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BLUEFIELD, Va. —
It's time for Mountain Empire District football.
The Graham G-Men will take a 4-1 record into its MED opener on Saturday against Grayson County (4-1) at Mitchell Stadium.
Grayson County treated Graham rudely in the G-Men's MED debut last season, rolling to a 41-3 rout in Independence. The clubs played again in the opening round of the playoffs and it was more of the same, with the Blue Devils prevailing 35-15.
"In both games we failed to stop the run, they ran all over us in both games," Graham head coach Mike Williams said. "Offensively the first game we couldn't get much of anything going, the second game we felt like we ran the ball well, but we had a couple of key turnovers and penalties.
"Without that it probably would have been a little bit closer game."
That was last season. The G-Men enter having gone 4-1, compared to last year's mark of 2-3 at the same point in the campaign. That includes two wins in a row, with last week's 22-16 victory over Princeton still fresh on Williams' mind.
Graham rolled up 411 yards on offense against the bigger Tigers, led by Cody Hatfield's 156 yards on the ground and Spencer Sheets, who was 10-of-14 for 118 yards and ran for 81 more yards and accounted for three touchdowns.
"We are pleased with where we are at, we have progressed forward even up to the point last week we had our largest yards on offense this week," Williams said. "We were able to contain what we felt like was two of the fastest players we have played or will play to no points in the second half so we feel like we are getting better over the course of the season, which is the objective.
"We have got to continue to improve because we are not perfect by any stretch. We have a lot of areas that need work for us to turn this into a long season."
While Graham's lone loss was a 24-8 defeat against Richlands, the Blue Devils lost big, 49-7, to defending Division 1 state champion Clintwood, but have put points in the rest of the opposition, including 48 (twice), 45 and 35.
"I think without question, I told our team they are going to be the most physical team we have played," Williams said. "I think they will be the hardest hitting team we have played, they were that last year.
"I think they are the team on the schedule that would most be like playing us. They run a split-back option like we do, they are physical and get off the ball on defense so they are pretty similar to what we do."
Grayson County is led by the Rodgers brothers — Max and Mike. Max, who is the quarterback, has thrown for three touchdowns apiece in a pair of wins for the Blue Devils, while Mike combined for 10 catches for 262 yards and all six scores in those games.
John Bilbrey, Spencer Roberts and James Williams are all weapons in the run game for Grayson County.
"Their quarterback runs the ball well, a very accurate thrower, a very athletic kid, he plays baseball and basketball," Williams said. "He is probably their best player, he plays defense too, he plays outside linebacker or d-end. His brother makes a lot of great grabs."
Defensively, Williams has his eyes on Jarel Smith, who had in excess of 30 tackles for loss last season, and had several in the wins over Graham. Clint Bourne is also a mainstay in the secondary.
"(Smith) gave us a fit last year. They said he had 30-plus tackles for loss last year which is just unheard of, you don't hear of kids having numbers like that," Williams said. "He gets off the ball as well as anybody I have ever seen at anywhere I have ever coached, there is a reason he had 30-plus tackles for loss last year.
"We had to consistently eyeball him and block him because he comes up like a wild man after the ball."
Graham will counter with Sheets, who has accounted for six scores and Hatfield, who leads the G-Men with 468 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. He also paces Graham with 62 tackles and a pair of forced fumbles.
Williams said the G-Men offensive line had its best game of the season at Princeton, and Hatfield took advantage with his best game of the campaign.
"Cody is a good tailback, he runs harder than you think he would looking at his frame, he has a thin frame, but he pushes it up in there and takes shots," Williams said. "He is a strong runner, he is a fastest guy on the team with just straight-away speed.
"If he can get out in the field, he is able to get to the edge well with his speed and get outside stuff that maybe a slower kid wouldn't be able to do."
Mark Large emerged as a weapon at tight end for Graham against Princeton, taking advantage of play-action to catch three passes for 70 yards. Charlie Benfield leads the G-Men with nine receptions, while Hatfield has seven.
"I am not surprised by Mark, he works hard, he had a great offseason and he does everything that you ask," Williams said. "Being a first year starter you are going to have some growing pains as any first year starter would.
"Usually those type kids start coming out a few games after they have gotten a few games under their belt...Now they are getting some experience under their belt and they are really starting to show what they can do and what we knew they could do all along."
Graham's defense was able to slow Princeton's speed and hold the Tigers scoreless after trailing 16-15 at the break. Brennan Wheeler led the G-Men with 14 hard-hitting tackles. Hunter Cook, Jake Tibbs and Jacob Evans also had double digit in stops. Benfield had seven tackles, an interception and blocked an extra point.
"What stood out to me is not just statistically, but (Wheeler) had some hard, physical tackles," Williams said. "He was taking them the ground hard and we like to be a physical team so from a defensive standpoint he definitely did that."
Williams has seen a reversal of an early-season trend when Graham had a positive turnover ratio. That has changed in the last two games, with five fumbles and fewer takeaways.
That will have to improve against the Blue Devils.
"The big thing is take care of the football, against Grayson if you give up turnovers and they score off of them you are in trouble," he said. "We have got to get back to taking care of the football and creating turnovers...
"They're battle-tested. They will be a tough squad, they have had their feet over the fire this year, they will be a tough challenge for us."
Kickoff on Saturday is slated for 1:30 p.m.
—Contact Brian Woodson
at firstname.lastname@example.com
Local Sports
G-Men open district play against Grayson on Saturday
BLUEFIELD, Va. —
It's time for Mountain Empire District football.
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- Princeton sinks the Pirates
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Give Living Plants as Favors
For an environmentally conscious couple, having an eco-friendly wedding can be incredibly satisfying and rewarding. Celebrating your partnership means celebrating everything that you believe in and care about as a couple, including your love for the Earth! Making responsible environmental choices is deeply symbolic—it sets the stage for a life of stewardship and respect, beauty and health. Remember, even if you can't go 100% eco-friendly, every little bit counts!
