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This post first appeared at the Center for Responsive Politics' Opensecrets.org.
On Oct. 8, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in McCutcheon v. FEC, a case challenging the overall contribution limits for individual donors that were first enacted in the mid-1970s.
The case won't directly impact caps on contributions to specific candidates, party committees and PACs, which Congress put in place in order to ensure that a few people didn't have undue influence on elected officials by being their dominant source of campaign funds.
But Congress also imposed overall limits on how much one person could give, in total, to all campaigns, PACs and parties during a single two-year election cycle; that's the issue before the Court. Lawmakers recognized that without some global contribution boundaries, it would be possible for one or a few people to support lots of PACs or party committees that in turn would support one or a few campaigns. The theory was that the candidate would know the original source of all the funneled money and might feel obliged to reward that sugar daddy with official acts.
The limits are indexed for inflation; for the 2013-2014 election cycle, anyone can give a total of up to $123,200, with no more than $48,600 given to candidate committees and no more than $74,600 given to PACs and parties.
Now Shaun McCutcheon, a frequent contributor to Republicans and conservative causes, along with the Republican National Committee are trying to get the aggregate limits thrown out. They argue that the Court's logic in Citizens United v. FEC — which said the bar on independent corporate election spending was a violation of First Amendment speech and association rights — should apply here, too. Restricting someone's ability to support as many candidates or committees as he or she chooses, they argue, is no different than limiting the ability to spend money independently of a candidate or party.
What if the Court agrees? What would be the consequences if people could give the maximum contribution to as many candidates, parties and PACs as they wished?
The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that 1.2 million people gave contributions of $200 or more to presidential or congressional candidates during the 2012 election cycle. That's a tiny fraction — 1/2 of 1 percent — of the total adult population of the U.S. These donors gave a total of $2.8 billion to federal candidates, party committees and leadership PACs; that's about 64 percent of all of the funds raised by these organizations.
And these figures don't include the 'outside money' that was such an important new feature in 2012 as a result of Citizens United and other court decisions. That's a world with no limits at all, and not surprisingly it was even more skewed toward a small number of very big donors: Just 216 people gave about 68 percent of all the money that super PACs received. The limits don't apply because these groups aren't giving money to candidates or parties; they're spending money themselves without coordinating with candidates.
The real focus of attention in this case is the (very small) group of people who were giving at or near the overall limit being challenged by McCutcheon. We found 646 people in the 2012 election cycle who hit the maximum overall donation limit of $117,000. This tiny group was able to give a total of about $93.4 million directly to candidates and committees active in federal campaigns.
The current overall contribution limit doesn't appear to be much of a barrier for the vast majority of donors, or there would be many more people bumping up against it.
If the overall limits went by the wayside, would the specific limits on contributions that are not being challenged in this case ($2,600 per election per candidate from an individual, etc.) be enough to hold down the potential for corrupting influence on elected officials? Critics of McCutcheon's position note that even with the aggregate limits in place, there's been a steady growth in the use of both leadership PACs and joint fundraising committees in recent years, allowing big donors to maximize their interaction with specific elected officials who covet their resources.
Leadership PACs, which are created by members of Congress, give donors to party leaders and committee chairs another way to solidify those relationships. Contributors can give up to $5,000 per year to these committees on top of the $2,600 per election they can give directly to a member's campaign. So these supporters can effectively double their financial ties to important members. Since 2002 the number of leadership PACs giving to other candidates has doubled from 226 in 2002 to 456 in 2012. Their contributions have risen from $25 million to more than $46 million during the same period.
Joint fundraising efforts allow candidates and parties to band together to share the proceeds of big events that draw wealthy donors. Important members of Congress will often team with national and state party committees for dinners and other events that allow donors intimate access to these leaders while effectively writing one big check to the joint committee. The money is divided among the candidates and parties involved to comply with the specific limits on each of the participants.
It's a win-win situation for donors, who can make a big impression on elected officials, and parties, which can move lots of resources to the races that are their priorities — not to mention the candidates themselves.
All that's keeping the number of zeros on these checks from running off the page are the overall contribution limits. Once a donor gets close to the $74,600 cap on contributions to all PACs and parties, or the $48,600 limit to all campaigns, tools like the joint fundraising committee are no longer able to pull more from the donor's account.
Without those limits, tens of thousands could become hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands could turn into millions. Each individual could give at least $10,000 per year to party committees in every state, $32,400 per year to each national party committee (there are three of these for each party), and $5,000 per year to every PAC.
One of the first things that would surely happen without overall limits would be a wave of newly created PACs focused on specific candidate's campaigns, which would allow donors to give $5,000 to any number of committees that would then give the money directly to the candidates.
Whether the overall limits are a good thing or not — and there are arguments on both sides — it's clear that, if McCutcheon wins, people with lots of cash to invest in politicians would have a number of opportunities to direct money to a candidate. So much for $2,600 per election.
Individuals (as well as corporations and other entities, since the Citizens United decision in 2010) may currently give unlimited sums to outside groups that can spend without restriction in support of (or against) a candidate. Why isn't it logical, then, to remove the cap on overall direct contributions to candidates and committees, as McCutcheon argues? Maybe it is, but if so, one of the basic premises of the Court's first big campaign finance case would have to be rethought: the notion that direct contributions can lead to corruption, or at least its appearance. That's why the Court in that 1976 case, Buckley v. Valeo, upheld caps on per-candidate and per-committee contributions.
Without an overall limit, though, those caps would lose much of their force.


