text: JERUSALEM - If Washington is perplexed by Israeli "opacity" on whether it might attack Iran, that is no accident, since Israel's leaders are themselves torn - but also content to let fears of bluff and double-bluff play to their advantage.Aware of daunting military difficulties and potential for diplomatic and domestic backlash should they try to hit Iran's nuclear program, Israelis have been sending mixed verbal signals that they hope may both encourage their US ally to up the pressure on Tehran, and unnerve their Iranian enemies.RELATED:Wary US uncertain of Israel's Iran plans'Iran raising alert amid fears of strike'While a senior US security official has told Reuters that Washington has a "sense of opacity" on what might prompt Israel to strike, few experts doubt Israel's well-funded forces could dent an Iranian atomic development program in which it sees the makings of a mortal threat to its existence.However, many in Israel and abroad question whether its leaders would take the risk of plunging an already volatile region into war without the full support of its US ally.Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may think it is a risk worth taking. Ever a big-picture thinker, the US-educated premier gave a speech this week commending Israel's founding premier David Ben-Gurion for making fateful decisions at a "heavy price", despite protests heard at home and abroad.Commentators, on the alert these days for any clue about a possible strike on Iran, spotted a subtext - that Netanyahu, too, was ready to take lonely action in Israel's interest. He could hope for a repeat of the 1981 attack on Iraq's atomic reactor and a similar sortie against Syria in 2007, when the anger of Washington's initial reactions quickly faded."In the two previous experiences, even an American public, that may not have been persuaded, subsequently found out that the Israelis probably did what was necessary to be done," said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel."So there's a huge public relations issue here: Can you make a credible case over the head of the administration, and get the American public to buy into the pain that is going to follow - Americans being killed in terrorism, oil shock, whatever it is."For now, Kurtzer estimated, the Obama administration's warnings against unilateral Israeli strikes on Iran would account for "5 percent" of Israeli deliberations, with the Netanyahu government's military calculations taking the lion's share.Its priorities include fending off Iran's promised missile reprisals and containing potential knock-on border wars with the Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas who are allied to Tehran.Former Mossad spymaster Meir Dagan has predicted that Syria, Iran's key Arab ally and now beset by a bloody domestic uprising, might also choose to join in the foreign conflict.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that an Israeli attack on Iran was not imminent. He has also said there were several months left in which to decide on such action, and described Israel and the United States as coordinating closely.But senior figures in Washington say things are less clear, with rhetoric playing an important role in the confrontation at this stage: "I don't think the administration knows what Israel is going to do. I'm not sure Israel knows what Israel is going to do," Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told Reuters. "That's why they want to keep the other guys guessing. Keep the bad guys guessing."Israeli public split on Iran attackOrdinary Israelis, their isolation deepening as the Arab Spring undermines US-allied regimes in the region, are divided on whether to open a front with Iran. Memories of rocket salvos from the Lebanon and Gaza wars of 2006 and 2008 still hurt.Public reluctance has been galvanized by the unusually vocal questioning by Dagan and some other retired security chiefs of Netanyahu and Barak's secret strategising.These critics have urged US-led sanctions on Tehran be given more time. Israel and its Western partners are also widely believed to have been sabotaging Iran's uranium enrichment and ballistic arms projects, though Barak said any such covert campaign cannot be relied upon to finish the job.A December 1 poll by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the US think-tank Brookings found that 43 percent of Israeli Jews backed attacking Iran, while 41 percent would be opposed.By a ratio of two to one, respondents said they would agree to stripping Israel of its own atomic arsenal as part of a regional disarmament deal. Ninety percent predicted Iran, which says its nuclear project is peaceful, would in time become a nuclear military power.Slowing its progress toward that point, however, may be enough of an objective for Israel, which Barak assessed last month stood to lose "maybe not even 500 dead" to Iranian retaliation.Should it end up worse, "there are international mechanisms that would curtail the war between Iran and Israel", former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said last month.But Yadlin, who was among the eight F-16 pilots who carried out the 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak reactor, sounded circumspect about Israeli military capabilities against Iranian targets that are numerous, distant, fortified and on the alert for attacks - in contrast to Saddam Hussein's sole installation near Baghdad.Israel, he said, should "open lines of dialogue with those who have superior operational abilities than we do" - effectively, shelving unilateralism in favor of cooperation with the United States and its NATO allies.Dan Schueftan, head of the National Security Studies Centre at Haifa University, said Israel's recent hawkish talk could be meant for foreign ears: "Because they (Netanyahu and Barak) fear that if it is believed that there is no possibility of Israel attacking Iran, the United States won't consider taking action."Even Dagan publicly dangled the possibility that he has been playing into a propaganda ruse, telling Israeli television: "If Dagan is arguing against a conflict, then the Iranian conclusion is... 'Listen, these Jews are crazy. They could attack Iran!'"But posture can also be self-realizing. Before launching his surprise attack on Israel at Yom Kippur in 1973, Egypt's Anwar Sadat repeatedly issued mobilization orders to his forces while also saying he was willing to consider peace negotiations, lulling Israelis into believing Cairo was not a serious threat."Sadat came to be seen as desperate. But he was not bluffing," said Abraham Rabinovich, author of "The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East"."He clearly intended his militant statements as a signal to Israel, and the United States, that he would go to war if there was no diplomatic solution. And so it was."


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Steroids (sometimes referred to as "roids" or "juice") are the same as, or similar to, certain hormones in the body. The body makes steroids naturally to support such functions as fighting stress and promoting growth and development.
But some people use steroid pills, gels, creams, or injections because they think steroids can improve their sports performance or the way they look.
Anabolic steroids are artificially produced hormones that are the same as, or similar to, androgens, the male-type sex hormones in the body. There are more than 100 variations of anabolic steroids. The most powerful androgen is testosterone (pronounced: tess-TOSS-tuh-rone). Although testosterone is mainly a mature male hormone, girls' bodies produce smaller amounts. Testosterone helps build muscle and promotes the masculine traits that guys develop during puberty, such as deepening of the voice and growth of body hair. Testosterone levels can also affect how aggressive a person is.
Athletes sometimes take anabolic steroids because of their testosterone-like effects.
Other steroids, sometimes called steroidal supplements, contain dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and/or androstenedione (also known as andro). For the most part, steroidal supplements, which used to be found at health food stores or gyms, are now illegal and require a prescription. DHEA is one of the few exceptions and can still be bought over the counter.
Steroid supplements are weaker forms of androgen. Their effects aren't well known, but it's thought that, when taken in large doses, they cause effects similar to other androgens like testosterone. But research studies suggest that they do very little or nothing to improve athletic performance.
Here's what is known about steroidal supplements: Companies that make them often use false claims, and very little is known about the long-term effects some of these substances have on the body. That's one reason why the government took action to protect citizens by passing laws controlling steroid distribution.
Anabolic steroids stimulate muscle tissue to grow and "bulk up" in response to training by mimicking the effect of naturally produced testosterone on the body. Anabolic steroids can remain in the body anywhere from a couple of days to about a year. Steroids have become popular because they may improve endurance, strength, and muscle mass. However, research has not shown that steroids improve skill, agility, or athletic performance.
Anabolic steroids cause many different types of problems. Some of the common side effects are:
Specific risks for girls associated with anabolic steroids include:
Specific risks for guys include:
Steroids can also have serious psychological side effects. Some users may become aggressive or combative, believe things that aren't true (delusions), or have extreme feelings of mistrust or fear (paranoia). And people who use steroids also appear to be at higher risk for using other drugs, such as alcohol or cocaine, often to counteract some of the negative effects of steroids.
Steroid users who inject the drugs with a needle are at risk for infection with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS, if they share needles with other users. People who use dirty needles are also at risk for contracting hepatitis, a liver disease, or bacterial endocarditis, an infection of the inner lining of the heart.
Some people "cycle" their steroid doses. This means they take multiple doses of steroids over a period of time, stop for a period, then start up again. "Stacking" means taking two or more different anabolic steroids. Other steroid users may "pyramid" their steroids, starting with a low dose and gradually increasing the dose, frequency, or number of anabolic steroids taken, then tapering off to complete a cycle. Users believe that stacking enhances the effects of each individual drug, pyramiding allows the body to get used to high doses of steroids, and steroid-free periods help the body recuperate from the drugs. There is no scientific evidence to support any of these claims.
A lot of people tell themselves they'll only use steroids for a season or a school year. Unfortunately, steroids can be addictive, making it hard to stop taking them.
And once users stop taking steroids, they can have withdrawal symptoms such as loss of appetite, tiredness, restlessness, insomnia, mood swings, and depression.
Anabolic steroid use is illegal and banned by professional sports organizations and medical associations. In spite of this, some athletes continue to take steroids because they think it gives them a competitive advantage. As seen in high-profile cases, if an athlete is caught using steroids, his or her career can be destroyed. And there are serious health consequences.
When it comes right down to it, harming your body or getting disqualified aren't smart ways to try to improve your athletic performance. Being a star athlete means working hard and training the healthy way: eating the right foods, practicing, and strength training without the use of drugs.
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date Reviewed: Feb 1, 2017

