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The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum used to be among the most distinguished public buildings in California. It hosted two Olympic Games (1932 and 1984), two Super Bowls (including the first), and the 1959 World Series (Dodgers and Chicago White Sox). John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president there in 1960. And while the stadium often seemed rundown, you couldn't question its toughness: it survived 12 years as the home of the National Football League's Raiders and their notoriously volatile fans.
But its status as a public entity couldn't survive the dysfunction of Los Angeles — or California. This summer, consumed by scandal over the financial improprieties of staff and event promoters, the government commission that owns the Coliseum effectively turned over the keys to a private school, the University of Southern California, which plays its football games there. Technically, the Coliseum remains publicly owned, but, under the terms of a 98-year lease, USC is in total control.
Press and critics at museums near the Coliseum have criticized this deal as a sweetheart transfer of a civic treasure to a private entity, and not without reason. USC, which already has more money than some countries, will keep ticket and concession revenues from Coliseum events. It also has permission to knock down the Sports Arena next door and build a soccer stadium in its place, all in exchange for a commitment to make at least $70 million in renovations and pay $1 million in annual rent, subject to inflation adjustments.
But as right as the critics are to question whether the USC deal is too generous, they're wrong to disapprove of taking the Coliseum away from its current managers. What they're overlooking are all the costs of having an important public space like the Coliseum controlled by multiple governments.
While the Coliseum was certainly plagued by mismanagement, the recent scandals were just symptoms of a more fundamental problem. Like too many other important places in California, the Coliseum is run not by one entity but many. Its governing commission is a joint project of the city of Los Angeles, the county of Los Angeles, and the state of California. This arrangement has proved the adage that when a place is governed by multiple governments, it is effectively ungoverned. In L.A., which is already so big and disconnected, such a lack of governance is even more damaging.
State law makes it very easy for California governments — already infamously numerous — to create Coliseum-style authorities by combining with one another, with nonprofits, and even with government agencies in other states. Many of these joint entities work as intended, making it easier for public entities to borrow money or buy insurance. But others don't — and many more are far too complicated to be well monitored.
In the case of the Coliseum, the media has made much of leaked emails showing the commission to be willfully ignoring public meetings laws. But what's more striking is the obvious yearning of Coliseum managers to make the USC deal and escape the madness of coordinating among three dysfunctional governments. One email anticipated the "joy" of being "not in these meetings."
At least USC's takeover of the Coliseum has one great virtue: a single entity in charge. I'm not a big fan of L.A. Live or The Grove, but those privately owned places are vital public gathering spots, in no small part because it's clear who is in charge of each. And Angelenos are fortunate that Griffith Park is clearly a city asset and that the Hollywood Bowl is the county's business.
Taming California's proliferation of entities with multiple masters doesn't mean we have to do a cozy deal with a private entity like USC, as we did with the Coliseum. But having one boss, and one mission, is essential for competent management of public spaces.
Joe Mathews wrote this column for Zocalo Public Square.


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The phenomenon of the "unreliable narrator" is one that arises fairly frequently in book blog discussions. Just how much credence should we give this person?, it usually starts out. And as we start to question more and more of what is narrated, what does it mean about the book?
Given that, it is worth noting that Torgny Lindgren opens Hash with a definitive statement about his narrator. It is December, 1947 and the narrator, a 53-year-old freelance journalist in northern Sweden, is working on "a local news report" about developments in Avaback when his mail arrives. One piece is a letter from his newspaper editor that includes the following:
"For some time now, after tactful inquires from perplexed and concerned readers, we have carried out careful investigations into the veracity of the reports you have submitted over the course of the years, the all too many years, which we have published conscientiously honestly and fearlessly.
"Having done so, we have found your reports, not to put too fine a point on it, completely devoid of any basis in fact. The reality which you appear to describe is nothing more than a figment of your imagination.
"The dramatic week-long struggle to rescue an elk from Hoback marsh never took place. The schoolhouse in Avaberg that burned down three years ago never existed. No unknown celestial body "with shimmering corona" ever rose above your horizon. There has never been a turkey farm ravaged by a bear in your district. Nor has there ever been a factory producing a vitamin shampoo. I could go on."
And indeed the editor's letter does, but that is enough of a quote to supply flavor. Okay, I am a sucker for journalism novels, and journalists can be just as unreliable as any other narrator, but here is one whose credibility is totally destroyed by page 10. For that reason alone, I'd give Lindgren 10 out of 10 for sparking initial interest.
The narrator puts his writing-stand and pencil into storage at the end of that chapter (although he does spend some later pages composing wonderful, but unwritten, replies of denunciation to the editor). We next meet him exactly 53 years later in 2000 when the death of the newspaper editor (at the age of 98, it should be noted) causes him to ask for his writing-stand and pencil again. He is now living in the Sunnybank Rest Home and, at age 106, it is not just that request which signifies change:
Year by year his skin was becoming smoother. And like Goethe, he woke with an erection every morning. Death was receding further and further from him. Two new wisdom teeth had emerged in his upper jaw. He was once more able to hum Peterson-Berger's arrangement of Froding's Titania, even the difficult passage conveying the rustle of hazel and birch. His hair had started regrowing on the nape of his neck and at the temples, dark and thick. The podiatrist heaped praise on his feet, no corns any more and the nails increasingly strong and firm. Even his sight had improved: he was reading the newspaper without spectacles, including everything that had been written by the former editor.
We aren't just dealing with a compulsive, if inventive, liar here (as a former journalist, I love the idea of the week-long story about freeing the trapped elk), we are dealing with someone who at the age of 106 has reversed the aging process. And, having called for his tools, he is about to take up writing again. The world of his imagination continues to acquire concrete reality as he begins his new "journalistic" story, also set back in 1947:
The war criminal Martin Bormann, wanted throughout Europe, and even in South America. In the two years that have elapsed since the war there have been countless sightings of him: as a ski instructor in the Austrian Alps, on trains near Paris and Budapest, as a sailor on an Atlantic steamer, a baritone in a chuch choir in Jylland in Denmark. He was even spotted attending a conference on nuclear disarmament in Amsterdam.
Now he has turned up here.
Lindgren has completed the introduction to his fantasy world, but hang on to your chair. He introduces a couple of other characters: Bormann's landlady, Eva Marklund, and, more importantly, the new schoolteacher in the district, Lars Hogstrom. Hogstrom has spent his young life in hospitals as a tuberculosis victim (the condition pervades the area and kills a lot of its residents) and he has emerged not only healthy, but "immune". The two become friends and, after a little bit more stage setting, embark on the search that dominates the book.
A search for the perfect Swedish hash.
I am pretty sure that every culinary culture has its version of "hash" (we can discuss our personal favorites in comments). The base is offal and other apparently useless parts of meat, stewed, spiced, boiled slowly over days and set in aspic. In Sweden, apparently, every village and valley has its own version — cooked in the fall and left to age in the cold cellar. Potatoes and condiments (especially beetroot) are frequently present, but how the eater mixes this all up is left to individual taste.
"It's not like anything else at all," [Lars] said. "Not sausage and not veal loaf or headcheese or meat roll or pigs' trotters. And certainly not like sausage meat."
"No," said Eva Marklund. "Of course not."
"It's absolutely unique," said Lars Hogstrom. "It could conquer the world."
"Avabeck hash is more or less entirely meat," she said. "Maybe just the odd extra ingredient. But in Morken it's even stronger."
Yes, she went on, there were plenty of other types of hash, and they were all more remarkable and more complex than Avaback hash. She should make special mention of Lillaberg hash, which was very finely minced and kind of smoother. Not to speak of Raggsjo hash, which was darker in color but light in taste and had an aroma reminiscent of ginger yet not exactly ginger. Any chance to eat that hash was a real privilege.
And then there is Ellen's hash in Lillsjoliden, but saying any more about that would be a spoiler (no pun intended).
Hash is an exercise in imagination, a very successful one for this reader. Everyday elements are spun off into fantasy — well-developed characters are given entirely fantastic traits, but Lindgren keeps returning to the very-real present. The overall impression is like looking at this part of Sweden through a literary version of an intricate kaleidoscope. There are lots of laughs along the way and, when the author demanded licence, I was more than willing to grant it. The novel won't be to everyone's taste, but I am sure that images from it are going to keep coming back to mind. One that I haven't got around to mentioning yet is Bertil, a character who appears frequently: "That's only Bertil," [Eva] said about the young man by the door. "He pops up all over the place."
And he does.
My thanks to Kimbofo at Reading Matters for drawing my attention to this book (you can read her review here) — she and I exchange thoughts on "journalist" books. This is a very worthy addition to the genre. If you want an entirely entertaining read that takes you away from the present, without in anyway denying it, Hash is worth your attention.


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Best Quarterbacks Ever: Results
So let me tell you my thinking with the Five Greatest Quarterbacks Ever survey -- I was kind of interested in seeing if Peyton Manning's ridiculous, amazing, spectacular season would have an obvious effect on the numbers. It seems that, many of us, even if we consciously TRY to avoid it, cannot help but allow the latest bits of news to disproportionally sway our opinions. Think how often one announcer will say, "he broke out of a 2-for-23 slump with a game-winning double," and the other will say, "It's great to see him hitting again." The game winning double STILL meant that the batter was still three for his last 24. By that measure, he's still hitting lousy. But because that LAST hit was a double, there's a sense that something has changed.
