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The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, by Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba (Berkley: Counterpoint, 2003: 352 pp.)
Born in rural Kentucky, Wendell Berry is a farmer, critic, and prolific author. He has published many works in the genres of novels, essays, poems, and short stories. Berry received his B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Kentucky before attending Stanford University's Creative Writing Program. He obtained a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and taught English at New York University before taking a position on faculty at the University of Kentucky. After a decade of teaching, Berry purchased a farm in the Kentucky countryside where he works and writes about the virtues of connection to the land. Berry has won numerous awards, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Thomas Merton Award, and the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Urban Jungles
Living in a city, we sometimes find nature a nuisance. Snow might display beautiful characteristics as it coats a meadow, but when it materializes during a commute, its beauty can be lost in the headaches it induces. Vibrant evergreens coating a mountain convey the highest forms of art, yet trees that stand in the way of a property owner desiring a "better" view convey only annoyance. Urban life is ultimately divorced from the land. A simple block-to-block walk downtown provides little or no evidence of ecology. The Art of the Commonplace decries these realities as it presents a case for an agrarian-minded society.
Berry's collection of essays is divided into five parts:
- a geobiography,
- understanding our cultural crisis,
- the agrarian basis for an authentic culture,
- agrarian economics, and
- agrarian religion.
In these sections, Berry makes the case for a countercultural understanding of society, a way of life rooted in and sustained by the land.
Critiquing the System
Central to Berry's thesis is a scathing critique of consumerist culture and industrial business practice. Where our ancestors lived in unity with the land, we exist in tension with the land. The Art of the Commonplace contains prophetic passages where Berry takes the form of a minor prophet beating the drum of repentance in the face of giant institutions.
Along these lines, Berry writes,
"It is possible to make a little economy, such as our present one, that is so shortsighted and in which accounting is of so short a term as to give the impression that vices are necessary and practically justifiable. When we make our economy a little wheel turning in opposition to what we call 'nature,' then we set up competitiveness as the ruling principle in our explanation of reality and in our understanding of economy; we make of it, willy-nilly, a virtue. But competitiveness, as a ruling principle and a virtue, imposes a logic that is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to control. That logic explains why our cars and our clothes are shoddily made, why our 'wastes' are toxic, and why our 'defensive' weapons are suicidal; it explains why it is so difficult for us to draw a line between 'free enterprise' and crime. If our economic ideal is maximum profit with minimum responsibility, why should we be surprised to find our corporations so frequently in court and robbery on the increase? Why should we be surprised to find that medicine has become an exploitive industry, profitable in direct proportion to its hurry and its mechanical indifference? People who pay for shoddy products or careless services and people who are robbed outright are equally victims of theft, the only difference being that robbers outright are not guilty of fraud" (233).
In his mind, the contemporary industrial economy shoulders much of the blame regarding what is wrong with the world. Not only does capitalism create a system where efficiency requires low quality and high profits, but also it compels business leaders to act right up against the barriers of what is legal. In such instances, it is no surprise to see broken laws and broken people.
Eating Strawberries on a Cold, January Day
Moreover, the industrial economy creates a civilization incapable of sustaining itself. Berry laments,
"Most of us, for example, not only do not know how to produce the best food in the best way – we don't know how to produce any kind in any way. Our model citizen is a sophisticate who before puberty understands how to produce a baby, but who at the age of thirty will not know how to produce a potato. And for this condition we have elaborate rationalizations, instructing us that dependence for everything on somebody else is efficient and economical and a scientific miracle. I say, instead, that it is madness, mass produced" (85).
Forget growing a potato; I could not tell you even when they are in season. As a child, I vaguely remember my mother buying blueberries in mass quantities because they were in season. Today, I am a grocery store away from infinite resources of blueberries year-round. While I have not taken a poll of my generation, it seems that most people my age are in a similar position. The seasonal connection to the land by way of fruits and vegetables has slowly gone the way of the buffalo. If I do not understand the seasons, how can I expect to establish a green thumb?
Ultimately, Berry argues that our industrialized economy has created a consequentialist culture focused on efficiency. Berry asserts,
"Logically, in plenitude some things ought to be expendable. Industrial economics has always believed this: abundance justifies waste. This is one of the dominant superstitions of American history – and of the history of colonialism everywhere. Expendability is also an assumption of the world of efficiency which is why that world deals so compulsively in percentages of efficacy and safety. But this sort of logic is absolutely alien to the world of love. To the claim that a certain drug or procedure would save 99 percent of all cancer patients or that a certain pollutant would be safe for 99 percent of a population, love, unembarrassed, would respond, 'What about the one percent?' There is nothing rational or perhaps even defensible about this, but it is nonetheless one of the strongest strands of our religious tradition – it is probably the most essential strand – according to which a shepherd, owning a hundred sheep and having lost one, does not say, 'I have saved 99 percent of my sheep,' but rather, 'I have lost one,' and he goes and searches for the one" (154-55).
In short, reconnecting ourselves to the land both through a local economy and through an agrarian-based religion reminds us of the power of pursuing the one as opposed to neglecting the one by rationalizing that the 99 are enough.
Let's Pack Our Bags; We're Going to Eden!
While I appreciate and typically side with the critiques posed by The Art of the Commonplace, I find the conclusions to be slightly utopian in nature. In other words, Berry's exhortation to reconnect with nature seems slightly akin to arguing that humanity ought to go back to a place and time before the fall, living a reconciled life in God's Creation.
The fall, in my estimation, significantly alters humanity's relationship with nature. Granted, industry possesses a poor track record of domination over the natural world. Nevertheless, biblically mandated stewardship does not negate the possibility of development. As with most things, the extremes on both sides of the economic argument fall into untenable positions. Business provides valuable opportunities to assist those in need; local economies connected to nature remind humanity that it is a creature and not a creator.
Even though I do not find anything inherently evil about urban life, Berry's writings present a counterpoint to the dominant views. As a society, we ought to remember and enjoy the natural world and humanity's connection to it. Berry's economic, cultural, and religious positions found in The Art of the Commonplace are worthy of wholehearted study. He poetically and unashamedly renders his positions; his critiques remind us that business as usual will never solve all the world's problems. For these reasons, I recommend this book.


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Welcome at Wembley - Fitness For All
Welcome! On this page you can find out all there is to know about our club. With us you can exercise by yourself in our newly refurbished gym, with a Personal Trainer or you can join in with our classes.
Company facilities
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High Five Vitality
Our advice focuses on three elementary pillars of vitality: exercise, relaxation and diet. If required, we can produce a personalised vitality plan for each employee. This will make them more aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and teach them to make smart choices. The topics discussed are excess weight, high blood pressure, nutrition, back pain, stress and posture while working.
Individual programs
Every organisation is different. This is why we provided flexible, tailor-made solutions. That way we can be sure our programmes are exactly tailored to the specific requirements of your employees, as well as their personal wishes.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function of ICANN, as part of the administrative tasks associated with management of the Domain Name System root zone, is responsible for receiving requests for the delegation and redelegation of top-level domains, investigating and reporting on the circumstances pertinent to those requests, and, when appropriate, implementing the delegation changes.
In accordance with ICANN's performance of these functions, IANA has received a number of requests for the following top-level domains:
|Domain (A-label)
|IANA Code
|Chinese/Han Simpl.
|Chinese/Han Trad.
ICANN has been involved in the introduction of Internationalised Top-Level Domains (IDNs) since 2000. The ICANN Board issued its first resolution on IDNs in September 2000, recognising "the importance of the Internet to evolve to be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set" but stressing that "the internationalisation of the Internet's domain name system must be accomplished through standards that are open, non-proprietary, and fully compatible with the Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally unique naming in the universally resolvable public name space."
Since 2000, ICANN has held numerous workshops, tutorials, presentations and meetings on IDNs. A brief overview of related activities is provided in this report, however a more complete overview of the associated meetings and events are available online at ICANN's website.
In October 2002, the Internet Engineering Steering Group approved the publication of a standardised way of integrating IDNs into the DNS. The technical standard was published in March 2003.
On 27 March 2003, the ICANN Board endorsed the IDN implementation approach set forth in the first version of the "Guidelines for the Introduction of Internationalised Domain Names". Based upon these guidelines, on 20 June 2003, ICANN announced the commencement of the global deployment of IDNs, and the registries for .CN, .JP, .TW, .ORG and .INFO initially committed to supporting them.
Throughout 2005, ICANN and participating registries engaged in a major revision of the IDN Guidelines. Version 2.0 of the guidelines were approved by the ICANN Board and published in November 2005. These were subsequently amended in February 2006 and May 2007.
With the successful deployment of IDNs in the "second-level", attention turned to ensuring the technique could be deployed in the DNS Root Zone.
The first phase of this evaluation was the engagement of Autonomica AB in October 2006 to develop, conduct and report the results of a technical laboratory test of placing IDNs in the DNS root zone. On a policy level, ICANN staff released an issues report related to introducing internationalised top-level domains.
The laboratory testing design plans were published on 5 December 2006, and the test was conducted during February 2007. The tests were successful, and the results were made public on 7 March 2007.
With the laboratory testing deemed successful, the next phase of testing is to evaluate internationalised domain names being placed in the production DNS root zone for any deleterious effects. In line with the risk that there could conceivably be such risks, it was considered that there needed to be a procedure to allow for the rapid revocation of IDNs should they prove to be causing a significant problem. As such, a set of IANA procedures for the test, including an new 'emergency revocation' procedure, were released for public consideration on 2 June 2007. The ICANN Board subsequently approved them at its June 2007 meeting.
On 19 June 2007, the draft IDN Evaluation Plan was released for public review. The plan calls for two separate evaluation facilities, both relating to the inclusion of eleven evaluative internationalised top-level domains in a mix of languages and scripts:
A "pre-deployment evaluation facility", replicating the queries performed during the successful laboratory test against the evaluative domains in the production root zone.
An "application software evaluation facility", providing for evaluation of systems connected to the various translations of "example.test", to be coordinated by ICANN.
ICANN received significant input from a wide spectrum of the Internet community on the development of IDNs. Input has been received from ICANN President's Advisory Committee on IDNs, the Generic Names Supporting Organisation Council's IDN Working Group, the Joint ccNSO-GAC IDN Working Group, the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, the ICANN Root Server System Advisory Committee, the GNSO Reserved Names Working Group, the GNSO Council, the GNSO Registries Constituency, the Country-Code Names Supporting Organisation, and many others.
The ICANN RSSAC reviewed the Evaluation Plan and specified that "[t]here is no issue with adding standard delegations (NS records) to the root zone to instantiate IDN at the root." The ICANN SSAC also reviewed the Plan, and advised that it "favors the introduction of a set of IDN labels" as proposed by this delegation request.
Comments on the plan also resulted in a correction being made to a code-point used for the Persian "test" top-level domain, which has been reflected in this report.
This report is being provided under the contract for performance of the IANA function between the United States Government and ICANN. Under that contract, ICANN performs the IANA function, which includes receiving delegation and redelegation requests concerning top-level domains, investigating the circumstances pertinent to those requests, and reporting on the requests.
IANA has determined the request has followed the relevant ICANN procedures, and is being implemented in accordance with the ICANN Evaluation Plan for Internationalised Top-Level Domains. IANA will act as the trustee for the domains, consistent with its administration of other Internet resources that do not have a clear definition of stewardship (such as single letter generic top-level domains, RFC 1918 address space, and other reserved codes).
Of particular note, IANA has instituted new procedures that will allow it to revoke the delegation of these domains rapidly in the event that they cause any negative effects to the operation of the DNS root system. This revocation can be enacted either by ICANN Staff, or through consultation with any of the root server operators.
Based upon the foregoing evaluation, the proposed domain delegations will promote service to the Internet community by helping to assure the improved interoperability of the Internet through the global technical coordination within ICANN's mandate.
IANA therefore concludes that the domains XN--KGBECHTV (representing the term "test" in Arabic), XN--HGBK6AJ7F53BBA (representing the term "test" in Persian), XN--0ZWM56D (representing the term "test" in Simplified Chinese), XN--G6W25LD (representing the term "test" in Traditional Chinese), XN--80AKHBYKNJ4F (representing the term "test" in Russian), XN--11B5BS3A9AJ6G (representing the term "test" in Hindi), XN--JXA1PD1P (representing the term "test" in Greek), XN--9T4B11YI5A (representing the term "test" in Korean), XN--DEBA0AD (representing the term "test" in Yiddish), XN--ZCKZAH (representing the term "test" in Japanese) and XN--HLCJ6AYA9ESC7A (representing the term "test" in Tamil) should be delegated to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority as evaluative domains in accordance with ICANN's IDN Evaluation Plan.