Screen the Venue
Before you decide on a venue for your wedding, ask some questions. Does the venue compost their waste? Do they recycle? If you're getting married in a big city you may even be able to find a venue that recycles gray water and has low-water toilets (in a large building, these can save thousands of gallons of water every day!)
Go Local
Consider feeding your guests organic foods from local farms. Many caterers will be willing to substitute organic, locally grown foods for conventional varieties. If you have the time, you can contact local farms yourself. They will often give you a discounted price when you purchase food directly from them. Also, if your venue doesn't compost, many farms will gladly accept leftover food for their gardens. Consider asking about locally grown flowers too.
Recycled or Electronic Invitations
In this day and age there is no real reason to send paper invitations. There are many beautiful templates available online, no trees required. If you have your heart set on paper invitations, consider choosing recycled paper and just use a single page. You can still set up a wedding website for directions and accommodation details.
Recycled or Repurposed Décor
Get creative with household materials or with objects you find at your local thrift store or vintage shop. Mason jars are particularly popular these days. Couples are using them for everything from flower vases to hanging lanterns. Look at your materials with fresh eyes. Would that embroidered cloth work as a table runner? Would that costume jewelry work in a non-traditional bouquet? Let your imagination go wild. There are no wrong answers.
Voluminous Vintage
Vintage wedding dresses aren't just fashionable, they're eco-friendly! Try shopping at consignment stores or high-end thrift stores. If you give yourself lots of time to shop, chances are good you'll find the perfect dress. Remember, you can always have the dress tailored so it doesn't have to fit perfectly when you first try it on. Vintage dresses evoke old glamour and that's always beautiful.
The Green Bride Guide has everything you need to plan a green wedding. We've got a site full of inspiration -- from real wedding stories to eco-friendly wedding day items to organic gifts -- and offer the largest green wedding directory in the country!


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Paychex Overview
Get an Insider's View of our IT organization
Company Overview
Paychex, Inc. is a leading national provider of payroll, human resource, and benefits outsourcing solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. The company offers comprehensive payroll services, including payroll processing, payroll tax administration, and employee pay services. Human resource and benefits outsourcing services include 401(k) plan recordkeeping, workers' compensation administration, section 125 plans, a professional employer organization, and other administrative services for business. Paychex was founded in 1971. With headquarters in Rochester, New York, the company has more than 100 offices and serves approximately 572,000 payroll clients nationwide.
Role of IT
The Paychex Information Technology organization provides the technology foundation that supports the company and its Sales and Operations functions. Paychex product offerings are largely based on information - capturing, calculating, reporting, packaging and electronically exchanging information - hence, the IT department designs, develops and tests most of the software needed to support these products. IT also operates two state-of-the-art Data Centers in the Rochester area and manages all systems and networks that support the company's processing. In addition, the IT organization monitors and tunes system performance and capacity, manages security, and handles problems and incidents that are received by our service desks. The Information Technology group consists of over 800 employees, mostly based in Rochester, NY. Paychex, which was named to Computerworld's "100 Best Places to Work in IT" for the fourth consecutive year in 2008 and to Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2008 as well, has employment opportunities in the following IT areas:
- Technology Research and Planning - researches new and innovative technology that can be applied to solve business problems or to provide new product and market opportunities. This group is also responsible for strategic planning aimed at technology introduction and obsolescence and capacity planning to address growth in clients, employees and new products.
- Information Security - manages security incidents, conducts vulnerability assessments, provides security awareness training and monitors adherence to security policies and standards. Information Security also manages requests for information access.
- Program Office - provides project management, requirements definition and data analysis for all Enterprise Application and Technology Infrastructure projects. This group also maintains the project portfolio, standard project management processes and enterprise resource consumption and availability information.
- Development - is responsible for the design, development, testing and ongoing maintenance of Paychex software applications and databases.
- Operations - manages the company's networks, systems, data centers and telephone systems. It is also responsible for asset and contract management, systems and LAN administration, and business continuity planning.
- Support - provides first and second level resolution support, problem management and incident communication. Support also manages service level requirements, provides root cause analysis and manages the release of changes into the production environment.


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The windows of heaven opened over the Mississippi River basin in early April 1965, and rain was upon the land for half a month. It fell on soil hardened by an unusually deep winter frost and streams swollen with the melt from a heavy, late snow. On April 5, the Mississippi began rising rapidly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Governors deployed the National Guard to build and patch dikes.
The river swept away houses or beat them to sticks, according to witness reports compiled by the National Weather Service. On April 16, Good Friday, surging waters broke through railroad tracks in Bluff Siding, Wis., and raced over thousands of acres of farmland, flinging dazed livestock across the countryside.
From north of Minneapolis down to Hannibal, Mo., the waters climbed to heights that still stand as records. The raging Mississippi inflicted what would be $1.5 billion in damages in today's dollars, a tab largely picked up by the federal government, because most of the farmers lacked flood insurance. It was a level of destruction that few townsfolk along the river had thought possible.
As Charlie Hale, a photographer who snapped hundreds of rolls of flood photos for the Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn., later recalled to the Weather Service, "Old-timers couldn't remember any floods big enough to flood a city—why should 1965 be different?" His camera told Hale it was different. Flying over the Mississippi in early April, he likened the river to "a time bomb," and said he wondered "if it was going to get the right elements and explode someplace."
People build houses on floodplains because they expect that someone will rescue them if things go bad. That's the classic economic parable of "moral hazard," the tendency of individuals and institutions to take on too much risk whenever they don't have to pay for it. It's also one of the simplest ways to explain how the U.S. economy tanked three years ago and why it remains in danger of collapsing again, even more catastrophically.
