioactive materials. The main office is in Anchorage, however radon related activities are conducted out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Environmental surveys and disaster response to radiation in the environment are the responsibility of the Department of Environmental Conservation.


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Rosella research could re-write 'ring theory'
New research has uncovered how different crimson rosella populations are related to each other – a discovery which has important implications for research into how climate change may affect Australia's biodiversity.
Published today in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research investigates the genetic and geographical relationships between different forms of crimson rosellas and the possible ways that these forms may have arisen.
Dr Gaynor Dolman of CSIRO's Australian National Wildlife Collection says there are three main colour 'forms' of the crimson rosella – crimson, yellow and orange – which originated from the same ancestral population and are now distributed throughout south eastern Australia.
"Many evolutionary biologists have argued that the different forms of crimson rosellas arose, or speciated, through 'ring speciation'," she says.
The ring speciation hypothesis predicts that a species that spreads to new areas may eventually join back up with itself, forming a ring. By that time, the populations at the join in the ring may be two distinct species and unable to interbreed, despite continuous gene flow, or interbreeding, between populations around the ring.
"We found that in the case of crimson rosellas, their three separate genetic groups don't show a simple link to the geographical distribution of the colour forms," Dr Dolman says.
"For example, orange Adelaide and crimson Kangaroo Island rosellas are separated by 15km of ocean but are genetically similar. Conversely, genetic dissimilarity was found in the geographically linked yellow and orange populations in inland south eastern Australia.
"We rejected the ring hypothesis because it predicts only one region of genetic dissimilarity, which should occur at the geographical location of the join in the ring, around the headwaters of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers.
"However, it is possible that crimson rosellas formed a ring at some stage in their evolutionary history, but that the evidence has been lost through climatic or environmental changes," she says.
Wildlife genetic research of this kind is increasing our understanding of the biogeography and evolution of Australia's terrestrial vertebrates, helping Australia sustainably manage its biodiversity and ecosystem functions in the face of land use and climate change.
This work involved a team of researchers from CSIRO, Deakin University and the South Australian Museum.
Privided by CSIRO


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This WordPress plugin allows the owner of a blog to change and test new WordPress themes without worrying about their visitors seeing odd things happen on the blog.
Once activated a new page called "Theme Tester" is linked from the Design page where you can activate the test. While activated you, as an administrator, can change themes as many times as you want without affecting what themes you regular visitors see.
Anyone with "switch_themes" capability will see the new theme however, but those users are going to be administrators on your site anyway. Not anonymous Internet users.


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"Our strong performance in the second quarter reflects our hard work at serving our owners and other customers better. We've refocused on serving our customers and improving our operations, and that has shown positive results in our financials for the first half of fiscal 2019," said Jay Debertin, CHS president and chief executive officer. "Our performance also reflects the benefit of a diverse platform across business units that serves our cooperative and farmer-owners."
Key financial highlights for the quarter ending Feb. 28, 2019, include:
- Consolidated revenues of $6.5 billion compared to $7.0 billion in the restated second quarter of fiscal year 2018.
- Net income of $248.8 million compared to $166.0 million from the restated second quarter of fiscal year 2018.
- Pretax income of $261.9 million compared to a loss of $21.7 million from the restated second quarter of fiscal 2018.
- Favorable pricing for crude oil supplied to the CHS refinery business.
- Higher earnings from the investments in CF Nitrogen and Ventura Foods.
"The first six months of our fiscal year have returned overall good financial results," Debertin said. "But we face challenges, particularly in our Ag segment. These challenges of low commodity prices, trade difficulties and harsh winter weather impact all of agriculture, especially farmers. As we look to the rest of our fiscal year, we know there are factors such as the recent flooding we cannot control that will continue to affect agribusiness and those growing the food to feed the world."
Second Quarter Fiscal 2019 Segment Results
The following segment results were reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 as compared to second quarter fiscal 2018.