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A few weeks ago I wrote about Fivethirtyeight.com, the website run by Nate Silver which made political predictions based on aggregating existing polls.
You may want to check out a blog post by Carl Bialik, The Numbers Guy at the Wall Street Journal, in which he looks the accuracy of Nate Silver's and other pollsters' predictions.
Here's a quick snapshot. This map gives Fivethirtyeight's predictions immediately before the election:
And here were the election results (with a few regions still undecided). It looks like Indiana was his only miss and he took no stand on Missouri. Pretty impressive.


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Pulp Faction
Following the fanfare of the 67th Academy Awards in 1995, John Travolta and his father went to Chasen's in Hollywood to decompress. "Forrest Gump" had ruled the night. Tom Hanks won best actor, besting Travolta for his turn as heroin-loving, burger-eating, hip-shaking L.A. hit man Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction."
"We went out," Travolta recalled, "and I said, 'Dad, are you disappointed I didn't win?' He said, 'Johnny! Could anyone have squeezed more out of a nomination than you did? The press. The offers ... Do you think if you would have won it would have been that different?'"
"You know you deserved it," Salvatore Travolta told his famous son. "But I'm thrilled with all the wonderful results you're getting from it."
Indeed, father knew best.
The quirky, violent "Pulp Fiction" launched writer/director Quentin Tarantino from indie-film hero to box office-busting Hollywood player. But it also put Travolta — he of "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease" — back on the A-list.
"It meant a new beginning for me," said Travolta, who lives in Anthony with his family. "It's not that I wasn't working as an actor; the biggest comedy at the time was 'Look Who's Talking.' It wasn't that there was a lack of success or movies, but there was a lack of people inviting me to the quality of film I started out with — 'Urban Cowboy' and 'Saturday Night Fever' — that were Oscar-caliber roles.
"That was important for me to get that back because for, what is it?, 16 or 17 years, I've been able to do great movies with great directors, and it's been a gift that has lasted longer than the first part of my whole career."
Last week, Travolta spoke at length about "Pulp Fiction," as the much-loved/much-loathed film is slated for a one-day-only return to the big screen on Thursday. The nationwide screening is part of a larger celebration honoring Tarantino, who marks his 20th year of filmmaking. His first big film, 1992's "Reservoir Dogs," is slated for a one-day-only theatrical screening on Tuesday.
For Tarantino, "Pulp Fiction" provided an opportunity to direct one of his favorite actors, John Travolta.
"I've just been a fan of his for a really, really long time. I just haven't seen him in a movie used the way I thought he should be used, the way I would use him," Tarantino said in a documentary that accompanied the deluxe DVD release of "Pulp Fiction."
For Travolta, "Pulp Fiction" was more than a career cannon. He adores the film, adores Tarantino, adores the memories of this bloody, stylish and oddly funny film about L.A.'s offbeat underbelly. The following are excerpts from an Ocala Star-Banner interview with Travolta on the movie, its making and, certainly, its impact.
Q: How did you know about this script?
A: There was a rumor that a young new director who had directed a film called 'Reservoir Dogs' was quite interested in working with me. And his name was Quentin Tarantino.
I said, "Sounds good. He's talented. I saw the movie. I would love to meet him, too." There was nothing said about what was in mind, but I met with him. After six or seven hours of hanging out, he verbally presented two ideas to me. One was the vampire movie "From Dusk Till Dawn" and the other one was "Pulp Fiction."
I responded to "Pulp Fiction" but I didn't respond to "From Dusk Till Dawn," and he noticed that. So at the end of the meeting he said, "I'm curious. You seem to like the 'Pulp Fiction' one, but you did not respond as much to the other." I said, "Well, it's simple, Quentin. I'm just not a vampire guy."
Q: How did you develop Vincent Vega?
A: (Quentin) was pleased with my take on it. And, of course, I improved my library of choices by all the investigation I did on the role. I interviewed heroin addicts quite in depth. White-collar heroin addict, street heroin addict. They both had different takes on it because one was just a weekend guy, and one was every day.
I was interested in somewhere in the middle but more toward the weekend guy because (Vincent) had this job as a hit man. A lot of my research added a full-bodied take on this character.
Quentin said, "Wherever you take me, I'm going to go with it." And he did. I mean, I was doing very unusual choices that didn't really make sense to him — walking slow, my slow delivery of dialogue, my shuffle, the way I was scratching my face. I was playing the heroin addict, but out of context, he wasn't sure how it was going to all make sense. But he trusted that it would.
The other thing he didn't know I would add to it was the humor. My origin is comedy. Comedy is normally how I would approach any dramatic role because you balance it. It's like a yin-yang thing.
At one time he said, "I didn't know I made a comedy. I discovered I made a comedy after it was over." I just felt I had to balance the violence and the grotesque images with something that cut it right in half. By making it funny, it made it more watchable, more viable as an entertainment piece.
Q: What was your favorite moment on the set?
A: Well, my favorite moment was when we spent the whole day, from 7 a.m. to probably 8 p.m., on a scene at Jack Rabbit Slim's with Uma (Thurman, during the Twist contest to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell"). Quentin said to me at the end of the day, "Do you realize that you have captivated every single person of this crew from the moment we started this morning 'til we shut down tonight?" He said, "I am so (expletive) proud of you."
Q: What were your particular choices in that scene?
A: I'm a stickler on rehearsing when you have a lot of objects. I had to roll a cigarette, drink a milkshake, cut a steak, roll a cigarette, light her cigarette. These are all bits you have to do amid an eight- or 10-page scene. Once you get certainty on that, you can approach it in character and be the guy. This character, that's why he got high before he left for the date because he's very nervous about the date. So the heroin's taking the edge off the nervousness.
There was a lot of stuff to play, and I just felt I had a through-line that worked. Uma had a through-line that worked, and they met very beautifully. It's hard to say why it worked so well, but I knew I had a take on it.
Q: Whose idea was the Batusi?
A: You mean the dance? Well, the Twist was Quentin's idea. My idea was to add all the novelty dances ... the Batman and the Swim and the Hitchhiker and the Watoosie. The Twist is wonderful, and as a little boy, I used to do the Twist. I even won a contest doing the Twist when I was 8. But (here) it went on too long, and I said, "You might want to mix it up."
The funny thing was it wasn't the Twist that was the memorable part, it was the Batman.
Q: Did you have any idea these scenes would have such longevity?
A: I don't know if I could honestly say I did. Quentin's enthusiasm was so intense over how I was doing and interpreting the role, I knew we had something good. But to know that it would be iconic would probably not be accurate. I think you have something that the audience discovers and makes it iconic.
To be honest, I thought "Pulp" would have the same fate as "Reservoir Dogs," meaning it would be an art house movie that would have a smaller audience. I never thought it would have a mainstream audience; I thought it was too unique of a movie to hit a commercial note. And when it did, it surprised all of us, I think, because we were going to be fine with it having the same success as "Reservoir Dogs." But that it would become "Forrest Gump" was a (starts laughing) whole other idea.
Q: What were your thoughts when you watched the final product?
A: I had not seen it until I arrived at Cannes (Film Festival), and I saw it on this gigantic screen. Kelly (Preston) and I sat there and we were literally blown away. I mean, we could not believe how good it was. And then moments later, it won best picture at Cannes Film Festival.
It was one of those astonishing things ...You're watching a best picture and then you get acknowledged for being the best picture and you say, "Yeah, that's right."
Q: Then came the Academy Award nomination.
A: That was phenomenal. In show business, in particular the movie industry, you cannot predict these things. You just never know. I had full confidence the movie would be nominated, but I didn't know if I would. I was on the set of "Get Shorty" when that happened. ABC, NBC — they were all there — waiting for my reaction, and I thought, "Well guys, what are you going to do if I don't? This is going to be an embarrassing moment." My name, because of 'T' is the last on the roster, so the four came up and I thought, "Oh, man! This is not going to happen and I'm going to be on national news." And then, BAM!, John Travolta for "Pulp Fiction," and I was on screen, elated.
Q: Were you prepared to throw a tantrum if you were not nominated?
A: No (laughing), I was prepared to hide.
Q: How often are you approached with the "Cheese Burger Royale" lines?
A: I get it a lot (laughing). But the wonderful news is, because of the variety of films I've done, there's always such a beautiful variety of catchphrases that people will say to me from their favorite movies. Even "Welcome Back Kotter," I'll get a quote. But definitely "Pulp Fiction" is up there with quotes.
Q: Any chance of a sequel?
A: The only thing I can say is there is a big desire for Quentin and I to get together again, whether it's for a sequel or something new. I know there is a push toward it from many angles. ... So I'm expecting something will be done, I just don't know; it would have to be a prequel, and I don't know if, all these years later, that would make sense.
I think that the operative thing would be that Quentin and I would be working together again.
Two of Quentin Tarantino's films return to the big screen in Gainesville this week: "Reservoir Dogs":7 p.m. Tuesday at Cinema 14 Butler Plaza in Gainesville. "Pulp Fiction": 7 p.m. Thursday at Cinema 14 Butler Plaza in Gainesville. Tickets: Available through Fandango.com and at the theaters.


