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ReMix: Unreal Tournament 'Club Showdown'
- Game: Unreal Tournament (GT Interactive, 1999, WIN)
- ReMixer(s): Big Giant Circles
- Composer(s): Alexander Brandon, Andrew Sega, Dan Gardopée, Kai-Eerik Komppa, Michiel van den Bos, Peter Hajba, Tero Kostermaa
- Song(s): 'Go Down'
- Posted: 2005-07-19, evaluated by the judges
Here it is folks, the first submission from the beloved Unreal series to see the light of day, from the initial installment in what is in my opinion the reigning champ of Deathmatch, UT. Coincidentally, I was just play 2k4 on Saturday, laying down the big hurt with my boomstick (actually fairly average, but you still gotta talk smack), so the timing's just right for Epic's franchise to get some lovin', courtesy of Big Giant Circles. Might as well start out by mentioning that Alexander Brandon himself gave Jimmy props on this mix:
"Damn... this is a good song. You've no idea how rarely I say that. I seriously hope you win whatever contest you've entered it in. Congratulations on such a fine piece."
Hopefully Mr. Brandon doesn't mind being quoted, but I don't think his comments would reflect negatively on him in any way, given the mix. Also hope Big Giant Circles doesn't get a Big Giant Ego, what with the direct-from-the-composer-himself positive feedback - remember the little people! BGC (I always think Bubblegum Crisis when I acronymize that) also wants you, the viewers at home, to know about the previous version of this mix, just in case you're curious as to what he changed around a bit for the OCR release. I'm gonna quote the entirety of what Mr. Burnett, who refers to himself in Karl Malone-style third person, had to say, as he sounds like the panel's biggest resident UT fanboy to me:
Interesting sidenote, Wingless has just about every Unreal (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Championship 2) except for Unreal Championship 1 and Unreal II, which as we U fans all know, roundly sucks.
I can't remember (and/or probably never heard) the original submission, but this is very nice. You've got a nice, complicated texture, but things are so tightly compact that everything negiotiates in your ear *perfectly*, it's deep, without sounding cluttered.
Normally, I ain't down with voice clips in-media, but it doesn't detract from the song, and the outro from the clip is very nice.
All in all, very very nice. Fanboi'sm comes alive in this song!"
There you have it, folks, the panel's own Wingless, layin' it all out there for the world to see. Jimmy coaxes a VERY polished sound from FruityLoops, serving as one of a growing number of artists who handily dispel any notions that it is not as serious a musical tool as Reason or other comparable packages. I'll skip the play-by-play in this instance - you've essentially got a rock solid groove, layered synths with just the right amount of edge, pleasant mastering that's not too aggressive and spreads the sound out across a wide field, and a well-integrated utilization of the intro narrative. Shnabub says almost the same thing, in different words:
"Everthing fits together like jigsaw music! It's important to modify the groove every now and again like at 1:26. Nobody outstays their welcome in this here ReMix. 2:22 section's extreme redundancy is rectified by the guest lecturer who shows up there."
Excellent point about variety, etc., which is one of the mixer's strengths in a genre that often bears it as a weakness. Altogether, this is an excellent debut for the Unreal series here on the site, and another standout electronica track from BGC, and that's pretty much all there is to it. Jimmy's been extra busy with wedding prep, too, it would seem, so kudos + congratulations on multiple levels are due.
This is easily one of my favorite video game tracks ever, yet, somehow, I never made the connection. I always knew there was something, listening to the two pieces, but I never did quite realize it. I suppose my brain just stopped working every time I listened to them, they're such immersive tracks both. It might have helped if I'd read the remix description 5 years ago, I don't know. But I just had to say this is an outstanding mix of an outstanding track that I'm still listening to today, however slow I may be.
- ArmadonRK on January 21, 2010
- Gabriel on September 12, 2009
- OA on June 9, 2009
- Mimo on January 14, 2009
Alex Brandon's opinion > Your opinion :)
also, thanks, insomniac :)
- big giant circles on October 30, 2008
1. The song is not so cool enough to play such a long time. There are no special scenes in it; and I would recognize them even if I didn't like them.
2. I don't know, but I have the feeling it is just boring and has not enough character, which I - like mentioned above - would recognize as well even if it wasn't my favorite style...
So: Why don't you concentrate on the main statements (there are some hidden ones) in the song and present them more compact and purestrain?
Please do not feel offended too much - only a bit. =D
- vr_jadison on October 28, 2008
- Insomniac64 on October 24, 2008
Joseph Collins wrote: Honestly speaking, I didn't care much for this as a remix. It's a pretty nice piece of music by itself
I'm not sure I understand what you mean there, but I appreciate the compliment :)
but it's certainly no "Hyperblast Redux"
well, I've not played UT2004, so I googled it and took a listen. Pretty cool stuff. A little different stylistically than what I was shooting for... More electronic while mine is more of, well, club beat, of course. It was a cool style, with the fast and furious strings and orchestration. I think one weakness of the Redux mix was it's lack of accentuation for the most climatic (to me anyway) riff of the song. But it was enjoyable, at any rate.
It reminds me a lot of some of the music from the Turok series. You'd probably enjoy the Port of Adia Drum Remix... something you might want to check out, if you haven't already.
Anyway, sorry to disappoint in any way, but thanks for the input and compliments!
- big giant circles on June 27, 2006
- Joseph Collins on June 26, 2006
This stuff sets a new standard, every bit as good as anthem of a metroid hunter. (which is one of my fav's, all time.)
All this using only FL? I cant seem to make stuff sound this good with FL. lots to learn i guess..
- jorgandar on December 5, 2005
Pikeman332 wrote: I put this into my [b]UT2k4 music and mp3 player [/b]immediately after i listened to it dawg!! Awesome and btw we need more UT music more plz more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im starving !!!!!!!
Fix'd for meeeee. Even though I don't like playing w/ music this is an exception.
- Gatecrasher on November 13, 2005
- Pikeman332 on November 13, 2005
- Kiyobi on August 6, 2005
Txai wrote: I didn´t like this ReMix. There has been absolutely nothing brought to my attention. The guitar sounds very very very fake and cheap. FL Slayer sucks forever. The piano on end didn´t did justice. The majority of the synth sections are boring. I tried to enjoy the drums, but they are very weak. Maybe the female voice can do some good thing. But basically, the ReMix is very bad in a whole. I´m sorry.
sorry you didn't like it. when i utilize FL Slayer, most of the time I'm not going for a "realistic guitar" sound, but rather, I think of it more as a distorted synth. but whatever. i guess you can't please everyone.
thanks everyone else for the encouraging comments. i hope to be able to get back to remixing soon--marriage brings about a change in priorities :)
take it easy,
- big giant circles on August 4, 2005


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Serie A
January 27, 2013
Internazionale v Torino: Preview
Team Stat Comparison
Internazionale | Torino | |
Matches Played | 38 | 38 |
Table Position | 9 | 16 |
Points | 54 | 39 |
Goal Difference | -2 | -9 |
Goals for * | 1.6 | 1.2 |
Goals against * | 1.6 | 1.5 |
Last 5 | L-D-L-L-L | D-D-D-L-L |
Last 5 home | L-L-W-L-L | D-D-L-L-L |
Last 5 away | D-L-L-L-W | D-L-L-D-L |
* Goals per match - home matches for home club and away matches for away club | ||
Stats: Internazionale | Torino |
Competition Stats
Internazionale | Torino | |
Goals |
Assists |
Yellows |
Reds |
Squads: Internazionale | Torino |
Next Matches
Internazionale | Torino | ||
3/9 | H: Torino | 3/9 | A: Internazionale |
3/15 | A: Hellas Verona | 3/17 | H: Napoli |
3/23 | H: Atalanta | 3/22 | H: Livorno |
3/27 | H: Udinese | 3/25 | A: AS Roma |
3/31 | A: Livorno | 3/30 | H: Cagliari |
Inter Milan defender Juan Jesus thanked head coach Andrea Stramaccioni for his unwavering support before insisting the Nerazzurri can claim an unlikely treble in 2013.
Jesus has developed into a lynchpin in Stramaccioni's defence since making his first start of the season at Torino, who visit the San Siro tomorrow night.
Such is his new-found confidence, the Brazilian believes fourth-placed Inter are capable of chasing down Serie A leaders Juventus, booking their place in the Coppa Italia final and succeeding in Europe without too much difficulty.
He told inter.it: "I want to win everything - the Coppa Italia, Europa League and give everything in the league. Can we do it? Yes, always.
"I'm eternally grateful to Stramaccioni for the faith he's shown in me because, as a player, it helps enormously when you know you've got the coach's backing.''
Stramaccioni made wholesale changes to his starting XI after witnessing a 3-1 home defeat to Roma in September, with an unproven Jesus playing a key role in a 2-0 win at Torino in the following game.
"I remember it well because that match changed my situation,'' Jesus added. "I've started playing every game since then but, as I've said, I still need to improve a lot to be able to win trophies.''
