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Gene PatentsDownload as PDF
Framing the Issue
About about 3,000 to 5,000 patents on human genes have been granted in the United States. At first blush it seems odd to patent a gene, which is why the practice has been controversial since it began nearly three decades ago.
The public debate about patenting genes is partly about discomfiture with patenting all natural products and partly about practical concerns with the consequences—balancing the need for commercial incentives to develop treatments and screening tests with the virtues of open science (see chapter 20, "Intellectual Property and Biomedicine"). The same controversies surrounding biomedical patents in general are amplified when the patent is on a building block of life.
The idea that genes can be owned is unethical to those who see the human genome as our common heritage. One particular concern is that patents make the cost of genetic tests and genetic therapies unacceptably high by stifling competition, a concern expressed perhaps most famously in the worldwide uproar over patenting the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with cancer. Another fear is that gene patents may inhibit biomedical innovation by blocking scientists' access to genes and genetic materials that are essential to research.
Gene Patenting: Science and History
A gene patent is intellectual property, which gives the patent holder the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing an invention for a period of time, usually 20 years. Although gene patents often base their claims at least partly on whole genes, they also cover many kinds of inventions involving the components of genes and genetic technologies (see box, "Gene Patenting Glossary"), including:
- Associations between a DNA variant and a disease, condition, or function
- The DNA sequence that makes a particular protein, regulates a gene, or is useful for studying genetic variations
- RNA sequences that turn genes on or off, or control other functions
- Cell lines, methods of treatment, and diagnostics
- Transgenic animal models of disease and genes used to make them
The first patent on a recombinant DNA method was granted in December 1980, just six months after the United States Supreme Court ruled in Diamond v. Chakrabarty that a life form could be patented. The patent, shared by Stanford University and the University of California, laid the groundwork for using cells to produce useful proteins and turning them into valuable drugs. Well before the Supreme Court decision, in 1977, the University of California had applied for patents on genes for insulin and growth hormone; the patent for insulin was granted in 1982 and the one for growth hormone in 1987. Gene patents were an extension of the legal doctrines that permitted patents on hormones, vaccines, and other "natural products" that had been turned into useful forms. Patent offices around to world had no great difficulty concluding that genes could be patented in isolated and purified form. An estimated 47,000 patents claiming something about DNA or RNA have been granted in the United States.
Gene Patenting Glossary
Gene – A basic building block of heredity consisting of a segment of DNA; it encodes a product, usually a protein but sometimes an RNA.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) – A double-stranded molecule within each cell that encodes hereditary information; also the template for RNA molecules that turn genes on and off.
RNA (ribonucleic acid) – A molecule within each cell that determines protein synthesis and transmits hereditary information.
Recombinant DNA – Artificial DNA made by splicing DNA strands from different organisms. It is used for many purposes, such as replicating DNA for research, producing important proteins, and devising gene therapies.
Areas of Controversy
Most of the ethical as well as legal disputes over gene patenting have to do with patents for therapeutic proteins, genetic tests, and research. Each of these areas has its own set of concerns.
Therapeutic proteins
Patents on inventions that enable production of a protein to treat a disease are among the most valuable because of their potential to lead to blockbuster drugs. They are also the targets of most of the litigation concerning gene patents.
Many biotechnology companies, including Genentech and Amgen, sprung up in the heady days of the late 1970s and early 1980s to exploit the new technologies of recombinant DNA and cell fusion. Insulin was the first recombinant product, approved for marketing in 1982. Rat insulin was initially cloned at the University of California, San Francisco, and Genentech licensed cloned human insulin to Eli Lilly. Other top-selling drugs followed, including tissue plasminogen activator for stroke, growth hormone for small children deficient in the hormone, and erythropoietin for anemia—the latter two drugs finding substantial illegal use in sports doping (see chapter 33, "Sports Enhancement"). Most of these substances were the subjects of costly, protracted legal battles over patent rights.
Genetic mutations can confer an inherited increased risk of cancer and other diseases. Patents are held on individual genes, their mutations, and on the tests developed to screen for the mutations. These patents have incited among the loudest and most widespread outcries against gene patenting. The controversy includes concern that monopolies on genetic tests make their prices unacceptably high and that these monopolies may reduce incentives to correct flaws in the tests or to adopt new technologies.
The most widely known gene patent controversy is the scientific and public furor that erupted over patenting BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes that affect the risk of cancer. Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for an estimated 5–10% of breast cancer cases, as well as significantly elevated risk for ovarian and other cancers.
Myriad Genetics, a company in Utah, secured the patents to the genes, their mutations, and the screenings tests. In an attempt to enforce its patent rights, Myriad sent letters to laboratories throughout the world asserting that testing had to be done through Myriad's laboratory or laboratories that it licensed. These letters, many sent in 2001, triggered outrage by researchers, doctors, breast cancer advocates, and governments.
In Canada, the health ministry of Ontario publicly refused to honor the terms of Myriad's Canadian licensee, and so far no patent infringement lawsuit has been filed. In effect, the Canadian patents are being ignored. In Europe, a group of nonprofit institutions challenged Myriad's patents, which resulted in a considerable narrowing of one BRCA1 patent, while action on the other BRCA1 patents remains pending. A BRCA2 patent was then granted to the Cancer Research Campaign, a cancer research charity in the United Kingdom, which has stated its intent to enable unrestricted access to and use of the gene. There are also broad BRCA patents in Australia and New Zealand. The licensee in that region is allowing nonexclusive licensing, but recent indication is that the Australian patent may be enforced.
Myriad still exercises a dominant patent position in the United States, where it is the main provider of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. Myriad's monopoly in this country is controversial. On the other hand, it is hard to attribute problems directly to patents. Genetic tests for colon cancer have no one dominant patent holder, and yet they are comparable in cost and present similar technical challenges in the form of false negatives and positives.
One of the greatest fears about gene patents is that they could inhibit scientific progress. Making genes in the laboratory is essential for many kinds of research, and restrictions on the use of patented genes would be difficult to work around. In a 2002 case, Madey v. Duke, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made clear that academic institutions could be held liable for patent infringement even in nonprofit research.
In practice, however, no research institution has been sued for studying a gene or using it in academic research. This is partly because the patent holders stand to benefit from research that reveals how their patented genes work, and partly because of the difficulty in proving damages from mere use in research. But there has been litigation involving companies that supply transgenic animals, which incorporate patented genes and are themselves subject to patents, and companies using research tools aimed at creating commercial products and services. One gray zone is the use of materials or processes with gene patents in clinical research, such as genetic testing in the context of a clinical trial. Laboratories offering patented genetic tests for research studies have been asked to "cease and desist" unless they refer materials to or get a license from the patent holder.
In addition to the concern that patent holders could block access to essential research material, some critics have raised the specter that patents could impede innovation by creating an "anticommons" effect, in which scientists avoid avenues of research that would require long and expensive negotiations with multiple patent holders. Allowing too many patents for incremental inventions increases the risk of the anticommons effect. However, surveys of scientists in academia and industry have not shown a powerful anticommons effect or blocking effect in research.
Though fears that gene patents could stifle research have not been borne out, for the most part, commentators are now raising questions about how the many existing gene patents might be used in the future, particularly with the advent of high-speed, low-cost DNA sequencing and other technologies. These technologies, originally confined to research, are increasingly being used for ancestry-tracing, "personal genomics" offered directly to consumers, and other commercial purposes. If lucrative markets emerge, the incentives to exercise intellectual property rights in gene patents will also rise, and that could influence what kind of—and how much—commercial research and development takes place.
Marketplace for Patented Genes
Gene patents generally claim one or more of these five purposes:
- Drugs from therapeutic proteins or gene transfer into cells
- Genetic tests for diagnosis or screening
- Research tools
- Nonmedical uses for identification, forensics, and ancestry-tracing
- Controlling which genes are turned on or off in a cell or tissue
A single patent may fit in more than one category. A patent may claim a DNA sequence that is both a research tool and a method to make a protein, for example, or one that is both a research tool and a diagnostic test.
Policy Options
Michael Crichton's 2006 novel, Next, contains an author's note that begins, "Stop patenting genes." In a February 13, 2007, New York Times op-ed, Dr. Crichton said, "Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor." Dr. Crichton teamed up with Lori Andrews, a prominent law professor and expert on biotechnologies from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and found resonance with Representatives Xavier Becerra and Dave Weldon, who introduced HR 977, a bipartisan bill in the 110th Congress to halt future patenting of DNA sequences. Crichton's assertions about the adverse impacts of gene patents are in dispute, and the Becerra-Weldon bill has become the stimulus for ongoing debate.
A 2005 National Research Council report included gene patents in a discussion of ways that Congress, the executive branch, and the courts could ensure rapid progress in life sciences and their application. It recommended, for example, an exemption from infringement liability when verifying genetic testing results. Some of the recommendations have since been addressed by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and by a patent reform bill in Congress.
The patent reform bill passed the House in September 2007 and is pending in the Senate. Two provisions are particularly relevant to gene patents. One provision would introduce a procedure for challenging a patent after it is issued similar to the opposition process that narrowed the BRCA1 patent claims in Europe. Another provision would shift the U.S. standard for inventorship from a "first to invent" to a "first inventor to file." This change would reduce protracted legal disputes like the dispute over the patent for the cystic fibrosis gene, which took almost 10 years to resolve. France and Belgium have national laws that exempt diagnostic and research uses of gene patents from infringement liability, and have also created statutory authority for government to force patent-owners to license patents if not doing so would threaten public health. Legal scholars have proposed such policy options for U.S. law.
Scholars have written about gene patents for almost 20 years. Innovations have continued, and this is reassuring. But progress in science and its application does not prove that the patent system as applied to DNA methods and genes is optimal. The conclusions are timid, but useful:
- Gene patents have proven useful in developing some therapeutic proteins.
- Neither the harms nor the benefits of DNA patents for clinical genetic testing is clear.
- Fears that gene patents might impede scientific research have not been borne out, at least to date.