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World's Most Mysterious Castles
Castles are among the most mysterious buildings on earth. Their grimly silent stones are signposts to a past filled with high adventure, grim tragedies, and glorious victories. Ghosts, hauntings, and other paranormal phenomena are frequently reported from castles. Do strange paranormal powers lurk among their ancient ruins? "The World's Most Mysterious Castles" takes you on a journey through hidden chambers and subterranean tunnels of castles all over the world. Their walls served the sinister needs of spies, traitors, and assassins. Do the spirits of attackers and defenders who died in long-forgotten sieges still linger where they fell? Screams of unbearable pain and despair were muffled within their deepest, darkest torture dungeons. Do they echo there still? |
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subset: commoncrawl


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A mountain is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain[?] in a limited area. A mountain is generally much higher and steeper than a hill, but there is considerable overlap, and usage often depends on local custom; see also Dune.
A mountain is usually produced by the movement of lithospheric plates, either orogenic movement[?] or epeirogenic movement[?]. The compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upwards, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, a mountain. The absolute heights of features termed mountains and hills vary greatly according to an area's topography. The major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity. Mountain creation tends to occur in discrete periods, referred to as orogenies (orogeny). Two types of mountain are formed depending on how the rock reacts to the tectonic forces - block mountains or fold mountains.
Some isolated mountains were produced by volcanoes, including many apparently small islands that reach a great height above the ocean floor.
Block mountains are created when large areas are widely broken up by faults creating large vertical displacements. The uplifted blocks are block mountains or horsts[?]. The intervening dropped blocks are termed graben[?], these can be small or form extensive rift valley systems. This form of landscape can be seen in East Africa, the Vosges, the Basin and Range province of Western North America and the Rhine valley.
Where rock does not fault it folds, either symmetrically or asymmetrically. The upfolds are anticlines and the downfolds are synclines, in asymmetric folding there may also be recumbent and overturned folds. The Jura mountains are an example of folding. Over time erosion can bring about an inversion of relief, the soft upthrust rock is worn away so the anticlines are actually lower than the tougher rock of the synclines.
The highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest, set in the world's most significant mountain range, the Himalayas. Another contender for this title is Mauna Loa, which stands taller than Mount Everest when measured from its base on the ocean floor but not in terms of summit altitude. The tallest mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons, located on Mars.
Some mountains are very difficult to climb, and offer spectacular views. Some people therefore enjoy the sport of mountaineering. Mountains are also the site for the sport of downhill skiing.
A popular form of playing at the beach is making a sand "mountain".
See also: List of mountains, Mountain range, List of mountain ranges
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Josh Heupel believes he can win quickly at Tennessee and position the football program for long-term success. He's so confident that not even the specter of NCAA sanctions deterred him from joining his former Central Florida boss in a package deal for the Volunteers.
Heupel was introduced Wednesday as the program's 27th head coach and fifth, not counting interim or acting coaches, since the end of the 2008 season. He replaces Jeremy Pruitt, who was fired Jan. 18 after an investigation into recruiting issues.
He said he talked "frankly" with Tennessee leadership about what happened and the anticipated punishment.
"I believe that there's a minor speed bump that we're going through, but the kids that are in our program right now and the kids that are being recruited are all going to have an opportunity to go play and chase championships," Heupel said.
His optimism was rewarded with a six-year deal worth $4 million a year. Tennessee will pay half of Heupel's buyout from UCF, and his contract has a clause extending his deal in case of a postseason ban of two or more years or if eight or more scholarships are cut.
New Athletic Director Danny White said Tennessee ran an "exhaustive nationwide search" led by the same search firm that helped land White, but he said Heupel was his No. 1 option even after that process.
White was hired last week to replace the retiring Phillip Fulmer, and hiring a new coach was his first task. He met with the team to learn what players wanted in a coach, and he pointed to the production of Heupel's teams as examples of the high-powered style coming to town.
"I just kind of realized that the best option is the guy that I've been working with the last three years," White said.
Heupel was 28-8 in three seasons at UCF, where White hired him to replace Scott Frost after the Knights went 13-0 in 2017. Heupel noted UCF had 10 opt-outs during the pandemic when asked about going 6-4 in 2020.
Tennessee is conducting an internal investigation with outside attorneys hired to look into recruiting issues that Chancellor Donde Plowman called "stunning" after the firing of Pruitt, two assistants and seven others. The NCAA opened a case in December and has had investigators involved the past couple of weeks.
Tennessee has had five winning seasons since last winning the SEC's Eastern Division in 2007. That was also the last time the Vols had double-digit wins. Their last SEC title was in 1998 when Tennessee won its last national championship.
Heupel will have control over his staff, which means deciding what to do with those still under contract -- including acting coach Kevin Steele, who signed a two-year deal earlier this month.
He also must put together a team with at least five Vols having entered the transfer portal after Pruitt's firing, four of them starters. The next signing period opens Feb. 3, and the Vols' current class is rated 15th nationally by 247Sports.
Heupel's track record promises lots of offense. UCF ranked second nationally in 2020 averaging 568.1 yards of total offense a game and eighth averaging 42.2 points a game. Tennessee ranked 108th nationally averaging 21.5 points a game while going 3-7 in 2020 under Pruitt.
Heupel was Missouri's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2016 and 2017, helping Drew Lock -- now in the NFL with Denver -- lead the SEC in passing yards in 2016 and throw an SEC-record 44 TD passes in 2017. Heupel was assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Utah State in 2015.
He started his coaching career at his alma mater Oklahoma in 2003 and 2004 before spending 2005 at Arizona. He returned to Oklahoma in 2006 coaching quarterbacks -- including Sam Bradford's Heisman Trophy-winning 2008 campaign -- and was promoted to co-offensive coordinator in 2011.
Heupel said Tennessee has all the pieces to win as the biggest show in town with facilities as good as any in the country, including Neyland Stadium.
"I just got goosebumps thinking about it," Heupel said. "All those things are still here. Trust me. Our leadership, who I'm going to bring in, give us a chance."