The last thing -- it just sticks in our minds. Peyton Manning certainly was viewed as an all-time great quarterback before this amazing season. And he should be -- I mean, he's pretty much first, second or third in just about every meaningful passing category. He's second in completions, second in yards, second in touchdowns -- all to Brett Favre -- but he's still 19th in interceptions with 126 fewer than Favre. He's third all-time in passer rating, just a tenth of a point behind Steve Young (and well behind Aaron Rodgers, who has only been a starting quarterback for five-plus seasons). He's amazing and everyone knew that before this season began. BUT … I'm not sure where people would have put him on the all-time list before this year. Because there are knocks. We all know that. He has won just one Super Bowl, and while I'm very much against conflating individual excellence with team excellence other people strongly believe a quarterback's greatness is reflected in the championships won. Most of the other greats -- Montana, Unitas, Graham, Star, and of recent vintage Brady -- have won more than Manning.
Also, there was always the thing about him playing most of his games in domes. Here are a few numbers for you: Manning has played 128 of his 229 regular season games in domes (before Sunday's game against Jacksonville). His quarterback rating in domes is 104.3. His quarterback rating outside is 93.6. Now, this is not necessarily direct cause and effect -- obviously the vast majority of the dome games were home games in Indianapolis and quarterbacks obviously play better at home. Still, that's a sizable difference and part of the story.
My sense is that before the season began, people generally had Brady ahead of Manning. It was an argument, of course, and many people are staunch Manningites. But I think more had Brady. But this year has obviously been striking. Brady has been beat up and his receivers have been pretty terrible and the numbers have been what announcers like to call "very un-Bradly-like." He even had a game without a touchdown pass. Meanwhile, as discussed, Manning is putting up absurd, ridiculous, video game numbers -- 76% completions, 20 touchdowns in his first five games, 1 interception, crazy. He's on pace for 6,000 yards, 64 touchdowns, three interceptions, I mean, seriously, SHUT THE GAME DOWN. It would be like a Gretzky season or a Bonds seasons.
So I was curious if five games would alter people's all-time quarterback rankings.
I'll let you decide if it did. Here are the ten quarterbacks with the highest point totals in our survey:
10. Sammy Baugh (547 points)
Yeah, I was kind of surprised too. Baugh finished ahead of Terry Bradshaw (11th), Bart Starr (12th) and Roger Staubach (13th) not to mention a personal favorite, Dan Fouts (19th). That's not to say he wasn't an excellent choice. Slingin' Sammy Baugh was a pioneer -- he was really the first NFL quarterback as we now know it. Baugh didn't run much, he dropped back, scanned the field, controlled defenses through the air. Understand that in his first NFL season, 1937, Baugh completed 47.4% of his passes and had a 50.5 passer rating and LED THE NFL IN BOTH (this was obviously before the passer rating was invented -- we're measuring retroactively). After that, he developed the quarterback position into something new. He led the NFL in completion percentage NINE times, my favorite being 1945 (admittedly, a war year) when he completed more than 70% of his passes, and only two other quarterbacks compete even half their passes. He was ahead of his time. In fact, he helped create the future.
9. Steve Young (1,042 points)
I've long thought that, other than the brevity of his career, Steve Young has his own argument as the best quarterback in NFL history. That brevity matters -- Young only played 16 games three times in his career. But I think Steve Young is like Sandy Koufax in that his peak is as great as anyone's ever. From 1991 to 1998, he posted a 102.4 quarterback rating because he completed 66.7% of his passes, threw 195 touchdown passes against 76 interceptions and averaged a fairly remarkable 8.7 yards per pass attempt. And that does not even incorporate his brilliance as a runner. His teams went 82-29 over that stretch, won one Super Bowl, reached three other conference championships, I'm not sure any other quarterback ever has combined the athleticism, accuracy and awareness of Steve Young.
8. Brett Favre (1,475 points)
I'm a little surprised he's this low, or more to the point, surprised he finished behind Dan Marino. He now holds every major passing record at this point -- most completions, most attempts, most yards, most touchdowns, most interceptions, most starts, most sacked, most jeans commercials, most "he's like a kid out there" references, just most everything. Favre's seeming indestructibility was always his most awe-inspiring aptitude. He started all 16 games for 17 consecutive years. When you think of the violence of the NFL, this is mind-boggling. He really was a force of nature the way he would force balls into coverage year after year -- many of his records will get broken, but I'll bet that his interception record of 336 will last pretty much forever. Favre began to annoy a lot of people the last few years of his career -- the Deadspin stuff, the retire or not retire Hamlet stuff, the disastrous final season -- and I can't help but wonder if this is why he's only eighth on the list.
7. Otto Graham (1,559 points)
People have an easier time, it seems, imagining old-time baseball players in the modern day than they do for football players. I supposed that makes sense when you consider the two games. Still, any baseball poll you ever see will have Babe Ruth listed as the best player ever (or certainly in the top two or three) even though he started his career almost 100 years ago.
And then there's Otto Graham, who did not play in Ruth's time but much more recently -- his career overlapped with Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, etc. Heck, he even overlapped with Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Sandy Koufax. But football is a much younger sport than baseball, and football has changed much more than baseball, and so Graham is tougher for many to place in a modern context. You probably know that he led the Cleveland Browns to the championship game of their league every single year of his career, from 1946 to 1955. The Browns won seven titles (four of them in the old All-American Football Conference) and Graham was the clear leader and star, leading the league in passing yards five times, in touchdown passes three and his teams went a mind-boggling 104-17-3.
6. Dan Marino (3,293 points)
More people chose Otto Graham (116) as the greatest ever quarterback than Marino (99) but Marino appeared on almost 800 more ballots which is why there is such a huge points difference between No. 7 and No. 6. Many people will insist that Dan Marino was the best passer of footballs who ever lived. I go along with that. His release was lightning, his arm impossibly strong. Remember: he came to the Miami Dolphins who were led by the famously conservative Don Shula. That team never had a quarterback who thrown the ball even 375 times in a season. The team's iconic quarterback before Marino was Bob Griese -- he had topped out at 355 passes in a season, and that was BEFORE Shula took over. Under Shula, he only twice threw the ball even 300 times in a season.
But Marino was so ridiculously good at throwing footballs that Shula IMMEDIATELY changed the entire offense and his lifelong philosophy for Marino's arm. Marino only made nine starts his rookie season, but threw the ball 296 times. The next year, he threw the football FIVE HUNDRED SIXTY FOUR times. That, of course, was Marino's Wayne Gretzky season, the one where he smashed every record imaginable. He threw for more than 5,000 yards -- never been done. He threw 48 touchdown passes -- the record had been 36. His top receivers -- Mark Clayton and Mark Duper -- were young and tiny and entirely unproven until Marino came along. And the Dolphins went to the Super Bowl. It was, all-in-all, a season unlike any in pro football history.
Two years later, by the way, Marino threw the ball 623 times.
Everybody knows Marino never went back to the Super Bowl after 1984. He put up amazing offensive seasons -- he led the league in passing yards four more times and he would retire with pretty much all the career passing records Brett Favre would break -- but being blunt, he was never quite as good as he was on '84. His passer rating in that extraordinary 1984 season was 108.9. He never again came close to breaking 100, and for the rest of his career his passer rating was a blandly disappointing 84.3. He threw for a lot of yards, he threw a lot of touchdown passes, he threw a lot of interceptions, and Shula never really was able to build a great team around him. People will always argue if that was a Marino shortcoming or simply a failure of imagination by Shula's Dolphins.
5. John Elway (4,405 points)
Bill James once, rather famously, filed a one-word entry on Jeff Bagwell in the Historical Abstract. That word: "Pass." Some have guessed that Bill was making a coded statement about Bagwell and PEDs, but Bill says that's was absolutely not the reason -- this was the late 1990s, when nobody was talking about PEDs. Why did he do it? He won't say.
I will: John Elway destroyed my Cleveland Browns and, in many ways, my youth.
So: Pass.
4. Johnny Unitas (4,411 points)
Very, very close voting between Elway and Unitas, which is kind of fascinating. Eighty more people included Elway on their ballot. But 33 more people voted Unitas as the best ever which is why he's ranked ahead.
You certainly know Unitas' basic story. He was a ninth-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers -- of the top four all-time quarterbacks, only one was a first round pick.* Dan Rooney, in his fun book "My 75 Years With The Pittsburgh Steelers" writes that Steelers head coach Walt Kiesling never liked Unitas because -- get this -- he wasn't SMART ENOUGH to be an NFL quarterback. Rooney, perhaps exaggerating and perhaps not, would write that he PLEADED with Kiesling to give Unitas a chance. But Kiesling did not. The Steelers released Unitas in 1955 and he ended up playing semi-pro football for a team called the Bloomfield Rams.
*Not to ruin the ending but of the Top 4, only Peyton Manning was picked in the first round. Joe Montana was a third rounder, Tom Brady a sixth-rounder and Unitas, as mentioned, a ninth round pick.
Unitas signed with the Colts the next year and started seven games. The year after that he led the NFL in passes, yards, touchdowns and yards per attempt. The next year, Unitas led to the Colts to the NFL Championship game against the New York Giants and engineered what is probably the most famous final two-minute drive in NFL history. That ended the greatest game ever played. One year later, the Colts played that the Giants in the championship game again. This time, Unitas threw two touchdown passes and ran for another and the Colts blitzed New York 31-16.