The river-dwellers in the 1960s, who undervalued risk, presaged the investment bankers and subprime-mortgage borrowers in the run-up to the financial crisis. After all, what kind of society turns its back on families left homeless by a flood, or lets its system of borrowing and lending disintegrate overnight?
When a monster flood strikes, the government typically passes laws designed to prevent a repeat of the destruction. Fairly quickly, though, houses start popping up on the floodplain again. That was true along the Mississippi River basin. After the 1965 floods, President Johnson pushed through a set of reforms that included the first federal flood-insurance program. In 1993, the river spilled over its banks again. Damages topped $22 billion in today's dollars, about 15 times the real-dollar amount from 1965. Once again, the government bore much of the cost. Few locals had bought what was supposed to be mandatory insurance.
The U.S. economy is in danger of a much more devastating déjà vu event today—unless regulators, lawmakers, businesses, and consumers adjust their actions to account for new risks and the nation's increased vulnerability to them. Protecting ourselves starts with admitting that the next big storm could hit soon and that, if it does, rescue could be a long time coming.
(Watch Jim Tankersley talk about the five vulnerabilities that the U.S. economy faces.)
The waters are just now receding from the financial flood of 2008. But the river remains, as photographer Hale said, filled with time bombs. The increasingly connected international economy, the rapidly changing global ecology, and the world's dizzyingly complex and distressed financial system all carry risks that could explode and wipe out the U.S. recovery. Meanwhile, the lingering effects of the last crisis have weakened wealthy nations' ability to respond to the next one if it comes soon.
It's difficult to pin down the total burden of risk that the economy is bearing, or to say with any certainty whether Americans are taking more inadvisable risks today than in the past. But what's indisputable is that the American economy is highly vulnerable, perhaps more so than at any point in recent history, to the threat of risky behavior blowing a hole in its fragile recovery. It's also true that the underpriced risks taken today by an overconfident few—highly leveraged foreign banks, say, or fossil-fuel gluttons in industrial countries—could rain economic misery on the masses in the United States and around the world.
In other words, whether we choose to or not, we all live on a floodplain now.
Economic risk isn't inherently bad—nations couldn't grow and prosper if people never took chances with their money. In a free and functioning market, problems start when risk is priced too low, forcing everyone unwittingly to share in the resulting vulnerability.
If Jane wants to buy a house with money borrowed from her bank, the bank estimates Jane's risk of default and charges her appropriately to cover that risk. But what if the lender gave Jane a discount, assuming that her neighbors would step in to help make payments if she faced losing the house? So, what if Jane got a loan she really shouldn't have qualified for? And what if Jane and all her neighbors, who also borrowed from the bank at discount rates, defaulted at the same time? What if the bank then fails, and no one in town can borrow money, and the local economy collapses? A lot of people with no connection to Jane or her loan suffer the consequences.
The financial crisis showed just how wicked such a chain reaction can become and how many bystanders it can hurt. In its aftermath, governments around the world pushed for reforms to minimize the chances of a repeat meltdown. But policymakers failed to shore up critical vulnerabilities that lurk in the system—areas where risk is underpriced and thus over-embraced. Those are the potential triggers of the next crippling chain reaction.
"The problem is, we didn't change much of the structure, and we didn't change much of the regulation of the risk market," says Christian Gollier, an economics professor at the University of Toulouse and the head of the social decision-making program at Georgia State University's Center for the Economic Analysis of Risk. "My impression is that the risk has not been reduced after the crisis—quite the contrary."
Gollier was one of more than two dozen economists who agreed to talk to National Journal about pinpointing the "time bombs" of incorrectly priced risk that pose the greatest threat to the U.S. and global economies. A few mentioned terrorist attacks, nuclear warfare, or science-fiction-style terrors such as asteroids or rebellion by sentient computers. But most respondents focused on two broad—and decidedly more concrete—categories: financial and environmental risk. A third frequent suggestion, the risk of a precipitous spike in oil prices, bridged the two.
Economists and lawmakers hotly debate the degree to which the United States has defused its financial risks. Perhaps the best way to think about the crash's aftermath is that government officials did all they could have been expected to do but not everything they needed to.
In the wake of the financial bust, U.S. and world leaders adopted a series of stricter rules for financial institutions to guard against risky behaviors that could bring the system to its knees. They agreed to raise the amount of capital that banks are required to hold, through the so-called Basel III agreement. That higher bar is an attempt to shore up a business model that matches often-illiquid assets with cheap, short-term financing. When the value of the assets falls unexpectedly, as it did quite infamously with Lehman Brothers, financial institutions cannot afford to pay their short-term debts—unless they have a sufficiently large cushion of capital.
Some economists worry that the real-estate market, despite price plunges, remains artificially inflated and in jeopardy of further collapse.
Problem is, many economists contend that it remains relatively easy for financial institutions to elude those capital requirements. That's particularly true among the large foreign-owned financial institutions that buy U.S. Treasury bonds and make up much of the Federal Reserve Board's "primary dealer" market. Many of those institutions have restructured their holdings to keep their seat in the market without actually complying with the increased capital standards, says Robert Eisenbeis, a former research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta who is now the chief monetary economist for Cumberland Advisors.
Such evasion leaves the United States exposed to a domino-like rerun of the last crash. If asset prices plunged, debts were called in, and several primary dealers failed at once, the federal government's ability
to borrow would evaporate. Eisenbeis and others say that this risk gives the government a vested interest in keeping the dealers solvent, reinforcing the "too big to fail" mentality that incents the financial giants to risky behavior.
Other reforms, including the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation bill, were designed to shine a light on the risky assets in financial institutions' portfolios. But as the law is being implemented, it's still far from clear how much risk individual institutions—including the nation's largest banks—are carrying. The 10 largest U.S. banks now hold a bigger share of total bank deposits, handle a bigger share of financial transactions, and buy a bigger share of U.S. Treasuries than they did before the crisis.