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Story highlights
Somalia's prime minister orders an investigation into the alleged rape of a Somali woman
She was allegedly attacked by AMISOM soldiers at a military base in Mogadishu
"The Somali government will not tolerate violation of human rights," prime minister says
AMISOM says it is investigating and appropriate action will be taken
Somali authorities said Thursday they are investigating the alleged rape of Somali woman by soldiers belonging to an African Union peacekeeping force.
The woman was allegedly attacked at Maslah Military Camp in the capital, Mogadishu, a week ago, a statement from the prime minister's office said.
"The Somali government will not tolerate violation of human rights, in particular sexual violence towards the most vulnerable members of our society and perpetrators will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law," Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon is quoted as saying at a meeting with his senior Cabinet members.
The prime minister has ordered an investigation into the allegation.
The African Union Mission to Somalia, AMISOM, said it had formed a joint team with the Somali National Army to look into the claims.
"Appropriate action will be taken once the facts of the case have been established," it said.
"The AU mission strongly condemns any incidents of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation and takes the issue extremely seriously as it reiterates the mission commitment to enhancing the safety of women and indeed protecting all Somali citizens."
Every AMISOM soldier is given training on Somali culture and "good conduct and discipline, particularly regarding sexual behavior" before deployment to the country, the statement said.
READ MORE: Women help each other at Somali rape crisis center
Somalia's government has pledged to do more to tackle the ongoing problem of sexual violence against women, as it rebuilds the country after more than two decades of conflict.
At least 1,700 women were raped in camps for internally displaced people last year in Mogadishu, according to United Nations figures.
The United Nations says 70% of the rapes perpetrated in Somalia are carried out by men in military uniforms.