The $282.1 million increase in Energy pretax earnings reflects:
- Improved market conditions in the CHS refined fuels business, primarily driven by favorable pricing on heavy Canadian crude oil.
The $8.9 million decrease in Ag pretax earnings was driven by:
- Significant pressure on grain volume and margin due to slower movement of grain caused by price, weather, logistics and unresolved trade issues.
The $6.2 million increase in Nitrogen Production pretax earnings reflects:
- Improved margins at CF Nitrogen, driven by increased sale prices of urea and UAN, which are produced and sold by CF Nitrogen.
The $4.2 million increase in Corporate and Other pretax earnings reflects:
- Higher earnings from the company's investment in Ventura Foods and increased revenue from other corporate activities.


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The name of this organization shall be "Rydal-Meadowbrook Civic Association."
The objective of the Association is to promote the best interests and general welfare of the Rydal-Meadowbrook community and of the Township of Abington and to seek and work at all times for all measures which will serve to protect the public health, public safety and property rights of the citizens of the community and the Township of Abington.
All persons resident or owning property in or adjacent to the area known as Rydal-Meadowbrook of Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and who subscribe to the objectives of this Association, shall be eligible for membership in the Association. Financial support shall be derived from the payment of such annual dues as may from time to time be fixed and determined by the Board of Governors.
Should a RMCA member wish to attend a board meeting, he or she must contact the President describing the issue to be presented. Such member shall not participate in the voting and shall only have such privileges of the floor as the presiding officer extends to him or her. In addition, in the best interest of time and the agenda, the length of time the member may attend shall be limited.
The management of the affairs and property of the Association and the determination of its policies shall vest in a Board of Governors of up to twenty-five (25) members of the Association. Officers of the Association shall be voting members of the Board. The President shall determine the times and locations of meetings, or in absentia, the Vice President. The senior officer present presides at the meeting. Ten members of the Board shall constitute a quorum. Parliamentary procedure shall comply with "Robert's Rules of Order".
The officers of the Association shall consist of a President, Vice President, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary and Treasurer.
The President shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the Association, shall preside at all meetings of the Association including the Board of Governors and may elect to be a member of any committee.
The Vice President, in the absence or disability of the President, shall perform all of the duties and exercise all of the powers of the President.
The Recording Secretary shall keep regular minutes of the Board of Governors meetings and shall also act as Secretary of the Association meetings.
The Corresponding Secretary shall handle all of the correspondence of the Association, send all such notices as are required to be given to members, and perform such other duties as the Officers or the Board of Governors may request.
The Treasurer shall have custody of the monies of the Association and shall deposit the same in the name of the Association in one or more financial institutions approved by the Board of Governors. The Treasurer shall have check signing authority for expenditures under one-thousand dollars ($1000.00), above which will require the signatures of two elected
The Treasurer shall keep the accounts of the Association in accordance with good business practices and make a report at the annual meeting and at each meeting of the Board of Governors. Unless the Board provides otherwise, the Treasurer will furnish appropriate security for the faithful discharge of the duties of the office.
The President shall establish such standing and special committees as he or she may deem appropriate, or as may from time to time be authorized by the Board of Governors, and shall appoint the chair and fill all committee vacancies caused by resignation or otherwise. Committee members must be members of the Association but not necessarily of the Board of Governors and are chosen from volunteers.
Prior to the annual meeting, the President shall appoint a nominating Committee of not less than three members of the Board of Governors who shall submit to the Board of Governors a report of persons nominated for office. Additional nominations for officers may be made by any member of the Board. Written ballots shall then be distributed to the Board members, results tallied and election results disclosed.
The nominating committee shall also submit to the Board a slate of candidates for membership on the Board of Governors. Additional nominations for members of the Board may be made by members of the Association, in writing, addressed to the President and sent by certified mail (return receipt requested). To be approved, the writing must be signed by the member making the request and at least three other Association members who are not relatives of the nominator by blood or law, and must be postmarked at least sixty days prior to the date of the annual meeting. The election for the members of the Board of Governors shall take place at the annual meeting by voice count.