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON — With partisan bickering, delays, and confusion on the rise nationally over the impending launch of President Obama's health care law, tens of thousands of low-income people in New Hampshire are watching the calendar, caught up in their own anxious uncertainty.
Republicans in the Legislature have blocked the state from participating in a federally funded expansion of the Medicaid program, meaning that up to 58,000 Granite State residents are in line to be denied coverage.
But the decision may not be final. The state has established a commission to report back with nonbinding recommendations in October, giving advocates slim hopes of a turnaround and leaving potential beneficiaries in a state of limbo. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking towards a Jan. 1 deadline for the legal mandate that individuals obtain insurance.
This is the sort of bureaucratic bind and confusion that is spurring predictions of turbulence surrounding Obamacare's liftoff, and generating anger among representatives of the poor in New Hampshire who say Republicans are seeking to sabotage the national health care law.
"Once again, they're playing a political game in saying no to all aspects of Obamacare, no matter how common sense and right for us as a state and as a nation,'' said Kary Jencks of the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance, a social justice advocacy group. "The folks who end up paying a price are the hard-working middle- and low-income people.''
A sweeping national expansion of Medicaid was a central component of the 2010 health care law, but the US Supreme Court in 2012 deemed the expansion optional for states.
The result is a patchwork of policies sprouting around the country, including within New England, highlighting how health care access is becoming highly dependent on where you live.
Maine was the first New England state to opt out, and New Hampshire became the second, at least temporarily, with its move last month. At the other end of the spectrum, neighboring Vermont is pursuing a universal health care program, following in the footsteps of Massachusetts.
Currently, 137,000 New Hampshire residents are on Medicaid, about 10 percent of the state. Expansion would bring in an additional 58,000 residents over the next seven years, an increase of 42 percent, according to a state report.
The state's Republicans cited uncertainty over the law's scheduled 2014 launch for their opposition to the expansion.
"I'm very skeptical that we should expand Medicaid and I get more skeptical every day as other aspects of Obamacare can't seem to get implemented," said state Senate majority leader Jeb Bradley, a Republican who has served in the US House for two terms and is weighing a run for US Senate.
On Thursday, Obama continued his efforts to sell the law's benefits politically, with a speech centering on how health reform is already holding insurance companies accountable by requiring them to spend the majority of their premiums on medical care. A day earlier, House Republicans held its 38th vote to dismantle Obamacare.
Under health care reform, the Medicaid expansion was supposed to help 17 million new people get coverage nationally, including childless adults, a group most states currently do not cover under the government-subsidized health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
The Obama administration has said that for states that choose to expand Medicaid to individuals making up to 138 percent of the poverty line, the federal government would pay the full costs of expansion the first three years starting in 2014 and gradually taper down to 90 percent by 2020, a level where it is supposed to remain in future years.
It is a much better deal than states currently get for their existing Medicaid caseloads. Currently the federal government only pays half the cost of Medicaid in New Hampshire, for instance.
According to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on health policy, 23 states plus the District of Columbia are moving forward with expansion, and 21 have said no.
New Hampshire, because it is awaiting the commission's recommendations, is considered undecided. Other states still weighing their options are Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
In Maine, Governor Paul LePage, a Tea Party-backed Republican, has vetoed legislation authorizing an expansion. Maine is not only refusing to expand Medicaid, it has already begun rolling back existing coverage, freezing out 44,000 Mainers.
In states that do not plan to expand Medicaid such as Maine and New Hampshire, low-income individuals above the poverty line still must obtain health insurance under the national mandate, putting them in the uncomfortable position of facing a financial penalty or spending at least 2 percent of their income to sign up for private coverage through state online marketplaces — called exchanges — that will debut in October.
"It is sad that in New Hampshire, you can stay at home, raise your kids and not work and get food stamps and health care, but then those of us who are actually working and paying taxes and trying to help ourselves can't get a little bit of insurance for health care," said Billie Jo Buskey, owner of a Plymouth hair salon.
Buskey, 35, and her husband, a landscaper, both started working at age 14 and make just under $28,000 a year. But that is too much to qualify for Medicaid under New Hampshire's current income guidelines. Neither can afford health insurance so they go without. Their sons, ages 5 and 13, are covered by Medicaid, which has more generous eligibility criteria for children.
Buskey prides herself on paying her bills – mortgage, phone, electricity, and day care — on time. Last year she needed to have her gall bladder removed, and now owes the hospital more than $8,000, which will take her nearly six years to pay off at $115 a month.
"I'd much rather pay $115 a month for health insurance than $115 a month to pay off one hospital bill," she said. It is still unclear what private coverage options would be affordable to Buskey and her husband, if any, without Medicaid expansion.
Echoing the national discord and wrangling in Washington, New Hampshire Republicans doubled down during recent debates over the state budget. A common objection is that states can't trust the federal government to keep its promise to pick up most of the tab of the Medicaid expansion. State Senator Andy Sanborn, one of three Republican legislators appointed to the nine-member commission to study the issue, likened Medicaid expansion to "the gift of a baby elephant."
"It's really cute when you get it," Sanborn told his Senate colleagues last month. "It's slow, expensive, eats a lot, and makes a lot of waste when it grows up."
In a radio appearance last week, Sanborn compared Obama's health care law with the Asiana plane crash, saying that Obamacare is "barreling down on us like a jet landing in San Francisco."
New Hampshire ranks among the least generous when it comes to determining Medicaid eligibility. The cutoff for a parent is if income that falls at 40 percent of the federal poverty line. That means someone would have to be so poor as to be receiving welfare, or a household income of about $6,200 a year for a family of two, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. (Massachusetts extends Medicaid eligibility up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line.)
There is no federal deadline for expansion, but advocates for the poor say they worry that the state may drag its feet until well past Jan. 1 and miss out on receiving its full share of federal money, estimated to be $2.5 billion over the next seven years.
Democrats expect Governor Maggie Hassan to call the Legislature back into a special session in the fall to vote specifically on Medicaid expansion, but some Republicans are already balking at that suggestion, preferring instead to take up the issue next year when the Legislature reconvenes.
"I don't think any of us are certain that expansion could happen," said Lisa Kaplan Howe, policy director at New Hampshire Voices for Health, which is advocating for Medicaid expansion.
Tracy Jan can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeTracyJan.


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Precis: An early explanation of Scalar Subquery Caching (and its impact on performance)
Here's a little demonstration of a feature that can cause random fluctuations in performance because of an unlucky data item. It starts with an emp table holding 20,000 employees spread across six departments, and then moves one employee to a new (carefully chosen) department. You will have to run this in version 9i or later, as it makes use of subquery factoring to generate the emp table.
rem rem Script: filter_cost_01.sql rem Author: Jonathan Lewis rem Dated: Sept 2003 rem create table emp( dept_no not null, sal, emp_no not null, padding, constraint e_pk primary key(emp_no) ) as with generator as ( select --+ materialize rownum id from all_objects where rownum <= 1000 -- > comment to avoid WordPress format issue ) select mod(rownum,6), rownum, rownum, rpad('x',60) from generator v1, generator v2 where rownum <= 20000 -- > comment to avoid WordPress format issue ; begin dbms_stats.gather_table_stats( ownname => user, tabname => 'EMP', estimate_percent => null, block_sample => true, method_opt => 'for all columns size 1', degree => null, granularity => 'default', cascade => true ); end; / select count(*) from ( select /*+ no_merge */ outer.* from emp outer where outer.sal > ( select /*+ no_unnest */ avg(inner.sal) from emp inner where inner.dept_no = outer.dept_no ) ) ;
The query is a little strange as it uses the /*+ no_unnest */ hint to stop the optimizer from unnesting the subquery. Unnesting would normally happen in simple cases like this one, but more complex queries aren't alway able to undergo the unnest transformation. The query also has a /*+ no_merge */ hint so that it can execute and instantiate the main body of the query, then only output a count. You should find that the query takes a fraction of a second to run – possibly less than one hundredth if you are able to hold the emp table cached in memory – returning the value 9,998.
Now execute the following update, and run the query again:
update emp set dept_no = 432 where dept_no = 1 and rownum = 1 ;
Running at 1.6GHz, my laptop takes about 21 seconds of CPU time to complete the query with just this one row-change, so be prepared for a bit of a wait. This change in performance is what happens when a particular run-time optimisation known as scalar subquery caching fails (and this correlated subquery is just one example of the more general class of scalar subquery).
When the query ran quickly, Oracle managed to cache the average salaries for the six departments as it ran through the first six rows in the tablescan. But these values were stored in a hash table keyed by the department number.
When I changed the first occurrence of department 1 to 432, Oracle got to the row with department 432 before it got to a row with department 1, and stored the average salary for department 432 in the hash table location that would otherwise have been used by department 1.
Unfortunately, the caching algorithm does not allow for hash collisions of this type, so the next 3,333 times Oracle needed the average salary for department 1 it discovered that it wasn't cached, and ran the subquery again, .. and again, .. and again …
If you do find that you have a particular query that is subject to this problem you may have to write it to avoid the filter subquery (and you may find that a simple /*+ unnest */ hint will be enough to pre-empt the issue).
Here is a counter-intuitive mechanism that will be highly cost-effective in some cases – I replace the first occurrence of the emp table with a non-mergeable inline view that sorts the emp table by department number **:
select count(*) from ( select /*+ no_merge */ outer.* from ( select /*+ no_merge qb_name(ordering) no_eliminate_oby(@ordering) */ * from emp order by dept_no ) outer where outer.sal > ( select /*+ no_unnest */ avg(inner.sal) from emp inner where inner.dept_no = outer.dept_no ) ) /
On my laptop, using this sorting strategy, my response time dropped back to 0.02 seconds. This works because the code now acquires the department numbers in order, and Oracle doesn't even do a lookup to the hash table if the current row uses the same input as the previous row.
** It occurred to me that in 10gR2 you may need to include a qb_name() hint and a no_eliminate_oby hint in the inline view to stop the optimizer from eliminating what it sees as a redundant order by (see the end of this article for an example of the necessary hints) and I introduced the relevant 10g hint after receiving a note from Jeff Moss – see comment below.
I've re-run this test many times over the years since I first wrote it, and the same behaviour appears in all the versions I've tested so far, all the way up to 184.108.40.206. The only change is in the speed of execution as the hardware got faster and some of the buffer access interrnals were enhanced. The run-time for the "unlucky" query had dropped to 5.33 (CPU) second in my most recent test, mostly due to the 3,338 executions of the subquery involving 734K buffer visits and 11M row accesses.