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|Brian O'Meara
|omeara.brian at gmail.com
The history of life unfolds within a phylogenetic context. Comparative phylogenetic methods are statistical approaches for analyzing historical patterns along phylogenetic trees. This task view describes R packages that implement a variety of different comparative phylogenetic methods. This is an active research area and much of the information is subject to change. One thing to note is that many important packages are not on CRAN: either they were formerly on CRAN and were later archived (for example, if they failed to incorporate necessary changes as R is updated) or they are developed elsewhere and have not been put on CRAN yet. Such packages may be found on GitHub, R-Forge, or authors' websites.
Getting trees into R : Trees in R are usually stored in the S3 phylo class (implemented in ape), though the S4 phylo4 class (implemented in phylobase) is also available. ape can read trees from external files in newick format (sometimes popularly known as phylip format) or NEXUS format. It can also read trees input by hand as a newick string (i.e., "(human,(chimp,bonobo));"). phylobase and its lighter weight sibling rncl can use the Nexus Class Library to read NEXUS, Newick, and other tree formats. treebase can search for and load trees from the online tree repository TreeBASE, rdryad can pull data from the online data repository Dryad. RNeXML can read, write, and process metadata for the NeXML format. PHYLOCH can load trees from BEAST, MrBayes, and other phylogenetics programs (PHYLOCH is only available from the author's website ). phyext2 can read and write various tree formats, including simmap formats. rotl can pull in a synthetic tree and individual study trees from the Open Tree of Life project. The treeio package can read trees in Newick, Nexus, New Hampshire eXtended format (NHX), jplace and Phylip formats and data output from BEAST, EPA, HyPhy, MrBayes, PAML, PHYLDOG, pplacer, r8s, RAxML and RevBayes. phylogram can convert Newick files into dendrogram objects.
Utility functions: These packages include functions for manipulating trees or associated data. ape has functions for randomly resolving polytomies, creating branch lengths, getting information about tree size or other properties, pulling in data from GenBank, and many more. phylobase has functions for traversing a tree (i.e., getting all descendants from a particular node specified by just two of its descendants). geiger can prune trees and data to an overlapping set of taxa. treeplyr can use dplyr-style functions (filter, mutate, reorder, etc.) on objects consisting of trees plus associated data. tidytree can convert a tree object in to a tidy data frame and has other tidy approaches to manipulate tree data. evobiR can do fuzzy matching of names (to allow some differences). rphast implements an R interface to the PHAST, which can be used for many types of analysis in comparative and evolutionary genomics, such as estimating models of evolution from sequence data, scoring alignments for conservation or acceleration, and predicting elements based on conservation or custom phylogenetic hidden Markov models. SigTree finds branches that are responsive to some treatment, while allowing correction for multiple comparisons. dendextend can manipulate dendrograms, including subdividing trees, adding leaves, and more.
Ancestral state reconstruction : Continuous characters can be reconstructed using maximum likelihood, generalised least squares or independent contrasts in ape. Root ancestral character states under Brownian motion or Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models can be reconstructed in ouch, though ancestral states at the internal nodes are not. Discrete characters can be reconstructed using a variety of Markovian models that parameterize the transition rates among states using ape. markophylo can fit a broad set of discrete character types with models that can incorporate constrained substitution rates, rate partitioning across sites, branch-specific rates, sampling bias, and non-stationary root probabilities. phytools can do stochastic character mapping of traits on trees.
Diversification Analysis: Lineage through time plots can be done in ape; nLTT can estimate the normalized lineage through time statistic, which can be used as a summary statistic in ABC approaches. A simple birth-death model for when you have extant species only (sensu Nee et al. 1994) can be fitted in ape as can survival models and goodness-of-fit tests (as applied to testing of models of diversification). TESS can calculate the likelihood of a tree under a model with time-dependent diversification, including mass extinctions. Net rates of diversification (sensu Magellon and Sanderson) can be calculated in geiger. diversitree implements the BiSSE method (Maddison et al. 1997) and later improvements (FitzJohn et al. 2009). TreePar estimates speciation and extinction rates with models where rates can change as a function of time (i.e., at mass extinction events) or as a function of the number of species. caper can do the macrocaic test to evaluate the effect of a a trait on diversity. apTreeshape also has tests for differential diversification (see description ). iteRates can identify and visualize areas on a tree undergoing differential diversification. DDD can fit density dependent models as well as models with occasional escape from density-dependence. BAMMtools is an interface to the BAMM program to allow visualization of rate shifts, comparison of diversification models, and other functions. DDD implements maximum likelihood methods based on the diversity-dependent birth-death process to test whether speciation or extinction are diversity-dependent, as well as identifies key innovations and simulate a density-dependent process. expoTree can calculate the likelihood of a tree under a density dependent model. PBD can calculate the likelihood of a tree under a protracted speciation model. phyloTop has functions for investigating tree shape, with special functions and datasets relating to trees of infectious diseases.
Divergence Times: Non-parametric rate smoothing (NPRS) and penalized likelihood can be implemented in ape. geiger can do congruification to stretch a source tree to match a specified standard tree. treedater implements various clock models, ways to assess confidence, and detecting outliers.
Phylogenetic Inference: UPGMA, neighbour joining, bio-nj and fast ME methods of phylogenetic reconstruction are all implemented in the package ape. phangorn can estimate trees using distance, parsimony, and likelihood. phyclust can cluster sequences. phytools can build trees using MRP supertree estimation and least squares. phylotools can build supermatrices for analyses in other software. pastis can use taxonomic information to make constraints for Bayesian tree searches. outbreaker can infer transmission trees for diseases, as well as other parameters of disease spread; OutbreakTools can infer parameters of disease spread. For more information on importing sequence data, see the Genetics task view; pegas may also be of use.
Time series/Paleontology: Paleontological time series data can be analyzed using a likelihood-based framework for fitting and comparing models (using a model testing approach) of phyletic evolution (based on the random walk or stasis model) using paleoTS. strap can do stratigraphic analysis of phylogenetic trees.
Tree Simulations: Trees can be simulated using constant-rate birth-death with various constraints in TreeSim and a birth-death process in geiger. Random trees can be generated in ape by random splitting of edges (for non-parametric trees) or random clustering of tips (for coalescent trees). paleotree can simulate fossil deposition, sampling, and the tree arising from this as well as trees conditioned on observed fossil taxa. TESS can simulate trees with time-dependent speciation and/or extinction rates, including mass extinctions.
Trait evolution: Independent contrasts for continuous characters can be calculated using ape, picante, or caper (which also implements the brunch and crunch algorithms). Analyses of discrete trait evolution, including models of unequal rates or rates changing at a given instant of time, as well as Pagel's transformations, can be performed in geiger. corHMM can look for hidden rates in discrete traits as well as fit correlational models for two or three binary traits (similar to Pagel's old Discrete program) and complex models for multistate traits (similar to Pagel's old Multistate program). Brownian motion models can be fit in geiger, ape, and paleotree. ratematrix can fit univariate or multivariate Brownian motion models with one or more rate regimes. Deviations from Brownian motion can be investigated in geiger and OUwie. mvMORPH can fit Brownian motion, early burst, ACDC, OU, and shift models to univariate or multivariate data. Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) models can be fitted in geiger, ape, ouch (with multiple means), and OUwie (with multiple means, rates, and attraction values). surface wraps ouch to infer shifts in the OU optimum; bayou also allows data-driven selection between different OU models. geiger fits only single-optimum models. Other continuous models, including Pagel's transforms and models with trends, can be fit with geiger. ANOVA's and MANOVA's in a phylogenetic context can also be implemented in geiger. Multiple-rate Brownian motion can be fit in RBrownie. Traditional GLS methods (sensu Grafen or Martins) can be implemented in ape, PHYLOGR, or caper. Phylogenetic autoregression (sensu Cheverud et al) and Phylogenetic autocorrelation (Moran's I) can be implemented in ape or--if you wish the significance test of Moran's I to be calculated via a randomization procedure--in adephylo. Correlation between traits using a GLMM can also be investigated using MCMCglmm. phylolm can fit phylogenetic linear regression and phylogenetic logistic regression models using a fast algorithm, making it suitable for large trees. phytools can also investigate rates of trait evolution and do stochastic character mapping. metafor can perform meta-analyses accounting for phylogenetic structure. pmc evaluates the model adequacy of several trait models (from geiger and ouch) using Monte Carlo approaches. phyreg implements the Grafen (1989) phyglogenetic regression. geomorph can do geometric morphometric analysis in a phylogenetic context. Disparity through time, and other disparity-related analyses, can be performed with dispRity. MPSEM can predict features of one species based on information from related species using phylogenetic eigenvector maps. Rphylip wraps PHYLIP which can do independent contrasts, the threshold model, and more. convevol and windex can both test for convergent evolution on a phylogeny.
Trait Simulations : Continuous traits can be simulated using brownian motion in ouch, geiger, ape, picante, OUwie, and caper, the Hansen model (a form of the OU) in ouch and OUwie and a speciational model in geiger. Discrete traits can be simulated using a continuous time Markov model in geiger. phangorn can simulate DNA or amino acids. Both discrete and continuous traits can be simulated under models where rates change through time in geiger. phytools can simulate discrete characters using stochastic character mapping. phylolm can simulate continuous or binary traits along a tree.
Tree Manipulation : Branch length scaling using ACDC; Pagel's (1999) lambda, delta and kappa parameters; and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck alpha parameter (for ultrametric trees only) are available in geiger. phytools also allows branch length scaling, as well as several tree transformations (adding tips, finding subtrees). Rooting, resolving polytomies, dropping of tips, setting of branch lengths including Grafen's method can all be done using ape. Extinct taxa can be pruned using geiger. phylobase offers numerous functions for querying and using trees (S4). Tree rearrangements (NNI and SPR) can be performed with phangorn. paleotree has functions for manipulating trees based on sampling issues that arise with fossil taxa as well as more universal transformations. dendextend can manipulate dendrograms, including subdividing trees, adding leaves, and more.
Community/Microbial Ecology : picante, vegan, SYNCSA, phylotools, PCPS, caper, DAMOCLES, and cati integrate several tools for using phylogenetics with community ecology. HMPTrees and GUniFrac provide tools for comparing microbial communities. betapart allows computing pair-wise dissimilarities (distance matrices) and multiple-site dissimilarities, separating the turnover and nestedness-resultant components of taxonomic (incidence and abundance based), functional and phylogenetic beta diversity. adiv can calculate various indices of biodiversity including species, functional and phylogenetic diversity, as well as alpha, beta, and gamma diversities.
Phyloclimatic Modeling : phyloclim integrates several new tools in this area.
Phylogeography / Biogeography : phyloland implements a model of space colonization mapped on a phylogeny, it aims at estimating limited dispersal and competitive exclusion in a statistical phylogeographic framework. jaatha can infer demographic parameters for two species with multiple individuals per species. BioGeoBEARS implements a variety of models for discrete biogeography.
Species/Population Delimitation : adhoc can estimate an ad hoc distance threshold for a reference library of DNA barcodes.
Tree Comparison: Tree-tree distances can be evaluated, and used in additional analyses, in distory and Rphylip. ape can compute tree-tree distances and also create a plot showing two trees with links between associated tips. kdetrees implements a non-parametric method for identifying potential outlying observations in a collection of phylogenetic trees, which could represent inference problems or processes such as horizontal gene transfer. dendextend can evaluate multiple measures comparing dendrograms.
Taxonomy: taxize can interact with a suite of web APIs for taxonomic tasks, such as verifying species names, getting taxonomic hierarchies, and verifying name spelling. evobiR contains functions for making a tree at higher taxonomic levels, downloading a taxonomy tree from NCBI or ITIS, and various other miscellaneous functions (simulations of character evolution, calculating D-statistics, etc.).
Gene tree - species tree: HyPhy can count the duplication and loss cost to reconcile a gene tree to a species tree. It can also sample histories of gene trees from within family trees. rmetasim can simulate loci and individuals across landscapes using the metasim simulation engine.
Interactions with other programs: geiger can call PATHd8 through its congruify function. ips wraps several tree inference and other programs, including MrBayes, Beast, and RAxML, allowing their easy use from within R. Rphylip wraps PHYLIP , a broad variety of programs for tree inference under parsimony, likelihood, and distance, bootstrapping, character evolution, and more. BoSSA can use information from various tools to place a query sequence into a reference tree. pastis can use taxonomic information to make constraints for MrBayes tree searches.
Notes: At least ten packages start as phy* in this domain, including two pairs of similarly named packages (phytools and phylotools, phylobase and phybase). This can easily lead to confusion, and future package authors are encouraged to consider such overlaps when naming packages. For clarification, phytools provides a wide array of functions, especially for comparative methods, and is maintained by Liam Revell; phylotools has functions for building supermatrices and is maintained by Jinlong Zhang. phylobase implements S4 classes for phylogenetic trees and associated data and is maintained by Francois Michonneau; phybase has tree utility functions and many functions for gene tree - species tree questions and is authored by Liang Liu, but no longer appears on CRAN.