Alth0ugh the financial-reform law attempts to fix that risk by regulating the "systemically important" institutions much more tightly, these giant banks are fighting to wriggle free, with some support on Capitol Hill. Transparency remains a problem with regulators, too: The next round of the Federal Reserve's vaunted "stress tests" of large banks' ability to withstand a crisis is widely expected to result in passing grades across the board, with little documentation to back them up.
"The soundness of the largest financial institutions and the systemic risks they continue to pose is no better" than it was before the crisis, warned Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo., in a speech on February 23. "In my view, it is even worse." Hoenig, a conservative, argued that the only way to reduce risk would be to prohibit banks from trading their own accounts in the securities markets.
Some economists also warn that Dodd-Frank does not go far enough to regulate capital-poor, risk-rich "shadow banks," such as investment banks and hedge funds, and to prevent the shadow-banking collapses that fueled the financial crisis. "We're not dealing with the capital problems in these large institutions," Eisenbeis says. "If you have sound financial institutions, you can weather a storm in a way that you couldn't otherwise."
Moreover, in spite of a pricing plunge that continues in many metro areas, the real-estate market remains artificially inflated and in jeopardy of further collapse, a number of economists say. That's because Washington stepped in to stop the market free-fall by taking receivership of mortgage-lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result, the government is now underwriting 95 percent of residential loans and essentially using taxpayer dollars to guarantee against default.
Lending standards have tightened some, and the Obama administration is pushing to tighten them even more, but economists say that the mere presence of a government backstop induces overly risky behavior. That leaves Congress and the White House with a grim choice: Keeping some form of government guarantee in place could set off another wave of bad loans, yet quickly removing the guarantee could send housing prices into yet another heart-stopping fall. "There's a sense in which the housing risk, which really brought down the financial sector, has been transferred to the government," Viral Acharya, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, told NJ. "But the risk has not been fixed."
The Obama administration, it is fair to note, is far more optimistic that the crisis and ensuing reforms have gone a long way toward reducing undue risk in the financial sector. Officials say that capital levels have improved dramatically from precrisis levels, housing loans are harder to come by, credit in general is of higher quality, and further implementation of Dodd-Frank will brighten the picture even more. "The core of the American financial system is in a much stronger position than it was before the crisis," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters at a Bloomberg breakfast late last month.
Ordinary Americans are the inadvertent bearers of financial risk. After all, relatively few work on Wall Street or take out loans they can't afford. But environmental risk is something Americans inflict on themselves—and on the world. The mother of all environmental risks is climate change. As greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere, the odds increase that the planet will experience dramatic rises in temperatures, sea levels, and extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Any of those changes will come with enormous costs.
Under many frighteningly plausible scenarios for a climate-altered future, increasingly frequent heat waves will drive up Americans' air conditioning and medical costs and threaten the lives of senior citizens. Wilting or flooded crops across the Great Plains will plunge farmers into financial distress and push grocery prices up. Western states will scrape and fight for disappearing water reserves, and the winners will pay through the nose. Erosion and rising seas will force millions of coastal residents to relocate inland.
The most frightening risk is that the effects could come much more quickly and severely than scientists forecast in their most probable scenarios—disrupting food supplies, displacing large swaths of the population, and setting off a feedback loop of greenhouse-gas release that could prove nearly impossible to stop.
Economists offer a wide range of figures for what the drivers of gasoline-powered automobiles, the consumers of coal-fired electricity, and other fossil-fuel burners should pay to offset the climate risks they are taking. The Obama administration, in an annual economic report issued in February, pegged the "social cost of carbon" in the range of $5 to $67 per ton of carbon dioxide. America is liable for mean damages of $1 trillion over the next 40 years because of climate change, according to researchers at Sandia National Laboratories. Factor in the low-probability, high-impact risk of a catastrophic climate shock, other economists say, and the premium could be substantially higher.
"This problem belongs to a very small class of phenomena where it's very difficult to put a bound on the damages, because the whole planet is involved," says Martin Weitzman, a Harvard economist who studies the pricing of climate risk. Complicating matters further, he adds, is the inability of Americans—and most other residents of democracies—to weigh the potential far-off costs of their actions today. "The average person throughout the world does not see climate change impacting their daily life," he says. "It's just too hypothetical."
Washington divides deeply on partisan and regional lines over carbon policy, with the most entrenched opponents even challenging the premise that climate change is, in fact, real. As a result of the stalemate, the effective price of climate risk in the United States is zero. That means we're taking on too much of it.
"There's a sense the housing risk … has been transferred to the government." —Viral Acharya, New York University
We're also putting a lot of bystanders in harm's way, including island nations vulnerable to rising oceans and farmers in developing countries whose subsistence crops could dry up with too little rain or wash away with too much. The bystander effects pose a risk by themselves: Food shortages, in particular, can fuel political upheaval and disrupt the lines of global commerce on which the U.S. economy increasingly depends. Witness the Middle East this year.
America's more immediate economic risk in the Middle East flows from oil and the chance that spreading protests could slow production to a trickle across the Arabian Peninsula. Presidents dating back to Richard Nixon have warned of the risks of foreign-oil dependence, but American consumers are not paying anything close to the full costs of those risks. We have driven our cars
too much and invested too little in meaningful alternatives to petroleum-based transportation. Now we are just hoping to dodge a catastrophe.
If unrest on par with Egypt's or Libya's breaks out across Saudi Arabia, disrupting supplies from the world's largest oil exporter, analysts say that crude prices could soar past $200 a barrel. That's $6-per-gallon-of-gasoline territory in the United States, and a sure prescription for a dip back into recession.