Robert Cook-Deegan, MD, directs the Center for Genome Ethics, Law and Policy, Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University.
Robert Cook-Deegan, "Gene Patents," in From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for Journalists, Policymakers, and Campaigns, ed. Mary Crowley (Garrison, NY: The Hastings Center, 2008), 69-72.
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Leuk KruengChantana
For those of you who don't know, a "Leuk Krueng" is someone of mixed heritage. Famous Leuk Kruengs include Tiger Woods, Tata Young (American/Thai), and David Usher.
(American/Thai), (Canadian/Thai). My mother is Thai and my father is American, so I seem to fit the bill. I was born in the States and grew up in various countries around the world, and although we spent many holidays in Thailand, I never really lived here. I was brought up going to American schools and speaking English with everyone except my mother. After having lived in many countries, including the US, and nearing my 30th birthday, I decided to embrace my inner Thai-ness and move to Thailand for a while. I've been here a year now and it's taken me that long to really feel at home, although I loved it here pretty much from the first day.
When I was a child, I actually hated Thailand, and for a short time as a teenager I even hated being half Thai. It probably began with not being allowed to go out with my young cousins to the market, since my mother was afraid of me getting kidnapped since I was so white. I wasn't allowed to eat the same foods as the other kids either, since my Western stomach couldn't handle it. The joy of being so pale though, was that I was my grandmother's favourite grandchild. Of course, the downside to this was intense jealousy from my cousins, who liked to call me "farang kee-nok" (farang bird poop because of my skin colour).
Fortunately, some of the other kids living nearby didn't seem to care, so I had playmates anyway. But, as we grew up, I was no longer allowed to play with them on my holidays because we were all settling into our class roles and they were not of my class. This was all back in the day when there were no bilingual schools and I felt like I was the only leuk krueng in the world.
On holidays to Thailand I spent a lot of time digging in the yard for chik-goong (crickets) to eat, picking the ticks off the six guard dogs, and tying strings to dead scorpions and throwing them at the maids. It was always fun to go out to eat and have my mother try to force me to suck the eyeballs out of the fish to improve my brain. My father was often mediator in these situations, and I think every mixed-heritage kid needs that kind of balance.
Growing up in an American society, although not always living in the US, it was at times strange having an Asian mother. Looking back though, I can see that I was incredibly fortunate. Thais are very concerned about their families and it's a beautiful trait that you don't find so much in America. My mother was at every single school event I ever had and baked treats for me to take to class often. I was the envy of my classmates for her dedication and my birthday parties were especially fun and clever events. Even though she wasn't that great at English herself, she taught me to read in English before I even went to school.
It was really wonderful to grow up bilingual. My mother tells me that I kept speaking a mix of Thai and English in kindergarten and really frightened the teacher until she found out I was bilingual. Many Thais who marry foreigners stop speaking Thai and I think it really puts kids at a disadvantage. I am so happy I can speak Thai now that I live here, and only wish that I had learned to read and write as well.
Growing up, there were small arguments about how a nice Thai girl should act and how I acted too American. Since I'm very fair-skinned I fit into the Western world better. Even now, in Thailand, people speak English to me before they speak Thai. Sometimes I get the Thai price and sometimes I end up paying the farang price but that's okay. It's interesting how in Thailand I've had people ask to have their photo taken with me, while in America I've been called a "gook" more times than I can count.
I recently went to our family reunion and there were 300 people I had never seen in my life there. Everyone was really nice and the oldest members of the family sat in a line and sprinkled water on everyone else for blessings. You can see that Thai people really care about their families. Since I've been here, my family has taken care of every need I've had, from taking me to get my drivers license to sending bowls of food over to the house that they gave me to live in. I know people in America whose families won't even let them stay over when they visit!
My father loves the Thai family structure. He comes from a typical American family where no one speaks to each other anymore except when they want to borrow money from him. Here my mother's family treats him like one of their own, even though he still doesn't speak Thai after 35 years. I think he's happy to know that he doesn't have a typical American kid that's going to leave him in a nursing home when he gets old.
Being a leuk krueng is really great. I feel like I have the best of both worlds. Although I am still learning about Thailand, I grow to love it more each day and to feel genuinely patriotic about the country. I'm not ashamed to admit, Thailand makes a great national anthem, and at the movies it makes me cry with pride every time. I actually feel closer to Thailand after one year of living here than in the ten or so years combined that I lived in America. I am annoyed when America bullies my new home and sometimes I am even embarrassed to be half American – my how things change.
Thai people have a unique spirit that I am so proud to be a part of. I dont feel like I'm half of two things anymore, but instead, I am two wholes. It's no wonder I ended up marrying another leuk krueng of sorts South African/British. We joke about how we unite four continents. It really would be great though, if the world kept on mixing.

subset: commoncrawl


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HANNITY: Is there anything you regret? Do you regret getting out of the car to follow Trayvon that night?Zimmerman had just described how Martin was beating his head against the concrete — you can see that Hannity was inviting Zimmerman to say: If I had not had the gun, I would have died. In context, you can see Zimmerman brought up God as his way of declining to explore alternate scenarios. Note that he had trouble with Hannity's double-negative question "Do you feel you wouldn't be here for this interview if you didn't have that gun?" Zimmerman answers no, which literally would mean that Zimmerman thinks he would have survived to tell the tale, but, especially given his description of the pre-shooting attack, it seems he would have said that without the gun, he would have died. Hannity rephrases the question: "You feel you would not be here?" And Zimmerman's answer is, essentially, it's not for me to say.
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: Do you regret that you had a gun that night?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: Do you feel you wouldn't be here for this interview if you didn't have that gun?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
HANNITY: You feel you would not be here?
ZIMMERMAN: I feel it was all God's plan and for me to second guess it or judge it --
HANNITY: Is there anything you might do differently in retrospect now that the time has passed a little bit?
ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.
Actually, I think the problem for Zimmerman is less that it sounds like he thought God had a plan for him to kill Martin than that he failed to clearly state that if he hadn't had that gun to shoot Martin, he would have died. But I think the complexity is that in Zimmerman's version of what happened, Martin saw the gun:
ZIMMERMAN: At that point, I realized that it wasn't my gun, it wasn't his gun, it was the gun.So, in the actual story, with the gun, Zimmerman's need to shoot Martin was much greater than it would have been in the alternate scenario with Martin punching him and banging his head on the concrete. Zimmerman declined to comment on the alternate scenario in which there is no gun. His form of expression brought God into the picture. Someone less given to God talk might have said: What happened happened.
HANNITY: Did he say anything? Because you said he was talking a lot about the gun. Did he say he noticed the gun?
ZIMMERMAN: He said, "You are going to die tonight (EXPLETIVE DELETED)" and took one hand off of my mouth and I felt it going down my chest towards my belt and my holster, and that's when I -- I didn't have anymore time.
But now, the "God's plan" line is out there, affecting what people think about Zimmerman, and it will be used against him in his trial. Such are the risks of doing interviews.


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This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org
Category:OWASP DirBuster Project
This page contains content that is outdated and is no longer being maintained. It is provided as a courtesy for individuals who are still using these technologies. This page may contain URLs that were once valid but may now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.
Please use the newer Edition(s) like OWASP Zed Attack Proxy Project
DirBuster is a multi threaded java application designed to brute force directories and files names on web/application servers. Often is the case now of what looks like a web server in a state of default installation is actually not, and has pages and applications hidden within. DirBuster attempts to find these.
However tools of this nature are often as only good as the directory and file list they come with. A different approach was taken to generating this. The list was generated from scratch, by crawling the Internet and collecting the directory and files that are actually used by developers! DirBuster comes a total of 9 different lists (Further information can be found below), this makes DirBuster extremely effective at finding those hidden files and directories. And if that was not enough DirBuster also has the option to perform a pure brute force, which leaves the hidden directories and files nowhere to hide! If you have the time ;)
DirBuster Fork
Please note that DirBuster is currently an inactive project.
However it has essentially been forked by the OWASP ZAP team. It is now included in the ZAP Marketplace as a ZAP add-on rather than as a stand-alone tool.
The source code for this fork can be found in:
- zap-extensions/tree/beta/src/com/sittinglittleduck/DirBuster : the DirBuster code
- zap-extensions/tree/beta/src/org/zaproxy/zap/extension/bruteforce : the ZAP add-on
22nd October 2009 - Perl Module to Parse DirBuster XML output
A big thanks to Jabra for producing a Perl module for parsing the XML reports produced by DirBuster. Currently this will only work with the latest version in cvs, however I am on a final push to get 1.0 out the door, so it will not stay that way for long!
3rd March 2009 - Version 1.0-RC1
After some major code changes I have opted for a release candidate before 1.0, to weed out any bugs. Features introduced in this release are:
- Auto pause, when 20 consecutive 20 errors happen
- Spelling mistakes corrected
- Multi threaded all the work generation, so multiple dir and file exts are scanned at the same time (this makes it much faster!)
- Reconstructed multiple parts of the code
- Proxy settings are now persistent
- The ability to change the look and feel has now been added
- Added Jbrofuzz dir list (Thank you Yiannis)
- Removed the two large dir lists
- Added new reporting formats (simple lists, xml, csv)
This version can be downloaded from here.
If you find any bugs with this release let me know. (Add a new Bug) I plan to release 1.0 in the next couple of weeks.
3rd October 2008 - Version 0.12 is now available
- Command line interface added
- Fixed a bug that caused the "User Agent" to not get set when adding custom headers
- Updated all api's used
22th August 2008 - Mac dmg for 0.11.1 is now available
- A Mac package for version is available, big thanks to Richard Dean for this.
20th August 2008 - Version 0.11.1 is now available
- Fixed a bug that caused the check for updates not to work correctly
20th August 2008 - Version 0.11 is now available
- Added a windows installer
- Added more content to the help section, but it's not finished yet.