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Nineties rock was many things, but above all, it was a time when bands decided to stop thanking their fans for making them rich and famous, because fame is torture, and money means nothing, and the crush of expectation annihilates creativity's spark. And in '90s alt-rock's transition from youth movement to middle-aged soundtrack, no outfit has telegraphed its disdain for the life of a working rock band the way Radiohead have. The King of Limbs, a breezy exploration of the depths of subliminal glitch-folk, is this band's admission that the labyrinth of post–OK Computer zigs and zags they've led their audience through may never again lead to an arena-rock goldmine. "If you think this is over, you're wrong," Thom Yorke coos in album closer "Separator." This could be his way of telling us that the album is 38 minutes brief because it's the first part of a larger piece; it could also be a statement of purpose regarding the band's gentle and intricate dicking around. Having shed the yoke of both record-label servitude and the typical tropes of conventional rock music, Radiohead are now looking to take a gently jazzy romp through twiddling loops and graceful Afrobeats and present it as a BIG EVENT. It's clear that Yorke and company would just as soon you stopped making such a big deal out of everything they do. Clues abound. On the opening "Bloom," Yorke softly warbles, "Don't blow your mind with why." And then on single "Lotus Flower," he croons, in an affected style that rounds off the sharp-edged stops and affricates of every consonant, his slinky wish to "slip into this groove." As a young and hungry rock-and-roll scamp, he once admonished us to "stop whispering, start shouting." Eighteen years later, he's just hoping no one will pay too much attention to the jittery manchild behind the curtain.
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Local voices falling silent in media boom
The marriage of the Internet and the entertainment/advertising industry -- exemplified by the AOL/Time-Warner merger -- is nothing new. The template for the entertainment-industry takeover of new media technology was set in the 1920s, with the rapid privatization and commercialization of the revolutionary technology of radio.
Like the Internet, the early years of radio were marked by widespread optimism that this new medium would revolutionize democracy and civic values. In particular, radio was seen as a boon to education and civic participation. Ditto the Internet.
By 1925, America had 128 college radio stations. A similar number of non-profit stations was operated by religious groups, labor unions, and various civic organizations. Two of the most powerful and best-funded radio stations were WCFL, Chicago's "Voice of Farmer-Labor," and WLWL, a New York City station operated by the Paulist Fathers and dedicated to promoting democratic values via talks on religious, social and literary topics.
However, Wall Street of the 1920s and corporations such as RCA, United Fruit Co., General Electric, NBC, and AT&T saw radio as both an opportunity and a threat: an opportunity to reap enormous profits from advertising; but a threat if the new medium were used to organize workers and farmers.
To gain control of radio, the corporate allies formed the National Association of Broadcasters and petitioned the American Bar Association to form a special "Communications Committee." Together, the NAB and the ABA lobbied for government regulation of the airwaves, resulting in the 1927 creation of the Federal Radio Commission (today called the Federal Communications Commission). The FRC soon required all stations -- commercial and non-profit -- to apply for licenses. It also issued regulations favoring commercial stations.
The FRC's rationale for favoring commercial radio was simple: for-profit companies had more capital and engineering expertise and could thereby spread radio technology faster.
By 1932, the NAB and ABA were pressing Congress to go even further: they sought the total privatization of the public airwaves. The resulting 1934 Communications Act received little publicity because the NAB shrewdly convinced the great newspaper chains -- potential opponents of commercial radio -- to invest in the new advertising medium. Though non-profit radio fought to set aside 20 percent of licenses for the public sector, the proposal was blocked by the corporate lobby.
Congress tossed a crumb to the law's critics by requiring license-holders to "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity."
With the playing-field tilted heavily in favor of commercial radio, and the Great Depression underway, non-profit radio soon disappeared. Not until passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which laid the groundwork for public TV and public radio, did non-profit broadcasting re-appear, albeit in a centralized and non-grassroots form.
Given this historical and legal context, the colonization of the Internet by media conglomerates was no doubt inevitable. The question facing the nation today is: Will non-profit, civic uses of the Internet disappear, as did non-profit radio?
Many will argue that the Internet is radically unlike radio. Even the smallest organization, or any individual, can have a website, whereas radio requires significant capital investment. But this analysis overlooks the fact that a website is irrelevant if it can't find an audience. With most Americans herded into the pay-to-view world of AOL/Time-Warner/Disney/MSNBC, nonprofit civic websites -- especially small, local websites -- will be increasingly exiled to cyber-Siberia.
Media concentration leads to the disappearance of local information in another way. Whatever their reach and power, media conglomerates cannot and will not deliver local news and information for one simple reason: it's not profitable.
This reality was amply demonstrated in the 1980s, when the Reagan-FCC, lobbied heavily by the NAB, repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required holders of broadcast licenses to document how they serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity."
With the elimination of public-service documentation, broadcasters streamlined their operations by cutting local news staff. In 1983, for example, a major press conference in Asheville could attract reporters from three TVstations and four or five radio stations. Today, only one radio station-- WWNC -- has a full-time news department for daily, local reporting. Likewise, local TV stations WYFF and WSPA had closed their Asheville bureaus by the end of the decade.
As a result, local broadcasters increasingly rely on news generated by corporate parents and other national news services. Local news is increasingly lifted from the local newspaper. The overall result is a more anemic local information environment, where fewer voices and points of view are heard.
With fewer employees and lower costs, commercial radio's revenues soared in the 1990s, making it one of the most profitable media industries of the decade. While Wall Street applauds, our children grow up knowing more about Michael Jordan and Madonna than heroes and concerns in their own backyard.
If the Internet is to fulfill its civic and democratic potential, attention must be paid to ensuring a strong non-profit Internet presence that is grassroots and local. The centralized, Washington, D.C.-based model of PBS and NPR is not the answer.
One answer may lie here in the mountains of North Carolina. The Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) is a non-profit Internet co-op modeled after the rural electric and telephone cooperatives of the 1920s and 30s. MAIN offers affordable dial-up Internet access in 13 mountain counties, free Internet service for 60 public access terminals in rural libraries, and discount access for disabled citizens with severe economic hardship.
The revenue from MAIN's 4,000 dial-up subscribers -- plus the work of its many volunteers -- sustain a community network that provides free websites for more than 200 local non-profits, online forums for local discussions ranging from gardening to politics, and MAIN's online grassroots market, the Blue Ridge Web Market. This local content is the lifeblood of MAIN.
In addition, MAIN's strong privacy policy ensures that subscribers are not tracked by "consumer preference" software and then subjected to junk email and other online marketing ploys.
Most importantly, MAIN's subscribers -- and the thousands of citizens who rely on our public-access terminals -- comprise a ready-made audience for MAIN's local content. This combination of audience and compelling content is the Holy Grail of the Internet, as evidenced by the merger of AOL and Time-Warner.
Access and audience cannot be overstated. Building a wonderful civic website, without guaranteeing an audience, is like building a beautiful public park on a remote dirt road, while all the highways and bus routes go straight to the mega-mall. A small number of folks may go the extra mile to find you, but the vast majority will opt for the convenience and familiarity of the shopping mall/amusement park.
Ensuring access to local content is why MAIN is also planning to apply for a low-power FM radio license, which the FCC recently approved in response to the decade-long disappearance of local voices on the airwaves. With our Internet presence, MAIN can "web-cast" the audio from a low-power station, thereby increasing the opportunities for local voices to be heard.
The marriage of the Internet and entertainment presents a curious paradox: as citizens are overwhelmed by a blizzard of media choices, we don't notice the loss of local voices. If the Internet is to fulfill its promise of strengthening our civic lives, provision must be made for local, non-profit content.
(Wally Bowen is founder and executive director of the Mountain Area Information Network, which can be found online at www.main.nc.us).
Copyright Wally Bowen, 2000.