He was the essence of 1950s cool -- crewcut (the one Grandpa Simpson would say was "a haircut you can set your watch to!"), high-tops, perfect over the top throwing motion, tough as sandpaper. He led his team on 29 game-winning drives, a record when he retired in 1973. He liked to take the big risk when you least expected it figuring that in that moment of nervous fury, he would hold up better than his opponent.
When Unitas retired, he was pretty widely viewed as the greatest quarterback ever, much in the same way that Wilt Chamberlain (or his nemesis Bill Russell) were widely viewed as the greatest basketball players ever when they retired. Eight percent of our voting block still voted Unitas as the best.
3. Tom Brady (5,025 points)
2. Peyton Manning (8,971 points)
Well, that sort of gets to the heart of the experiment, doesn't it? Of course, I wish I had this vote before the season began to compare the numbers. But I'm willing to bet that it would have been A LOT closer before the season began -- and Brady might have been ahead.
I just think we just cannot help but be swayed by what we just saw. For instance, I just watched a game where Tom Brady was pretty terrible against the New Orleans Saints. Admittedly his receivers are beat up, and the Saints sacked him five times and all that. Still, he looked very much out of sync. In the fourth quarter, on what appeared to be his last chance, he launched a prayer of a pass that was easily intercepted -- it was just not the sort of thing you ever saw Tom Brady do. And I thought: "Man, Brady's kind of losing it."
And then the Patriots got the ball back with more than a minute left because the Saints did not even TRY to get a first down. Then Brady hit Julian Edelman for 23, hit Austin Collie for 15, whipped a quick pass to Aaron Dobson for six, just barely missed Edelman on a deep pass down the middle, hit Edelman in the chest with a deep pass down the middle that he dropped when crunched from behind, hit Collie for nine yards on fourth down, spiked the ball and threw over-the-top 17 yards to Kenbrell Thompkins for the winning touchdown. The whole series seemed to happen as fast as you just read that paragraph. And, like that, I remember: "Oh yeah, Tom Brady's a celestial being."
One thing I always forget is that, pound-for-pound, Manning's numbers are really not that much better than Brady's. I think the narrative is always something along the lines of: "Manning has the numbers, Brady has the rings." But neither theme is entirely right. Manning has played many more games than Brady and he has completed a slightly higher percentage of passes (65.5% to 63.5%). But Manning's impressive 456-to-210 touchdowns-to-interceptions (2.2 to 1) is not quite as good as Brady's (341 touchdowns, 126 interceptions, 2.7-to-1). Manning's astonishing 2005 is more or less matched by Brady's 2007. Manning's 96.7 quarterback rating is only a touch better than Brady's 96.1 … and Brady obviously didn't play nearly as many indoor games.
On the other hand, Manning gets a bad rap because he's "only" won one Super Bowl while Brady has won three. Manning's record after his rookie season is a fantastic 157-57, not so different from Brady's 141-40. He has won one Super Bowl, yes, but he led the Colts to another and a championship game and they are Super Bowl contenders again this year Those Colts teams often had mediocre defenses along with various other deficiencies. The year before he got hurt the Colts made the playoffs. After he got hurt, they were the worst team in pro football. He went to Denver and led the Broncos to a 13-win season after six seasons of utter mediocrity. And now, with him playing otherworldly football, the Broncos look all-but-unbeatable.
It's a classic argument, Brady vs. Manning, that goes beyond the cliches. I think Manning right now has a huge lead because he's been so great this season. But once that settles down, I'll be interested to see where this ends up.
1. Joe Montana (10,004 points).
In the end, the top spot was not particularly close. More people voted Joe Montana the greatest quarterback in NFL history than Manning and Brady COMBINED. His genius was in his precision (five times he led the league in completion percentage), his sense of the big moment and the effect he would have on opposing teams. Howie Long once said that the 49ers could just prop Montana up like "El Cid" in the movies and defenses would cower. Long also offered a great quote about Montana's ability to beat teams with soft, seemingly harmless passes: "He would knock you out in a pillow fight."
Of course, his most famous moment came in the game-winning drive against Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXIII. The drive itself was legendary -- 90 yards, 10 plays, completions to Roger Craig (8 yards), John Frank (7 yards), Jerry Rice (7 yards), Rice again (17 yards), Craig again (13 yards), Rice again (27 yards), Craig again (8 yards) and John Taylor, finally, 10 yards and the touchdown. But the famous moment came before it began when everyone gathered around in the huddle and Montana suddenly and oddly pointed to the stands and said, "Hey look, there's John Candy."
The players took from this that Montana was so loose and free in that extraordinarily tense moment that he was noticing famous people in the stands. That's one explanation. Another is that Montana's mind simply does not work like most minds do, that he simply did not FEEL pressure the same way most of us do. A third is that, hey, it was John Candy.
Montana was nothing at all like his younger self when he finished his career in Kansas City -- but they propped up El Cid and, dammit, the Chiefs won 17 of the 25 games he started, he led them to the AFC Championship game (and the Chiefs last playoff victory to this day) and Montana is still beloved in Kansas City. I wouldn't say Chiefs fans consider him their own -- they know he's San Francisco's. But I would say they feel like they got their own piece of the greatest quarterback in NFL history.


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Moore was charged with Public Intoxication, a class B misdemeanor.[Brenda Moore] had consumed two tall cans of beer at her sister's house on the evening of December 5, 2008. A friend of [Moore's] brother asked for a ride to visit a friend. [Moore] explained to him that she could not drive because she had been drinking but he could drive her car if he had a license. The brother's friend then drove the [Moore's] car with [Moore] riding as a front seat passenger. When an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer pulled over the car because the license plate was not working, the officer determined that the driver did not have a valid driver's license and that [Moore] could not operate the vehicle because she was intoxicated. The car was stopped on a public roadway, East 13th Street in Indianapolis. The officer observed that [Moore] had red, glassy, bloodshot eyes and slurred speech; she needed to lean against the car for balance; and she admitted that she had been drinking that night. She admitted, "I couldn't walk. So I couldn't have driven."
An Indiana Supreme Court decision in 1966, Miles v. State, 216 N.E.2d 847 (Ind. 1966), declared that a person parked alongside a highway was in a public place for the purposes of the public intoxication statute. Moore's argument was that considering the inside of a car to be a public place was against what the legislature intended when it passed the public intoxication law. She also argued that it was against the public policy of encouraging sober drivers to drive those who are too intoxicated to get behind a wheel.
|State Senator R. Michael Young
State Senator R. Michael Young (R-Indianapolis) authored Senate Bill 156 last session that would have scrapped public intoxication as a stand-alone criminal offense. Sen. Young, like a lot of people, doesn't believe simply being intoxicated in a public place should be a crime subjecting someone to arrest. He believes that rather the issue should be whether they are doing something else objectionable, such as disturbing the peace or urinating in public.
Not surprisingly most police officers and prosecutors love the P.l. charge. Their response is always that it is a "crime fighting tool." They alwasy assure the public that if the discretion is given to them, in this case to arrest someone for simply being intoxicated in public, they won't abuse the discretion, that it will only be used in cases where the person is acting improperly.
Senator Young's bill passed the Senate 33-17 last session before ultimately dying because it wasn't heard in the House committee. The legislature needs to take the bill up again next session. At the very least the General Assembly needs to pass a law to clarify that the legislature never intended that a vehicle be considered a public place for the public intoxication law. People who are inebriated for acting responsibly by having a designated driver take them home.
UPDATE: Interestingly in a press release the Indiana State Police is urging people to use a designated driver this July 4th weekend if they have been drinking.
The situation creates an interesting dynamic. Police officers generally prefer more discretion to arrest people. On the other hand, they have for years been telling people to use a designated driver if they are intoxicated. But since the Miles decision in 1966, confirmed again on Tuesday, police officers are telling those people to to commit a crime, i.e. public intoxication, when those intoxicated people ride home with a designated driver.


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Herborium(R) Group Discusses an Aftermath of the Ban of Diane-35 Acne Drug Due to Number of Deaths
FORT LEE, N.J., Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Herborium Group, Inc., www.herborium.com, a Botanical Therapeutics(R) Company discusses an impact of a ban of Bayer's Diana-35 acne drug in Europe, and a follow up investigation in Canada, on Herborium' s
FORT LEE, N.J., Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Herborium Group, Inc., www.herborium.com, a Botanical Therapeutics(R) Company discusses an impact of a ban of Bayer's Diana-35 acne drug in Europe, and a follow up investigation in Canada, on Herborium' s all botanical acne treatment -AcnEase(R).
Diane-35 is a hormonal drug used to treat hormonal acne, especially those resulting from too much of androgens (male hormones). It is also an oral contraceptive (birth control pill). Diane-35 is not approved in the US but it was available in Canada. Like many other drugs Diane-35 found its way to US consumers though so called "gray marketing".
Diane-35 is presently investigated in Europe and Canada for number of deaths, caused by blood clots, and for non-fatal cases of thrombosis and arterial thrombosis associated with a use of a drug.