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An Update to our post yesterday about Sequoia-funded search startup SearchMe. The company needs a new round of financing or a quick acquisition to stay online, but so far neither are happening. CEO Randy Adams wrote to me this morning with an update on where things stand. I reprint most of it below with his permission. Bottom line, The site may go offline at least temporarily tomorrow if a buyer does not step in (Update: The site now redirects to Google):
You are correct, we haven't closed the financing. We knew when we started the company that to compete with the likes of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo,it was going to take at least $100 million, half to build the back end across thousands of servers and half to get distribution (maybe more with Microsoft spending $100 million on Bing advertising alone). What we didn't plan on was the terrible downturn in the economy which made it impossible to raise another $50 million to get distribution (mainly through toolbar deals). In this economy nobody wants to invest that kind of money in a company that is pre-revenue, even if the net result is potentially a multi-billion dollar company.
There are some positive things though. In the process of trying to engage strategic investors we discovered that our tech really resonates with the people in the emerging broadband TV market where you will soon be able to easily access all the internet's video on your TV. Directories don't scale well so you'll absolutely need search to find things to watch and visual search for multi-media content works much better than a list of links on your TV which you can't read from 10 feet away. We are putting together some deals with chip vendors and set top box manufacturers to port the software over to their platforms and we are going to concentrate on that market going forward.
So the plan now (unless a buyer or white knight jumps in at the last moment) is to significantly downsize, take the site down for a while (probably tomorrow) and refocus the tech in a space where we don't have to have 3,000 servers costing a million a month to run on the back end. We are going to have to do some serious restructuring to deal with our debt and recapitalize with a different capital structure but at the end of the day we should be able to create a healthier company with a MUCH lower burn rate, with the IP intact and a significant distribution channel. Headcount will go from 45 in the current company to probably about 10 in the new one which is very difficult for everyone but unfortunately necessary. We've brought back our former recruiter, Deva Santiago, to handle placement for those affected employees and we have some great talent so I'm sure they will get snapped up pretty quickly.


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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS OVERVIEW The results of the third Venture Capital survey show further strong growth occurred during 2001-02. As at 30 June 2002, investors had $6.9b committed to venture capital investment vehicles which were either specialised venture capital funds or corporations which directly invest their venture capital. This compares with $5.7b at 30 June 2001. Investors had $4.4b of committed funds drawn down at 30 June 2002, an increase of 21% on a year before ($3.7b at June 2001), leaving $2.5b of committed funds yet to be called on ($2.0b at June 2001). See Table 1 for details. Most of these funds were sourced domestically, with 91% of the total investment from Australian investors (little changed from June 2001 or June 2000). The selection of investee companies (into which venture capital is invested) was an intensive process. A total of 113 venture capital managers reviewed 10,732 potential new investments during 2001-02 and conducted further analysis on 1,087 of those, with 152 (just over 1% of those initially considered) being sponsored for venture capital. These managers spent a total of 153,000 hours with the investee companies (182,000 hours in 2000-01 and 180,000 hours in 1999-2000), advising and assisting in the development of the enterprises. The 162 venture capital investment funds and companies (150 in 2000-01) reported investments held in a total of 839 investee companies (up by 4.1% on 2000-01). After deduction of fees and other expenses, exits and allowing for holdings of liquid assets, the $4.4b drawn down resulted in $3.3b ($2.7b at June 2001) invested in the 839 investee companies. There was an increase of 10 (12.3%) on 2000-01 in the number of funds registered with a government sponsored program (mainly Pooled Development Funds); 56% of all vehicles are now registered with a government sponsored program. During 2001-02, the venture capital sector recorded a profit through exit sales of about $53m. The following diagram summarises key findings for venture capital in 2001-02. KEY FIGURES 2001-02 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS Investors Venture capital investors are generally sophisticated individual investors or organisations such as pension (superannuation) funds. Investors invest in venture capital investment vehicles organised as either trust funds or corporations. Venture capital trust funds obtain investment commitments from investors, which are drawn down over time. They must return capital plus profit (minus loss) as investments are realised. On the other hand, venture capital vehicles organised as corporations are able to choose to make distributions to investors (including parent corporations) or to retain capital for further investment. Investors in corporations may liquidate their investment by sale on the secondary market. Drawn down funding from investors in corporations can be estimated from paid up capital and borrowings, but the ability of corporations to reinvest retained earnings and the tradability of investor equity in corporations makes analysis of investment by type of investor difficult. Certainly the concept of commitments by type of investor is less clear-cut, by comparison with trust funds. At June 2002 investors had $6.9b committed with venture capital investment vehicles. This compares with $5.7b at June 2001 and $5.0b at June 2000. See table 1 for detailed source of funds data. Of the $4.4b drawn down at June 2002, 66% was by venture capital trust funds while corporations accounted for the remainder (34%). The following graph analyses drawdown investment for venture capital investors by type of investor. The graph shows that the largest source of funds in terms of drawdowns for venture capital vehicles was domestic pension funds with 36% of total drawdowns by venture capital vehicles. Non-resident pension funds accounted for 2% ( 9% for all non-residents) of the total drawdown value. Venture capital managers and investment vehicles The venture capital manager is generally a skilled business person and financial analyst. The gathering of commitments from investors takes a considerable amount of time as does the process of undertaking an initial evaluation of potential investees and later due diligence. The survey identified 113 active venture capital managers who were managing 162 venture capital investment vehicles. This compares with 107 active managers managing 150 vehicles in 2000-01. Venture capital fund managers spent 153,000 hours with investee companies (tables 2 and 3) and received income in the form of management fees ($96m), see table 4. In 2001-02, fund managers spent on average 2.1 days a month per investee company. This compares with 3.2 days 2000-01 and 4.0 days in 1999-2000. The decline in average days spent on deals in 2001-02 was reflected in deals involving all activities except Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals and Health which increased slightly over the previous year (see Table 2). Venture capital managers typically had between three and six deals in June 2002 (a deal is an investment which may include advising and assisting an investee company). There has been a proportional shift from 1 or 2 deals to 3 or 4 over the three years of the survey, with just on 25 of the 113 venture capital managers (22%) being involved with three or four deals at June 2002. A further 21 (19%) were involved in more than 10 deals. Of the 162 venture capital vehicles, 17 did not have any investments active during 2001-02 but were involved in preparatory activities such as sourcing funds, selecting investments and other endeavours. The remaining 145 vehicles reported a total of 839 active deals during the year. For a number of the smaller investment vehicles, the managers were involved in a range of business activities in addition to the management of the investment vehicles. Venture capital investment vehicles had net assets of $3.7b at June 2002 compared with $3.1b in June 2001 and $2.7b in June 2000 (see Table 5). Most venture capital investment vehicles were either trusts (funds) or corporations. Table 6 indicates that, of the 162 vehicles operating in 2001-02, 100 were companies. Of these, 74% were not listed with the Australian Stock Exchange. At June 2002, about 38% of venture capital vehicles were trust funds, this compares with 39% a year earlier and 35% at June 2000. Many venture capital investment vehicles participated in government-sponsored programs. Table 7 indicates that 91 of the 162 venture capital investment vehicles were participating in a government program at June 2002, an increase of 10 on June 2001 and 36 on June 2000. Most of the participating investment vehicles were with the Federal government's Pooled Development Fund (PDF) program. The range of total assets held by investment vehicles was widely dispersed, from 80 investment vehicles having less than $10m in assets to 14 with more than $80m in total assets (see the preceding graph). A proportional shift from the number of vehicles with $10m to $19.9m in assets to less than $10m in assets has occurred over the three years of the survey. Table 8 shows the financial flows of venture capital investment vehicles over the survey period. Most return on investment to investees is through exits from investments. The main form of exits was through trade sales or initial public offers (floats). The total value of all exits through trade sales, IPOs and buybacks amounted to $379m in 2001-02 (representing $326m of investment and $53m profit over the lives of these investments). The following graph also illustrates the investment flows for deals by the venture capital industry over the three survey years. From this it can be seen that investment in new deals increased in 2001-02, while follow-on investment increased over the three years, with significant increases in 2001-02 ($155m, or 77%). The use of trade sales became more significant over 2001-02 as a means of exiting ($197m not including buybacks which were another $9m). This compares with initial public offers which have declined over the three survey years to $120m for 2001-02. The value of deals by vehicle that have dropped out of the Australian venture capital industry was again significant in 2001-02 ($240m). The reasons for leaving the industry include re-location overseas, enterprises going into liquidation, or enterprises that have left venture capital for longer term private equity arrangements. Table 4 indicates that investment vehicles had total expenditures of $157m in 2001-02, mainly in management fees, which totalled $96m, down by 26% over the previous year's expenditure ($129m). Performance fees at $7m were still significantly down on the $52m recorded in 1999-2000 ($5m in 2000-01). Venture capital funds used various valuation methods. The Australian Venture Capital Association Ltd method was most frequently used, with 77 vehicles using this method, followed by directors (38) and independent (30) valuation methods. Investee companies Of the $3.3b that had been invested in the 839 investee companies at June 2002, $725m was invested in new projects during the 2001-02 financial year (up by 5.8% on 2000-01), with additional investments in existing projects of $357m (see Table 8 for more details). There was an increase in the proportion of venture capital investment arrangements in place for between two and four years. At 30 June 2002, 54.7% of investments were 2 to 4 years old. The number of investment arrangements in place for less than 2 years declined. See paragraph 11 of the Explanatory Notes for a definition of the venture capital stages referred to in the above graph. Investments for all three survey periods were predominantly at the expansion stage, with $1.3b or 41% of total value at June 2002. The value of early stage investments was also significant, with 20% of total investment at June 2002. The more developed stages such as expansion, late and management related exits increased over the three years, while less developed stages, such as seed and early, declined from the 1999-2000 levels. Note that the age of the investment is not necessarily a reflection of its stage; some investments may go from seed to expansion within a two year period, yet others will stay in the seed stage for a number of years. Venture capital arrangements typically do not involve a level of controlling equity by a single venture capital vehicle in investee companies, with most having less than 40% ownership, as the above graph illustrates. However, it is worth noting that more than one fund manager may invest in the same investee company. For example, an investment vehicle manager may invest at the seed/start-up stage and receive 10% of the business and another investment vehicle manager could arrange the next round of funding and also receive 10% of the company. The above graph shows the distribution of value of investment placed by venture capital managers in individual investee companies. Most deals attracted less than $10m from any one investment vehicle and the proportion receiving less than $1m has been steadily increasing over the three survey years. The above graph indicates that most of the venture capital funds continued to be invested in investee companies with head offices in NSW and Victoria (42% and 30% respectively at June 2002). Table 9 shows that $2.3b was invested at June 2002 in these two states in 545 investment deals. This compares with investment of $2.0b in 546 deals at June 2001 in these two states. Victoria and South Australia experienced steady increases over the three survey years, while New South Wales and to a lesser extent Queensland experienced relative declines over the same period. Overseas investment remained significant and relatively steady over the survey years, while Western Australian investments eased from June 2001. Investment in Tasmania and the territories strengthened in 2001-02 over the subdued levels of the previous year. Venture capital investment was undertaken in investees in a wide range of industries and activities. Of the total value of $3.3b invested, Finance and Property attracted $737m (23% of the total, a similar percentage to June 2000 but up on June 2001). Manufacturing and Utilities amounted to $685m or 21% of investment in all industries at June 2002; these industries were steady in proportional terms over the three survey years. Health and other services had $555m of investment or 17% of total investment at June 2002, down on June 2001 in relative terms, but still ahead of June 2000 investments. See Table 10 for details of investment by industry. When activity, as defined by the Standard and Poors Activity Classification, is analysed, the above graph shows that the Manufacturing and Transport related activities attracted the largest share of investment, with $1,172m or 36% of total investment in June 2002. These industries have been steadily growing in relative terms over the three survey years. IT, Media, Electronics and Communication related activities attracted $882m of investment or 27% of total investment in June 2002. These industries have declined in relative terms over the period of ABS venture capital surveys, in line with the decline in the fortunes of the broader technology sector. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window. |


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Apparently nobody is above a shameless attempt to get on TV...