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Gene Lyons: Male college students denied due process
Long ago and far away, a woman we hardly knew presented herself bruised and weeping on our doorstep one night. She told a vivid tale of woe. An old friend of our family she'd been dating had supposedly beaten her and thrown her down the stairs. Why she'd come to our house instead of police headquarters wasn't entirely clear.
The story went on for hours. After she'd gone, I asked my wife, "What percentage of that did you believe?"
Her eyes got big. She's a warm, compassionate soul whom people frequently seek out for advice.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"I mean that you've known X closely for 20 years. Do you really think he's just started beating up women at age 45?"
When I put it that way, she did not.
I know, I know. Domestic abuse is shockingly common. Along with sexual abuse, furtive alcoholism and other terrible sins. But the circumstances of my upbringing, as they say in 19th-century novels, didn't predispose me to believe the first story I hear.
Then I went into journalism, where skepticism is a (rapidly vanishing) virtue. I'd also written "Widow's Web," a book about a pathological liar whose exciting stories made her a statewide celebrity until homicide detectives sent her away.
Anybody can say anything about anybody else. Sometimes it's crucial to remember that.
In time, our late-night visitor's charges proved false. Our friend was the fourth or fifth man she'd accused that we learned about — none suspected of hurting women before or since. Like the others, he'd been forced to restrain her from attacking him. Flinging herself down staircases was evidently a dramatic specialty of hers.
She eventually left town, seemingly in search of more gullible audiences.
Based on a fascinating article by Emily Shire in The Daily Beast, Amherst, Massachusetts might have been a promising destination. It's based upon on two lawsuits filed by male undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who allege they were banished into academic limbo by absurdly biased Title IX "assault hearings" in which activist professors played at being judge and jury.
Subject to the proviso that damn near anybody can also file a lawsuit, Shire's piece definitely sounds like the UMass I knew in my youth: the New England birthplace of daft political correctness and serio-comic identity politics.
Actually, I'd wondered when I saw UMass identified as one of 55 schools under investigation by a White House Task Force for devoting insufficient zeal to sexual assault probes. UMass-Amherst on a list of colleges failing to protect women from predatory frat boys? A list that did not include, say, Arkansas-Fayetteville or Ole Miss, where they've been known to have some crazy parties on football weekends.
Now anybody sending a daughter off to college these days would be well-advised to hire a professional referee to give her the final instruction boxers get before the bell: "Protect yourself at all times." That said, isn't it odd that with violent crime rates dropping sharply everywhere, sexual assaults are supposedly metastasizing on campus?
Supposedly, one in five women college students gets sexually assaulted. Never mind that if one in five Starbucks customers got molested, the chain would soon go out of business. It follows that nobody outside the Task Force really believes those numbers. Alarming statistics are manufactured by including in the definition of "sexual assault" things like trying to steal a kiss or patting a girl on the fanny — ill-advised and boorish, but not normally a crime.
It's probable that the list of 55 offending schools reflects not so much bad male behavior as the prevalence of institutionalized academic feminism on campus. The more "soldier sisters," as a sarcastic woman friend calls them, the more sexual assault complaints.
This is not to make light of real sexual crimes. Quite the opposite. Those should be prosecuted in real courts by law enforcement professionals. It's an imperfect system, but these faculty tribunals are a joke.
The details of the two UMass cases are classic: One is a how-drunk-were-you dispute between a woman who sent grammatically correct text messages announcing her intention to seduce the guy she subsequently accused of rape.
The other's rather like our late-night visitor's tale of woe. The defendant claimed the woman was the real aggressor, submitting photos of injuries and witness statements to substantiate his claim. Although she tried to drop the complaint, he got expelled anyway.
Neither allegation resulted in legal charges.
"Both Haidak and Doe," Shire writes, "allege the school denied the accused the opportunity to present key witnesses or submit questions to witnesses that would have potentially bolstered their cases."
Both say faculty acted openly and contemptuously dismissive of their claims. Good intentions notwithstanding, one lawyer says, colleges have "created an environment where these male students ... are treated as guilty before innocent."
And that can't be good for men or women.
Gene Lyons is a columnist at the Arkansas Times. His email address is email@example.com.


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If Women Can Have Abortions, Then Why Can't Rand Paul Buy a Decent Toilet?
Sen. Rand Paul had a powerful line of questioning today for Kathleen Hogan, the deputy assistant energy secretary for efficiency. In a hearing about renewing appliance efficiency standards — hint: Rand Paul does not want any — he meandered about regulations for light bulbs, washing machines, and most importantly toilets. Why is Rand Paul forced, assuming he is, to buy useless energy-efficient products, when women aren't forced to carry all of their pregnancies to term? This is what Rand Paul argued.
Paul, sensing a liberal lady in his presence, asked Hogan if she's pro-choice. This nonsense ensued:
"I'm pro-choice of bulbs," Hogan responded.
"Actually, that's the point," Paul said, during an appliance efficiency hearing at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
"The point is that most members of your administration probably would be frank and characterize themselves - and upfront - as being pro-choice for abortion," he said, "but you're really anti-choice on every other consumer item."
Oh sweet Jesus. He continued: "I think there should be some self-examination from the administration on the idea that you favor a woman's right to an abortion, but you don't favor a woman or a man's right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine."
What's with all this anger and the terrible abortion analogy? It seems he's been having some trouble with the john back home: "We have to flush the toilet 10 times before it works. I've been waiting for 20 years to talk about how bad these toilets are and this was a good excuse today."
So... Rand Paul needs to space out his shits, huh?
(PS: Rand Paul is pro-life so he'd be a hypocrite by not restricting choice in consumer goods, according to his own logic. Or did we miss something?)


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This article is more than 1 year old
Facebook updates iOS app, still poking around for mobile dollars
Facebook is yet to crack the mobile revenue conundrum as its stock continues to be hammered on Wall Street, but in the meantime the company has finally updated its dog of an iOS app.
Shares hardly rallied following Facebook's announcement yesterday that the Apple mobile version of its network had now been updated – instead continuing to limp around the $19 mark.
Facebook had announced that it had speeded things up for Facebook on Apple's iPhone and iPad.
The Mark Zuckerberg-run company claimed that "Facebook 5.0 for iOS is twice as fast as the previous version when launching the app, scrolling through news feed and opening photos in feed."
It added that the app had been rebuilt from scratch – a move that appears to indicate how fed up Zuck's coders were with the previous version.
Meanwhile, Facebook fans with Android-loaded handsets will continue to have to play the waiting game as the dominant social network is yet to update that version of its app.
Apparently, Facebookers are being forced to switch to Android phones to test out the app for Google's mobile operating system.
As The Register's very own mobile correspondent, Bill Ray, put it: "The Android app is most annoying; I've installed it a couple of times only to remove it again when it became too irritating."
And it appears, according to Business Insider, that people working inside Facebook feel the same way about what is a pisspoor app.
Zuckerberg is desperately trying to find ways of making money out of the company's mobile division, especially as users increasingly turn to their smartphones to access what remains – if you exclude crappy Sponsored Stories – an ad-free version of Facebook. ®


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Vol 11. Quanta of Maths
The work of Alain Connes has cut a wide swath across several areas of math- ematics and physics. Reflecting its broad spectrum and profound impact on the contemporary mathematical landscape, this collection of articles covers a wealth of topics at the forefront of research in operator algebras, analysis, noncommutative geometry, topology, number theory and physics.
Specific themes covered by the articles are as follows:
- entropy in operator algebras, regular C*-algebras of integral domains, properly infinite C*-algebras, representations of free groups and 1-cohomology, Leibniz seminorms and quantum metric spaces;
- von Neumann algebras, fundamental Group of II1 factors, subfactors and planar algebras;
- Baum-Connes conjecture and property T, equivariant K-homology, Hermitian K-theory;
- cyclic cohomology, local index formula and twisted spectral triples, tangent groupoid and teh index theorem;
- noncommutative geometry and space-time, spectral action principle, quantum gravity, noncommutative ADHM and instantons, non-compact spectral triples of finite volume, noncommutative coordinate algebras;
- Hopf algebras, Vinberg algebras, renormalization and combinatorics, motivic renormalization and singularities;
- cyclotomy and analytic geometry over F1, quantum modular forms;
- differential K-theory, cyclic theory and S-cohomology.
CMI/AMS publication. 2010. 675 pp., Softcover, List price: $136, AMS members: $108.80. Order code: CMIP/11. Students: $108.80. Order code: CLAY MATH. Available at the AMS bookstore
Editors. Étienne Blanchard (University of Paris 7, France), David Ellwood (Clay Mathematics Institute, Cambridge, MA), Masoud Khalkhali (University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada), Matilde Marcolli (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA), Henri Moscovici (Ohio State University, Columbus, OH) and Sorin Popa (University of California, Los Angeles, CA)