In September 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has informed the public that it has not yet reached a conclusion, but remains concerned, about the potential increased risk of blood clots with the use of drospirenone-containing birth control pills. Number of US approved contraceptive pills including very popular Yasmin and Yuz were put on a warning list. Despite of the warning, birth control pills are still rather liberally prescribed to women with acne even if their sexual activity is not a factor.
AcnEase(R) is all botanical ingredients based product that DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY ESTROGEN. Furthermore, AcnEase(R) also DOES NOT include any phytoestrogens (plant-derived estrogen-like substance). As phytoestrogens may be considered safer that those made chemically they still act in a similar way and therefore may not be suitable or safe for some consumers especially teens, women that want to become pregnant, those who are pregnant or nursing, and of course men suffering from hormonal acne.
"We are deeply saddened by a death and potential serious health implication among Diane-35 patients. We are also determined to reiterate to our investors and customers that a decision to base Herborium's differential advantage on the use of proprietary, validated and safe botanical formulas has once again been proven correct and most advantageous both strategically and ethically. We will continue to provide safe and up to 96% effective AcnEase(R) to acne sufferers in all markets, and to grow our market share in the multi-billion dollar world-wide acne treatment sector," commented Dr. Agnes P. Olszewski, CEO and Chairwomen of Herborium Group.
About Herborium Group, Inc.
Herborium Group, Inc., a Botanical Therapeutics(R) company, focuses on developing, licensing, and marketing proprietary, botanical based medicinal products to consumers and healthcare professionals. The Company uses clinical validation to establish and maintain a differential advantage. The company sells its products in the US and Europe. For more information, please visit www.herborium.com and www.acnease.com
One of our most important responsibilities is to communicate with shareholders in an open and direct manner. Comments are based on current management expectations, and are considered "forward-looking statements," generally preceded by words such as "plans," "expects," "believes," "anticipates," or "intends." We cannot promise future returns. Our statements reflect our best judgment at the time, and we disclaim any obligation to update or alter forward-looking statements as the result of new information or future events. The Company urges investors to review the risks and uncertainties contained within its filings with the OTC Markets and/or Securities and Exchange Commission.
For more information please inquire: firstname.lastname@example.com


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All News Releases By Date
EPA Reports Toxic Releases to Air, Water and Land in Oklahoma in 2007
Release Date: 03/19/2009
Contact Information: Dave Bary or Anthony Suttice at 214-665-2200 or email@example.com
(Dallas, Texas – March 19, 2009) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued its report of the most recent data available for the amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment in Oklahoma by industrial and other facilities. The data made available today are for releases that took place during 2007. Since 1988, the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) has been released by EPA every year to help the public know more about the chemicals present in their local environment and track environmental trends over time.
"This annual report was created to provide American families with the information they need to make informed decisions about environmental issues affecting their neighborhoods," said Larry Starfield, EPA Region 6 Acting Regional Administrator. "The TRI report also serves as a strong incentive for businesses to find innovative ways to reduce or prevent pollution."
Oklahoma facilities reported 34,080,993 pounds of toxic chemicals released into the environment in 2007, with 79 percent, or 27,092,525 pounds, released on site. On-site releases include chemicals released to the air, water and land at the facility. Chemicals that are transferred to other sites for disposal are not included in the on-site total.
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, as well as the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, required EPA to establish the TRI. The TRI is an on-line, computerized database that contains toxic chemical release and other waste management information covering more than 650 chemicals and chemical categories. The information is collected from reports submitted to EPA and the states by manufacturing companies, coal and metal mines, electric utilities, hazardous waste treatment sites, chemical distributors and Federal facilities.
More than 22,000 facilities nationwide provide details on their releases of chemicals into the environment. Included in the report is a listing of individual states and the amounts of toxic chemicals releases into the environment within their borders. Individual cities and zip codes can also be selected from the TRI database and have releases within their confines broken out by type of chemical and quantity releases. The database provides a comprehensive overview of toxic chemical releases in the United States.
TRI 2007 Public Data Release: https://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri07/index.htm
More information on TRI: https://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/ and https://www.epa.gov/enviro/
State fact sheets are available at: https://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/statefactsheet.htm
More information about activities in EPA Region 6: https://www.epa.gov/region6
The top ten facilities in Oklahoma for total on-site and off-site releases of all chemicals (in pounds) are:
Name of Facility City Total Releases
Perma-Fix Environmental Services Tulsa 3,501,500
Weyerhaeuser Co. Valliant 3,406,964
Koch Nitrogen Co. Enid 3,328,710
Clean Harbors Lone Mountain LLC – Lone Mountain Waynoka 3,137,554
Terra Nitrogen LP – Verdigris Plant Claremore 2,701,000
Ventura Refining & Transmission Thomas 2,068,323
Solae, Pryor Pryor 1,515,347
Baker Petrolite Barnsdall 1,016,000
American Electric Power–Northeastern Plant Oologah 945,903
Grand River Dam Authority–Coal Fired Complex Chouteau 879,867
Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases
View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.


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Hog farms across the world, including those in the U.S., are getting dirtier. And there are three reasons why.
First, routine cleaning and disinfecting is just that - routine. Because it is a boring, repetitive task, familiarity can breed carelessness in the best workers and contempt in the worst. Some European surveys asked workers why they left pig production and "a boring, repetitive job" was high on the list.
One of the reasons why pig-affecting viruses seem to be on a roll could be that the modern strains of such pathogens just love a rushed cleaning job. And there lies the second reason - workers. They are eternally chasing their tails on repairs which need urgent attention, tend to hurry through the vital job of regular biosecurity. We overstock pigs and under stock our workforce.
Careful preparation is a critical part of disinfecting. The third reason why we are seeing more diseases these days is that farmers place too much reliance on disinfectants (see Table 4).
Where a detergent or sanitizer was used before disinfectant, pigs grew an ounce a day more, up to 88 lb. This resulted in $2.43 more meat/pig.
Of the last 12 farms I've visited, only five were using a detergent in the pressure-washing process.
Precleaning is especially important with all-in, all-out (AIAO) (see Table 3). Economics
Some 1.4 ounces/day improved gain from 13 to 200 lb. results in an improvement in saleable meat/ton of feed used of 53 lbs. This is equal to a 15% reduction in cost of feed/ton at $33/pig. The extra cost of cleaning and the special biocide detergent used is equal to 5% of the cost of one ton of feed. Therefore, a payback or return to extra outlay (REO) of 3:1 is achieved, just from correct precleaning alone.
The benefits of using a detergent are shown in Table 2, where bacterial counts are shown at various stages of cleaning.
Washing with water reduces bacterial contamination up to 60% - well above the before-disinfection target level. When adding a good heavy-duty detergent, the contamination is reduced even more - to well below the target level. You can be left with 4,000 times more bacteria for the disinfectant to deal with if you don't use a detergent. A reduction in microorganisms to 0.001% of their initial value by the end of disinfection is the goal.
Ten points to consider when choosing a detergent: 1. It must be farm-specific. Industrial detergents may be insufficient to cope with the semi-porous surfaces (plastic, metal and worn concrete floors) you have to work with. Check that the detergent is specifically designed for farm use.
2. It should have good degreasing activity. Fat and grease protect microorganisms by long-chain fat molecules. Some manufacturers have special defatting detergents.
3. Is the detergent safe to both humans and pigs? Some powerful industrial detergents, while safe to machinery, are questionable for livestock.
4. Use it exactly to the manufacturer's instructions. Read the label. Then consider the circumstances of use. Are you using estimated dilution rates, or just roughly calculated and measured, or measured and calculated every time? Do a check-up audit periodically.
5. Does it interfere with the subsequent disinfectant's activity? Check this with the manufacturer if using a different firm for the latter.
6. Can it be applied through your existing equipment with minimal modification? Ask the manufacturer before choosing.
7. Does it leave residues? Residues can make the floor slippery and harbor microorganisms. Cumulative residues can be especially dangerous.
8. It should be alkaline. This helps dissolve fats and protein in built-up manure deposits.
9. It should work in hard water conditions.
10. Foaming can help. Foaming increases contact time and allows workers to see where the detergent has been applied. It also decreases the amount of water needed in presoaking and pressure washing.
Less water means lower operating costs and fewer washings going into any slurry to be removed.
Table 1 shows the value of an improved cleaning program. The economics show an improvement in saleable meat/ton of feed of 57 lb., equal to a 19% reduction in feed cost savings, yielding an REO of 3.8:1 after allowing for extra cleaning costs.


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About a year ago, Sally Meyerhoff had the crazy idea of trying to compete professionally as both a distance runner and as a triathlete.
On March 8, while on a cycling workout near her home in Maricopa, Ariz., she was hit by a truck and killed.
The former Duke All-American runner won this year's P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon (2:37:49)--particularly special for her because it was not only her first marathon victory but also an opportunity to finish in her childhood hometown of Tempe. More importantly, it came just two months after a disappointing performance at the New York City Marathon.
Meyerhoff, who was 27, won numerous running races and triathlons in the final three months of her life and had just received her professional triathlon racing license. One of her next objectives was to qualify for the Oct. 8 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii.
Meyerhoff was a fountain of energy and optimism. And while she was serious about training and racing, she didn't take herself too seriously. If nothing else, she was a reminder that life is way too short to not pursue your dreams to the fullest every day.