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U.S. space agency NASA's new analysis of 14 years of satellite data shows rapid change in the world's freshwater supply in startling detail never captured before. The 34 "trends" in the data picture not only the effects of climate change, like worsening droughts, but of human over-use, such as pumping out underground aquifers to irrigate crops. To a lesser extent, they show natural change over time. They also indicate where water scarcity is most likely to reach crisis mode and lead to armed conflict over resources and/or forced human migration.
"There are implications in that map for food security, for water security and for human security in terms of things like conflict and climate refugees," said Dr. Jay Famiglietti, a water-resources expert affiliated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-author of a paper on the findings in the journal Nature. He and other experts said the mapping should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers.
Read more:
NASA Satellites Reveal Major Shifts in Global Freshwater — NASA
Emerging Trends in Global Freshwater Availability — Nature
'This Is an Eye-Opener': Changes in Global Water Supply Hint at Future Conflicts and Crises — The Globe and Mail
Water Shortages to Be Key Environmental Challenge of the Century, NASA Warns — The Guardian
NASA Finds 'Human Fingerprint' in Many Areas of Water-Supply Change Worldwide — USA Today
First Map of Global Freshwater Trends Show Human Fingerprint — Axios
Related posts:
California Drought: Overcoming History to Reduce SoCal Water Waste
Study Finds We Vastly Underestimate Water Management' s Depletion of Groundwater
It's Long Past Time to Police Big Agriculture's Water Waste
World Water Day: UN World Water Development Report Warns of Global Crisis by 2030
At the Point of 'Peak Water,' Our Foreseeable Future Grows Shorter
Mapping the World's Most Water-Stressed Countries
Serious Water Conservation Demands Layered Approach and Emotional Commitment
Study: Freshwater Shortage Will Double Climate Change's Impact on Agriculture
Unchecked Emissions Will Drain Water Resources, Warns Leaked U.N. Report


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Mike Arrington, founder of the famous tech blog TechCrunch, hates the new Google search features. They even tell you how to kill the new wiki-style features using GreaseMonkey on Firefox. Mike does take the time to explain the new features here, though.
The problem is, Mike is wrong.
These features rock. They let me add notes to entries in Google. They let me tell the search engine which entries are better for me and they help Google's business BIG TIME.
See, truth is Google is too perfect lately.
Eye track research shows that most of us aren't going past the first link. That is a HUGE change from five years ago when we didn't trust Google that much so we'd look down the first page looking at all the links and we'd probably even click on the second page to see what's there.
Tell me, when is the last time you've clicked on the second page. I can't remember anymore and I use Google dozens of times a day.
So, Google has a problem. It is an advertising-supported service and we're just not sticking around on its pages very long. It NEEDS to increase the time we spend interacting with it.
I'm sure Google's leaders are looking at FriendFeed and Facebook's news feed and seeing all the time that their members are interacting and spending time on the page and are saying "we could do that."
These features already are dramatically increasing the time I'm spending on Google search pages. That's a HUGE win for Google.
Personally, I think Google is right to put these features in and I already am enjoying using them. By the way, when you search for TechCrunch can you see the note I left on TechCrunch's entry?
Mike, you're wrong about this one.


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This year's festival is different. The venues of previous years are responsible for their own entertainment. If you want to know what music entertainment there is, please contact the venue. The Lion, Parc Hotel and Price Ov Wales have confirmed their involvement.
We are however excited to introduce Treorchy's Got Talent!


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This is British Prime Minister David Cameron on the euro crisis:
"Just as in Britain we need to deal with the deficit and restore competitiveness, so the same is true of Europe…
…A rigid system that locks down each state's monetary flexibility yet limits fiscal transfers between them can only resolve its internal imbalances through painful and prolonged adjustment.
So in my view, three things need to happen if the single currency is to function properly.
First, the high deficit, low competitiveness countries in the periphery of the Eurozone do need to confront their problems head on. They need to continue taking difficult steps to cut their spending, increase their revenues and undergo structural reform to become competitive. The idea that high deficit countries can borrow and spend their way to recovery is a dangerous delusion.
But it is becoming increasingly clear that they are less likely to be able to sustain that necessary adjustment economically or politically unless the core of the Eurozone, including through the ECB, does more to support demand and share the burden of adjustment.
In Britain we are able to ease that adjustment through loose monetary policy and a flexible exchange rate. And we are supplementing that monetary stimulus with active interventions such as credit easing, mortgage indemnities for first time buyers and guarantees for new infrastructure projects.
So I welcome the opportunity to explore new options for such monetary activism at a European level, for example through President Hollande's ideas for project bonds. But to rebalance your economy in a currency union at a time of global economic weakness you need more fundamental support.
Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble is right to recognise rising wages in his country can play a part in correcting these imbalances but monetary policy in the Eurozone must also do more.
Second, the Eurozone needs to put in place governance arrangements that create confidence for the future. And as the British Government has been arguing for a year now that means following the logic of monetary union towards solutions that deliver greater forms of collective support and collective responsibility of which Eurobonds are one possible example. Steps such as these are needed to put an end to speculation about the future of the euro.
And third, we all need to address Europe's overall low productivity and lack of economic dynamism, which remains its Achilles Heel. Most EU member states are becoming less competitive compared to the rest of the world, not more.
The Single Market is incomplete and competition throughout Europe is too constrained. Indeed, Britain has long been arguing for a pro-business, pro-growth agenda in Europe.
That's why ahead of the last European Council I formed an unprecedented alliance with 11 other EU leaders setting out an action plan for jobs and growth in Europe and pushing for the completion of the Single Market in Services and Digital.
The Eurozone is at a cross-roads. It either has to make-up or it is looking at a potential break-up. Either Europe has a committed, stable, successful Eurozone with an effective firewall, well capitalised and regulated banks, a system of fiscal burden sharing, and supportive monetary policy across the Eurozone.
Or we are in unchartered territory which carries huge risks for everybody. As I have consistently said it is in Britain's interest for the Eurozone to sort out its problems.
But be in no doubt: whichever path is chosen, I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect this country and secure our economy and financial system."
While I certainly do not agree with everything that Cameron is saying I think it is tremendously important that he acknowledges that this crisis can only be solved by monetary easing from the ECB, while European governments at the same time should continue fiscal consolidation. Unfortunately Cameron apparently is the only European leader who seems to understand this.
Some how everything in Europe these days remind me of 1931-32. Britain of course successfully gave up the gold standard in 1931. The rest of the Europe governments (with the exception of the Nordic countries who followed the lead from Britain and gave up the gold standard) hated the British government for that decision. I hope they will not hate Cameron for his very sound advise today.
PS Britmouse also comments on Cameron's speech here.
UPDATE: Scott Sumner now also have a comment on Cameron's speech – unfortunately Scott misses the important European dimension of Cameron speech.


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Following an injury, next month's Legacy FC 24 event has a new headliner.
With UFC and WEC vet Damacio Page (16-8) sidelined by a partially torn LCL, Cody Fuller (10-6) has stepped in and now fights Ryan Benoit (6-2) in the event's bantamweight headliner.
AXS TV Fights first reported the switch.
Legacy FC 24 takes place Oct. 11 event at Allen Event Center in Allen, Texas. The main card airs on AXS TV.
Fuller, a five-year pro, makes his promotional debut at the event. The Oklahoman was on a three-fight winning streak, which included three stoppages, before a title loss to Micah Stockton in the fifth round of their XFL title fight. Fuller owns nine stoppages in 10 career wins.
He now takes on Benoit, a Texan who's posted three first-round stoppages in three career Legacy FC fights. However, his recent four-fight winning streak came to a halt in May with a decision loss to Anthony Birchak (10-1) at MFC 37.
The latest Legacy FC 24 lineup now includes:
MAIN CARD (AXS TV, 10 p.m. ET)
- Ryan Benoit vs. Cody Fuller
- Carlos Diego Ferreira vs. Chris Feist
- Henry Cejudo vs. Ryan Hollis
- Charles Byrd vs. Mike Jasper
- Holly Holm vs. Nikki Knudsen
- Damon Jackson vs. Javier Obregon
PRELIMINARY CARD (Untelevised, 8 p.m. ET)
- Matthew Lozano vs. Klayton Mai
- Evan Thompson vs. Edgar Verdin
- Eliazar Rodriguez vs. Eli Tamez
- Sean Holden vs. Melvin Jordan
- Douglas Frey vs. Hunter Tucker
For more on Legacy FC 24, including the night's official fight card, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Ryan Benoit)


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Many a scary movie or story has featured the infamous talking board. What would Halloween be without a little seance here and there?
Mysterious Planchette is a lovely online "museum" of planchettes (the small wooden pieces that rest under fingers and glide across the board) through the ages, from the rise of the talking board in the 19th Century, to some that are fairly recent.
You'll find a a nice history page with plenty of information (I'm purposely making this post as an "appetizer" for a much more extensive online collection).
Side note: did you know "Ouija" is just a Hasbro trademark and not the name of the item itself? Still, the term has become synonymous with any kind of board used to spell out messages from the departed.
Did you have one of the iconic Hasbro boards growing up? Or perhaps a fancier artifact? Did you use it?


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Solutions for how to use gender-sensitive language
Gendered pronouns (he or she)
He/she; she/he; he or she; she or he; s/he
His/her; her/his; his or her; her or his.
Use the third person plural ('they').
Use gender-neutral pronouns, such as "ze".
Rephrase to omit pronoun.
Replace with definite article (the) or indefinite article (a).
Information about gender and gendered nouns ("female lawyer")
Do not provide irrelevant information about people's gender.
Avoid using gendered nouns. Use gender-neutral descriptions instead (e.g. police officer).
Simply use the occupation title with no gender description.
Gendering inanimate objects
Use the pronoun 'it' to talk about inanimate objects.
Stereotypical images
Make sure that that the images you choose to use in communication materials do not reinforce gender stereotypes. Include a wide mix of people in different environments.
Invisibility or omission
Do not use 'man' or 'he' to refer to the experiences of all people.
Make clear that you are referring to men and women by naming each.
Subordination and trivialisation
Ensure that your language actively promotes gender equality by not trivialising or subordinating women.
When referring to women you should use the term Ms which does not denote marital status.
Always use the same naming conventions for men and women when referencing.
You should be aware of the word order of your phrases and make sure that you are not always putting the male version first.
Avoid patronising women using more innocuous terms.