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UNITED STATES v. ZACKS(1963)
In 1952, a taxpayer received royalties on patents all substantial rights under which she had transferred to a manufacturer by way of an exclusive license. She and her husband reported such royalties as ordinary income in their joint return for 1952. This return was filed in 1953; the last payment of taxes thereunder was made in 1953; and a claim for refund was barred in 1956 by 322 (b) (1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. By the Act of June 29, 1956, Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 so as to add 117 (q), providing that amounts received in such circumstances should be taxed as capital gains, rather than as ordinary income, and it made the amendment applicable to tax years beginning after May 31, 1950. In reliance on this amendment, the taxpayers filed in 1958 a claim for a pro tanto refund of their 1952 income taxes. Held: Their claim was barred by the statute of limitations generally applicable to tax refund claims. Pp. 59-70.
150 Ct. Cl. 814, 280 F.2d 829, reversed.
J. Mitchell Reese, Jr. argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Cox, Assistant Attorney General Oberdorfer, I. Henry Kutz and Mildred L. Seidman.
Scott P. Crampton argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Stanley Worth and Robert F. Conrad.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed by Robert H. Reiter and Otto L. Walter for Anton Lorenz et al., and by Grant W. Wiprud and Robert T. Molloy for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether 117 (q) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, a 1956 amendment to [375 U.S. 59, 60] the Code which effected retroactive changes in the tax treatment of transfers of patent rights, gives rise to a claim for refund barred by the statute of limitations generally applicable to tax refund claims.
In 1952, Mrs. Zacks received royalties of about $37,000 on patents all substantial rights under which she had transferred by way of an exclusive license to a manufacturing corporation. In accordance with the then prevailing rulings of the Commissioner, the royalties were reported as ordinary income in the 1952 joint federal income tax return filed by Mrs. Zacks and her husband in 1953. The last payment of the taxes due was made in 1953. Under the statute of limitations governing a claim for refund of such taxes, the claim was barred in 1956. 322 (b) (1), Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) 322 (b) (1), 53 Stat. 91. 1 By Act of June 29, 1956, 70 Stat. 404, Congress amended the provisions of the 1939 Code governing the taxability of amounts received in consideration for the transfer of patent rights. The amendment, made applicable to tax years beginning after May 31, 1950, provided that in the circumstances present here such amounts should be taxed as capital gains rather than as ordinary income.
In reliance on this amendment, the taxpayers, on June 23, 1958, filed a claim for a pro tanto refund of their 1952 [375 U.S. 59, 61] income taxes. No action having been taken on the claim, they then commenced a refund suit in the Court of Claims. The United States asserted as a defense that the suit was barred by limitations under 7422 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. 7422 (a), 68A Stat. 876. 2 The Court of Claims granted the taxpayers' motion to strike this defense, 150 Ct. Cl. 814, 280 F.2d 829, and, other issues in the case being settled by stipulation, entered judgment for the taxpayers.
Because of the recurring importance of the problem in the administration of the tax laws and a conflict between the decision below and those of some of the Courts of Appeals, 3 we granted certiorari. 371 U.S. 961 . For reasons given hereafter, we hold that the taxpayers' claim was barred by limitations and, accordingly, reverse the judgment below.
Section 117 (q) here in question provides in pertinent part:
In 1955, the Commissioner issued a further ruling declaring that he would adhere to his 1950 ruling for tax years beginning after May 31, 1950, and prior to 1954. Rev. Rule 55-58, 1955-1 Cum. Bull. 97. As a result, the [375 U.S. 59, 64] Commissioner's position was that during the period from May 31, 1950 to 1954 there was a gap in the consistent application of the law as administratively and judicially established in 1946. It is evident that Congress intended to fill this gap when it enacted 117 (q) in 1956. But we are not able to say that Congress intended thereby to reopen for retroactive adjustment tax years with respect to which refund claims were already barred by limitations.
Section 117 (q) does not in terms waive the application of the statute of limitations to refund claims then finally barred. On its face, 117 (q) does no more than overrule the Commissioner's position on a matter of substantive law respecting the years 1950-1954. Nor is there anything in the legislative history which suggests that such a waiver is to be implied. On the contrary, such indications as there are suggest that Congress intended only to terminate litigation then pending. Representative Cooper, then Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, stated on the floor of the House:
Both the taxpayers and the Government rely on United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188, 198 , where this Court said: "It is a cardinal principle of construction that repeals by implication are not favored. When there are [375 U.S. 59, 68] two acts upon the same subject, the rule is to give effect to both if possible." The correctness of this statement is not to be doubted. But the paucity of its assistance here is illustrated by the fact that both parties rely on it. The taxpayers place the second sentence in italics, and urge that 117 (q) and the general statute of limitations are both given effect if the limitations period is made to run from the date of enactment of 117 (q). The Government presses the first sentence, and urges that the taxpayers' position, in effect, repeals the statute of limitations pro tanto. There are difficulties with both of these analyses. Obviously, neither of them does more than cast a conclusion in terms of the general rules isolated from the particular circumstances of this case. Nor can the doctrine that remedial legislation is entitled to liberal construction, upon which the taxpayers also rely, be stretched to expand the reach of a statute of such evident limited purpose as this one.
A more difficult question is presented by the fact that 117 (q) goes beyond the problem created by the Commissioner's vacillation affecting tax years between 1946 and 1954. By treating royalty payments as capital gains without regard to whether the patent rights transferred were capital assets, 117 (q) made the favorable treatment available to professional as well as amateur inventors. 9 In addition, all royalties are treated as longterm [375 U.S. 59, 69] capital gains whether or not the rights transferred had been held for the requisite period. These provisions made clear changes in the law as it was in 1950 and subsequent years up to 1954. Insofar as they are applicable to years for which most claims for refund were barred in 1956, the Government's position renders the provisions without effect.
It is, of course, our duty to give effect to all portions of a statute if that is possible. E. g., United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538 -539. But this general principle is meant to guide the courts in furthering the intent of the legislature, not overriding it. When rigid adherence to the general rule would require disregard of clear indications to the contrary, the rule must yield. Two considerations compel that result here. First, not only the administrative and legislative history of 117 (q), discussed above, but also the selection of May 31, 1950, as the operative date leave no doubt that Congress was primarily concerned to settle the large volume of pending litigation arising out of the Commissioner's 1950 position, reaffirmed in 1955. 10 The date selected has no relevance either to the status of professional inventors or to the period for which patent rights must be held. Second, there is a ready explanation for the inclusion of the additional provisions. With irrelevant exceptions, 117 (q) tracks the language of 1235 of the 1954 Code. Pp. 61-62 and note 6, supra. It was wholly natural for Congress to deal with the pre-1954 period by adopting the language of the 1954 Code on the same subject. The House report on the bill leaves no doubt that this is what actually occurred. H. R. Rep. No. 1607, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 1-2. It is a fair inference that but for the Commissioner's obduracy respecting amateur inventors, 117 (q) would [375 U.S. 59, 70] not have been conceived. There is nothing to indicate that for some other reason Congress in 1956 had second thoughts about its failure in 1954 to make these identical provisions of 1235 retroactive. To give the provisions in question the controlling weight that is claimed for them on the issue before us, would allow the tail to wag the dog. Of course, all of the amendatory provisions of 117 (q) are fully effective with respect to years and claims not barred.
Finally, the taxpayers suggest that unless the statute of limitations is deemed waived, a premium is placed on taxpayer opposition to administrative rulings, since only those taxpayers who contested the Commissioner's position will now be able to claim a refund. But in view of the doubt surrounding the rulings involved in this case, emphasized by the cases overruling the Commissioner, this argument has less force than it might in another context. In any event, this problem always attends retroactive legislation of this sort, and acceptance of the taxpayers' argument would lead to the automatic waiver of the statute of limitations in every case. Whether or not this should be done is a matter for Congress to decide. Where Congress has decided otherwise, this Court has but one course.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
[ Footnote 2 ] Section 7422 (a) provides: "No suit or proceeding shall be maintained in any court for the recovery of any internal revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected, or of any penalty claimed to have been collected without authority, or of any sum alleged to have been excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected, until a claim for refund or credit has been duly filed with the Secretary or his delegate, according to the provisions of law in that regard, and the regulations of the Secretary or his delegate established in pursuance thereof."
[ Footnote 3 ] Compare United States v. Dempster, 265 F.2d 666 (C. A. 6th Cir.), and Tobin v. United States, 264 F.2d 845 (C. A. 5th Cir.), with the decision in this case and Hollander v. United States, 248 F.2d 247 (C. A. 2d Cir.), involving a similar problem.
[ Footnote 4 ] One not engaged in holding patent rights "`primarily for sale to customers in the ordinary course of his trade or business,'" 6 T. C. 266, as distinguished from a "professional" inventor who is so engaged.
[ Footnote 5 ] See Kronner v. United States, 126 Ct. Cl. 156, 110 F. Supp. 730; Allen v. Werner, 190 F.2d 840 (C. A. 5th Cir.). The Commissioner's position was sustained by the Second Circuit in Bloch v. United States, 200 F.2d 63. Prior to 1946, several courts had taken the same position. Commissioner v. Celanese Corp., 78 U.S. App. D.C. 292, 140 F.2d 339: Commissioner v. Hopkinson, 126 F.2d 406 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
[ Footnote 6 ] The relevant portions of 1235 are: "A transfer (other than by gift, inheritance, or devise) of property consisting of all substantial rights to a patent, or an undivided interest therein which includes a part of all such rights, by any holder shall be considered the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for more than 6 months, regardless of whether or not payments in consideration of such transfer are - "(1) payable periodically over a period generally coterminous with the transferee's use of the patent, or "(2) contingent on the productivity, use, or disposition of the property transferred."
[ Footnote 7 ] Section 1235 of the 1954 Code, and 117 (q) of the 1939 Code which follows 1235, made changes in the prior law with respect to the status of professional inventors and the "holding period" for both amateur and professional inventors. See pp. 67-69, infra.
[ Footnote 8 ] For other examples of retroactive tax measures in which express provision was made for the limitations problem, see Technical Amendments Act of 1958, 92, 93, 100, 72 Stat. 1606, 1667, 1668, 1673; Act of September 14, 1960, 5, 74 Stat. 1010, 1013; Revenue Act of 1962, 26, 27, 76 Stat. 960, 1067. For examples of such measures in which no provision was made to extend the period of limitations, see Act of February 11, 1958, 72 Stat. 3; Act of February 11, 1958, 72 Stat. 4; Technical Amendments Act of 1958, 103, 72 Stat. 1606, 1675; Revenue Act of 1962, 30, 76 Stat. 960, 1069. Contrary to fears seemingly entertained by one of the amici in this case, we do not suggest that congressional practice in this regard gives rise to a presumption that where Congress has not provided expressly for a special limitations period in a retroactive tax statute, the relevant general statute of limitations was intended to apply. The significance of such congressional silence is to be judged on a case-by-case basis, as with all questions of statutory construction.
[ Footnote 9 ] Such rights would not be capital assets if the patents were held for sale in the ordinary course of business. Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 1221, 26 U.S.C. 1221, 68A Stat. 321. The taxpayers make much of the asserted fact that Mrs. Zacks was a professional inventor, reasoning therefrom that, as to her at least, 117 (q) clearly established a new right. Cf. Lorenz v. United States, ___ Ct. Cl. ___, 296 F.2d 746. The Court of Claims made no finding as to whether Mrs. Zacks was an amateur or professional inventor. Whatever may be the validity and significance in other contexts of the distinction between creation of new rights and clarification of existing rights, we think that distinction is not controlling here, since Congress has evidenced its intent more directly.
[ Footnote 10 ] The existence of a substantial amount of such litigation is not questioned in this case. Some of it has been collected at pages 35-36 of the Government's brief. [375 U.S. 59, 71]