Every post-World War II economic downturn in the United States except one has followed a surge in oil prices, according to economist James D. Hamilton of the University of California (San Diego), one of the nation's foremost experts in oil-price shocks. "The correlation between oil shocks and economic recessions appears to be too strong to be just a coincidence," Hamilton wrote in a research paper released in January, adding that "supply disruptions arising from dramatic geopolitical events are prominent causes of a number of the most important episodes."
The math is straightforward. Because Americans remain locked into dependence on oil for transportation—a dependence enabled by comparatively low gasoline prices in flush economic times—the United States has few immediate recourses when prices spike. The more gasoline costs, the larger the share of their incomes Americans spend on it, and the more U.S. assets flow to oil producers overseas. That leaves less money to spend on everything else in the domestic economy. Right now, the U.S. needs all the consumer spending it can get as it climbs gingerly toward robust economic and job growth. But as oil prices have risen amid the Middle Eastern unrest, gasoline's share of the spending pie has ticked up, too.
If prices skyrocket and divert huge amounts of consumer spending, and if the economy turns down again, the next recession will be deep—and the climb out from the recent financial crisis will seem easy by comparison.
Nearly every economist National Journal interviewed noted how extraordinarily vulnerable the United States, and the industrial world with it, is to events that at any other time might not prove catastrophic. The simple reason is that everyone is tapped out. Countries racked up enormous deficits attempting to borrow and spend through the recessionary cratering of consumer demand. In the same pursuit, central bankers cut interest rates to near (or, effectively, below) zero. So not much fiscal or monetary stimulus will be available if another crisis hits in the near future. Instead, loose money and large deficits could spark a stagflation cycle of negative growth and rapid price increases.
By far the most talked-about crisis risk in Washington is the possibility that mounting debt will sink the U.S. economy. That risk is priced by what appears to be a fair and transparent market in sovereign debt and credit-default swaps, where investors continue to regard U.S. debt as safer than almost any other country's. But some analysts worry that markets are underestimating the risks of a debt crisis. By any measure, America's mounting debts would almost certainly make another crisis much tougher for governments to handle.
If this sounds disheartening, it is. Americans don't have to bear the burden of underpriced risk forever, though.
First, the country must tackle its moral-hazard problem. That means, economist say, spelling out, in iron-clad terms, the limits of government intervention in the economy. Jane's neighbors must tell the bank that they will let her lose her house, no matter what, if she defaults. That tough love is easier said than done, of course, and it's not always popular.
One analysis shows that every post-World War II economic downturn in the U.S. except one has followed a surge in oil prices.
Some interventions are out of America's control, such as whether a foreign government will bail out an overseas bank that is a primary dealer in U.S. Treasuries. Others are hemmed in by politics. It's easy enough to forbid rebuilding on the uninsured floodplain, in theory. When cable news is awash in video of shivering families searching through the splinters of their demolished homes, it's harder to say no.
Second, if individuals and markets can't or won't adequately price the risk of certain behaviors, someone must aggressively manage it. We must require higher down payments and stricter credit standards for mortgage borrowers. We must enforce more-stringent capital requirements for shadow banks, without loopholes.
For inspiration, look to Coca-Cola. Two years ago, the world's largest beverage vendor began declaring a new risk in its annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission: "Climate change may negatively affect our business." It was a simple H2O problem. The company relies on water for its bottling plants across the globe, and it was beginning to worry about the supply. Executives noticed that droughts that typically would have lasted six months were persisting for three years; 500-year floods were recurring once a decade.
"Without water, we don't have a business," says Jeff Seabright, Coke's vice president for environment and water resources. "If you sort of look at the climate science, the way in which global climate change is being manifested on the planet is through the hydrological cycle." Later, he added: "You can't predict the future, but you can prepare for it."
Led by Seabright, and in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, Coke has launched a corporate-sustainability plan to adapt to extreme weather and nail down less-vulnerable water sources. The company has dramatically reduced its carbon footprint and led industry pushes to reduce deforestation and the use of refrigerant hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, both major contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions. Coke's chairman led a delegation of CEOs to the climate negotiations in Cancun last year to urge world leaders to impose a price on carbon.
Environmental economists and some conservation groups are increasingly hopeful that a risk-based pitch for climate action could sway conservative lawmakers who have adopted near-uniform doubts about the validity of climate science. You don't have to believe that economically painful climate change will happen to embrace that view; you just need to agree that it could happen. Then we all can tussle over the odds and the appropriate price. Anyone who says that the right price is "zero" risks comparisons to the farmers who refused to believe that the Mississippi could ever flood their fields.
"You get into this debate with people about the certainty of the science, and it entirely misses the point," says Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund. "It's not about certainty. It's about uncertainty. And the uncertainty's the risk."
The final step to a healthy risk relationship is some soul-searching. Americans should ask themselves, and their neighbors, whether overconfidence is clouding their risk perceptions. Writing about the financial crisis in his recent e-book, The Great Stagnation, economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University concludes that "many millions of people were complicit, whether intentionally or not," in the risks that led up to the crash. The possibility that the financial system would go bad was always there, Cowen writes. "For the most part, we as a society let this possibility slip because we felt so invulnerable."
Gollier, the Toulouse economist directing Georgia State's social decision-making program, has, along with several colleagues, advanced a theory that people manipulate their own beliefs to maximize their present welfare. "You know the truth, but you don't want to believe in the truth," he says. "You change your mind." Your risk perceptions change accordingly. You downplay the possibility of contracting lung cancer because you enjoy the pleasure of smoking. You up your optimism about stock-market performance
and invest in an overly risky portfolio so you can reduce the amount of money you save for retirement.
Of all the steps the United States needs to rebalance its risk approach, the most important might be honesty. We need to stop pretending we live on the high ground. The first move in disaster prep is to recognize you're on the floodplain. That's especially true now, as the national economic outlook looks sunnier than it has for a couple of years. It would be tempting to stow the hip waders and break out the flip-flops. But be careful. Don't rule out more rain. Weather's been awfully strange lately.