- Improved the way in which DirBuster handles inconsistent fail codes
- Fixed a bug that caused deadlock due to all the parsing threads exiting
- Tweaked the content analysis code to reduce false positives, when DirBuster is using that mode
- Added code to make sure it display correctly on Vista
- Fixed a bug that caused files found to not be shown in the report
- Slight tweak to worker to improve performance
- Fixed a couple of points within the GUI, and spelling mistakes.
DirBuster is a multi threaded java application designed to brute force directories and files names on web/application servers. Often is the case now of what looks like a web server in a state of default installation is actually not, and has pages and applications hidden within. DirBuster attempts to find these.
However tools of this nature are often as only good as the directory and file list they come with. A different approach was taken to generating this. The list was generated from scratch, by crawling the Internet and collecting the directory and files that are actually used by developers! DirBuster comes a total of 9 different lists (Further information can be found below), this makes DirBuster extremely effective at finding those hidden files and directories. And if that was not enough DirBuster also has the option to perform a pure brute force, which leaves the hidden directories and files nowhere to hide! If you have the time ;)
What DirBuster can do for you
- Attempt to find hidden pages/directories and directories with a web application, thus giving a another attack vector (For example. Finding an unlinked to administration page).
What DirBuster will not do for you
- Exploit anything it finds. This is not the purpose of DirBuster. DirBuster sole job is to find other possible attack vectors.
How does DirBuster help in the building of secure applications?
- By finding content on the web server or within the application that is not required.
- By helping developers understand that by simply not linking to a page does not mean it can not be accessed.
License Information
The Java program "DirBuster" are distributed under LGPL
The directory lists are distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Project Goals
The goals for the DirBuster Project are as follows:
- To produce a tool to that will assist in black box application testing, by trying to find hidden content.
- Ensure the tool produced provides information is such a way that any false positives produce can be quickly identified.
- Produce text based lists that can be used by the above mentioned tool.
Future Development Plans
- Improve and finish the java portion of the program
- Add documentation about the program eg Help, FAQ's
- Fully document the code
- Improve the DirBuster spider engine that generates the lists
- Gather information on things like cookie names, sub domain names, POST and GET variable names
Road Map
- 0.9.8 - Add HTML parsing (Complete)
- 0.9.9 - Implement the skip work functionality, NTLM auth (Complete)
- 0.9.10 - Maintenance release to fix a bug (Complete)
- 1.0 - Complete documentation, generate new lists
- 1.1 - Implement functionality to process lists of default files and directories
How DirBuster Works
Detailed information about how DirBuster works can be found here: How_DirBuster_Works
The latest code is now being maintained in a SourceForge repository https://sourceforge.net/projects/dirbuster/
Browse all DirBuster downloads
Current Release
Stable - 0.12
Dev - 1.0
Current Source
Stable - 0.12
DirBuster Lists
Text based lists only.
Installation & Usage
- Unzip or untar the download
- cd into the program directory
- To run the program java -jar DirBuster-0.10.jar (Windows uses should be able to just double click on the jar)
- Recommended list to use is directory-list-2.3-medium.txt
Using the command line interface
- java -jar DirBuster-0.12.jar -h : Help information
- java -jar DirBuster-0.12.jar -H -u https://127.0.0.1/ : Run DirBuster in headless mode
- java -jar DirBuster-0.12.jar -u https://127.0.0.1/ : Start GUI with target prepopulated
- DirBuster requires Java 1.6 or above. This can be obtained from http://java.sun.com/.
- NOTE: DirBuster will run under java 1.5, but some minor function are disabled
- Sorting of the Results table
All other external APIs used, have been included within the main download.
External API's used
HttpClient - http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/httpclient/
BrowserLauncher2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/browserlaunch2/
Jericho HTML Parser - http://jerichohtml.sourceforge.net/
swing-layout - https://swing-layout.dev.java.net/
jGoodies Look and feel - http://www.jgoodies.com/
Other code used internally
Java GNU Diff Port - http://www.bmsi.com/java/
Apache Commons EasySSLProtocolSocketFactory.java - EasySSLProtocolSocketFactory.java
Apache Commons EasyX509TrustManager.java - EasyX509TrustManager.java
jTreeTable - http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/treetable1/index.html
DirBuster provides the following features:
- Multi threaded has been recorded at over 6000 requests/sec
- Works over both http and https
- Scan for both directory and files
- Will recursively scan deeper into directories it finds
- Able to perform a list based or pure brute force scan
- DirBuster can be started on any directory
- Custom HTTP headers can be added
- Proxy support
- Auto switching between HEAD and GET requests
- Content analysis mode when failed attempts come back as 200
- Custom file extensions can be used
- Performance can be adjusted while the program in running
- Supports Basic, Digest and NTLM auth
- Command line * GUI interface
The DirBuster Lists
DirBuster comes with a set of unique directory and files lists, these have been generated based on the file and directory names that are actually used by developers on internet sites. The order of the lists is based on the frequency of the item found. Therefore the most common items appear at the top. These lists are what make DirBuster.
NOTE: It will come as no surprise to you all that the internet is full of porn, thus it not surprising that the spider used to generate the lists visited a few along the way. Thus there are explicit words contained within the lists. My stand point on this is simple, this tool was designed to used as part of legitimate security testing, and if there are directories/files based on explicit words, clients would want to know!!
The following lists are included with DirBuster, or as a separate download:
- directory-list-2.3-small.txt - (87650 words) - Directories/files that where found on at least 3 different hosts
- directory-list-2.3-medium.txt - (220546 words) - Directories/files that where found on at least 2 different hosts
- directory-list-2.3-big.txt - (1273819 words) - All directories/files that where found
- directory-list-lowercase-2.3-small.txt - (81629 words) - Case insensitive version of directory-list-2.3-small.txt
- directory-list-lowercase-2.3-medium.txt - (207629 words) - Case insensitive version of directory-list-2.3-medium.txt
- directory-list-lowercase-2.3-big.txt - (1185240 words) - Case insensitive version of directory-list-2.3-big.txt
- directory-list-1.0.txt - (141694 words) - Original unordered list
- apache-user-enum-1.0.txt - (8916 usernames) - Used for guessing system users on apache with the userdir module enabled, based on a username list I had lying around (unordered)
- apache-user-enum-2.0.txt - (10341 usernames) - Used for guessing system users on apache with the userdir module enabled, based on ~XXXXX found during list generation (Ordered)
A download of just the lists can be obtained from here: DirBuster-Lists.tar.bz2
Other Projects Using DirBuster Lists
Other projects who have are using the lists produced for DirBuster
Feedback and Participation
We hope you find the OWASP DirBuster Project useful. Please contribute to the Project by volunteering for one of the tasks, sending your comments, questions, and suggestions to [email protected] To join the OWASP DirBuster Project mailing list or view the archives, please visit the subscription page.
Please report all bugs to the SourceForge bug tracking for DirBuster.
DirBuster Mail List
You can subscribe to the DirBuster here
Project Contributors
Project Lead: James Fisher
Code contributions received from:
- John Anderson
- Subere
Mac packages of DirBuster
- Richard Dean
Pages in category "OWASP DirBuster Project"
The following 2 pages are in this category, out of 2 total.


text: Vitra, a Swiss company, has been creating furniture and accessories for offices, homes, and public spaces for eighty years. Their mid-century modern designs are innovative, comfortable, and professional, featuring renowned designers and high-grade materials. With products like the bestselling Panton Chair Classic with its signature curve and the vibrant Sunburst Clock, a 1950s George Nelson accessory, Vitra offers lasting styles with playful innocence.


text:
Time is my theme this week. I can think of a number of puns to describe many of the available songs on the subject. "That's really old", for example. Time is something we all live with, so it is the subject of almost as many cliches as love. Even the titles of my selections reflect this. Nevertheless, each of these artists finds something fresh to say on the subject, or a fresh way to say it.
Dee Carstensen: Time
[purchase live version]
[support Dee Carstensen by purchasing the original studio version here]
Dee Carstensen contemplates old age and mortality in Time. Her narrator has reached a point in her life where her main concern is the emotional legacy she leaves in her children. The spare arrangement heard here is from a live performance at the Kerrville Folk Festival, and it suits the material beautifully. That string instrument that sounds wrong to be a guitar is a harp, Carstensen's main instrument.
In researching this post, I learned that Carstensen had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and that she had received a liver transplant. After 2007, information is scarce. So if anyone knows what and how she is doing now, please share that information in the comments. Thank you.
David Wilcox: It's Almost Time
David Wilcox starts It's Almost Time as a statement of faith that a long cold winter is almost over. He sets his song firmly in a seaside town. I don't live at the shore, but here in New Jersey, we just had a week of weather which gave a tease of spring, but now we have settled back into winter. That only makes it feel colder, and makes this song resonate more. By the end of the song, it is clear that this winter is emotional as well as meteorological. No one that I know of puts this kind of song over better than Wilcox, and this is no exception.
Tracy Chapman: This Time
This Time is a resolution to not get hurt again. Or maybe it's a reminder. Either way, this is a rebound song. Chapman's character has been through a hurtful relationship, and she wants the guy to take all the risks this time. The narrator may be trying to break a pattern that has haunted her through a series of relationships. Chapman presents the resolve, but also the uncertainty that her narrator can go through with it.
Just as the words present a state of emotional flux, so too does the music. Passages with not much more than acoustic guitar and voice alternate with pulses of the full band. Throughout, a ghostly violin part haunts the narrator, reminding her of her doubts.
Peter Himmelman: Time Just Flew
Time Just Flew looks back at a long-term relationship, and also takes stock of its current condition. The conclusions are unclear. Time in this one is a windstorm, sweeping away everything in its path. So the song is an emotional catching of breath. I think that's an important thing to do, but it can be more than difficult to find the time.