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Today is September 1, 2015, and I have been cancer free from Hodgkins Lymphoma for 5 years. I have thought about this day over and over. I have both longed for it, and feared it. In the past two years I often dreamed of various exciting ways to celebrate the day.
I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in January 2009. I relapsed only a few months after the initial treatment, and on the first day of September 2010, I received a stem cell transplant. If you are interested in clicking way back through the old posts on this site, you can read the whole day by day story. Or, if you are here because you or someone you care about is considering a transplant for Hodgkin's Lymphoma, here is a video of my actual transplant as it happened.
Why is the 5 year mark so important? Thank you for asking, that is an excellent question. It will help to explore a brief bit of medical history. Hodgkin's Lymphoma is an old cancer, meaning, doctors have known what it is, and how to recognize it for over 100 years. It used to be fatal, as were most cancers. But the development of the ABVD chemotherapy regimen improved the odds, and many studies have shown that approximately 80-85% of newly diagnosed Hodgkins Lymphoma cases, survive at least 5 years from the date of diagnosis. However, long term studies show that approximately 30% of Hodgkin's Lymphoma patients will not respond properly to that treatment. These are cases are called relapse and refractory cases and the odds of long term survival are lower for these people. I was in the refractory group.
For those of us in that group of relapse and refractory Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a secondary or salvage treatment involving high dose chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant is usually on the menu. Of this group of patients who are essentially on plan B, after failing plan A, the probability of success is less than 50%. And for those who relapse within 1-3 years of the transplant, the prognosis is not good. However, these same studies show that the patients who do not relapse, and achieve 5 years of survival without progression of the disease, very often go on to live normal Lymphoma free lives. It is difficult to put percentages on survivability at this point, but the basic fact
is that reaching 5 years of survival is a really positive indicator that a person will continue to be free of the disease indefinitely.
So, the day has come! I received my transplant 5 years ago today, and I am still here. I have had no return of the disease, and I feel great. So today I am thankful for the chance to keep going. I appreciate the good people in my life and I respect that happiness comes from within. There is no amount of money, cars, clothes, prestige, status or pixel resolution that can bring long term happiness. Those things can help, but they are only band aids. The real happiness, or healing of a wound comes from inside and being content with who you are.
I have not made any particular plans to celebrate. I have come to the conclusion that just living my life is enough of a celebration. Although I did receive some beautiful hand made cards and letters of encouragement from the kids, and Amy planned a very nice dinner this past weekend with a friend of mine who was there 5 years ago to witness all my misery.


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PHOTO GALLERY: UCLA defeats Mississippi State in Game 1 of College World Series
OMAHA, Neb. – Adam Plutko limited Mississippi State to a run on four hits in six innings, and UCLA survived some anxious moments to beat the Bulldogs 3-1 in Game 1 of the College World Series finals Monday night.
Plutko retired nine straight to start, worked out of trouble twice and turned the game over to the bullpen in the seventh. The Bulldogs (51-19) left runners in scoring position four of the last six innings.
The Bruins (48-17) are one win from their first national championship in baseball. Mississippi State must win Game 2 on Tuesday night to keep alive its hopes for its first NCAA title in any sport.
UCLA made it 3-0 in the fourth on Eric Filia's two-out single off Chad Girodo, who replaced starter Trevor Fitts (0-1) in the second. That was the last of the Bruins' six hits.
Plutko (10-3) walked in the Bulldogs' run in the fourth.


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I think that it is probably fair to say that Jane Urquhart is an author of acquired taste. If you like "introspective" fiction — her books are only 20 yards wide, but they are 300 feet deep — you love her novels. And if you don't ("this is so, so boring"), you want no part of reading another volume.
Sanctuary Line is going to confirm both those opposing prejudices. You can put me in the former category as someone who loves Jane Urquhart's work — and this novel confirms for me her place in the front rank of Canadian novelists. At the same time, if you hated her previous work, by all means give this one a miss — it will only confirm your dislike.
(Thanks to the author's publishers, McClelland and Stewart, KfC is able to off not one, not two, but three contests for draws for Jane Urquhart books — check the post below this one and please enter. You can test out your prejudice, whichever way it tilts 🙂 .)
The Sanctuary Line of the title is a road that runs from the shore of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario into the inland. By the shore is what used to be the Baxter orchards and fruit fields (strawberries, then cherries, then plums and pears — take a few weeks break — and then the apples — we Canadians know this order well), degenerating into untended ruin in the present tense of the novel, but a major force in generations past. The narrator, Liz, a descendant of the great-greats, greats and grands, now an entomologist who has returned to the family farm where she used to spend her summers, introduces its history:
Look out the window.
The cultivated landscape of this farm has decayed so completely now, it is difficult to believe that the fields and orchards ever existed outside of my own memories, my own imagination. Even by the time I was in my early twenties, the terrain had already been altered — almost beyond recognition — what with the bunkhouses deteriorating and the trees left unpruned and therefore bearing scant fruit. But that was during the period when my aunt was beginning to sever parts of the property so that it could be sold to developers; a step, I believed then, in the march toward some kind of future, or at least a financial future for her, and for my mother, who had just begun to live here as well. Now my aunt is dead and my mother lives at a place called The Golden Field, an ironic moniker if there ever was one, especially in relation to the one remaining field at this location, its greyness in the fading light.
Those are the opening words of Sanctuary Line and, if they don't appeal to you, travel no further. On the other hand, if the way that Urquhart has started to outline her story sparks your curiosity, move on. You won't be disappointed. I am of an age (and was born not that far from where this book is set) that the exploration of what produced me and my kind has more than marginal appeal. Urquhart does an excellent job of addressing it.
It is tempting to say that Sanctuary Line is a novel about "change", but that would be wrong — rather it is a novel about "transition" and the importance of those events in our personal history that have a lasting effect. The author's premise is that more often than not, we cannot influence those events when they take place — but they will influence us for ever and ever. This is a memory novel: Liz, the narrator, who is now back at the orchard farm, remembers how indelibly she was influenced by what happened there in decades past, even if it is only now that she can understand the impact of the incidents of the time. The reader is invited to join her in slowly but surely filling up the canvas of her background.
A vital context for this is implied by the monarch butterfly's presence on the book cover. Liz is back at the farm because she has a job at the Sanctuary Reserach Centre where she pursues her "day" job of researching the monarch butterfly:
As for the monarchs, in those early summers we didn't even know where they went or where they came from, depending on your point of view. We simply accepted them as something summer always brought to us, like our own fruit, or like strawberries or corn at the roadside markets, or, for that matter, like the Mexicans. It would be years before the sanctuary on the Point began to tag the butterflies in order to follow the course of their migration, and several years more before the place where the specimens from our region "wintered over" would come to my attention.
Still, each summer we were stunned anew by what we came to call the butterfly tree. In the intervening months with winter upon us, preoccupied with school and other pursuits, we would have forgotten this spectacle, so its discovery was a surprising gift at the end of the season: an autumn tree that is a burning bush, an ordinary cedar alight with wings. Glancing down the lane, we would presume that while the surrounding foliage had retained its summer greeen, the leaves on that one tree had turned orange overnight. Then, before the phenomenon had fully registered in our minds, we would recall the previous occasions.
In contrast to the butterflies, there is also the story of Mandy, Liz's cousin who grew up on the farm. Mandy joined Canada's armed forces and was a rising star — until an IED in Afghanistan ended her life. Urquhart is quite effective in contrasting the past and present without over-sentimentalizing either.
It is tempting — indeed, almost inevitable — to say that Jane Urquhart lives in Alice Munro country, that section of southern Ontario that one of Canada's best writers has effectively made her own in the world of books. Actually, Urquhart's Ontario is both east and north of Munro's but the comparison is fair: both are intensely interested in exploring how landscape — and generations of ancestral history — affect the present. I will admit that when I was reading this novel I frequently thought of Munro's The View from Castle Rock, her own summary of her family history, told in a collection of short stories. Sanctuary Line is equally effective at evoking the idea that our history is always a part of us and that we will spend much of our life trying to figure out just how it is touching us right now.
As is usual with Urquhart, there is a darker side to the story — the foreshadowing occurs early in the novel and that story line becomes increasingly dominant as it progresses. I've avoided it here, not just to avoid spoilers, but because for me the "plot" was a vehicle that maintained interest but was actually incidental to what I think this novel is really about. We all have history and, as we age, we all remember incidents from childhood and adolescence that influence that history. For me, that is the real strength of Sanctuary Line — it did not just cause me to wonder about the stories of the people around me, it caused me to wonder about my own. There is no more that I could ask from a book.


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Cowboys' Bryant misses practice for second straight day
Irving, TX – Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant missed practice on Thursday with a hip injury, but still expects to play in Sunday's matchup with the undefeated Atlanta Falcons.
Bryant injured his hip on his acrobat catch in the closing seconds of Sunday's loss to the New York Giants.
Originally it appeared that the catch gave Dallas the lead in the final minute, but following an official review, it was determined that his fingertips came down out of bounds.
Running back DeMarco Murray (foot) and linebacker Dan Connor (neck) also missed Thursday's session and running back Felix Jones was a limited participant for the second consecutive day.