Clifford Marks contributed contributed to this article.
This article appears in the March 12, 2011 edition of National Journal Magazine.
National Journal


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Revision3 » Shows » Archive » The Totally Rad Show » Gears of War 3 - Video Game Review
Gears of War 3 finishes the trilogy, but is it the best game of the series?
If you're looking for high quality action on the Xbox 360, the Gears of War series has always delivered. The newest entry in the franchise aims to be the biggest, baddest, most robust package yet, with a longer campaign, more multiplayer modes, and a persistent leveling system. But do Alex, Dan, and Jeff think it is enough to make this Gears the one to rule them all?
Check out tomorrow's episode for our review of the movie, Moneyball!
GameFly is the largest online video game rental service and offers you a choice from over 7,000 new and classic titles across all consoles and handhelds. With plans starting at $15.95 a month, GameFly members can rent one to four games at a time and keep them for as long as they like. There are no late fees, no due dates and shipping is always free. Once you're done playing a game, send it back and GameFly will send you the next available game on your list. If you really like the game you're playing, simply click "keep it" on the GameFly website and the game is yours, at a discounted price. GameFly will even mail you the case and manuals free of charge! TRS fans get a 15-day FREE Trial when they go to www.gamefly.com/TTRS
The Totally Rad Show is Revision3's explosion of movie, video game, TV, and comics news and reviews.
TRS was born in the depths of geek culture, at an epic game of Dungeons and Dragons in 2006. Alex Albrecht, host of Revision3's Diggnation, and Dan Trachtenberg, former host of Revision3's Geekdrome, met Jeff Cannata, former video game columnist, at the D&D table, and became fast friends. Intense debates over Star Wars characters, late night frag-fests in Gears of War, Heroes- and Lost-watching parties, and the sharing of dog-eared copies of Preacher graphic novels followed, leading the guys to one clear realization: This is the stuff we love. This stuff is totally rad.
Individually, Alex, Dan, and Jeff had always wanted to find a show that approached geek culture with as much fervor as they did, that wasn't embarrassed to roll dice or dress like Jedi, that realized that nerd is the new cool. Together, they decided to make it.
But one component was still missing. Luckily, they turned to uber-video god and bona-fide geek in his own right, Steve Koncelik, to help create a look and feel that was as rad as the subject matter. Several months, and hundreds of exploding fist-pumps later, the Totally Rad Show debuted on Revision3.
Four dudes in a garage. One green screen. A cubic ass-ton of enthusiasm. The Totally Rad Show is all about the feeling of sharing a great new movie, or video game, or tv show, or comic with your buddies. It is about the excitement in finding a piece of entertainment you love, or the pain in realizing something isn't as rad as you had hoped. It is about finding friends who share your interests and get just as excited as you do. If it is out there and it is Rad, it is on the Totally Rad Show.
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Dansko PixieSKU: #8202431
Product Information
- The Pixie is from the Dansko® Avalon Collection.
- Add a little floral inspiration to your look with the Pixie clog from Dansko®.
- Thermoplastic compound upper offers great flexibility while remaining easy to clean with soap and water.
- Soft synthetic lining ensures an abrasion-free environment for all-day wear.
- Generously cushioned footbed massages the foot with each and every step.
- Molded tread outsole delivers long-lasting durability on a variety of surfaces.
- Dansko's Avalon outsole carries the Seal of Acceptance from the APMA (American Podiatric Medical Association).
- Imported.
- Dansko Footwear Size Chart
- Measurements:
- Heel Height: 2 in
- Weight: 15 oz
- Product measurements were taken using size 39 (US Women's 8.5-9), width Regular. Please note that measurements may vary by size.


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Military moving away from oil and toward renewable energyIOne out of eight U.S. Army casualties in Iraq was the result of protecting fuel convoys.
This statistic, derived from an Army study looking at fuel convoys in Iraq from 2003 to 2007, is a powerful incentive for the military to move away from oil and toward renewable energy, and that's exactly what it's doing.
From experimental solar-powered desert bases for the Marines to Navy robots that run on wave energy, the military is quickly becoming a leading buyer of cutting-edge renewable energy technology.
For the armed services, the benefits extend beyond reducing fuel convoy casualties. A fighting force that isn't restricted by the reach of a tanker truck or weighted down by heavy batteries is more nimble and, as a result, more lethal.
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F o l l o w H _ N G M _ N //
About H_NGM_N
H_NGM_N started in the fall of 2001 by Nate Pritts. Originally a mimeograph side-stapled poetry zine, H_NGM_N transitioned to the current online format for the journal in 2004. A print chapbook series followed as well as Combatives, a single-author 'zine side project.
The PDF Chapbook series started in 2009 & continues today, releasing short bursts from a diverse group of writers. Then, in 2010, H_NGM_N released its first full-length book.
H_NGM_N is a way of life, a type of attention.
H_NGM_N is both action & reaction. It's the nexus of old tech & new tech - dittos & screens, human hearts & digital speed.
Poets & Writers, Huffington Post, Poetry Foundation, Publishers Weekly, Coldfront, Academy of American Poets - these are just a few of the places that have reviewed our authors, lauded our efforts or singled out our team as expert architects in the future of what's happening.
Thanks for reading!
Nate Pritts // Founder, Director & Prime Architect // editor [ at ] h-ngm-n dot com
// Contributing Editors //
Darcie Dennigan, Clay Matthews
// Associate Poetry Editors //
Sarah Certa, Claire Cronin, Liz Green, Robert Krut
Matt Dube // Fiction Editor // matt [ at ] h-ngm-n dot com
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// Social Media Wranglers //
Claire Cronin // Nathan Kemp // LynleyShimat Lys
// H_NGM_N TV Showrunner // Robert Krut
// Educational Outreach Coordinator //
Jeffrey Allen
// Digital + Design Bullpen //
Heidi Lewis, Anna Pollock-Nelson, Layne Ransom, Nate Slawson, Ryan Spooner, Drew Scott Swenhaugen, David Wojciechowski


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Not all the members of the Pennsbury School Board were pleased with the election of Gary Sanderson to the post of vice president.