Lyle Lovett: Since the Last Time
The emotions in this post have been pretty heavy, so let me end things on a joyous note, at a funeral. I'm serious. In New Orleans, funerals are occasions to celebrate the life of the departed. There are parades, and happy recollections. Sorrow follows later perhaps, and in private. Lyle Lovett does not come from New Orleans, but this song reflects this spirit.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
It's About Time
Posted by Darius at 2:42 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: David Wilcox, Dee Carstensen, Lyle Lovett, Music, Peter Himmelman, Tracy Chapman
Thursday, January 28, 2010
For a Song: She Just Wants to Dance
Keb' Mo': She Just Wants to Dance
"Care to dance?" It's a simple question, but it's also complicated. Somehow, it has acquired all sorts of baggage. The words don't say anything about leaving together, or doing anything other than dancing. But no one ever answers the question without considering all of this. So, what happens if all you really want is to dance?
Keb' Mo' presents a woman who has an answer to this question. She exists outside of the meat market. There she is on the floor, by herself, and completely free. She dances with no ulterior motive, but just for the love of it. The song does not speak of it, but we can imagine that she provokes reactions in all who see her. The men, including the singer, are amazed at her total lack of an agenda. It makes her all the more desirable to know that she isn't here for that.
Gaye Adegbalola does a wonderful cover of this song. Because Adegbalola is another woman, we as listeners think about how other women react to this. There is, I think, a certain kind of jealousy. The other women are there playing the game they cannot get free of, and the freedom of our solo dancer seems impossible. They wish they could drop their own agendas, and be her. But they cannot.
None of this is in the lyrics, so perhaps my interpretation is a projection of my own agenda. Keb' Mo' just paints a beautiful picture of a free woman, and leaves the rest to the listener.
Posted by Darius at 12:34 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: For a Song, Keb' Mo'
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Jo Hamilton - Gown
Where did that come from? The question could refer to the fact that I am reviewing this album. It's not my usual fare by any means. Jo Hamilton sings in a breathy purr that can rise to a full voice belting vocal within the same song. She has a warm quality, and her voice is a great pop instrument. She could change the production and arrangements on some these songs ever so slightly, and have massive hits. But here, she preserves her individuality, and I value that.
"Where did that come from?" might be about the arrangements here. At first listen, most of the songs here seem fairly straightforward. Yes, there are dynamic shifts, beautifully executed, but the songs seem fairly consistent. But, listen closer, and you will notice instruments and sounds making their appearance in a song when least expected.
Finally, "Where did that come from?" might be about the album as a whole. I can hear the influence of Kate Bush in the first few songs. But then, there is a lovely ballad, Paradise, with a samba flavor to it. There is an almost R & B tune, but for the double tracked sax and clarinet part that almost sounds like avant-garde jazz. And towards the end, there is even a waltz. Amazingly, the album does not sound at all like an I-pod Shuffle gone mad. Hamilton ranges through a wide variety of musical styles, and she makes it all hang together and make sense.
Musically, the first song, Exist (Beyond My Wildest Dreams), is the wildest. I probably wouldn't have opened the album with it myself. Exist opens quietly, but soon swells into a fine dance groove, but then it almost completely falls apart. You almost have to imagine the beat until it reappears briefly later. And then it almost falls apart again, and reforms. This one makes the listener work, and it's worth it, but, as the lead track, it sets up the idea that the whole album is going to be like this. In fact, everything else on the album is far more accessible.
Pick Me Up follows, and is a much better example of how the album works. This one sets up a groove and stays with it. There is a backing vocal part which seems to pull the rhythm off, but actually only strengthens it. And Hamilton's lead vocal purrs on the verses and soars on the chorus.
Next is There It Is. This is a beautiful ballad, featuring acoustic guitar and stand-up bass, and again Hamilton shines on vocals. This is the first time on the album where she shows what she can do with a pure ballad.
I'm not going to go through the album song by song. This is enough to give you the idea. There are more grooves to be found. Hamilton also continues to shine on the ballads. And there are a few places where grooves and balladry are found in the same song. It all works. The textures vary throughout the album, making this a very satisfying listening experience.
For me, most of the lyrics do not stand out as much. Many of them strike me as sort of lyrical fortune cookies; they could be love songs or something else, but they are general enough to apply to any listener. The exceptions to this are all the more noticeable. In Paradise, and especially in Mekong Song, Hamilton evokes a very specific sense of place. In Mekong Song, I felt like I was on that boat on the river, listening to the gentle lapping of the water. I also like the way Hamilton captures the excitement of the beginning of spring in Winter is Over.
To conclude, Gown is a debut album by an artist who shows that she will be well worth keeping an ear out for. I will be very disappointed if Jo Hamilton decides to become a generic pop diva. But, if she continues to find her own voice and her own way, I look forward to the results.
Jo Hamilton: Pick Me Up
Jo Hamilton: Mekong Song
Posted by Darius at 3:14 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Album Review, Jo Hamilton
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Journeys By Water
The image I have chosen for this post is the tarot card for the six of swords. I enjoy the artwork in tarot decks, and understanding the meaning of the cards helps me appreciate the intent of the artist. But sometimes, people get carried away, and make their interpretations overly esoteric. The classic image for the six of swords says it all: the card signifies a journey by water. This can be taken literally. Metaphorically, it represents a rite of passage. This kind of journey often involves a triggering event, often emotionally painful, which prompts the journey in the first place. The card shows the journey in progress; it has nothing to say about the outcome.
Al of the above applies equally well to songs about journeys by water. Let's consider some examples.
Hem: Sailor
Sailor is a song of yearning. The narrator is in love, but does not know if her love is returned. She will leave the shore to see the object of her affection, and hope for the best. The lyric is pretty simple, but Hem does a beautiful job of filling in the blanks with the musical setting.
Richard Thompson: Mingulay Boat Song
Mingulay Boat Song is thought by many to be a traditional Scottish folk song. It describes the life of a crew of simple fishermen, eager to come to shore and be reunited with their families. But the song is actually a nostalgic piece, idealizing a life that no longer existed at the time it was written.. The island of Mingulay, of the coast of Scotland, had been occupied continuously for at least two thousand years, until it was abandoned in 1912. Mingulay Boat Song, however, wasn't written until 1938, by Sir Hugh S Roberton, in Glasgow. Roberton wrote the song for the Glasgow Orpheus Choir, which he directed from 1901 to 1951. The choir started as an amateur choir associated with a men's work society, but Roberton set high standards for the group. In time, they would achieve a measure of fame, both in Europe and North America.
Mingulay Boat Song has passed into the folk cannon by now. Richard Thompson's performance clearly shows why.
Elvis Costello: Last Boat Leaving
Returning to our theme of rites of passage, we come to Last Boat Leaving. Elvis Costello wrote this one, under his given name of Declan McManus, for a movie called The Courier. The film tells the story of a man who discovers that the courier company he works for is a cover for a big-time drug dealer. After Costello finished the song, the film makers changed the ending of the movie, and the song no longer worked. So a shorter instrumental version was used in the film, and the full version heard here was released on Costello's next album.
I assume that the original version of the movie had the hero going to jail at the end. Last Boat Leaving is a tale of a man regretting his actions once he finds that he is to be separated from his family and sent to prison. Clearly, for him, this will be a rite of passage. The man who left will not be the same man who returns. It's not necessary to see the film to appreciate this song, and I have never seen it. The song speaks for itself.
John Wesley Harding: William Glenn
William Glenn is another song of crime and punishment. Glenn is a sea captain who has committed a murder on land for the love of another man's wife. When he and his crew set out to sea, they are beset by a deadly storm. Once the crew learns of Glenn's crime, they cast him overboard. Immediately, the storm ceases, and the crew is saved. Glenn's journey takes him to the point where he can admit his guilt, and save his crew if not himself.
The song lightly touches on an old Celtic belief. Death, the ultimate rite of passage, is often depicted in the old tales as a journey over water. The spirits of warriors who fell in battle would be collected and taken to the sacred island of Tir na Nog. In many of the oldest songs of the British Isles, one finds death and the ocean side by side.
Sting: The Wild Wild Sea
The Wild Wild Sea, it seems to me, is a tale of a haunted dream. The black sails suggest death, and the way the character appears in the song suggests that the father is a ghost. Indeed, the song comes from Sting's album The Soul Cages, which he wrote while dealing with the deaths of his parents. Just as William Glenn presents the journey toward death as a voyage through a stormy sea, so is the journey through the mourning process. I have several friends, and I can also include myself in this, who recently lost a loved one. May this song help us on our journey as well.
So there are many different kinds of rites of passage, and there are many different kinds of songs of the sea to describe them. Likewise, the six of swords embodies all of these different meanings. I see no reason to look for more.
Posted by Darius at 3:35 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Elvis Costello, Hem, John Wesley Harding, Music, Richard Thompson, Sting, Tarot
Thursday, January 21, 2010
For a Song: Talk to Me of Mendocino
Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Talk to Me of Mendocino
I had another song picked out for this feature this week. But then I got the news that Kate McGarrigle had died. There is no need for me to post a full-length tribute here; my friend and fellow Star Maker Boyhowdy has done an excellent job of that here. So instead, I would like to tell you a story.
I started Oliver di Place out of the belief that there is an amazing amount of great music that not enough people are getting to hear. And I have discovered that there is even more than I thought. I would say that this belief started to take hold of me in my high school years. I had a best friend, and neither of us had as much time or money as we would have liked. So, as we began to form our own musical tastes, we shared the job of building our music collections. So his collection had the Beatles, while mine had the Rolling Stones. He had Stephen Sondheim, while I had Joni Mitchell. And he got us started on Kate and Anna McGarrigle. I heard their first two albums this way, but I never owned them. I was floored by what I heard. This was my first encounter with the influence of French-Canadian folk music; it would be quite some time before I would hear this folk genre in its pure form. But it informed the McGarrigle's sound. Here also were two wonderful singers who blended beautifully.
You can guess what happened next. After high school, my friend and I drifted apart. The music of the McGarrigles went with him. But I remembered it, and tried to keep an ear out for their work. Over the years, I would hear a song hear or a song there, and it was always as good as I remembered. Throughout what I heard of their career, the quality never wavered. But there were always other artists vying for my attention. So it comes down to this: Kate McGarrigle deserves to be honored here, but, to this day, I don't own any of their albums. I have them on a distressingly long list of artists whose work I should have and don't.