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I'm so excited to be a mentor in Pitch Wars this year, and I've spent the last three days reading through my submissions, trying to find the perfect partner. It's SO HARD, guys! After three days, I've only been able to narrow my list down to my top 14 choices – and I only get to pick ONE!
This post is a little bit late, because I kept telling myself "I'll write it as soon as I finish this one last thing for Pitch Wars." And I'm anxious to dive back into the pile of awesome waiting in my inbox, so it will be brief. But I wanted to share a few thoughts from this side of the contest submission window. (I'm sure I'll write more on each of these topics in upcoming months.)
#1 – Pitch Wars (or Pitch Madness, or The Writer's Voice, or PitchMAS, or the Baker's Dozen Agent Auction – or any other writing contest) is NOT your only chance for writing success!! As I've mentioned before, writing contests should only be a PART of your submission journey. A successful pitch in a contest MAY lead to agent requests, but getting a no in a contest does not (and never will) mean that you've missed your one and only shot at fame and glory. If you don't make it this time, take a step back, reassess your manuscript, make any necessary changes, and then jump back into the ring! Don't get discouraged, and don't give up. No matter how difficult the road may be, NEVER give up! Remember, I signed with my agent just a few weeks after I DIDN'T make it into Pitch Madness! Contest judges are not the final authority on all queries!!
#2 – Maybe, in life, rules are meant to be broken, but when submitting to a contest (or querying an agent), PLEASE follow the established guidelines! When you're asked to submit to a certain email address, or to format your entry in a specific way, there's a good reason for the rule. There were over 2,700 entries in Pitch Wars this year, and sorting them into the appropriate files was no easy task. Any email that didn't follow the rules for submission made that sorting process so much more difficult for the slush sorters. Before hitting "send," PLEASE take the time to check your official submission against the established guidelines. Do you really want to start your relationship with a potential mentor (or agent) with the impression that you're too arrogant to follow the rules or that you didn't think it was important enough to do it right?
#3 – You are not the exception to the rule! No matter how much you want Marvelous Mentor M to pick you, if she is only looking for rainbows and bunnies, she's not going to slip up and accidentally choose your blood-and-guts, slasher thriller instead. It doesn't matter how much you get along personally. Pick the mentor (or agent) who is the right match for your writing style. You want a partner who can help your manuscript live up to its full potential. If your mentor isn't comfortable reading the genre you write, she isn't going to be the best advocate for your manuscript. Do your research!
#4 (which should probably be #1, because this is SO important!!) – DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED!! A lot of conversation happens behind the scenes of Pitch Wars. Please be patient! You don't know what's going on in your dream mentor's mind. Has he dropped off the Twitter feed? He may be totally smitten and biting his tongue so he won't accidentally spill the beans about the amazing manuscript he's discovered before the big mentor selection reveal. Has she requested pages from your critique partner, but not from you? She might have decided with the first five pages that yours is the top choice, but needs another chapter or two to pick an alternate. Or she might have gracefully bowed out of the race for your manuscript because three other mentors are already threatening bodily harm to anyone who tries to take it from them, building stockpiles of virtual weapons for the ultimate behind-the-scenes Pitch War.
It breaks my heart to see writers we've all been gushing over tearing themselves down because they haven't received any requests for more pages. Or because their mentor picks have been super-silent on Twitter. Or because a favorite mentor has already announced that they've finalized their selections. Writers are really good at coming up with worst-case-scenarios. We spend all day dreaming up devious what-if situations to get our characters into trouble, and it's easy to let that worst-case thinking spill over into real life. DON'T DO IT!!
I've seen more than one mentor announce (in private emails behind-the-scenes): "I've picked my favorite, but I'm still trying to decide on my alternate choices. I'll request some pages to help make my decision." I've also seen mentors agonizing over the fact that they have 6-8 mss that they're equally in love with. They know they'll pick their mentee and both alternates from this smaller pool of queries, but they can't choose between the brilliant pitches, so they request extra pages for each manuscript. Entries that don't get requests for more pages might be tight enough to make a mentor fall in love at first sight! Entries that do get requests for more pages might be so amazing that the mentor can't wait to read the next few pages. Don't count yourself out of the race before anyone reaches the finish line!
#5 – If you're not one of the lucky few selected for Pitch Wars, DO NOT assume that it's because your writing isn't good enough. I guarantee, there are more good-enough-to-be-chosen manuscripts in this contest than there are slots available. I can personally say that I did not have a single manuscript in my slush pile that didn't show a ton of promise. You are all fabulous, and I hope you keep going, no matter what happens next.
Because Pitch Wars success story or not, what happens next might be the fabulous moment when all of your hard work starts paying off. Don't believe me? Read my "how I got an agent" story here. Or my "how my manuscript got to be a book" story here. Or the story of how failing in an online pitch contest was the best thing that ever happened to my writing here.


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One cool thing about being a car freak in Alameda is the number of 45-year-old beaters still rumbling down the streets. This battered-but-defiant '62 New Yorker parks in front of a tow yard by the waterfront...
If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere! This car has been in a few scrapes, but it's got lots of what realtors call character.
The spiderweb-encrusted bare taillight bulb and general beat-ness makes this car seem quite Mad Max-y.
Hmmm... Mad Max is probably the wrong movie reference. Add some chandeliers and it wouldn't look out of place in The Duke of New York's motor pool.
Wow. Chrysler needs to start designing front ends like this again!
And howzabout that rear quarterpanel trim? Early-60s Chryslers weren't just about the flash, though; a 340-horse 413 came standard with the New Yorker for 1962. The real high rollers sprang for the mighty 405-horse version, however.
Style, and lots of it.
Happy Presidents Day: K-Car Limo Edition [internal]


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The UC Berkeley Police Officers' Association released an open letter Monday morning addressed to the campus community and to the UC Board of Regents in response to the events of Nov. 9 and the criticism their actions that day elicited.
Among the most notable parts of the letter is the association's criticism of the campus administration and board: "Please don't ask us to enforce your policies then refuse to stand by us when we do. Your students, your faculty and your police – we need you to provide real leadership."
Read the full letter below.
An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers' Association
It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community.
The UC Berkeley Police Officers' Association, representing approximately 64 campus police officers, understands your frustration over massive tuition hikes and budget cuts, and we fully support your right to peacefully protest to bring about change.
It was not our decision to engage campus protesters on November 9th. We are now faced with "managing" the results of years of poor budget planning. Please know we are not your enemy.
A video clip gone viral does not depict the full story or the facts leading up to an actual incident. Multiple dispersal requests were given in the days and hours before the tent removal operation. Not caught on most videos were scenes of protesters hitting, pushing, grabbing officers' batons, fighting back with backpacks and skateboards.
The UC Berkeley Police Officers' Association supports a full investigation of the events that took place on November 9th, as well as a full review of University policing policies. That being said, we do not abrogate responsibility for the events on November 9th.
UC Berkeley police officers want to better serve students and faculty members and we welcome ideas for how we can have a better discourse to avoid future confrontations. We are open to all suggestions on ways we can improve our ability to better protect and serve the UC Berkeley community.
As your campus police, we also have safety concerns that we ask you to consider.
Society has changed significantly since 1964 when peaceful UC Berkeley student protesters organized a 10-hour sit-in in Sproul Hall and 10,000 students held a police car at bay – spawning change and the birth of our nation's Free Speech Movement.
However proud we can all be of UC Berkeley's contribution to free speech in America, no one can deny this: Our society in 2011 has become an extremely more violent place to live and to protect. No one understands the effects of this violence more than those of us in law enforcement.
Disgruntled citizens in this day and age express their frustrations in far more violent ways – with knives, with guns and sometimes by killing innocent bystanders. Peaceful protests can, in an instant, turn into violent rioting, ending in destruction of property or worse – the loss of lives. Police officers and innocent citizens everywhere are being injured, and in some instances, killed.
In the back of every police officer's mind is this: How can I control this incident so it does not escalate into a seriously violent, potentially life-threatening event for all involved?
While students were calling the protest "non-violent," the events on November 9th were anything but nonviolent. In previous student Occupy protests, protesters hit police officers with chairs, bricks, spitting, and using homemade plywood shields as weapons – with documented injuries to officers.
At a moment's notice, the November 9th protest at UC Berkeley could have turned even more violent than it did, much like the Occupy protests in neighboring Oakland.
Please understand that by no means are we interested in making excuses. We are only hoping that you will understand and consider the frustrations we experience daily as public safety officers sworn to uphold the law. It is our job to keep protests from escalating into violent events where lives could be endangered.
We sincerely ask for your help in doing this.
Like you, we have been victims to budget cuts that affect our children and our families in real ways. We, too, hold on to the dream of being able to afford to send our children and grandchildren to a four-year university. Like you, we understand and fully support the need for change and a redirection of priorities.
To students and faculty: As 10,000 students surrounded a police car on campus in 1964, protesters passed the hat to help pay for repairs to the police car as a show of respect. Please peacefully respect the rules we are required to enforce – for all our safety and protection. Please respect the requests of our officers as we try to do our jobs.
To the University Administration and Regents: Please don't ask us to enforce your policies then refuse to stand by us when we do. Your students, your faculty and your police – we need you to provide real leadership.
We openly and honestly ask the UC Berkeley community for the opportunity to move forward together, peacefully and without further incident – in better understanding of one another. Thank you for listening.