The annual meeting of the Association shall be held on the date and at the time determined by the Board of Governors. Notice of the annual meeting will be mailed to Association members at least fifteen days prior to the date of the meeting and will include the report of the nominating committee. Elected board members and officers shall hold office for the term of one year or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. In the case of a vacancy of an officer or Board member occurring during the year, the Board of Governors shall have the power to fill such vacancy for the remainder of the current term.
A special meeting of the Board of Governors may be called by any Officer. A special meeting of the Association may be called with the approval of the Board or upon a written request signed by twenty-five members of the Association, not relatives by blood or law, and mailed to the President by Certified mail, return receipt requested, stating the reason for the meeting. The date of the meeting shall be set by the Board and notices specifying the items of business to be considered at the meeting shall be mailed to the membership at least fifteen days prior to the meeting.
No member of the Association holding elective or compensated appointive office for the Township of Abington or on the School Board shall concurrently be eligible to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Association.
Prior Presidents of the Association who are not currently officers or Members of the Board of Governors but members of the Association shall be ex-officio members of the Board of Governors, without vote, and welcome to all meetings of the Board unless holding elective or compensated appointive office with the Township of Abington or on the Abington Township School Board.
In order to change the Bylaws, a bylaws committee shall be appointed by the Board. The recommended changes shall be presented at a Special Meeting of the Board where a majority vote of all the then Board of Governors is required to approve the amendments.
General Rule. The Association shall indemnify an indemnified representative against any liability incurred in connection with any proceeding in which the indemnified representative may be involved as a party or otherwise by reason of the fact that such person is or was serving in an indemnified capacity, including, without limitation, liabilities resulting from any actual or alleged breach or neglect of duty, error, misstatement or misleading statement, negligence, gross negligence or act giving rise to strict liability, except:
(1) where such indemnification is expressly prohibited by
applicable law;
(2) where the conduct of the indemnified representative has been finally determined pursuant to Section 7.06 or otherwise:
(i) to constitute willful misconduct or recklessness within the meaning of 15 Pa C.S. § 513(b) and 1746(b) or any superseding provision of law sufficient in the circumstances to bar indemnification against liabilities arising from the conduct;or
(ii) to be based upon or attributable to the receipt by the indemnified representative from the Association of a personal benefit to which the indemnified representative is not legally entitled; or
(3) To the extent such indemnification has been finally
determined in a final adjudication pursuant to Section 7.06 to be otherwise unlawful.
(b) Partial Payment. If an indemnified representative is entitled to indemnification in respect of a portion, but not all, of any liabilities to which such person may be subject, the Association shall indemnify such indemnified representative to the maximum extent for such portion of the liabilities.
(c) Presumption. The termination of a proceeding by judgment, order, settlement or conviction or upon a plea of nolo contendere or its equivalent shall not of itself create a presumption that the indemnified representative is not entitled to indemnification.
(d) Definitions. For purposes of this Article:
"indemnified capacity" means any and all past, present and future service by an indemnified representative in one or more capacities as a governor, director, officer, employee or agent of the Association, or, at the request of the Association, as a governor, director, officer, employee, agent, fiduciary or trustee of another Association, trust, or other entity or enterprise;
"indemnified representative" means any and all Governors and officers of the Association and any other person designated as an indemnified representative by the Board of Governors of the Association (which may, but need not, include any person serving at the request of the Association, as a governor, director, officer, employee, agent, fiduciary or trustee of another Association, trust, or other entity or enterprise):
"liability" means any damage, judgment, amount paid in settlement, fine, penalty, punitive damages, excise tax assessed with respect to an employee benefit plan, or cost or expense, of any nature (including, without limitation, attorneys fees and disbursements) and
"proceeding'' means any threatened, pending or completed action, suit, appeal or other proceeding of any nature, whether civil, criminal, administrative or investigative, whether formal or informal, and whether brought by or in the right of the Association, a class of its membership or otherwise.