For this post, then, I have chosen the song Talk to Me of Mendocino. It comes from their first album, and is one of the first examples of Kate's songwriting I ever heard.
Posted by Darius at 2:08 AM 2 comments Links to this post
Labels: For a Song, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Music
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Rebecca Loebe - Mystery Prize
I found Rebecca Loebe almost by accident. I feel very lucky.
Rebecca Loebe has a singing voice that reminds me of two other singers, Maria Muldaur and Jane Siberry. Muldaur could be cloyingly sweet, while Siberry has a high girlish voice that forces her to work hard to be taken seriously. Loebe has the sweetness of both, but without either of those handicaps. And Loebe shares with Siberry an amazing dynamic range. Loebe can belt out a song, or sing at an almost whisper, but either way, she gets her point across.
On Mystery Prize, Loebe plays acoustic guitar, and her band includes stand-up bass, percussion, pedal steel, and one musician who can add tenor guitar, harmonica, trumpet, or mandolin. The bass player also adds second guitar and keyboards. Then add guest musicians who contribute accordion, backing vocals, a horn section and a trio of strings. Here you have a recipe either for a sonic mess, or a rich musical pallet. In painting, you would either get an ugly brown blob or Starry Night. This one is closer to Starry Night. Loebe knows just what to do with each musical color; she knows which part of her canvas needs which musical color. But more important, Loebe knows when to leave things out. This is a rare musical gift, requiring confidence and the ability to trust ones instincts. So, yes, there are places where almost everybody is playing, and it's a big exciting sound. But there are also places where almost everybody drops out, and Loebe sings softly. These are some of the most powerful moments on the album.
Loebe is also a gifted lyricist. Here are eleven songs on the most used subject in all of songdom: love. But Loebe avoids the many cliches available to her, and looks at love from angles that feel new. Mystery Prize, the song, finds a woman in a comfortable relationship who is drawn to a new man. Her in That Dress finds a woman who feels that the qualities of her personality are not enough to compete with the physical attractiveness of a rival. Triangles are something of a theme here, also turning up in Married Man and hinted at in Trenches, Dear. Each time, the subject is treated in a different way. There also one-on-one scenarios. Marguerita has the feel of an old country song praising one woman to the skies; my model for this kind of song would be Amanda. The gender of Loebe's narrator here is unclear to me, but it is also unimportant.
But her perhaps the most remarkable piece of storytelling here come in two songs that complement each other. First comes Redneck Karaoke Bar. The narrator meets a man and goes wild for him. The song has a joyous feel, and this seems to be the one time on the album when love brings complete happiness. But the song leads directly into Land & Sea, with no break. Now the narrator wakes up the next morning in a strange house and possibly a hangover. By the light of day she can not remember how she got here, and she has cause to regret it. To me, the two songs need to be together to tell the full story, and it's very powerful.
Loebe can write in a wide range of musical styles, but she never loses focus. She has the musicians with her to pull it off. And I can't imagine how any of the songs could be done any other way. This is my first new release of the year, and the bar has been set high for all who follow. I have only one criticism; this album is only 37 minutes long. I wouldn't have wanted any drop-off in quality, but I was definitely left wanting more.
Rebecca Loebe: Marguerita
Rebecca Loebe: Her in That Dress
Posted by Darius at 3:12 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Album Review, Music, New Release, Rebecca Loebe
Friday, January 15, 2010
Stories From the Back of the Drawer
I have a ritual I perform every week. The new theme is announced for Star Maker Machine, and I go scrambling through my CD collection for usable song. Every week, some albums don't make the cut, and some never do. These are good albums, but they just don't have the song I need that week. Or, I find what I need sooner, and these albums never see the light of day that week. These albums get shunted to "the back of the drawer", so to speak. But many weeks, these albums say, "please post from me."
The other thing is that I don't get to listen to these albums much. I know I like them, but after a while I for get why. So this week, I chose five of these albums, and here they are. I did some research, to remind myself of why I got them. And it turns out that these albums have some great stories that go with them.
Carrie Newcomer: My Father's Only Son
This is the simplest of the stories. Carrie Newcomer is still going strong, and she's fairly well known on the folk circuit. Her music, I gather, is mostly acoustic, and she particularly wins praise for her songwriting.
But in 1996, Newcomer was on the Philo label. Philo was, (is?), an imprint of Rounder, and well known folk label. And I hesitate to generalize based on two albums, (the other comes later in this post), but, on that evidence, it appears that Philo was trying to crack the pop market with folk-rock releases. So the album My Father's Only Son may not be the best representation of Newcomer's music. But the title track is another matter. Things quiet down here, and Newcomer's songwriting shines through. One of two daughters, the narrator here takes the role of the son her father never had, and describes their days together fishing. Eventually, the peace on the fishing pond is broken by an event that unmistakably establishes this "son" as female. The song is beautiful and tender.
disappear fear: Fix My Life
The other Philo band was disappear fear. That's not a misprint; the band always wrote their name in lower-case letters. disappear fear was a duo of Sonia Rutstein and Cindy Frank, plus their backing musicians. They were clearly modeled after Indigo Girls, who gave their blessing by appearing on three songs on this album. Sonia Rutstein did all of the songwriting, and arranged all of the covers. In time, Sonia Rutstein dropped her last name, and she now records as Sonia. Cindy Frank is still providing background vocals, but they are no longer billed as a band.
Sonia has certainly expanded her musical horizons. For her most recent album, she composed songs in Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and provided musical backdrops to match. She has also become a painter, and did the artwork for this same album.
Kate Wolf: Secrets Aside
And now we come to Kate Wolf. I heard of a renowned folk singer who died young. I heard from people I trusted that I would love her music. So I kept my eye out, and about ten years or so ago, I found the album Daisy Petals on My Head. Now maybe you are familiar with Kate Wolf's career, and you know how this ends. But I didn't. I grabbed the album, and, just as my friends had said, I loved it. Wolf showed a talent for mixing up musical styles without sounding aimless. The album hangs together nicely, but has a rich variety of sounds.
But there is a punch line. As I said, I researched this post so I could speak knowledgeably about the artists. I looked up the renowned folk singer Kate Wolf who died young. Yes I had that right. But on her website was a note, saying that the album Daisy Petals on My Head was by a different Kate Wolf. So fifteen years after its release, and at least ten after I got it, I just found out that this is the wrong Kate Wolf! But I still really like the album. So I tried to find out more about this Kate Wolf, and came up empty. Did she change her name, at least for recording purposes, after this album? Was the outcry from fans of the "real" Kate Wolf to much for her? I have no idea. So, if anyone does know, please tell us about it in the comments. Thanks.
The New St George: All the Tea in India
The New St George put out a wonderful album called High Tea. I remember reading about them in Dirty Linen. They were a half-American half-English band. They played the style of British folk-rock pioneered by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. And the came out of the Washington DC folk scene, and stood on the doorstep of wider fame. And then, I never heard of them again.
So what happened? It's practically a cliche that someone at the major label champions a band, and then leaves the company before he can promote them. There was that. But there was also incredible bad luck. People looked for the album and couldn't find it, because it was filed under High Tea, not The New St George. That was caused by a printing error on the spine of the CD cover, and my copy has it. The band was going to get a major boost from a two page spread in a major catalog, but when it appeared it featured a picture of Ian and Sylvia. You can't make this stuff up. Finally, it got to be too much, and the band broke up. Supposedly, they recorded most of a second album, but it never saw the light of day.
But High Tea stands as a document of a very talented band. All the Tea in India tells of the British occupation of India from the Indian point of view, and it is a wonderfully heartfelt song.
Girls From Mars: Stompin' at the Savoy
Finally, here is Girls From Mars. I know exactly how this one happened. My wife and I went into a Borders one Friday night, and Girls From Mars were playing in the cafe. We loved what we heard, and bought the CD as soon as they went on break. We also bought another CD that they were selling, by a band called Beats Walkin'. That one was wonderful Western swing. And as far as I can tell, these were the only albums either group ever released.
No, this wasn't some great cosmic conspiracy, (see above). From what I can tell, they only ever meant to release one album each, and both groups are still active. The two groups have several members in common, and I believe the albums were done to promote swing dance and western dance workshops in the Philadelphia area. These workshops have since found their way to Augusta, so I guess it worked. Meanwhile, I am quite happy to have the albums for the sheer pleasure of listening to them.
Posted by Darius at 3:31 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Labels: Carrie Newcomer, disappear fear, Girls From Mars, Kate Wolf, Music, The New St George
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
For a Song: Woman in Chains
Tears for Fears: Woman in Chains
Like so many people, I loved Tears for Fears' song Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and the album it came from, Songs Form the Big Chair. So in 1989, when the follow up album The Seeds of Love came out, I grabbed it. The band lost many of their fans with this album. Tears for Fears did not even try to repeat themselves. Instead, they expanded their sound, embracing psychedelic music. The songs were longer, the sound richer and more textured, and the lyrics more ambiguous. I loved it. And I was knocked out by the inclusion of a female singer I had never heard of before, Oleta Adams.
But, when I go back to much of the music from that time, I wonder what I was thinking. The 80s production tricks jump out at me, and I realize that there was not much substance there. So, when I thought of doing Woman in Chains this week, those were my concerns.
I needn't have worried. Woman in Chains sounds every bit as good to me now as it did then. I was surprised to discover that the drummer on this track is Phil Collins. Bass player Pino Palladino was one of my favorites in the 80s, and I am reminded of why. He had a way of making the bass sing by playing these wonderful fluid lines. So Tears for Fears went from basically being a guitar and synth duo to getting the sound of a full band. The synth became more fully integrated into the overall sound. And Adams' vocals still sound great to me.
So what became of Oleta Adams? I remember at the time wishing that she would do a solo album, but keep this amazing sound. That album was rumored, but didn't show up for a long time. What was finally released from her saddened me. It was cookie-cutter R&B. What had made her special had been bleached out. So, does anyone know what happened to her career after that? Did she ever release an album that capitalized on that early promise? If you know, please leave a comment.
Posted by Darius at 2:34 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: For a Song, Music, Oleta Adams, Tears for Fears
Monday, January 11, 2010
Red Molly - Love and Other Tragedies
Question in two parts: what classic country artist originally recorded Beaumont Rest Stop? And which classic blues artist first recorded Honey on My Grave? Stumped? That's because it's a trick question. These two songs from Red Molly's album Love and Other Tragedies are originals, but they sound immediately familiar. They have a classic quality to them. It is not quite true that they don't write them like that any more, but it is notable when it happens.
Love and Other Tragedies has five originals, and they have this quality. There are two traditional songs. And the remaining six covers are all treated as classic material, even if the songs are by contemporary songwriters.
Red Molly is a trio. Abbie Gardner sings in a bluesy soprano voice; her main instrument is the dobro, but she also plays guitar at times. Laurie MacAllister also sings soprano, but with more of a country quality; her main instrument is the banjo, but she also plays guitar. Carolann Solebello sings in a warm, folkish alto, and plays mostly guitar, but also some bass and mandolin on one song. They bring in bass, mandolin, fiddle, and electric guitar as needed. So the sound is mostly acoustic, and the instruments might lead you to expect bluegrass, but that is only part of what happens here. Country is a strong influence, and Abbie Gardner brings a strong blues element into the mix. There is also one song, Sentimental Gentleman From Georgia, that has an Andrews Sisters feel to it. And Southern gospel completes the mix. One amazing thing about this album is the fact that Red Molly holds all of this together, by putting their own stamp on all of it.
The last song on the album is a good place to start appreciating how they manage it. The song is May I Suggest, by Susan Werner. Here the song is performed a cappella. In the course of three and a half minutes, Red Molly switches up the arrangement several times to make the song interesting to listen to. This can sound overly busy, but here the shifting harmonies serve the song, and also demonstrate that these are three women who know how best to use their vocal blend. In the same way, they show throughout the album that they know how to use their instrumental versatility to create the best arrangement for each song.
The lyrics of both the originals and the covers here are mostly sentimental musings and devotional proclamations, sometimes in the same song. This sort of thing requires that the performance put it over; otherwise it can sound alternately strident and mawkish. The singing and the playing must convince the listener that these feelings are real. Red Molly passes this test with flying colors. In particular, Wayfaring Stranger is a marvel. The song here stretches to almost six minutes, but never feels that long. Red Molly's treatment is haunting and sincere.
Then there are those originals I mentioned at the beginning. Beaumont Rest Stop tells the tale of a daughter who left home some time ago, and is now coming back. I can imagine a full Nashville production on this one that would just destroy it. But here, I found myself having chills the first time I listened to it. That's because Red Molly gives the song just what it needs, and because they believe in it. Likewise, Honey on My Grave is a song that could easily be overdone. Abbie Gardner asks someone to put honey on her grave after she is gone, with the thought that this will help her get to heaven. Her performance is bluesy, but not overdone. Her faith comes through, but she does not beat anyone up with it. And her bandmates match her perfectly in feel. That is what gives these songs and others here such a classic feel. I would also like to mention the song Summertime. This one is Carolann Solebello's only original here and her only lead vocal. Solebello gives us a sweetly nostalgic look at a Kansas childhood from the point of view of a woman now living in New York City. She is perhaps the best person in the band to put this particular sentiment over, and she does so beautifully.
So I am thrilled to be presenting Red Molly to you my readers. Their next album is due in the spring, and with a little luck, I will be able to share that as well.
Red Molly: Beaumont Rest Stop
Red Molly: Honey on My Grave
Posted by Darius at 3:15 AM 5 comments Links to this post
Labels: Album Review, Music, Red Molly
Friday, January 8, 2010
Year Two
Over on Star Maker Machine this week, we're celebrating the arrival of the new year by posting songs with 10 or the word ten in the title. Let me hasten to add my best wishes to all for the new year. So I started the week rifling through my collection, and a funny thing happened: I kept finding songs with the word two in the title instead. Then it occurred to me that this marks the beginning of my second year of Oliver di Place, the way I wanted it. Now you may know that this blog actually went up in December of 2008, so what gives? You see, I started with every intention of posting album reviews regularly. But who is going to send albums for review to something that doesn't exist? So I started the blog to have something to show, and went to the reviews as soon as I could. I was very lucky. I had enough material to begin the reviews in only a month's time. So, for me, Oliver di Place as I meant it to be started a year ago. And I would like to thank again the artists and labels who took a chance on me back then, and made it all possible.
The number two occupies a special place in popular song. Often, it denotes a couple. Probably every songwriter who ever lived has written at least one love song. So there may well be more songs for two than any other number. But, of course, I am more interested in unusual two songs.
Bonnie Raitt: Two Lights in the Nighttime
Speaking of two, Bonnie Raitt is one of my two favorite slide guitar players. Two Lights in the Nighttime shows off this aspect of her work beautifully. It is also one of her great bluesy vocals. It is a love song, but this one is about the joys of a mature relationship. Not only are the lovers in the song older than usual, but so is their relationship. Raitt does this kind of song better than anyone else.
Eliza Carthy: Two Tears,
Two Tears is not a love song at all. The relationship has ended, and the two tears in the title are all she allows herself to cry. But those two tears say everything. This is also a remarkable piece of music. Eliza Carthy plays fiddle here as part of a string quartet. There is also a booming drum, a melodeon, and whatever an organetta is. Put it all together and Carthy gets this sorrowful carnival sound. I've never heard anything else like it.
Dixie Chicks: Truth No. 2
Truth No. 2 is a love song, perhaps the most normal one here. It's about feeling threatened by the level of honesty that can occur as a relationship deepens. There is also a certain retrospective irony in the Dixie Chicks having done this song when they did. The song comes from their album Home. Having toed the line and made it as a mainstream country act, the Chicks decided to stretch out on this album, and go for a folkier sound. I would have loved to hear them go further in this direction. But, before that could happen, too much honesty got them in trouble. Natalie Maines made her famous remark at a performance in France, and suddenly the Dixie Chicks were no longer welcomed on country radio. Their music took a turn towards alternative rock at that point, and something good was lost. I'll keep an ear out, however; I have to think the Chicks still have some great music left to make.
Los Lobos: Two Janes
And then there is Two Janes. This certainly is no love song. Perhaps the two Janes here actually the same person, and then this would be a song about a split personality. Or maybe this is a veiled reference to child abuse. I would love to hear other suggestions in the comments. In any case, this is a fine piece of music from a great band. I saw Los Lobos live a few years ago. They were doing a short set at a festival. If an entire show of theirs is like that, go see them when you can. They were one of the most exciting live performers I've ever seen.
Little Feat: Two Trains
I like the way this sequence of songs works. But I must admit that I couldn't resist rhyming Two Janes and Two Trains to finish. Here is my other favorite slide guitar player, Lowell George. Once again, the song is a fine showcase for his talent. This time, the two in the title refers not to lovers but to rivals.
Posted by Darius at 3:27 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Bonnie Raitt, Dixie Chicks, Eliza Carthy, Little Feat, Los Lobos
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
For a Song: Hackensack
Fountains of Wayne: Hackensack
I grew up in a very small town in New Jersey. On snowy days, all of the kids went to The Big Hill for sledding. At some point, we would get cold, and we would go to Margaret's house. Margaret was a woman who lived at the bottom of The Big Hill, loved kids, and had an infinite supply of hot chocolate. At any given time on sledding days, there would be between ten and twenty kids warming up in the house.
By the time I was in eighth grade, Margaret had come into the school and organized a children's theater group. I had terrible stage fright, but I finally got involved in helping with the writing of an original musical. I worked with my best friend on a song for a show set in the 50's. We were all born in 1960 or later, so this is pretty laughable looking back at it. Our song was about a guy whose former girlfriend leaves him to go away with a talent scout to Hollywood, and now he only sees her on the screen. We played it for laughs.
Fountains of Wayne took a similar idea seriously, and came up with Hackensack. This is one of those perfect pop songs I occasionally rave about here. The protagonist knows that this girl is not coming back, but he wants her to know that he will be there for her if she does. Everything about the performance captures this impossible yearning perfectly. And the song clocks at exactly three minutes! Amazing.
For the record, I have lived in New Jersey all my life, but I have never been to Hackensack. Yes, it is a real place. And that was my one and only experience as a songwriter.
Posted by Darius at 2:28 AM 2 comments Links to this post
Labels: For a Song, Fountains of Wayne, Music
Monday, January 4, 2010
Gregory Alan Isakov - This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Picture a pond on a calm day. The surface is almost perfectly smooth, with the sky beautifully reflected. But you know, although you cannot see, that below the surface, the pond is teeming with life and activity. The music of Gregory Alan Isakov is like that. What you hear is the texture of the surface going through calm gradual changes. It sounds dense at times, but simple. But there are many parts going on underneath. This is mostly acoustic music, but layered, and artfully mixed. Songs start with one or two instruments and others join in in groups, but the ear hears a texture that builds, sometimes flags and rebuilds, and then subsides at the end. The effect is quietly dramatic, and serves the songs well.
The lyrics are the kind that start arguments. Isakov leaves a lot of room for the listener's interpretation, and two people may not hear the same thing at all. But Isakov makes you care enough that the argument is worth having. What I hear is a collection of tales of love and heartbreak. Isakov sings these songs with quiet intensity. His voice is a low tenor with just the hint of a catch. Sometimes, he alters his voice with electronic effects; that is a technique that can easily turn me off, but here it is done tastefully.
The album opens with Dandelion Wine. The narrator has mowed lawns for gas money so he can go see his love. That's the literal idea of the song, but it seems to me that there is also a metaphorical meaning; Isakov is inviting us to join him on a trip through the varieties of love. Sometimes, this is expressed not by a "relationship song", but simply through a portrait of a woman. Evelyn presents a woman who pumps gas on the graveyard shift, and tells of the people she encounters. The next song, Virginia May, presents a woman as an object of inspiration. But more often, the songs here are snapshots of the state of a relationship. In Words, a couple are separated by distance, and the narrator is letting her know how much he misses her. Big Black Car is more ambiguous, but here the relationship appears to have ended, and the narrator relates his fond memories of how it felt when they were together.
In expressing all of this, Isakov completely avoids cliches. His metaphors are completely new to me, and very affective. One big inspiration becomes clear at the end of the album. The last track, and the only cover, is One of Us Cannot Be Wrong by Leonard Cohen. Personally, I find that I tend to enjoy Cohen's songs more when other people perform them, and this is no exception.
So Gregory Alan Isakov has delivered an album of songs that is both musically and lyrically fascinating. This Empty Northern Hemisphere is one that I am sure will reward repeated listens, revealing new layers each time.
Gregory Alan Isakov: Big Black Car
Gregory Alan Isakov: Words
Posted by Darius at 2:50 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Album Review, Gregory Alan Isakov, Music


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On April 28 in New York, Sotheby's will host an auction of 3,000 bottles of wine expected to fetch up to $2 million. The star of the show: the 1947 vintage of Cheval Blanc, one of the most revered of the Bordeaux wines. A single bottle may sell for $10,000 to $15,000, while a magnum could go for $50,000.
Wine collectors will be watching. Although fine wine prices have retreated from their peak in the fall of 2011, long-term performance has been impressive. The Liv-ex Fine Wine Investables index, which tracks around 200 wines from 24 top Bordeaux chateaux, has climbed from under 25 in 1989 to about 300 in 2012.
While few people may trade in this rarified market, many high-net-worth families and individuals possess significant wine collections. ACE's research on passionate investing among wealthy households found that one third said they were serious collectors, and another third said they were wine hobbyists or enthusiasts. In addition, 75% said they considered the investment diversification value of their collections an important factor in their purchases.
But unlike a bond or stock portfolio, a fine wine collection is subject to much more than market risk. Wine can be dropped, frozen, overheated, soaked, stolen, forged, and mistreated in many other ways.
To help their clients with collections guard against these physical risks, wealth advisors should recommend the following three steps:
- Keep an inventory and track values. You can't properly insure a collection if you don't know what's in it and how much it's worth. As the Liv-Ex data show, wine purchased many years ago may have appreciated greatly in value. Values should be updated at least every few years.
- Insure your collection with a valuables policy, a.k.a. scheduling. Very few homeowners policies cover the most common causes of damage to wine collections. Those that do may still have limits that won't fully protect a highly valuable collection. A valuables policy, however, allows you to insure your wine for its full value against all perils, and with no deductible.
As an additional benefit, valuables policies geared to high-net-worth clients usually offer market value coverage, which means that covered losses will be settled at the scheduled amount or market value up to 150% of the scheduled amount, whichever is higher. This coverage protects the collector against short-term price increases.
Superior policies also provide the option to cover the wine collection on a blanket basis. Blanket coverage allows you to declare an overall value for the collection instead of having to list the value of each bottle separately. For collectors with hundreds of bottles or more, blanket coverage can make the insurance process much easier. Many of ACE's clients choose blanket coverage for most of their collection, while scheduling a few exceptionally valuable bottles on a single item basis.
- Take steps to prevent loss. Even if a collection is adequately insured, most collectors would rather avoid damage than collect on a claim. Safety measures include:
- Keep the temperature between 55 and 60 degrees F. Fluctuations outside that range can accelerate the aging process. If the temperature is maintained with a heating and cooling system, make sure the system has a backup power supply. For some large collectors, the installation of a redundant or backup temperature and humidity control system may be a wise investment.
- If the wine is kept in a space vulnerable to flooding due to sewer and drain backup, make sure an adequately sized sump pump with a backup power supply is in operation.
- Store bottles on their sides to keep the cork wet and reduce the risk of oxygen intrusion.
- Keep wine away from a constant light source, which may give off heat and damage the wine.
- Choose wine racks made of unfinished wood, and avoid woods like cedar that can impart an odor that affects quality.
- Ensure that wine racks can withstand natural disasters such as an earthquake or hurricane, if the region is prone to such risks.
- When putting collections in transit, hire shippers that specialize in valuable works such as wine. Trucks or vans should be temperature and humidity controlled, and fitted with air ride systems that reduce the risk of damage from shocks, vibration and sudden stops.
Who knows? If a wealth advisor helps prevent a significant loss, the client might suggest sharing a bottle.


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Events Calendar
2019 Courage Bowl to Benefit Camp Good Days and Special Times
St. John Fisher College hosts the College at Brockport during the annual Courage Bowl.
Date: October 5, 2019 - October 5, 2019
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: Growney Stadium
Hosted by the Athletics Department
The game, which has become one of Division III's most anticipated contests, directly benefits Camp Good Days, a not-for-profit organization that provides thousands of children with cancer the opportunity to come together in a residential camping experience to be with the only ones who could truly understand what they were going through – other children with cancer.
Since its founding by Fisher assistant coach Gary Mervis, Camp Good Days has impacted more than 45,000 campers from 22 states and 29 countries. With a small group of paid employees, Camp Good Days is a volunteer-based organization. To avoid placing any additional financial burden on the families served, all of the programs are offered free of charge for the participants.


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Traveller's Tales aims to break free of Lego tradition
i'm oddly excited for this game, i always wanted a gta type lego game. I just hope their is enough customization to make it feel like a living breathing lego world.
Rayman legends , Monster Hunter Ultimate , Lego city , Aliens colonial marines.
*mr burns voice* eeeeeeexcelent.
"We've got a call from someone at the Red Cafe saying there's a clown on the rooftop," she tells Chase. "It could be one of our robbers"
"Either that," Chase replies with deadpan concern, "or I'm about to ruin some kid's birthday party."
lol. This game sounds great.
"...there's no co-op for example..."
Shoot. That's what I was most looking forward to. I don't know if I'll get this now.


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Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It's free!
Friday April 12, 2013 11:37 am
iPhone 5 now available at T-Mobile
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds
This morning, T-Mobile finally started selling the iPhone 5, the first iPhone available from the company since the Apple smartphone debuted almost six years ago. Reports of modest lines at various T-Mobile locations across the country have been coming in, which is a good sign for T-Mobile, which rarely sees lines for new devices. Coupled with the its new Uncarrier plans, customers are able to pick up a new T-Mobile iPhone 5 for $99 up front. Switchers are able to trade in a used iPhone 4 or 4S to get the iPhone 5 for free up front, with a $120 credit being applied to the monthly bill as well.
Are you going to go with T-Mobile as your iPhone carrier of choice?
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It's always a treat to find a clay pipe with relief decoration and even more so if it tells a story.The shape of the pipe and its distinctive forward pointing spur, dates it to 1740-1800 smack bang in Georgian London. The initials of the pipe maker A and B straddle the spur.
A knobbly kneed actor in full flow appears on the right hand of the bowl 'D Vernon' arching above him.
On the left another kneels.
Adorning the inside bowl six figures sit in a decorated theatre box - are those hats?
Vines and fruit decorate the front.
I'd love to step back in time to Georgian London. It sounds a riot, with boisterous fayres, an explosion of theatre and music halls. Playwrights would quickly pen plays to satirise or celebrate events of the day. Actors and singers were celebrities. Artists would capture the most acclaimed performances in etchings, Staffordshire figurines and evidently in clay pipes. Strange to think there was a time when theatre was part of popular culture.
The only Vernon I can track down in this period is Joseph Vernon a famous tenor and stalwort of Drury Lane, here playing in the Beggars opera which took London by storm when it was performed in 1728 and revived throughout the 18th century.This doesn't quite square with the 'D' above, but let's assume it's him.
Prime minister Robert Walpole's concern about the rise of satirical theater resulted in the licensing act of 1737, which restricted the production of plays to two patent theatres. Each had to be vetted by the Lord Chamberlain. Non patent theatres were forced to stage drama interspersed with music, melodramas, ballard operas and burlesque, none of which came under the auspices of the act.
This was also the era of London's Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which sat on the south bank of the Thames. This side of London was slow to develop and for centuries boasted a string of establishments offering various entertainments from bear and bull bating pits and theatre at the Rose and the Globe.
|Bear and bull bating along the Thames C 1560 from Agas's Map (Wiki)
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens began as a popular ale house in 1661 and experienced its hayday between 1730 - 1770.
Londoners were ferried across the Thames for the ultimate evening of entertainment. The Gardens were the place to be seen and were frequented by royalty, aristocracy and anyone else who could afford the shilling entry fee.
The wealthy could purchase metal season tickets, the engraving would change each season.
|Vauxhall Gardens Season ticket (British Museum)
|Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens Samuel Wale C 1751
|Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (Oxford University Press)
The entrepreneurial owner Jonathan Tyler commissioned what was then modern art including a statue of Handle the musical genius residing in London until he died in 1759. On Hogarth's suggestion Tyler displayed contemporary paintings in the gardens, Hogarth's support earned him a lifelong golden pass to the gardens. Tyler joined forces with Francis Hayman, friends and students from St Martin's Lane Academy and commissioned paintings of leisure, Shakespeare's plays and victory in the seven years war which ended in 1763.
|See Saw Francis Hayman 1742 one of the paintings from the supper boxes at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (the Tate)
|Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens C 1779


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At long last, the PlayStation 4 is arriving Sort of. It's been announced, but the announcement left fans with a lot of questions, like "How much will it cost?" and "What on earth does it actually look like?"
As sketchy as the details are, you can already hear the sound of gamers saving up bucks to buy the new machine when it comes out, supposedly later this year. We're also hearing some concerns resulting from unanswered questions and the news that the new console won't be natively compatible with all those PlayStation 3 games you already sunk a ton of money into.
OK, so what do we know about this mystery machine? We know the hardware specs are a big upgrade over the last generation, including an eight-core X86 AMD Jaguar CPU and 1.84-teraflop AMD Radeon graphics engine. We know the DualShock 4 controller has a little touch pad. We're also expected some form of streaming gaming function.
Sometimes teasing a new product only whets consumer appetite. Sometimes it's just a turn-off. How are you feeling about the PlayStation 4? Maybe you're disappointed by the issue of accessing your PS3 games. Maybe you're willing to wait and see what the next Microsoft Xbox has to offer. Maybe you just want to see what it actually looks like. (Why are they hiding it? Does it have weird hairs growing in unsightly places or are they just waiting for E3?).
Based on the vague information from the announcement, do you want a PlayStation 4? Vote in our poll and talk it up in the comments.


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SPI Supplies Brand TEM YAG Viewing Screen, 30-34 mm Diameter x 0.15 mm Thick, Carbon Coated
- Carbon Coated
- Disc Diameter: 30-34 mm
- Thickness: 0.15 mm
Single Crystal YAG, doped with trivalent cerium can be used as a transparent screen in TEMs and various other electron optical devices. Although for the TEM application, its efficiency is slightly lower than for powder screens, but it has very high resolution, far better in fact than what would be possible with a powder and in addition, it is almost indestructable by the beam itself (at least in comparision to a powder screen).
We are also able to offer these single crystal scintillator materials in different forms and shapes, suitable for use in wide range of other applications including BSE (back scattered electron) detectors. Double detectors have been reported for both secondary electron (SE) and BSE imaging, while being connected to the same PMT.
Carbon coating:
- for electron energies > 3 keV
- lower light output compared to Al coating
- higher contrast compared to Al coating
Special note about EBSP (Electron Back Scatter Diffraction Pattern) applications:
Single crystal YAG has been used successfully in this application. However, not all users who have tried YAG in this application seem to be universally happy. Some have found what they believe to be lower contrast for the YAG screen relative to what they would have expected had they been using a normal powder P-20 coated screen. The explanation proffered as to the reason for the less-than-hoped for performance is that there are more internal reflections in the case of the YAG. So since this question has come up from time to time, we wanted to share this experience with our customers. We are looking for anyone who might share with us, and for a possible posting here on the website, of anyone else's experiences, good or bad, when using the SPI or any other brand of YAG scintillator discs for the EBSP application.


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Cardinals To Win Series
Firstly, Rangers fans should be delighted by the headline – my 2011 predictions have been execrable (according to this blog, the series opens in Atlanta tomorrow night with the Red Sox as the visitors – or maybe it's in Boston; maybe I got the All-Star Game wrong too).
Worse still I have a great affection for Ron Washington, his third base coach Dave Anderson, and his Game One starter C.J. Wilson. Beyond that, there is no love lost between me and Cardinals' manager Tony LaRussa. The purist in me is offended that the regular season is so irrelevant that what it proved was the fourth best team in the National League is my pick to win the Series. And I happen to hate team catchphrases and don't particularly care about whether the Cardinals' flights are happy or morose.
Nevertheless, here are a few points that made this forecast unwelcome but necessary. You know that dreadful Cardinals' starting rotation? Its post-season ERA is a nauseating 5.43 – and the Rangers are at 5.58. That anemic St. Louis line-up with the pitcher and the relief pitchers and a few popgun bats off the bench all hitting? It's batting .288, getting on base at a .345 rate, slugging .448, for an OPS of .793. The awe-inspiring Texas line-up so deep with the DH that Boomstick Himself hitting way down there in the seventh? .259/.330/.434/.764. Having thus far played one more game than the Rangers, the Cardinals have outscored them 62 to 55.
Speaking of Boomstick, what if that tweak in Game 6 of the ALCS, that seeming oblique injury, merely hinders Nelson Cruz in the Series? What happens to a slugger who can't twist his body fully without searing pain? Cruz has been fragile enough that to begin with his health is always in doubt. Worse still, there are probabilities in play here, and if your performance in the Division Series was 1-for-15 with no homers and no RBI, and then your performance in the Championship Series was 8-for-22 with six homers and 13 RBI, your performance in the World Series is much likelier to look like the first set of numbers than the second.
The DH "thing"? The Cardinals led the majors in hitting on the road, finishing third in road home runs behind only the Yankees and Red Sox. The Cardinals, thought to be comparatively weak sisters at the plate, basically led the National League in every offensive category except home runs, and struck out the fewest times in the NL. To be fair, Texas struck out even less – 48 times less – but without pitchers hitting the stat is slightly deceptive for comparison purposes. Cardinals' pitchers struck out 111 times as batters during 2011, meaning their eight position players (and pinch-hitters and DHs) only struck out 867 times in total.
Then there is the little matter of the efficacy of starting three lefthanders against the Cardinals (in point of fact, if all three games scheduled for Arlington are played, St. Louis would face the three southpaws in a row). I appreciate the fact that the Cardinals did better against righties than any other NL team (and overall sit behind only Texas throughout the sport), and I'm aware that the key to beating the Cards this year has been to make Lance Berkman bat from the right side, where he is useful but not a force. But it still strikes me as inherently dangerous to offer Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, a blossoming David Freese, and Allen Craig the opportunity to face the likes of Wilson, Holland, and Harrison. To me the play is to bag one of the lesser two and opt for Alexi Ogando, rather than waiting for Holland to blow up again and then going and getting Ogando. Against lefties in the post-season the Cardinals battered Cliff Lee, were bewildered by Randy Wolf, and held their own in a loss to Cole Hamels.
The bullpens have both been superb – the Cardinals' particularly – and the fact that neither team had to go to a seventh game in the LCS means both sets of relievers are likely to be fresh. If there is one intangible in Texas's favor in this series, it's that they've faced Octavio Dotel and Marc Rzepczynski this year, with some success. In fact they hung a loss Rzepczynski as recently as July 23, even though the Eyechart Man was effective against David Murphy (0-2) and Mitch Moreland (0-1) in four appearances. As images of Rzepczynski nearly getting Pujols killed Saturday night dance in the heads of Cardinals fans, it is trivially noteworthy to remember that his loss in Arlington nearly three months ago resulted from his own throwing error on a Moreland sacrifice.
So if you want to get an exotic wager in on the weirdest thing that could happen in the World Series, it would be Rzepczynski blowing an inning, or a lead, or a game, by picking up a bunt and running face first into Pujols for a solid E-1 and possible concussion.
Of course, just picking the Cardinals is an exotic enough wager.
13 Comments
I'm a little astonished that you did an entire column on the World Series and the match ups, without even mentioning the Cards' biggest plus: Chris Carpenter. Two starts, a likely 2 wins…that means the Rangers, who will be battling the stigma of not having home field, will also have to win 4 of the remaining 5…
"Stigma" implies blame or shame of some sort. It's not the Rangers' fault that they don't have home field in the Series. That has everything to do with Bud Selig's desire to juice up the All-Star Game with putting home field advantage on the line.
A better word would be "burden" or "disadvantage."
I hope you're right Keith. I predict Rangers in 5 but I want the Cardinals to win. The Rangers aren't hamstrung this year by Cruz (bad pun) like last year and they won't have to make the decision of having Vlad's bat (good– sometimes) or Vlad's defense (bad– at AT&T anyway). Their bullpen is much better this year. Ogando and Adams in particular. But the only thing I got right this year was saying in March the Yankees should trade for Doug Fister. Cubs over the Red Sox in the World Series would have been a good prediction– if it had been for 2014. Everybody had the Red Sox and/or Phillies. But Cubs?!
Just keep telling yourself: The state that foisted Dubya and Rick Perry upon the world doesn't DESERVE a World Series championship! And sheesh, get over the LaRussa/Pujols thing with Glenn Beck already. That nutjob is off Fox Snooze, so why bother? Besides, I'm firmly in the Whitey Herzog camp when it comes to discussing the best Cardinal manager of the last 50 years, but nobody can deny the outstanding job Tony's done this season.
Go Cards!
Thanks Keith, for dooming the Cardinals with your prediction. Why couldn't you just pick the Rangers like everybody else? I don't like Tony LaRussa either and I am a diehard Cardinal fan, but that is no reason to hate on the team. What does your good friend Bob Costas think of your Cardinal hate?
While we're bashing catch phrases, could we at least all agree that we don't have to suffer through that annoying "beast mode" nonsense? And come on, Keith, the regular season is what it is, teams shouldn't get bonus points in the post season because of games they won in April and May. It comes down to who performs when it really counts. And Keith, I think that LaRussa is kind of the Ying to your Yang – you both are baseball nerds and aren't afraid to let someone know that you disagree with them. Go Redbirds!
One more for Stan!
By all logic, the Rangers should win. But then, the Rangers' President knows what it's like to play for team who logic dictates should lose the World Series.
A former big league ball player and sportscaster I know once told me LaRussa is the biggest Horse's a__ in the game. Still, can't say I am a big fan of the Strangers either, guess I'll just root for McCarver to lose his voice.
I think either way, you win.
Keith, did you hear that? That was the sound of my heart breaking…Dammit Man! All this time I thought you were the perfect man (politics and sports-my passion). As a Texas girl, it pains me to see my favorite politico & sports junkie, go against my beloved Rangers-EVEN if, you're probably right. Damn you man! You're breaking my heart. XOXOXO – Annie
What was LaRussa thinking when he yanked Motte and brought in Arthur Rhodes? He might as well have gone with Arthur's brother, Lonesome.
It breaks my heart that Keith has little love for the Cards. LaRussa and Pujols speaking at Glen Beck's Warmacht rally broke my heart as well. Both side are not equally broken, as I admire your politics a lot more than I love baseball.
All in all, the TEAM of the Cardinals did an amazing job overcoming their managment and winning the series. You have to ask yourself: What does it mean when the team's morale turning point is a meeting called, not by management, but by the starting pitcher and the ace hitter?