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This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com.
Today's post is babywearing photos! Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!
|Daniel used to love to nurse in our homemade stretchy wrap...
|...or nap on my back while I made dinner.
|Breastfeeding in the mei tai is so easy and convenient! ...Add a sun hat
and even the people you're walking with won't know you're nursing.
(True story: that happened right before this photo was taken.)
|The ring sling is perfect for cuddling a sick baby all day.
|And momma's milk is right there when he needs it!
Linked up at Wordless Wednesday at Hobo Mama and Natural Parents Network.
Here are more posts by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.
- Amy @ Toddler in Tow-Wordless Wednesday Babywearing!
- Ashley @ Adventures with my Monkeys-Breastfeeding Carnival Day 10: Wordless Wednesday Babywearing Style
- Amy @ Anktangle-Meals On-the-Go
- Xela @ The Happy Hippie Homemaker-Wordless Wednesday: Babywearing Photos
- Timbra @ Bosoms and Babes-Babywearing 5 Years Strong
- Lauren @ Hobo Mama-Babywearing a Newborn
- Claire @ The Adventures of Lactating Girl-Pregnant Babywearing
- Renee @ Just the 5 of us!-I Miss Snuggly Sling Days
- And of course on the Breastfeeding Cafe's blog today-Wordless Wednesday: Babywearing Flash Mob Video


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Media myths can emerge in blithe and subtle ways, as a brief item in the November 19 issue of the New Yorker testifies.
The myth the New Yorker insinuates is especially pernicious: It suggests U.S. forces dropped the napalm that wounded and terrified a group of Vietnamese children — a moment captured by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut in one of the most memorable images of the Vietnam War.
In a brief retrospective review of Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film, The Birds, the New Yorker said a scene in that movie of "screaming schoolkids fleeing down a lonely road disturbingly presage[d] the iconic news image of Vietnamese children escaping from American napalm attacks."
The reference to "iconic news image of Vietnamese children" running from "napalm attacks" points unmistakably to Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, which was taken June 8, 1972, not far from the village of Trang Bang, in what was then South Vietnam.
The centerpiece of Ut's photograph shows a naked, 9-year-old girl screaming in pain and terror as she fled the attack.
The media myth associated with the image is that U.S. forces carried out the aerial napalm attack that terrorized and injured the children near Trang Bang.
But that interpretation — or, perhaps, the reflexive inclination to blame the American military — is in error: The napalm was dropped in a misdirected attack by the South Vietnamese Air Force, as news reports of the time made clear.
In the 40 years since, however, the erroneous interpretation has emerged not infrequently.
A notable example came six months ago, in an obituary published in the New York Times that referred to Ut's photograph and said it depicted "the aftermath of one of the thousands of bombings in the countryside by American planes: a group of terror-stricken children fleeing the scene, a girl in the middle of the group screaming and naked, her clothes incinerated by burning napalm."
For weeks, the Times resisted correcting its error about "American planes" having carried out the attack, torturing logic as it defended its phrasing.
In reply to my email pointing out the error, the correction expert on the Times obituary staff, Peter Keepnews, wrote:
"You are correct that the bombing in question was conducted by the South Vietnamese Air Force. However, the obituary referred only to 'American planes,' and there does not seem to be any doubt that this plane was American –- a Douglas A-1 Skyraider, to be precise."
As if the plane's manufacturer were of crucial importance to the napalm attack. Which it wasn't. The Times clearly had meant that American forces were responsible. Which they weren't.
Finally, in late August, the Times published what I called "a sort-of correction," invoking Keepnews' baffling logic in stating:
"While the planes that carried out that attack were 'American planes' in the sense that they were made in the United States, they were flown by the South Vietnamese Air Force, not by American forces."
It was a begrudging, less-than-sincere acknowledgement of error.
Independently of my efforts, two senior former journalists for the Associated Press also had pressed the Times to correct the error about the napalm attack. They were Richard Pyle, a veteran AP correspondent who was the news agency's Saigon bureau chief from 1970-73, and Hal Buell, a retired AP vice president who for years directed the agency's photo service. (Pyle directed my attention to the New Yorker brief that alludes to the napalm-attack myth.)
In July, Pyle and Buell sent a joint letter by email to the Times, noting that the error, if left uncorrected, could solidify into wide popular acceptance.
Their fears were hardly unfounded — as the New Yorker's movie brief suggests, in its blithe, almost casual invoking of the napalm-attack myth.
Many thanks to Instapundit
Glenn Reynolds for linking to this post.
Recent or related:
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Hi, I'm Lisa Waller Rogers and I write the blog, Lisa's History Room.
"Oh, no! Another history blog?" you might say.
Yes, another history blog – and yet not – because this one's different in a very special way. You see I don't think of history the way many historians do, as a dull-as-dirt list of male U.S. presidents interspersed with big wars. While I might mention World War II or the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 in my blog, I will primarily write about people – fascinating people, people you can lie awake at night and think about. Because it is through people that you can really love history. I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, "There is properly no history; only biography."
It was my mother who nurtured this world view. Growing up, she spoke to me about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as familiarly as if they were neighbors. She trained me to view an adult's behavior through the lens of his or her childhood.
"Poor David!" she would say of the late Duke of Windsor, using his nickname. "He was always looking for a nurturer. His mother – Queen Mary – was cold, cold. She left him to cruel nannies to raise. One of his nannies would pinch him before presenting him to his parents every evening." His father, King George V, was just as distant. In 1935, a year before his son ascended the throne of England, he told Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months." The Duke of Windsor found his nurturer in the person of Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite the Brits considered an unacceptable consort for their king. And thus we have the explanation for the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII.
My Credentials: After receiving my history degree from UT Austin in 1978, I taught elementary school for ten years. Since 1985, I've consulted and edited textbooks for Harcourt Publishers. I've written articles for publications such as Parents, Boys' Life, Texas Highways, and the Instructor. I collaborated on a frontier forts website for UT's Texas Archaeological Research Lab. I received a 2003 Texas Commission on the Arts educational writing grant.
In addition, I've appeared as a featured writer and speaker at schools, museums, fundraisers, libraries, book and history clubs, bookstores, the Texas Book Festival, the Texas State Library Association Conferences, and on local TV, MSNBC, and Texas radio stations. I am an active member of the Society of Children's Book Writers, the Writers' League of Texas, the Western Writers of America, and Women Writing the West.
I've published five popular children's history books, four with the prestigious Texas Tech University Press. These books have received 2 state and 3 national honors (see "Lisa's Books"). Newly released is a young adult novel, The Candy Ravers, available as an e-book at Amazon.all material on this blog is copyrighted by Lisa Waller Rogers


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I have shared an Excelfile on One Drive with many people. The flow rule is being triggered on chnages made to the files in a folder. The action should be to send an email to my attention.
file in folder modified --> send email
This email should include 1.) the file name and 2.) the name of user which has done the modification (last modified by xyz).
First part is no problem, but I am not able to pull the name out of the system.
Any ideas?
Solved! Go to Solution.
@v-micsh-msft @Anonymous
This feature has been been deployed to all regions. Tag me if you have any issues with it and I can contact the connectors team. Thanks for participating in our community!
I tried your scenario and I did a 'Get file metadata' on the Excel file I edited in OneDrive. I tried getting the file metadata by id and path, but I was only able to see the 'Last modified' time stamp.
You could make the author a column in your Excel row, and pull it out from 'Get rows,' but I realize that may not work for your scenario. I can take this as a request and let you know if it's possible to find the last modified author.
Thanks for your input!
Hi Melinda,
thanks for the fast respond on this topic. I'm looking forward to have this soon as parameter in the Flow app, which is btw a great tool!!
Hi @melim,
Is there any update on this?
I checked the document for OneDrive API (Microsoft Graph) regarding get the driveitem, there is Last modified by user object in the respond JSON, which is not in string format:
Is it possiable to make it available under the Dynamic Content?
@Anonymous, would it be convenient for you to submit this as an idea in the Microsoft Flow idea forum?
I opened a task to track this work on the connectors team. While the feature is possible for the OneDrive for Business connector, they're trying to understand how this change would impact other file-based connectors. I'll update the thread when I have more information from them.
This feature request was accepted by the connectors team and it should be deployed by the end of April. Thanks for contributing to our community!
@v-micsh-msft @Anonymous
This feature has been been deployed to all regions. Tag me if you have any issues with it and I can contact the connectors team. Thanks for participating in our community!
Hi, I have just tested it - with success!! Thanks to the MS team for implementing this in such a short time!!
Great Job!!
Would it be possible to have this dynamic content (name of the user who modified the file) also available for SharePoint usage?
Jan Tokar
I'm I missing something? I don't see "last modified by NAME"
@iPeatLastModifiedBy is available for the trigger "When a file is modified (properties only)." It looks like you are using the trigger "When a file is modified." Hope this helps.
Thank you,
except for LastModifiedBy: is Empty despite when I look on OneDrive and see a name clearly listed
I'm able to reproduce this issue too. I'll ask the connector team about it and report back with a fix ETA.
Hi Melinda,
I understood that the Last Modified Name feature is now enabled in Flows. But could you please guide us on how to fetch the last modified name in Sharepoint flows.
Hi Flaris,
Can you please help/guide me on how to fetch the last modified name in Microsoft Flow for Sharepoint
I have used the trigger
"beim Ändern einer Datei (nur Metadaten)--> Dateimetadaten über ID abrufen --> E-Mail senden"
Not 100% sure how this is in English, but should be something like:
"on changes of a file (only Metadata): path of folder --> call file meta data via ID: path to the specific file--> send E-Mail: "
Subject: The file "Name" has been changed
Hi,

the file  "DisplayName"
 has been changed by "LastModifiedBy"

check it out:

<a href=URL pointing to file
Hope, this helps a bit
Here is a screenshot
i am not able to see that feature
i am not able to see your developed feature