At Monday night's special reorganization meeting at Fallsington Elementary School, board members Simon Campbell and Dr. Stephan Kosmorsky voted against the election of Sanderson to vice president.
Campbell, who previously served in the role, said he felt the fact that Sanderson's campaign manager, Bob Harvie, was a union teacher at Bucks County Technical High School served as a conflict of interest. Harvie is also chairman of the Falls Township Board of Supervisors.
Campbell, a Republican, also claimed that registered Democrat Sanderson's campaign was financially supported by union teachers. The district has been in talks with it's two major labor unions for awhile.
Allan Weisel will serve as the 9-person board's president.
"Not sure whether this is a reward or punishment," Weisel jokingly said of his re-election as board president.
Weisel asked the public and his fellow board members to not let political affiliations and "divisiveness" get in the way of doing what is best for students and taxpayers.
He also talked of how he joined the board do the best for the community and not to forward his Republican political views.
In the coming year, the board faces the possibility of closing one school, working to balance the budget while dealing with shrinking funding, school renovation projects and union contract negotiations.
Lower Makefield resident Bob Abrams asked the board if they could recoup the $73,000 in legal fees the district accumulated when they were fighting a realignment plan from Concerned Residents of Pennsbury (CROP).
Board member Kathleen Zawacki said she agreed with Abrams. She said that the $73,000 could have gone toward programs for students.
Campbell also said the district should try to get their money back.
Former board member Richard Johnson spoke during public comment and said he found it "chilling" that some board members wanted to go after a private citizen group. He said that was "not the American way."
Christopher Cridge, a board member, said the district would just incur more legal expenses trying to recover their lawyer fess.
The next school board meeting will be held on Thursday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m.


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The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is a university-wide center involving multiple entities within the Harvard community that provide expertise in public health, medicine, social science, management, and other disciplines to promote evidence-based approaches to humanitarian assistance.
The mission of the Initiative is to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and practice of humanitarian response worldwide. HHI fosters interdisciplinary collaboration in order to:
- Improve the effectiveness of humanitarian strategies for relief, protection and prevention;
- Instill human rights principles and practices in these strategies;
- Educate and train the next generation of humanitarian leaders.
Building a Better Response Launches
We are pleased to announce the global launch of the Building a Better Response e-learning course.
A brief video about the course can be found here.
Registration is free, and can be accessed here.
Building a Better Response is an online, interactive learning tool that guides you through a simulated disaster. The BBR e-learning is internationally available, free to use, and for emergency responders, it is an exceptional way to guide best practice and stay informed.
The Building a Better Response e-learning course consists of five units:
- Foundations of Humanitarian Action
- The International Humanitarian Architecture
- The Cluster Approach
- Planning and Funding the Humanitarian Response
- International Law and Humanitarian Standards
Those who complete all five units will receive a certificate from the Humanitarian Academy at Harvard.


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7. Neubau
Fanning north from the Mariahilfer Strasse towards the Lerchenfelder Strasse, the Seventh is a district of trendy boutiques and progressive politics. The largest concentration of chic stores are found on Neubaugasse and Lindengasse. Neubau's eastern border is marked by the MuseumsQuartier, whose vast courtyard is a year-round hotspot for people-watching.
7. Neubau (53)


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By JON REITER
Host Providence landed the knockout blow early, embarking on a 14-0 run to open their contest against Austin last night en route to a 61-37 win over the Eagles on Friday.
"Our five starters played a fantastic game," Pioneers coach Lou Lefevre said. "Right off the bat, as long as they were in they were alert defensively, they knew where the shooters were, they were communicating well — they were really frustrating them (Austin). Our five senior starters — they did a terrific job."
Lefevre was less effusive about his reserves.
"While our starters did well, it's time for our juniors and other reserves to step up. There was a dropoff when they were in," he said.
Providence's frontline of Dalton Duley, Ryan Pickerell and George Knott punished Austin (1-1), scoring 53 of Providence's 61 points. Knott, a 6-foot-4 senior forward, led the Pioneers with a double-double — 22 points and 10 rebounds. Pickerell added 19 points and 8 rebounds and Duley added 12 points.
The trio combined for all 14 points during Providence's opening run, which came during the first 4 minutes and 32 seconds of the contest. Knott and Pickerell opened up the game with close inside buckets, and it was 6-0 after another Pickerell basket, which came off an acrobatic diving save by Knott, who was attempting to corral a long offensive rebound.
Duley nailed back-to-back 3-pointers and another Pickerell bucket made it 14-0 with 3:28 remaining in the first quarter. After the Pickerell basket, Austin coach Joe Sibbitt called his third timeout of the run.
While his troika of inside players notched the gaudy stats, Lefevre was just as pleased with his starting backcourt of Nano Grantz and Cory Cahalan. Grantz only had two points and Cahalan didn't score, but the duo were the chief ballhandlers and setup artists for the inside players and Providence only turned the ball over 6 times on the night.
"They really played a mature game," Lefevre said. "They ran the team well, they were good on defense, and they were key to us playing well for most of the game."
Providence (2-0) hosts Madison tonight at the Robert L. Larkin Center. In a scheduling quirk, after Saturday the Pioneers will have played their first three games at home before hitting the road for their next three against Scottsburg, Charlestown and Floyd Central.
"I don't know that it matters," Lefevre said. "If you're a good team, you want to play no matter where the game is. After [Saturday], we'll have a few road games and we'll see if that makes a difference to us or not."