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Column: Law enforcement in agriculture
Concern describes my thoughts on American agriculture and private sectors at the present time. President Bush has signed the "economic stimulus package" that Congress passed, and the Fed has lowered the interest rate. Without any question, something had to be done. To have done nothing would have been worse, maybe catastrophic.
Congress and the Justice Department now have a bigger job of monitoring the situation and ensuring that laws that are on the books are enforced.
In agriculture this sounds familiar. We are now in the midst of one of the biggest mergers of our time — the Swift and JBS merger. This merger has brought us some of the most compelling arguments ever heard. One is that the Justice Department needs to enforce both the Packers and Stockyards Act and the Clayton Act and be concerned with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
These are laws that have been around a long time. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed by Congress in 1890, while the Clayton Act was passed in 1914.
Both the investment banking crisis and the merger of Swift and JBS have many of the same themes. In my opinion, we do not need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to monitor and oversee both of these situations with the laws and regulations that are already in place.
If not, we have a created an agricultural monopoly just like the banking monopolies.
Another recent issue involves the mandatory Country of Origin Labeling law now finally being implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
COOL should have been the law of the land four years ago but has been delayed by opponents who don't feel it's important for consumers to know where their meat comes from.
Now that COOL is the law of the land, the USDA has chosen to interpret country-of-origin as countries-of-origin. So the label you might see in the meat case will read, "This package may contain product from the U.S., Canada and Mexico." This effectively dilutes the law and doesn't allow consumers to know where their meat really comes from.
Earlier this month, 32 U.S. senators sent a letter to USDA stating that using a label indicating that the beef was of mixed origin when it was really from the United States was not living up to the spirit of the law.
It's not enough just to have a law. We have to be vigilant in making sure how the laws we have on the books are interpreted and enforced.
Fred Baker has been farming in Streator, Ill., since 1972. He grows corn, soybeans and wheat as well as raising registered Hereford cattle.


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Vito Bratta is one of the most searched artists on the internet, especially around what he is doing right now. Like me, thousands of other people that visit this blog, can't believe that a talent like Vito, just walked away from it all.
In order to understand why Vito Bratta walked away from it all and stopped writing music, I went back into the past and I started re-reading a lot of the interviews I have from him.
In a "Guitar World" interview from July 1991, Vito had the following to say on the state of his guitar playing vs. song writing.
"A weird thing happened to me this year I started thinking less in terms of guitar and more about song writing. I've never been the kind of player to showboat, but more and more I've been concerning myself with structuring and orchestrating.
On the last record, everyone commented on my playing, but hardly anyone said anything about the songs. That really bothered me. This year people have been saying. "Man, that song killed me." which I prefer. When I heard the last Van Halen record, my comment was. "It's not Eddie any more, but the songs sure are great." That's the way it should be."
Vito thought he needed to change to accommodate the expectations of the fans and the label. In the end, the fans didn't want him to change. We loved him exactly as he was. His guitar playing made the songs.
So Vito changes the way he thinks around songwriting. The results don't generate into sales. In 1991, success in the music business was relative to the sales of the record. The confidence and the self-doubt that comes with disappointment is enough to kill a career.
Brad Tolinski, the person who was conducting the interview mentioned to Vito that it seemed that he made a conscious effort to play differently on "Mane Attraction" and that there are less broken arpeggios and other styling's that Vito is renowned for.
Vito answered that with the following words;
"I don't play like myself on this record. My sound is much heavier. For example, the lead break on "The Warsong" marks one of the first times I really explored what I call those "Zakk Wylde Pentatonic's" and "Ace Frehley Bends". It was just a mood I was in. While on tour with Ozzy last year, we started feeling like we weren't the hard rock band that we used to be. On this record I just wanted to rock out."
Remember back in 2007, when Vito appeared on the Eddie Trunk show. One of the comments he made on that show, was that he realised during the "Big Game" tour, that White Lion need heavier songs that worked more in a live setting. So instead of having a mindset about writing songs, Vito now has a mindset that he needs to write better songs, heavier songs, rockier songs and songs that work in the live show.
Vito's whole thought process is now putting unwanted pressure on the song writing process, which to me should be natural and not forced.
In the "Guitar World" interview from July 1991, Vito also said the same when Brad Tolinski mentioned, that he could understand why Vito is frustrated as the tonal subtleties of his best work, like the solos in "Wait" and "Little Fighter," tend to get lost in an arena.
Vito responded with the following; "Yeah, I agree. But I think "The Warsong" will kick ass in any situation. The real subtle tasty stuff seems to get lost outside the studio, and that's a real problem."
This is an important distinction to make between bands that have gone through the stratosphere and bands that stagnated.
On the Justice tour, it was noted that Metallica fans were seen yawning during the longer complex songs from the Justice album. So what did Metallica do next? They released the monster known as the "Black" album. Shorter songs, less complex and songs that rocked hard.
All the Classic Rock bands used to perform their songs live before they recorded them. That is why all of those albums from the Seventies had songs that rocked hard in the studio and in the live arena. In the end a musician's level of success depends on their ability to entertain. It is never about their level of technical proficiency. Bands like Kiss, Motley Crue, Metallica, Van Halen and Bon Jovi are mega successful in the business because they can entertain. Are they the most virtuosic bands out there. Of course not, however they have had a career at a level that the most virtuosic artist out there dreams to have.
Brad Tolinski mentioned that the "opening track, "Lights And Thunder," is interesting. It's epic in length and structurally complex, yet the solo is relatively simple and minimal."
Vito responded with the following;
"The lead part is simple, but I think it fits. When I was listening to some of our old records, I noticed a few lead breaks that struck me as being inappropriate. It's not that they were bad; in fact, most of them were melodic and performed well. But in retrospect, some of them struck me as being too busy or ornate. When I first played the lead to "Lights And Thunder," I thought, "God, I can't play that. It's bullshit. It's too easy." But everybody in the studio loved it and told me to sleep on it and listen to it again when I was fresh. The next day I came in and thought, "It still doesn't sound like anything I would play, but it sure fits the bill."
He is not sure and he is doubtful. He is over analysing his past work. It is all counter-productive. The interview with Guitar World was in the issue from July 1991. By September 1991 it was all over. When you overthink things too much, you second guess everything you do and in the end, you lose your fire, the motivation that kept you hungry.
In the June, 1989 issue of "Kerrang", Vito states the following on his views of the current state of hard rock;
"I know a lot of bands who'll write a song and their guitar players will say I've got to do a lead break here, I've got to let rip there. It's an ego thing. When I write, I say well, the song will sound better if I have an acoustic here or a clear sounding guitar, maybe no lead. I think it's really annoying when a melodic song is ruined by a guitar player blasting away, it grates on my nerves."
In an issue of "Guitar World", dated July, 1991, Bratta more or less stated the same view point as he did a few years ago.
"You can see the guitarist thinking. "Forget the song, forget the band, I just want to get my name in Guitar World." That's not where it's at anymore. Everybody can play these days.
While I was living in L.A. last year, I went into a local music store to pick up an issue of your magazine, and I heard this incredible guitar player. It turned out to be some little kid with his dad! I mean, he had twice the chops I had. He came up and asked for my autograph, and I said, "Sure, one minute." Then I snuck out the back door before he had a chance to ask me to jam.
I've run into kids that can play "Wait" better than I can, but what's the point? Being a technician is only part of the equation, and I'm trying to study the other half: song writing.
I hate it when people say things like, "I know you write songs that are heard by millions of people, but are you really happy?" I mean, yeah. Don't be absurd. I want as many people as possible to hear the band. I'm convinced that the reason people like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and the reason why they have endured is that they have composed memorable songs as well as solos."
I have always said that Grunge didn't kill the hard rock / glam rock movement. The rock movement killed itself. Hard Rock in the Eighties started off with the first wave of L.A bands. Then the second wave of L.A bands came along with the Classic seventies rockers who started to rebrand themselves to fit the scene. Then the third wave came and the fourth and the fifth further diluting the pool. Every two years, new cities got identified as the next big hub. So the Record Labels swarmed and so many inferior derivative bands got signed, that in the end, it all imploded. The real good acts couldn't be heard from all the noise of the crap acts.
The current state of affairs in the music business bothered Vito. It played on his mind. He was a technician trying to find out how he fitted into the current climate. Should he write they way he also had or should he change and adapt so that he can meet expectations placed on him.
Unfortunately, Vito gave in to the expectations. He gave in to all the leaches that made multiple millions from his hard work.
The "Mane Attraction" record was done with his trusty Steinberger guitar. In the "Guitar World" interview from July 1991, Vito said that he was planning on using something different when White Lion goes on tour as the Steinberger was starting to bother him because it was almost too easy to play.
"I'm not fighting for the notes anymore and I miss that tension. This may sound bizarre, but if you give me a Les Paul or a Strat I'm lost, and that bums me out. Lately I've been using an old ESP Strat that I've had laying around, just to get me back in shape."
His amplification was basically the same system he has used for the last few years. The heart of Vito's rack consists primarily of three units: an ADA MP-1 preamp, a BBE 422A Sonic Maximizer and a Digitech DSP 256 multi effects processor. The system is powered by a Carvin FET Series amplifier, and a Rocktron Hush keeps the lid on any excess noise.
"It's a relatively simple rig, but it's very effective. I put it together with Michael Wagener, who produced Pride and Big Game."
Mane attraction is Top 40 stuff, for sure. But not quite as gooey as the usual radio fare more like what the Baby's used to do. Except White Lion has Vito Bratta. Though you have to wade knee-deep through patently clichéd arena rock-ioms for that Bratta burn, when he does cut loose it's worth turning up the volume knob a decibel or three. But in bands where song writing is the chief concern, really exceptional guitarists always end up getting be shrouded like a lace covered end table. Your little sister is gonna buy it, so borrow it when she's watching Dance Fever. And try to figure out how Vito manages to retain his credibility.
It's funny reading the Guitar World interview first and then the review (They both appeared in the same issue). In the interview, Vito is talking about how he wants people to say that the song knocked them out, and then you have the reviewer saying that you need to "wade knee deep through patently clichéd arena rock-ioms for that Bratta burn."
In the same Guitar World interview from 1991, Vito commented on his tribute to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan.
""Blue Monday" was my way of paying tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I'm not really a lyricist, but I figured I could try to express my gratitude to him through my guitar. To this day I can't even figure out why Stevie meant so much to me. He was just a guitarist, but his playing destroyed me. He was probably my favourite. You don't really hear him in my playing, but I could listen to him night and day. I wasn't trying to show off my blues chops. It was just a simple memorial to someone I admired very much. I don't care if people think it's the worst thing they've ever heard. It was my tribute to a great man."
Mike Tramp had the following to say on Vito in an interview with the website Metal Sludge; http://www.metalsludge.tv/?p=36727
"I had made a public statement that I was not willing to talk about all this anymore, and I don't know what he is doing, but as far as Vito the guitar player and Vito the songwriter and musician, he was in a calibre all by himself. It shows in his great solos, and so many people love the way he played like Eddie with the hammer-ons and all that stuff like the Van Halen solo on "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love." I just love the way Vito played solos on "Wait" and "Little Fighter" and some of the others. He was like Mozart.
We tried to do new White Lions with Warren DeMartini and Paul Gilbert and all these others, and no one wanted to do Vito. He was unlike anyone else, he had his own way of doing thing, and plus he was a great songwriter. Had he remained in the business, Vito would have been bigger than Steve Vai and all those types of guys. With him the melody came before anything else, and that's nothing but the highest praise. I loved the sound of his guitar and I loved writing songs with him and stuff like that, but we had nothing else in common, unfortunately. There isn't any bad blood between us. It's just frustrating that I've had to carry on White Lion all by myself 100 percent. I just want to set in on record once again: We were White Lion once, but never again. But as for Vito, I am surprised he isn't a million percent bigger in the music business. I don't have an answer. No one ever will."
Could you imagine White Lion with Warren DeMartini on guitar or Paul Gilbert? Great players, however as Mike said, they wouldn't touch Vito. He was better then all of them and the above words from Mike prove that. The difference between them is the mindset. Vito confused thought process with what was expected of him, instead of what he expected of himself. That is the difference between followers and leaders.


