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Accomplishing Your Marketing Goals with Drupal 8 [May 6, 2014]
Want to learn more about Acquia's products, services, and happenings in the Drupal Community? Visit our site: http://bit.ly/yLaHO5.
While the trend of accessing information through different devices is still rising, 70% of surveyed enterprises believe providing the optimal experience across all devices is still a major challenge.
Drupal 8 is designed from the ground up with this new mobile trend in mind. It allows marketers to easily create content that can be built with responsive designs to optimize the experience for mobile devices. Ultimately, Drupal 8 helps to increase your marketing ROI by allowing you to accomplish more with less time.
In this webinar you will learn:
• Quick overview of the challenges and opportunities in Mobile
• How you can benefit from the new Mobile experience
• Why your marketers and administrators will love the new Content Authoring (editing posts is faster than ever)
Hannah Corey: Today's webinar is Accomplishing Your Marketing Goals with Drupal 8. We're really excited for this webinar, and we want to thank Appnovation for co-hosting it with us. The presenters today are Jonathan Whang who's the Lead Developer at Appnovation and Kris Vanderwater who's a Developer Evangelist here at Acquia. We're really excited for both of them to take time out of their day today.
Jonathan Whang: Okay. Hi everybody. My name is Jonathan Whang, and I'm a Lead Developer with Appnovation Technologies. Appnovation is one of the world's leading open source development shops with over 150 clients and having delivered nearly 400 projects since our inception. We have six offices in total and each location and the headquarters are in Vancouver BC, with our US operations run out of Atlanta and our EMEA operations run from London, UK. Through these offices, we have been able to serve companies around the world. Some of the technologies we use and solutions we provide include Drupal, Alfresco, SproutCore, HTML5, Mobile Apps, MuleSoft, Jaspersoft, MongoDB, Hadoop, and various e-commerce solutions. Some of our more notable clients include the NBC Universal, Intel, Pfizer, the NBA, Google, Fox News, American Express, Reebok, Samsung and also the US Department of Defense. We have a very strong partner relationship, and Appnovation is the only company in the world that is both an Enterprise Select Acquia partner, MuleSoft partner and a Platinum Alfresco partner. Just to give you guys an outline of what we will be discussing today, we will be talking about how Drupal 8 is different from Drupal 7, and how these will help achieve your marketing goals. So, the three main points we are going to discuss today are Web Services in Core, and What You See Is What You Get Editor in Core, and some New Functionality. With that I'm going to pass you over to Kris, and he's going to talk about the Web Services in Core.
Kris Vanderwater: Thanks. Very quickly, I'll just tell you a little bit about myself so you know who's talking to you. I'm Kris Vanderwater. I am Acquia's new Developer Evangelist. I was actually one of the initiative owners for Drupal 8 and have worked very heavily in blocks and lay ups and a number of other areas in Drupal 8. Just to help push things forward there, you can't do much in Drupal Core without putting your hands dirty everywhere. I've done quite a bit of web services work during my time at various other companies that I've worked for and with that I'm just going to take you through some of the things that you're likely to see from a web services perspective in Drupal 8.
First, I just wanted to talk for a minute about some of the problems that Drupal 8 is trying to address. During his Keynote at DrupalCon Portland, Dries presented a slide that indicated that 70% of respondents in a large survey told that providing an optimal experience across all screen sizes and devices was a source of major, major difficulty. Of those survey, only 11% of their organization had actually embraced a "mobile first" solution, and 33% of those wants the "responsive design" features in their CMS immediately. This is of course very relevant to marketing. A large number of devices and screen sizes means that catering to your site to everyone is harder than ever and your message could be lost simply because of the device only shows with you and your site. Now, a good responsive design solution that embrace the version include the differences in devices and allow you to communicate more clearly based upon the device that someone's using. Drupal 8 is actually taking great strides toward this goal. It's prioritized the need for the Drupal browsing in a number of different way, including a dedication to a mobile first browsing solution. Today we'll be giving you a peek into how the solution that reference these issues beyond just its mobile first focus, and so that would be booked into web services. Web services is normally a dry topic, but I'm going to quickly give you upfront foundations about what we're going to talk about here. Out of the Drupal 7, web services have been available to us for quite some time. This is especially helpful when we consider any interaction with a third-party system, such as another website or a native mobile application. Leveraging web services is really the go-to solution for this problem space. Scripturally in Drupal 7, there were a number of problems with this. Primarily the most major problem was the Drupal 7's route handling wasn't built with this in mind. This is a technical way to say that D8 modules have to spend an awful lot of time and effort hacking around what Drupal was trying to provide by people. So, they created a number of different solutions that would basically work but the best practice is that the world at large is following weren't necessarily being followed in Drupal 7. To this end, most common solution in Drupal 7 was actually to leverage the services module, and now Services is really great module but it has a couple of drawbacks, and primarily in a [audio gap] developers needed to create any sort of custom, what we call entities or data storage mechanism. They would have to create an awful lot of additional codes just to do any communication with a third-party app or another website. This of course meant more work for your developers over a longer period of time and likely would result in ongoing troubleshooting as well. In an effort to remedy this, many attempts were made in Drupal 7 to do entity generic services. This ultimately emerged as a really powerful pattern, but it took a long time for Drupal 7's cycle to probably establish this pattern.
Now moving forward to Drupal 8, it's embraced this approach that was ultimately achieved in Drupal 7 since day one. Another two different types of speed and we're only going to really talk about one of them here. It's what we referred to generically as consent entities. Is there anything that you can add a field to? If you've ever actually worked with Drupal 8 and seen nodes you can add additional fields to, you have an idea of what it is that I'm talking about here. This could be things like nodes or users, comments. If you've ever worked with Drupal Commerce, maybe products, line items, orders, all those sorts of things that you really are the very powerful Core of Drupal. These entities come out of the box. can be activated per entity and for those of you who are not familiar with this approach, this is really just a general way for you to communicate externally about this data. Very, very powerful, again, for any sort of third-party application and useful for maybe the iPhone or an Android phone, something along those lines.
To this end, Drupal's invested very heavily in various types of data serialization. Now, this is a really technical topic, and I'm not going to talk about it. Suffices to say that your developers will really appreciate the effort that got into this because it means that your data can be passed around and the format that will work per situation. What we like to call "CRUD" within the industry, which stands for Create, Read, Update or Delete is also a basic part of the entity services that have gone into Drupal 8. This will give your developers a really robust framework from which to begin working. That's going to dramatically reduce the amount of troubleshooting that they're probably going to need to do for custom entity types and allow them to really focus in on building an API that works for your specific use case. When we begin talking about building a third-party solution in a native application, focusing in on what the API should really look like is really where your developers should be spending their time, and it's ultimately what's trying to give your application the best foot forward and be able to communicate with your target market more quickly, more accurately and more relevant. So with that, we're going to be talking a little bit about – I guess I actually covered this slide. [Laughter] In short, it's just going to make your life a whole lot easier in terms of really getting your product out there and communicating with your audience. With that, I'm actually going to hand it back over to Jonathan.
Jonathan Whang: All right. Thanks, Kris. Now, what I'm going to talk about is the functionality which we refer to as "WYSIWYG" or What You See Is What You Get and how that is now packaged in Drupal 8 Core. Just in case we're trying to stay away from being too technical on this webinar. The What You See Is What You Get is just the editor for large text areas that allow content administrators or site users who have access to create content. They have the ability to upload images and post hyperlinks and big snippets of text and do formatting with the text area to have it show up the way they would prefer it to show up when they're looking at HTML. That's why the term "What You See Is What You Get" was coined. What we are used to within the Drupal 7 world is after the latter stages of Drupal 7, there has been a consolidated WYSIWYG contributed module that was developed. The module itself served as the backbone for WYSIWYG implementation, and it could support all the other plugins that allow users to select from different flavors of the actual editor and some of these plugins are CKEditor, FCKeditor, jWYSIWYG, NicEdit, TinyMCE, YUI Editor and if this doesn't really sound familiar to you, then it's likely because some of these plugins aren't very popular because they don't work very well. Actually, CKEditor had gone on and produced their own standalone module that some sites would use where they don't like the flexibility of the actual global WYSIWYG module. Some of the benefits of this is - it is highly configurable. So, each editor can have its own settings and you can choose what buttons would show up. If you refer to the slide and the area that is encased in the red border is the sample of what the tool bar would like customized. So, you could pick what kind of button shows up there. Think of it as like a Microsoft Word toolbar, which gives you things like bullet points and lists. Also, each text format that you would create – so text formats are customizable within Drupal. If you create that, then they can have their own editor. So, different fields would look different based on configurations of a site. This is what it is in Drupal 7 and if you guys have used Drupal 7 sites, then you would know how it works.
Some small issues with the current implementation: downloading the module, getting the editor plugin library setup with all the correct files and the latest versions and configuring all of the settings that each plugin needs takes time. Each plugin also has settings along with - the text format also has settings. A drawback to being super configurable is it also takes time to actually get up and running because once you put in the plugin and the module, it comes with bare-boned settings. It assumes that it starts off empty and you'll have to configure it with the things that you want. Another problem we found is throughout usage of the WSYIWYG module for all the sites that we've been delivering is certain pieces of the WYSIWYG are inconsistent. Of course, it comes out looking like a paragraph with line breaks and bullet points and bold here and there when you're configuring it within the text editor, but the moment you save the node and look at it on the node view page, it starts looking funny. Most of the time, it's because the WYSIWYG was misconfigured but again, some of it also attributes to the incompatibility between the plugin and the actual core module.
Also, image upload has been inconsistent. At the beginning of Drupal 7 from what I remember was that not all of the plugins would support very clean image uploading. I believe now the CKEditor does it, but doesn't really do it very well and you don't have much control over where the image goes and if it's right aligned, it doesn't show up as right aligned after the node is saved. These are some of the issues that we would run into, especially if you are a builder of Drupal sites. With Drupal 8, now they decided that the page – because pretty much every site has a page node and we'd like to ship the WYSIWYG within the core distribution. So, they decided because I believe CKEditor was the one that was more flushed out and stable that they decided to put the CKEditor plugin directly into Core. So, it is pre-configured with four text formats, and the way that it's set up is actually easier to understand than in Drupal 7. They have updated the interface for configuring the editor toolbar. It looks really slick and image upload support has been basically finalized, and it's really stable even at this stage of Drupal 8. That is the WYSIWYG and Core. That's the change that they made.
What does this mean for marketers really? The number one users for the WYSIWYG portion of a site end up being the end client, and so non-technical staff will find it easier to use with the current WYSIWYG implementation in Drupal 8. You'll get less calls to the IT department saying, "How come this paragraph doesn't look the way I want it to?" It does save time on site development and having site builders have to choose between different WYSIWYGs providers and they might not have experience with other plugins, but if the client sees that and they prefer that then the site developer might have a hard time with configuring the preference of the client. The unified WYSIWYG interface would mean that everyone basically is forced to use the standard. It does work right out of the box so there really isn't much reason to switch to other plugins, which is still yet to be seen if other plugins will adopt a Drupal 8 support. If it's consistent output for right when the site gets set up like you could set up Drupal 8 and right out of the box just have a plain page node and start like a simple blog site, then the WYSIWYG configuration works right out of the box without having to configure anything. We will have a demo at the tail end of this presentation to show you how the current WYSIWYG editor works.
Onto the new functionality that we chose to discuss for this webinar that we feel applies most to the marketing side of things. The new functionality for Drupal 8 is the in-line field editing. What this does is it gives users the ability to edit nodes directly on the view page. What that means is when you're looking at an article and if you have permissions to make edits to content and also, you can configure this in the back end of Drupal. You can actually go in and without having to go to the edit form, you would be able to in-line edit the text and the field values right from the node view page. It has the access restriction configuration out of the box, so if you guys have dealt with configuring that huge permissions screen or form, there is already setting there to allow you to setup which roles have access to do the in-line editing. The interface is super clean and really slick and again, you'll get to see this in the demo. It works for all content types. If you create a custom content type – so it's not restricted to just the page node. If you create custom content types like a Wiki, or things like that, this in-line editing functionality will be available to your content type as long as it uses the field API.
So, why is that important? Well, it allows for easier access to modify content and it does reduce the clutter of the previous Drupal 7 administrative interface, so certain people will be less onto the form site or the administrative theming of Drupal. You will really just modify the content right when you're looking at it. It also allows for ease of use on mobile, and so that ties in with like the mobile initiative of Drupal 8.
With that being said, I think we'll move on to the demo portion where I can show you the WYSIWYG in action and the in-line editing in action. I'll have to share my screen. In my screen, I have a Sandbox Drupal 8 installation on my machine, and this is an example of a page node that I've created and I just named it "First test page" and it's full of lorem texts. So, I'm going to show you the WYSIWYG in action. If I go into edit this page node – I'm sorry. I should first take you to the configuration that it looks like out of the box. Under the administrative form, you'll notice that this is already pre-configured for you the moment you turn on Drupal 8. Like you installed Drupal 8 and this is what it'll look like. There's nothing else to be done here. You don't have to configure anything, and the roles are standard. It means basic HTML versus restricted HTML, so this is the more open text format versus where you're allowed to restrict HTML and this one is every HTML possible and then there's just plain text which has security issues but that's a different discussion. All of this configuration is out of the box and you don't have to do anything to it the moment you install Drupal which is great for site builders. So, this is what the WYSIWYG looks like without being configured to add any buttons in it, and you'll notice it's identical to the screenshot on the slide that I did show earlier. I'm going to take you through – I'll increase this. So, what I have is an example, I'm going to add some text here. Right. It's easy enough to say this is basically – the idea is it's supposed to be easy for you to create content this way and you would copy and paste directly from Word into this. This indent here is an example of blocked quote and I've just made this bold, so I'm going to go down here and just go save. So the WYSIWYG, it looks exactly the way you've typed it in, which is how it should be working in the first place. This is an example of having the list items and a link to an external site. The configuration for the WYSIWYG, I'm going to take you through that for basic HTML. Now, you'll notice the interface for this is much cleaner and if your clients – you've been given access to modify this directly by your site builders, then you'll know that the previous way was this huge form with a whole bunch of check boxes that you would need to check. You'd have to know what they all meant in order to be able to configure the toolbar. Wherein in this case, you have the items right here and they tried to make it look like a Microsoft Word toolbar. So if you wanted to put things in like cut, then you would just drag this into, let's say one of the groups. Let's put that there and that's what the interface looks like for configuring the toolbar. It's a lot cleaner and it's easier to use for non-technical users. I love it too even being a developer because it's just really slick. So, that's the WYSIWYG editor in Core and again, this is everything you get the moment you install Drupal 8. There is no need to re-configure this at all and it just works.
I'm going to take you back to my sample page node, and I'm going to demo the in-line editing. You'll notice when you hover over the body text of the page, there's going to be this little pencil, it looks like right at the top right-hand corner. Mind you, I am logged in as an administrator who has permissions to do this. That won't always show up. Right now with the black toolbar, you can notice I am an administrator with privileges. This will show up, and I will just click Quick Edit. Now, you notice there's this fancy little pop-up that shows up, which outlines which field I'm on. If I click into the field, then notice how the WYSIWYG also pops up. I'm going to, let's say delete all of this text that I put in because that's just cluttered, and I'm going to let's say, make this a italicized, and I'm going to click save. So voila. No need to go into that administrative form, the WYSIWYG does show up in the in-line editor. You could still make use of that even from this site, and it's a lot quicker to do text edits when you're browsing through a site. Imagine the usability of this when you're trying to comb through a whole bunch of forums or a listing of blog posts. You wouldn't have to go in to each blog post edit form and make your changes if all you're doing is just checking copy and checking spelling or fixing formatting. This also works for a custom field. Notice I have a different field down here, sample text field. If I click the Quick Edit, and I go in and notice how it says, "Sample text field" as my field now instead of the body. I'm going to say, "Hello again, everyone" and save. It does update that field. So it's really slick. This allows users to basically have an easier time curating their content and no need for technical and again, all of this stuff works right out of the box. I believe I did miss the image, uploading an image. This is the image uploading for the WYSIWYG. Notice how a lot of this configuration comes out of the box. [Pause] You can add the alternative text in-line. Say, this is the demo. Specify your image height to 200 by 200 and say it's left-aligned. That's what it'll look like and if you notice how it pushes all the text over - because it's left-aligned. It pushed all the texts over and it's left-aligned and the image is right there to where you decided to put it. So, it looks just like really when you upload, and it lets you do changes to it. I think that's going to be it.
I guess in conclusion, this webinar was supposed to introduce people to the benefits of using Drupal 8 and how it applies to – some of the functionality of Drupal 8 would apply to having marketing initiatives. It will allow you to access a wider market because it makes things easier to curate for non-technical users. It does lower the cost to configure certain sites because a lot of the functionality that we find that are common to projects that clients come to us with are already being rolled into just the Core Drupal installation. Also, they have made an emphasis on cleaning up the administration side of Drupal because they wanted to make it as friendly as possible for people to be able to manage their site without having to always call their developer or their IT people, because right now, all the rage is mobile. We tried to ensure that Drupal 8 does accommodate for having mobile as the number one priority in terms of some of the clients' requirements. I'm going to pass it back to Hannah.
Hannah Corey: Sure. If anybody has any questions could you please ask them now. I know a couple of comments. We can jump right into those. The first question is, can you talk about performance? I've heard the services module had some pain scaling.
Jonathan Whang: [Pause] Did I speak to that?
Hannah Corey: Kris, maybe you could take a stab at that one.
Kris Vanderwater: Yes, I was talking but I think I was muted.
Hannah Corey: Oh. [Laughter]
Kris Vanderwater: Yes. One of the things about Drupal 7 and I made some allusions to this earlier, Drupal 7's notion of what a URL looks like. It's very different than what Drupal 8's notion of that and how it's handled underneath the hood. There are definitely some potential performance implications there because in terms of what it is that you're actually serving out, you have to do Bootstrap Drupal each time and well that then used to be true in Drupal 8 as well. A lot of effort has gone into streamlining that process where possible. Now, don't get me wrong. Drupal 8's not faster than Drupal 7 yet, and there's going to be a lot of effort that's going to go into it from a performance perspective. But, I think the more important takeaway here is just that Drupal 8's notion of what a response should look like is just very, very different. Hopefully, we can begin to leverage some better caption strategies on top of it that we could have in Drupal 7. Just speak very specifically to the issue Services might have had. I'm not going to attempt to do that because I think probably very specific to whatever the used case was at the time. Obviously, if you use a system that's getting hundreds of thousands of requests coming across it like you might have let's say, a third-party app that gets very popular, that's going to be a very different situation than if you have an external API that gets to - used via handful of other services out there. So, it's hard to really nail down exactly what that might be without knowing specifically what it was that you had heard about. But, I think the takeaway should probably just be that a lot of thought and effort has gone into what this should look like for Drupal 8. Hopefully, a lot of these situations be either remedied or have a remedy close or end by virtue of the architecture.
Hannah Corey: Great. Thanks, Kris. The next question is, can you insert images from the in-line editor?
Jonathan Whang: Yes. Whatever was on the WYSIWYG – this is Jon. Sorry. Whatever was on the WYSIWYG on the full form, shows up within the in-line editor as well. So, you can use that. When I did try and play with it, it would do the insert, but I did find some funny behavior like if you tried to right-align it, it wouldn't go all the way to the right or sometimes push certain things to the left. Again, that's basically a by-product of it being still within latter stages with Alpha pre-beta. So, I'm sure they'll work out the kinks for that. But yes, you can use the in-line editor to also upload images via the WYSIWYG within the in-line editor.
Hannah Corey: Awesome. Thank you. The next question is, when you use the view source on the editor, does it keep the indentation you set or does it recognize and validate the code in some other way?
Kris Vanderwater: If you've used the source for – depending on the text format that you have selected obviously, it's going to validate based on that. So, if you're using a restricted text format – let's say the site has you configured as the blogger user role, and they only allow you to put in p tags and span tags. You can't go in there because you only have access to that text format, even if you do view source and try to add in image tags when you don't have access to that or dupe tags or script tags and you don't have access to that, then the validator will take care of it. I think that's also a security issue that they made sure they didn't allow any holes with that. I think they also outline within the configuration section of the Drupal 8 text formats that giving access to unrestricted HTML to certain users is a security issue. It's not a bypass by any means but if you do know how to write code, it'll let you put in the tags that you're initially allowed even without writing the tags manually. But, it'll stick to the same formatting. I believe the alignment and the margins and the padding are all a by-product of the current theme you have using. So, if it formats Ps while using the – I can't remember off the top of my head what this theme is. The Bartik theme. Sorry. If the Ps are formatted with the Bartik theme to have margin up and down then if you put Ps in there, it's going to use the same CSS as the theme we're using.
Hannah Corey: Great. The next question is, I like the built-in editor. Is there a function within Drupal that identifies the user customer, example by IP address in order to serve up customized content? I think Kris, you can talk to Acquia Lift about that.
Kris Vanderwater: Yes, so just to address that really directly for a second, as part of the initiative that I was an owner of the Blocks and Layout Initiative, we went to a lot of effort to begin doing that stuff. I just can tell you that as of today, those sorts of features are not in Drupal 8. Our objective was to make adding those things a bit here. However, Acquia does have a solution for some of this stuff in Drupal 7 called Acquia Lift. I believe we have an upcoming webinar on that. Don't we, Hannah?
Hannah Corey: Yes, we do. I can send that in the chat section if you guys want to check it out. Thank you. [Pause] Awesome. Thanks, Kris. The last question [Laughter] that everyone is thinking, when is Drupal 8 launching? I know we don't have a direct date, but maybe you guys could speak to timeframe for everyone out there that's not that familiar with Drupal.
Kris Vanderwater: Well, the age old answer to that question is when it's ready. That has been the status quo since I've been involved in Drupal, which has been about nine years now. I know that that's not a very satisfying answer. Let's just speak realistically for the moment. I think we are in the late stages of an alpha, and part of what we're trying to do at any given time is to really reduce the number of outstanding issues, our tests are all always passing and that we have all the – we know that we need. This is in an effort to make the beta and the release phases of Drupal 8 as short as possible. However, there are still a handful of features that are being polished or being added to Drupal 8. I would be very surprised to see a beta in the near term future. I think that there's probably some desire to push that out just a little bit further. If we do see a beta in the near term future, then the objective will be to really limit the scope of any new features that are being added to Drupal 8. To that end, I think there is going to be a lot of communication about what our minimum, viable product is for any given set of features that are in Drupal 8. I know the entities with them can somewhat be – some of the rest works that we discussed here today is still a little bit in flux, and there's a real desire to make sure that those things go out as feature complete capable as possible. I wouldn't get too fired up about being a Drupal 8 beta in the next month or two. I'm just thinking it is going to be a bit longer than that before we see a beta, but that's just my own personal opinion, and I am completely guessing.
Hannah Corey: Great. All right. Thanks Kris. I know a lot of people are wondering that. I think that's it for questions. Jonathan, would you like to end with anything else?
Jonathan Whang: No. I guess, thanks everyone for coming and…
Hannah Corey: Yes, thanks everyone for coming and we'll send you the slides and the recording in the next 24 hours, and a big thank you to Kris and Jon for the wonderful presentation. Have a great afternoon, everyone.


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Made an instant impact as a freshman in 2009 and has continued the stellar play throughout his career. Named ITA All-America in doubles play with Jeff Morris in 2010 – first team All-SSC in singles and doubles in 2009. Also named ITA Academic All-America. 2009-10: Named ITA All-America in doubles with partner Jeff Morris. In singles, ranked nationally the entire spring season and posted a record of 11-8, playing at the No. 2 position. Began the year ranked 14th in the nation, fell to 34th in the second poll and ended the year 37th nationally and 20th in the South Region. Victorious in final three matches of the regular season and went unfinished through first four matches of post season. Took the nation's 20th ranked player to three sets in the NCAA Tournament before falling in the final set. In doubles, teams with Jeff Morris to make up one of the top tandems in the nation. Posted a 17-4 record with Morris at No. 1 and 0-2 record with Arturo Barvalle at No. 3. Along with Morris, finished the year ranked fifth in the nation and third in the South Region. Clausen and Morris defeated teams ranked in the nation's top-15 four times, including a win over the fourth ranked tandem in the NCAA tournament. Named to the Sunshine State Conference First Team Doubles and Second Team Singles. Also a top student-athletes, posted a 4.0 GPA in the Spring 2010 semester. Named to the Rollins College Athletic Director's Honor Roll and SSC Commissioner's Honor Roll…In the Fall season, advanced to the semifinals of the Rollins/C.L. Varner Memorial Tournament. Upset the tournament's top seeded player in the second round. Teamed with Nick Rowlands to advance to the second round in doubles play. At the ITA Southeast Region Tournament, advanced to the second round of singles play.2008-09: Had a breakout freshman season, posting an 18-2 singles record. Went 3-0 at No. 1, 14-2 at No. 2 and 1-0 at No. 3. Faced nationally ranked players four times, winning twice. Ranked as high as 27th nationally in singles during the year, ending the season ranked 32nd. In doubles play, teamed with four different partners to post a 17-6 record, including a 17-4 mark at No. 1 and 4-2 record in SSC play. Was named Sunshine State Conference Player of the Week on April 13th. Earned a spot on the First Team All-Sunshine State Conference Singles and Doubles teams. Named to the Rollins College Athletic Director's Honor Roll and SSC Commissioner's Honor Roll. In the fall season, teamed with Pablo Seijo to win the top flight doubles at the C.L. Varner Memorial Tournament. At the ITA Southeast Regional Championships, advanced to the Round of 16 in the singles draw to lead the Tars.
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(NEW YORK) -- Venus Williams suffered yet another early exit in the U.S. Open, falling 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (5) to 56th-ranked Zheng Zie Wednesday at Flushing Meadows. This is the third year in a row that Williams has failed to advance past the second round of the tournament. The 33-year-old Williams says that she still has plenty of matches remaining in her illustrious career.
"If I didn't think I had anything in the tank, I wouldn't be here," said Williams. "I feel like I do, and that's why I'm here."
The match lasted 3 hours, 2 minutes, tying for the fifth-longest women's match since 1970 at the U.S. Open.
"I was like, 'Wow, this is a marathon,'" Williams said.
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These Guitars Aren't Cheap
October 4, 2011 10:31 AM
[lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Rick Nielsen[/lastfm] of [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Cheap Trick[/lastfm] has been collecting guitars for years. Now he wants you to be able to share in the history that his collection radiates. He plans to open a museum in the South Loop section of Chicago. Sounds like another great thing to do in the Windy City.


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Understanding the Trans-Pacific Partnership
PIIE scholars assess the benefits and costs of the final agreement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potentially historic trade accord between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim trading partners.
Trade and Investment Policy Watch
- The TPP Timeline
Jeffrey J. Schott — October 6, 2015
- The Pharma Compromise on TPP Is Good for US Consumers
Caroline Freund — October 5, 2015
- The Case for TPP: Rebutting the Naysayers
Lee G. Branstetter and Gary Clyde Hufbauer — October 5, 2015
- TPP Nears the Goal Line: The Trade Deal at a Glance
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa and Cathleen Cimino-Isaacs — October 2, 2015
- Understanding the Estimated Gains from Trade Pacts
Peter A. Petri — June 17, 2015
- A Convincing Case For Passing the TPP
The Trade and Investment Editor — May 15, 2015
Peterson Perspectives Interview
- What's Next for TPP?
Jeffrey J. Schott — October 6, 2015
Books and Policy Analyses
- Understanding the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Policy Analyses in International Economics 99
by Jeffrey J. Schott, Barbara Kotschwar, and Julia Muir
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Asia-Pacific Integration: A Quantitative Assessment
Policy Analyses in International Economics 98
by Peter A. Petri, Michael G. Plummer, and Fan Zhai
Most recently posted material.
Crowd Financing Is Not Banking
Avinash D. Persaud — October 13, 2015
I have lived through enough financial cycles to be wary of the claims made of financial innovation. It is likely that there has been little financial innovation since grain futures contracts were struck several thousand years ago in the Indus Valley.
North Korea: Witness to Transformation
European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea on Forced Labor
Stephan Haggard — October 13, 2015
In March, we ran a post on European NGOs working on North Korea. One of the start-ups we covered from the beginning was the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, formed in January 2013 by a group ...
RealTime Economic Issues Watch
The Beef Over US Competitiveness
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa — October 8, 2015
The notion of a US manufacturing renaissance that has led to a return of factory jobs to the United States is largely a myth, according to new research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). The agreement ended there at a ...
Trade and Investment Policy Watch
The TPP Timeline
Jeffrey J. Schott — October 6, 2015
Trade ministers from the 12 countries participating in the TPP trade negotiations concluded talks on October 5, 2015. Negotiations are done but there is much left to do before this mega-regional trade accord is ratified and implemented.
Peterson Perspectives Interview
What's Next for TPP?
Jeffrey J. Schott — October 6, 2015
Jeffrey J. Schott offers an overview of the payoffs and political problems facing implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
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Angel Ubide — October 6, 2015
The European Central Bank is very likely going to have to keep interest rates at zero for several years in order to fulfill its price stability mandate, and therefore it is critical its policy action is complemented by effective, preemptive, and coordinated macroprudential policies.
China in Its Labyrinth
Angel Ubide — October 6, 2015
China is undergoing multiple transitions from industry to services, from investment to consumption, from external demand to domestic demand, from large state enterprises to the private sector, all while reducing its very high level of debt: a labyrinth of transformations that is impossible to manage without making mistakes and while guaranteeing a stable rate of growth. It is clear that the world is going to have to get used to a Chinese economy growing in a slower and, importantly, more volatile manner.
RealTime Economic Issues Watch
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In a recent paper, "On the Lost Purpose of Transition,"1 Igor Luksic—an economist and policymaker from Montenegro—argues that the early focus of economic transition on achieving free markets has been substituted by "reconstructi ...
Trade and Investment Policy Watch
The Pharma Compromise on TPP Is Good for US Consumers
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement announced October 5 had been held up until the final hour by protections sought by the US pharmaceutical industry. Specifically, the US industry was demanding that America's trading partners respect a 12-year period giving the companies exclusive rights to data...
Trade and Investment Policy Watch
The Case for TPP: Rebutting the Naysayers
Lee G. Branstetter and Gary Clyde Hufbauer — October 5, 2015
The long-anticipated agreement on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord—reached after many days of negotiations on October 5—will usher in a new phase of debate and misinformation about the benefits of liberalizing trade.
Trade and Investment Policy Watch
TPP Nears the Goal Line: The Trade Deal at a Glance
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa and Cathleen Cimino-Isaacs — October 2, 2015
After years of negotiations and disputes, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement may be entering its final stages in Atlanta in the first weekend ...
News Release
Peterson Institute for International Economics Appoints Pedro Nicolaci da Costa as Editorial Fellow
October 1, 2015
Washington—The Peterson Institute for International Economics is pleased to announce that Pedro Nicolaci da Costa is joining the Institute as an editorial fellow and will contribute his acute sensibilities and sharp prose to ...
China Economic Watch
PIIE Chart: Who will hold the power in AIIB?
Jan Zilinsky — October 1, 2015
China holds 30 percent of the shares in the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), which translates to about 26.1 percent of the votes. According to the Articles of Agreement published by the ...
Aspects of Ireland's 2010–13 EU-IMF Program [pdf]
Ajai Chopra — October 1, 2015
In a statement for Ireland's Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, which covers various aspects of Ireland's 2010–13 EU-IMF program, Ajai Chopra assesses program financing, debt sustainability, burden sharing with senior bank creditors, banking sector profitability and distressed debt, the fiscal adjustment path, Eurosystem liquidity support and the pace of bank deleveraging, and extinguishing emergency liquidity assistance. He also delves into the social consequences of the program, post-program fiscal consolidation needs, and risks facing Ireland.
News Release
PIIE Experts Forecast Sluggish Growth for the Global Economy in 2015–16, but No Panic over China
October 1, 2015
Washington—Economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics forecast continued sluggish growth for the global economy in 2015–16, despite generally favorable economic performance among the major advance ...
RealTime Economic Issues Watch
Europe's Capital Markets Union and the New Single Market Challenge
Nicolas Véron — September 30, 2015
The European Union has started a conversation on reforming its capital markets which raises difficult questions about market integration in regulated services sectors, of which finance is one. Powerful political constraints, currently centered on (but not limited to) the United Kingdom, preven ...
China Economic Watch
PIIE Chart: Is the Size of China's Government Growing?
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard — September 30, 2015
The size of government in China, when measured by general government revenue, is actually smaller than in the United States. However, the supporters of smaller government in China have been in retreat since China's last large fiscal reform implemented by Premier Zhu Rongji in 1993-94, which has seen ...
RealTime Economic Issues Watch
Brazil Needs to Abandon Inflation Targeting and Yield to Fiscal Dominance
Monica de Bolle — September 30, 2015
What happens when efforts to combat inflation collide with government deficits so large that they force the central bank to buy up debt, print money, and thereby drive up inflation? Economists describe this as a collision between inflation targeting and fiscal dominance. Some studies (Kumhof e ...
Korea's decision to delay joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks was a tactical mistake, says Jeffrey J. Schott. As a major trading nation, it stands to reap large gains from increased trade and investment with TPP countries and should opt to join the TPP as soon as the window for entry reopens.
See also:
TPP Talks: Getting to Yes
What You Need to Know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership
After the closing of banks in Greece on June 28 in the run-up to the referendum of July 5 and its associated risk of Grexit, the combination of large new bank recapitalization needs and the downgrading of growth prospects and plausible fiscal performance caused the IMF to insist that further debt relief will now be necessary. William R. Cline examines whether and to what extent additional debt relief is needed in Greece under the new circumstances.
Antoine Gervais and J. Bradford Jensen use a unique dataset on the distribution of output and demand across regions of the United States to estimate the share of economic activity exposed to international competition and find that accounting for tradable services nearly doubles the international trade exposure of the American economy.
In an Economist debate forum, Adam S. Posen explains that it is natural for economies to grow and a sign of disorder when they do not. Furthermore, he argues that growth in rich countries helps alleviate, not aggravate, the global problems of climate change, water scarcity, and poverty reduction.
Sanctions on Iran: Why They Worked and Why a 'Snapback' May Not Work
Gary Clyde Hufbauer explains that economic sanctions on Iran resulted from complex financial and diplomatic activity by Washington, complicating the challenge should sanctions have to be reimposed.
Simon Johnson testifies that if authorities are unwilling or unable to simplify and downsize too-big-too-fail banks, they should substantially increase the required amount of loss absorbing equity for those firms.
Adam S. Posen testifies before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that the international Financial Stability Board [pdf] is a useful check and occasional corrective to the US Financial Stability Oversight Council process, and it can also produce some good international standards, thus serving US economic interests. The FSB's attempt to extend Solvency II, the European Commission's regulation for insurance firms, to global application, is however a mistake.
The Federal Reserve and other regulators seem to have followed both the letter and spirit of the Dodd-Frank financial reform [pdf] instruction to more carefully regulate bank holding companies with more than $50 billion in total assets, says Simon Johnson in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.
Under Prime Minister Orbán, economic policy in Hungary has increased the role of the state in many sectors of the economy, either through outright nationalization or through aggressive regulatory changes. Policy Brief 15-11 by Simeon Djankov.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Cathleen Cimino-Isaacs review the main elements of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and summarize the most difficult issues remaining in the last leg of negotiations.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) needs a grand bargain [pdf] to pursue 21st century pacts that keep policymakers, business leaders, and the public engaged, while answering the legitimate demands of developing members to reduce longstanding distortions to farm trade and manufactures. Report by Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Euijin Jung, Sean Miner, Tyler Moran, and Jeffrey J. Schott.
Brazil's state-owned development bank BNDES has evolved into an institution that provides long-term credit to very large and profitable companies, helping to perpetuate a cycle of high interest rates and relatively low investment rates, writes Monica de Bolle.
Caroline Freund and Sarah Oliver find that harmonizing automobile regulations under the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would increase US-EU auto trade by at least 20 percent, resulting in national income gains for both partners together of over $20 billion per year in the long run. Policy Brief 15-10.
William R. Cline warns that findings of recent studies from the IMF and Bank for International Settlements that "too much finance" reduces growth should be viewed with considerable caution. Policy Brief 15-9.
New estimates of fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs) find the major currencies are now misaligned, with the US dollar moderately overvalued and the euro and yen modestly undervalued. However, the Chinese yuan is no longer undervalued. Policy Brief 15-8 by William R. Cline.
William R. Cline examines the basis for concerns about inflation caused by quantitative easing in terms of the quantity theory of money, and finds that inflation has remained low despite a large buildup in the Fed's balance sheet not because the velocity of broad money has collapsed, but because the money multiplier has done so. Policy Brief 15-7.
José De Gregorio finds that the recent growth slowdown in Latin America was not caused by external factors but was mostly cyclical in nature and a result of low productivity growth. Policy Brief 15-6.
Global income inequality will decline further in 2035, largely owing to rapid economic growth in the emerging-market economies, with India, China, and Sub-Saharan Africa reaping the most gains. Working Paper 15-7 by Tomas Hellebrandt and Paolo Mauro.
William R. Cline examines the empirical evidence on the Modigliani-Miller capital structure irrelevance proposition as applied to the banking sector. The central question he addresses is whether more highly capitalized banks do indeed enjoy lower costs of equity capital. Working Paper 15-8.
Avinash D. Persaud assesses the risks and dangers of Solvency II, the new EU directive for regulating insurance companies, and recommends an alternative approach. Policy Brief 15-5.
William R. Cline finds that the financial sectors in Asian emerging-market economies are now relatively unlikely to provoke new financial crises, either because of reforms after the East Asian financial crisis in the later 1990s or because of the dominance of state-owned banks not subject to bank runs. Working Paper 15-5.
Nicholas Borst and Nicholas R. Lardy trace the evolution of China's financial system away from a traditional bank-dominated and state-directed financial system toward a more complex, market-based system and analyze the optimal sequence of financial reforms needed to manage the new risks accompanying this evolution. Working Paper 15-4.
The vital role of innovation and knowledge in Asia's productivity growth and hence economic growth makes it critical that its financial system be able to channel more funds at lower cost to entrepreneurs and new firms in the future. Working Paper 15-3 by Gemma B. Estrada, Marcus Noland, Donghyun Park, and Arief Ramayandi.
New Book: The Great Rebirth: Lessons from the Victory of Capitalism over Communism
Anders Åslund
Simeon Djankov, eds.
Release Event | News Release
In NAFTA 20 Years Later, part of a new series of publications called PIIE Briefings, Institute scholars and experts assess the record two decades after the approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
New Book: Bridging the Pacific: Toward Free Trade and Investment between China and the United States
by C. Fred Bergsten, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, and Sean Miner, assisted by Tyler Moran
Release Event | News Release


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Sam Fletcher
OGJ Online
HOUSTON, Feb. 27 -- Dynegy Inc.'s proposal to spin off a substantial portion of its NGL business into a new limited partnership should boost the company's financing flexibility, analysts said.
"The new partnership unit could bolster Dynegy's financing flexibility, since it will provide access to the capital markets for equity and debt at the partnership," Standard & Poor's said, adding that the plan could benefit the company's overall credit profile. The New York City-based credit rating service said that it would closely monitor the partnership's capital structure to ensure the appropriate level of capitalization for Dynegy's investments.
Moreover, various agreements give the new Houston-based Dynegy Energy Partners LP the right to purchase substantially all domestic volumes of mixed NGL and NGL products from Dynegy and ChevronTexaco Inc.
"We expect to pursue strategic acquisitions independently and jointly with Dynegy Inc., and we may have the opportunity to make acquisitions directly from Dynegy Inc. or ChevronTexaco," officials said in a registration statement, filed early this week with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, for a proposed public offering of 8.75 million common units in the Delaware limited partnership,
LP details
Dynegy Inc. and affiliates will retain a 55.2% limited partner interest and all of the 2% general partner interest in the limited partnership, providing "access to management expertise and strong relationships throughout the energy industry" through the former parent company.
Dynegy Energy Partners will participate in separating, storing, terminalling, transporting, distributing, and marketing NGL. Its operations and assets will include:
-- The Cedar Bayou fractionator at Baytown, Tex., where mixed NGLs are separated into component products of an ethane-propane mix, propane, normal butane, isobutene, and natural gasoline.
-- NGL storage and terminal services at the Mont Belvieu, Tex., underground storage facility and Galena Park marine terminal.
-- NGL transportation and logistical services utilizing a diverse portfolio of distribution facilities along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere across the US.
-- Distribution and marketing of NGL products to refiners, petrochemical companies, retail propane distributors, other marketers, and end-users.
That represents "a substantial portion of Dynegy Inc.'s NGL business located along the Texas Gulf Coast in and adjacent to Mont Belvieu, Tex.," company officials said in that filing.
That filing also stated, "Mont Belvieu is the hub of the domestic NGL industry, with a concentration of fractionation and storage facilities, significant pipeline infrastructure, and local demand for NGL products from Texas Gulf Coast petrochemical and refining complexes. We also have significant NGL transportation and logistics assets located throughout the United States that provide strategic support for our operations and services to third parties."
Last year on a pro forma basis, those operations generated an operating margin of $92.5 million and earnings of $41.5 million, officials said. The operation sold an average 490,000 b/d of NGL products last year.
LP contracts
At the close of its public offering, the limited partnership will enter into a number of contracts with Dynegy or its affiliates, including:
-- A 20-year contract to buy all mixed NGL and NGL products owned or controlled by Dynegy Midstream Services LP, a wholly owned Dynegy subsidiary.
-- A 3-year agreement with Dynegy Holdings Inc., another wholly owned Dynegy subsidiary, to provide credit support for purchases of mixed NGL and NGL products.
-- An omnibus agreement with Dynegy Inc. and Dynegy Midstream that includes limited noncompetition and environmental indemnification provisions and that provides for administrative services.
At closing, Dynegy Energy Partners also will assume substantially all of Dynegy Midstream's long-term agreements with the former Chevron Corp.
In August 1996, Dynegy completed a combination with a Chevron subsidiary that merged substantially merged all of Chevron's midstream energy assets into Dynegy's operations. In connection with that transaction, Dynegy Midstream entered into long-term NGL agreements with Chevron and its affiliates to provide significant services, including:
-- Purchasing or marketing substantially all of the mixed NGL and NGL products produced or controlled by Chevron in the US.
-- Supplying NGL products to Chevron's US refining and chemical affiliates.
- - Providing transportation services in connection with Chevron's mixed NGL and NGL products.
Since Chevron completed its merger with Texaco Inc. last year to form ChevronTexaco, Dynegy Inc. has been expanding its commercial relationship to include the purchase of substantially all US natural gas and NGL production of the former Texaco.
As part of this expanded relationship, Dynegy Energy Partners agreed to buy substantially all domestic mixed NGL and NGL products produced or controlled by the former Texaco through August 2006.
Following closure of the initial public offering, Dynegy Energy Partners will enter into a $275 million bank credit facility, including a $125 million term loan and a $150 million revolving credit facility. The entire amount of the term loan will likely be borrowed at closing, officials said.
"We will have the ability to issue additional common units, which, combined with our additional borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility, should give us the resources to finance strategic opportunities as they arise," they reported.
Although filed, the registration statement for the proposed public offering is not yet effective.
Contact Sam Fletcher at email@example.com


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The information on this website is not intended to replace the advice of a healthcare provider. Always seek the advice
of your healthcare provider with questions or before undertaking any diet, exercise, or other health program.
© 2014 Spirit Health Group. All rights reserved.


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Positron Emission Mammography (PEM)
Positron emission mammography (PEM) is a form of positron emission tomography (PET) that uses a high-resolution, mini-camera detection technology for imaging the breast. As with PET, PEM provides functional rather than anatomic information about the breast. PEM has been studied primarily for use in presurgical planning and staging; it also has been used to monitor response to therapy and recurrence of breast cancer.
Positron emission mammography (PEM) is a form of positron emission tomography (PET) that uses a high-resolution, mini-camera detection technology for imaging the breast. As with PET, a radiotracer, usually 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), is administered and the camera is used to provide a higher resolution image of a limited section of the body than would be achievable with FDG-PET. Gentle compression is used, and the detector(s) are mounted directly on the compression paddle(s). PEM was developed to overcome the limitations of PET for detecting breast cancer tumors. Patients usually are supine for PET procedures, and breast tissue may spread over the chest wall, making it potentially difficult to differentiate breast lesions from other organs that take up the radiotracer. PET's resolution is generally limited to approximately 5 mm, which may not detect early breast cancer tumors. PEM allows for the detection of lesions as small as 2 to 3 mm and creates images that are more easily compared with mammography, because they are acquired in the same position. Three-dimensional reconstruction of PEM images is also possible. As with PET, PEM provides functional rather than anatomic information about the breast. In PEM studies, exclusion criteria included some patients with diabetes. PET may be used for other indications in patients with breast cancer, namely, detecting loco-regional or distant recurrence or metastasis (except axillary lymph nodes) when suspicion of disease is high and other imaging is inconclusive.
In August 2003, the PEM 2400 PET Scanner (PEM Technologies, Inc., Ridgefield, NJ) was cleared for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through the 510(k) process. The FDA determined that this device was substantially equivalent to existing devices for "medical purposes to image and measure the distribution of injected positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals in human beings for the purpose of determining various metabolic and physiologic functions within the human body." In March 2009, the Naviscan PEM Flex™ Solo II High Resolution PET Scanner (Naviscan, Inc., San Diego, CA) was cleared for marketing by the FDA through the 510(k) process for the same indication. The PEM 2400 PET Scanner was the predicate device. The newer device is described by the manufacturer as "a high spatial resolution, small field-of-view PET imaging system specifically developed for close-range, spot, i.e., limited field, imaging."
There was a class 2 recall of the Naviscan PET Systems Inc. PEM Flex™ Solo II PET Scanner on September 11, 2008, due to "a report from a user indicating that the motorized compression exceeded 25 pounds of compression force during the pre-scan positioning of the patient." Software for the PEM Flex™ Solo I and PEM Flex™ Solo II PET scanners was recalled in August 2007. One report indicated that the Mexican medical company, Compañía Mexicana de Radiología SA de CV (CMR), acquired Naviscan in December 2013 and plans to file a new marketing approval application with FDA to sell the PEM Flex™ Solo II PET Scanner in the U.S. However, no applications from CMR were found on FDA websites.
Also, refer to related medical policy, Scintimammography/Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging/Molecular Breast Imaging.
POLICYThe use of positron emission mammography (PEM) is considered investigational for all indications.
POLICY EXCEPTIONSFederal Employee Program (FEP) may dictate that all FDA-approved devices, drugs or biologics may not be considered investigational and thus these devices may be assessed only on the basis of their medical necessity.
POLICY GUIDELINESInvestigative service is defined as the use of any treatment procedure, facility, equipment, drug, device, or supply not yet recognized by certifying boards and/or approving or licensing agencies or published peer review criteria as standard, effective medical practice for the treatment of the condition being treated and as such therefore is not considered medically necessary.
The coverage guidelines outlined in the Medical Policy Manual should not be used in lieu of the Member's specific benefit plan language.
POLICY HISTORY03/31/2011: Approved by Medical Policy Advisory Committee.
07/17/2012: Policy reviewed; no changes.
10/23/2013: Policy reviewed; no changes.
08/06/2014: Policy reviewed; description updated. Added "for all indications" to the policy statement.
08/04/2015: Code Reference section updated for ICD-10.
SOURCE(S)Blue Cross Blue Shield Association policy # 6.01.52
CODE REFERENCEThis may not be a comprehensive list of procedure codes applicable to this policy.
Investigational Codes


text: Johannesburg - Lucas Radebe is confident Pitso Mosimane can steer Bafana Bafana to the 2012 African Nations Cup finals. South Africa are currently at the top of Group G in their qualifying group for the continental showpiece, but have a double-header against champions Egypt awaiting them in March and April. But having seen Bafana lose just one match in the last 17 as they have jumped to their highest ranking since April 2006, ex-captain Radebe believes they are showing very promising signs. "I think we'll do it - they have done pretty well so far and I'm sure Pitso will be pleased to be top of the group," he told Football365.co.za. "We seem to be moving in the right direction in terms of the rankings but obviously the matches against Egypt next year will be the real test. "We have always had a lot of talent in this country and thankfully the coach is getting the best from his players now. He has managed to get consistency in the results and there seems to be some depth to the squad." Bafana will play their last international of a momentous year when they host USA in a friendly at Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday. The match against Bob Bradley's men will give Mosimane the chance to run the rule over some newcomers, with the inclusion of Johannesburg-born, Leeds United striker Davide Somma the biggest curiosity. Radebe met the 25-year-old back in September and admitted he had been impressed. "I saw him against Doncaster and he was voted man-of-the-match. He's big and strong and he could be someone who gives the national team an extra dimension," Radebe said. "Davide's unknown but is coming over to give it a try. It will be interesting to see how he gets on against USA because he has shown a real interest in playing for the country."


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By RICHARD SHAWSun Advocate publisher
Every year, thousands of people across the country have the experience of being involved in fires.
In Carbon County, fires claim homes and business properties almost every month. And in the spring and summer, grass and wildfires often destroy out buildings and a home or two.
All uncontrolled fire is dangerous. When the incidents occur, the most important aspect of danger is not about property, but lives.
In the last few days, fire chiefs from various agencies have joined forces to spell out a number of things about the emergency situations for the business community and general public.
"We have a lot of business owners in town who don't think fire is much of a threat," said Price Chief Paul Bedont. "Many think working exit lights aren't too important. But in a fire, they can mean the difference between life and death."
The Price fire department will present a demonstration March 29 to show what it is like to be in a burning building with smoke pouring out of the windows.
"When a building gets filled with smoke, without some kind of marker, it is almost impossible to find the way out," explained Bedont. "Lit exit lights serve that purpose well."
On March 29, the Price department will set up a smoke machine in the former Breinholt Music building. The demonstration will allow residents to experience what it is like to be in a commercial building full of smoke without exit lights
The event is open to property and business owners as well as private citizens. The demonstration will run from 6 to 8:30 p.m. and include numerous displays as well as informational sites.
In the spring, many wildfires are caused by people burning illegally. The county and cities, in conjunction with fire warden Rudy Sandoval, have set up regulations for outside burning.
In the unincorporated areas, residents are allowed to burn without a formal permit between Nov. 1 and May 31. Permits must be obtained from the county fire warden to burn
Once permits are obtained, all residents are required to call and obtain daily approval from the public safety dispatcher at 637-0893.
State law allows open burning only when atmospheric conditions allow and the dispatch center has the information, which is updated daily.
Open burning is only allowed during daylight hours. Permit holders must monitor the fires at all times. People are responsible for any fires they start . They could be held criminally or civilly liable for suppression costs and damages which occur as a result of an uncontrolled fire.
Most cities within the county have ordinances regulating open burning. In order to maintain uniformity and comply with state and federal regulations, the fire chiefs and county warden have set April 2 through May 2 as the season for municipalities which allow open burning. Detailed rules governing open burning can be obtained from local fire departments or city offices.
General guidelines include:
Price - With few exceptions, no open burning is allowed within the city limits.
Helper - Required permits may be obtained from Helper police department Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The free permits are good for three days,.
Wellington - Required permits may be obtained by residents 18 years of age or older from the city offices on regular business days between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. The free permits are valid for one day,.
East Carbon - Required permits may be obtained by residents 18 years of age or older from the city offices on regular business days between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The permits are valid for two days.
Sunnyside - Required permits may be obtained from the city offices on regular business days between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Scofield - Due to the mountainous terrain and proximity to United States Forest Service property, the open burn season in the Scofield area differs from the rest of the county. Residents may contact the town offices at (435)448-9221 for information.
Every year, out of control fires which were set as controlled burns destroy property in the county.
Frequently uncontrolled blazes occur because the people who start controlled burns do not follow the rules or use common sense, indicated local officials.
Officials offer several safety tips for people to follow to help prevent fires from getting out of control. Residents should:
Obtain permits if required.
Notify public safety dispatch every morning before burning and contact the center when the burning is complete.
Clear the burn and adjacent areas of combustible materials to prevent the fire from spreading.
Try to keep brush piles small and limit the size of the burn area to prevent the fire's spread.
Never leave controlled burns unattended.
Have a way to extinguish the fire. Examples include shovels, fire extinguishers, hoses.
Closely monitor the wind conditions and extinguish the fire if burning embers begin to blow toward other combustibles.
Burn only weeds, tree limbs, branches, leaves, grass, etc.
Have a way to quickly call for help should the fire get out of control.
Make certain that the fire is completely out before leaving the controlled burn area.


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What Are You Doing Right Now!!!?
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: California
Posts: 12,236
Originally Posted by
"Shut the fcuk up and eat" is better than any advice I could give you, but I'll try anyway.
Get a loaf of ciabatta bread, 16oz or so tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes or w/e. Simmer said tomato product with one clove of garlic and about a tablespoon each of oregano, basil, parsley, chopped onion (I use onion powder b/c onion chunks make me hurl) and a hefty glug of red wine, for about an hour. Grate mozzarella cheese and get some pepperoni, banana peppers, or whatever the hell you weirdos who refer to hoodies as "sweaters" like to put on pizza. Toast the bread in the toaster oven (I believe you have one) and then put all the stuff on it; toast further till the cheese browns just a little. It'll accommodate your pizza jones and you'll have more money left over so you can drink something besides burgundy.
Also, it wouldn't kill you to brown ground beef with garlic, chili powder and some tomato paste; keep some in the refrigerator and some in the freezer, supply taco shells and related items as needed.
Learn to bake. It's so damn easy and your own cookies etc. will taste so much better than packaged stuff. I recommend allrecipes.com or verybestbaking.com if you don't want accumulate a library of cookbooks like I have.
You had me at "get a loaf".
I'm going to do this, actually. I like pizza, and I like cheap pizza, and I am bored a lot so, let's see how this goes. I'll let you know how good it tastes, then if I approve, I shall request more.
I know how to bake, actually. Well, not sure if following directions on a chocolate cake mix box is "baking" but I can do that. Does it count?
"You lack the requisite spine and testicular fortitude to study under me"
You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.
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Characters / Digital Art / Movies / Posters
The Dark Knight Rises: 45 amazing fan-made posters
Pin It Artist / author link. Pin It Artist / author link.
Den brysomme mannen (The Bothersome Man) 2006 movie trailer
This movie is so true, 19 January 2008 9/10 Author: canadian_in_norway from Norway I saw this movie yesterday and can't stop thinking about it. I moved to Norway four months ago, and have tried ever since to find the origin of the strange emptiness i felt. When I saw this film I was striken with...


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So tonight I'm taking a break from FF12 (65hrs) and I'm gonna break out the SSX Tricky. and some Resident Evil 4. The Giantbomb quicklook got me excited for RE4 again, I got not money on my PSN account, but I got an old copy of RE4 for PS2. So the girlfriend is gone, and her kids at their dads, so I'm gonna consume some adult beverages and crank it up. I still got an old SSXTricky save on my old memory card, so I'm gonna see what goodies are in there. I wonder if it still holds up? I know RE4 does, cause it's one of the all time greats. But I've been mislead in the past (Frequency I'm looking at you), so we'll see... Happy Friday everyone!
The continuing cronicles of my old PS2...
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October 5, 2015
A Harlan County coal miner is recovering after an electrical accident in a mine near Cumberland.
Police say it happened Saturday afternoon at the Panther Mine in the Cloverlick area of Harlan County. Officials say 24 year old Christopher Miles of Cumberland was shocked while working underground.
MSHA officials are on scene and investigating the cause of the accident. At this time no other information has been released.
We spoke with family members Saturday evening and they say Miles is currently in stable condition at a hospital in Johnson City Tennessee. Doctors are still conducting tests to determine if there is any internal damage. Right now they say Miles is awake and able to talk.
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Zulgad: Vikings should not rush decision on head coaching vacancy
Get the 1500 ESPN SportsWire delivered to your inbox daily, and keep up with all the news in Twin Cities Sports
There has been a long held belief in the NFL that being an assistant coach on a team that makes a deep playoff run is a bad thing for those hoping to land a head coaching job.
That's because many clubs seem to operate on a schedule that dictates a coach be fired the day after the season ends and a new hire be made in a timely fashion.
Part of this thinking makes little sense.
If a team knows it's going to fire its coach, doing it the day after the season ends is fine. But unless you think you are interviewing the next Vince Lombardi or Bill Belichick, the hurry to name a replacement seems odd and misguided.
The Vikings, of course, went with quick-hire philosophy in 2006, when Brad Childress was named head coach five days after Mike Tice was fired.
Childress, who had been offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles, was considered a hot head coaching candidate and owner Zygi Wilf didn't want to let him leave town without signing a contract.
In his first public speaking engagement as Vikings coach, Childress told a crowd that if he had left Minnesota after talking to the Vikings that he was headed to Green Bay and would have gotten the Packers job.
The Packers had fired coach Mike Sherman on Jan. 2, 2006, a day after the season ended, but general manager Ted Thompson used a more deliberate approach than the Vikings.
Thompson interviewed San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy on Jan. 8 -- McCarthy wasn't nearly as hot of a name as Childress -- and did not offer him the job until three days later. That move has worked out pretty well in Green Bay, considering the Vikings will be naming their third coach in the time the Packers have had only one.
A year later, the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that is among the most stable in sports when it comes to keeping a head coach, proved there is nothing wrong with showing patience in looking for the right guy.
Bill Cowher, the Steelers' coach for 15 years, stepped down on Jan. 5. Pittsburgh did not hire Vikings defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin until Jan. 22.
Steelers executives had to know they were taking a chance by going with a guy who had one season of experience as a coordinator and was only 34 years old. But after doing a thorough amount of due diligence, they decided they had the right person.
That brings us to the Vikings' latest search, which has been ongoing since Leslie Frazier was fired on Dec. 30. The Vikings are joined by Cleveland and Detroit as teams that have yet to make hires, meaning clubs might be getting smarter. (ESPN reported Monday that Ken Whisenhunt will be the next coach of the Titans.)
Tampa Bay quickly pursued and landed former Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith and the Washington Redskins hired Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden just before he was about to talk to the Vikings.
Twitter has been heavy with rumors that the favorite for the Vikings job is Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and that he will receive an offer this week after a second meeting with the team.
The name of Arizona defensive coordinator Todd Bowles also continues to circulate and there have been reports of a third unnamed candidate being in the mix.
The Vikings did talk to San Francisco offensive coordinator Greg Roman and defensive line coach Jim Tomsula on Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., before the 49ers played the Panthers on Sunday.
Several other coordinators also received interviews with Vikings general manager Rick Spielman and other team officials who have been traveling with him.
While there are some who want the Vikings to hire Zimmer right now, there still isn't a rush here and this should be done on the team's timetable.
Spielman was not yet with the Vikings in early 2006, when Childress essentially told Wilf that if he left he probably would not be coming back. That should have been a chance the owner was willing to take.
Zimmer is 57 years old and has never been a head coach in the NFL. This doesn't mean he wouldn't be a good coach, but if he was viewed as a can't-miss type, then don't you think he already would have had a job?
If the Vikings want to wait on Roman, what's the harm in doing so? If they are convinced he might be a better option than Zimmer, then they should wait to see if the 49ers get ousted in the NFC title game on Sunday at Seattle.
If that happens, Roman could be in the Twin Cities on Monday to meet again with team officials. This holds true for any other assistant whose team will be playing in the conference championship games this weekend.
This might cause a few more anxious moments for people but the Vikings are hoping to end a run that saw Childress last four-plus seasons and Frazier only three-plus years as head coach.
The Vikings, one would hope, are looking for a long-term relationship with their next coach, so working on any sort of rushed timetable to find him makes little sense.


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05/09/13 – Rogues Of Wool: BanalityMay 9th, 2013 |
I think banal should get more usage in our vocabulary.
2014 Appearance Schedule
ABQ Comic Con
Mar 28-30, Seattle, WA
Emerald City Comic Con
(with TopatoCo)
May 9-11, Toronto, ON
(with TopatoCo)
More to be added...
past conventions
I think banal should get more usage in our vocabulary.
Isn't "banal" the name of a major French film company? StudioBanal? And it's the name of a major area in New Orleans: Banal Street (Not as exciting as some of the other areas of town, but hey…) And finally, there is that great patriotic (but accurate) song, "The Star-Spangled Banal"
Groooaannnnnn… :-)
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Eager Hallie Ray has finally made the cheerleading squad. If being a cheerleader is measured in heart, then Hallie has it all. But she's jealous of her BFFs. Then a friend lays down the hard truth: Hallie must learn to love without conditions, if she weren't so busy in everybody else's Kool-Aid she would understand that her flavor's sweet enough.
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Kafka on the Shoreby Haruki Murakami
"Perhaps it needn't be said that this meta-fictional fun house isn't perfect, but underpinning it all is a surprisingly patient, deeply affecting meditation on perfection itself, specifically romantic perfection — the obsessive greed in pursuing it, the selfish isolation that comes from achieving it, the soul-killing (and also selfish) grief of outliving it, of being left, inevitably, with nothing but its fading memory." Jon Zobenica, the Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
This magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle — yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world's truly great storytellers at the height of his powers.
"Previous books such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood have established Murakami as a true original, a fearless writer possessed of a wildly uninhibited imagination and a legion of fiercely devoted fans. In this latest addition to the author's incomparable oeuvre, 15-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, both to escape his father's oedipal prophecy and to find his long-lost mother and sister. As Kafka flees, so too does Nakata, an elderly simpleton whose quiet life has been upset by a gruesome murder. (A wonderfully endearing character, Nakata has never recovered from the effects of a mysterious World War II incident that left him unable to read or comprehend much, but did give him the power to speak with cats.) What follows is a kind of double odyssey, as Kafka and Nakata are drawn inexorably along their separate but somehow linked paths, groping to understand the roles fate has in store for them. Murakami likes to blur the boundary between the real and the surreal — we are treated to such oddities as fish raining from the sky; a forest-dwelling pair of Imperial Army soldiers who haven't aged since WWII; and a hilarious cameo by fried chicken king Colonel Sanders — but he also writes touchingly about love, loneliness and friendship. Occasionally, the writing drifts too far into metaphysical musings — mind-bending talk of parallel worlds, events occurring outside of time — and things swirl a bit at the end as the author tries, perhaps too hard, to make sense of things. But by this point, his readers, like his characters, will go just about anywhere Murakami wants them to, whether they 'get' it or not. Agent, Amanda Urban at ICM. 60,000 first printing. (Jan. 24)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Murakami is of course himself an immensely reader-friendly novelist, and never has he offered more enticing fare than this enchantingly inventive tale. A masterpiece, entirely Nobel-worthy." Kirkus Reviews
"Murakami's novel, though wearying at times and confusing at others, has the faintly absurd loft of some great festive balloon. He addresses the fantastic and the natural, each with the same mix of gravity and lightness." Los Angeles Times
"[W]hile anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves." Laura Miller, The New York Times Book Review
"However vague its allusions and overbearing its pretensions, however needlessly jive its English translation ('Jeez Louise'), this book makes for a beguiling and enveloping experience." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"[Kafka] may be the Japanese author's weirdest novel yet, but it's also one of his best....What ties all this together is Murakami's unflappable, enchanting prose: hip but companionable, it keeps you coming back for more." Malcolm Jones, Newsweek
"[A] real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender....
"Parts of Murakami's story are violently gruesome and sexually explicit, and the plot line following Nakata is rather eerie and disturbing. Yet the bulk of this narrative is erudite, lyrical, and compelling; followers of Murakami's work should approve. Recommended." Library Journal
"The voluptuous pleasure of Haruki Murakami's enthralling fictions...reminds me of dreaming....And, like a dream, what this dazzling novel means — or whether it means anything at all — we may never know. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly
"Kafka on the Shore is Murakami's biggest novel in a decade and one of the most fun to read....
About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-four languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe. His books include After the Quake; Dance Dance Dance; The Elephant Vanishes; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Norwegian Wood; South of the Border, West of the Sun; Sputnik Sweetheart; Underground; A Wild Sheep Chase; and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, all available in Vintage paperback, as is Vintage Murakami, a selection of his finest work.
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Flooding in South & West Wales
Five flood alerts are in force for West Wales this morning after yesterday's flash flooding.
Five flood alerts are in force for West Wales this morning after yesterday's flash flooding.
The manager of the Angel Hotel in Cardigan, Ed Reef, says the heavy rain fell for around 45 minutes.
Ed Reef says that the Eagle Inn pub has been evacuated after several feet of rain flooded through the building. He also says that a shop opposite has also been completely flooded.
He also says that Fire crews are currently pumping several properties clear in St Mary Street.
I can see three fire brigades, a response van and police officer and everyone is being forced to go a different way because the road is closed.
Residents remain on alert while the cleanup continues in parts of West Wales affected by yesterday's floods.
Homes and businesses are being pumped clear after flash floods left several properties under water.


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table of contents
The authors presented a novel technique to disambiguate single processing steps within …
Biology Articles » Biophysics » Disentangling Sub-Millisecond Processes within an Auditory Transduction Chain » Materials and Methods
Materials and Methods
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Port St. Lucie's vice mayor says Fay was the worst disaster in the decade
PORT ST. LUCIE - Standing in a plaza where a police bus and city vehicles spent Wednesday shuttling residents from their homes, Vice Mayor Jack Kelly called Tropical Storm Fay the worst disaster to strike Port St. Lucie since wildfires in 1999 destroyed dozens of homes.
"It's a 50-year-flood, I think," Kelly said.
Kelly and other officials were in Eastport Plaza on U.S. 1, the spot where police officers Paul Griffith and Gerald Cantalupo picked up residents through Tuesday night and into Wednesday. The officers used a high-riding, diesel-powered bus to ferry the residents to their eastern Port St. Lucie homes as Fay left areas east of U.S. 1 under several feet of water.
"One at a time we drove them to their residences right to the front door," Cantalupo said. "If we had five people on the bus, we went to five different residences and then we came back at which time we picked up more people and continued to do that all through the night."
Officer Robert Vega, police spokesman, said police expect to continue the shuttles as long as they're needed.
Countywide, flooding damage from Tropical Storm Fay and its backlash is estimated to exceed $20 million, County Administrator Doug Anderson said Wednesday afternoon.
"We are continuing to assess the damage," Anderson said. "We have road failures. We have lift station failures. We have a lot of vehicles that have been heavily damaged. We have a lot of damage to businesses and to homes. We have a lot of damage throughout the county and there's a lot of areas we still can't get into to."
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are meeting with St. Lucie County officials Thursday morning and will tour the damaged areas in the county, according to Jack Southard, the county's director of public safety.
Officials reported some people have been concerned about abandoning their homes, fearful of looters. Sheriff Ken Mascara, as well as Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie police, said they have had no troubles with looting this week.
Vega said Fay brought the worst flooding in at least a decade, surpassing the aftermath of hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004.
"Can't even compare the two," Vega said. "This is a lot worse."
Lawrence Gersowsky sloshed out of his home in eastern Port St. Lucie on Wednesday morning to the white police Explorer bus, water touching the steps of the bus. Several streets away, 55-year-old Darlene Ingle did the same. She boarded the bus to make her way to Arby's, where she works as a prep cook.
"The police have done an amazing job here," Gersowsky said. "They're really to be congratulated."
Cantalupo estimated as many as 150 people got rides home after officers told them the area east of U.S. 1 from Village Green Drive to Lennard Road essentially was underwater. About 75 throughout Wednesday utilized the service, including Congressman Tim Mahoney, who got a firsthand tour of the area.
Had the bus not been available, Gersowsky said, he wouldn't have made it home Tuesday night.
Residents at more than three dozen homes in the area requested sandbags from the city, said city spokesman Ed Cunningham.
In some areas, the water rose to such a level that it was difficult for Griffith to stay on the road. Vega said that earlier in the day, police officers Brian Major and Ed Lewis used a 16-foot police boat to take a St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy to rescue a woman who had several feet of water in her home.
They lifted the woman, who was disabled and used a walker, her two dogs and one cat into the boat and brought her to safety.
Port St. Lucie residents should continue to conserve water for at least the next 24 hours. Here's why:
• The city's wastewater treatment facilities use open tanks, which col´lected rain water.
• Stormwater also seeped into the system through manholes and pipes throughout the city, especially in areas with standing water.
• The extra stormwater is stressing the system's operating capacity. For example, the city's newest wastewater treatment plant on Glades Cut-Off Road normally processes 4 million gal´lons a day. Tuesday, it processed 6.9 million gallons.
• Safety concerns about children traveling flooded streets and 2inches of water covering floors at the school district's nerve center have caused officials to cancel classes at St. Lucie County public schools until Monday.
• Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon said the decision was based on safety recommendations from local emergency management officials. It was reached before Five-Mile Creek crested its banks late Wednesday morn´ing and forced power to be cut to the district's administrative offices in the Orange Blossom Business Center, 4204 Okeechobee Road.
• Cutting power meant shut´ting down the school dis´trict's central computer. Lannon said schools can't re-open without it.
• The district's 37 schools suffered no major damage from Tropical Storm Fay, said Alan Gilbert, the executive director of facilities and maintenance.
Staff writers Eric Pfahler and Megan V. Winslow contributed to this report.
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