Austin 3 10 12 12—37
Providence 16 14 17 14—61
Austin (1-1): Chris Mayfield 9, Ben Baker 2, Markus Fleenor 5, Cody Lesnet 2, Jeremiah White 8, Josh Turner 4, Hunter Spencer 3, Josh Vires 3.
Providence (2-0): Nano Grantz 2, Ryan Pickerell 19, Dalton Duley 12, George Knott 22, Ben Shahroudi 2, Grant Goad 4.
Rebounds: Austin 16 (White 7); Providence 24 (Knott 10).
3-point goals: Austin 2 (Mayfield); Providence 2 (Duley 2).
Turnovers: Austin 13, Providence 6.
Free throws: Austin 13-21, Providence 15-22.


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The following material expands on the background system presented in Player's Handbook 2, with a focus on geographical backgrounds. These backgrounds speak to powerful archetypes of primal characters in legend and fiction, such as the stalking barbarian from the frigid north or the druidic sage who studied herbs and animals in quiet contemplation before being thrust into a life of adventure.
Like the backgrounds in Player's Handbook 2, the backgrounds in this book fall into these categories: geography, society, birth, occupation, and racial backgrounds.
These backgrounds give examples of wild places from which primal heroes might originate. The exact location of the homeland in relation to the rest of the world is up to you and your Dungeon Master. The land of your birth or upbringing might be a previously unexplored or forgotten stretch of countryside.
It might be an isolated region in the Feywild. Or you might have been born in a region of an existing realm recently suffused with primal energy. These backgrounds include both associated skills and associated languages, which are usually the languages of the races most commonly found in each geographical area.
If you are using a published world, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Eberron campaign setting, you can easily adapt the primal homelands described here to a setting-specific location. For example, the Wrathwood could represent the Reaching Woods in Elturgard or the Grove of the Guardian Trees in the Eldeen Reaches. Similarly, the Sea of Dust might be the Dust Desert of Raurin or a region in the Demon Wastes on Khorvaire. Although primal homelands can exist anywhere in the world, be sure to work with your DM to find a suitable location.
Broken Lands
Great canyons and towering earth spires, spectacularly striated rock, dry and thirsty soil
The Broken Lands are an arid region marked by dramatic natural features: ravines, rock spires, and steep slopes with colorfully patterned striations. Vegetation is sparse, and rainfall is infrequent but intense. Drakes and lions hunt a variety of prey through the canyons. The cliffs, loose soil, and patches of slick clay make traversing the Broken Lands difficult, so travelers are rare and roads are unknown. The people of the Broken Lands, mostly dwarves and orcs, war with each other for what few resources the dry land has to offer.
You were born in the Broken Lands and grew up accustomed to hardship. The ways of the world beyond your homeland are strange to you, and you're marked by a strong competitive streak. Barbarians are the most common primal characters from the Broken Lands, but druids and shamans are also good options.
Associated Skills: Endurance, Intimidate Associated Languages: Dwarven, Giant
Associated Skills: Endurance, Intimidate Associated Languages: Dwarven, Giant
The society background element in Player's Handbook 2 describes social and economic status in the broadest terms. These additional backgrounds tell more specific stories about your character's social origin.
You are the child of a tribal chieftain, raised with the expectation that you would one day take on that position. After years of training, the time came for you to complete the great hunt, in which you would slay a mystic red stag and take your place at your father's side. Tracking the beast was easy, but when you found the stag, you could not bring yourself to slay it. It met your gaze, and it seemed to speak to you, though you've never been able to express what it said in words. You returned to your tribe in disgrace, your failure seen as a sign of weakness. The chieftain and the other members of the tribe declared that you were not fit to rule, and you were banished, told not to return until you had redeemed your honor.
What did the stag communicate to you? How can you regain your honor? Do you want to return and claim your rightful title, or is the adventuring life more appealing to you now?
Perhaps political rather than primal factors led to your banishment. Were you falsely charged with a crime you didn't commit? Were you expelled on the whim of your jealous father or mother? Or did you renounce your people voluntarily?
Associated Skills: Arcana, Diplomacy
Associated Skills: Arcana, Diplomacy
Racial traditions color the way that primal heroes interact with the primal spirits and might shape the way you build your character. These backgrounds reflect the specific primal slants of different races. Some of them have less to do with the events of your past than with the beliefs or traditions of your people.
A few races don't have background entries here. For goliaths and shifters who have primal classes, the racial backgrounds in Player's Handbook 2 are appropriate. If you want to play an elf who has strong ties to the primal spirits, consider the wild elf background in Player's Handbook 2. Human characters should consider geography, society, or other background elements from that book or this one.
Dragon Totem Warrior: In the way that some barbarians adopt totem animals that embody the qualities they aspire to, you look to the qualities of drakes and dragons as a model for your own ferocity. You might come from a tribe of dragonborn that serves a living dragon ruler, or perhaps you venerate a long-dead dragon spirit that once ruled your ancestors. Gray dragons and cobalt dragons are the most common totem dragons for dragonborn characters, because they are the most rapacious hunters among dragonkind.
Associated Skills: Athletics, Endurance
Associated Skills: Athletics, Endurance
Underdark Survivor: You never saw the lightless depths beneath the earth as a place of death and unmoving stone. To your eyes, it teemed with life—not just the life of fungi and crawling things, but the whispers of the Deep Winds and other primal spirits. Even the terrible spider symbol of Lolth you saw as an echo of the Fate Weaver, a being of far greater wisdom than the dread and demented Spider Queen. Your beliefs and strange behavior earned you exile from your home city, but you didn't mind much—you always felt more at home in the wild caverns anyway.
Associated Skills: Dungeoneering, Nature
Associated Skills: Dungeoneering, Nature
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