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Hello everyone,
From today onwards I will be posting my recipes on another Food blog with the same name i.e, Ruchii.
Thank you, all the readers who visited me here. If you like to see my recipes both old and new ones please visit me at Ruchii (http://ruchii-madhu.blogspot.com/). Please note the change in URL.


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May 24, 2007 — -- Are you a vodka snob? Do you routinely buy a pricey brand over a less expensive one? If so, you're part of a growing trend. "20/20" wanted to see what all the fuss was about … so we conducted a little test.
It's 6:30 p.m. in New York City's Times Square, typically happy hour, but not for our six subjects, who were all part of a little experiment conducted in the summer of 2005. The participants ranged in age from 21 to 40 years old, the prime cocktail-drinking demographic.
The laboratory was a popular restaurant and bar called Blue Fin. But instead of beakers and petri dishes, the chemicals we tested were found inside bottles -- six vodka bottles.
Why was vodka the drink of choice for our subjects? One participant, Trevor Freeland, responded, "It's simple, it pleases a lot of people." Michael Gurock added: "I never feel like I have a bad hangover the next day whenever I have vodka." And Melanie Weber said she chose it because "it can be mixed with a lot of different juices."
If you've been to a bar recently, you know that once lowly vodka — invented on the cheap in Russia — is now the most popular hard liquor in America, comprising 27 percent of total volume in 2006, easily outselling rum, gin, whiskey and tequila.
What's most striking about vodka's rise is the huge sales of so-called super-premium brands, up 38 percent in the past year. You'll know them by their remarkable bottles (one -- Wyborowa -- is designed by architect Frank Gehry) and by their even more remarkable prices: $30 to $60 and upward a bottle, up to four times the price of cheaper brands like Smirnoff, which sells for $13 a bottle.
Taste test participant Karen Kay told us she can perceive differences among brands. "With the lower-end vodkas I think I really taste a difference in the drink, like an aftertaste, almost," she said.
What are their favorite brands? Weber preferred Ketel One. Freeland liked Belvedere best. And the remaining four favored Grey Goose.
Vodka arrived in the United States during World War II, but didn't start really gaining popularity until the 1960s, thanks in part to James Bond. It was 007 in the 1962 movie "Dr. No" who started a trend: "One medium dried vodka martini, shaken, not stirred." Bond insisted his martinis be made with vodka, not gin.
The HBO television show "Sex and the City" propelled vodka to new heights with ubiquitous cosmopolitan cocktails. America's foremost mixologist Dale DeGroff (who tended bar at New York City's famous Rainbow Room) has made mixing cosmos into something of an art form.
"The cocktail is an icon," said DeGroff, "and the vodka cocktail is the top of the pyramid of that icon."
And no vodka brand has made a bigger splash than the $30 a bottle super-premium brand Grey Goose. A Grey Goose commercial says it is "rated the best-tasting vodka in the world."
A little strange, given that the U.S. government's definition of vodka, said DeGroff, is: "Tasteless, odorless, colorless … You are buying the bottle. You're buying the sexiness. You're buying the whole package."
Which brings us back to our little experiment. Can people really tell the difference in taste between the expensive and cheaper vodkas? Our blind vodka taste tests were conducted by Eben Klemm, the director of cocktail development for B.R. Guest, a chain of upscale restaurants.
Klemm instructed the testers to "sniff through them first to sort of calibrate your nose a little bit."
The taste test included five super-premium vodkas (Ketel One, Belvedere, Hangar One, Stoli Elit and Grey Goose) and one economy brand (Smirnoff).
Most of the testers thought they would be able to recognize their favorite brands, which didn't surprise Klemm. "Everyone's a snob about their brands," he said. "I mean, they've built their whole nightlife identity on which brands they are -- whether they're a 'Belvedere man' or a 'Grey Goose woman.'"
The first test involved tasting the vodkas "neat," which means straight and at room temperature.
Kay thought vodka No. 1 tasted "very spicy. It burns the tongue." Gurock said vodka No. 2 "was very light, it went down beautifully." Gliksman thought vodka No. 3 "has a really nice aroma." And Glenn McGinness said, "I'm guessing that five is the Grey Goose."
After a half hour of sniffing and sipping, five of the six testers agreed on one thing: They all hated vodka No. 1.
Freeland described it as "kind of thick and not smooth at all. Something I would never ever buy." Kay called it her "least favorite one, for sure."
Finally, the moment of truth. Klemm revealed that vodka No. 1 -- the group's least favorite -- was Grey Goose. Everyone was flabbergasted.
"No way!!!" said Freeland.
"I can't believe that!" exclaimed Kay. "I mean I'm really very loyal to it. And I just totally dismissed it."
"I'm shocked," said Gliksman. "I really am shocked, because it was bad."
"I guess that says something about the marketing then, doesn't it?" said DeGroff. "They're not relying heavily on their taste buds. They're relying more heavily on the perceived value, or the status."
There wasn't a hands-down favorite vodka for the testers, but two did stand out: Hangar One at $35 a bottle and Belvedere at $32 a bottle.
What would happen if we added a mixer to the vodka test? What percentage of people prefer vodka as a mixed drink, rather than straight?
According to DeGroff, everybody drinks it mixed. "How many people do you know that drinks straight vodka? Very, very few," he said.
So we did a second test mixing the same six vodkas into cosmopolitans: 3 parts vodka; 1 part triple sec, lime juice, and cranberry juice.
Klemm told the testers, "I want you all to see whether you can pick out nuances."
It turns out that the testers had a tough time distinguishing between cosmos made with the $62 Stoli Elit and cosmos made with the $13 Smirnoff.
McGinness said that he "found them very similar," and wasn't able to pick out his beloved Grey Goose.
"The distinctions are not as … definitive," said Freeland. "They're not as obvious."
So will these test subjects change their drink of choice?
Kay said, "I'm going to be experimenting a lot at the bar next time I go, because I came in having one favorite, I chose a different one for the neat, and I chose another one for the cosmopolitan. So … I guess that means I'm not going to be as loyal to the brand as I used to be."
So, if you're looking to save some money the next time you saunter up to the bar, save a few bucks and order the house vodka instead of your favorite super-premium.