The Sally Meyerhoff Foundation has been established to help less fortunate young people get involved in running. For more information, go to
Actually, it wasn't so crazy. She said it was more of a gut feeling, a way to find physical, emotional and spiritual balance while pursuing her many athletic talents. Among her many goals were to compete in both the 2012 U.S. Olympic marathon trials and the 2012 U.S. Olympic triathlon trials. She quit her job to focus on training, and switched coaches to Adam Zucco, who could advise her in both disciplines.
On her blog in February she talked about how some were telling her there was no way she could do both running and triathlon at a high level, but she didn't care much: She was out to pursue her passions.
A standout swimmer and runner as a teen growing up in the Phoenix area, she started to come into her own as a professional runner in 2009 with a women-only American record for 10 miles on the roads, a win at the U.S. 25K championships and a marathon PR of 2:35:49.
She had considered retiring after clocking a 2:41 in the Big Apple--almost 6 minutes off her PR and only good enough for 10th place in the U.S. women's marathon championships--but, true to the relentlessly positive demeanor, Meyerhoff rebounded and set her sights on future goals.
But what friends, teammates and competitors cherish most about Meyerhoff was her fun-loving, happy-go-lucky--and sometimes downright zany--personality. She wore her long red hair in pigtails. She often donned brightly colored running skirts and hot pink compression socks. She played pranks on family members and friends. She showed up for one of her first cross country workouts at Duke wearing a pink feather boa. After college, she and a few former teammates ran the New Jersey River to Sea Relay in leopard print tank tops she had purchased on the sly.
"I can't express enough how the person she was totally eclipsed her athletic performances," says coach Zucco, who worked with Meyerhoff full-time since November and had known her since 2009. "[Running] was what she did, not who she was … she was just Sally who happened to run. She never stopped being Sally, and I think to me, that's what I'll miss the most."


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This article was originally published in the January/February 1995 issue of Home Energy Magazine. Some formatting inconsistencies may be evident in older archive content.
| Home Energy Home Page | Back Issues of Home Energy |
Home Energy Magazine Online January/February 1995
Cheap Electricity II
About a year-and-a-half ago, I wrote about the appearance of Cheap Electricity caused by plummeting natural gas prices and the onset of independent power producers generating power with gas turbines (see HEJuly/Aug `93, p.2). Some independents are producing electricity for less than 3.5¢/kWh. I speculated about the impact that lower electricity prices will have on conservation efforts by individuals and utilities.
Now the implications of cheap electricity are filtering through the utility industry. California appears to be leading the way. A recently proposed order by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) would allow virtually any consumer to select his or her power provider. The deregulation would begin with large, industrial customers, and would gradually expand to include commercial customers, and then residential customers in 2002. Meanwhile, regulations would be modified to set each utility's profits on its performance, so that it would be rewarded for efficient operations rather than recovery of expenses.
There is justification for the CPUC's action: the regulatory body wants everybody to enjoy access to low-cost electricity while encouraging utilities to operate as efficiently as possible. (There are some less-charitable explanations for the action, ranging from the CPUC's need to justify its political exstence to bungling and poor analysis.) In any event, the proposal must be taken seriously.
The most curious aspect of the current deregulation frenzy is that it is driven almost entirely by the low price of natural gas (and the resulting cheap electricity). The costs of almost every other aspect of electricity production and distribution have not appreciably changed, yet the whole system is being torn down to accommodate low gas prices. In other words, the tail is wagging the dog. A highly unstable situation is being created, that can be toppled by an unexpected upturn in gas prices. One can imagine a rapid regulatory backtracking if gas prices suddenly rise and consumers suddenly do not receive cheap electricity.
Meanwhile, California's utilities are downsizing so they can compete with the independent power producers (see DSM in the Doghouse? p.7). As budgets shrink, virtually the first departments to disappear are those dealing with energy efficiency. There may not be any means for a utility to profit from energy efficiency in the new utility order nor is the CPUC likely to retain any leverage to encourage utilities to operate efficiency programs. As a result, many efficiency programs and rebates have been suspended, and the dismantling of energy-efficiency expertise is already underway.
The impact extends far beyond California. Utilities in other states have already proposed cutbacks in their efficiency programs while local regulators decide whether to follow the California example.
- 1


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Jeremy Cook sent in a new tip about a new debugging extension for Google Chrome that hooks into the DBG debugger to help you test your PHP applications - a DBG Debugger Helper (currently in version 0.0.0.1).
For those using the DBG debugger for PHP development, this minimal extension provides a convenient way to initiate debugging and profiling sessions. The most likely users will be anyone using Nusphere's PhpED. This commercial PHP IDE includes a robust, up-to-date, and full-featured DBG debugger. [...] Installation, configuration, and use is quick and simple. While you can configure the clienthost, port, and session ID entries of the Options dialog, this is not required.
The extension makes it as simple as one click to start and stop the debugging process that will watch round trip requests and catch errors to allow DBG to provide things like backtraces, work through the script step by step.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Bond yields are scraping along at record lows, but investors keep buying them, valuing the modest, fixed returns they pay over the bigger potential profits offered by stocks.
Bill Gross of PIMCO, perhaps the nation's best-known bond fund manager, declared last week that people should think long and hard before buying stocks at all. Gross said in a letter that "the cult of equity is dying." Investors have come to expect more growth from stocks than they can possibly deliver, Gross said.
Some strategists say they've seen this movie before, and investors are setting themselves up for disappointment if they avoid the stock market completely in favor of bonds. Profits from bonds are so meager, they say, that a portfolio of carefully chosen stocks would be a better bet than sticking only with fixed-income investments.
If you opt for bonds, "you'll never make more income than what the bond yield pays," says Margie Patel, managing director and senior portfolio manager with Wells Capital Management, a division of Wells Fargo. At least with stocks, she says, there's a far greater possibility that the value of the investment will appreciate, in addition to any income you may get from dividends.
For investors brave enough to ride out the market's current bout of volatility, "you'd do no worse on an income basis than with very conservative fixed-income investments," such as high-rated corporate bonds, Patel says.
As an example, consider a Microsoft bond due in 2021, which currently pays a yield of 1.6 percent. For every $1,000 invested in the bond, the holder gets $16 in income every year.
That's less than the income an investor would collect from dividends on Microsoft stock. Microsoft's dividend yield at current prices is 2.7 percent, so a $1,000 investment would generate $27 in dividend income every year.
Another point in favor of dividend-paying stocks: Companies are paying out a relatively low portion of their money in dividends, compared to historical averages, Patel says — about 28 percent of their available cash. As companies emerge from their recession-era bunkers, they will likely become less conservative about returning money to shareholders, she says.
In the case of Microsoft, the company has increased its dividend 15 percent over the past five years. Companies that raise their dividends routinely are more likely to continue doing so.
One big reason that bond yields are so low is the Federal Reserve. The central bank has bought trillions of U.S. government bonds and mortgage-backed bonds to keep interest rates low. By making safe investments and savings accounts less attractive, the Fed hopes to encourage banks to lend, people to borrow, and investors to seek higher returns in other assets such as stocks.
The yields on the lowest-risk corporate bonds tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Investors believe the risk that a large, established company will default on its debt is relatively remote and doesn't change very much. As a result, the difference between the yield on that company's bonds and the yield on the comparable Treasury security — known as the spread — is relatively constant. When Treasury yields are low, corporate bond yields are, too.
Historically, when Treasury yields were higher, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was better than the dividends paid by stocks in the S&P 500. Since 1970, Treasury yields outpaced S&P 500 dividends every month except for a brief period in late 2008 and early 2009, when companies had slashed their dividends and stocks were bouncing back from the worst of the financial crisis.
Until recently, that is. S&P 500 dividends blew past Treasury yields in seven of the 10 months ended June of this year, according to data from Birinyi Associates, a stock market research and money management firm.
Despite the slim returns available to bond investors, money continues to flow out of stock funds and into bond funds, according to Brian Reid, chief economist with the Investment Company Institute, a trade group representing money managers.
So why do investors continue to favor bonds?
Dan Alpert, managing partner of the investment bank Westwood Capital LLC, based in New York, says slow economic growth and even slower inflation make bonds attractive investments. When inflation is high, it erodes the purchasing power of bonds' fixed payments over time. When inflation is low, the opposite happens: the future payouts become more valuable.
The "real" yields on bonds — the amount they pay above inflation — are increasing, Alpert says.
Of course, there's no guarantee that stocks will go up. Despite her belief that investors are undervaluing stocks, Patel acknowledges that many still feel bitten by market crashes in 2001 and 2008, and by the herky-jerky trading of the past three summers.
Then there are the technological snags that have disrupted normal trading with increasing frequency. On Wednesday, a software glitch at the brokerage Knight Capital caused dozens of stocks to swing wildly as the market was flooded with erroneous orders.
Other recent market failures include the aborted initial public offering of BATS Global Markets in March, Facebook's chaotic first day of public trading in May, and the May 2010 "flash crash" that sent the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 600 points in five minutes.
Even when markets are working properly, there are ample reasons for investors to worry about owning stocks. European policy makers have been unable to find a way out of their years-old debt crisis. Stocks fell sharply on Thursday after the head of the European Central Bank failed to announce new measures to bolster investors' confidence. If Europe experiences a major financial collapse and recession — still a real possibility — stocks could dive yet again.