Anyhow, so here we are! Down to the final two - Keven C, representing Team Flo, and Jason, representing Team Deltalina. (Most of) the rules are stated below, and it all happens tomorrow. But today the two finalists once again have a small task: they must decide on segments of time tomorrow during which they will both be free. We will need 5 'magic minutes' (to be clear: 5 separate 1-minute periods), which can be bunched together or spread throughout the day, or however you guys agree. But they must occur tomorrow between 10am PT and 4pm PT.
Please discuss this in the comments - you can either pick specific 5 minute periods or just state the blocks of time you each are (or are not) available, and by the end of the day I will pick the 5 minutes from that.
Once we have the 5 separate minutes established, the rules are basically the same as Round I-C, except only Keven C and Jason play. To review:
- Tomorrow at 8am PT, a post titled "Flo vs Deltalina: Final Round Begins!" will appear.
- During each of the 5 to-be-determined-by-the-end-of-today 'magic minutes,' Keven C and Jason must comment as many times as possible.
- Whoever comments more times wins the minute. Whoever wins more minutes wins the tournament!
- As before, please begin your comment with letter 'F' or 'D', depending if you are on 'F'lo (Keven C) or 'D'eltalina (Jason). Capital or lower case are accepted. And if you want to comment more than the single letter, please follow the 'F' or 'D' by a space before continuing with the rest of your comment.
So there you have it. Keven C, Jason, please discuss when you are available tomorrow and we can go from there! (PS I will be out of touch today after about 2pm PT-9pm PT, but I will check in before the day is over and pick the 5 minutes if you haven't picked them yourselves.
Oh, and one more thing. In tomorrow morning's thread, there will be one more little bit of info regarding the FvD Finals. I suggest you all read it...it might be of interest to some of you. Until then!


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5 Things You Didn't Know: <I>South Park</I>
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Back in the summer of 1997, you had to know that South Park was going to be an iconoclast when you learned the premiere episode was titled, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe." If it didn't occur to you then, it surely has by now. South Park, created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker for Comedy Central, features crude animation, boorish characters and jaw-dropping story lines so vulgar and distasteful that to label them merely "offensive" is actually something of an offense to the show itself. South Park has prided itself on inciting rage worldwide for its seemingly blasphemous depiction of religion, heartless portrayal of persons with disabilities, shameless instances of toilet humor, racism, foul language, and their impressions of the Holocaust — and these are just the first few mentions in their catalog of offensives.
In short, there are no sacred cows in the town of South Park.
However, an equally egregious offense would be to assume the show's intentions were just as crass. In fact, they are masters of the parody and lampoon, and often episodes will reveal multiple layers of clever and acute social commentary — ones that typically escape its many overzealous and red-faced critics.
With the recent launch of this landmark show's twelfth season, it's time we took a look at five things you didn't know about South Park, one of the smartest shows out there.
1- South Park began as a video Christmas card
In 1995 FoxLab executive Brian Graden saw a demented, animated short entitled Jesus vs Frosty that Parker and Stone created while they were still students at the University of Colorado. Graden thought it was hilariously twisted, so he hired them to make a video Christmas card for his friends in the entertainment industry. The result was The Spirit of Christmas, a five-minute short that saw Santa Claus face off against Jesus in a martial arts fight to the death over who would control the Christmas holiday. The two holiday superpowers ultimately resolve the issue with a truce.The video made the rounds and soon Parker and Stone found themselves in negotiations with both FOX and Comedy Central to produce a half-hour series based on the short.
2- Tom Cruise wanted to do a voice for South Park
Of course, that's in the past tense: Cruise had, at one time, wanted to do a voice for the show. Presumably his interest has waned a bit since the Emmy-nominated episode No. 137, "Trapped in the Closet." After joining Scientology in search of something to do that's both fun and "free" (the church is notoriously expensive), the character Stan is believed by members to be the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. A number of well-known Scientologists, including John Travolta and Tom Cruise, try to convince Stan to lead the church, but he refuses, later calling it a "global scam." Cruise (the character) locks himself in Stan's closet and "refuses to come out" after Stan tells him he's not a very good actor, which Cruise takes as the great prophet's opinion.The show regularly refuses to allow celebrities to play themselves or even play what might be considered normal characters. At most they are offered ludicrous roles. For example, George Clooney played a gay dog and Jay Leno played a bird, while Jerry Seinfeld was offered the role of a sick cat, but his agent turned it down. Other stars believed to have sought voice roles but refused the odd-ball roles offered to them include Steven Spielberg, Samuel L. Jackson and Jeff Daniels.
Respect mah authoritah and check out a few more things you didn't know about South Park...


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Provided your taxi is now with a taxi insurance agent in Virginia
Life is too uncertain. We do not know when disasters could befall great losses in life as well as financial losses. It can happen even when you're busy surfing the internet. The concept of insurance derives from the initial method of risk transfer that was practiced in Babylonian civilization in the 3rd century BC. This is a form of risk management to protect against the potential risks of uncertainty such as house fire, car accident or theft. Even insurance companies pay money when a person becomes too ill and also the family receives money after the person dies.
An entity, which provides insurance, is known as an insurance company. The money received by the insured entity at the risk is actually a premium fund paid by the entity. These funds depend on the frequency and type of insurance. The insurance work process in three steps – Choosing a policy, Paying premiums on time, Claiming the amount of insurance.
There are mainly two types of insurance namely. Life Insurance and General Insurance. General insurance covers various aspects of property, vehicles, business, health to travel insurance and payment protection insurance. Life insurance covers risks due to premature death as well as income after retirement. The life insurance period is more than one year and requires periodic premium payment. General insurance has a coverage period of less than one year and also requires periodic premium payments. Property insurance came after a major London fire and a life insurance policy began in the eighteenth century. Provided your taxi is now with a taxi insurance agent in Virginia
Road accidents happen regularly to taxis and a ruined life as well as a future for the person and his family. For people, who get bread and butter from a taxi service down the street Virginia should get their taxi insured through a suitable taxi insurance agent in Virginia. Taxi insurance agents in Virginia provide access to insurance companies that have cheaper premiums with greater coverage.
Here are some tips for buying insurance: Provided your taxi is now with a taxi insurance agent in Virginia
• Buy from a trusted company through authorized agents: Insurance is intended as financial security in the event of a risk. Check from the official government website about the credibility of the company.
• Avoid buying available free insurance with other packages: You may get travel insurance when booking travel tickets or health insurance when you check-up at the hospital. They generally do not cover all your needs and charge a hefty premium. They provide unnecessary unnecessary coverage at all.
• Check citations from various sites: A cheaper premium does not guarantee better coverage. So when checking quotes from at least three companies check the amount of premiums and the level of coverage. You may be lucky if you show an insurance agent with a much cheaper premium and probably will reduce your current insurance policy.
• Assure your insurance carefully: Read among policy lines. It is clear about your need to get the insured. Understand the scope, terms and conditions of the company carefully. Check the date when you can start claiming your insurance.
• Ensure premiums to be paid: You will be financially secure at risk only when you pay your premiums regularly – every three months, yearly or monthly. This premium must be paid to the insurance company and not the agent. Make sure you can handle the premium though the rate of increase later.
With so many companies living in Springfield, these companies need to take account of their business. They can choose from various insurance companies that provide business insurance in Springfield, VA. Virginia suffered a massive 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 2011. With so much cash, talent and hard work flown for business growth, the company must first ensure their business with appropriate business insurance policies in Springfield, VA for its success. growth.
Running a business involves investing. The business insurance policy in Provided your taxi is now with a taxi insurance agent in Virginia Springfield VA protects the business from financial risks from couples deaths or natural disasters. And if you have a taxi business, you should get it insured through the Taxi Insurance Agent in Virginia. No one wants to risk a business that fails because of negligent driving by a driver or a natural disaster.


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What Beyond: Two Souls reveals about the PS4
Learning lessons from the future
Critics are already hugely divided over David Cage's latest game, Beyond: Two Souls, but that's hardly a surprise. Beyond marks an ambitious shift towards more story-heavy, cinematic experiences - more so than Cage's last blockbuster outing, Heavy Rain - and it won't be for everyone's tastes.
But it also arrives on the PS3 as the console is about to pass the baton to its next-gen successor, and the result is telling. The comparisons with Heavy Rain are inescapable but on a technical level the two are a world apart.
"I was [recently] playing, for whatever reason, the two trailers side by side and my gut feeling when I saw Heavy Rain was that this is either a PS2 or PS3 title," David Cage tells us. "And to me there is really a generation difference between the two games although they're both on PS3. But Beyond looks so much better it's scary."
"Performance capture gives you an incredible sense of realism that would be difficult to get otherwise and it's not necessarily more expensive"
Heavier Rain
A lot of this is due to the experience and knowledge of the PS3 that developers have gained over the years, but Beyond's new engine has been modeled on PS4 potential. In fact, several elements of Beyond have been lifted from the next PlayStation.
"We were pretty happy with the Heavy Rain engine but we thought we could go further so we started everything from scratch and developed this new engine which was inspired by what we discovered on PlayStation 4," says Cage.
"So we were were able to implement some PlayStation 4 features on PlayStation 3 which made the game look much better. New special effects engine, new animation engine, new performance capture. It's the first game where we're shooting full performance capture."
The lighting is one particular area that's a peek into what we'll be seeing a lot more of in the next gen. "This is actually something that comes from the Playstation 4," says Cage. "It's called physically based shading, which means that the different materials have different ways of reflecting light.
"So if you take wood or iron or plastic, the way they reflect light is totally different. And before this feature all materials were reflecting light the same way."
Quantum implemented what is referred to as Bokeh, a technique that renders lighting in a way that adds a hazy blur to shallow-focus shots. "Bokeh is the way light behaves in depth of field," says Cage. "Lights are deformed in a very specific way by the depth of field.
"It really brings another level of realism because this is the kind of visual that you see in movies. Depth of field was significantly improved. So it definitely also helps what we call the skin shaders, how the skin reacts to light, with the translucency."
Tech Sorcery
At this year's E3, Quantic Dream impressed us all with its PS4 tech demo for The Dark Sorcerer. "This is basically Beyond's engine, and we were so excited with what we could achieve," says Cage. "Some people were really impressed with the Dark Sorcerer but this is just the beginning, it's the minimum quality you can get on the console.
"It was done with a very small team, a very small amount of time and small resources. Now we have a full team and we hope to make something really impressive."
"Some people were really impressed with The Dark Sorcerer but this is just the beginning, it's the minimum quality you can get on the console"
And Beyond's Hollywood ambitions don't stop with the technology. The game "stars" Ellen Page as the lead protagonist Jodie and Willem Dafoe as her doctor, Nathan Dawkins. Cage seems nonplussed by the fact he pretty much took on the role of a full-blown movie director, though he admits he was a little freaked out at the start.
"I had Ellen and Willem on set on the first day and I just realised then, 'Fuck, I have Ellen Page and Willem Defoe and they're waiting for my direction to play my script.'"
Quantum used some of the most impressive facial-expression performance capture ever seen in a game and could well inspire a lot more of its type in the next gen.
"It gives you an incredible sense of realism that would be difficult to get otherwise and it's not necessarily more expensive or longer than framing animations," says Cage.
Beyond the hardware
Another of Beyond: Two Souls's headline features is one that lets you play through the entire game with a smartphone or tablet – no PS3 controller needed. All you need to do is download the app to your Android or iOS device.
"What we've done is really done for the first time in the history of games, the first time that meant someone could replace the console controller with a tablet. So we'll see how people react to that and based on that we'll continue on the same philosophy."
It's an interesting time to be a game developer, but Cage gets a kick out of sucking that last bit of juice out of a console. "We always like to make games at the end of cycles," he says. "We did the same with Fahrenheit and it made the game very popular because it was one of the last big games on the PlayStation 2."
So does Beyond finally demonstrate how powerful the PS3 can be? That's our final question to Cage.
"You never know exactly if you've done 100 percent of what the hardware can do," he says. "But our gut feeling is that yeah, pretty much.
- We've updated our PS4 review. Check it out!
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By Tom Power
By Mike Moore


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Portfolio: Behind the Curtain at the New York City Ballet
"This is the secret," says photographer Henry Leutwyler. "To completely blend in, to become invisible." Leutwyler spent last winter as the most observant ghost in New York City Ballet's rehearsal studios, capturing the uncommonly raw backstage images that now compose Ballet, which is both a book (out in December from Steidl) and an exhibit (on view at Foley Gallery November 28 through January 6). The shots here exemplify the peek-behind-the-curtain feel of Leutwyler's photos, from an open crate of tutus ("like pizzas in a restaurant") to a ballerina's feet after a day of matinée and evening performances ("when the feet are demolished"). "If I had to title the picture, I would call it Reality and Dreams," says Leutwyler. "The foot en pointe is what every little girl dreams of. The other is the hard, hard work, and the reality."
*This article originally appeared in the December 3, 2012 issue of New York Magazine.


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The only one that i can see is that it calculates for turning while you are moving. If you look at the diagrams, there is a faster way or a way to get to the goal in less steps then what is shown but this approach seems to work on the basis that it is faster to move through say 4 blocks instead of 3 to get to the goal because otherwise you have to stop and turn first
with minor modifications


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AMT enables the use of chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) on the inside of the glove to suppress the regrowth of bacteria on hands and prevent bacterial and viral migration in the event of a glove breach.


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Everything Is Illuminated
(Warner Independent)
John Madden, the English director of theater and film, is best known in this country for Shakespeare in Love, though Ethan Frome and Mrs. Brown were also exceptional. Gwyneth Paltrow is a gifted actress who needs a good director. Other directors have helped her, but her performance in the Shakespeare picture under Madden's hand took her into new reaches. Now Madden and Paltrow are paired again—in a venture that entailed risks.
David Auburn's play Proof, which won a Pulitzer Prize, has been adapted for the screen by Auburn and Rebecca Miller. It concerns Catherine (played by Paltrow), the daughter of a famous mathematician at the University of Chicago who had been suffering mental lapses and has recently died. The very first scene puts us on guard: Catherine has a conversation with her deceased father who is quite visible and audible. (Anthony Hopkins enjoys the role.) We immediately wonder whether this is going to be a misty work about a revenant or whether Catherine is imagining the conversation. More in hope than anything else, we opt for the latter, and are sustained. In flashback scenes she has many conversations with her father, back when he was alive, and has more postmortem chats, so we can infer that he continues in her mind, not as a ghost but as a permanent companion.
Involved, too, is Catherine's sister, Claire (Hope Davis, an intelligent actress). She works in the New York business world and has come to Chicago for the funeral but also to take Catherine back with her. Claire is fearful that her sister, who has dropped her own math studies, may also be on the edge of mental imbalance. The sisters quarrel, sometimes lovingly. Also very present is a young math graduate student at Chicago, Hal (pleasantly played by Jake Gyllenhaal), who has arguments and an affair with Catherine.
Hal is mining all 103 of the father's remaining notebooks in search of treasures. The crux of the story is a notebook that contains a world-shaking math discovery. (Is there any other kind in films?) This notebook may possibly have been written by Catherine, not her father. Proof is careful not to decide.
Of course the title has multiple meanings. The matter of mathematical proof, the proof of who wrote the brilliant math discovery, the very concept of proof itself—these aspects are inherent in the title. The drama of the sisters and Hal and the past-and-present father drags a bit because some of the time it seems to be not much more than elevated bickering. All in all, this is the sort of work that gets credit for more gravity than it genuinely possesses, merely because of its subject.
The risk in this project for Madden was that, for all the flexing that Auburn and Miller did, the script is still essentially a play. For decades now, this has not meant that the original had to be blatantly "cinematized," but it does mean that the script tends toward development in situ without film's basic urge to move physically onward. A director of Madden's sensibility knows that a key requirement is to "cinematize" the acting whether or not the cast is from the theater. To play for an audience of one that is only a few feet away is different in concentration and shade from playing in the theater, and Madden, though the script lags a bit, has nonetheless helped his actors to render what were once theater scenes as film sequences.
For Paltrow the risk was in her very acceptance of the part. Madden's presence must have been a factor, but Catherine is not a character designed to win an audience. She is neurotic—a catchall term that here includes anger, fear, spite, and outbursts of affection that have little to do with a desire to be liked. Catherine was a high-wire role for an actress who may be evolving into a star. With Madden's help, Paltrow confirms her quality by never playing for sympathy.
When Liev Schreiber had his first major Broadway role in Harold Pinter's Moonlight in 1994, it was clear that someone of potential importance had arrived. The word "magic" has been worn to banality, or it would serve to describe the effect. Schreiber walked onstage as if the universe had been designed for him to do so. Naturally he was soon tapped for films. His choice of film roles has been spotty, still he has moved upward in regard, and now he has directed a film. It would be structurally neat to say that this debut parallels his acting debut, but it doesn't. His directing is ambitious, but it is nowhere near the originality and truth in his acting. Throughout the film we can feel him striving to control, to invent, to glisten.
He made his own adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything Is Illuminated, whose theme is that the past illuminates the present. Not having read the book, I can't comment on Schreiber's adapting skill: I can say only that the screenplay obediently follows an almost visible blueprint until it reaches a mildly moving finish, and then goes on for a while after it is over.
The leading character bears the author's name, though this is not autobiography. He is a young American Jew who is fascinated by his family's history, especially as it winds through twentieth-century European history and the Holocaust. To find out who helped his grandfather to escape the Germans, Jonathan goes to the Ukraine (the picture was actually shot in the Czech Republic). Throughout the film he wears a formal suit, white shirt, and black tie; this denotes, not quite with subtlety, that he is a visitor to this milieu. He engages a guide and a driver to help him find the village of his family's origin. The guide and the driver are colorful characters of the fictional kind that seem to be waiting offscreen for a story like this to come along. The guide is a youngish rogue who speaks fractured American slang. The driver is his grandfather, a grouch who likes to pretend to be blind and who turns out to have depths. This pair insists on taking with them their dog—called Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. The whimsy warnings are thus well flashed, in contrast with a subject that could hardly be more grim.
Jonathan and these two and the dog travel along in a shabby car, having a series of minor incidents that are intended, like the driver and the guide, to be savory, "European." Their travels are accompanied by jaunty music meant to make the story quaintly adventurous but which only emphasizes that it is not. At last, in a small house in the middle of a gorgeous field of sunflowers, they meet an elderly woman who eventually answers the questions that Jonathan is asking. The face of that elderly woman, played by Laryssa Lauret, is the film's chief reward. Lauret's performance is, in fact, too lovely for this strained quasi-comedy.
Elijah Wood plays Jonathan like a life-size puppet. The idea of the engulfing of an ultra-neat American youth by European bizarrerie, the attempts at flavorful characters, the eager music, the camera's color-splashes—these remain manipulated elements in a film that explains some things but illuminates nothing. Judgment on Schreiber's directing future is not needed; but I certainly hope that he will not give up acting.
This article originally ran in the October 10, 2005 issue of the magazine.


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Premier John Horgan has called in his deputy minister and head of the B.C. public service, Don Wright, to sort through allegations of conflict of interest at a B.C. government lab in Abbotsford in charge of livestock and farmed salmon health.
Agriculture Minister Lana Popham continued to defend her actions at the B.C. legislature Wednesday, after it emerged she had phoned Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist Kristi Miller to ask about Miller's complaint of conflict of interest on the part of a researcher in the agriculture ministry lab in Abbotsford.
Horgan said the allegation, which aired on the CTV program W5 on Oct. 15, was serious enough to warrant a review by Wright. The B.C. Liberal opposition has seized on the issue and "blown it up like an atomic bomb," Horgan said.
Popham has been under fire since last week, when her letter to salmon farm operator Marine Harvest was made public. She has denied that the letter represented a threat to cancel the company's salmon farm tenures in the Broughton Archipelago area north of Vancouver Island.
RELATED: Popham warned salmon farm not to restock
In question period Wednesday, Horgan took all questions directed at Popham, including whether she had misled the legislature by claiming there was a request by Fisheries and Oceans Canada to investigate the Abbotsford lab.
Speaking to reporters after question period, Popham said she did not mislead the legislature, and "there is no investigation.
"We're undertaking a review, and that's been handed off to the public service, because that's the right way to go about it, and I'm confident that review will come back with a recommendation about whether we investigate or not," Popham said.
She refused to comment on the status of provincial researcher Dr. Gary Marty, but confirmed that Miller had described an apparent conflict of interest involving Marty in relation to salmon farm research at the Abbotsford lab.
Protesters including anti-salmon farm activist Alexandra Morton and aboriginal activist George Quocksister have occupied two Marine Harvest salmon farms since late August.
RELATED: First Nations occupy Marine Harvest fish farm
Popham was asked why a Facebook photo appeared to show her celebrating with Morton and Quocksister at an NDP fundraiser in Courtenay on Oct. 21, at which Popham was the featured speaker.
"I attended a fundraiser for an event," Popham replied. "I was met by protesters at the door, and I engaged with them respectfully as I would with any protesters who met me at the door."


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EMC's Flash Strategy
Since economics underlies all storage decisions, it follows logically that most users will continue to maintain a hierarchy of storage. Be that as it may, flash storage technology has solidified itself as an optimal solution that provides not only performance but financial benefits as well.
Take a look at this white paper to deeper insight into the hierarchy of flash storage from past to present and an explanation of the logic and value of EMC's entire flash portfolio in terms of its constituent products. Read on to learn more.