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This article is more than 1 year old
Nokia cries patent 'Havoc!', unleashes dogs of law on two continents
HTC, RIM and Viewsonic face slavering Finnish pack
Nokia has filed suit against HTC, Research in Motion and Viewsonic in two different countries all in one day.
The Finnish phone firm announced today that it had filed claims in both the US and Germany alleging that products from the three firms infringed on a number of its patents.
"Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products," Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia, said in a canned statement. "We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies.
"Though we'd prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorised use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed."
The mobile maker kicked things off with a complaint to the US' International Trade Commission, which can ban the import of patent-infringing products, about HTC. The Taiwanese company also features in a suit filed in court in Delaware and a case started in Dusseldorf court.
Nokia is also suing Viewsonic in Delaware and taking RIM to court in Dusseldorf and has launched a suit at all three companies in the courts of Mannheim and Munich.
The firm is citing 45 of its patents in total against the companies, which deal with dual function antennas, power management, multimode radios, app stores, navigation and data encryption amongst other functions.
"Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products," Pentland claimed. "We'd rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorised use of our inventions."
As its popularity in the mobile market has waned, Nokia has been staying afloat with the help of sizeable revenues from royalties for its intellectual property. As one of the old-guard handset makers, it holds a lot of cards in the patent game that modern smartphone manufacturers still need. ®


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Get ready for more Bluth family shenanigans. Maybe.
Netflix is in talks for another season of "Arrested Development," executive producer Brian Grazer told Bloomberg Television on Thursday.
Also read: Netflix's Ted Sarandos Defends 'Arrested Development': Fans Love the Show (Exclusive)
"We are in conversations with them to do another," Grazer said."They are interested in doing that."
Though Netflix, and series executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz, have said that they'd be open to a second season of the series, so far it has remained in the realm of the theoretical.
The series, which originally ran on Fox from 2003 to 2006, was revived for a 15-episode fourth season on Netflix, which premiered in May.
Also read: 'Orange Is the New Black' Creator on Getting Renewed Ahead of Debut: 'Netflix Has Balls'
Netflix did not immediately respond to TheWrap's requests for comment.
The rent by mail and streaming service launched its latest series, "Orange Is the New Black," on Thursday.


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Roofing tip: Wind Damage
Staff Writer
State Journal-Register
According to Austin roofer Holden Roofing, these are the signs of wind damage to a roof that you should look for: Missing shingles and lifted shingles (missing glue seals). Asphalt shingles are adhered to the roof with a strip of adhesive. When the wind blows one shingle off of the roof, it makes the whole group of shingles that it is adhered with weaker.View original post


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Visit the front page for rants, reviews, and stories about Nacho's Hammer
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To most fans it came as quite a shock when CBS announced the cancellation of Jericho March last year. The show had a huge fanbase, and several blogs and communities organized protests to revive the show.Jeff Braverman, one of the most loyal fans, even went as far as dumping 5,000 pounds of nuts at the CBS offices in New York. CBS's Vice President of Communications, Chris Ender said that the Jericho protests were the biggest they'd ever seen: "It's been an impressive display of passion from a loyal audience. You have to tip your hat to their ability to get attention and make some noise."Initially CBS, who donated the nuts to charities, wasn't planning on reviving the show, but after more fans went nuts they eventually did. The official premiere date of the second season was set for February 12, 2008, but today, several weeks before the planned return, the first three episodes of season 2 (ripped from a promotional DVDscreener) are already uploaded to several BitTorrent sites. Perhaps the recent leaks are a gift to the dedicated fans of the show?It certainly wouldn't be the first time that TV-shows were leaked on purpose. Last fall an unusually large number of pre-air TV shows appeared on BitTorrent sites, in some cases several months before their scheduled air dates. Many of those leaks appear to be inside jobs, and TV executives are starting to realize that leaking shows to BitTorrent can help promote them.Whether Jericho was leaked on purpose remains unclear, but I guess the thousands of fans who already downloaded the show today don't really care where it came from.
CBS will know sooner rather than later whether or not they will allow "Jericho" to keep on living past its second season, but fans may get a little help from a new rebroadcasting deal the post-apocalyptic series has made with the SciFi Channel.Carol Barbee, the executive producer of the series that fans saved with nothing more than a few measly ton of nuts, said a decision by network on whether or not to renew the series could come before February ends."I'm just guessing here, but I would imagine that probably, they usually start to have an opinion around the third airing," Barbee recently told SciFi Wire. "So usually by then your fate can be sealed in terms of it not going well. They may wait another week or so if it is going well for us to order more.""Jericho" got the ax originally when CBS ordered an extended mid-season break for the series last year, causing some fans to not even realize it had returned to the airwaves. While viewership did drop, they numbers were still pretty strong, and it was fully expected the show would return for a second season. However, a last-minute change of heart from CBS angered fans, and they organized to bring "Jericho" back for seven episodes -- something that has helped CBS in a strike-shortened season.That strike, which is a battle between studios and the Writers Guild of America, means there will be less scripted competition on the air for the show when it returns. That, plus the tremendous media hype it got when it was canceled and resurrected, could be huge bonuses for the show when it does return."Obviously they can't order any more if the writers strike is still going on, but I would imagine I would get a phone call, and you know, start thinking about Season 3," Barbee said. "If there's any good that comes out of the writers strike, I'm hoping -- besides a good deal -- I'm hoping it's in favor of 'Jericho.'"Just as Barbee was talking about some guarded optimism for the show, SciFi Channel announced that it had picked up cable rights for the series from CBS Television Distribution.As part of the deal, SciFi will be allowed to broadcast both the first and second seasons, beginning Feb. 11 with a four-episode marathon beginning at 7 p.m. ET. After that, the series will air Mondays at 10 p.m. ET, and also simulcast the series in high-definition on the network's HD channel."Jericho" itself will return to CBS with new episodes beginning Feb. 12 at 10 p.m. ET.
It can be nowhere but up from here for "Jericho" if it wants to survive into a third season.The resurrected CBS post-apocalyptic series earned a 4.2 rating/7 share Tuesday night in its highly publicized return, enough to take last place in the 10 p.m. hour behind a rerun of "Law & Order: SVU" on NBC and a new "Boston Legal" on ABC. Those numbers are according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research.That gives "Jericho" the lowest turnout for a genre show premiere this season among shows on major networks, the closest premiere coming from "Moonlight," which premiered with a 5.8/11 for CBS at the beginning of the season.However, the numbers may not be entirely viewers' fault. "Jericho's" lead-in, the reality series "Big Brother 9," earned only a 4.6/7 in the previous hour, according to Zap2it, as it was beaten up on by "American Idol" on Fox and "The Biggest Loser" on ABC. "Jericho" lost just under 9 percent of the audience that tuned in for "Big Brother," which isn't terribly bad for a lead-out show.At the same time, "Jericho's" premiere rating -- if it doesn't fall too low in coming weeks -- will end up being in line with "Chuck" on NBC. Unfortunately, it could fall just slightly and be pulling in "Bionic Woman" numbers, which would not be good for the show.Thanks to a strong repeat of "NCIS" against "American Idol," CBS finished second for the night with a 5.5/8, well behind the 16.7/25 earned by Fox. NBC was third with 5.1/8 while ABC managed only a 3.7/6.Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.
Fans may want to get their stashes of nuts ready to send again, because it doesn't look promising that "Jericho" will be back for a third season.The second episode of the new abbreviated season pulled in a 3.9 rating/7 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That was a 7 percent drop over its season premiere. While that would normally constitute a decent retention of audience from a publicized premiere, "Jericho" really had room to go up, not down, and the show is not making a case to CBS executives that it should return again in the fall."Jericho" finished last in the timeslot behind a rerun of "Law & Order: SVU" (6.2/11) on NBC and a rerun of "Boston Legal" (4.9/9) on ABC, according to Zap2it. It didn't get a lot of help from its lead-in programming, "Big Brother: Til Death Do You Part" which had ratings only slightly higher than "Jericho." Most of the Tuesday schedule was pounded by "American Idol" on Fox.
It looks like the "Jericho" experiment is about to come to an end.Sources have told SyFy Portal that CBS is gearing up to air the series finale version of the post-apocalyptic series on March 25, one of two endings shot that would either allow a cliffhanger going into a third season, or a proper amount of closure for "Jericho" fans who fought hard to force CBS to reconsider its previous decision to cancel the show."There are a lot of people here who really care about what happens to 'Jericho,' and I think we all wanted to see it succeed," the source, who asked not to be identified, said. "Numbers are numbers, and [CBS] had to do what [CBS] had to do."Ratings for the first two episodes were well below even some of the worst numbers the show experienced at the end of the first season which helped prompt network officials to move toward cancellation. Although it is competing in a post-"American Idol" scheduling environment, "Jericho" struggled to compete with shows that were either in reruns, or not part of mainstream viewing habits.At the same time, audiences in key demographics of 18 to 49 -- a demo that isn't typically attracted to CBS for many of its other programmings -- were noticeably absent from the first pair of viewings from the show, and there is little chance they'll suddenly return in the coming weeks.But the decision isn't quite final yet ... network executives still have room to change their mind."If the audience can come back to the show in the next two episodes, and I mean a lot, [CBS] may reconsider," the source said. "Fans definitely have a say, and they had a say last summer [with the 'Nuts to Jericho' campaign], but I think the final decision this time is going to come down to hard numbers, and they're just not there for 'Jericho.'"
Well, it is a major change from season one. Budget's cut, cast is cut... I certainly noticed that. And, yes, hot deaf girl needs her own hot deaf show.
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The new Sonic looks hilarious. The new Knuckles looks hilarious. And, fittingly, the newest addition to the Sonic Friends looks hilarious too.
Meet Sticks, "a jungle badger who has spent most of her life living alone in the wilderness" that will join Team Sonic both for the Sonic Boom television series and the upcoming games on Wii U and 3DS. It's not really clear whether that's hair on her head or just some unfortunately large badger ears, but I have no doubt that people are already writing fanfiction about it.
Via Sega, here's a video introduction to video games' newest badger: