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By Gregg Doud, National Cattlemen's Beef Association chief economist
The second oldest sport in the history of the cattle business is beating up on the packer. I'm guessing the oldest involved a cowboy on a horse trying to rope a steer. No one likes the packer, which is actually strange when you think about it because "the packer" is an absolutely necessary entity during "the process" of converting beef with the hide on it to beef without the hide on it. Who likes to eat hide? Whether you call them a "packer," "processor" or "middle man" really doesn't matter. They are always one of several buyers in the marketing chain of our product.
I'm going into this because some are touting this proposed GIPSA (USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration) rule on livestock marketing as a way for producers to settle a longstanding score with the packer. In reality, this rule does no such thing. The fact is this rule actually ends up pitting producers against producers. How do I figure?
Probably the most difficult part of this proposed rule for commonsense folks to swallow is the part about when a third party can decide whether an agreement between a packer and a seller isn't fair. This rule clearly attempts to provide the ability for that third party to sue, solely based upon an allegation of a lack of fairness. To the packer, and his lawyers, this threat of liability, litigation and risk has a cost. This is a cost that they're certainly not going to pay if they can possibly avoid it. They've already indicated how they'll limit this exposure, by offering the same standard, average, vanilla contract to everyone.
But there's an important mathematical fact about the term average. It's that half are above it and half are below it. By dumbing down the procurement of beef – with the hide on it – and mitigating this exposure to risk and liability, additional per head marginal costs of doing business will be injected into the process.
GIPSA's own economic study clearly says the advantage of Alternative Marketing Arrangements (AMAs), or non-spot market transactions, is that they reduce costs and allows the marketplace to operate more efficiently. These savings are then passed on to both consumers and beef producers. The economic term they use in the study is "surplus."
If packers walk away from these AMAs due to this rule because they're deemed "risky" by their lawyers, and this is what they're already talking about, then both this additional risk along with the inefficiencies are added back into "the process." The result: Consumers pay more for what will very likely be a lower quality product and producers get less for the beef they produce. Cattle producers will be picking up a majority of the tab in the short run as higher marginal costs are added to "the process."
Of course, larger producers can spread these costs across more head of cattle than smaller producers, which hurts the smaller half. The packer's goal in all of this is simply to extract a margin without exposure to any risk between the arrival at the front door and the departure out the back of the processing plant.
Of course, the half of producers who should really be unhappy about this rule's government's mandate for fairness are those producers who have expended significant capital and resources to produce premium and value-added products to meet the demand of consumers in the marketplace. Via this rule, the value of that bull with better carcass characteristics, the additional costs of traceability, a solid business relationship built over time, a brand name, or marketing that lead up to a superior eating experience by the consumer are all at risk. Is that fair?
Capitalists prefer a system that rewards innovation and strives to increase demand so that everyone benefits. Which do you prefer?
-- Gregg Doud, NCBA chief economist


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Upcoming news events
Nelson trial date still not set
No trial date has been set in the first-degree murder case against Darek Jon Nelson, of Montevideo. A second mental health evaluation has been requested by Nelson's attorney. Nelson is charged with the Jan. 13 murder of Vinessa Lozano.
Plane crashes
On Tuesday afternoon, the Yellow Medicine County Sheriff's Office received a 911 call reporting an airplane crashed in a corn field west of Hanley Falls. The caller reported that an airplane had been crop dusting and appeared to have hit a high voltage power line guy-wire and knocked down one of the power lines. The pilot, Bryce Orwick, of Clara City, was transported to the Granite Falls Hospital where he was treated.

subset: commoncrawl


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text: Julie is a private school tutor for children with special needs. After being done tutoring Angie, a mild autistic student, Julie wants to take a break from work to clear her mind and deal with the trauma she has had with the accident that had happened to her parents. However, a certain Madam Rita, offered Julie to give private tutoring lessons to her grandson, Januar. His previous tutor had gone missing. When Julie found out that Januar's parents were also killed in an accident, she felt empathy and agreed to accept the offer to tutor Januar for a month and therefore withhold her leave. But what Julie experienced in the house is far beyond her expectations. A very dark secret is hidden inside the house. Julie's life is now threatened forever.


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Blonde bombshell Mary J. Blige was spotted leaving her hotel in NYC on Wednesday, sporting some seriously high-priced 'cessories!
With her diva shades, luxurious Vuitton scarf, fur coat, oversized leather bag and matching cowhide lunar boots, Mary Jane Blige was looking just fine, thank you very much!
No more drama for Miss Mary -- just plenty of dollars!
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December 1 – The Christmas Tree
Did you have a real tree or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree? What types of Christmas trees did your ancestors have?
When I was young, the strings of lights had the larger, hot incandescent bulbs that you had to be careful not to touch after they'd been on any length of time. Later, it became the smaller incandescent bulbs that were cooler, but if one blew out, the whole string died and you had to hunt for which one was dead by replacing one bulb at a time until the string lit up again.
The only ancestors I recall spending Christmas with were my paternal grandparents, Estel and Alta Dillman. We went to their house in Yankton, South Dakota. I don't recall for sure if their tree was real or artificial, but my memory says "real". I don't have any idea what other ancestors did for their decorations.
This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman


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Saturday, November 6, 2010
Trying to do too much...
Building bike is what I do and for the most part , it's really all I have time to do. I get to ride a bit , I also have Saturdays to do laundry and the weekly shopping but it is a solid five-day a week grind just trying to keep the work rolling, even if the list isn't all that long. Stuff just takes more time than one suspects , even if there's many years of experience in the books. It's all about expectations of oneself , usually a bit higher than reasonable.
This brings me to current times and what I'm hooked into every fall/winter....cycolcross. Ever since the late '70's Iv'e been a big fan of the sport and watched it grow dramatically here in northern California. About 1998 I got the idea to try racing myself when I got involved in sponsoring a local team. At first, my racing was just me, no team affiliation and no expectations other than to have some fun and make a few people laugh. I'm not a talented rider by any stretch and my years of dabbling in other forms of bicycle racing have resulted in a big two wins in 20 years. In 2004 I, and my helper Simon Vickers formed a cyclocross team around my bikes and things changed in a big way. I was present at races every weekend and I wore the same kit as the real racers, although my racing was still pretty much a joke-trying not to be last in the 45-A masters division.
After an injury kept me out of most of the 2007 season, I decided correctly that I never belonged in an A division race and demoted myself to the 45 + B catagory in 2008. This is when things got weird.....I started getting on the podium. About 2/3 of the way through the season I did something I haden't done in 20 years-I won a race. This made me the leader of a series and I nearly won the whole four-race Peak Season series but for a bad cold during the last race. This success was probably the worst thing that could have happened to me.....I started getting a little serious about racing.
In 2009 I trained like a madman and went into the season expecting to start where I left off.....racing well and always being a threat for the podium , even if it was usually the lowest step. I was plagued by back problems and wound up just like I had started in 1998, giving a few folks laughs and finding myself behind most of the field every weekend. I decided to get physical therapy for my back, not so much for racing ( Although I can't lie that it wasn't a major factor in getting my reluctant ass to the doctor..) but for being able to get through a day of welding at the shop. My racing was making me a cripple.
After about five weeks of P.T. and doing core exercises it was time to go north to Oregon for the last big races of the season, the USGP in Portland and the nationals in Bend. Although my back was getting better , my racing was not and I had no expectations of any kind of results. I was going north to support the team and work in the pits. I was only racing because back in October I had paid the entry.
In Portland I had a pretty bad race on Saturday, crashing about 4-5 times and finishing pretty far back. Sunday I had 'good legs' as they say and was really surprising myself until with a lap and a half to go , the thick Portland mud destroyed my rear derailleur. I raced both days but had no real idea of how I would go at the nationals.
The next week I went to the nationals course and rode many practice laps in the frozen conditions , surveying every inch of the course. I didn't think I would have a good race but I at least wanted to have a safe one. When the day came for my heat , it was a clear sky but 13 degrees and very icy. I'm not used to the ice but I guess a lot of other folks didn't get the practice like me and were falling down all around me. I managed to get through the whole thing with only one really bad fall on my hip and a few stumbles. I finished without getting lapped by the winner, well beyond my expectations. I even had a race long battle with another builder, a much better racer than me, just not on that day. This was yet another thing that probably wasn't at it's root good for me.
Here it is, 2010 and I'm back racing again. After last year's back trouble, I have been doing 35 minutes of core work each morning. I'm more co-ordinated and I'm having a much less painful work day. I don't groan when I'm getting out of bed and I can actually bend down and pick up the morning paper for the first time in years without wincing in pain. There is a down side, though.....I'm racing better than ever and I won another race. The problem with this is that I could start believing that I have talent.......I cannot begin to do this as I have seen it in other folks and it is a sad sight. I may wear the same kit as the folks on the team and I do wear it with pride but I know full and well that I'm a bike builder, not an elite athlete . I do know some builders that have a legacy of great racing....Steve Garro, Scott Nicol, Rick Hunter......these guys were exceptional on a bike. Much as I love to ride and when I race, I definitely try my hardest , I know that there's a difference between me and the guys that win.
Racing is a test and not only is one's ability on trial , but one's sincerity as well. Someone who makes a sincere effort at preparation and on race day leaves it all on the course can be rewarded with a podium or even a win. Pretenders are lucky sometimes , but the cream always rises to the top. Builders can call themselves 'Master builders' but it is the folks that ride the bikes that make the ultimate assessment of one's ability to construct a truly fine machine. The saying of the team this year is " Don't start believing "........I feel it is when we start expecting too much or believing in our own legend we are heading for a bad fall. I may have had some good races this year and I might have a few more left in me but I'm not going to start believing..............
2 comments:
Don't start believing.ReplyDelete
Yes, I'm singing it to myself.
Competition can be addictive, especially when podium finishes are a distinct possibility.ReplyDelete
And like recreational drugs or gambling, once you're addicted, less than satisfactory results leave you jonesing for another chance at victory. Sometimes this can spiral out of control.
There's nothing wrong with competing as long as you can keep your abilities in perspective and not beat yourself up when you don't finish on the top step. And remember what I said about advertising in this economy?-well, when you toe the line at races, no matter how well you ride, it lends credibility to your product because it shows you have passion for the sport that provides you with your livelihood. You can't put a dollar amount on that, but you can be sure a lot of potential customers are watching. Richard Sachs is a good example of this.