Section 7.02. PROCEEDINGS INITIATED BY INDEMNIFIEDREPRESENTATIVES. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Article, the Association shall not indemnify under this Article an indemnified representative for any liability incurred in a proceeding initiated (which shall not be deemed to include counterclaims or affirmative defenses) or participated in as an intervener or amicus curiae by the person seeking indemnification unless such initiation of or participation in the proceeding is authorized, either before or after its commencement, by the affirmative vote of a majority of the Governors in office. This section does not apply to a reimbursement of expenses incurred in successfully prosecuting or defending an arbitration under Section 7.06 or otherwise successfully prosecuting or defending the rights of an indemnified representative granted by or pursuant to this Article.
Section 7.03. ADVANCING EXPENSES. The Association shall pay the expenses (including attorneys, fees and disbursements) incurred in good faith by an indemnified representative in advance of the final disposition of a proceeding described in Section 7.01 or the initiation of or participation in which is authorized pursuant to Section 7.02 upon receipt of an undertaking by or on behalf of the indemnified representative to repay the amount if it is ultimately determined pursuant to Section 7.06 that such person is not entitled to be indemnified by the Association pursuant to this Article. The financial ability of an indemnified representative to repay an advance shall not be a prerequisite to the making of such advance.
Section 7.04. SECURING OF INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS. To further effect, satisfy or secure the indemnification obligations provided herein or otherwise, the Association may maintain insurance, obtain a letter of credit, act as self-insurer, create a reserve, trust, escrow, cash collateral or other fund or account, enter into indemnification agreements, pledge or grant a security interest in any assets or properties of the Association, or use any other mechanism or arrangement whatsoever in such amounts, at such costs, and upon such other terms and conditions as the Board of Governors shall deem appropriate. Absent fraud, the determination of the Board of Governors with respect to such amounts, costs, terms and conditions shall be conclusive against all security holders, officers and Governors and shall not be subject to voidability.
Section 7.05. PAYMENT OF INDEMNIFICATION. An indemnified representative shall be entitled to indemnification within 30 days after a written request for indemnification has been delivered to the Secretary of the Association.
Section 7.06. ARBITRATION.
General Rule. Any dispute related to the right to indemnification, contribution or advancement of expenses as provided under this Article, shall be decided only by arbitration in Montgomery County Pennsylvania, in accordance with the arbitration rules then in effect of the ADR Options, Inc., before a panel of three arbitrators, one of whom shall be selected by the Association, the second of whom shall be selected by the indemnified representative and third of whom shall be selected by the other two arbitrators. In the absence of the ADR Options, Inc., or if for any reason arbitration under the arbitration rules of ADR Options, Inc., cannot be initiated, or if one of the parties fails or refuses to select an acceptable alternate forum or arbitrator or if the arbitrators selected by the Association and the indemnified representative cannot agree on the selection of the third arbitrator within 30 days after such time as the Association and the indemnified representative have each been notified of the selection of the other's arbitrator, the necessary arbitrator or arbitrators shall be selected by the presiding judge of the court of general jurisdiction in such metropolitan area.
Burden of Proof. The party or parties challenging the right of an indemnified representative to the benefits of this Article shall have the burden of proof.
Expenses. The Association shall reimburse an indemnified representative for the expenses (including attorneys' fees and disbursements) incurred in successfully prosecuting or defending such arbitration.
Effect. Any award entered by the arbitrators shall be final, binding and non-appealable and judgment may be entered thereon by any party in accordance with applicable law in any court of competent jurisdiction, except that the Association shall be entitled to interpose as a defense in any such judicial enforcement proceeding any prior final judicial determination adverse to the indemnified representative under Section 7.01(a)(2) in a proceeding not directly involving indemnification under this Article. This arbitration provision shall be specifically enforceable.