Inter are looking for a new playmaker. The treble-winning Wesley Sneijder has now departed for Galatasaray, with Philippe Coutinho reportedly attracting an approach from Liverpool, and the Nerazzurri have now been linked with a move for Corinthians midfielder Paulinho.
Speaking about the latter, Jesus added: "I know him, he's a great player. He always gets into the box and scores a lot of goals. It'd be great for us if he does join Inter.
"What about Coutinho possibly leaving the club? I'd be sad but he needs to do what's right for him. However it goes, whether he leaves or not, it won't change our friendship.''
There is renewed optimism at Torino, who are up to 11th place in the table on the back of three wins from five games.
Goals from Mario Santana and Alessio Cerci handed Il Toro a 2-0 victory at Pescara and club president Urbano Cairo was delighted.
He said: "I went to see the coach and all the lads to compliment them for the great win at Pescara, but also to ask them to stay tighter and concentrate harder.
"We have to continue with the same application on the field and, if the performance is there, the rest will follow.''


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The Rocket Returns
Juvenile Fiction - Movie or Television Tie-In
Random House Books for Young Readers | Trade Paperback | 07 Jan 2014
$3.99 | 978-0-385-37384-5 (0-385-37384-8)
Thomas the Tank Engine's new friend Stephen used to be known as The Rocket! With Thomas' help, he will again! Little boys ages 4 to 6 who love trains will dive in to this Step into Reading adventure based on an episode from the newest Thomas & Friends DVD release, Spills and Thrills!


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- Pipe-Dependent Ventral Processing of Easter by Snake Is the Defining Step in Drosophila Embryo DV Ax...
Pipe-Dependent Ventral Processing of Easter by Snake Is the Defining Step in Drosophila Embryo DV Axis Formation
Current Biology, Volume 20, Issue 12, 22 June 2010, Pages 1133-1137
Yong Suk Cho, Leslie M. Stevens and David Stein
SummaryThe establishment of Drosophila embryonic dorsal-ventral (DV) polarity relies on serine proteolytic activity in the perivitelline space between the embryonic membrane and the eggshell [1]. Gastrulation Defective cleaves and activates Snake, which processes and activates Easter, which cleaves Spätzle to form the activating ligand for the Toll receptor. Ventral restriction of ligand formation depends on the Pipe sulfotransferase, which is expressed in ventral cells of the follicular epithelium surrounding the developing oocyte [2]. Pipe modifies components of the developing eggshell to produce a ventral cue embedded in the vitelline membrane [3]. This ventral cue is believed to promote one or more of the proteolysis steps in the perivitelline space. By examining the processing of transgenic, tagged versions of the perivitelline proteins during DV patterning, we find that the proteolysis of Easter by Snake is the first Pipe-dependent step and therefore the key ventrally restricted event in the protease cascade. We also find that Snake and Easter associate together in a complex in both wild-type and pipe mutant-derived embryos. This observation suggests a mechanism in which the sulfated target of Pipe promotes a productive interaction between Snake and Easter, perhaps by facilitating conformational changes in a complex containing the two proteins.
Summary | Full Text | PDF (443 kb) - Pinning Down Positional Information
Pinning Down Positional Information
Cell, Volume 95, Issue 4, 13 November 1998, Pages 439-442
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Signal transduction by a protease cascade
Trends in Cell Biology, Volume 9, Issue 3, 1 March 1999, Pages 102-107
Ellen K LeMosy, Charles C Hong and Carl Hashimoto
AbstractThe dorsoventral axis of the Drosophila embryo is determined by a spatial cue generated by ovarian somatic cells. This cue is communicated to the embryo through an extracellular serine protease cascade active only on the ventral side of the embryo. Studies of the proteases and somatically expressed proteins involved in this signalling process suggest a working model for how the protease cascade is locally activated hours after the ovarian somatic cells have degenerated.
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Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
Current Biology, Volume 15, Issue 21, R887-R899, 8 November 2005
Add/View Comments (0)Dorsoventral Axis Formation in the Drosophila Embryo—Shaping and Transducing a Morphogen Gradient
Bernard Moussian1 and Siegfried Roth2
1 Department of Genetics, Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Spemannstr. 35, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
2 Institute for Developmental Biology, University of Köln, Gyrhofstr. 17, 50923 Köln, Germany
- The graded nuclear location of the transcription factor Dorsal along the dorsoventral axis of the early Drosophila embryo provides positional information for the determination of different cell fates. Nuclear uptake of Dorsal depends on a complex signalling pathway comprising two parts: an extracellular proteolytic cascade transmits the dorsoventral polarity of the egg chamber to the early embryo and generates a gradient of active Spätzle protein, the ligand of the receptor Toll; an intracellular cascade downstream of Toll relays this graded signal to embryonic nuclei. The slope of the Dorsal gradient is not determined by diffusion of extracellular or intracellular components from a local source, but results from self-organised patterning, in which positive and negative feedback is essential to create and maintain the ratio of key factors at different levels, thereby establishing and stabilising the graded spatial information for Dorsal nuclear uptake.


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Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 06:00 pm PT (09:00 pm ET)
More corroboration of tablet device brewing at Apple
Apple is indeed working on tablet-like device that may finally surface sometime next year according to a trio of sources who've been in touch with high-tech blog TechCrunch.The news should come as little surprise to avid followers of the Cupertino-based company. Back in September of 2007, AppleInsider exclusively reported on plans for the larger multi-touch device in its report titled "Up next for Apple: the return of the Newton."
Although it's been more than a year since that initial report with no sign of the product from Apple, AppleInsider has maintained confidence that the company is still actively developing the device and intends to bring it to market only when it meets the stringent demands of chief executive Steve Jobs.
In its own report Tuesday, TechCrunch cited three independent sources close to Apple who say to "expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of 09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen."
"Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production," the publication said. It added that there were some early concerns amongst Apple managers over the potential market for such a device but that those fears have been quelled by the blistering success of the App Store:
"The difference now is the iTunes app store, which has thousands of games and other applications that are perfect for a touch screen device with an accelerometer."
AppleInsider will provide a brief update on the status of Newton tablet following next week's Macworld Expo.
On Topic: Future Hardware
- Apple ramping up hiring to bolster in-house camera hardware, software teams
- Siri integration with third-party apps expected to play key role in Apple's 'iWatch'
- Corning exec lets slip the gorillas of war, calls sapphire expensive, heavy, environmentally unfriendly
- Apple's dynamic user interface would adapt to user's proximity, allowing control from close & far
- GT says plans to supply sapphire glass to Apple are 'progressing well,' company expects profitable 2H of 2014


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Which Corner Are You In?
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Big Red Machine
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Out Wayne
Posts: 22,737
Re: What Corner Are You In?
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Yeah, who really gave the 1990 Reds a ghost of a chance against the A's? Certainly none of the pundits. And not many outside of the Reds nation.
This season has been such a blessing.... such a wonderfull gift to the survivors of the "lost decade". Savor it. Don't take it for granted. Find a way, anyway, to enjoy it. You don't know when it will happen again. We may well play championship baseball for the next several years. But nobody knows for sure. I thought the '75-'76 Reds would rule for several more years.
You just never know for sure.
Find a way to savor every nano-second.
Yep. The Reds certainly would be underdogs against the Phillies, and I will pleasantly surprised if they go very far in the post season--but in a short series there is always a chance. The 1990 Reds appeared to be stumbling into the post season, but once they got there they were lights out. One thing I like about the 1990 Reds is that while the Larkin/Browning/Davis/O'Neill/Rijo group of Reds that showed so much promise between 1985-92 only made one post season appearance, they made the most of the chance.
It took the Big Red Machine a long time to finally win it all, but they had enough talent to be able to keep returning and returning to the post season before they finally made it all the way. This bunch of Reds has a nice group of young players, but there is no guarantee that they will make repeated post season visits. They, and Reds fans, should enjoy 2010 for all it is worth.
"Hey...Dad. Wanna Have A Catch?" Kevin Costner in "Field Of Dreams."
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TAMPA — The Washington Redskins sprinted to an early lead Sunday at Raymond James Stadium by tightening up their defense and being efficient on offense.
Things unraveled in the second half. They fell behind in the final two minutes and had to endure some anxious moments late in the game before beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 24-22, on Billy Cundiff's 41-yard field goal with three seconds left.


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- Kibra Functions as a Tumor Suppressor Protein that Regulates Hippo Signaling in Conjunction with Mer...
Kibra Functions as a Tumor Suppressor Protein that Regulates Hippo Signaling in Conjunction with Merlin and Expanded
Developmental Cell, Volume 18, Issue 2, 16 February 2010, Pages 288-299
Jianzhong Yu, Yonggang Zheng, Jixin Dong, Stephen Klusza, Wu-Min Deng and Duojia Pan
SummaryThe Hippo signaling pathway regulates organ size and tissue homeostasis from Drosophila to mammals. Central to this pathway is a kinase cascade wherein Hippo (Hpo), in complex with Salvador (Sav), phosphorylates and activates Warts (Wts), which in turn phosphorylates and inactivates the Yorkie (Yki) oncoprotein, known as the YAP coactivator in mammalian cells. The FERM domain proteins Merlin (Mer) and Expanded (Ex) are upstream components that regulate Hpo activity through unknown mechanisms. Here we identify Kibra as another upstream component of the Hippo signaling pathway. We show that Kibra functions together with Mer and Ex in a protein complex localized to the apical domain of epithelial cells, and that this protein complex regulates the Hippo kinase cascade via direct binding to Hpo and Sav. These results shed light on the mechanism of Ex and Mer function and implicate Kibra as a potential tumor suppressor with relevance to neurofibromatosis.
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Yorkie: the final destination of Hippo signaling
Trends in Cell Biology, Volume 20, Issue 7, 1 July 2010, Pages 410-417
Hyangyee Oh and Kenneth D. Irvine
AbstractThe Hippo signaling pathway is a key regulator of growth during animal development, whereas loss of normal Hippo pathway activity is associated with a wide range of cancers. Hippo signaling represses growth by inhibiting the activity of a transcriptional co-activator protein, known as Yorkie in Drosophila and Yap in vertebrates. In the 5 years since the first report linking Yorkie to Hippo signaling, intense interest in this pathway has led to rapid increases in our understanding of the action and regulation of Yorkie/Yap, which we review here. These studies have also emphasized the complexity of Yorkie/Yap regulation, including multiple, distinct mechanisms for repressing its transcriptional activity, and multiple DNA-binding partner proteins that can direct Yorkie to distinct downstream target genes.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (348 kb) - Regulation of the Hippo pathway and implications for anticancer drug development
Regulation of the Hippo pathway and implications for anticancer drug development
Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, Volume 34, Issue 10, 1 October 2013, Pages 581-589
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AbstractResearch in the past decade has revealed key components of the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway and its critical role in organ size regulation and tumorigenesis. Recent progress has identified a wide range of upstream factors that control the Hippo pathway, which include cell–cell contact, various diffusible signals, and cognate receptors. Dysregulation of the Hippo pathway, caused by gene mutation or aberrant expression, promotes cell proliferation and tumorigenesis. Here, we discuss the current state of Hippo pathway research, primarily focusing on upstream regulators and protein–protein interactions as potential therapeutic targets. Consideration of pharmacological intervention of the Hippo pathway may provide novel avenues for future therapeutic treatment of human diseases, particularly in cancer.
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Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Developmental Cell, Volume 19, Issue 4, 491-505, 19 October 2010
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- First discovered in Drosophila, the Hippo signaling pathway is a conserved regulator of organ size. Central to this pathway is a kinase cascade leading from the tumor suppressor Hippo (Mst1 and Mst2 in mammals) to the oncoprotein Yki (YAP and TAZ in mammals), a transcriptional coactivator of target genes involved in cell proliferation and survival. Here, I review recent progress in elucidating the molecular mechanism and physiological function of Hippo signaling in Drosophila and mammals. These studies suggest that the core Hippo kinase cascade integrates multiple upstream inputs, enabling dynamic regulation of tissue homeostasis in animal development and physiology.


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Now they're at the Beach Boys' recording studio in LA, and Charles Manson is being less cool than usual, fumbling around and making excuses for his not-that-great music. Oh, frustrated artists and the mass murders they perpetrate. From here on out, since Charles Manson is never alone -- no doubt one of the more highly-valued perquisites of being a cult leader -- assume that when I say "Charles Manson" I really mean "Charles Manson and four to nine identical hippies you may or may not ever see again," okay? Outside the booth, there are men purporting to be Dennis Wilson and a manager guy, Terry Melcher. Except really what they are is actors with stuff glued to their heads and faces which is not unlike hair, as a Platonic ideal, but very unlike the kind of hair that you and I know about. You know that guy you saw that time, walking down the road, and you didn't want to be unkind, but you couldn't help thinking to yourself, "Does that toupee look more like a rodent, or just a piece of really strange fabric from the remnant bin, or a nest of other people's hair woven by inaccurate and desperate birds for their nest?" Okay, now imagine that stuff, with some of that spray-on hair stuff mixed in for body and volume, and then formed into the kind of wigs Carol Brady wouldn't be caught dead in, and glued to the upper lip like an attempt at weird Western leather style that stalled out somewhere around "weird." I have not seen anything like this substance before, so it came as a shock to me. Your own experience may differ.
The actor playing Dennis is not very good. He explains that when the Manson Family was just a baby cult, still in its Cult Pull-Ups and drinking from Cult sippy-cups, he let them stay in his house for awhile, until it got "too crazy." This is Dennis Wilson we're talking about. The guy who used to do cocaine off of electric eels while driving his car off cliffs, for kicks. Does that not tell you something, that he found this cult a bit too much to handle, in fact so much so that, rather than kicking the Manson Starter Kit out of the house, he simply bought a new one? I've thought about doing that with dishes, but never a cult. Jeremy Davies is a very good impersonator of Charles Manson, and I already thought he was a good actor, and he really brings those two skills, which are not necessarily connected at all, to bear in this movie. He does that thing where his mouth opens and words come out, and then Terry and Dennis look at each other and Dennis is like, "Isn't it awesome how bughouse he is?" And I think maybe Charles Manson can somehow sense that they are making tacit fun or otherwise having their condescending postmodern post-cool way with him and his antics, because the word-noises that he is making get more aggressive, possibly angry, as he explains even more of the Dennis Wilson/Charles Manson backstory: previously on That Thing You Shouldn't Do, Dennis did evil things to Charles Manson's songs before putting one on a Beach Boys record, like making them rhyme. In retaliation, Charles Manson has changed the name of the song to "Dennis Wilson Is a Real Wussy." Is that one of the events or characters created or altered for dramatic purposes? Because if so, well played, John Gray. Good one.
To defuse the freakish freakiness, Dennis promises to organize a little show at the Movie Ranch, where (per Charles Manson) there will be "record-type guys" to see him play. "You can tell them some of your prison stories, they'll love that." Hee! All of a sudden Terry smells the culty, creepy smell of Charles Manson's obvious insanity and makes his goodbyes, telling them not to expect his presence at the Movie Ranch any time...ever. It's pretty cool because he and Charles Manson talk over each other the entire scene as he crosses the room, but he's saying normal bland excuse stuff and Manson's just making word noises until the very tail of Melcher's coat is gone.
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Justin Edwards selects Kansas State as new school
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This page contains Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights Unlockables for PSP called "Connection bonus" and has been posted or updated on Mar 26, 2008 by prounited. Let us know what you think of this Unlockable by thumbs voting.
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- Genre: Driving Racing GT / Street
- Release Date: Oct 8, 2007
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Link with a PlayStation2 with Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights with a USB cable to unlock the following cars in the garage.
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Click the yellow button above to go to the new website:
This website company freewebs (which I pay for) is so bad I have to go somewhere else. I spend hours updating & the page is never saved, I put up concert reviews & they are not saved, photos that are not saved, I do save & publish, but this site has so many problems & when I contact them, they tell me they are aware of the problems, but they never fix them. They're like oh well post it again. 4 hours is entirely too long to do anything, I don't have the time or the patience, so I am bailing out. I am hoping this new website will benefit me much better than this piece of crap!


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Book Description:This book focuses on the core topics of biology with a friendly writing style and vivid illustrations while exploring current "real world" issues. A seven-part organization covers atoms, molecules, and cells; energy and life; genetics; evolution and the diversity of life; human anatomy and physiology; and plant anatomy and physiology. For anyone interested in increasing their biological literacy - enabling them to make informed decisions at the ballot box and understand the research findings they see in the news.
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On the Wii U, your home can continue to be your private and convenient personal gym. Nintendo will be updating their own popular fitness franchise with Wii Fit U, and many other great fitness titles will be soon to follow. Enjoy some of your favorite yoga poses and strength exercises along with fun new games and features. And you won't have to buy another expensive piece of hardware, because the Wii U is compatible with the Wii Balance Board.
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Nintendo's at-home exercise program is back with a litany of new activities and events that are sure to keep you entertained for hours. Wii Fit U features more than 20 new games to play, some combining both the Balance Board and the Wii U's GamePad to offer an entirely new experience in your exercise routine.
Enjoy some of your favorite exercises from previous Wii Fit titles. And with new features like the Fit Meter and off-television play, staying active has never been more convenient or accessible. Wii Fit U is designed for players of all levels and ages from kids to seniors.
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Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture.
SKU: 95032 Marius Barbeau (1883-1969) played a vital role in shaping Canadian culture in the twentieth century. Rooted in the premise that his cultural work – in anthropology, fine arts, music, film, folklore studies, fiction, historiography – cannot be read uni-dimensionally, the sixteen articles that comprise this book demonstrate that by merging disciplinary perspectives about Barbeau, evaluations and understandings of the situation around Barbeau can be deepened.


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On late Friday night, election results showed that the majority of workers at a Volkswagen (VW) plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted against joining the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union. The election was close, with 626 workers in favor and 712 opposed.
But that doesn't mean workers have lost the chance to organize and be heard at their workplace. While unions, which negotiate pay and benefits with employers, are familiar in the United States, the country has yet to see European-style "works councils," but VW wants to bring one to Tennessee. These organizations are a formal structure in which workers and management can discuss the company's finances and business plans as well as ways to improve productivity and safety on the factory floor. They are common in Europe — so common, in fact, that every VW plant has a works council except the one in Tennessee. VW's policy allows workers to have a say in things that impact work rules and the workplace environment while management includes them in business decisions.
After Friday's vote, the company will still push forward with its plans to create a works council. In a statement emailed to Bloomberg, Frank Fischer, head of the facility, said, "Our goal continues to be to determine the best method for establishing a works council," adding, "We found great enthusiasm for the idea of an American-style works council both inside and outside our plant."
The challenge here at home is that American labor law prohibits a formal works council if it is created by management, rather than by a union or the workers themselves. The National Labor Relations Act "forbids an employer from dominating or impermissibly supporting a labor organization, and a labor organization is any kind of representation committee or plan," Matthew Finkin, a professor of labor law at the University of Illinois, explained to ThinkProgress, if the purpose is, even in part, discussing wages, hours, and working conditions.
But there are other forms a works council might take at the VW plant that would stay on the right side of the law. That could include "informal employee involvement groups like quality circles or team-based workplace systems," Thomas A. Kochan, a professor of management and co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management, told ThinkProgress, in which the groups would make recommendations about how to improve their work environment and output. It could also include "task forces that are put together by the employer that ask employees to give them recommendations on anything from problems with work schedules to absenteeism to work family issues or production bottlenecks," he pointed out. "Even safety and health committees are widely used and are probably not violating labor law." So long as they don't touch on wages, hours, or working conditions, VW can set these structures up. But it ends up being a "swiss cheese" effort to stay clear of labor laws, Finkin added.
The possibility still remains for the creation of a formal works council, with the ability to talk about safety as well as pay, if it were to be set up by UAW or the workers themselves. Those who voted in favor of unionizing may still want this structure and could work with UAW to create a constitution for the committee and present it to their employer. UAW itself could do it, but might be difficult for it to pour more resources into the situation after a failed fight.
One way to speed that process along would be to change labor laws so that formalized works councils would be legal in the absence of a union. American labor law "is so out of date that we need to find ways to let workers have an opportunity to choose the form of representation they want, whether formal collective bargaining or some type of elected council like this," Kochan said. The problem is the politics, as labor law reform isn't likely to happen any time soon. In the meantime, however, VW will push forward and try to find a way to bring the voices of their workers into the mix.
I want to see VW Chattanooga unionized.
Today in Dana Loesch stupidity: she callously mocks fast food protesters who are fighting for a fairer minimum wage and the right to unionize without intimidation from overzealous bosses. This isn't surprising, given her long history of attacks on workers' rights and unions.
Some restaurant workers are striking today for a liveable wage and teabaggers are responding at the Twitter hashtag #EatFast where they are posting mocking photos of themselves gorging on fast food.
1. IT WOULD CREATE JOBS.Low wages are holding back economic growth, but a raise for our country's lowest paid workers would put money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it, generating much-needed consumer demand and contributing to economic growth across industries. That translates to higher GDP and new hiring in the labor market.
More than ten million Americans—and the family members they support—live beneath the poverty line even though they have jobs. With a median wage of $8.85, a fast food cook in a family of three lives in poverty even if she never takes a day off. Raising wages in the fast food industry could improve living standards for millions of hard working people.
With annual profits in the billions, the largest fast food companies could raise wages for their entire workforce and shareholders would still see a return. In fact, many of these employers already do pay higher wages to workers in other countries without wrecking their bottom lines.
Low-wage jobs are a business choice, but some employers take the high road offering fair wages, hours, and benefits. This investment in the workforce pays off in lower turnover and higher worker productivity, generating good service to customers and a solid bottom line.
Increasing the standard for decent pay in fast food could be a boon to low-wage workers across industries. The ripple effects start with increased consumer demand and economic growth, and create pressure in the labor market to raise wages in other low-pay positions. Contrary to popular myth, the vast majority of those affected by a raise at the bottom are working adults, struggling to make ends meet for themselves and their families. Even in fast food, most workers are 21 or older and have at least a high school degree. Raising wages in fast food could impact living standards for millions of American workers and the families that depend on them.
Dana's baseless smears of fast-food workers who are striking:
Visiting fast food businesses today to support free enterprise.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
Rent-a-mob protesters get paid to get angry http://t.co/AS9kgtfgFs
— New York Post (@nypost) December 5, 2013
This biased article from the New York Post's Twitter account was retweeted by Loesch.
The unintended consequences of a mandatory minimum wage increase http://t.co/bSr2bhmUkj
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
We have a fast food truck today for #FastFoodThursday #iloveyouhardees #dlrs http://t.co/TE4YCbNVBA
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
Itisntpaleoandidontcarebecause #fastfoodthursday #dlrs #971talk http://t.co/kMvfz3km9l
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
What makes these strikers so much better than my single mom who worked her way up from 3 mim wage jobs?
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
I worked mim wage jobs through school. What makes these strikers better than me that they should get more $ than some MO cops?
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
I was a statistic, a kid raised by a single mom who worked 3 jobs to not go on gov't dole. Don't tell me there isn't opportunity.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
Who decided that there is shame with a job? A job is a job. There is shame in NOT working, not shame IN working.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
Who is pushing the theory that you cannot leave the station into which you were born? Is this a feudal society?
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
I have way more more respect for a fast food worker putting in 8 hours a day than a community organizer on the gov't dole. #fastfoodstrikers
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 5, 2013
Her regular fill-in host for The Dana Show and guest Tony Katz falsely accuses unions of "bullying fast food workers."
Fast food workers are planning a strike to force employers to pay them $15 per hour. This Thursday, in over 100 cities across the nation, Big Labor is coordinating with "grassroots" activists to pressure these employers to pay a "living wage." From all the press, you'd think the push toward higher wages was something noble. But, this is Big Labor. And no one will bully, threaten or intimidate to steal your hard earned money more than Big Labor. The group Fast Food Forward, one of the organizations in sync with Big Labor to shame fast food restaurants into extinction, states their purpose:
In America, people who work hard should be able to afford basic necessities like groceries, rent, childcare and transportation.
While fast food corporations reap the benefits of record profits, workers are barely getting by — many are forced to be on public assistance despite having a job.
Raising pay for fast food workers will benefit workers and strengthen the overall economy.
It's not the workers that Big Labor wants to benefit. It's Big Labor that Big Labor wants to benefit.
There is no way to determine a living wage anywhere in America. It's a lie, and so is the idea that groups like Fast Food Forward and Big Labor care about fast food employees. Listen up, fast food workers, because you're being used! Not by McDonald's or Wendy's or Chick-Fil-A, but by Big Labor and the political candidates (ideology) they support. BIg Labor wants you to unionize because Big Labor wants you to pay union dues.
They want your money, and they don't give a good holy damn about you!
More lies from Loesch acolyte Katz.
On Tuesday, the Department of Labor announced a rule change to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that will finally expand protections to cover home care workers. President Obama had pledged in 2011 to undo a labor law loophole known as the "companionship exemption" to grant these workers the same labor protections enjoyed by other workers, and now they will be guaranteed minimum wage and overtime pay.
Here's what you need to know about why this rule change is so important for the workforce:
Home care workers have been denied the same rights as other workers. The FLSA was expanded to cover domestic workers in 1974, who had been left out of the original bill. But a carve out was added for those who provide "care and fellowship" to the elderly and disabled in their homes. That loophole has been so broadly interpreted that home care workers, who feed, clothe, and bathe their clients while giving them medical care, sometimes around the clock, have been left out of these basic labor rights. When home care worker Evelyn Coke sued her employer for denying her overtime pay, the Supreme Court ruled that her employer's actions were completely legal.
Home care workers make very little and many struggle to get by. Home health and personal care aides make just $9.70 at the median, or $20,170 a year. Many make too little to get by. In New York City, for example, 60 percent make poverty wages, with almost a third earning less than $15,000 a year. Nearly 40 percent of the workforce earns so little that they have to rely on public benefits to get by. One woman who has cared for a mentally disabled woman for ten years still makes just $8.87 an hour and works 199 hours every two weeks, giving her client around-the-clock care, without getting any overtime pay.
These jobs are part of a booming industry. Home health jobs are in high demand and the need for them is going to keep rising as more and more people need in-home care in their old age. Nearly 2.5 million people are already employed as home care workers, making it one of the largest occupations. The number of jobs is expected to grow by 70 percent by 2020. But the demand for these workers will likely outpace the supply over the next decade. Giving them a higher wage and paying them for overtime work could help attract new people to the industry.
Women and people of color disproportionately make up the home care workforce. More than 90 percent of these workers are women and half are people of color, making the rule change an important gender and racial justice issue. In fact, the change fulfills one of the original demands of the March on Washington to include all workers in the FLSA's protections.
Fox News continued its assault on the labor movement during a Cashin' In panel discussion that characterized unions as parasitic "vestigial" lobbying organizations that do nothing for their members and harm the economy. As evidence of their claims, the panel referenced a decades-long decline in union membership, but ignored the sustained political assault behind the drop as well as the empirically established economic benefits of a robust labor movement.
On the September 14 edition of Fox News' Cashin' In, host Eric Bolling introduced a segment about union membership drives and protests taking place this month, asking whether the effort was "bad for workers."
Fox regular Jonathan Hoenig explained that the membership drive was necessary, because unions are "parasites" that "need new blood."
Guest Sabrina Schaeffer complained that unions are "no longer representing workers. They're representing political views." She added that labor unions provide "very, very little" to their members.
Fox guest Wayne Rogers argued that unions are "vestigial," saying, "They're not doing anything for the worker."
The panel blamed unionized workers for the demise of Hostess, the textile industry, and the health of the overall economy while gloating that union membership has reached a 40 year low.
Bolling's panel was content to dedicate their airtime to glib metaphors and baseless attacks, ignoring a more substantive discussion on the reasons for declining union membership and the benefits that organized labor provide to union worker, non-union workers, and the economy as a whole.
A decline in union membership cannot be attributed to unions' failure to provide their members with benefits. In fact, surveys indicate the desire to join a union has been growing since the 1980s. Unions are in decline in part because of an ongoing campaign from the political right that has resulted in legislation at state and federal levels making it more and more difficult to engage in the unionization process. So-called "right-to-work" laws pushed in several states by the likes of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and conservative billionaire Charles Koch have "blindsided" the labor movement and resulted in precipitous declines in those states. And U.S. law places significant obstacles in the way of workers attempting to unionize.
Unions provide significant benefits to workers, and a strong union base is also healthy for the American economy overall. According to the Economic Policy Institute, unionized workers make 13.6 percent more in wages than non-union counterparts and are 53.9 percent more likely to have employer-provided premiums. Others have pointed out that "unions restore demand" to the economy by raising wages and "putting more purchasing power to work."
h/t: MMFA
The "blame Unions" syndrome visits Fixed Noise yet again. And to make this point seem even sillier for the union-busters at RNCTV, aren't all the hosts who bash them, the producers, and directors making the shows on the network involved in unions in some fashion?
Nine months after fast food workers in New York City walked off the job on "Black Friday," their efforts to change the industry's pay standards have gone national. Workers are striking in roughly 50 cities on Thursday in hopes of converting the trickle of strikes throughout the summer in cities like Seattle, St. Louis, and Milwaukee into a flood.
In addition to the nine cities that have already seen strikes this summer, places like Boston, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, and Hartford are joining the fight on Thursday. Organizers welcomed reports that one restaurant manager in Hartford plans to fire anyone who participates in the strike, saying that such illegal retaliation will only bring immediate high-profile pressure from workers and their supporters, further raising the profile of the effort to end poverty wages in food service.
Kyle King, a Burger King cashier in Boston, told the Boston Globe that he and the thousands of other workers expected to strike Thursday have to risk being fired if they want to change anything. "I don't know what I'll lose first," King said, "lose my job or lose my sanity." Thursday also brings the fast food strikes to major cities in the south for the first time. Unions are less powerful in the south, and legal protections for workers tend to be weaker in southern states.
Low-wage workers in the retail and fast food industries have been walking off the job since last year to demand a minimum wage of $15 and the right to organize into unions. The fast food industry's profits have soared, but those gains haven't trickled down to workers. Fast food jobs, like the other low-wage service sector jobs that have been the primary source of post-recession job growth, do not currently allow workers to support themselves financially. McDonald's recommends that its employees find a second job and go without heat or air conditioning in order to survive on the chain's typical wages.
As the strikes have spread, the drumbeat to raise the minimum wage has grown louder. One congressional proposal would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would barely catch up to the buying power the minimum wage had in 1968.
Fast food operations in other countries and a handful of chains in the U.S. that are committed to paying livable wages have shown that companies can still make healthy profits while paying substantially higher wages.
Editors note: This is the first in a series of reader-supported—i.e. crowdfunded —articles about the powerful National Restaurant Association and the plight of low-wage workers who are being screwed at every turn by industry lobbying tactics and misleading propaganda. An amazing 387 AlterNet readers contributed more than $5,500 to support this ongoing investigative project. Many of the donors are listed at the end of the article.While thousands of fast-food workers were preparing to walk off their jobs earlier this summer to seek raises to $15 an hour, the industry's corporate lobbyist, the National Restaurant Association, was celebrating a string of political victories blocking state minimum wage increases and preempting local sick day laws.In June, the NRA boasted that its lobbyists had stopped minimum wage increases in 27 out of 29 states in 2013. In Connecticut, which increased its state minimum wage, a raise in the base pay for tipped workers such as waitresses and bartenders vanished in the final bill. A similar scenario unfolded in New York State: It increased its minimum wage, but the NRA's last-minute lobbying derailed raising the pre-tip wage at restaurants and bars. The deals came despite polls showing 80 percent support for raising the minimum wage.
The NRA's lobbying didn't stop there. It also told members that it blocked a dozen states this year from passing laws that would require earned paid sick leave, which is what New York City and Portland, Oregon adopted. Meanwhile, it boasted that six states, including Florida, passed NRA-backed laws that preemptively ban localities from granting earned and paid employee sick time.
"These are horrible things, but there are amazing things that are happening to change it," said Saru Jayaraman, co-director and co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), which has been working a dozen years to slowly change the industry's exploitive business model and labor practices. "And there will be increasingly important stuff coming up."
As fast-food workers across the country prepare for a second nationwide walkout over wages on Thursday, most Americans have little idea how profitable and politically aggressive the corporate mainstays of America's second biggest employer have become. While labor activists have had victories in 2013, such as New York and Portland passing sick leave laws, and New Jersey poised to raise its minimum wage via a ballot measure this fall, the restaurant industry's lobbying powerhouse is at war with the industry's workers.
"It's an old-boy network. It's very old-school thinking. It's very, very conservative," said Paul Saginaw, founder of Zingerman's food companies in Michigan, which employes 600 people and unlike the NRA, supports better benefits for employees like healthcare. "There has to be some pressure put out to provide better lives for people."
Most Americans are unaware that millions of people who work in the industry—especially the 2.5 million fast-food preparers and servers who earn an average of $8.74 an hour, according to federal labor statistics—are not just teens in their first job, but adults with families to support. They may not know there's a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, $2.13 an hour, that hasn't changed in 22 years—although 32 states have raised it slightly. They may not realize that they, as the restaurant-going public, subsidize owners via cash tips, even as the NRA routinely tells legislators its industry cannot afford to pay better wages or basic benefits.
Most Americans don't know that restaurant salaries are so low that the industry's 12.2 million workers use food stamps at twice the rate of the U.S. workforce, and are three times as likely to be below the poverty line. Or that women earn less than men in similar jobs. Or that restaurants are among the biggest low-wage employers of people of color. Or that virtually every chain—except for In and Out, according to ROC—don't want to pay living wages and benefits or offer real opportunities for advancement.
Most tellingly, almost every national chain—from fast-food outfits such as Yum! Brands Inc. (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC) and McDonald's to full-service dining such as Darden Restaurants Inc. (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Capital Grille)—have reported higher revenues, profits, margins and cash holdings to Wall Street analysts despite the recession, according to the National Employment Law Project. Giants like McDonalds had 7.8 percent revenue growth over the past decade, according to Gurufocus.com, a financial reporting site. Yum had 10-year revenues of 8.7 percent, and Darden's 10-year revenues grew 9.1 percent.
But last winter, as the NRA was fighting minimum wage increases and paid sick leave, it was telling lawmakers that the industry could not afford to pay employees more. Yet this August, the NRA's newsletter was predicting another profitable year, where revenues would be up 4 percent compared to 2012. "Restaurant and foodservice sales are expected to reach a record high of $660.5 billion this year," another 2013 revenue forecast on its website said.
"The NRA is the worst employer lobby in the U.S.," Jayaraman said, speaking about its lobbying and PR operation that pretends it is not an industry dominated by Fortune 500 companies, but instead a rickety mom-and-pop operation teetering on the brink of ruin. "The [earnings] data does not bear any resemblance to what they say is true."
There are many reasons why America's restaurant industry, which employs nearly one in 10 Americans, gets away with underpaying its workers and blocking laws that would benefit employees. These reasons include the industry's longtime low-wage business mode; its longstanding fear-based lobbying that any wage or benefit increase would kill jobs; and a sophisticated political operation that nurtures ties to both parties, encouraging lawmakers to adopt anti-worker laws.
"The question is where is it coming from and who benefits," said Ben Goldfarb, executive director of Wellstone Action, a group that trains progressive activists. "We know who benefits. It's the Restaurant Association members and the electeds [legislators] who do their bidding… It's not about what's good or bad for the economy."
Exploitive Roots, Exploitive Lobbying
The business model—where almost everyone except for top management earns an average of slightly more than $11 per hour—is premised on paying workers the lowest legal salary and has not changed in decades. As theNew Yorker's James Surowiecki recently explained, many of today's largest service-sector companies, particularly restaurants and big-box retailers, were founded decades ago and sought to hire young people and housewives as low-wage, part-time employees, to give them work experience and spending money. "The reason this has become a big political issue is not that the jobs have changed; it's that the people doing the jobs have."
This summer's fast food walk-outs—which will continue this fall—are part of a campaign to challenge and change that status quo, particularly as the media is discovering that the largely non-unionized restaurant workforce is filled with people with families. One consequence of the Great Recession is that millions of middle-class jobs have been replaced by lower-paying service jobs—food sector jobs that are now filled by adults with children, and jobs that offer little opportunity for advancemment.
"On what I'm earning right now you have to choose between paying your rent and eating the next day," Christopher Drumgold, a 32-year-old father of two from Detroit who earns $7.40 an hour after a year at McDonald's, told reporters during July's fast-food worker walk-out. "Fifteen dollars an hour would be great. We'd be able to pay our living costs."
This kind of working-class struggle prompted President Obama to call for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 in his 2013 State of the Union speech. Some Democrats in Congress quickly responded by going higher, proposing it be raised to $10.10, and that the minimum cash wage for tipped workers be 70 percent of the federal (or higher state) minimum wage.
While polls consistently find that 80 percent of Americans, including majorities of Republicans and people earrning more than $100,000 a year, support a $10.10 wage, the industry's national and state-level lobbyists went to work to kill any increase at the state or federal levels. And if that didn't work, they sought exemptions for tipped workers in states where the increase was seen as passing.
What unfolded in New York, which raised its minimum wage but not for tipped restaurant workers, and in Maryland, where the NRA stopped a minimum wage increase in a legislative committee, shows just how the NRA wields its power and influence.
"The NRA is a very conservative organization… my values are so different," said Saginaw, who has been in the restaurant business for 31 years and was a former member. "They certainly weren't representing my interests. They talk the small business owner game a lot but their lobbying efforts are dictated by the large corporate chains. I'm a small businessman."
New York State: A Cautionary Tale
Many Americans are not aware that there is more than one minimum wage. There's the federal wage for non-tipped workers, which is $7.25 an hour or $15,080 a year and took effect in July 2009. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have raised that rate. A few states, such as New Mexico and California, allow jurisdictions to set locally higher minimums.
Then there's the tipped wage, for jobs where the public tips workers. The federal tip wage, which is $2.13 an hour, was last raised in 1991. Thirty-two states have raised it slightly. Employers are supposed to pay the difference between that base and other state or federal minimum. But, as ROC United said, that doesn't always happen. And then there are other minimum wages for immigrants, minors and people with disablities.
In New York, the minimum wage increase in 2013 fell prey to partisan games. "It could be seen as good intentions gone awry," said Frank Sobrino, press secretary for New York State Democratic Sen. Jose Peralta, explaining what happened as his state legislature raised the state's minimum wage this year from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour by 2016.
New York's Senate is controlled by an odd majority of Republicans and so-called independent Democrats—not his boss, Sobrino said. When the GOP agreed to raise the wage in secret last-minute negotiations—after blocking it for years—the final bill did not include a tip wage increase for waiters and bartenders, which is what the industry wanted. Tipped workers at car washes and airports will get a raise, said Working Families spokesman Joe Dinkin. "But hotel and restaurant waiters and bartenders, which are the largest group of tipped workers, do not get an automatic increase. Rather, the tipped minimum wage will go to the Wage Board, which is controlled by Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo, to do what he wants with it. And yes, this is because of the National Restaurant Association."
The bill also contained an unprecedented and alarming payoff to fast-food chains and big retailers: a tax credit offsetting the cost of hiring teenagers, but only for minimum wage. That subsidy drew the media's attention. A Wall Street Journal editorial, "Minimum Intelligence," said it provided an incentive to fire workers 20 years and older and replace them with teens. "For a teen working full time, the annual subsidy could be worth as much as $2,800 per worker by 2016," the Buffalo News editorial said.
Sen. Peralta, the Queens Democrat, has since proposed a bill to nullify the tax break that analysts say will be worth millions to big employers.
There were two features of this deal that exempifly how the NRA operates, ROC's Jayaraman said. First, NRA lobbyists keep telling lawmakers that their industry primarily employees teenagers and young people who don't need higher wages and benefits. Their PR shop has even absurdly claimed that raising minimum wages would kill entry-level jobs. That line apparently was bought by New York State's Republican senator who inserted the tax subsidy at the last minute.
But the brouhaha over the tax subsidy also helped the NRA keep its last-minute deal on excluding the minimum wage for food servers somewhat hidden. "They are worried about public outrage," Jayaraman said, noting that the same kind of secret last-minute deal excluding tip wages emerged in Connecticut when it raised its minimum wage. "That happened at the last minute with legislators and lobbyists for the NRA," she said. "Everyone who had been working on this was blindsided. Typically, they don't bring it [excluding tip wages] up at hearings."
Maryland: Sowing Fear Not Hope
But in Maryland, the NRA's lobbyists were more brazen. They did bring it up excluding tipped workers and they trashed them—but only after waiting six hours to testify, long after most labor activists had testified and the hearing room was almost empty.
First came Carville Collins, representing a regional Wendy's chain with 108 stores and 3,100 employees. He rolled out the NRA's standard "job killer" speech, which was also presented by NRA lobbyists in Congress this spring. Carville said that raising wages "imposes costs we cannot pass onto consumers." He said a proposed three-step increase to $10 an hour would cause "five to eight" stores to close, putting as many as 300 people out of work. Moreover, if Maryland's minimum wage was higher than nearby states, it would attract out-of-staters who would "come and displace Maryland workers." Carville then cited research from the NRA-funded Employment Policy Institute, projecting that a national $9.80 minimum wage would kill "256,000 to 768,000 jobs," including thousands of jobs in Maryland.
Melvin Thompson, senior vice president of the NRA's state affiliate, the Restaurant Association of Maryland, immediately followed, and opposed raising minimum wages "for all the reasons you have heard already." But then he attacked, claiming that servers often stole tips—saying they didn't need an increase. He said restaurant workers made two to three times the minimum wage and some waiters earned more money than owners. He concluded, "the tip portion doesn't need to be included in this bill."
Needless to say, progressive restaurant owners, activists and economists have thoroughly debunked each of these claims. As Zingerman's Saginaw said, "The workforce has changed. It's not just students and people out of college. It's much more diverse than that." Economists have pointed out that at McDonald's, for example, half of the cost of raising its minimum hourly pay to $10.50 could come by adding a nickel to the price of a $4 Big Mac. Other studies by ROC have found that a dime increase in daily food prices could support a 33 percent raise for minimum wage workers and a doubling of the base tip wage.
But, as the Wellstone Institute's Ben Goldfarb explained, NRA lobbyists seek to sow just enough doubt and gray areas that it becomes easy for legislators to vote against proposed wage-increase bills, or just exempt their industry entirely.
These fear-based scripts—which have been studied and rebutted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP)—prompted legislators, including a handful of Democrats, to vote against the Maryland bill in committee. The local advocates,Raise Maryland, are not giving up. They have analyzed how much Maryland gave away in business subsidies this year and written memos rebutting the NRA's testimony. Raise Maryland volunteers have been knocking on thousands of doors this summer to generate support and get people to write to lawmakers to change their minds and reconsider the issue, campaign coordinator Matt Hanson said.
Suppressing Wages Isn't Enough
The NRA did not respond to a list of questions from AlterNet beyond an initial phone call where a spokeswoman emphasized that the industry's profit margins are so slim—3 or 4 percent—it can't afford to do more. Yet the industry is America's largest low-wage sector and is filled with corporations that have been consistently profitable despite the sluggish economy, according to NELP's analyses of Wall Street earnings reports. Yet the NRA not only opposes raising wages and linking wages to inflation, it has another draconian priority: opposing local laws granting earned sick leave.
Despite protests by workers who have publically explained what it's like to have to go to work sick, the NRA has been lobbying in statehouses to preempt cities and counties from passing local laws that would require employers to grant earned paid sick leave. ROC notes that 90 percent of restaurant workers don't have paid sick days, and "two-thirds report cooking, preparing and serving food while sick." That reality, captured in videos by sick workers, helped a coalition led by Working Families in New York City and Connecticut to adopt local sick leave laws. These were significant victories. The New York City law will affect a million workers. (San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and the District of Columbia also require earned sick time.)
New York's passage of sick leave legislation grabbed headlines, especially as it became law when the city council overrode Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto. But in the past two years, NRA lobbyists have pushed eight states to preempt or repeal local labor laws that include requiring paid sick leave. The industry—helped by prominent Democrats such as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter—also beat proposed sick leave laws in Denver and Philadelphia.
This trend started in Wisconsin and shows how right-wing alliances spread anti-labor legislation. In 2011, Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker backed an industry-led effort to ban paid sick leave laws, like the one Milwaukee's votersadopted as a ballot measure in 2008 while Walker was county executive—its top elected official. Seventy percent of voters had backed paid sick leave. That spring, the passage of Wisconsin's bill preempting local laws was touted as a model by the NRA at meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the pro-corporate lobbying mill. ALEC members, almost all Republicans, introduced copycat bills in their states, Wellstone Action's Goldfarb said, saying this was how the NRA's priority spread and "scaled." These were passed by GOP-majority statehouses, sometimes using strongarm tactics that dismayed labor organizers.
This summer, for example, Republicans in Florida's Orange County—near Walt Disney World—were lobbied by fast-food giants, including Darden, which owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Capital Grille, and Disney, and intentionallydelayed acting on another sick leave ballot measure that had 80 percent support in polls. That tactic gave the restaurant lobby time to push its preemption bill through its legislature, which GOP Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in July. Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana and Tennessee have all passed bans on local sick leave laws. Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina are considering it.
The Arizona Restaurant Association lobbyist said last March that no one was proposing a sick leave law in her state, but "we're fortunate to get out in front if it." In Memphis, Tennessee, the prospect that Shelby County was considering a wage theft ordinance—because restaurants there hadn't paid $270,000 in back wages to workers that a coalition of lawyers and churches recovered in court—prompted its GOP-majority state legislature to act and preempt local labor laws. "That [wage-theft law]… would have been very harmful to local businesses," the Tennessee Hospitality Association told its members.
Public Health vs. Private Profits
In all these political fights, the question of who is being harmed is the critical question. The NRA is touting an old anti-regulatory script—trotted out by state chambers of commerce for years—that any cost that cuts into profits is a job killer and must be stopped. But advocates like ROC and Working Families say that argument is upside down. Low pay and no benefits not only hurts worker productivity, it also hurts families and undercuts local consumer spending.
"It's an old-school chamber of commerce attitude—it's anti regulation," Zingerman's Saginaw said. "We believe that by paying higher wages and benefits we will get better productivity from our staff and have more satisfied customers."
And when it comes to sick leave, there is another dimension: the public is at risk when food is prepared by workers who can't afford to take a day or few hours off to visit a doctor. ROC's 2012 report on Darden described a North Carolina Olive Garden worker who came to work in 2011 with Hepatitis A, prompting the county to vaccinate thousands of people and a class-action lawsuit.
"Almost no laws anywhere in the country require restaurants to provide paid sick leave for employees who come down with anything from the sniffles to a norovirus," noted Grubstreet.com. "On the other hand, pretty much every single municipal health department in the country has a rule or law requiring employers to keep sick employees away from food and out of the restaurants, and that's where things get problematic."
Problematic is not exactly the correct word. When it comes to the NRA and its state affiliates, greedy and shamelessly political are more accurate. And that is why thousands of fast-food workers across the country plan to walk out of their jobs on Thursday, in what organizers says will be months of continuing labor actions—including a focus in September on raising tip wages.
"The NRA is a lobbying machine—it is for the owners of restaurants and restaurant chains that are turning a profit off the backs of workers," said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labor lawyer and owner of the Just Crust, a pizza restaurant in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It doesn't have to be that way."
High Road Employers
Meanwhile, advocates like ROC have formed a progressive restaurant trade association, RAISE, and are encouraging people to sign petitions to raise minimum wages and benefits, as well as use its new National Diners' Guideidentifying which restaurants treat employees fairly. They're also encouraging people dining out to ask owners about paying fair wages, just as the public asked about organic and local foodstuffs and gradually changed menu offerings.
"We try to encourage that kind of economic inquiry," said Liss-Riordan, a RAISE member. "A few years ago, it was pretty revolutionary to ask, 'How fresh is your arugula?' Now we want people to ask, 'Are you paying fair wages?' It's just getting started. We are hoping that it's a powerful idea that will take off."
h/t: AlterNet
WASHINGTON (AP) — It seems like a simple proposition: give employees who work more than 40 hours a week the option of taking paid time off instead of overtime pay.
The choice already exists in the public sector. Federal and state workers can save earned time off and use it weeks or even months later to attend a parent-teacher conference, care for an elderly parent or deal with home repairs.
Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that would extend that option to the private sector. They say that would bring more flexibility to the workplace and help workers better balance family and career.
The push is part of a broader Republican agenda undertaken by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to expand the party's political appeal to working families. The House is expected to vote on the measure this week, but the Democratic-controlled Senate isn't likely to take it up.
"For some people, time is more valuable than the cash that would be accrued in overtime," said Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., the bill's chief sponsor. "Why should public-sector employees be given a benefit and the private sector be left out?"
But the idea Republicans promote as "pro-worker" is vigorously opposed by worker advocacy groups, labor unions and most Democrats. These opponents claim it's really a backdoor way for businesses to skimp on overtime pay.
Judith Lichtman, senior adviser to the National Partnership for Women and Families, contends the measure would open the door for employers to pressure workers into taking compensatory time off instead of overtime pay.
The program was created in the public sector in 1985 to save federal, state and local governments money, not to give workers greater flexibility, Lichtman said. Many workers in federal and state government are unionized or have civil service protections that give them more leverage in dealing with supervisors, she added. Those safeguards don't always exist in the private sector, where only about 6.6 percent of employees are union members.
Republicans and business groups have tried to pass the plan in some form since the 1990s.
Democrats say the bill provides no guarantee that workers would be able to take the time off when they want. The bill gives employers discretion over whether to grant a specific request to use comp time. Opponents also complain that banking leave time essentially gives employers an interest-free loan from workers.
h/t: TPM
Lochner v. New York is widely viewed as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history. It is taught in law schools, alongside decisions upholding segregation and permitting Japanese detention camps, in order to instruct budding lawyers on how judges should not behave. Even Robert Bork, the failed, right-wing Supreme Court nominee who claimed women "aren't discriminated against anymore", called Lochner an "abomination" that "lives in the law as the symbol, indeed the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power."
Lochner fabricated a so-called right to contract in order to strike down a New York law preventing bakery owners from overworking bakers, but its rationale has implications for any law intended to shield workers from exploitation. In essence, Lochner established that any law that limits any contract between an employer and an employee is constitutionally suspect. If desperation forces someone to agree to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a dollar a day in a factory filled with toxic air, then courts must treat that law with heavy skepticism. Not every workplace law was struck down during the so-called Lochner Era — the justices of that era sometimes valued sexism more than they valued exploiting workers, for example — but Lochner placed any law benefiting workers on constitutionally weak footing. Needless to say, the "right to contract" it invented appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster yesterday to praise this "abomination" of a decision on the Senate floor:
You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama's a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I'm asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case… . I think it's a wonderful decision.
Paul's speech also includes a somewhat rambling attempt to claim that Lochner helped "end Jim Crow," a claim that would cause anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of civil rights history to scratch their head. Lochner was decided in 1905, and, while Paul is correct that the Lochner Era justices very occasionally struck down discriminatory laws, Jim Crow was still very much alive when Lochner was overruled in the 1930s. The Supreme Court decision that did the most to eradicate Jim Crow — Brown v. Board of Education — rested on the Constitution's guarantee that no person shall be denied the "the equal protection of the laws," not on some fabricated right to contract. And Brown alone was insufficient to overcome the campaign of "massive resistance" segregationists mounted in defense of Jim Crow.
What finally killed American apartheid was big, centralized government of the kind Paul and his fellow tea partiers love to hate. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required business owners to contract with minorities — something that would undoubtedly been unconstitutional under Lochner. And, of course, the same Voting Rights Act that is now endangered in the Supreme Court tore down Jim Crown voter exclusions. Sen. Paul, for his part, has incorrectly suggested that the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution.
Paul's endorsement of Lochner reflects a disturbing evolution in Tea Party thought. For much of Obama's first term, Tea Party conservatives rallied behind "tentherism," the false belief that most of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. Unlike tentherism, which applies only to federal laws, Lochnerism prevents both the federal government and the states from enacting necessary legislation.
"Wonderful decision" my ass, Rand!
Extremist groups, right-wing politicians and their corporate backers want to weaken the power of workers and their unions through so-called "right to work" laws. Their efforts are a partisan political ploy that undermines the basic rights of workers. By making unions weaker, these laws lower wages and living standards for all workers in the state. By many measures, the quality of life is worse in states with "right to work" laws. Wages are lower, poverty and lack of insurance are higher, education is weaker—even infant mortality and the likelihood of being killed on the job are higher.
Lower Wages and Incomes
- The average worker in states with "right to work" laws makes $1,540 a year less when all other factors are removed than workers in other states.1
- Median household income in states with these laws is $6,437 less than in other states ($46,402 vs. $52,839).2
- In states with "right to work" laws, 26.7 percent of jobs are in low-wage occupations, compared with 19.5 percent of jobs in other states.3
Less Job-Based Health Insurance Coverage
- People in states with "right to work" laws are more likely to be uninsured (16.8 percent, compared with 13.1 percent overall; among children, it's 10.8 percent vs. 7.5 percent).4
- They're less likely to have job-based health insurance than people in other states (56.2 percent, compared with 60.1 percent).5
- Only 50.7 percent of employers in states with these laws offer insurance coverage to their employees, compared with 55.2 percent in other states. That difference is even more significant among small employers (with fewer than 50 workers)—only 34.4 percent of them offer workers health insurance, compared with 41.7 percent of small employers in other states.6
Higher Poverty and Infant Mortality Rates
- Poverty rates are higher in states with "right to work" laws (15.3 percent overall and 21.5 percent for children), compared with poverty rates of 13.1 percent overall and 18.1 percent for children in states without these laws.7
- The infant mortality rate is 15 percent higher in states with these laws.8
Less Investment in Education
- States with "right to work" laws spend $3,392 less per pupil on elementary and secondary education than other states, and students are less likely to be performing at their appropriate grade level in math and reading.9
Higher Rates of Death on the Job
- The rate of workplace deaths is 36 percent higher in states with these laws, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.10
H/T: AFL-CIO.org
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) yesterday backtracked on his previous assertion that a union-busting move to pass a so-called "right-to-work" provision into law wasn't on his agenda, and by the end of the day, both the Michigan House of Representatives and the Michigan state Senate had introduced and passed separate pieces of legislation aimed at the state's union workforce.
Michigan Republicans are pursuing the laws because Indiana Republicans passed "right-to-work" last year and, according to Snyder, the state needs such a law to remain competitive. In reality, though, such laws have negative effects on workers and little effect on economic growth, and Michigan Republicans are pursuing the laws without public debate:
The legislation: Both the state House and state Senate passed legislation yesterday that prohibits private sector unions from requiring members to pay dues. The Senate followed by immediately passing a law that extends the same prohibition for public sector unions, though firefighters and police officers are exempt. The state House included a budget appropriations measure that is intended to prevent the state's voters from being able to legally challenge the law through a ballot referendum. Due to state law, both houses are prevented from voting on legislation passed by the other for five days, so neither will be able to fully pass the legislation until Tuesday at the earliest.
The process: Union leaders and Democrats claim that Republicans are pushing the legislation through in the lame-duck session to hide the intent of the measures from citizens, and because the legislation would face more trouble after the new House convenes in January. Michigan Republicans hold a 63-47 advantage in the state House, but Democrats narrowed the GOP majority to just eight seats in November. Six Republicans opposed the House measure; five of them won re-election in 2012 (the sixth retired). And Michigan Republicans have good reason to pursue the laws without public debate. Though the state's voters are evenly split on whether it should become a right-to-work state, 78 percent of voters said the legislature "should focus on issues like creating jobs and improving education, and not changing state laws or rules that would impact unions or make further changes in collective bargaining."
The effect: While Snyder and Republicans pitched "right-to-work" as a pro-worker move aimed at improving the economy, studies show such legislation can cost workers money. The Economic Policy Institute found that right-to-work laws cost all workers, union and otherwise, $1,500 a year in wages and that they make it harder for workers to obtain pensions and health coverage. "If benefits coverage in non-right-to-work states were lowered to the levels of states with these laws, 2 million fewer workers would receive health insurance and 3.8 million fewer workers would receive pensions nationwide," David Madland and Karla Walter from the Center for American Progress wrote earlier this year. And right-to-work laws and the drop in union membership that follows have a significant impact on the middle class. Multiple studies, meanwhile, show that such laws have a negligible impact on economic growth. "Research shows that there is no relationship between right-to-work laws and state unemployment rates, state per capita income, or state job growth," EPI wrote in a recent report about Michigan. And "right-to-work" laws alsodecrease worker safety and can hurt small businesses.
Union leaders are, of course, aghast at Snyder and the GOP's right-to-work push.
LANSING — The Michigan House and Senate each passed controversial right-to-work legislation today, amid loud protests and a walkout by Democratic legislators.
The state House passed the first right-to-work bill late this afternoon in a 58-52 vote, but that bill can't move on to the Senate until the next session day — possibly Friday, if a session is scheduled — because of a procedural move by Democrats who are asking that the vote be reconsidered. The state Senate voted 22-16 to pass a right-to-work bill. Four Republicans — Tory Rocca of Sterling Heights, Tom Casperson of Escanaba, Mike Nofs of Battle Creek and Mike Green of Mayville — joined with all the Democrats in opposing the bill.
The House and Senate bills are two of three separate right-to-work bills now in the Legislature that will eventually be consolidated into two bills. Both the House and Senate bills deal with private sector employees. The third bill deals with public sector employees, excluding police and firefighters.
That bill passed the Senate by a 22-4 vote this evening.
Democrats in the Senate walked out of the chamber before the vote was taken.
The mishmash of bills is creating head-crashing possibilities over when any of it will make it to the governor's desk.
The quickest the Legislature can now pass the right-to-work bills through both chambers and send them on to Gov. Rick Snyder is five days from the next sitting, or session day, said Ari Adler, a spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall. The next session day could be set for Friday, a day this weekend or Tuesday, Adler said. The five-day clock then starts after that.
The House vote on the bill followed a brief walkout by Democrats to protest refusal by police officials to open the Capitol doors. Right-to-work legislation was introduced in the state House just before 3 p.m., bringing loud protests from Democrats and protesters inside the Capitol building.
"You're doing this in lame duck because you know next session, you won't have the votes," said state Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids. "This is an outrage."
Sen. John Gleason, D-Flint, said it was a "shameful day" in the state Legislature when a bill is allowed to be rammed through with no public hearings.
Democratic senators offered amendments to the bill that would: delay the implementation of the bill for one year; put the issue up to a vote of the people; remove an appropriation from the bill that would make the bill one that couldn't be up for a repeal by voters, and tie the bill to repeals of same-sex benefits for the partners of state workers, the item pricing bill and the tax on retiree pensions. All failed.
"Here we are, less than a month after the election, and the choice voters made at the ballot box shows that voters don't want this type of divisive agenda," said Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing.
Snyder said at a news conference today that the bill is about freedom to choose and equality for Michigan workers.
h/t: Detroit Free Press
After insisting all last year that an anti-labor "right-to-work" law was not on his agenda, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has changed his mind. This morning, he called on the state legislature to introduce and pass so-called "right-to-work" legislation and promised to sign it should it reach his desk.
Snyder was among the Midwestern Republican governors who leveled an assault on unions in 2011, but right-to-work, which effectively undermines union activities by allowing non-union workers to free-ride on union-negotiated contracts, is a new front in that fight. Indiana passed right-to-work legislation earlier this year, and by following suit, Michigan can remain competitive with its neighbor while also becoming a better place for workers, Snyder claimed in a video posted by The Detroit News:
Though Snyder refers to his agenda as "pro-worker," a quick glance at studies of "right-to-work" legislation paints a different picture. According to the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work laws have virtually no impact on job growth and have a negative impact on both union and nonunion workers, reducing wages by up to $1,500 a year. A Ball State University study conducted during Indiana's push to pass right-to-work found that "no impact is likely" for job growth or wages in the manufacturing sector. Another EPI study suggests that right-to-work laws had a negative impact on Oklahoma's economy and that right-to-work is "is ineffective as a strategy for increasing a state's employment."
The right-to-work experiment failed miserably the last time it was tried in the Midwest. Indiana originally passed right-to-work laws in 1957, but workers hated the new laws so much that they were repealed just eight years later.
In an email to HuffPost, Dawn Bess in Missouri writes:
"No one is striking here. Missouri is an 'at will' employment state and the employers pay the unemployment insurance. It no longer is deducted from our paychecks like it was 5 or 10 years ago, so if you are fired in Missouri for ANY reason that your employer can conjure up, the state denies us unemployment compensation. We can file a protest but the state always takes the employer's side and we lose. It's a horrible situation here in Missouri and everyone is terrified of losing their jobs for any reason because the state has no qualms about leaving us penniless and homeless. There is no security net in MO for workers who lose their job. So short of the long, no, there are no strikes here."
Alexander Eichler


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The Limits of Control
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The Limits of Control is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Mr. De Bankolé), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. His journey, paradoxically both intently focused and dreamlike, takes him not only across Spain but also through his own consciousn ... [Watch Trailer] |
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hey i have a broken thumb too! a whole hand, actually! but i'm not going to disney any time soon. and i have to have surgery on it this month. waa.
Its pretty funny actually. Last year when i went i broke my finger a week before we went and now i broke my thumb a day before. Pretty soon im going to be afraid to go there!!!
Last edited by SteamboatWillie; 07-05-2006 at 06:07 PM.
Steamboat Willie
i went to disney with the chicken pox once
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Found October 18, 2012 on
NFL Injury Report:
The Seattle Seahawks will be without two players for their Thursday
night matchup with the San Francisco 49ers; offensive lineman John Moffit
(knee), and reserve defensive back Byron Maxwell (hamstring). However, Seattle
has announced that safety Kam Chancellor will play despite being limited this
week by an ankle injury, reports the Associated Press.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll
said after practice on Wednesday that Chancellor would be able to go against
the 49ers on Thursday night.
Chancellor sustained his injury during the Seahawks contest
against the New England Patriots, and it limited him during the first two days
of practice this week. He is tied for the team lead with 43 tackles through the
first six games.
Moffitt will miss his third straight game, while Maxwell,
who mostly contributes on special teams, is listed as doubtful due to his
hamstring injury.
Follow @TheNFLInjuryRpt
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