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MIDDLEBURY — A mother, an athlete, a role model and an inspiration, Middlebury's Liz Cronin recently was presented with a Bonnie and John McCardell Citizen's Award by Middlebury College for her outstanding service to the community as the founder and previous chairwoman of the Face Off Against Breast Cancer Hockey Tournament.
The tournament brings together women's hockey teams from around the state to have fun and raise money for the support of cancer patients and their families. The 12th annual tournament this past January raised close to $60,000.


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Gorge winds are about to flip-flop for the season, and for the kiteboarders and windsurfers who recreate on the river for more than a few months every summer, a new east wind beach and launch awaits at the Port of Cascade Locks.
To be precise, the launch, named Blackberry Beach, has long been used by windsurfers as a bushwhack access point and alternative to Stevenson, particularly in the fall when strong east winds blow through the steep walls of that part of the Gorge. But recent efforts between the Columbia Gorge Windsurfing Association and the Port of Cascade Locks have greatly improved the access road, parking area and pathway to the river.
In a separate but nearby project, the Columbia Gorge Kiteboarding Association worked this summer with the CGWA and the Port of Cascade Locks to turn an overgrown, blackberry bush-riddled section of jetty into what is now a wide-open, buffed-out beach with unobstructed river views and clean wind exposure. The two beaches share the same improved parking area but the kite beach is about a 200-yard walk west down a jetty.
"These projects were done largely by volunteer efforts, and we have been very supportive of both," said Chuck Daughtry, Port of Cascade Locks executive director. "We have always had an understanding that recreation is an important part of the community; anything we can do to create more opportunities for people to recreate is worthwhile."
The CGKA and volunteers completed work on the new beach and kite launch last month and are hosting an east wind barbecue and beach party to introduce it to the public and celebrate the end of what is being called one of the windiest summers in recent memory. The party is free and is open to windsurfers, kiteboarders and the general public. It will start Saturday afternoon, with the hopes of a group kite/windsurfing session to start things off, if the wind and weather cooperates.
"It's a great opportunity to draw windsurfers and kiteboarders to Cascade Locks, particularly this time of year," Daughtry said. "It's great to see this progress, but it's also important to remember they're only seasonal attractions. While projects like this are important, we are continuing to focus on year-round improvements and activities that will create family-wage jobs, get people back to work and get our school back open. We need it all and the port is very appreciative of the volunteers who are putting in their time and energy to help make these projects happen."
Join the party
Beach christening party and barbeque, open to all, Saturday afternoon until 9 p.m. at Blackberry Beach kite launch. Directions: Cascade Locks to Forest Lane to the end of Industrial Park Way (follow signs to Blackberry Beach).
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Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas ONLY $4.99! We bought this movie last year and The Boy just LOVES it! It really is cute!
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Welcome, !
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Est. Mortgage: $/month
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Office: 413-528-6800
Founded in 2007 by long-time Berkshire residents Tim Lovett and Jen Harvey, Berkshire Property Agents is an independent, locally-owned real-estate agency that caters to both full-time residents and second-home owners in Berkshire, Columbia and Litchfield counties. Based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, BPA is committed to preserving the rural landscape and supporting the cultural organizations that contribute to the region's exceptional quality of life. Whether representing buyers or sellers, BPA's team of agents maintain the highest professional standards with a focus on extraordinary customer service.
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*Based on Berkshire Board of REALTORS figures. All data and representations herein are derived from public records, client represenations and other general sources of information. Berkshire Property Agents makes its best effort to assure the completeness of such information, but makes no warranty or assertion as to the accuracy of the information presented. BPA recommends that all information be verified by clients and their representatives.
Berkshire Property Agents
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Audi Supports Melges 32 and Audi Melges 20 At 2009 Genoa International Boat Show
6 October 2009
Milan, Italy - The 49th Annual Genoa Boat Show happens on October 3-11 at Fiera di Genova nestled within the spectacular settings of the Italian port city, Liguria.
Audi's close relationship with the yachting world is proven once more as the German auto maker's presence will be felt. On display, Audi will feature its latest product line of modern and sophisticated cars. Positioned perfectly alongside, see the brand new Audi Melges 20 and Melges 32 sportboats sold and distributed by Melges Europe based in Milan, Italy and produced by international corporate headquarters Melges Performance Sailboats located in Zenda, Wisc. USA.
During the event, 16 Audi vehicles will be made available to organizers as courtesy cars, including the flagship Audi A8, S6 and A5 Sportback as well as the versatile Audi Q5 and Q7 SUVs.
Inside the exhibition area, Audi will feature the very sleek and sexy R8 V10 and A5 within a special-design, single-frame structure shaped in the image of the stylish, trademark Audi grille. Accentuating the space is the high performance one design Melges 32 and the Audi Melges 20 - the two yachts by which Audi sponsors sailing series circuits in Italy. Audi is the international sponsor of the Audi Melges 20.
With this display and strong level of boat show support, Audi has reaffirmed its confidence in the world of sailing and high performance yachting - a fascinating sport that effectively combines the efforts of technology research and industrial design making for fast, fun simplified racing.
The entire Melges Europe Team will be onsite in Genoa and extends a warm invitation for everyone to attend. Information will be readily available for those interested in the Audi Melges 20 and Melges 32. Visit the official 2009 Genoa International Boat Show Website.
View Photo Gallery
Also, be certain to visit and bookmark Melges Europe, the Audi Melges 20 and Melges 32 as well as Melges Performance Sailboats online.


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- Inside Athletics
- Tickets
- Fan Zone
- Media Zone
- Social
- Shop
- Donate Now
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 24, 2014) – The ETSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced Monday that it will embark on an ambitious, 10-stop promotional tour in April and May which will visit cities throughout the region, as well as metropolitan areas like Atlanta and Chattanooga.
The "Game Time Tour," which will be presented by the Knoxville TVA Employee Credit Union, will be highlighted by question and answer sessions with several ETSU head coaches – including head football coach Carl Torbush, head men's basketball coach Murry Bartow, and head women's basketball coach Brittney Ezell. The events will also feature a tailgate-style meal and autograph session, as well as give ETSU supporters a chance to learn everything they would like to know about Buccaneer athletics.
Tickets for the event are $10 apiece and can be purchased in advance by registering at the following link prior to each tour stop: Game Time Tour ticket link. Tickets purchased at the door on the night of each tour stop will be $15.
"The mission is to spread the word about all the positive developments at ETSU, and specifically the excitement surrounding our athletic program," said Scott Carter, Senior Associate Athletic Director and Chief Operating Officer. "We hope this Game Time Tour gives our fans and alumni throughout the region an opportunity to come out, meet our coaches, talk with administrators, get excited about Buccaneer athletics, and ask about what they can do to help our program succeed."
The tour's full schedule can be found below, with nine of the 10 stops set begin with a meet-and-greet at 6:30 p.m. The only exception to this start time will be the Morristown visit, which will take place during a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. inside the Morristown Country Club. Following the meet-and-greet, there will be a special Q&A with ETSU coaches hosted by the "Voice of the Bucs" Jay Sandos.
Game Time Tour Schedule (click on each tour stop to register for that site)
Thursday, April 10 – Chattanooga (Embassy Suites)
Tuesday, April 15 – Sevierville (Civic Center)
Thursday, April 17 – Greeneville (General Morgan Inn)
Thursday, April 24 – Morristown (Morristown Country Club)
Monday, April 28 – Kingsport (Kingsport Farmers Market)
Tuesday, May 6 – Knoxville (Calhouns on the River)
Monday, May 12 – Abingdon (Martha Washington)
Thursday, May 15 - Johnson City (Johnson City Country Club)
Tuesday, May 20 – Atlanta (TBD)
Thursday, May 22 – Bristol (Bristol Motor Speedway)
Destinations: Johnson City, Greeneville, Kingsport, Bristol, Abingdon, Morristown, Sevierville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Atlanta


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5:00 pm
Quilting Arts "Pets" We love our pets almost as much as our quilting. Pauline Salzman starts out with a postcard necklace featuring her favorite pooch. Then, Sue Bleiweiss has a pet postcard that can be personalized to your favorite breed. D
5:30 pm
Paint This With Jerry Yarnell "Pheasant in the Rough, Part 2" In this episode Jerry continues with remaining distant trees. Then he sketches in the building and under-painting of cedar trees with #4 bristle brush. Next Jerry switches to the #6 chisel-edge brush to under-paint cabin. D
6:00 pm
Cooking with Nick Stellino "Elegant Veal Chops & A Delectable Cheesecake" Cooking the perfect chop and preparing the ultimate sauce with port and Gorgonzola is a easy as 1-2-3! Making the perfect dessert is even easier. Nick visits the cheese monger and the butcher and prepares Veal Chops with Port & Gorgonzola and a Ricotta Cheesecake with Coffee & Chocolate. D
6:30 pm
Chef's Life "A Peanut Pastime" Vivian visits neighbor Marty Harper's peanut farm just before and during harvest. Vivian's dad introduces Ben and Vivian to the old school break snack, a pack of salted peanuts dumped into a Pepsi in a glass bottle. At the restaurant, Vivian translates the snack into Pepsi glazed pork belly with country ham braised peanuts. D
7:00 pm
This Old House "Arlington Italianate Project 2014/Italianate Inspiration" Paint color consultant Bonnie Krims presents exterior color schemes, while Norm and Tom patch old oak veneer floors. Richard presents a new solution to the ugly PVC intake and exhaust pipes that come out of a typical boiler. Kevin tours an 1870 Italianate style home in Dedham, Massachusetts. D
7:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Basque Country" Rick visits the proud and resilient Basque people's homeland, which is split between France and Spain. From his base in San Sebastian, Rick tours the ancient Basque capital of Gernika, the dazzling Guggenheim Modern in Bilbao, and then crosses into France for more Basque Country charms. From tapa bars to lightning-fast jai alai games, he shares the experiences of Basque culture.G
8:00 pm
Travelscope "St. Vincent & the Grenadines - Close to Home, but a World Away" Thirty-two beautiful islands, off the beaten track, yet in your backyard, is what Joseph discovers on his St. Vincent & the Grenadines adventure. These stunning Caribbean isles offer a wide range of water activities from snorkeling and diving to swimming and sailing. D
8:30 pm
Lidia's Kitchen "All in the Pantry" NULL
9:00 pm
Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen "Italian Made Easy" NULL
9:30 pm
Simply Ming "Jamie Bissonnette & En Pappiote" Cooking en papillote, or in parchment paper or foil, is a great way to make an easy, healthy meal, especially on the fly. Chef Jamie Bissonnette is in the house to show you just how versatile en pappiote can be, this week on Simply Ming. D
10:00 pm
Joanne Weir's Cooking Confidence "Fast Forward to Dinner" With her student Bonnie, Joanne makes us quicker versions of the comfort foods she grew up with in New England, oven-roasted sausages, and a sauerkraut that is so fast she couldn't resist calling it lazy-girl sauerkraut. Recipes: Oven-Roasted Sausages with Riesling, Apples and Pears and Lazy-Girl Sauerkraut. Student: Bonnie Lin, Conference Interpreter. D
10:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Basque Country" Rick visits the proud and resilient Basque people's homeland, which is split between France and Spain. From his base in San Sebastian, Rick tours the ancient Basque capital of Gernika, the dazzling Guggenheim Modern in Bilbao, and then crosses into France for more Basque Country charms. From tapa bars to lightning-fast jai alai games, he shares the experiences of Basque culture.G
11:00 pm
Habitable Planet, The "Biodiversity Decline" Species are being lost at a rapid rate in rainforests and coral reefs. Yet many species still have not been discovered. Tropical scientists struggle to keep ahead of the bulldozers as they work to understand this complex ecosystem. D
11:30 pm
Habitable Planet, The "Energy Challenges" Global energy use increases by the day. Polluting the atmosphere with ever more carbon dioxide is not a viable solution for our future energy needs. Can new technologies such as carbon sequestration and ethanol production help provide the energy we need without pushing the concentrations of CO2 to dangerous levels?G


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Therapists Unlimited Executive Search is the nation's premier search firm specializing in permanent solutions for healthcare in the Allied and Nursing fields.
We at Therapists Unlimited Executive Search help our clients find and hire the best employees; we continuously source qualified candidates for improved unique, opportunities. We pride ourselves on understanding what our clients need before job orders are created. Armed with that knowledge, we seek and find the kinds of candidates our companies are looking for, whether through plumbing the hidden candidate pool or working our nationwide network of contacts. Whether you are a direct care staff candidate looking for a Director role or a Director who wants to go back to patient care, we are the answer.
Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) – School
Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) needed for full-time (1.0) school position in Central Florida. The position offers a guaranteed 37.5 hours per week. Great SLP team already in place! In addition to the standard benefits, our therapists are preferred in a number of school districts in the area and across the state. Contact me today to learn more about this opportunity to work with a supportive and quality team!
More about the Position:
Therapists Unlimited partners with companies around the country to raise the bar in healthcare by setting new standards for quality care and personalized service. Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:
Speech Language Pathologist Job Requirements:
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Therapists Unlimited is comprised of a diverse team of the nation's most talented Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Pathologists, and School Psychologists and has been a leading provider of personnel services for more than 25 years. Our clinicians are experienced in a variety of settings and represent a vast array of specialized services.
The secret to our success is simple: our management team sets extraordinarily high standards, and we refuse to compromise on the quality of our personnel or the caliber of service that we give to our clients and employees. Our 30 locally run offices allow us to provide personalized support in each community while still benefiting from the national resources and assistance of our larger CareerStaff Unlimited family.
CareerStaff Unlimited is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Contact a Recruiter for more information about this position and others with Therapists Unlimited!
Courtney Verdugo, MSW – Staffing Manager – Orlando, FL
Therapists Unlimited | A CareerStaff Unlimited Company
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Does anyone remember the Tv series "A Haunting?" The show had a narrator and actors re-creating the events.
"Between the world we see, and the things we fear... there are doors. When they are opened... nightmares becomes reality". (the intro)
I just found it again. New episodes on Discovery Channel's sister station, Destination America. They aired last night, Oct. 12. I did not see all the new episodes. Did anyone watch them?
A HAUNTING - is back!
Started by Cryscat , Oct 20 2012 05:27 PM
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Posted 20 October 2012 - 05:27 PM
Don't take life too seriously, no one ever gets out alive.
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Jeff Casimir needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 488 designs submitted by 131 freelance designers.
JumpstartLab / RubyJumpstart
JumpstartLab is a small technical training company focusing on introducing "normal" people to the world of computer programming. It's geared toward professionals and managers, especially in the non-profit space, who want a better understanding of how custom software can enhance their business and processes.
Customers sign up for a two day weekend course that introduces them to the fundamentals of programming and gets them working on real projects right away. It's a "Jumpstart" because it's quick, and it's a "Lab" because we learn by doing.
I personally have some background in graphic design though decided to experiment with 99Designs for some fresh ideas. I love to deliver constructive criticism, so know that if you submit a decent design I will give lots of feedback! I'd also be happy to answer any questions.
Professional adults aged 25-50 who are business fluent, but not really technical people.
The design must be in Illustrator vector format (AI or EPS)
The design should include two variations: "JumpstartLab" and "RubyJumpstart"
The design must be "modular" to some extent. The workshops will all have custom titles, and the logo must work for each. So the official company name is "JumpstartLab", but the first workshop is "RubyJumpstart" as we'll be introducing the Ruby programming language. The "Jumpstart" has to be able to be recombined with these leading subject words. Other examples down the road are "RailsJumpstart" and "FacebookJumpstart". Only "RubyJumpstart" and "JumpstartLab" are required for this contest!
One concept I thought about is a jumping stick figure separating the "Jumpstart" from the "Lab". Then when the logo is remixed to "RubyJumpstart", the character could move to between "Ruby" and "Jumpstart". Maybe that's too cliche?
The logo needs to "work" in two color. Gradients, shadows, and multi-color variations would be awesome, but it needs to be able to reduce down for future uses on t-shirts and other lo-fidelity media.
Other random thoughts...don't let the "Lab" tempt you into some chemistry glassware -- this is computer programming, hah. I like simple, clean looks. Some kind of character/illustration would be pretty cool, something that's unique enough to get recognized on it's own would be amazing.
Thank you for reading!
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text: Pregnancy may only last nine months, but what a full, and sometimes confusing, time it can be! Don't fret. Find out which foods you should eat, which medications you should avoid and if the weird symptoms you've been having are pregnancy signs. You can meticulously track your baby's growth with our Pregnancy Week by Week feature or have fun checking out our baby shower games, nursery ideas and Chinese Gender Predictor.


