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This may be the year Congress decides what to do about the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. After years of gridlock, there are ideas whizzing all around Washington.
For now, all eyes are on an 844-page Senate proposal with the you-said-a-mouthful title of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013."
Look for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take its first votes on the legislation on Thursday.
What's in that bill? Is there a Plan B? And who are all these immigrants, once you get past the big round numbers?
A big dose of facts, figures and other information to help understand the current debate:
Major problems with U.S. immigration have been around for decades.
President George W. Bush tried to change the system and failed. President Barack Obama promised to overhaul it in his first term but never did.
In Obama's second term, he's making immigration a priority, and Republicans also appear ready to deal.
Why the new commitment?
Obama won 71 percent of Hispanic voters in his 2012 re-election campaign, and he owes them. Last year's election also sent a loud message to Republicans that they can't ignore this pivotal voting bloc.
It's been the kind of breathtaking turnaround you rarely see in politics. Plus, there's growing pressure from business leaders, who want to make it easier for the U.S. to attract highly educated immigrants and to legally bring in more lower-skilled workers such as farm laborers.
Talk about "comprehensive immigration reform" generally centers on four main questions:
—What to do about the 11 million-plus immigrants who live in the U.S. without legal permission.
—How to tighten border security.
—How to keep businesses from employing people who are in the U.S. illegally.
—How to improve the legal immigration system, now so convoluted that the adjective "Byzantine" pops up all too frequently.
RELATED: Republicans need to pass not just support immigration reform, says poll
A group of four Democrats and four Republicans in the Senate that crafted a bill to address all four questions. In a nutshell, this proposal would tighten border controls, allow more high- and low-skilled workers to legally immigrate, require employers to verify their workers have legal status, and create an opportunity for those who are in the U.S. illegally to eventually become citizens.
And C and D.
Obama has his own backup plan in case congressional talks fail, but he's given his support to the Senate bill as a worthy compromise.
In the House, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, says his committee will tackle the main immigration issues one by one, instead of starting with a single sweeping bill.
Separately, there's a bipartisan House group working on legislation.
Obama says he'll keep an open mind about the various proposals, but the final deal has to address all the big issues.
A record 40.4 million immigrants live in the U.S., representing 13 percent of the population. More than 18 million are naturalized citizens, 11 million are legal permanent or temporary residents, and more than 11 million are in the country without legal permission, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research organization.
Those in the U.S. illegally made up about 3.7 percent of the U.S. population in 2010. While overall immigration has steadily grown, the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally peaked at 12 million in 2007.
Twenty-nine percent of the foreign-born in the U.S., or about 11.7 million people, came from Mexico. About 25 percent came from South and East Asia, 9 percent from the Caribbean, 8 percent from Central America, 7 percent South America, 4 percent the Middle East and the rest from elsewhere.
The figures are more lopsided for immigrants living here illegally: An estimated 58 percent are from Mexico. The next closest figure is 6 percent from El Salvador, says the government.
California has the largest share of the U.S. immigrant population, 27 percent, followed by New York, New Jersey, Florida, Nevada, Hawaii and Texas, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a private group focused on global immigration issues.
California has the largest share of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, at 25 percent, followed by Texas with 16 percent. Florida and New York each has 6 percent, and Georgia has 5 percent, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
RELATED: May Day activists cheer state immigration laws
Here's one way to think about the ways immigrants arrive in the U.S: Some come in the front door, others the side door and still others the back door, as laid out in a report from the private Population Reference Bureau.
—Arriving through the front door: people legally sponsored by their families or employers. Also refugees and asylum-seekers, and immigrants who win visas in an annual "diversity" lottery.
—Side door: legal temporary arrivals, including those who get visas to visit, work or study. There are dozens of types of nonimmigrant visas, available to people ranging from business visitors to foreign athletes and entertainers. Visitors from dozens of countries don't even need visas.
—Back door: Somewhat more than half of those in the U.S. illegally have come in the back door, evading border controls, Pew estimates. The rest legally entered, but didn't leave when they were supposed to or otherwise violated terms of their visas.
Simply being in the United States in violation of immigration laws isn't, by itself, a crime; it's a civil violation.
Entering the country without permission is a misdemeanor criminal offense. Re-entering the country without authorization after being formally removed can be felony.
Pew estimates that a little less than half of immigrants who lack legal permission to live in the U.S. didn't enter the country illegally. They overstayed their visas, worked without authorization, dropped out of school or otherwise violated the conditions of their visas.
There are varying and strong opinions about how best to refer to the 11 million-plus people who are in the U.S. without legal permission.
Illegal immigrants?
Undocumented workers?
Unauthorized population?
Illegal aliens?
The last has generally fallen out of favor. Some immigrant advocates are pressing a "Drop the I-Word" campaign, arguing that it is dehumanizing to refer to people as "illegal."
"Undocumented worker" often isn't accurate because many aren't workers, and some have documents from other countries. Homeland Security reports refer to "unauthorized immigrants," but the agency also reports statistics on "aliens apprehended."
—Legal permanent residents (LPRs): people who have permission to live in the U.S. permanently but aren't citizens. They're also known as "green card" holders. Most of them can apply for citizenship within five years of getting green cards. In 2011, 1.06 million people got the cards.
—Refugees and asylees: people who come to the U.S. to avoid persecution in their home countries. What's the difference between the two terms? Refugees are people who apply for protective status before they get to the U.S. Asylees are people who apply upon arrival in the U.S. or later.
—Naturalization: The process by which immigrants become U.S. citizens.
RELATED: Poll-Americans don't know what to think about immigration reform
Is there an actual green card? Indeed there is.
It's the Permanent Resident Card issued to people who are authorized to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis. In 2010, the government redesigned them to add new security features — and make them green again.
The cards had been a variety of colors over the years. New green cards are good for 10 years for lawful permanent residents and two years for conditional residents.
There's a lot of talk about creating a "path to citizenship" for immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal status.
But there's vigorous debate over what conditions these immigrants should have to satisfy to get citizenship — among them are paying taxes, fines and fees, and passing background checks.
Some legislators want to set additional conditions, such as improvements in border security and in tracking whether legal immigrants leave the country when required. Others want to limit immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally to some sort of legal status that stops short of citizenship.
But more than 60 percent of Americans think those who are here illegally should have a way to become citizens, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in April.
The Senate bill would allow those in the country illegally to obtain "registered provisional immigrant" status six months after the bill was enacted if they met certain conditions.
Additional border security improvements would have to go into place before anyone obtained green cards or citizenship.
It would take immigrants living here illegally at least 13 years to get all the way to citizenship. They'd have to pay taxes, fees and $2,000 in fines. No one who entered the country after Dec. 31, 2011, or had a felony conviction or more than three misdemeanors would be eligible.
Nothing stirs up a hornet's nest like talk of amnesty for immigrants who are in the country illegally, although there's a lot of disagreement over how to define the term.
A 2007 effort to overhaul the immigration system, led by Bush, failed in part because Republicans were dismayed that it included a process to give otherwise law-abiding immigrants who were in the country illegally a chance to become citizens. Critics complained that would be offering amnesty.
All sides know it's not practical to talk about sending 11 million-plus people back to their countries of origin. So one big challenge this time is finding an acceptable way to resolve the status of those who are in the country illegally.
Backers of the Senate bill stress that those who are in the country illegally would have a longer and more difficult path to citizenship under their plan than would immigrants who followed all the rules.
While the larger immigration debate goes on, the government already is offering as many as 1.76 million immigrants who are in the country illegally a way to avoid deportation, at least for now.
Obama announced a program in June that puts off deportation for many people brought here as children. Applicants for the reprieve must have arrived before they turned 16, be younger than 31 now, be high school graduates or in school, or have served in the military. They can't have a serious criminal record or pose a threat to public safety or national security.
Applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are averaging more than 3,000 a day. By mid-April, nearly 489,000 people had applied and more than 268,000 had been approved, with most of the rest still under consideration.
Applications have come from all 50 states, with the largest number coming from California and Texas. Nearly 75 percent of the applicants are originally from Mexico.
In some ways, the program closely tracks the failed DREAM Act, which would have given many young illegal immigrants a path to legal status. Obama's program doesn't give them legal status but it at least protects them from deportation for two years.
The U.S. is in its fourth and largest immigration wave.
First came the Colonial era, then an 1820-1870 influx of newcomers mostly from Northern and Western Europe. Most were Germans and Irish, but the gold rush and jobs on the transcontinental railroad also attracted Chinese immigrants.
In the 1870s, immigration declined due to economic problems and restrictive legislation.
The third wave, between 1881 and 1920, brought more than 23 million people to the U.S., mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, aided by cheaper trans-Atlantic travel and lured by employers seeking workers.
Then came the Great Depression and more restrictive immigration laws, and immigration went into decline for decades.
The fourth wave, still underway, began in 1965 with the end of immigration limits based on nationality. Foreign-born people made up 1 in 20 residents of the U.S. in 1960; today, the figure is about 1 in 8.
RELATED: Immigration reform on the verge of seismic shift from family to work-based system
Until the late 1800s, immigration was largely a free for all. Then came country-by-country limits. Since then, big changes in U.S. immigration law have helped produce big shifts in migration patterns.
Among the more notable laws:
—1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: Abolished country-by-country limits, established a new system that determined immigration preference based on family relationships and needed skills, and expanded the categories of family members who could enter without numerical limits.
—1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: Legalized about 2.7 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, 84 percent of them from Mexico and Central America.
—1990 Immigration Act: Increased worldwide immigration limit to a "flexible cap" of 675,000 a year. The number can go higher in some years if there are unused visas available from the previous year.
—1996 Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Expanded possible reasons for deporting people or ruling them ineligible to enter the U.S., expedited removal procedures, gave state and local police power to enforce immigration laws.
—Post-2001: In 2001, talk percolated about a new immigration plan to deal with unauthorized immigrants, guest workers and violence along the Mexican border. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 put an end to that, amid growing unease over illegal immigration.
The last big immigration legalization plan, in 1986, took six years to get done.
The law, signed by President Ronald Reagan, had three main components: making it illegal to hire unauthorized workers, improving border enforcement and providing for the legalization of a big chunk of the estimated 3 million to 5 million immigrants then in the country illegally.
The results were disappointing on two central fronts: The hiring crackdown largely failed because there was no good way to verify eligibility to work, and it took a decade to improve border security. As a result, illegal immigration continued to grow, fueled by the strong U.S. economy.
What did work as intended: Close to 3 million immigrants living in the U.S. without permission received legal status. By 2009, about 40 percent of them had been naturalized, according to Homeland Security.
Census figures show that between 1960 and 2010, immigration from Europe declined while the numbers coming from Latin America and Asia took off. As the immigrants' points of origin changed, so did their destinations. Concentrations shifted from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West.
A few Census Bureau snapshots:
—In 1960, there were fewer than 1 million people in the U.S. who were born in Latin America. By 2010, there were 21.2 million.
—In 1960, 75 percent of foreigners in the U.S. came from Europe. By 2010, 80 percent came from Latin America and Asia.
—In 1960: 47 percent of the foreign-born lived in the Northeast and 10 percent in the South. By 2010, 22 percent lived in the Northeast and 32 percent in the South.
The fence between the U.S. and Mexico runs off and on for 651 miles along the 1,954-mile border. Most of it has been built since 2005. At some points, it's an 18-foot-high steel mesh structure topped with razor wire. At others, it's a rusting, 8-foot-high thing, made of Army surplus landing mats from the Vietnam War.
The fencing is one of the more visible manifestations of a massive effort over the past two decades to improve border security. The results of that effort are dramatic. Those images of crowds of immigrants sprinting across the border illegally while agents scramble to nab a few are largely a thing of the past.
Two decades ago, fewer than 4,000 Border Patrol agents worked along the Southwest border. Today there are 18,500.
Plummeting apprehension statistics are one measure of change: 357,000 last year, compared with 1.6 million in 2000. The numbers are down in part because fewer are trying to make it across.
The border isn't sealed but it is certainly more secure.
The Senate bill would require the government to have even tougher border security plans before those who are in the country illegally could become legal permanent resident
With tighter border security and years of economic difficulty in the U.S., it turns out that most of the immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission have been there for a while. Just 14 percent have arrived since the start of 2005, according to Homeland Security estimates. In contrast, 29 percent came during the previous five years.
At the peak in 2000, about 770,000 immigrants arrived annually from Mexico, most of them entering the country illegally. By 2010, the pace had dropped to about 140,000, most of them arriving as legal immigrants, according to Pew.
Mexicans, mostly. Since 1986, more than 4 million noncitizens have been deported. Deportations have expanded in the Obama administration, reaching 410,000 in 2012 from 30,000 in 1990. Most of those deported — 75 percent — are sent back to Mexico. Nearly half of those removed had prior criminal convictions. So far, the Obama administration has deported more than 1.6 million people.
Lots of U.S. immigrants who are eligible to become naturalized citizens don't bother. As of 2010, about two-thirds of eligible immigrants had applied for citizenship, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That lags behind the rate in other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada, which do more to promote naturalization.
What's so great about citizenship?
Naturalization offers all sorts of rights and benefits, including the right to vote and run for office. Naturalized citizens are protected from losing their residency rights and being deported if they get in legal trouble. They can bring family members into the U.S. more quickly.
Certain government jobs and licensed professions require citizenship. Citizenship also symbolizes full membership in U.S. society.
In 2010, there was a 67 percent earnings gap between naturalized citizens and noncitizen immigrants, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute. Even after stripping out differences in education, language skills and work experience, naturalized citizens earned at least 5 percent more.
Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become U.S. citizens haven't done so, according to a Pew study released in February. Their rate of naturalization is half that of legal immigrants from all other countries combined. The barriers to naturalization cited by Mexican nonapplicants include the need to learn English, the difficulty of the citizenship exam and the $680 application fee.
How do immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission fit into the nation's jobs picture?
In 2010, about 8 million were working in the U.S. or trying to get work. They made up about 5 percent of the labor force, according to Pew. Among U.S. farm workers, about half are believed to be in the country illegally, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Business groups want a system to legally bring in both more highly skilled workers and more lower-skilled workers such as agricultural laborers. The idea is to hire more when Americans aren't available to fill jobs. This has been a sticking point in past attempts at immigration overhaul. Labor groups want any such revamped system to provide worker protections and guard against displacing American workers. Current temporary worker programs are cumbersome and outdated.
The Senate bill would establish a agriculture worker visa system and create more visa programs for high- and low-skilled workers. Farm workers already here illegally would be able to qualify for green cards after five years if they'd already worked in agriculture in the U.S. for two years and if they kept working in the industry.
Current law requires employers to have their workers fill out a form that declares them authorized to work in the U.S. Then the employer needs to verify that the worker's identifying documents look real. But the law allows lots of different documents, and many of them are easy to counterfeit.
The government has developed a mostly voluntary employment verification system called E-Verify, which has gradually gotten better. But so far just 10 percent of employers are using it, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The system is now required in varying degrees by 19 states.
The Senate proposal would require all employers to implement it within four years.
A big question in the immigration debate centers on how much priority to give to the family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Under current law, the U.S. awards a much larger proportion of green cards to family members than to foreigners with job prospects here. About two-thirds of permanent legal immigration to the U.S. is family-based, compared with about 15 percent that is employment-based, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The rest is largely humanitarian.
Some policymakers think employment-based immigration should be boosted to help the economy. Advocates for families want to make sure any such action doesn't come at the expense of people seeking to join relatives in the U.S.
The Senate plan would prevent citizens from bringing in siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if the children were under 31. It would raise the cap on visas for high-skilled workers, create a startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs, and set up a new merit visa that would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other factors.
For all the attention being devoted to immigration right now, it's not the top priority for most people, even for most Hispanics. It ranked 17th on a list of policy priorities in a recent Pew Research Center poll. Among Hispanics, one-third said immigration was an extremely important issue to them, behind such issues as the economy and jobs, education and health care.
Is life actually better in the U.S.? A little more than half of Mexican adults think so, according to a 2012 Pew Global Attitudes poll. Thirty-eight percent said they'd move to the U.S. if they had the chance. Nineteen percent said they'd come even without authorization.
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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Blenheim Ornament , A new pup for your tree, or window or anywhere you want a smile to appear!
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You may use this pattern to make items for personal use or pin money use (No mass production). If you wish to publish the finish product (online or offline) Please give credit to the designer Sarahs Beading Obsession. You may NOT resell the pattern (or a part of the pattern) itself as your own design, All my patterns are for your private use, not to be copied or resold.

subset: commoncrawl


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No. 4 Duke holds Monmouth to three points in first half of rout
- Duke beat Monmouth, 73-32
- Blue Devils held the Hawks to a Division I record-tying three points in the first half
- Duke forced 29 turnovers
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke's defense was too quick, too tall and too strong for overmatched Monmouth, and it added up to a share of an NCAA record.
The fourth-ranked Blue Devils held Monmouth to a Division I record-tying three points in the first half of a 73-32 rout Sunday.
The Hawks managed just one field goal in the opening 20 minutes against the Blue Devils (11-0). They matched the NCAA's halftime scoring mark set in 2003 by Savannah State against Florida State and equaled by Tennessee State two years ago against Georgia Tech.
"You're not necessarily trying to do that, per se, but we were trying to be very focused on things that we were trying to accomplish defensively," coach Joanne P. McCallie said.
Tricia Liston scored 15 points, Chelsea Gray had 13 points and Haley Peters added 11 points and 10 rebounds for the Blue Devils, who could afford an off day from star sophomore Elizabeth Williams.
She had 11 rebounds but matched a career low with seven points — nine below her average — on 1-of-7 shooting.
The Blue Devils shot 42.9 percent, built a 55-28 rebounding advantage, forced 29 turnovers, turned them into 28 points and set the school record for lowest shooting percentage allowed in a half. It was the fifth time this season that Duke held its opponent to 45 or fewer points.
"We were really trying to make a statement with our defense today and create from there," Liston said.
Monmouth (3-8) shot just 4 percent in the first half; Duke's previous low was 9.1 percent allowed in 2005 to Ball State. The Cardinals also owned the old mark of seven points scored in the opening half against Duke one year earlier.
"I hate to use the word, but we played scared in the first half, offensively, to me," Monmouth coach Jenny Palmateer said. "We played a little intimidated in the first half, and I don't think we did in the second."
The opponent's early futility largely masked what for a while was a sluggish, subpar day for the Blue Devils — who begin the heart of Atlantic Coast Conference play later this week with a visit to North Carolina State. The Wolfpack knocked top-seeded Duke out in the quarterfinals of last season's ACC tournament.
"Our defense better be sharp against that team," McCallie said. "Certainly, we have reminders of last year."
McCallie says she isn't worried about an offense that, in its first game since a two-game sweep in Southern California ended Dec. 22, finished with a season-high 24 turnovers and a season-low 13 assists.
Duke also went eight minutes between field goals and — despite a 29-3 halftime lead — scratched out its lowest point total in an opening half this season.
"That's funny — three was ours, too," Palmateer said with a laugh.
Indeed, that was nothing compared to the Hawks' struggles.
Monmouth played without injured leading scorer Alysha Womack, a 16-point scorer who missed her second straight game with a hyperextended knee. The Hawks' only basket of the half came on Shira Shecht's jumper with just over 10 minutes left.
They missed both their first 12 shots and their last 12 before the break, and their second field goal didn't come until Betsy Gadziala's layup with 18 minutes to play.
Chevannah Paalvast had 13 of her 15 points in the second half for Monmouth.


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Home Of The Savage Clan
Welcome to the home of the savage clan. savages only.
Manyland is a 2d sandbox browser MMO game. In an open world, you can chat with people, build, draw, play multiplayer platformers, RPGs and adventures others made, join friendly PvP, and create worlds and games yourself!


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My Ride, My Story: Rare Camaro in Ashland
Cars bought by teenagers, especially those who like to build them up and drive fast, rarely last long. They get worn out, smashed up or sold to pay for the next project, the evidence of their existence usually no more than some faded Polaroids in a vinyl album.
This week's car in "My Ride, My Story" was bought by a teen looking to race - and he did - but luckily this 1969 Camaro was put into hibernation for decades in a garage, to emerge as an exceedingly rare throwback to muscle car primetime.
The owner: Fran Blake, 60, Ashland
The car: 1969 Chevy Camaro COPO
When and where did you get this car?
I purchased the car for $875 in 1973 right after graduating from high school. I grew up in Cambridge and bought the car at a used car and parts lot near my neighborhood. I knew the owner and he gave me a heads up that the car would be coming in that day.
How was it that a kid just out of high school was able to get such a fantastic car?
My friends and I knew this would be a high performance car and we were all car guys. This was in the muscle car era and we were all into those cars. Camaros first came out in 1967 and I already had a 1970, but I preferred the body style of the 1969. The cars were very distinctive in the '70s - today a lot of new cars look alike. I don't think the cars today are as exciting as they were back then. In the '70s you could get a high-performance engine in most models (Impalas, Chevelles, Camaros, Novas, Corvettes, and that is just the Chevys). Today, to get a true high performance engine you generally have to buy a high-end sports car like a Corvette.
What were your intentions for the car?
Initially I planned to make a race car out of it (drag racing). I stripped it down, and then got another car that was already set up for racing (roll cage, suspension work, etc.) so the Camaro then sat for a couple of years. I eventually rebuilt it, did a custom paint job, and made it back into a street car.
So what happened to the car once you got it home?
In 1984 I took it off the road and put it in storage in a friend's garage until 1990. When my wife and I moved to Ashland I moved the car to our house.
Eventually, the car came out of the garage. What motivated you to bring it out?
In 2010 I decided to rebuild it - I wanted to enjoy the car again. I did a complete frame-off restoration to bring it to original condition which took about two years.
How much of the restoration did you do yourself? Were there any stages that were particularly difficult?
I did every part of the restoration except the installation of the headliner. I tried doing that as well, but didn't like the result, so I had someone do it for me. A couple of friends and I spent many Sunday mornings helping me restore the car - I couldn't have done the car nearly as fast without their help.
The COPO model of Camaro is something most have not heard of, let alone seen. What does that mean?
COPO stands for Central Office Production Order. Dealers needed to know the order number 9561 which was the 427 CI 425 hp engine. It had a special 12-bolt heavy duty rear axle, a M22 Muncie 4-speed transmission, and front power disc brakes. This car came with no other identifying marks on the exterior indicating it was a high performance car. Only 1,000 of these were made.
How did you get interested in cars?
While growing up in Cambridge, in 1967, my oldest brother came home from the Air Force and he and his friends were really into cars. I was his shadow. My brother had a 1966 Chevelle SS396 and he let me be his go-fer when he was working on his car.
How have cars remained a part of your life?
I attended a technical trade school and always wanted to work around cars. I eventually opened my own business in Belmont and specialized in high-performance race cars and show cars. I also did general repair on regular cars. Over the years I have done other restorations - I have a 1967 Corvette convertible that I bought in 2003 and restored as well. I also have a 1964 Ford Galaxie that I've had since 1985 - it has not been on the road since 1996 or '97 so I will restore that next. I have also helped a couple of friends with their restoration projects.
How often do you drive the Camaro?
After finishing the restoration in the spring of 2013 I went to the Elm Bank Car Show in Wellesley and the Kidde-Fenwal Car Show in Ashland putting on 112 miles which is the first mileage put on the car since 1984. This year I plan on taking it to a few more car shows which might add up to 500 miles this year. The car has 34,000 miles on it in total.
I plan to show it again at the Kidde-Fenwal show on September 20 in Ashland. All proceeds from the show go to the American Cancer Society. Here's a link to more info on the show: http://www.hemmings.com/events/detail?listing_id=42537.
You have been around cars your whole life and are very familiar with the collector trade and hobby. What do you see as the future of this interest?
When my friends and I go to big car shows or cruise nights we don't see a lot of younger guys. In the past you could go out to the garage and tinker and make adjustments to the motor. Now everything is computerized - there is very little someone can do to their own car.
(Got a car story? Contact Sunday Editor Rob Haneisen at 508-626-3882 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @Rob_HaneisenMW.)


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A Miami journalist has recovered video of police officers arresting him after it was deleted from his camera. The man was covering a police effort to evict Occupy Miami protestors. He plans to file a complaint with the police department and with the United States Department of Justice.
On January 31, Miami police evicted Occupy Miami protesters from their downtown campsite. On hand to cover the action was photojournalist Carlos Miller. Along with protestors and other journalists, he was pushed down the street by a line of police in riot gear. He tried to circle around the block to return to his car, but he found his path blocked by a second line of police officers.
The police weren't arresting the other journalists around him, so Miller said he assumed he would be allowed to cross this second line of officers to return to his car. But when he approached one of the officers, he was stopped and placed under arrest. Upon his release the following morning, he found that several videos he had taken, including the one documenting his arrest, had disappeared.
Miller has since recovered some of the missing video, and it appears to back up his story. Though some crucial sequences are missing, the video shows Miller approaching a female police officer, who blocks his path and then calls other officers over to help arrest him.
"You were given a dispersal order, sir, and you were told you were gonna be placed under arrest," she told Miller in the video. "We don't want to have to hurt you," she said.
"I'm not doing anything," Miller responded. "I'm not resisting."
Constitutional violation?
Miller is a member of the National Press Photographers Association. The organization's general counsel, Mickey Osterreicher, sent a letter to the Miami-Dade Police Department protesting Miller's arrest.
Miller was charged with a single count of resisting arrest. "Aside from a blatant violation of Mr. Miller's First Amendment rights to record matters of public interest in a public place," Osterreicher wrote, "we do not understand how, absent some other underlying charge for which there was probable cause, a charge of resisting arrest can stand on its own?"
"We believe that the recovered video of the incident will show that officers acted outside of their authority, in violation of the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution as well as the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 and similar protections provided by Florida law," he wrote.
Osterreicher also pointed to a recent case involving the Baltimore Police Department. In that case, the Obama administration weighed in with a brief arguing that police officers violated the Constitution when they seized a man's recording device and deleted its contents. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has also ruled that journalists have a First Amendment right to record the activities of the police in public.
Deletion can make things worse
Miller's recovery of his video is a reminder of an important fact about modern digital systems: files that get "deleted" aren't necessarily gone forever. Often the raw data is still on the device and can be recovered. And that means that police officers who delete videos not only expose their departments to liability, they may not even succeed in suppressing the embarrassing video.
Miller's efforts to recover the video were only partially successful, and he plans to take his camera to a forensic specialist in hopes of recovering the remaining segments. He also hopes to determine the exact time the video was deleted, which could substantiate his charge that it was deleted while under police control.
Once he has gathered all the evidence, Miller plans to file a complaint with both the police department and the Department of Justice, objecting to his arrest and the deletion of his videos. The case may further entrench the growing consensus that the Constitution protects the right to record the actions of police officers in public.
Listing image by Image courtesy of Carlos Miller


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Ed Koch, mayor who became a symbol of NYC, dies
Koch dies at 88
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, the combative politician who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during three City Hall terms, has died at age 88.
Spokesman George Arzt says Koch died Friday morning of congestive heart failure.
In City Hall, Koch embodied New York for the rest of the world. He won a national reputation with his feisty style and his trademark question, "How'm I doing?"
During his years as mayor, from 1978 to 1989, his tight fiscal policies pulled the city out of severe financial difficulties. But homelessness and racial tensions soared and critics charged that City Hall's responses were ineffective.
His mark on the city was set in steel when the Queensboro Bridge, connecting Manhattan to Queens, was renamed in Koch's honor in 2011.


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Chicago Blackhawks' NHL record streak over at 24 games with 6-2 loss to Colorado Avalanche
DENVER - The best start in NHL history is over. The Chicago Blackhawks finally left the ice without a point—but with their heads held high.
The Blackhawks were stunned 6-2 by the struggling Colorado Avalanche on Friday night. It was their first loss in regulation and ended a remarkable run in which they earned at least one point in their first 24 games, an NHL record.
"We're proud of it, but it'll be nice to move on now," defenceman Duncan Keith said. "It's hockey, we've lost games before in our lives. It's not like we're going to sit here and cry."
Instead, they'll sit back and celebrate, said coach Joel Quenneville, who told his team afterward "that they should be very proud of what they accomplished. They found different ways to win, night in and night out, and everyone contributed to something that hadn't been done.
"It's a great feather in our cap, but let's move forward here and try to get better. Certainly it was a lot of fun up to today."
The Blackhawks (21-1-3) hadn't lost in regulation since a 6-1 rout by Nashville on March 25, 2012, and their last loss in regulation on the road came more than a year ago, with a 5-1 defeat at St. Louis on March 6, 2012.
Dating back to last year's regular season, the streak was 30 games.
Chicago's overall points streak was the second longest in NHL history. The 1979-80 Philadelphia Flyers set the league record with a staggering 35-game unbeaten streak that included 25 wins and 10 ties—all in the same season.
Ending it was a jolt of adrenaline for the Avalanche, who started the night in last place in the Northwest Division.
"It's special, said Matt Duchene, who scored four points. "It's obviously something no one had done yet. But what a run by them. I mean, first of all, congratulations to them. What a run they had. I don't think they're going to slow down because of this. But it's pretty special. It's a good feeling in here. We're pretty happy."
Ryan O'Reilly got his first goal since his contract dispute was resolved more than a week ago and assisted on another goal in a four-goal onslaught in the second period that turned a 1-1 tie into a laugher, and Paul Stastny collected three points.
Duchene, John Mitchell and Jamie McGinn also put pucks past Corey Crawford in the second period for the Avalanche, who had lost six of their previous seven, including a 3-2 heartbreaker at Chicago 48 hours earlier.
Crawford (11-1-3) allowed five goals on 19 shots before being replaced in net by Ray Emery to start the third period.
"I didn't have it tonight," Crawford said. "Didn't give our guys a chance."
Semyon Varlamov had 30 saves for Colorado.
The Avalanche nearly ended the spectacular streak in Chicago on Wednesday night before the Blackhawks pulled out the win when Daniel Carcillo scored the tiebreaking goal with 49.3 seconds left. Chicago was skating without three key forwards and playing its second game in two nights then.
There was no such comeback Friday night at the Pepsi Center, where a good portion of the sellout crowd was rooting for the Blackhawks, who hadn't allowed more than four goals in a game this season or even trailed by more than two goals until the Avs' spectacular second period.
"It's a great confidence booster," Duchene said. "It shows us we can play with anybody in this league."
The crowd chanted, "End of streak! End of streak!" over the final minutes after P.A. Parenteau's 10th goal of the season made it 6-2.
Bryan Bickell's goal with 11:07 pulled the Blackhawks to 5-2 and he nearly scored again from the same spot 90 seconds later, but Varlamov smothered the shot, and that was that.
The teams got into a scuffle with 5:04 left after Bickell squared off with Gabriel Landeskog, who had checked Keith in the back.
Chicago's Jonathan Toews got the scoring started when he knocked the puck past Varlamov after a turnover on a give-and-go with forward Marian Hossa, who returned from an upper-body injury.
Colorado (9-10-4) tied it when Stastny, who was between the circles, tipped a pass from Duchene into the net. It was a rare power play goal for the Avalanche, who came into the game ranked 29th in the league with just 82 shots when skating with a man advantage.
Duchene's goal between Crawford's legs made it 2-1. Just 33 seconds later, Mitchell scored on an assist from O'Reilly, who was signed to a two-year $10 million deal last week after the Avalanche matched Calgary's offer sheet following a nasty contract dispute.
O'Reilly's goal came on a slap shot from the top of the right circle 4 seconds into another power play. Duchene set him up with a pass after Stastny won the faceoff.
Duchene got his third assist when he dug out a loose puck from the boards in a scramble with Keith and kicked it out to McGinn, who put made it 5-1.
"They had a good pace to their game and they were definitely on tonight," Quenneville said.
Remarkable though it was, the streak had become somewhat of a burden for the Blackhawks.
"It's gained a lot of momentum over the last little while and our opponents, they treated it like it was a very important game," Quenneville said. "You look at the standings and everyone has a meaningful game, but it seemed like there was added incentive as we've gone along. We welcomed the challenge."
After a while, it seemed the streak had taken on a life of its own.
"I'd say the last handful of games the talk about it kind of got out of control," Toews said. "The guys in our locker room, we always focused on the same thing, being prepared to play our team game. We never really got distracted by that. Maybe it does take a little bit of pressure off us and we can sit back and look at the good things we've done."
The Blackhawks' run comes with somewhat of an asterisk because they actually lost three games along the way—all in shootouts. Under NHL rules, that's still worth a point, but that makes it different from what the Flyers accomplished nearly a quarter-century ago.
During that streak, Philadelphia won 25 games and tied 10. There was no overtime until the playoffs, and the shootout was still a far-off creation. If the teams were tied after 60 minutes, that's how it ended. Each got a point.
Nowadays, both teams still receive a point if the game is tied at the end of regulation. Then, the team that scores in a five-minute, four-skaters-a-side overtime period or wins the shootout gets an extra point.
"It's over," Crawford said. "Move on to the next game."
NOTES: Avalanche defenceman Erik Johnson returned to the lineup after missing 11 games with a head injury. ... Chicago RW Michael Frolik returned from an illness that sidelined him for two games. ... The Blackhawks were without forward Patrick Sharp, who left Wednesday's home win over the Avalanche with a shoulder injury after being checked along the boards by Colorado's Ryan O'Byrne.
Follow Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton


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Town mourns death of 5 students
In times of tragedy, sometimes there is only an embrace, a shoulder to cry on, the support of friends and family.
Hundreds of 2007 Fairport High School graduates, students, parents, alumni and administrators hoped for that support when they flocked to the hill outside the school in the early morning hours Wednesday.
Some arrived with sleeping bags as early as 4 a.m., and more arrived as news spread that five of their classmates were killed in a car accident in East Bloomfield, N.Y., on Tuesday night.
Bailey Goodman, 17, Hannah Congdon, 18, Meredith McClure, 17, Katie Shirley, 18, and Sara Monnat, 18, were on their way to the Goodman family cottage on Keuka Lake when their Chevy Trailblazer collided head-on with a tractor-trailer on Routes 5 and 20 and burst into flames, Ontario County sheriff's deputies said.
Deputies say the Chevy Trailblazer driven by Goodman legally passed another vehicle, but suddenly re-entered the westbound lane, hitting the tractor-trailer around 10:30 p.m.
Both vehicles erupted into flames. Deputies said the driver of the tractor trailer, David M. Laverty, 50, of Cattaraugus County, was not seriously injured.
There is no preliminary indication of alcohol or drugs, but medical examiners will have the final results soon, deputies said.
Four other students, also headed to Ms. Goodman's cottage, were following the girls in another car when the accident happened, Fairport school administrators said.
"It is a nightmare for Fairport High School. Our hearts are broken and go out to their families," said Principal Dave Paddock. "We are supporting each other, and we are here to support them."
Paddock sent two e-mails to the faculty and school community in the hours after the accident.
In one, at 5 a.m., he invited everyone to meet at the hill and he stated that roughly 100 kids were already there.
The other, at 4:39 a.m., expressed his grief:
"This is the e-mail I hoped I would never have to send, but as many of you already know, our school and community has suffered an almost unimaginable tragedy this evening. It is with overwhelming sadness that I inform all of you that five of our children, all of whom just graduated from FHS last Thursday evening, lost their lives earlier tonight in a car accident. ... My thoughts of love, of course, go to the families of our young people who we lost tonight. We love all of our children at Fairport High School. Today our hearts are crying."
Four of the five girls were varsity cheerleaders.
Paddock described them as "high profile" and "high on life."
The girls' classmate, Bryce Lendar, didn't know them well, he said, but he was still compelled to go to the high school Wednesday morning.
"I came to remember," Lendar said. "I don't believe it still. It doesn't seem real."
Supt. Jon Hunter echoed the sentiment.
"This is an incredible tragedy. When one dies it's a tragedy, but five — we can hardly deal with this," he said.
Contributing: Messenger Post reporter Stephanie Bergeron


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Mind Sciences & the Election
"The Psychology of the Politics of Politics"
Dr. Todd Rogers (Kennedy School)
Thursday, Oct. 18, 12 p.m.
Austin North
Free pizza lunch!
Dr. Rogers will discuss research on two aspects of the politics of politics. First, he will share a series of large field experiments (involving hundreds of thousands of people) exploring how behavior change insights from psychology can be used to increase the impact of get-out-the-vote efforts, and understand why people fail to vote. These are now best practices in many practitioner circles, so this research will help you better understand the logic behind voter mobilization efforts in which you have been involved. Second, Dr. Rogers will present a series of experiments exploring the cognitive reasons why politicians can dodge questions they are asked without voters noticing or punishing them for their evasiveness. This work concludes with a practical intervention for preventing artful dodging.
Related Situationist posts:
- The Situation of the Voting Booth
- The Informational Situation of Voters
- Reporting Social Facts vs. Pining for Jim Crow: No Comparison Between Reid and Lott
- Racial Attitudes in the Presidential Race
- The Situation of Pollworkers and Voting Booths – Abstract
- The Racial Situation of Voting
- The Interior Situation of Undecided Voters
- On Being a Mindful Voter
- Implicit Associations in the 2008 Presidential Election
- The Situation of Political Animals
- Your Brain on Politics.


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Sex—one small word with huge implications. To most humans, being male or female implies a certain set of inseparable biological and sociological characteristics, but the natural world around us is rarely so black and white. For every characteristic that we associate with a particular sex, the animal kingdom harbors at least one surprising exception; concepts that we believe are inextricably linked are uncoupled, and even reversed, in other species.
Our sex exerts an incredible influence on our lives, influencing anatomy, appearance, behavior, and countless other traits. Socially, our sex also matters in terms of how we are understood and treated by others, because we see each other through a gendered lens. Female college graduates are hired more often than male graduates, for instance, but earn 17 percent less than their male counterparts. Police pull male drivers over at a much higher rate than they do female drivers. In high school math classes, teachers direct questions toward, call on, and interact with male students much more frequently than females.
We tend to recognize differences between males and females and try to explain them as a function of sex; we classify some things as masculine and others as feminine, often couching these divisions in evolutionary terms. But these justifications are often inaccurate. As we'll see below, many of the sociological differences between males and females have little, if any, universal relationship to sex.
"Sex" vs. "gender"
Most humans make no real distinction between the words "sex" and "gender"—one term often replaces the other. When asking about a friend's pregnancy, we might ask about either the sex or the gender of the baby with the same intent, and the US Census Bureau even uses the words "sex" and "gender" interchangeably. The general confusion between these terms made headlines recently when a transgender contestant wanted to compete in the Miss Universe Pageant; a kerfuffle ensued when nobody could quite figure out if that should be allowed.
Sex is a scientific concept, referring to the biological and physiological differences between males and females. In humans, males have penises, an X and a Y chromosome, and generally lower voices and higher amounts of body hair. Vaginas, two X chromosomes, and the ability to lactate and to menstruate are sex characteristics usually belonging to females. These traits aren't universal in males and females of other species, but they are representative of the biological concept of sex.
Confusion over sex and gender norms runs rampant. Scientists tend to assign traditional human gender roles to animals—and even to plants.
Gender, meanwhile, is a sociological construct. Most often, the term "gender" describes how men and women fulfill certain cultural norms defined by their sex. The World Health Organization says that gender "refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." Gender encompasses everything from preferences to hobbies to roles in the home and the workplace, and the term applies only in a human context; since it is a social concept, gender does not apply to other species.
That's not to say that cultural gender roles have no roots in biology. The tendency for women to take on many of the parental duties, for example, likely stems from mothers' ability to lactate, providing necessary nourishment for their children. Biologically, men are drawn to a woman's hourglass figure because it signals health and fertility; many women, in turn, try to alter or enhance their body shape to fulfill this standard of beauty.
However, ties to biology are not necessary for gender roles to develop, and many of these roles have nothing at all to do with sex. For instance, we often associate girls with pink and boys with blue. But it was standard in the US during the early 1900s to dress American boys in pink and girls in blue. With its hint of "powerful" red, pink was considered a "stronger" color, while blue was thought to be "daintier" and more suitable for girls. These preferences changed in the mid-20th century; today, many parents wouldn't dare dress their sons in pink.
Because gender roles are so pervasive in human culture, we tend to use them to help us understand the rest of the world. Unfortunately, viewing nature through a human lens doesn't always give us an accurate picture of what is going on. Nature constantly engineers new and creative solutions to all sorts of problems—turning our stereotypes about sex upside-down along the way.
Appearances can be deceiving
The spotted hyena may have one of the most arresting sexual incongruities in the animal kingdom. Female hyenas possess what scientists call "pseudopenises," since they so closely mimic male penises. These female organs are fully erectile, can be up to seven inches long, and are accompanied by a "pseudoscrotum." Stranger still, a female hyena must urinate, copulate, and give birth through her pseudopenis. No wonder that, for centuries, people thought hyenas were hermaphrodites—watching a mom with a large penis nurse her babies can be a little confusing.
In a different kind of genital reversal, many males in the animal kingdom lack a penis entirely. In more than 97 percent of bird species, males have no external sex organ at all; instead, both males and females have vents called "cloacas." In these species, mating involves the romantic-sounding "cloacal kiss," where the two birds line up their genital vents for the transfer of sperm.
We generally expect the males of a species to be big and burly, but biologically speaking, it doesn't always pay for males to be larger than females. In some spider species, for instance, the females are much larger than males. Researchers believe that this is due to the males' need to move around efficiently, as lightweight males can better scamper across "bridges" to get from place to place and spread their genes.
In other species, being large provides a definite advantage for females. Sometimes referred to as the BOFFFF ("Big Old Fat Fecund Female Fish") hypothesis, the idea builds on the fact that large females can carry and spawn an exponentially greater number of eggs than smaller females. Since sending more offspring out into the world is a huge biological advantage for these females, larger bodies are favored, and these species have little or no similar selection pressure for large males.
Males are often the showier sex, of course; male deer have elaborate antlers, male lions have huge manes, and most male birds and fish are more colorful than their female counterparts. But little about appearance is a constant. In a species called the empedid dance fly, for instance, females are actually the sex with flashier signals. While male dance flies are unadorned, the females have "ornaments" on their abdomens and legs that may trick males into thinking that the female's eggs are more mature that they really are. But these adornments, like many of the male sex ornaments, are costly—they make it much harder for females to escape from spider webs.


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But lately the 27-year-old daughter of Ozzy Osbourne, currently with violet hair after stints of pink, lilac and gray, has earned the title of certified fashionista, dishing the designer dirt with Joan Rivers and co-hosts Giuliana Rancic and George Kotsiopoulos after major Hollywood red carpets on E! "Fashion Police." She also sat front row with Rivers at the Badgley Mischka show during the New York Fashion Week this past February.
"I'm in the process of branding, doing my own line. I will not just attach my name to something," Osbourne said. "I want to be a part of every aspect of it. I want to do everything on it and even down to like making sure I know where the clothes or items are being manufactured."
Now she's being tapped to kick off fashion-fueled events too, like this month's The Magnificent Mile Shopping Festival along Chicago's Michigan Avenue. While there Osbourne shared three things she learned walking the red carpet that she considers top everyday tips for real women:
--Spray tans: "It just gives you that golden glow, a bit of bronze, like you've been kissed by the sun," Osbourne said. "It makes you look slimmer and it makes you feel healthier. I always do that. I hate that I don't have one now."
--Flatter that figure: "Even if you're a skinny girl, Spanx are a must," Osbourne said, name-checking the shaping undergarments have become a red-carpet staple for women. "Nobody wants to see your belly button through your dress."
--Pamper your feet: "Always pack a pair of ballet flats in your handbag because by the end of the night your feet are killing you. You want to keep going but you can't. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go home early because my feet hurt and I haven't had a pair of shoes to change into. Don't let your footwear ruin your good time," she said.
And for those who must know what Osbourne was wearing in Chicago to meet with reporters last week: A long, flowing short-sleeved black dress with a rainbow leaf print by Issa (a British label that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, has helped popularize) and a ring with a large purple stone and a jeweled leaf by Chanel.
Follow AP reporter Caryn Rousseau on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau


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Captured Science
Posted by J on January 23, 2007
It's widely accepted that a few industries have had an immense and deleterious influence over the "science" that regulators and consumers rely on to assess those industries' products. Big Tobacco's success in fomenting doubt and controversy, subsidizing friendly projects and scientists, and intimidating those who would disagree is the most notorious example. It's the stuff of countless books and numerous movies. But the cigarette industry's infamy poses a problem; it now stands as the great exception and not the great exemplar. "Yes, yes, Big Tobacco was evil, but we all know that. The bad apple has been removed from the barrel. Now how 'bout those Red Sox."
Unfortunately, what seems like the exception should be seen as the rule. The practices that the tobacco industry honed throughout the second half of the twentieth century are playbook favorites among the strategists, public relations experts, marketers, and lobbyists of any industry whose product is potentially dangerous to individuals or the planet.
If you are dubious, ask yourself why that wouldn't be true? If the strategies worked for the cigarette — a product that is causally linked to more than 400,000 deaths per year in this county alone — why wouldn't they be effective for other products. The presumption should be that the profit-maximizing suppliers of potentially dangerous products will adopt the tricks of the tobacco trade, and institutional and legal policies should be built on that presumption. And that's true not just of the big-bad wolf industries – such as firearms, alcohol, and tobacco – but even of industries whose products are potentially life-sustaining or life-saving – such as food and pharmaceuticals.
This week, two reports were published, piling on additional evidence of the science-skewing situational effects of industry.
First, the Union of Concerned Scientists published "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science." The title of the sixty-three page exposé tells you much of what you need to know about its contents and tone. Though strident at times, the brief does a nice job of illustrating how a mere $16 million dollars went a long way toward buying time and buying cover.
That report is just the tip of the shrinking iceberg when it comes to such critiques of ExxonMobil. This summer, for instance, Mother Jones published a series of articles under the title "As the World Burns." And the Sierra Club has a webpage devoted to "Exxpos[ing] Exxon," on which you can view, among other things, an animated movie, Toast the Earth, "a sad but humorous satire on Exxon and it's science-bending, profiteering ways." Meanwhile, Greenpeace has a webpage, ExxonSecrets.org, which ingeniously maps "howExxonMobile funds the climate control skeptics" at think tanks and various front groups.
The second report this week, titled "Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles," is more scholarly in form and tenor than any of those. But the takeaway message is roughly the same: Industry investments in scientific debates are, from their perspective, dollars well spent.
A group of researchers from Children's Hospital in Boston looked at the effects of research funding by the beverage industry – including soft drinks, juice and milk. The scientists gathered 206 relevant articles published between 1999 and 2003. With that sample, investigators, who did not know the articles' authors, place of publication, or financial sponsorship classified each article's conclusions as "favorable," "neutral" or "unfavorable." Meanwhile, another investigator who was not told of those assessments determined the funding source (22% were funded entirely by industry, 47% had no industry funding, and 32% had mixed funding) and classified articles as to whether a favorable finding would be beneficial, negative or neutral to its funder's financial interests.
"The main finding of this study is that scientific articles about commonly consumed beverages funded entirely by industry were approximately four to eight times more likely to be favorable to the financial interests of the sponsors than articles without industry-related funding. . . . Our study also documented industry sponsorship was very common during the study period, indicating considerable potential for introduction of bias into the biomedical literature. In view of the high consumption rates of these beverages, especially among children, the public health implications of this bias could be substantial."
When asked about sources of bias, Dr. David S. Ludwig, one of the study's authors, indicated that the biases likely reflected subtle manipulations in the way the questions were framed or selection biases in which scientists were funded or which studies were published. Note that none of those sources likely involve scientists who are consciously biased or intentionally manipulating their data.
Still, consequences of the bias may be quite serious given that the role played by that literature in shaping governmental and professional dietary guidelines, the design of intervention programs, and FDA regulation of health claims on foods and beverages, and eventually "common-sense" perceptions of consumers.
According to the New York Times, Susan Neely, the President of The American Beverage Association, points her finger back at the study's authors: "This is yet another attack on the industry by activists who demonstrate their own biases in their review by looking only at the funding sources and not judging the research on its merits."
Similarly, Richard A. Forshee, a scholar whose research had been sponsored by the food industry reacted to the study with this assurance: "My co-authors and I rely heavily on scientific method in order to make sure we do not have bias in our studies."
Of course, looking at the merits of an individual article or relying solely on the filter of "the scientific method" in a single study misses the point; the question is whether there exists a bias in the situation of science, not the the disposition of individual scientists or their studies. Taken alone, a bias can be extremely difficult to identify even by a study's authors. How, for example, can one reliably identify the subtle consequences of seemingly trivial framing effects, unless one can test and re-test numerous alternative frames? And, of course, testing and re-testing requires funding . . . .
4 Responses to "Captured Science"
April 18, 2007 at 12:41 am
[…] Times about (tobacco) industry funding of university research. Paddock's article, like previous postings on The Situationist, indicates some of the way that "knowledge" is situationally influenced – […]
August 19, 2008 at 10:02 am
[…] To read the entire article, click here. For a sample of related Situationist posts, see "Deep Capture – Part VII," "Promoting Smoking through Situation," "Industry-Funded Research," "Industry-Funded Research – Part II," and "Captured Science." […]
November 23, 2010 at 12:04 am
[…] to which we have grown accustomed. Those motivations and others are easily exploited by wealthy powerful industries that have made it their business to criticize, mock, and otherwise raise doubts about the emerging […]
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Marketers Take On Growth in Club-Store Sales: Q&A
Americans have worked pretty darn hard since the economic collapse of 2008 to fine tune their shopping lists, buying only what they need, ditching national name brands for the less expensive store brands and moving from channel to channel to see who has the best deals. One of the shakeouts from all this careful shopping and analysis is that consumers are spending more at warehouse club stores and increasing trips to those stores.
In a new research report from Deloitte, consumer products executives expect their highest growth to come from the warehouse club channel compared with any other retail sales channel over the next three years, including mass merchandise, grocery, and e-commerce. Some 49% of those surveyed expect grocery sales to increase during that three-year period, while 18% expect sales in the grocery channel to decline.
How is all this affecting CPG marketing strategies at these massive stores? Pat Conroy, vice chairman and consumer products leader, Deloitte LLP, fills us in.
CHIEF MARKETER: Are marketers shifting budget dollars to club stores? If so, is it new dollars or are dollars being diverted from another channel?
CONROY: As we see the club channel grow we're likely to see investment follow. Most investments in merchandising, packaging, innovation, pricing and trade promotion have risen, but part of that investment is being diverted to club stores.
CM: What types of in-club and out-of-club marketing are brands doing?
CONROY: Out-of-club continues to rely on member circulars, magazines, promotions on the website and mobile. In club there is more sampling for members and CPGs are using unique packaging or package sizes to drive sales.
CM: How are trade dollars used in club stores?
CONROY: Trade dollars are used to reduce the everyday price, to fund temporary price reductions through coupons in magazines or some limited merchandising like pods or demos. There is limited slotting, and promotions in general are sold as part of the annual planning process. Most of it is about subsidizing the price as opposed to what you'd see elsewhere.
CM: How will this growth at club stores affect marketing at traditional retail stores?
CONROY: The big elephant in room that CPGs need to manage is channel conflict. When we did the research we asked execs about this in particular and divided it up into two segments: pricing difference as opposed to product offering. The majority did not see product offering as conflict where they did see a potential issue around pricing. This is a story that is still being written. The issue will be how you tailor your offering or work with your partner to develop a level of uniqueness that is sensitive to the conflict issue.
CM: How is the consumer driving this change?
CONROY: As a result of the recession, consumers have clearly said that they are being much more diligent around what they buy, how much they buy and what they pay for. Consumers figured out over the last few years which brands work and which don't. They've gone through the cycle of experimentation with store brands and gone from writing their shopping lists in ink instead of pencil. When you couple that with the investments channels have made—upgrading stores, less skus, but popular choices—this has all led to this huge opportunity that is resonating with consumers, the club channel.
CM: Club stores carry far less SKUs than traditional grocery stores. Will this change?
CONROY: Consumers have told us that they are pleasantly surprised by some of the items they find in club stores, like frozen food and personal care items. CPGs will not try to replicate the retail environment even though they are competing against. It will be No. 1 or No. 2 market-share brand with high appeal and then they'll stop there. It will be a very selective assortment that will drive traffic, but will be a fraction of what currently exists in the traditional retail environment.
CM: How fast is this happening?
CONROY: It's in its infancy. This is still a blip on the radar screen compared to retail. But club-store execs said they have tremendous opportunities geographically to expand. Club stores are very profitable channels and consumers like what these stores are doing. Consumers are making more trips, spending more dollars per trip and execs have the wherewithal and resources to invest and expand making this something to watch—and everyone is watching. We believe that it's not a flash in the pan, that it's here to stay.


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