Rob Leiphart, an analyst with Birinyi, says that adds up to fear among regular investors — enough to keep them away for some time.
"We've had the euro zone issues resurface three summers in a row, huge swings in volatility three years in a row, and people haven't recovered from the 2001 market yet," he said. "We just had a really bad decade."
But that's no reason to abandon stocks or bonds entirely, analysts said. Reid, of the Investment Company Institute, urged investors to "shy away from people who push them into dumping" one type of investment or another.
"Investors that follow an extreme investing strategy . . . are simply ignoring the risks of what they're investing in," Reid said.
Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.


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The sky? She is falling. Nintendo has taken a beating in the first half of the year, and for the first time in six years the company is projecting its earnings to fall. The ?64.59 billion ($709.3 million) the company earned in the April to September is a 52 percent drop from the same period last year, when the company posted profits of ?144.83 billion ($1.59 billion).
So what's going to happen now? The Japanese company is going to have to lower its gaze and fight in the trenches, as analysts expect at least one more big hit to drive profits before the holidays, but no one believes that sales will ever be able to match the highs Nintendo has experienced in the past years.
The ride couldn't last forever
"It is unrealistic for any company in the entertainment industry to believe they can sustain aggressive growth," Jesse Divnich, director of Analyst Services for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) told Ars. "The appetites of consumers change too frequently when it comes to how we entertain ourselves. The same pace at which an entertainment product can grow is the same pace at which the product can retract."
We've already seen the Nintendo Wii fall from its lofty heights in the United States. Last month the PlayStation 3 outsold the Wii by 29,000 units, an achievement that would have been surreal even six months ago. The Nintendo DS was still the number one selling piece of hardware, but only by 32,400 units.
It's not much better worldwide. "Nintendo, which did not break down quarterly numbers, said it sold 5.75 million Wii machines around the world during the period, far short of the more than 10 million sold for the same six months last year," the Associated Press reported.
How will the price drop affect sales? "We already saw unit sales of the Wii increase substantially in September, so yes, consumers do react to price drops. The question is how long it will impact sales," NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier told Ars. "Looking historically at price drops across a multitude of hardware platforms, there is a wide variance in the sales impact." She does note that $200 is a great psychological price point for consumers.
Divnich claims that Nintendo's success was more than impressive, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event; sales may be buoyed by the price drop, but they'll never reach 2008 levels again. "And that's not to slight Nintendo, I'm just saying that Nintendo's success in 2008 was so massive that it is unlikely anyone will ever be able to repeat it."
Nintendo's secret weapon? New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Nintendo may sound like it's in trouble, but it has one very large advantage coming into this holiday season: a new Mario Bros. title.
Nintendo has claimed the first half of its fiscal year was light on hits, but Frazier points out that this was an industry-wide problem: there just haven't been many monster hits in the past months. "That said, not only should New Super Mario Bros. Wii sell extremely well, but big hits from other publishers (notably MW2) should help improve industry results." It may not be enough to match last year's sales, but she expects a marked improvement in sales coming in the next few months.
Divnich has some bold predictions for New Super Mario Bros. Wii as well. "The New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii will be the best selling game this holiday season, it will even outsell the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," he told Ars. "That is how big of a release this will be. Typically, just one game can't make a difference, but this would be an exception, as New Super Mario Bros will be a large catalyst for hardware and accessory sales for the Nintendo Wii." He puts lifetime sales at over 17 million units, which would make it a hit on the scope of Nintendo's past large successes such as Mario Kart, Wii Fit, and Wii Play.
Our prediction? New Super Mario Bros. Wii is going to be huge. Anecdotes abound: relatives are calling about the game, a story simply featuring a trailer for the game brought in huge traffic, and every time we write about the game the comment thread basically turns into people saying they're either going to buy it or they already have a preorder in. Every sign points to the game becoming a monster, and Nintendo has to be looking forward to its release on November 15 in the US.
What does this mean for Nintendo moving forward?
Everyone seems to agree Nintendo won't be able to match the numbers posted in the first few years of sales for either the Wii or the Nintendo DS, and it's unlikely we'll see a system come close to that level of sustained sales or buzz in the next few generations. Nintendo may be forced to try harder with games and accessories in the coming year, and that's good news for gamers looking for more franchise and AAA titles coming to the system.
After all, sales may be dropping for Nintendo, but that means the company is only very successful, instead of amazingly profitable. Somehow, they may have to learn to live with only being #1 by a smaller margin.


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Distance: 3.8K/ 180K/ 42.1K
Where: Tenby, Wales
When: September 11
First man: Jérémy Jurkiewicz 9:04:21
First woman: Kristen Moeller 10:01:19
Last finisher: 16:44:44
No of finishers: 1133
As the heavens opened over the small seaside village of Tenby in Pembrokeshire, there was a sense of apprehension among the triathletes who had gathered to take part in the inaugural Ironman Wales long-distance triathlon.
Many had already tested parts of the course during The Long Course Weekend, which took place in June, and there was a general feeling that this could be one of the toughest Ironman races on the circuit - and that was if the weather was good. But, as we all know, the only predictable thing about the British weather is its unpredictability.
So, on the Saturday afternoon, with the rain lashing down and strong currents making the South Beach - where the swim was due to start - unswimmable (to use the technical term), the race organisers, together with the RNLI, shifted the swim to the North Beach - which added a cheeky climb up the cliff side before the 1K run to T1.
In the swim
North Beach was supposed to be a mill pond in comparison, but it wasn't. When the starting flare went 'pop' at 7am on Sunday morning, 1300 intrepid triathletes from 43 countries threw themselves into crashing waves, doing their best to dive under or over to make some progress. Even the strongest swimmers later agreed it had been a rough first leg. But with 50 qualifying slots to the Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona available, there was everything to swim for.
Being a two-lap swim, there were inevitable complications. Ironman first-timer Cat Heraty said, "It's a very weird sensation to get into the sea with 1,300 other people and start swimming to the same point. Sooner or later, even with different speeds, you're going to meet a lot of people at a bottleneck. I knew this was to come so I just settled in and swam. Lots of people had run to the far end of the beach nearer to the buoy to swim straight out (and save 400m off their swim) but I thought I'd conserve my legs and make my swim as pure as possible."
First out of the water - in an impressive 44:59 minutes - was Tenby pro Oliver Simon, with three other triathletes right behind him. Running 1K barefoot in a wetsuit is not ideal, especially when it involves zigzagging up a cliff side, so the organisers provided bags in which competitors had left their spare trainers (if they could find them among all the other bags) to run up to T1.
The bike leg
The start of the bike course was the only flat bit of the challenging two-loop route and an opportunity for many to find their bike legs before they met the undulating hills of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. With waves crashing spectacularly into the shore, competitors were temporarily distracted from the exposed nature of some parts of the course (which was a good thing for those who rode with rear disc wheels). And since the sun had decided to make an appearance, riders passing through the area's picturesque villages were cheered by generous numbers of local supporters.
However, this was not a course on which to set a bike-split PB was - no one went under five hours. The fastest split, 5:10, was recorded by this year's Ironman UK winner, Aaron Farlow. Although the course didn't have a huge amount of positive gain in elevation, there was no respite. The continuous climbs and descents, combined with 30mph head winds, made this course breathtaking in more ways than one.
Long run up
If competitors were hoping the run from Tenby would offer some respite, such hopes were quickly dashed: there was an immediate two-and-a-half-mile gradual climb that took them out of town before a turnaround point brought them back again. The course then meandered it's way through the crowd-lined streets of Tenby.
The final moments of the men's race were thrilling; Australian Farlow and Frenchman Jérémy Jurkiewicz battled it out in a sprint to the finish, with Jurkiewicz taking the title in 9:04:21 - a mere but crucial five seconds ahead of Farlow. The women's race was won by Kristin Moeller in 10:01:19, ahead of Anja Ippach (10:15:59) and Age Grouper Stefanie Adam (10:40:59).
By the time most of the weary but grinning finishers had collected their bikes and limped off to eat, a few competitors were still battling it out. Fifteen minutes before the midnight cutoff, Dave Orlowski - who competed in the very first Ironman in 1978 - finished, eight seconds ahead of Mexican Luis Alvarez, who was competing in his 77th Ironman and has completed every Ironman venue in the world. He won't forget this one.
Travel Notes
Where to stay
Being a popular seaside village, there is no shortage of accommodation within 30 minites' drive of Tenby, but it's a good idea to book early. The best option is to look on www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk for a comprehensive list. Other options are:
For self-catering and holiday cottages: 01437 765 765; firstname.lastname@example.com
For hotel or bed-and-breakfast accommodation: 01437 765 777; email@example.com
For a cheaper option there is a Youth Hostel five miles west of Tenby: YHA Manorbier, SA70 7TT; 0845 371 9031; firstname.lastname@example.com
What to do
The Pembrokeshire National Coast is one of the most stunning locations in the UK and there are plenty of attractions for both you and your family. You could go surfing, chill out on the sandy beaches, visit the castles etc. The best place to go for more information is tenbyvisitorguide.co.uk but here are a few ideas:
Pembroke Castle. Established as a Norman fort in 1093, this strategically important castle was later the birthplace of King Henry VII. pembroke-castle.co.uk
Adventure boat trip. A great way to see seals, whales and dolphins. Of explore the nature reserve on Ramsety Island. thousandislands.co.uk
Coasteering. What is it? (rock hopping, adventure swimming, cliff jumping, scramble Climbing and more). celticquestcoasteering.com
Entry details
To find out more about taking part in the next race, visit ironmanwales.com
Photo by Rob Holden


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New map of global land system archetypes
Reference: Tomáš Václavík, Sven Lautenbach, Tobias Kuemmerle, Ralf Seppelt (2013): Mapping global land system archetypes. Global Environmental Change, in press.
Press release, 5 November 2013
Global map provides new insights into land use
UFZ researchers show the complexity of land use by mapping its common patterns
In order to assess the global impacts of land use on the environment and help provide appropriate countermeasures, a group of researchers under the leadership of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) has created a new world map of land use systems. Based on various indicators of land-use intensity, climate, environmental and socio-economic conditions, they identified twelve global patterns called land system archetypes. The scientists from UFZ with colleagues from the Humboldt-University Berlin and University Bonn have recently published their results in the journal Global Environmental Change.
Land use changes come in various forms: maize fields replace meadows and grasslands, tropical forests are cleared for pastures, steppes become cropland. The reasons are complex, the impacts are immense: animal and plant communities change, ecosystem functions disappear, carbon emissions contribute to climate change. Whatever happens regionally has global consequences. In order to better assess these impacts and help provide effective countermeasures, the researchers from UFZ created a world map that identifies twelve global land-use systems, also called archetypes. These include barren lands in the developing world, pastoral systems or extensive cropping systems. Germany, for instance, together with most of the Western Europe, Eastern USA and Western Australia represents the 'intensive cropping system' that covers about 5% of the terrestrial Earth surface. This system is characterised by high density of cropland, high inputs of nitrogen fertilisers, temperate climate, high crop yields, large capital investments in the agricultural sector, low proportion of GDP originating from agriculture and good access to market places.
What is novel about this research is the fact that the scientists analyzed significantly more data and indicators than what is common in similar studies. In contrast to traditional models of land use, over 30 factors with more than one million data points were processed. "For example, we didn't know before which regions had an unfulfilled potential for agricultural intensification given the environmental and socio-economic conditions, or in which regions the maximum agricultural yields were already achieved", says Tomáš Václavík, a scientist and leading author from UFZ. The information that was usually hidden behind the complexity of data is now revealed. "If we had analysed only the environmental indicators, we could not identify where viable opportunities for yield improvements exist".
This new analysis also shows a different picture of land use than scientists had before. China, for example, belongs to five different archetypes. "It was surprising to see that the intensity and type of land use in some regions of China was quite similar to the situation in Western Europe or the United States. Thus, parts of China, together with particular regions of India and, of course, large areas of Europe, were assigned to the 'intensive cropping systems' archetype", says Tomáš Václavík.
According to the co-author and the head of the Department of Computational Landscape Ecology at UFZ Leipzig, Prof. Ralf Seppelt, this representation of land systems is useful also because we can now provide science-based policy recommendations for regions in certain land-use types on how to avoid negative consequences of land use. This can be easily explained with examples from Latin America and Southeast Asia: many areas in these regions are classified as 'degraded forest/cropland systems in the tropics' characterized by extremely high soil erosion. Because the socio-economic data show that agriculture plays an important role in the national economy of the local countries, it is essential to develop and apply erosion control measures for these regions. Only then the agricultural yields could increase without negatively affecting the environment. In other land systems the situation is quite different. The extensive cropping systems of Eastern Europe or India still have a high potential to increase the agricultural yields. Such opportunities, however, are largely exhausted in the intensive cropping systems of Western Europe and the USA.
This study is a product of the scientific coordination project GLUES (Global Assessment of Land Use Dynamics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Ecosystem Services), which is a part of the Sustainable Land Management research program funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In this program, international research teams investigate land use changes in twelve regions worldwide. The GLUES team not only links the regional projects and communicates their results to the public and the scientific community, but it also conducts research in the area of scientific synthesis as in the current study. For Ralf Seppelt, the leader of the GLUES project, the land system archetypes thus represent an important achievement: "They help us understand the interactions between human activities on the one hand and social and environmental changes on the other."
Benjamin Haerdle/ Tilo Arnhold


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It seems like something that only a crazed conspiracy theorist would come up with. A source of carbon-free energy that holds the potential to provide base load power for the planet for thousands of years hence, and which could be built along the existing transmission grid and even be housed within retrofitted coal-fired power stations. A process that could eat existing nuclear waste instead of needing to store it in highly secure vaults such as Yucca Mountain for hundreds of millennia. A technology that enjoyed large investments in R&D by government, only to have the funding zeroed for political reasons when close to large-scale demonstration — and then the scientists involved told not to publicise this fact. Well that, in caricature, is the basic story of Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear power.
Perhaps it is too good to be true — almost everything that's been hyped as 'the future of…' is, after all. But not everything — the exceptions to the 'hype rule' now dominate our modern technological society (home computers, mobile communications, satellite communications, etc.). So what if IFR is the real deal? Well, some very clever folks have been looking into this and conclude that it is — or at least worth pushing. As I described in an earlier post, Hansen is among them — at least in terms of seeing the value in giving this tech a fair go — and he's certainly not alone. Mark Lynas for instance, author of 'Six Degrees', has also pitched in.
There are some great resources out on the web, and a new book, for those of you who want to know more about IFR nuclear — in order to make your own informed judgement about whether you choose to advocate it. Steve Kirsch, a Californian entrepreneur who invented the optical mouse (and former nuclear agnostic), has written a great summary article about IFR here (h/t to JM) and a shorter Silicon Valley newspaper Op Ed here. Steve's website provides a wealth of links to additional information on IFR and related developments. The PBC television programme 'Frontline' recently interviewed nuclear physicist and IFR co-developer Dr. Charles Till — the transcript is available here.
Kirsch summarises the key advantages of IFR as follows:
1. It can be fueled entirely with material recovered from today's used nuclear fuel.
2. It consumes virtually all the long-lived radioactive isotopes that worry people who are concerned about the "nuclear waste problem," reducing the needed isolation time to less than 500 years.
3. It could provide all the energy needed for centuries (perhaps as many as 50,000 years), feeding only on the uranium that has already been mined.
4. It uses uranium resources with 100 to 300 times the efficiency of today's reactors.
5. It does not require enrichment of uranium.
6. It has less proliferation potential than the reprocessing method now used in several countries.
7. It's 24×7 baseline power.
8. It can be built anywhere there is water.
9. The power is very inexpensive (some estimates are as low as 2 cents/kWh to produce).
10. Safe from melt down because if something goes wrong, the reactor naturally shuts down rather than blows up.
11. And, of course, it emits no greenhouse gases.
Key disadvantages (from the Wikipedia article) are given as:
1. Because the current cost of reactor-grade enriched uranium is low compared to the expected cost of large-scale pyroprocessing and electrorefining equipment and the cost of building a secondary coolant loop, the higher fuel costs of a thermal reactor over the expected operating lifetime of the plant are offset by the increased capital cost of an IFR. (Currently in the United States, utilities pay a flat rate of 1/10 of a cent per kilowatt hour for disposal of high level radioactive waste. If this charge were based on the longevity of the waste, then the IFR might become more financially competitive.)
2. Reprocessing nuclear fuel using pyroprocessing and electrorefining has not yet been demonstrated on a commercial scale. As such, investing in a large IFR plant is considered a higher financial risk than a conventional light water reactor.
3. The flammability of sodium. Sodium burns easily in air, and will ignite spontaneously on contact with water. The use of an intermediate coolant loop between the reactor and the turbines minimizes the risk of a sodium fire in the reactor core.
4. Under neutron bombardment, sodium-24 is produced. This is highly radioactive, emitting an energetic gamma ray of 2.7 MeV followed by a beta decay to form magnesium-24. Half life is only 15 hours, so this isotope is not a long-term hazard – indeed it has medical applications. Nevertheless, the presence of sodium-24 further necessitates the use of the intermediate coolant loop between the reactor and the turbines.
Tom Blees has spend the last few years writing a book on IFR and a few related techs (such as 'boron power' for vehicles) called 'Prescription for the Planet', which Hansen referred to, and it has received unanimous highly favourable reviews at Amazon. (side note: if you want a contrasting view, see Helen Caldicott's book 'Nuclear Power is Not the Answer '). I can't vouch for the quality of Blees' book myself, but I've ordered it and will post a book review here on BNC once I've had it delivered and mentally digested.
Something I found really useful in addressing my doubts and scepticism about the feasibility, safety and scalability of the IFR process, were two Question & Answer overviews / FAQs. This includes a detailed refutation of all of the 'cons' listed above. One is written by IFR project physicist Dr George Stanford called 'Integral Fast Reactors: Source of Safe, Abundant, Non-Polluting Power' . The other was put together as a compilation by Kirsch, and integrates a collection of comments from Blees, Stanford, Carl Page and some quotes from those who have reviewed the material.
Read these, judge for yourself, and feel free to post comments here — I (and others I hope) will do my best to answer you or direct you to the right material to get your answers. I'd appreciate continuing the critical examination of this that was started in the two other posts.
Does the above mean I've given up on my strong push for large-scale renewables? Absolutely not (!), and for a nation like Australia, solar thermal, wind, wave, geothermal and microalgal biodiesel, along with energy efficiency and conservation, should be a primary focus for the next decade. But I strongly doubt they will ever be wholly sufficient [I'll explain why in another post. Update I – read here]. That's why IFR and similar techs also desperately need our support — not our unthinking denigration just because we may have some ingrained distaste for anything nuclear.
We can't predict what will ultimately deliver the best solutions to society, in terms of securing a near-zero-emissions energy supply and arming us with the tools the avoid catastrophic climate change. To do this, we must use whatever options are at our disposal, and push these potential solutions as fast and hard as we possibly can.
Update II – See comments that follow this posting for a further detailed round of Q&A on the feasibility of IFR.


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Wednesday wraparound: Fred Franzia, more post-WBC14 opinionating, and "the tipping point"
Not sayin' that Fred Franzia is on the same enlightened level as the Dalai Lama, but it seems to me that HuffPo's Chris Knox came down on him a little strong—even for a medium (the blog) that's known for snark.
"Trash-mouthed, unapologetic [and] downright crude"? Well, I don't think Fred ever graduated from charm school, but he's not as bad as all that. I've known him—not well, but some—over the years, and I've managed to find affection for him, even though he's done one or two crummy things to me. But I've done crummy things to people, too, so as usual, the Golden Rule applies. Fred, like it or not, is a product of his time and place—besides, someone once said that people who swear a lot are more honest, and there's a lot of truth to that.
More important is Chris Knox's j'accuse! against Two Buck Chuck. Now, I can't say I have any idea if the wines contain (as Chris alleges), "animal blood and parts" (I should think the FDA, or whoever the relevant government agency is, would be up on that). But I can say that I respect Fred, and Bronco, his company, for making wine that anybody can afford to drink—and varietal wines, at that. I think we all agree that the most important thing for the wine industry is to get more people drinking. Two Buck Chuck does that; Petrus doesn't. So kudos to Fred, from my point of view.
* * *
Kudos, too, to Joe Roberts AKA 1WineDude, for telling it like it is yesterday on his blog. I was kind of at Ground Zero of all the post-WBC14 grousing and blather, and I really wasn't in the mood to put my [strong] thoughts into words, so I refrained, except in a few private exchanges. But Joe, bless his heart, who perhaps has garnered some credibility in the world of Millennial bloggers, let 'er rip. The comments on his blog—104 and counting, as I write this—make for fascinating reading on their own. My fave: "did the panelists (those accomplished online/print writers that happened to be middle-aged white dudes) miss an opportunity, or, did we bloggers miss the opportunity?" Joe deserves credit for his courageous, truthful expression of the facts.
* * *
Some of us were talking the other day about how a new winery/brand reaches "the tipping point," in terms of popularity and success. One suggestion was that, to a certain extent, this can be stage-managed, through smart, creative marketing, promotional and sales efforts—although admittedly, that can be expensive. Another point of view is that tipping points occur serendipitously. You can't make them happen, no matter how much money you spend (as any number of billionaires who have run for California governor over the years, and embarrassingly lost, well know). All that the expenditure of money (on media events, etc.) can do is increase the winery's chances of being noticed by "the right people." That is indeed important—but beyond that, there's still the element of magic. Moreover, a winery can "hit it" for a brief period of time—Warhol's 15 minutes of fame—but staying relevant is a lot harder. If there was a formula, or template, for reaching "the tipping point," everyone would know it. But there isn't.
* * *
Finally, a link to another blog, today's edition of "Juicy Tales by Jo Diaz," in which she expresses points of view I pretty much agree with. And with that, I'll wish you all a good day!
My all time, most read blog ever, Steve, was the one where I wrote that you had left the building. I had 2,158 unique visitors to my site that day… a far cry from the 300 that would be usual.
Again today, with it only being 9:10 a.m., readership is escalating at a fast pace, with a lot of it coming in from your own blog. It's clear to me that your fan base is HUGE, and it's is really well deserved, because you have history, clarity, and work tirelessly to have writing continue to be the craft of the greatest minds in history.
Joe Roberts fixated on machine picking, dead animals,and MOG as the primary problem with the quality to Bronco wines.
That's insignificant when compared to Bronco's real detriments to quality: Planting in the soft soils of the central valley where the temperatures average 95 degrees in the summer, cropping at a whopping 14-30 tons per acre, applying more water than a rice paddy, and trellising every variety on a extended quadrilateral system.
But seriously who cares? The bottom of the market has a place in the hearts of many. It would be nice if Fred Franzia could recognise that the other segments of the market have validity and value also.
I have finally figured out the problem that the wine bloggers have with old white guys like Steve Heimoff.
They have audiences with fewer readers than hours in the day, think they are the equal to Heimoff, Dunne, etc, because they also can claim (rightfully so) to be journalists/winewriters.
Most of the thousand wine bloggers are amateurs–which is not to say that they do not count, but they want to be treated like pros, put on panels to share their knowledge and believe in their own self-importance.
Blogging at their level should be for the sheer pleasure of it. It cannot be more. There is no room for 1000 wine blogs any more than there is room for 1,000 new car blogs. Go ask Joe Roberts, our hero of the day, how many wine blogs he reads in a day.
I find it sad and a little depressing that the wine blogosphere, which I admire greatly, is trying to be more than it is. If the words of Steve Heimoff and Mike Dunne cannot help you improve, then maybe you can't improve and should just enjoy yourself.
Please also see, if you are interested in a longer rant about the importance of wine blogging and the perils of its existence, my editorial blog today at http://www.cgcw.com. It will piss a few people off, but it has some also some essential truths about what blogging is and is not.
Thanks for the mention, Steve. I was just fed up with the gestalt coming out of WBC14 generally, which all-in-all was quite a good incarnation of the conference.
Mark – "Joe Roberts fixated on machine picking, dead animals,and MOG as the primary problem with the quality to Bronco wines." Uhm… I have NO IDEA what you are talking about in your comment. I had **nothing** to do with that article whatsoever aside from sharing it on Facebook and twitter via a link to the original, merely to generate discussion. I personally said NOTHING about machine picking, dead animals, MOG, or Bronco wines myself. Now, I happen to personally have issues with the market supporting a convicted felon, so I am okay with the author taking Franzia to task (though I agree with the comments that the article was, at best, shoddily written). But your statement in the above comment about me is patently false, and should be rescinded.
For those of us, and we're legion, with a limited income who enjoy wine with virtually every lunch and dinner, we need a decent vin de table/vin ordinaire. Bronco turns out many value (=cheap) brands like Forest Glen,Fox Brook, Sea Ridge as well as Charles Shaw that gives us such vino. Their good enough wines are superior to those produced by the Wine Group and Gallo. Thanks to the Franzia Family.
You should note that Chris Knox did not write the piece for the Huffington Post. He wrote that piece on another website altogether THREE YEARS AGO if I'm not mistaken, and for some reason, it was added to HuffPost over the past few days.
I know Chris well, and he would be the first to admit that he was trying to be 'over-sensationalistic' in writing that piece.
What's interesting to me are the number of people who read that and nod their heads and get 'grossed out' by the concept of machine picking. I guess folks don't realize that the majority of Australian vineyards have been machine picked for quite some time; that it continues to be experimented with throughout Europe; and that there are some relatively higher end places here in CA the employ machine picking from time to time as well . . .
What all the complainers about everything do not realize is that we judge wine by what is in the glass when we pour it. If the process makes less good wine, then it shows. If the process makes no difference, who gives a rusty rat's ass except for a few purists. And if the process helps, such as adding small amounts of SO2 or judicious use of oak or controlling fermentation temperatures, or god forbid, even leaving some RS in the wine (anyone here drink Riesling), then what's the fuss. As I keep asking, if the process does not hurt us or the planet and it results in better wine, then I am all for it.
I have commented before on this and other blogs, and will reiterate again that the great winemaker Joe Heitz was a proponent of machine harvesting.
See his "spirited" interview in Bob Benson's tome titled "Great Winemakers of California: Conversations with Robert Benson (Interviews with 28 California Winemakers)."
Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Winemakers-California-Conversations-Interviews/dp/0884961079
He (and his mentor at Beaulieu Vineyard André Tchelistcheff) crafted the greatest California Cabernets of their era.
(I don't know how the grapes were harvested at BV. I invite someone to "ring in" with a response.)
So I "second" Charlie's colorful comment that it doesn't matter a "rusty rat's ass" if this violates the tenets of the purists. If it produces a better wine — good!
It worked for Heitz. It can work for others.
We all need to keep our "eyes on the prize": a better drinking glass of wine.
The wine industry needs "technically sound," entry-level priced wines to entice infrequent drinkers to adopt it as a beverage of everyday pleasure.
Not an "exclusive" beverage for "special occasions."
Fred's wine do that for folks by anchoring the base of the "price/quality pyramid."
The next price and quality stratum up one finds Gallo and Columbia Crest and Kendall-Jackson wines.
The Millennials don't earn incomes comparable to Gen Xs and Baby Boomers.
The domestic market needs to cater to those budget conscious imbibers — else they will express their dollars in the marketplace through beer and grain-based alcohol purchases.