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Tuesday, May 11, 2010
48 hours
On the morning of Saturday, May 8, I was pulling hundreds and hundreds of baguettes out of the oven around 8 am.
On the morning of Monday, May 10, I was arriving at NEW New Job and settling in at my "desk" in my new position as Editorial Assistant. Here is the building.
And here is my "desk" area.
You may ask yourself, "how did I get here?"
Don't worry, I'm not done baking. My current job was unsustainable at the pace it was running (look at my pants in the first photo. Those pants fit me perfectly two months ago and on Saturday I had to keep pulling them up); the bakery is going to be sold and under new management, and, when that happens, I can go back if I want.
The day I realized that New Bakery Job was going to kill me, I got a call from a firm that does all manner of editing, a firm where I had interviewed months before but had been told I was an "unusual" candidate who would be difficult, but maybe not impossible, to place.
Well, there was a place for me. I'm working at least through the summer, and then I'll reevaluate.
And if you're wondering if I miss baking, know that I cried while I mixed my last preferment on Saturday morning.
7 comments:
- Moan said...
Best of luck in your new position as Editorial Assistant! You'll do great!
- May 12, 2010 at 1:02 AM
- Rainy Daisy said...
Yeah...realizing that none of your clothes fit since you started a job is pretty scary. Probably wise to mosey on out of there....
What kind of editing will you be doing? Technical? That's a pretty dramatic and awesome shift.
- May 12, 2010 at 8:49 AM
- MttR said...
I have experienced the same. I closed a door, and a new one opened.
Good luck:)
- May 12, 2010 at 10:31 AM
- craftivore said...
Congratulations! A desk job will be quite a change, enjoy the air conditioning during the summer.
- May 12, 2010 at 2:08 PM
- Salty Miss Jill said...
Wow! Now there'e a change of pace...the least of which would probably be not having to scrape flour off your clothes on a daily basis...
I know you'll be fabulous. Keep us posted!
- May 13, 2010 at 7:12 AM
- craftivore said...
Did you know there's a flickr group called Grellow? I immediately thought of you. http://www.flickr.com/groups/979145@N22/
- May 14, 2010 at 12:40 PM
- 6toknit4 said...
A fan of your patterns and blog from NJ/US....I wonder if you've heard of Celiac, and as a complete stranger, have been reading your blog and worrying about if your bakery job, is, actually trying to kill you. If you don't think I'm nuts, goggle Celiac symptoms and PM me on Ravelry....6toknit4 (Lucy) Good luck in the new job!
- May 16, 2010 at 7:40 PM


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Murmansk (Му́рманск) is a city in the extreme northwest of Russia, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle.
With a population of over 300,000, Murmansk is the largest city in the Arctic and an important Russian naval base and commercial port. In World War II (known to Russias as the Great Patriotic War), Murmansk served as a port for the arctic convoys, and after the war became the Soviet Union's most important submarine base.
Get in
If you are planning to come to Murmansk please use a service of Murmansk Regional Development Agency. Contact us: By Skype - murmanout. By e-mail - [email protected]
By plane
Murmansk Airport (MMK, [5]) has multiple daily flights to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and limited services to other Russian cities including Sochi and Rostov-on-Don. There are also several flights per week to Tromso and Kirkenes, Norway.
The airport is located about 40km south of Murmansk, near the town of Murmashi. Taxis cost 420-500 Rubles from the city center and make the trip in about 40 minutes. The 106 bus from the train station (stopping at Detsky Mir near the Poliarnie Zori Hotel) is less expensive but much more sluggish than a taxi.
By boat
A bus and catamaran service connects to Kirkenes at the northeasternmost tip of Norway. There are also occasional boats to Barentsburg, Svalbard.
By train
By train, Murmansk is 35-40 hours from Moscow and 27-30 hours from St. Petersburg, depending on the train. The train station is located in the city center, one block downhill from Five Corners Square.
By bus
Murmansk can be reached by bus from Finland (Rovaniemi and Ivalo) and Norway (Kirkenes).
Get around
Although Murmansk is long and thin, most sites of interest to visitors are within a fairly compact area in the city center. Buses and taxis are available on the major streets, and Prospekt Lenina is the main north-south thoroughfare through the city center. Avid walkers could cover the entire stretch of the central area from the Poliarnie Zori Hotel (on the south end of the city center) to the Alyosha Statue (on a plateau on the north side of the city) in less than two hours.
Get out


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I'm officially a joiner now. I never have been really, I prefer to do my own thing at my own pace (wow, that sounds snooty but I promise I'm not!). This past month I've join TWO quilt alongs!
I don't know what brought it on but first I joined the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along that Angela and Amanda started last year. I asked for the book for Christmas and got it!
Here are the blocks I've done so far:
These blocks are a little tricky but a lot of fun! Go to my Flickr page to see the block names and numbers.
A few weeks ago I joined the Sparkle Quilt Along. These are the fabrics I chose to make the mini quilt size.
I've made quite a bit of progress on it this week! Fun, fun, fun!
I hope your weekend plans involve some fun too!
Friday, January 27, 2012
Quilt Alongs
Labels: Farmer's Wife Quilt Along
4 comments:
- Katie said...
I'm a joiner too! I love quilting along with others. Your farmer's wife blocks are great, i love scrappy!
- Susan said...
I love what you've made already. I think sewalongs are so much fun!
- Noas' Libellule said...
I don't join many QALs... because I don't have as much time as I would like making things, I tend to do it on my own... I did the Cherry House QAL and learnt a lot, so I may do another one soon..
- Maryse said...
When I see your beautiful squares with that gorgeous fabric, I sincerely hope that I will never learn to sew because then my knitting would really be in danger! I also plan to have a fun weekend: spending tomorrow with my beautiful 7 years old niece and then, lots of knitting I hope ;-) Have a great one!
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Frankton on Family Tree Circles
view: full | list
Journals and Posts
Titus Coe & Ellen Panter
I am researching Titus Coe born 12 November 1851, Desborough, Northampton England. He married Ellen Panter on 27 May 1872, Parish Church Kettering Desborough Northampton England. Ellen Panter was born 3 December 1850, Kettering.
They had the following children:
Lucy Druscilla Coe , born abt. 1875 Kettering
Frederick Lawrence Coe, Bapt. 19 May 1876 Desborough
Rose Edith Coe, Born: 7 Feb. 1879 Desborough
Mark Coe b. 1880 Desborough
William Maurice (Morris) Coe Born: 18 August 1881 Rothwell Kettering
Immigrated to Canada approx. 1911 - with his wife Clara Elizabeth Bates and daughter daughter Doris Lily Coe.
May Coe b. 1883 Desborough
George Edgar Coe b. 1886 Desborough
Henry Coe Desborough
- Displaying 1-1 of 1 Journals
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Chocolate Milk and Other Strategies for Athletes at the 2010 ACSM Annual Meeting
Will G Hopkins
Sportscience 14, 22-28, 2010 (sportsci.org/2010/wghACSM.htm)
Institute of Sport and Recreation Research NZ, AUT University, Auckland 0627, New Zealand; Email. Reviewers: David Pyne, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia; Andrea Braakhuis, US Olympic Committee, Chula Vista, California.
I missed last year's annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, but I'm glad I made it to this one, which was held in Baltimore, June 1-5. The first day was devoted to presentations of the inaugural World Congress on Exercise is Medicine, and it appears that the ACSM annual meeting henceforth is to be known as a joint meeting with Exercise is Medicine. Sedentary folk may be looking for any excuse not to exercise, so I hope the concept of medicine in this context does not put them off. The other days were full-on for those of us interested in performance of competitive athletes, which is the focus of this report. My colleagues with an interest in physical activity for health had all just been to a great conference in Toronto, but this ACSM meeting also had hundreds of useful abstracts they should peruse–see below for access instructions.
The centerpiece of the conference was the Bruce Dill historical lecture given by Brian Whipp on a topic suggested by Carl Foster, The Self-Correcting Nature of Science. It was a highly entertaining history of science since the time of Socrates. Brian looked at past paradigm shifts and eventual recognition of neglected contributions that represent self-correction, and I was delighted to hear him challenge one of the current paradigms, the Popperian notion of falsifiability. Now, if only he had finished the job by rubbishing the notion of falsification of the null hypothesis! Will p values soon be a casualty of scientific self-correction? Here's hoping.
There were many other valuable special presentations. Unfortunately and as usual, these inevitably clashed with each other and with the presentations of original research, which for me have to take priority. It wouldn't be so bad if the special presentations had abstracts, as they used to. Maybe the program committee thinks that we can buy the recordings, but most of us don't have time to listen or the inclination to spend more money, even if it's someone else's. An educational opportunity is being lost here–the program committee should insist on abstracts for such presentations.
You will see in my report that the most presentations by far were nutritional. I guess this kind of research is relatively easy to do: the interventions usually take only a few days, you can usually blind athletes to the treatments, you can get the extra power of a crossover with short washouts, and most importantly, coaches and athletes don't mind doing something that doesn't mean a change in training and that in some cases might also benefit health.
So what were the most exciting strategies at this year's ACSM I can recommend for athletes? Chocolate milk for recovery is the winner! β-alanine is also a definite ergogenic aid for shorter high-intensity events, which we've known for a few years, but the breakthrough announced at this conference is a sustained-release form of the supplement that makes the month or so of loading a lot easier and probably better. Quercetin and other botanical antioxidants also look exciting, but more from the point of view of health than performance. These antioxidants hopefully reduce risk of cancer and the harmful sequelae of chronic inflammation and aging, such as Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease, but they probably attenuate the benefits of training by soaking up the reactive oxygen species that help signal adaptive responses to exercise. Taken acutely, some antioxidants might nevertheless enhance high-intensity endurance performance, although no data directly supporting that idea were presented at this conference. Running shoes with "actuator lugs" that improve running economy look very promising, and accelerometry may be useful for monitoring training in some sports, but I didn't notice any real breakthrough technologies. Amongst the interesting training-related findings was the observation that markers of training stress are generally positive indicators of performance enhancement in an overload phase in elite athletes (i.e., the harder the training, the better), and that baseline values of markers of oxidative stress may be risk factors for overtraining.
As with previous meetings, it will be possible to access the abstracts of the original research presentations on line. You can go straight to the page for the May supplement, then browse the sessions from the Table of Contents Sections. Or to find the abstract from the number in brackets […] in my report, click on the Advanced Search link, put the abstract number into the Keywords box, limit the search to Titles, enter the volume number (42) and issue number (5), then Search. Some of the hits have a link to a large PDF containing the abstract. There are five PDFs, one each for the featured sessions, slides, clinical case slides, thematic posters, and posters. Strangely, only the first few presentations in each PDF show a link to the PDF. So, if you want the complete PDF for each type of session, put the following word in the Keywords field of the search form, with other information as above: 587 (for slides), 1094 (for thematic posters), 1158 (for clinical cases), and 1345 (for posters). The PDF of featured sessions is not available, but there were no abstracts anyway. If all else fails, email me.
A good way to review this and other conferences is to get together a small group (no more than five) with an interest in a specific sport or topic, set up the PDF of conference abstracts on a big monitor, then search for the sport or other keyword and skim each abstract containing the keyword. It's actually fun, and you will learn things from each other, as well as from the abstracts.
Acute Effects
Although it wasn't done with competitive athletes, a really comprehensive crossover study of 34 young adults showed substantial differences in the effects of various combinations of warm-up exercises (aerobic, stretching, specific activity) on vertical jump, which highlights the need to investigate what works best for your athletes [615]. An attempt to optimize the warm-up by aiming for post-activation potentiation failed in a crossover with 14 male basketballers [1702].
Acupuncture for performance enhancement? It's hard to eliminate the placebo effect–recall that placebo injections of saline work better for pain than placebo pills–and there are questions about the time course and the type of exercise, but this crossover study of 33 recreational athletes showed there could be benefits for maximum isometric force [616].
Forget about wearing a wristband soaked in Energicer alcohol-menthol solution: it might feel cool, but as you would expect, there was little effect on performance of a 2000-m time trial in a warm environment by 18 rowers in a crossover [617]. The latest way to get a placebo effect, or would you prefer acupuncture?
When 11 trained cyclists repeated a 109-min bout of sprints and short time trials, the repeat was better when recovery from the first bout consisted of 6 or 12 min of contrast water therapy (alternating 1-min bouts in hot and cold water) relative to control or 18 min of contrast therapy [618].
Although it was a crossover, there is no way five endurance cyclists is enough to conclude "no effect" of compression tights for recovery between a 60-min pre-load and a 20-min time trial [619]. I am more inclined to believe a claim of little effect of such garments on running mechanics and economy with 16 highly trained distance runners (show confidence limits and I wouldn't have to be inclined–I could be persuaded), but any assertion about individual differences in the effect is vacuous without an analysis of change scores that takes into account error of measurement [620].
Whether titanium-impregnated garments had a clear benefit on recovery in cyclists depended partly on the choice of smallest worthwhile effect, and there was the possibility of at least one negative effect [621]. So, given no plausible mechanism, I would put my money on the true effect being trivial, if not truly null. These odd-ball studies have to be published, however, on the off-chance that they're paradigm shifters.
According to the computational fluid dynamics, there's less drag when you glide deeper in a swimming start or turn, but whether you might save time thereby is not clear in the abstract [699].
Top speed skaters who performed worse than normal in competitions did so not because they paced themselves badly but rather because they were just in bad form [1150]. Nice one, Carl (Foster)!
There's little doubt that dietary antioxidants can reduce the signs and symptoms of the oxidative stress of hard or eccentric exercise, but do they benefit or harm athletic performance acutely, and do they benefit or harm adaptations to training when consumed chronically? Few of the many studies on antioxidants presented at this conference addressed these questions. One of the best was a crossover study of 23 female runners, who performed three 3-wk blocks of overload training each followed by a taper and performance tests, with consumption in each block of an isocaloric drink containing either blackcurrant extract, megadoses of vitamin C, or placebo, with 4-wk washouts and performance pretests before each block to adjust for individual changes in performance over the extended period of the study [2902]. The training consisted of high-intensity intervals performed competitively on a hilly course, and the performance tests after each taper were a treadmill incremental test and a 5-km road time trial. Vitamin C and blackcurrant extract impaired training intensity clearly by ~1%, but in spite of the large sample size and sophisticated analysis, mean effects on the performance tests were unclear (i.e., possibility of small beneficial effects but unacceptable risk of small harmful effects). Not stated in the abstract was some evidence that faster runners might benefit from the blackcurrant. It's possible that there were beneficial acute effects from the antioxidants on the day of the tests that were offset by harmful chronic effects on training, an issue with many such studies that needs to be resolved.
There were several studies of effects of other botanical antioxidants on performance or recovery. Two weeks of an "almond diet" or "almond and purple sweet potato leaves diet" resulted in 46% and 39% increases in run time to exhaustion respectively at 75% VO2max compared with the ~34-min control (not placebo) in 14 male team-sport athletes [2905]. In contrast, 7 d of supplementing with pomegranate juice (not stated as such in the abstract) vs placebo resulted in a reasonably clear 4.5% impairment of mean power of 12 endurance athletes in a 10-min cycling time trial in the heat [2904], even though pomegranate juice reduced muscle soreness and weakness following muscle-damaging eccentric exercise in 17 (9+8?) resistance-trained males [1931]. Two supplements with antioxidant activity (one based on rose hips, rhodiola, and astaxanthin; the other based on ashwaganda, prickly pear, and grape seed) also reduced strength loss following eccentric exercise in 31 healthy men randomized to the control and treatment groups [1747]. Another herbal blend (Rhodiola crenulata and Cordyceps sinesis) might enhance the effects of altitude training, but statistical significance in the treatment group and not in the control group probably means nothing useful [1936].
Quercetin ("kwer-sitin") was the main topic of one of the two President's Lectures that closed the conference [no abstract]. Mark Davis painted a very rosy picture of a compound found in fruits and vegetables that at least in animal studies has all manner of beneficial effects on performance, immunity, and even colon cancer, mediated possibly through anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and caffeine-like actions. Effects on humans might not be so clear cut, according to the Wikipedia article, and at this conference there was only one arguably beneficial effect–a reduction in post-exercise blood pressure–in seven abstracts of studies of quercetin and related compounds [2567-2574]. Mark cited one study in his lecture showing an increase in VO2max and time to exhaustion in humans, but the subjects were untrained and did not train during the 7 d of supplementation.
I was intrigued to attend Russ Richardson's colloquium on antioxidants in exercise [no abstract], because Russ has done outstanding work in the past on delivery of oxygen as the limiting factor in endurance performance. He has now grafted this prior interest onto the effects of aging and antioxidants on the delivery of blood to muscle. In summary, an acute dose of antioxidants restores the age-related loss of vascular function, but the partial restoration that occurs with training in old muscle is antagonized by antioxidants. His observations fit with the emerging picture of antioxidants as worth taking acutely for competitive performance but bad for training, as his co-presenter Jose Vina recommended. Russ had no answer to my question as to whether dietary antioxidants antagonized blood flow to the brain in aging professors who exercise and mega-dose on blueberries and blackcurrants.
Fish oil has anti-inflammatory properties, but supplementing for 65 d in a blind controlled trial apparently had little effect ("all P>0.05") on markers of inflammation, muscle damage and muscle strength following a subsequent acute bout of eccentric exercise [2829]. With only 10+10 "participants" (5 females and 5 males in each group), the study was probably underpowered for conclusions about small or trivial effects, but exact p values–or better still, confidence limits–would help savvy readers decide. This comment applies to the majority of all the presentations. Sigh…
In a meta-analysis of 44 studies of effects on exercise performance of carbohydrate ingestion during the exercise, the authors needlessly (it seems to me) excluded studies that did not meet ACSM guidelines for supplementation, thereby reducing the possibility of challenging or extending the guidelines. The studies were pooled by standardizing effects before analysis, an approach I do not recommend. Separate analyses for the four exercise protocols (time trial or time to exhaustion, with or without an exercise preload) revealed small beneficial effects of carbohydrate [1584].
By modeling curvature in the response of 51 cyclists and triathletes to a range of doses of carbohydrate at four research sites, a consortium of researchers found an optimum ingestion rate of ~70 g.h-1 for a 20-km time trial following a 2-h preload [855].
A drink containing fructose and maltodextrin was absorbed more rapidly than an isocaloric drink containing only maltodextrin in a crossover with 14 cyclists/triathletes; performance of a 60-km time trial following a 2.5-h preload was substantially better with the fructose, although "no significant differences were found" [857].
A newly designed hypotonic sports drink (Mizone Rapid) was absorbed more rapidly than drinks that were isotonic (Powerade), mildly hypertonic (Gatorade) or strongly hypotonic (water placebo) in a crossover with 11 cyclists/triathletes; the observed effect on performance in an incremental test following a 2-h preload was best with the hypotonic drink (by 1.2%), but there was too much uncertainty for the outcome to be clear [860].
Hyperhydration with glycerol had practically zero effect relative to a water placebo on a ~1-h running time trial in the heat, but you'd need more than the 6 runners in the crossover to rule out substantial differences [1682]. A similar study of the effects of sodium loading with or without glycerol in 8 endurance athletes (a messy mix of 7 males and 1 female) was similarly inconclusive [1684].
Meta-analysis of the effects of hypohydration showed that it starts to affect endurance performance when loss of body mass is 3% or more, but there was no mention of ambient temperatures in the studies [1679]; hypohydration also impaired some kinds of shorter performance, but a threshold was less clear [1681]. There was one original-research study showing unsurprising impairment with hypohydration [1683].
It's reasonably clear that rinsing the mouth with sugar solutions enhances performance, and now it looks like mouth rinsing with water enhances cycling performance in dehydrated subjects. The only difference is that you have to swallow the water, apparently to activate receptors in the throat [943]. The quantities are too small for the effect to be mediated via any offsetting of the dehydration. There's no real relevance to athletes here, of course, but it's quirky enough to include in this report.
Chocolate milk for recovery! After a fatiguing bout of exercise lasting nearly 2 h and finishing with intervals, 10 trained cyclists (5 M and 5 F) recovered for 4 h while drinking chocolate milk or an isocaloric carbohydrate drink in a crossover fashion before a 40-km time trial, which they performed an astonishing 8.4% faster on the chocolate milk [2816]. The authors opted for faster glycogen resynthesis as the explanation, but what about chocolate receptors?
Adding protein to a drink containing maltodextrin and fructose if anything impaired performance of a 60-km time trial following a 2.5-h preload, but there were only 7 cyclists/triathletes in the crossover, and no data in the abstract beyond "P>0.05" [1575].
Supplementing with a "water-soluble" protein (aren't all dietary proteins water soluble?) was claimed to reduce injuries relative to a water placebo in a 7-d intensive training camp, but the numbers of runners (9+8) and injuries (1+3) were way too small for the outcome to be clear, and the claim that the protein also prevented exercise-induced anemia is likely to be a consequence of inflated Type I error, in my view [2854].
In an 8-wk training study with 8+8 female basketball players there were no statistically significant differences in body-composition and performance outcomes for supplementation with whey vs casein protein [2855]. What about some confidence limits to properly address the possibility of real (substantial) differences of either sign, given the small sample size?
When 15 Aussie-rules football players consumed branched-chain amino acids with a meal 3 h before fatiguing exercise, they experienced less fatigue-related decrements in exercise and skill performance in subsequent sport-specific tests, in comparison with the meal alone [2864]. The effect was small but clear, so BCAAs might be worth using before important competitions. As for the mechanism, BCAAs apparently compete with tryptophan for uptake into the brain, where tryptophan is converted to fatigue-inducing serotonin. Sure enough, when amino acids were switched to a mixture aimed at enhancing tryptophan uptake, fatigue was worse. Nice one, Nigel (Stepto)!
β-alanine is an amino acid in meat that gets taken back up into meat (muscle) when you eat it. There it is converted to carnosine, which acts as an intracellular buffer. On the Friday at lunchtime Powerbar launched a new sustained release β-alanine supplement that will make loading over a month or so much easier and probably more effective. The evidence for performance enhancement in bouts of high-intensity exercise lasting several minutes is already clear cut, and a study showing positive effects that are further augmented with acute bicarbonate supplementation was presented that afternoon [930]. Useful information about dosing and time course of loading was also presented [929]: you can speed up the loading with higher doses, and it takes weeks to wash out.
β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate (HMB) is an amino acid with likely anabolic effects in muscle, but the abstracts at ACSM were a mixed bag: it works on retaining strength and muscle mass in aging rats [2856–a clever study], but it didn't enhance training in old rats [2858], nor did it protect against the effects of eccentric exercise in old humans [2857].
Training for 28 d with creatine supplementation produced a possible enhancement of jumping performance in 6+6 highly trained volleyball players, although data of only 8 players were in the final analysis [1917].
Nicotine patches or gum appeared to produce a small enhancement of cycling performance in a ~1-h time trial with 10 male cyclists in a crossover, but the sample size is marginal and there are no confidence limits [1922].
Caffeine dispatches… It had unremarkable acute effects on repeated running sprints in habitual or naïve users [1913] and on performance of resistance training [1915], but included in a sports drink it helped active subjects complete lower-body resistance training at a higher intensity [1929]. Use caffeine in low doses for early-morning shot put [923]. Don't worry about caffeine abstinence for 4 d before endurance cycling (but I don't believe it) [924]. Caffeine also works in a dose-dependent manner for sprints during endurance cycling [925]. A meta-analysis revealed less of an effect when it was combined with carbohydrate [926]. Finally, caffeine appeared to enhance performance in a 40-km cycling time trial in the cold at a dose of 5 but not 10 mg.kg-1 [927].
Bicarbonate supplementation worked for short swimming sprints, by a massive 2% in a crossover with 6 male and 8 female swimmers and a test designed to emphasize competition and eliminate turns [1923].
As predicted in the ACSM report in 2006, Viagra (sildenafil) did not enhance endurance performance at moderate altitudes [1036, 1992].
Tests and Technology
The 10 tests in a suite developed for gymnastics have modest reliability (intraclass correlations 0.69-0.91), and the total score has excellent reliability (0.97) and good validity (correlation of 0.77 with competitive level) [1847].
Running shoes with special "actuator lugs" (Google it) improved running economy by 1.0% in 12 elite distance runners, with a P value that represents 99% confidence limits of ±0.9% [2624]. The authors confused error of measurement with smallest effects and uncertainty in the outcome, so were not as optimistic as they should have been. The effect should translate into an improvement in running speed of 1%, which for a top runner represents a small-moderate benefit (a couple of extra medals every 10 races).
It looks to me like the latest 10-Hz GPS (global positioning system) technology doesn't have nearly enough validity (standard error of the estimate, 14%) or reliability (typical error, 12%) to properly track short sprints in team-sport athletes [837]. Better luck next upgrade. Triaxial accelerometry, on the other hand, looks promising for monitoring running [840, 878] and maybe even some aspects of resistance training [842].
If you're struggling with real-time video feedback in a field setting, see how one group solved the problem on the ski field and investigated its impact on skiers and coaches [1145].
I'm finding it difficult to get excited about tests for the various anaerobic thresholds [2781, 2783, 2784, 2786, 2787, 2873, 3031]. There were also various measurement-type studies of maximal-effort tests that I don't have time to report on. I hope I didn't miss something valuable.
I did get excited about a conversational forum on regression vs limits of agreement for validity and other measure-comparison studies, because I was one of the speakers! See the article in this issue for more.
A physiological or psychological variable might be useful for optimizing the overload training of high-performance athletes, if changes in the variable between the beginning and end of the overload have an inverted U relationship with changes in performance. You would then titrate the training to keep the variable at the maximum of performance. Yes, but we found little evidence of such a relationship for a wide range of variables monitored in 10 male and 10 female elite rowers over a 4-wk overload and 1-wk taper [873]. In fact, for most variables, the more extreme the change, the better the performance. None of the rowers ended up overtrained, so maybe they could have taken even harder training. Maybe we should also have included markers of oxidative stress, because military recruits who ended up over-reached after 7 wk of hard training had higher levels of some of these markers at baseline [874]. Will this finding translate usefully to the training of elite athletes?
If I didn't know that one of the PhDs at the Australian Institute of Sport was doing work with a related aim, I probably would have skipped over an abstract on using a simple performance test (a drop jump) and a questionnaire (the RESTQ) to monitor fatigue/recovery, in this case in 17 male soccer players during a season [1700]. But I think the study needed assays of more outcomes at more time points in more athletes to provide adequate evidence of efficacy of the approach.
Use of perceived exertion to calculate training "impulse" (load) seems to have been as successful as the use of heart rate in predicting running performance from training logs, but I don't think a prediction error of 2.4% can be regarded as successful [2645].
In a controlled trial of 8+8 top junior fencers, 6 wk of an experimental sport-specific training produced substantially better gains in sport-specific field tests than usual training [1701]. Will it help competitive performance?
The Chinese have revealed their successful training program for speed skaters, at least for 2005-2007 [1148]. The secret is apparently polarized training, in which athletes do most of their training above and below–but not at–the anaerobic threshold.
I report the following training studies for the sake of completeness rather than for any obvious practical application. Sessions of intervals produced similar gains as continuous exercise in various maximal cycling tests in 7+7 male subjects [1029] and in various maximal canoe ergometer tests in 7+7 male canoeists [1033]. More intervals produced unsurprisingly greater gains in the lactate threshold in cyclists [1030].
Live-low train-high at supraVO2maximal intensities for 4 wk apparently improved part of performance in a Wingate sprint test, but there are no data in the abstract [1988]. This form of altitude training also enhanced isometric endurance but had unclear effects on intense dynamic exercise [1993]. Something is seriously wrong here: a meta-analysis based on standardized effects favored live-low train-high over the other three forms of live/train low/high altitude training [1991]. A more sophisticated meta-analysis by Bonetti and me (Sports Medicine 39, 107-127, 2009) showed a reasonably clear advantage for live-high train-low.
Training with blood-flow restriction is the latest craze, apparently, and it even has a Japanese name: kaatsu. An entire poster session was devoted to it [2757-2767], along with a smattering of abstracts in other sessions. In kaatsu, limb exercise is performed while arterial blood blow is occluded with a cuff. The gains in muscle mass and strength after 2 and 4 wk of such training in 14 untrained subjects (no control group) were correlated with the metabolic changes in the muscle induced by the cuff [2072]. Fine, but performance improvements in best-practice controls are about equal to [2758] or even better than with kaatsu alone or with kaatsu in combination with best practice [2761]. Remain skeptical.
In a meta-analysis of nine controlled trials, whole-body vibration for 10 d to 47 wk had small-moderate effects on jump height; larger effects were observed with higher frequencies, higher amplitudes, and longer session durations [1555]. We have to allow something for placebo effects and publication bias, though, so it's reassuring to see an acute effect of whole body vibration on objectively measured post-activation potentiation [1558]. But it didn't seem to work on softball batting speed [1559].
Inspiratory muscle training had varying degrees of failure [847] and success [848] for performance of non-athletes, but of course these outcomes don't necessarily apply to highly trained athletes.
Either of two kinds of high-intensity sprint training twice weekly for 4 wk was more effective than continuous running for improvements in aerobic and anaerobic tests in a randomized controlled trial of 26 collegiate male soccer players [1857].
Super-slow resistance training was probably less effective than traditional resistance training for 1-RM strength in 14+13 (+8 control) previously untrained women [2081].
There were some potentially useful differences in outcomes with low vs high speed strength training in a powerful (24+25) study of high-school athletes: "high speed may be preferential when the performance goals reflect agility and upper-body power" [2083].
In a controlled trial with 74 army cadets, repeated sprint training for 7 wk improved 40-m sprint performance by 2.2% compared with a non-training control group, but the added resistance of a parachute led to a much bigger 5.1% improvement [2634].
Five novice tennis players improved the speed of their swing in forehands, backhands and serves after training with resistance in the form of a racket with vanes. Would the gains translate into faster ball speed without loss of technique? Worryingly, outcomes in three skilled players were partly negative [2637].
Six subjects in each of three training groups is such a pity, because the rowers who added high-load low-repetitions resistance exercises to their usual training improved their 2000-m rowing ergometer time by a non-significant but promising 0.7% relative to control training and a suggestive 0.4% relative to low-load high-repetitions group [2887]. You shouldn't do a study with six in each group. Nine in each of two groups would have been better, but still not enough. The magic minimum is 10 per group, and that's only for representativeness. Adequate precision for trivial or small effects on performance requires many more.
Acknowledgements: my thanks to the Norges idrettshøgskole (NIH, the Norwegian Sport University) for funding my travel to Oslo, to Frucor NZ for funding my ACSM conference expenses including return travel from Oslo, and to Sport and Recreation NZ for helping to defray expenses for two other conferences by commissioning this report. AUT University provided my salary.
Published June 2010


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I remember my grandmother saying, "If we didn't need food, we'd all be rich!" This may be true. But then, a life without food would be a little less pleasurable. Still, there are so many ways to make great food cheap, make perishable food last and the grocery budget stretch like nobody's business.
Enjoy today's tips, filled with practiced wisdom for practical solutions to make cooking fun and rewarding for you and your family. Bon appetit!
PUT A LID ON IT. When I first started cooking, making a perfect grilled cheese sandwich seemed to elude me. Either my sandwich was toasted on the outside with unmelted cheese inside, or the cheese was gooey but the outside burnt. Then I figured out the old fry cook trick: put a lid on it! Once one side is perfectly grilled, turn it over and then cover the pan with a lid or baking sheet. You will never settle for a sub-par grilled cheese again.
SLIPPERY CHICKEN. Pulling the skin off chicken can be tough when it's slippery because it's difficult to get a good grip. Solution: Dip your fingers in flour first and the skin will pull right off.
ONE LOVELY CUPPA. If you love coffee as much as I do and have never tried a gadget called Aerobie (everydaycheapskate.com/aerobie) by AeroPress, you are in for a delicious surprise. Aerobie is manual and the cheapest, easiest, fastest way to make a really great cup of coffee. And, yes, I do mean just one cup of perfectly brewed coffee at a time. Aerobie is small enough to keep one in your desk drawer at the office and another at home. Can't break the $4-a-day Starbucks habit? This could do it. For me, Aerobie makes such a superior cup of coffee, breaking that habit's a cinch.
HEAT THE MUG. Tired of that first morning cup of steaming hot coffee cooling off too quickly? Do this: As your coffee is brewing, fill your coffee mug with water and heat it to boiling in the microwave. Pour out the water into a dirty dish or pan that needs to be soaked, and replace with hot coffee. You'll be amazed by how much longer the coffee stays hot.
ONE GOOD EGG. To determine whether an egg is still fresh enough to eat, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it's fresh — if it rises to the surface, toss it.
FREEZING EGGS. When eggs are on sale, stock up. Break the eggs into a freezer-safe container and whisk well to blend. Freeze. When you need an egg in a recipe, use an ice cream scoop to portion out what you need, as you would scoop ice cream. Once scoop is equal to one egg.
GREASE THE GRATER. To get more cheese in the recipe and less stuck on the grater, spray both sides of the grater lightly with cooking spray before grating the cheese.
Mary Hunt is founder of www.DebtProofLiving.com.
To find out more about Mary and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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The Charger football team comes home to finish out the 2013 season for back-to-back games, the first coming up at 1:00 Saturday afternoon against Michigan Tech University.
Both teams come into the game off losses to two of the conference's "valley" schools last weekend. Hillsdale (4-5, 4-3 GLIAC) held a seven-point first-half lead, but could not hold off Grand Valley State, eventually losing a 31-21 decision in Allendale. The Huskies (4-4, 4-4 GLIAC) fell victim to the team that beat the Chargers two weeks ago, first-place and 17th-ranked Saginaw Valley State, in a 55-35 shootout.
As a whole, the GLIAC is stacked with talented and productive quarterbacks, and the Hillsdale defense will face another one this week in the form of MTU's Tyler Scarlett. A junior in his third year starting under center, the Clarkston, Mich. native possesses a terrific blend of arm strength, good footwork and scrambling ability, forming a player the defense must account for on every play.
Scarlett is averaging more than 270 passing yards per game this season, which ranks third in the conference. He's completing 56 percent of his passes, and has a 12-to-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
His favorite target this season has emerged as one of the GLIAC's best freshmen, wide receiver Brandon Cowie. He leads the Huskies with 47 receptions for 764 yards and three touchdowns.
Charger quarterback Sam Landry already has the ninth-most passing yards in a season by a player in school history (2,052), and has done a superior job of taking care of the football with just two interceptions on the season. A freshman has also emerged as his favorite target, Joe Srebernak. The Grosse Pointe, Mich. wideout has led the team in receptions in the past four straight games, and is a reliable target in the middle of the field.
This game matches up two of the conference's most disciplined teams. Michigan Tech is second in the GLIAC with just 20 penalties called on it, while the Chargers are tied for fifth in the GLIAC in that category.
Chargers host Huskies Saturday


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All the iceberg tips I have made (including the current work in progress) are based on photographs; there are so many beautiful and detailed images of iceberg tips for me to copy. However, my below-surface berg will be based on a composite sketch, pulling together all I have learned, seen and imagined, without having a single reliable image to inspire me.
The Rayleigh effect scatters sunlight so that the further from the surface, the bluer the light that shines through ice. I'm actually basing my underwater ice colours on a description of a deep crevasse in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, Antarctica where he says
KSR's novel is the origin of my Antarctic obsession, my most thumbed literary reference (though I do double check my facts in my Reader's Digest encyclopedia of Antarctica). His book can be seen as a framework for the exhibition of Antarctic pieces I will have next August, for he seamlessly brings together the sciences, the human history, the current politics, and potential futures of Antarctica. These are the same themes that I am responding to in my work, and so it is no accident that the next step of my imaginary Antarctic journey is to go below the surface, below the entrancing and accessible tip of the iceberg, to explore the unnamed, the indescribable and the scarcely apprehended.


text: Hello everybody I'm using ISPConfig for several years and recently I'd update OS and ISPConfig. Since it, the configuration in ISPConfig pannel in System->Server Configuration -> PHP open_basedir doesn't take effect on my web. Seeing base_dir configuration inside web (echo ini_get('open_basedir')) I can see than all changes done in ISPConfig3 pannel are useless. At last i've commented that in /etc/apache2/sites-available/siragga.es.vhost: # Clear PHP settings of this website # <FilesMatch "\.ph(p3?|tml)$"> # SetHandler None # </FilesMatch> # php as fast-cgi enabled Since that, I can write open_basedir paths in php.ini and works fine. Of course it's not a good solution as that configuration is global for all websites and obscured to ISPConfig3. What can I do to keep doing all configuration with pannel? Thxs!


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Kuwait City, Nov 30: The drama of Kuwait's parliamentary elections has nothing to do with the ballot count.
It's what may come afterward that has the country on edge as a broad coalition of conservative Islamists, liberal reformers and others vow to boycott Saturday's vote.
The election snub pushes the strategic Western ally closer toward the kind of standoffs that have unraveled other countries, including nearby Bahrain, during the Arab Spring: opposition groups possibly taking to the streets and the ruling establishment facing critical decisions about how hard to lash back.
The disputes flow from a complicated chain of events over the past six months, including the dissolution of the opposition-led parliament and its replacement by a pro-government legislature, followed by a decree from the emir to change voting rules that appeared to favor his critics.
The opposition coalition then decided it would not participate in the election and deemed the new parliament -- certain to be dominated by pro-government lawmakers -- as illegitimate.
The tensions also raise worrisome questions for allies such as the U.S., which seeks to keep thousands of American soldiers in Kuwait as part of the Pentagon's military counterweight to Iran.
"The core demands of the opposition are more participation and more partnership in government," said Shafeeq Ghabra, a political affairs professor at Kuwait University.
Anti-government lawmakers -- mostly Islamists and their allies -- have made almost a cottage industry of lodging corruption accusations and other charges at officials and even members of the ruling family.
In the past year, the foreign minister and central bank governor resigned under pressure from the opposition bloc in the 50-seat parliament.
Such dissent would be unthinkable in much of the tightly ruled Gulf, including Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
The decision to boycott the Kuwaiti elections now closes off parliament as a forum for a wide spectrum of opposition voices and could stir more street protests, which touched off serious clashes this month.
"The only thing certain is that we are not going to back down," said Mohammed Qassem, a leader of the election boycott movement.
That leaves the oil-rich country deeply divided. The showdown, stripped to its essentials, is over whether the final word on the country's political affairs rests with the people or the ruling dynasty.
There is still no clear sense on Kuwait's direction and whether the political stalemate could flare into unrest. All sides are "working blind" at the moment, said Mary Ann Tetreault, a Gulf affairs expert at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
An important test could be Friday during the first government-authorized protest rally since a ban on political gatherings earlier this month.
Organizers have promised a peaceful march, but it will be closely watched for any signs of breakaway groups trying to confront security forces. The turnout by youth groups and liberal factions also will be scrutinized.
Their alliance of convenience with Islamists and conservative tribal leaders is among the most unexpected developments of the political meltdown. For the moment, they are united by the claims that the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, overstepped his authority by changing the Kuwait's unusual multi-vote system to the standard one-vote-one-person.
Previously, Kuwaitis could cast ballots for four candidates.
Critics of the change say it gives authorities a greater hand possibly to bribe voters or control candidates.
The presence of Western-oriented Kuwaitis in the protest group poses added challenges to the ruling system, which had generally counted on liberal support in the past.
The emir had been lauded for standing firm against demands for stricter Muslim codes by hardliners, including calls to impose the death sentence on anyone convicted of insulting Islam.
Whether the broad-based opposition holds together remains one of the critical wild cards immediately after Saturday's election.
"The government and the opposition seem to be in a mood to escalate this further and neither side appears prepared to back down," said Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, a research fellow who follows Gulf affairs at the London School of Economics.
"Kuwait may be entering the most dangerous and volatile period in its history."
It got to this point through political brinksmanship and a series of gambits -- with each one appearing to dig the country deeper into crisis.
In February, Islamists and their tribal allies won parliament elections and immediately pushed for greater clout in policymaking affairs, including more seats in the Cabinet.
After a few tense months, the Constitutional Court disbanded the parliament amid claims of flaws in the electoral district map, and reinstated the former government-friendly chamber from elections in 2009. That group of lawmakers, however, never managed to convene a session.
In September, the country's highest civilian court rejected the government's assertions about problems in the electoral map, forcing the emir to call new elections.
Kuwait also has been hit by a wave of labor unrest and strikes earlier this year, including walkouts that grounded the state carrier, Kuwait Airways, and temporarily closed customs posts and left hundreds trucks stranded at the border.
Calls for better working conditions have grown louder in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Kuwaitis are used to well-paid government jobs and cradle-to-grave benefits that increasingly have become a burden on state finances despite the huge oil wealth.


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Bones Review: No Room at the InnSteve Marsi at . Comments
Following a brief federal prison riot and a heated debate over religion, mythology, germs and birthing venues, Bones and Booth welcomed a beautiful baby daughter at the end of tonight's watershed installment.
The arrival of Christine Angela Booth was sure to make for a memorable episode, but there was no guarantee it would be outstanding. You can thank show-runners Stephen Nathan and Hart Hanson for that.
"The Prisoner in the Pipe" delivered in every respect, blending laugh-out-loud humor with a heavy dose of heart and the backdrop of a murder case that, while an afterthought, still wasn't phoned in.
Considering that we knew the ending - and many details - in advance, the expectations were exceedingly high for this evening, and Hanson and Nathan deserve even more credit for coming through.
This may sound like a press release for the show, but it really was that good. Not even Fox's inadvertent sabotaging of the show with repeated schedule changes could take away from this.
Hopefully, with tonight's terrific chapter - its first on Monday night and only the seventh of Season 7 - kicking off the spring run and Bones renewed for Season 8, some normalcy will begin to sink in.
To put it in perspective, we learned Brennan was pregnant last May, yet she gave birth tonight, more than 10 months later! Rarely do things take longer to unfold in the TV universe than they would in real life.
At least it was worth the wait, as "The Prisoner in the Pipe" brought the laughs early and often, starting with B-squared's hospital tour and their repeated squabbling over where she should give birth.
To further her case for having a home birth, Brennan busted out the black light to prove that a hospital, while theoretically the safest venue, is essentially a petri dish of disease and blood stains.
It doesn't get much funnier than Brennan's blunt descriptions of female anatomy, or Booth lashing out against soccer and evil cappuccino makers when he feels like he's losing control of his life.
In a way, little has changed since the old days for the crime-solving tandem, except that she's lost 8-10 IQ points and is enormously pregnant, proving limitless material, both humorous and serious.
These circumstances also manifested themselves during the case, perhaps most memorably when the sea of prisoners parted during a full-on riot to ensure that pregnant Brennan wasn't in harm's way.
That would just be sacrilegious, after all.
The way Booth and Brennan clash over specific details (where to live, where to have the baby) and broader concepts (science vs. faith) has defined the seven episodes since they became expectant parents.
As such, the show has remained true to itself despite altering the relationship of its two leads in a way that once seemed incomprehensible. A commendable achievement, if you stop and think about it.
It's obvious that Booth and Brennan are going to make this work, and not just for Christine. There will continue to be (hilarious) arguments, but they've both grown significantly as their romance blossoms.
This was clear even before their little angel was born in a manger. Booth's "I love you" outside the prison was as special as any moment in the show's history, and wasn't even a major plot point.
As for the actual birth scene - with no room at the inn near Jamestown, and Brennan forced to deliver in a nearby barn - would've been unacceptably cheesy on any other show, yet was vintage Bones.
The writers have consistently done a wonderful job of tackling increasingly weighty subjects, yet striking the right balance with the show's comedic strengths and not taking things too seriously.
Having said that, could Christine have been introduced any other way?
The best thing about the sign saying WELCOME STAPES, for the smallest bone in the human body, is that knowing Brennan, you had to wonder for a split second if that were the actual name.
Fortunately, it's not, and after she introduced Christine Angela (named for Temperance's mom, and best friend) to the team, the closing montage was tear-inducing, ending an A-plus hour on a perfect note.
The case of the week, while clearly secondary to everything else playing out, still offered its share of mystery and noteworthy scenes, from paper shivs to acid baths and a poor man's Bernie Madoff.
Besides, as Brennan noted, at least she worked her last case before becoming a parent in an accredited health care facility. Remarkably, this did not do much to assuage Booth.
Next week, we'll begin the next chapter of this saga, with B&B and their new arrival as a family unit. How will that go? I have absolutely no idea, but can't wait to find out.
A few other observations and Bones quotes before turning it over to your comments:
- Any parent attempting to toilet train their toddler after watching this week's opening "body find" may have a hard time doing so with a straight face.
- Good to see Daisy back this week, and still as aroused as ever by Sweets. Always fun to see the Sweets-Booth bromance in effect as well.
- Best line: "She'll do it. She'll squat down right here on the lawn." - Booth, to innkeeper
- Second place: "You're not getting anywhere near my cervix, Ms. Wick." - Brennan
What did you think of this week's Bones? Sound off below!
Steve Marsi is the Managing Editor of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Google+ or email him here.


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Opinion: Pension Reform in California?
Editorial page writer Allysia Finley on a ballot initiative in California that could launch a fight over pension reform. Photo: Associated Press
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... I ... why the story is pension reform in California ... which a family of that might be on some kind of a typo it sorta like a hearing on prison Obama is rolling out a bigger ... proofreading tax cut plan but the other actually it's open California not a surly from the state government from but from my local governments and ... some Democrats in particular trying to ... get a hold of these runaway costs from pension and employee benefits ... that's right yet so basically we had this week was the Santa say merits of Reid a Democrat last year quarterback and reform local pension reform ... in city that passed with two-thirds support ... that change in benefits for existing workers the problem right now is help for news that they've had some modest reforms to change ... future or present ... pensions ... than on Current Workers literally driving problem ... okay now the big push back and I think this sounds a lot of places around the country ... being in say it's in the state constitution that you can never change or pension sedan in California with elsewhere that's not exactly with its spots that's a little murky Senate so there been courts claim that ... fifty six years though they decide that a rule that one from Dateline your pension is that stadia and ... spills or you can not ... change benefits in going for her current employees ... the cost issue does not see that all ... beastly says is that ... the state cannot impair contracts and the M Team pensions on contract Brazil based foundation will clarify the constitution and allow the changes to existing benefits point four right in and of course of this is that this lady is an overwhelming support is mentioned said Jose and I would imagine ... for California generally it would be a ... probably a pretty pretty attractive idea ... you would think so I've that things will turn into trouble during a says that the unions are until after attacking ... this saying that ... attracts last tensions unilaterally elite ... not slept in our name the people we're fighting this or billionaire's tax is ... an incidental budget Democratic areas of banking ... the art case for the new I don't think so we should ...