Section 7.07. CONTRIBUTION. If the indemnification provided for in this Article or otherwise is unavailable for any reason in respect of any liability or portion thereof, the Association shall contribute to the liabilities to which the indemnified representative may be subject in such proportion as is appropriate to reflect the intent of this Article or otherwise.
Section 7.08. MANDATORY INDEMNIFICATION OF GOVERNORS, OFFICERS, ETC. To the extent that an authorized representative of the Association has been successful on the merits or otherwise in defense of any action or proceeding referred to in 15 Pa. C.S. § 1741 or 1742 or in defense of any claim, issue or matter therein, such person shall be indemnified against expenses (including attorneys' fees and disbursements) actually and reasonably incurred by such person in connection therewith.
Section 7.09. CONTRACT RIGHTS; AMENDMENT OR REPEAL. All rights under this Article shall be deemed a contract between the Association and the indemnified representative pursuant to which the Association and each indemnified representative intend to be legally bound. Any repeal, amendment or modification hereof shall be prospective only and shall not affect any rights or obligations then existing.
Section 7.10. SCOPE OF ARTICLE. The rights granted by this Article shall not be deemed exclusive of any other rights to which those seeking indemnification, contribution or advancement of expenses may be entitled under any statute, agreement, vote of shareholders or disinterested Governors or otherwise both as to action in an indemnified capacity and as to action in any other capacity. The indemnification, contribution and advancement of expenses provided by or granted pursuant to this Article shall continue as to a person who has ceased to be an indemnified representative in respect of matters arising prior to such time, and shall inure to the benefit of the heirs, executors, administrators and personal representatives of such a person.
Section 7.11. RELIANCE ON PROVISIONS. Each person who shall act as an indemnified representative of the Association shall be deemed to be doing so in reliance upon the rights provided in this Article.
Section 7.12. INTERPRETATION. The provisions of this Article are intended to constitute bylaws authorized by 15 Pa.C.S. § 513 and 1746


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Juniper today announced a new go-to-market partnership with VeriSign that will see the DDoS capabilities of both firms leveraged to create a comprehensive DDoS protection solution.
Juniper first launched its DDoS Secure technology back in February of 2013 as a Linux-based security software appliance. Juniper is now pairing DDoS Secure with VeriSign's DDoS Protection service, a cloud-based offering.
Kevin Kennedy, senior director of product management at Juniper Networks, explained to Enterprise Networking Planet that the Juniper solution complements the VeriSign cloud service and vice versa. The Juniper solution is able to handle the slow-moving types of DDoS attacks that can impact a network and is an inline service for an enterprise network. The VeriSign solution, on the other hand, can handle the volumetric attacks that a typical enterprise simply cannot handle due to on-premises bandwidth constraints.
A typical enterprise running DDoS Secure is usually limited to around 10 Gbps of bandwidth at the ingress point. Modern large DDoS attacks can now scale as high as 400 Gbps, which is something that only large cloud and infrastructure providers are able to mitigate.
From a technical implementation perspective, there are a number of different ways that organizations connect to the cloud in order to defend against DDoS. One of them is via DNS redirection, where the enterprise or website redirects its DNS records to the cloud vendor. The Juniper VeriSign implementation is taking a very different approach.
Kennedy explained that Juniper is connecting to the VeriSign DDoS cloud by way of the BGP routing protocol. BGP currently includes a Flow Spec set of rules that can be used to route traffic based on volume.
"We're building on BGP Flow Spec as the foundation of the technology that will allow us to signal upstream," Kennedy said. "What we're building around that is a bi-directional channel for information context and threat information from the cloud to the device."
The goal is to be able to provide more information to both the cloud and the endpoint device.
Kennedy said that Juniper and VeriSign are still building out the solution, though customers can take advantage of it today. He added that the two vendors are jointly engaged in promoting and selling the solution.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Enterprise Networking Planet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist