Question: Our new CEO dictates orders without getting input from experienced staff and intimidates people by yelling at them in meetings. He was brought in because sales are dropping and the company is losing money. When his ideas fail, the CEO blames the managers, claiming they don?t know how to run their departments. But the real problem is that he is cleaning house through deep job cuts, so we don?t have enough employees to meet his demands. Most people are planning to leave as soon as they can find another job. In the meantime, can you help me figure out how to work with this guy?? Battered Manager
Answer: As the appointed savior of a troubled business, your new CEO is undoubtedly under tremendous pressure to make quick changes and demonstrate success.? Fear of failure may increase his impatience and fuel his temper.? While that doesn't excuse abusive behavior, it may help you understand his state of mind.
In the CEO?s eyes, anyone who defends past practices will seem oppositional and resistant to change.? To avoid that label, try to understand his priorities and adopt them as your own. When he proposes a new approach, respond with interest and support.? If you spot a potential problem, offer suggestions, not criticism. ?
Unfortunately, your CEO may have a tough time turning this company around unless he adopts a more motivational leadership style.? His aggressive, domineering behavior is typical of immature executives who have not learned to use power wisely.
Do you have to deal with top executives?? If so, here are some suggestions: How to Work with Executives.
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Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., center, walks on stage with his wife Janna, left, and son Sam, right, during a campaign stop Thursday evening, Oct. 25, 2012 at the Crutchfield Corporation in Albemarle County, Va. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Andrew Shurtleff)
Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., center, walks on stage with his wife Janna, left, and son Sam, right, during a campaign stop Thursday evening, Oct. 25, 2012 at the Crutchfield Corporation in Albemarle County, Va. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Andrew Shurtleff)
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife Janna arrive at Huntsville International Airport to attend a fund raising event in Huntsville, Ala Friday morning Oct. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/The Huntsville Times, Bob Gathany)
Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., rallied a crowd of about 1,500 during a campaign stop Thursday evening, Oct. 25, 2012 at the Crutchfield Corporation in Albemarle County, Va. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Andrew Shurtleff)
Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., rallied a crowd of about 1,500 during a campaign stop Thursday evening, Oct. 25, 2012 at the Crutchfield Corporation in Albemarle County, Va. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Andrew Shurtleff)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? Rising political stars and personal friends, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker worked quietly behind the scenes to coordinate public policy, avoid each other's limelight and steer clear of political minefields that would haunt their campaigns, according to more than 1,000 pages of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press. But there was at least one pointed snub between them, too.
Ryan and Walker, both in their early 40s, have made Wisconsin a focus of the political universe. In June, Walker became the first governor to defeat a high-profile recall election. Ryan, the congressman from Janesville, Wis., ascended the national political stage in August when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney picked him as his running mate. In the presidential race Wisconsin is a battleground state, one of a handful that will determine who moves in ? or stays in ? the White House.
The emails reviewed by the AP offered an unusual, behind-the-scenes glimpse of the interpersonal relationship between Ryan and Walker. Although as a congressman Ryan's emails are exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, messages sent by Ryan or his aides to Walker or the governor's staff are subject to Wisconsin's open records law. The week after Ryan was tapped as Romney's vice presidential candidate, the AP requested all such emails since Walker was elected in November 2010. It received 1,037 pages of them late Friday.
The day after Walker won his recall election, Ryan tried to call Walker to congratulate him. Was there a better phone number?
"He has his cell, but not able to get through often," wrote Ryan's scheduler, Sarah Peer. In another message, she wrote: "Yeah, they call each other frequently. I think Paul just wants to speak with him right away, which might not be a possibly (sic) at this time."
The emails showed that aides to Ryan and Walker, both Republicans, coordinated closely at times on political issues on behalf of their bosses. As Wisconsin's health services secretary, Dennis Smith, prepared to testify during a congressional hearing in January 2011 about the costs to states under President Barack Obama's health care law, Walker sent a preview of Smith's remarks to Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and an outspoken opponent of the health care law.
"Good stuff," wrote Conor Sweeney, the committee's communications director. "Any chance you could hit the impact on Wisconsin families and Wisconsin's budget from Medicaid expansions?"
Walker's then-communications director, Chris Schrimpf, said he would forward the request to Smith's chief of staff to revise the testimony.
The emails also show how Ryan and Walker sought to steer clear of sensitive political traps, and how Ryan was sensitive as early as September 2011 about offering any praise to government projects funded with money under Obama's economic stimulus law. In August, the AP and other news organizations noted that Ryan ? a vocal opponent of the stimulus law ? sought to steer money under the program to companies in his home state, which Ryan first awkwardly denied then acknowledged to be true.
In the emails, Walker's director of federal relations, Wendy Riemann, sent a message to Ryan's aide, Kevin Seifert, to describe a new grant from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department awarded for a local water project. Riemann asked whether Ryan wanted to be quoted in a press release praising the money being spent in Wisconsin.
"Not to create more work for you, but do you have any idea where the money for this grant came from? Was it stimulus/the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?" Seifert replied. "Our concern is that, if it's stimulus funds, we won't want to highlight (and would think you guys wouldn't, either) .... We generally don't do press on things we actively oppose."
Riemann responded that she would check the source of the money, which turned out not to be stimulus funding. "Feel free to proceed without us on this one," Seifert wrote.
Sometimes, the rising political stars inadvertently overshadowed each other. Greta Van Susteren in July 2011 cancelled a television appearance by Walker on her Fox News cable program to instead interview Ryan about the debt ceiling.
"Did you mess with my trip scheduling for tomorrow?" Riemann asked Seifert. She included a smiley in her email, suggesting she wasn't genuinely upset.
"If I did I'm really sorry and had no idea that's what they were doing," Seifert replied. "They didn't mention Gov. Walker was on the schedule ... Had they even mentioned that you guys had something set, I wouldn't have done that ... You know me, that's not my style."
Sometimes, the powerful politicians handled mundane requests, too. Seifert emailed Walker's staff about a "random request from Laura Ingraham," noting that the conservative radio talk show host had contacted him and needed help hiring a new executive producer. But he made clear what he thought of Ingraham's request: "We've got a million other more pressing priorities," he wrote.
The emails included at least one embarrassing snub by Ryan. Riemann, from the governor's office, emailed the congressman's office to ask for help coordinating a tour of the U.S. Capitol for Walker's wife, Tonette, who expected to travel to Washington. Such tours are known as dome tours. Ryan's staff said he was too busy to accommodate the request.
"Sorry, Paul doesn't do dome tours," Ryan's scheduler wrote back. "He never has, so sorry we can't be of assistance there."
___
Associated Press writers Ted Bridis, Jack Gillum and Andrew Miga in Washington, and Roger Schneider in Milwaukee, contributed to this report.
We had an impromptu gathering the other night. Just a few friends, it wasn?t planned out, everyone brought a dish, I made a few, and we were ready to sit back and ENJOY.
I had a small round of brie cheese in the fridge, so I whipped up one of my favorite appetizers for this time of year. It?s so easy and a hit every time.
Oh, and I get asked this often, for those who are afraid to cook with brie cheese or have had a bad experience with it: Yes, you leave the rind on! The secret is to bake it long enough, so the rind softens up!
Back to impromptu, so many people aren?t comfortable with this style of entertaining, I realize more and more. I always think it has to do with our personalities, and an element of ?control.? I actually think this is a hot topic, one that many of us revisit over and over in our minds. We know we should, but we just can?t ? Image, image, image.
I think after we get over our initial fear of thinking everything has to look perfect (taste, visual, ambience, decor), we free ourselves up.
Impromtu brings an element of JOY to entertaining that I think more of us need to experience!
Here are my thoughts on why ?impromptu? works:
1. Impromptu is ?Prompted by the occasion rather than being planned in advance.?
2. It doesn?t allow us to ?over-think? the situation.
3. It forces us to make quick decisions, and then stick with them.
4. It allows for creativity (use what you have, right then).
5. Imperfection is easier to deal with, because the event is an unexpected blessing more than a production.
6. It brings an element of surprise, as you delegate and surprise dishes show up.
7. It gives an overall feeling of GRATITUDE when the party is over, realizing it?s really not about YOU, but more about THEM. Not about the FOOD, more about FRIENDSHIP.
I want to share an email I received just this week from a reader. I hope it encourages you to ?let go? and ?invite in? this holiday season ahead!
Hi Sandy, I just wanted to let you know that after reading your book awhile back and following your blog for awhile as well, I finally let go of all my perfectionist tendencies and had an ?impromptu? dinner party. I usually take on the big holiday entertaining for my family, but I rarely have friends over because my house isn?t exactly as I would like it to be. Well I finally realized that while I was waiting for my house to be perfect I was missing out on a lot of opportunities to connect with friends and family. I was finally able to reciprocate with a dinner tonight with a friend who often entertains our family. It wasn?t perfect and it was a little stressful, but her gratitude made it all worthwhile. Thank-you for giving me the push I needed to be brave and enjoy the blessing of being a hostess! ? RE Reader
And for now, the easy recipe.
I added FRESH cranberries and the pecans to the stone I baked the brie on.
Baked and served. It was sweet, the cranberries ?popped? and added a tartness, and the nuts made it savory.
The best of all flavors in one easy appetizer.
Summary: Serve hot with sliced apples, pears, salty pita chips, or baguette rounds.
Ingredients
1/2 cup pecan halves
8 oz. Brie cheese
1/2 cup cranberry chutney or relish
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place brie round on an ovenproof serving dish (I used a small baking stone).
Slice the top of the brie round off, cutting inward to make a bowl. Remove the ?lid.?
Fill the bowl with chutney or relish. Place the lid on top, pushing down. (It?s okay if a little bit falls to the side).
Sprinkle around the outside of the brie round with fresh cranberries and pecans.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese inside the rind is melted.
Preparation time: 5 minute(s)
Cooking time: 10 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
I?d love to hear your tips, if you have any to share on ?impromptu.?
What?s your comfort level with ?impromptu? on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being you hate it, 5 being you love it?
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The takeaway is simple: harness the undoubted potential of social media, while mitigating the risks presented with its use.? This conference will provide you the tools necessary to utilize social media in a safe, risk-free manner, subsequently expanding your business and creating exciting, new opportunities.
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Posted: October 24, 2012 in Comedy Movies, Movie Reviews Tags: Bam Magera, brandon dicamillo, CKY, CKY 4 Latest And Greatest (2003) Movie Review, entertainment, Jackass, Mike Valley, rake yohn, skateboarding, stunts, Tony Hawk
CKY 4 Latest And Greatest (2003) Movie Review
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CKY 4 Latest And Greatest (2003) Movie Review Released : March 25th, 2003 Reviewed : Oct. 23rd, 2012 Genre : Comedy
Story (from IMDB) : A difference from this CKY movie compared to the other is this one is on a rather higher budget. Throughout the duration of the film, we see the usual suspects, Bam, Bran, Ryan, Raab Himself, Rake Yohn, Art Webb 1986 and the others, jumping from moving cars, out of third story parking lot windows and all the other crazy things they could come up with. There are also the normal skating sets put in for all you boarders out there!
Review :
CKY movies were ?Jackass? before Jackass was made really. It consists of the crew from Viva La Bam in their early days doing stunts. messing around , and of course it has some skateboarding shots put in it.
Now this film has a wide mix of stuff in it. You get the stunts including barrel rolls, the shopping carts, jumping off roofs and from moving car to moving car among other. The skateboard videos and a few short videos of Mike Valley being the hulk that he is and fighting. You also get some down right disgusting stuff in here. Really what might be the standout moment of this dvd is the scene where Rabb Himself leans against a restaurant window in the middle of a busy street and then proceeds to poop all over and down the window. The shock value from the people eating are priceless as is the shot of what he actually did. That along makes the dvd.
You also get a few music videos by GnarKill! where Brandon Dicamillo shows off the fact that even when messing around he is just offbeat funny and not a bad vocalist. You get the cameos from the usual people as well like CKY and Evil Jared and Jimmy Pop from Bloodhound Gang.
Even with the low budget quality from this it still shines out as being almost nonstop laughs. If you like Jackass or any of the stars from it or the spinoffs then you will enjoy this.
CINCINNATI (AP) ? Procter & Gamble said Thursday that its fiscal first quarter net income fell 7 percent, as costs related to restructuring and the stronger dollar weighed on results.
But the world's largest consumer products maker's adjusted results beat expectations on Wall Street, as it cut costs, made market share gains and commodity costs eased. The results were a much needed positive for CEO Bob McDonald, who some have criticized for not doing enough to turn around results. Shares rose 2 percent in premarket trading.
Procter & Gamble, which makes well known consumer goods including Tide detergent and Pampers diapers, said it held or grew market share in businesses representing over 45 percent of its sales during the quarter, up from 30 percent in the fourth quarter. That jumped to nearly 60 percent in the U.S., up from 15 percent in the fourth quarter. Its market share is still slightly down globally, but the Cincinnati company expects global market share gains by the second half of the year.
P&G admitted to missteps in pricing and in balancing growth in emerging markets, which account for about 30 percent of its sales, amid an uncertain global economy and lackluster market share growth overall. As growth in developed markets slowed, consumer product makers have looked abroad for new customers.
It is a tricky balancing act for all consumer product makers, particularly as the European economy remains under pressure and growth slows in China. On Wednesday Kimberly Clark said it will exit its European diaper business. And on Thursday Colgate said it will cut 6 percent of its workforce by the end of 2016.
In May P&G announced a plan to focus on its 40 top businesses, 20 biggest new products and 10 most profitable emerging markets, as it is undergoes a cost-cutting plan aimed at saving $10 billion by fiscal 2016.
"We're confident that this strategy will enable P&G to generate superior levels of shareholder return in both the short and long term," CEO McDonald said.
The pressure is on since activist investor William Ackman, known for agitating for change in companies he has a stake in, has disclosed that he has a 1 percent stake in the Procter & Gamble.
In the June-to-September quarter, Procter & Gamble's net income fell to $2.81 billion, or 96 cents per share. That's down from $3.02 billion, or $1.03 per share, last year.
Excluding restructuring and European legal charges, its so-called core earnings were $1.06 per share. Analysts expected 96 cents per share.
Revenue fell 4 percent to $20.74 billion. Analysts expected $20.79 billion. The stronger dollar, which cuts into the value of overseas sales, hurt revenue by six percentage points, the company said.
For the current quarter, Procter & Gamble predicts adjusted core earnings of $1.07 to $1.13 per share with revenue ranging from down 1 percent to up 1 percent, implying revenue $21.88 billion to $22.32 billion. Analysts expect net income of $1.09 on revenue of $21.76 billion.
For the full year P&G kept its guidance for adjusted core earnings of $3.80 to $4 on flat revenue growth to up 1 percent. That implies $83.68 billion to $84.52 billion. Analysts expect net income of $3.90 per share on revenue of $84.38 billion.
Procter & Gamble shares rose $1.52, or 2.2 percent, to $69.60 in premarket trading.
When it came to taxpayer-funded breaks, Minneapolis-based discount retailer Target Corp. got a two-for-one special in the Twin Cities last year.
Brooklyn Park officials gave Target $2.5 million for its northern office campus expansion just months after Inver Grove Heights gave $1.25 million for a Target store delayed by concerns about consumer demand.
The money came out of 2010 state legislation permitting local governments to direct excess property tax dollars from tax increment financing districts to private developments. The idea was to kick-start hiring in a Minnesota construction industry that lost 50,000 jobs in the Great Recession.
From Target?s plans at opposite ends of the Twin Cities to a Pizza Ranch in Elk River and a rehab of an aircraft maintenance facility in Duluth, 35 cities and other public entities across the state funneled $35.9 million to 76 building projects before the July 1 deadline for construction starts, according to a Finance & Commerce investigation.
That ?temporary authority to stimulate construction,? some claim, helped to leverage $510.6 million-worth of construction projects.
As for construction jobs, numbers were unavailable for 44 out of 76 projects. Some cities did not keep track of the jobs at all, while others had incomplete or unverified counts, Finance & Commerce found.
Why? The state legislation did not require them to count, complete or verify.
The lack of oversight is troubling even to state Sen. James Metzen, DFL-South St. Paul, who helped to author the 2010 bill. Metzen says it is ?common sense? that job creation was the goal and that tracking it holds communities accountable.
Inver Grove Heights indirectly gave Target Corp. $1.25 million for a new store (top) that was delayed by concerns about consumer demand. (Staff photos: Bill Klotz)
?The cities should be counting. And if they?re not, we ought to say to them, ?What did you do with the money? And how many construction jobs and permanent jobs were created??? If they?re not disclosing, maybe it has to be a requirement going forward: ?Tell us what you?re doing,? ? Metzen said.
Finance & Commerce found that the legislation appears to have created 2,199 construction jobs in 14 cities and is creating or retaining at least 7,681 permanent jobs in 24.
Even a number such as 7,681 permanent jobs is misleading. Less than a third are jobs that employers are creating. Of the 5,412 retained, nearly three-fourths come from Target, which plans to move 3,900 jobs from downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park.
For the cities keeping track of jobs, each construction job cost an average of $8,213.53 in property taxes, and the cost was $3,761.17 per permanent job, according to F&C?s analysis. The total public and private investment was an average of $92,817.20 per construction job and $48,617.77 per permanent job.
Brooklyn Park gave $2.5 million for Target's northern office campus expansion. (above)
Such dollars-per-job numbers are in line with what the U.S. Economic Development Administration has described as typical in such deals, said Janna King, president of Economic Development Services in Minneapolis.
When it came to Target?s double-dipping into the program, company spokeswoman Jessica Deede responded that ?projects that involve incentives represent significant capital investment by Target and must provide a superior financial return as well as expected guest, team member and community benefits.?
Finance & Commerce?s analysis of the 76 projects also found:
Decisions about spending the money often involved local officials? particular goals or aspirations rather than a focus on creating jobs. This included appetites because $1.6 million went to Cossetta Italian Market & Pizzeria in St. Paul, $250,000 helped fund the new Pizza Luce location in Richfield, $90,000 helped bring a Pizza Ranch to Elk River, and as much as $1.545 million went to the Shoreview Retail Center, where Leeann Chin and Chipotle are tenants.
Target wasn?t the only multibillion-dollar company enjoying the largesse. Its chief competitor, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., indirectly benefited from $2.4 million going toward the redevelopment of the former Brookdale Center in Brooklyn Center, now anchored by a Wal-Mart superstore that opened in September.
For big companies, receiving the property tax dollars was part of a smorgasbord of economic development opportunities. Duluth, for example, used the 2010 law to steer $350,000 to aircraft maintenance company AAR Corp. as part of a $7.5 million city and state grants and loans package.
Statewide, the program was unfocused in how money was spent. Property tax cash helped build gas stations in Sauk Rapids and St. Peter, spruce up downtown businesses in Breckenridge and Stillwater, and tear down blighted homes in West St. Paul. Money also went to manufacturers, apartment developers and health care providers.
The largest award ? $3.8 million in grants and loans ? is making up for past mistakes in Ramsey, where the city had to pick up the pieces after the Ramsey Town Center development went bankrupt. Property tax dollars are helping to build the $28 million, 230-unit Residence at the COR luxury apartment complex in Ramsey, slated for completion next spring.
How the excess TIF program performed matters because home and business owners pay a higher share of local property tax dollars when money is diverted to building projects, according to critics of such incentives.
Governments at all levels also continue to spend tax dollars to stimulate the economy. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Legislature provided the state Department of Employment and Economic Development with $47.5 million in bonding funds for ?business development through capital project grants.?
DEED made sure to include construction and permanent jobs projections with the projects that Gov. Mark Dayton eventually picked. For example, $25 million went toward a $54 million St. Paul Saints baseball stadium that is expected to create 225 construction jobs and at least 23 permanent jobs.
In contrast, 24 of the 76 TIF money awards were simply outright grants. Another 17 were forgivable loans, but only a handful tied job creation to loan forgiveness. In most cases, finishing the building project and occupying the structure was enough to keep the money.
When it came to spending the $35.9 million in property taxes, local officials argue that flexibility was more important.
?Had the legislation mandated too many details, it would have tied our hands getting it done,? said Bill Short, clerk and treasurer in White Bear Township, which used the program to give a $466,000 grant for Tecnetics Industries? new $3 million, 30,000-square-foot headquarters and plant at 1201 N. Birch Lake Blvd.
With a lease in White Bear Lake unexpectedly expiring in the spring, Tecnetics last year was considering moving its headquarters and fewer than 50 jobs, many of which pay close to $100,000 a year, to Australia, company CEO John Madgett said.
?If that money had not been available, there was no deal,? Madgett said.
Some local officials also pointed out that the money was local property tax revenue, so it made more sense for accountability to be at the local level.
?This was really our money,? said Regina Harris, Bloomington?s Housing and Redevelopment Authority administrator. ?I just take the jobs bill for what it was, which was please go out there and create jobs, and they didn?t say how many.?
Bloomington used $1.05 million as part of a larger subsidy for the $40 million Genesee Apartments and Townhomes project. The complex is not affordable housing, but Harris says the recently completed project still brought more housing options to the city.
Targeted development
Stories-high mounds of dirt have been rising up from the prairie near office buildings at the Target Northern Campus at Highways 169 and 610 in Brooklyn Park. Construction workers under Ryan Cos. US have been digging down before constructing a $32.5 million, 325,000-square-foot office tower, the first of two planned at the campus.
Brooklyn Park is using TIF funds as a grant reimbursing Target for $2.5 million in construction costs for the office building project ? a move the city?s Economic Development Authority unanimously agreed to in December 2011.
Target was already familiar with this funding mechanism. Only months before, in July 2011, the Inver Grove Heights City Council voted 3-2 to indirectly provide Target with $1.25 million. The money went to the Argenta Hills retail development off Amana Trail, which includes a $15 million, 135,000-square-foot Target store that opened in July.
Some in Inver Grove Heights wondered why Target, a company with $2.93 billion in profits and $69.87 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year, needed $1.25 million for a store project. Target already had a West St. Paul SuperTarget, on South Robert Street, a 10-minute drive from the Amana Trail location.
Local resident Dian Piekarski, who spoke out against the Inver Grove Heights City Council awarding the money last year, still thinks it was a bad idea for a city of around 34,000 residents.
?I don?t need a Target five miles closer than what we already have. Why are they getting a gift?? Piekarski said. ?Local government has gotten involved in picking winners and losers.?
Piekarski suspects the 135,000-square-foot store would have been built anyway because Target had already spent millions of dollars to acquire land off Amana Trail from the developer. Much of the infrastructure including a foundation was already constructed. ?It was on Target to finish the project,? she said.
City Administrator Joe Lynch disagrees. After delaying the Inver Grove Heights store when the recession hit, Target was increasingly concentrating on its 2013 expansion into Canada, Lynch said. Without Target, the city would have had a prime development spot sitting empty for a long time.
?There was a concern they might never be back, that they would sell the property and take the loss on putting in the foundation,? Lynch said.
The $1.25 million forgivable loan went to Inver Grove Heights Investments LLC, a development entity created by Roseville-based McGough and other undisclosed investors involved with Argenta Hills.
Shoreview granted $845,000 for the new Shoreview Retail Center, and it will grant another $700,000 if the developers can land a high-end grocery store. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
?I?d say the recession changed the fundamentals of retail development. ? [The city money] was absolutely the catalyst and instrumental to this deal going forward,? said Greg Munson, vice president of development at McGough.
The store had to be built and has to stay open for five years for Inver Grove Heights Investments to keep all the money ? but there was no requirement for the Target store to produce a specific number of jobs.
?We didn?t do it that way because we knew the jobs would be transient. We asked that they create jobs,? Lynch said.
Neither Lynch nor Munson had construction job numbers available. But Lynch recalled that Target officials spoke of 200 full-time and part-time permanent jobs during the store?s grand opening. McGough is also finishing work on additional space for smaller retailers and has already built and sold 20 homes in the area.
The city expects to get an extra $104,000 in property taxes a year from the Target store.
Brooklyn Park also did not have job requirements when it came to the $2.5 million for the office building on Target?s existing six-building campus. Work is expected to start within nine months on another similarly sized office building.
The Target award was among five ? totaling $3.28 million ? that the city of Brooklyn Park made under the program.
Brooklyn Park business developer Amy Baldwin said the city wanted to avoid placing an undue burden on contractors when it came to counting construction jobs. ?We wanted to keep it as simple as possible,? Baldwin said.
Jason Aarsvold, Brooklyn Park?s community development director, notes that Target was due property tax abatements under a previous economic development agreement. By giving Target the money upfront for the office building, instead of abatements, Brooklyn Park will get more property tax revenue in coming years, he argues.
Target has said it plans to transfer 3,900 Target technology workers from downtown Minneapolis to the campus, quadrupling Target?s workforce in Brooklyn Park to 5,200 by 2014. And Target?s recent real estate moves downtown suggest it may be adding more workers there, too.
With that many jobs flowing in, it is little wonder that online video shows no one speaking out when the $2.5 million was brought up during November and December 2011 EDA and City Council meetings in Brooklyn Park.
St. Paul beneficiaries of TIF financing include Cosetta's on West Seventh Street. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
Actual need for spending is unclear
Whether it was a huge company such as Target or a humble Pizza Ranch franchisee in Elk River receiving the money, local officials continually made the argument that the building projects would not have happened otherwise ? or at least would have not happened to the extent that they did.
But those types of statements draw skeptical responses from critics of economic development incentives.
?It sure looks like jobs were created with that subsidy. But what?s the counterevidence? What would have happened if you hadn?t given those subsidies?? said Art Rolnick, a former Minneapolis Federal Reserve research director who is a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota?s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Rolnick thinks tax cuts and improved government services are better ways to spur economic growth.
Some cities did not want to risk losing projects.
Duluth?s Economic Development Authority, for example, owns a 180,000-square-foot-plus former Northwest Airlines maintenance facility, which has been empty for nearly 10 years, at the city?s airport.
When Wood Dale, Ill.-based aircraft maintenance outsourcer AAR Corp. said earlier this year that it needed $5 million in grants to move into 152,000 square feet of the building, local and state officials instead cobbled together a package of $7.5 million of grants, loans and lease discounts.
?This deal was vital to Duluth. ? That building sitting empty there sends the wrong message for our community when people fly in there,? said Brian Hanson, president and CEO of regional economic development group Apex.
Running up to the July 1 deadline, the city used the 2010 jobs program to provide $350,000 in property tax revenue up front to pay for $500,000-worth of building renovations for AAR. Local officials anticipate 20 construction jobs in coming months from the work and expect AAR to bring 192 jobs to the city.
Both Hanson and Chris Eng, Duluth?s business development director, don?t think AAR will accept the full $7.5 million package, but the money is hanging out there for now.
Economic development gone wild?
Unleashing the local property tax dollars appears to have had a free-for-all effect that Rolnick says is similar to earmarks ? the congressional practice of steering federal dollars toward local pet projects that has been limited in recent years.
?You would think you would want fiscal discipline. This is earmarks on the local level. This is bad public policy,? Rolnick said.
Phil Krinkie, a former Republican state legislator who is president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, compared the situation to a lab experiment involving rats and cheese.
?The Legislature sets up the maze with all the criteria to find the money, and enterprising people, private-sector along with public-sector employees, will endeavor to get to the money,? Krinkie said.
Mark Phillips, former commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, counters that rules sometimes have to be loosened during times of economic distress, even if some mistakes result.
?I think cities got some projects lined up that were slow to develop in a tough economy,? said Phillips, whose departure as DEED commissioner was announced Oct. 18.
Brian Hanson, president and CEO of Duluth-area economic development group Apex, summed it up: ?What this represents is a hell of a lot of activity that wouldn?t have happened.?
St. Paul beneficiaries of TIF financing also include the Schmidt Brewery. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
A hunger for development
A project that might seem foolish at first glance may have made sense at the local level.
Take the Pizza Ranch at 19141 Freeport St. NW in Elk River. Sauk Rapids-based Alliance Building Corp. renovated a former Movie Gallery video-rental store for $1.87 million.
The city economic development director, Annie Deckert, says it?s hard for a restaurant to start in Elk River because water and sewer access charges can run in the tens of thousands of dollars.
?It?s something our community has wanted forever,? Deckert said of restaurants.
A $90,000 loan with a 2 percent interest rate made the difference for the local Pizza Ranch franchisee. Elk River wanted something done with the old video store site because it detracted from the nearby Elk Park Center at 19112-19216 Freeport St. NW, which includes a Cub Foods, OfficeMax and?Furniture Mart among?its tenants.
The Pizza Ranch is also providing four full-time jobs paying $25,000 to $70,000 a year, and 70 part-time jobs paying $7 to $11 per hour, Deckert said.
Elk River was not alone when it came to funneling money toward shopping and dining options. Nearly 40 percent of the $35.9 million in TIF spent statewide appears to have gone to retail, food and hospitality projects.
Shoreview officials were more Asian-Latin fusion in their tastes when they decided to grant $845,000 for Minnetonka-based Stonehenge USA?s $7.2 million, 24,034-square-foot Shoreview Retail Center, which includes a Leeann Chin and Chipotle among its tenants. Stonehenge could get an additional $700,000 in a grant if it lands a high-end grocery retailer.
Shoreview assistant city manager Tom Simonson argues that it was about community ?values and desires.? The desire was for ?more dining and retail services options? (egg rolls and burritos, for example), which then added to the tax base and provided some jobs.
Shoreview is indirectly giving up to $214,000 to the $17.9 billion-asset TCF Financial, which is building a $2 million, 3,000-square-foot bank branch nearby. Simonson says the money ? which helped pay for the owner of an old Sinclair gas station at the site to demolish it for redevelopment ? was worth it because site redevelopment made way for road improvements and a sign next to the branch that promotes the Shoreview Retail Center.
Jobs were not the focus in Shoreview. The city did not ask developers for construction or permanent jobs numbers.
Stories behind the numbers
The largest single tax dollars award under the program involved Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins? $28 million, 230-unit Residence at the COR project in Ramsey. The luxury apartment complex is among a number of projects occurring in the more than 400-acre COR area.
The city used $3.8 million in TIF property taxes as part of an overall $7 million grant and loan package to support the project, said Darren Lazan, development manager for the COR project.
?It absolutely wouldn?t have happened without that money,? Lazan said. ?The banks were just not comfortable with Ramsey.?
Bank executives had good reason to be uncomfortable. Back in 2009, three of their peers, former officers of the now-defunct Lino Lakes-based Community National Bank, reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in a conspiracy to commit bank fraud case. The alleged fraud involved the collapse of what was then called the Ramsey Town Center development.
In court documents, the U.S. Attorney?s Office in Minnesota said the development came unraveled amid ?fraud, debt and mismanagement.?
The city ended up having to buy 150 acres in the area. Two of the former executives ? William Sandison and his son Ross ? served months-long prison terms, according to a Federal Bureau of Prisons website search.
It was only after Ramsey was able to grant and lend a total of $7 million that Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group was comfortable financing the Residence at the COR, Lazan said.
?It was about building confidence in the banking community, and this did it,? Lazan said.
In Sauk Rapids, officials argue that a gas station they helped to build through the program is proving to be a catalyst for further development.
A nearly $150,000 business subsidy helped pay for a 4,450-square-foot SuperAmerica that opened in spring 2012 at the southeast intersection of U.S. Highway 10 and Golden Spike Road. But local officials also argue that there is more than meets the eye.
The money helped pay for Landwehr Construction to make $800,000-worth in site grading, sewer and water installation and other improvements. The improvements were needed for the $1.48 million gas station project handled by Welsh Construction on behalf of VL Development, an entity related to Cold Spring-based Alpha Development.
The SuperAmerica and improvements at the VL site proved ?instrumental? in the state awarding Benton County a $2.9 million Transportation Economic Development grant, which is going toward $4.9 million of interchange improvements, said Sauk Rapids City Administrator Ross Olson. The hope is that more retailers will express interest in the site.
?Was the utilization of these dollars focused? Absolutely they were,? Olson said. ?Every community has different needs.?
Sauk Rapids officials, however, did not have jobs numbers for the projects the city funded, and did not require specific numbers in agreements. The subsidy agreement with VL Development, for example, had the developer agreeing to create ?jobs? at the site paying at least $12.50, but did not specify a number.
Unclear results after millions spent
Many other Minnesota cities did not keep track, which raises the prospect that millions of dollars were spent with unclear results.
Projects that counted construction jobs ? what the state program was designed to create ? accounted for only $18.1 million, or 50 percent, of the total TIF dollars awarded, Finance & Commerce found.
The situation with permanent jobs was better: Projects that counted permanent jobs accounted for $28.9 million, or 81 percent, of total TIF dollars.
?I agree that there should be more information-reporting requirements,? said Isanti Mayor George Wimmer, whose city spent $916,500 on $6.7 million-worth of projects, including a 33-unit hotel and a 20-unit senior memory care center.
Isanti actually collected jobs numbers: The money helped produced 367 construction jobs and 24 to 34 permanent jobs.
?We require it so we are able to effectively communicate with our citizens and taxpayers what benefits are being provided,? Wimmer said.
?If you cannot show the benefits of a particular program, why would anyone support [it]??
MORE ARTICLES ON THIS INVESTIGATION:
Counting construction jobs proves difficult
How the TIF program worked, and how we reported it
With loans to developers, all was usually forgiven
Local officials have mixed views about jobs program
CHART:?Tracking construction and permanent jobs
CHART:?Following the money
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 7:30 am and is filed under Economic Development, The Great Property Tax Free-For-All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Mobile devices might be the biggest driver of Apple's business these days, but the Mac isn't a sales???or design???slouch. The electronics giant Tuesday announced a update to its popular iMac desktop computer. And like all of Apple's updates, this year's model is thinner than ever.
Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, took a few minutes to introduce the new model.
"The number-one desktop model in the U.S.," said Schiller. "Many think of it as the flagship of the Mac product line."
The new iMac looks very similar to the previous generation of iMacs from?the front, with a large silver "chin" beneath the screen. But from the side, the upgrade is apparent, with an edge that's just 5 millimeters thin. Do bear in mind that the middle of the back aluminum plate does bulge out a bit to give more space for its internal components, leaving the new iMac with 40 percent less internal volume than its predecessor, weighing in eight pounds lighter.
The new iMac will be available in two sizes, a 27-inch model with a 2,560 by 1,440 pixel display, and a 21.5-inch model with a 1,920 by 1,080 pixel display, available starting at $1,800 and $1,300, respectively.
Because there's not as much width on the side, the optical disc drive???for DVDs???is gone. (A USB SuperDrive is available as an option for those that still need to use DVDs.) The SD card reader has moved to the back.
Apple also put its marketing touch on the iMac's new hard drive, a hybrid flash and traditional hard drive technologies, which they've dubbed the "Fusion Drive." The Fusion Drive is formatted in such a way to keep frequently used software on the faster-performing flash drive, keeping data like photos or infrequently used software on the slower, traditional hard drive.
"It isn't amazing how something new makes the previous generation instantly look old?" asked Schiller.?
Buffalo milk mozzarella or buffaloed consumers? New test can provide the answerPublic release date: 24-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042 American Chemical Society
Those tiny balls of boutique mozzarella cheese with the sticker-shock price tag beckoning from the dairy case are they the real deal, mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, crafted from the milk of water buffaloes? Or are they really cheap fakes made from cow's milk? A new method described in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry promises to provide the answer for mozzarella and other dairy products.
Barbara van Asch and colleagues explain that premium dairy products, such as imported specialty cheeses labeled with a designation of origin, are most vulnerable to adulteration. Unscrupulous manufacturers may substitute a less costly ingredient for an expensive one or skimp on high-quality ingredients. Previous studies show that the problem is widespread, with bogus dairy products surfacing in Italy, Spain, China, India and other countries. Current methods of detecting fakes can't simultaneously detect cow, goat, sheep and buffalo milks the ones most likely to be involved in adulteration and have other drawbacks. The scientists thus set out to develop a better test.
They describe development and successful laboratory testing of such a test on 96 dairy products commercially available in Europe, including cheeses, milks, yogurts and butters. About 12 percent of the products did not contain ingredients listed on the labels. For example, one product label indicated that it was made from 100 percent sheep milk. The test, however, showed that it also contained ingredients from cows and goats.
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The authors acknowledge funding from Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (FCT).
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Buffalo milk mozzarella or buffaloed consumers? New test can provide the answerPublic release date: 24-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042 American Chemical Society
Those tiny balls of boutique mozzarella cheese with the sticker-shock price tag beckoning from the dairy case are they the real deal, mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, crafted from the milk of water buffaloes? Or are they really cheap fakes made from cow's milk? A new method described in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry promises to provide the answer for mozzarella and other dairy products.
Barbara van Asch and colleagues explain that premium dairy products, such as imported specialty cheeses labeled with a designation of origin, are most vulnerable to adulteration. Unscrupulous manufacturers may substitute a less costly ingredient for an expensive one or skimp on high-quality ingredients. Previous studies show that the problem is widespread, with bogus dairy products surfacing in Italy, Spain, China, India and other countries. Current methods of detecting fakes can't simultaneously detect cow, goat, sheep and buffalo milks the ones most likely to be involved in adulteration and have other drawbacks. The scientists thus set out to develop a better test.
They describe development and successful laboratory testing of such a test on 96 dairy products commercially available in Europe, including cheeses, milks, yogurts and butters. About 12 percent of the products did not contain ingredients listed on the labels. For example, one product label indicated that it was made from 100 percent sheep milk. The test, however, showed that it also contained ingredients from cows and goats.
###
The authors acknowledge funding from Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (FCT).
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
We have found our way to San Jose, to see what Apple meant when it said, "We've got a little more to show you."?Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage and presided over an event that launched?a super slim?new iMac, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, a Mac Mini ... and?two new iPads.
The fourth-generation iPad is an update to this spring's third-generation?iPad with a?Retina display, featuring a faster chip, the A6X ???delivering faster performance. "I can't see the competition in the?rear view mirror," says senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, who came on stage to show off all the new hardware.
There's improved Wi-Fi and, of course, a Lightning connector. The fourth-generation iPad (don't call it an iPad 4!) will cost the same amount as the current one. (No word on whether or not the third-generation iPad will be offered at discount, mind you.) This the first time, at least in recent memory, that Apple updated a core product twice in the same year.
But the bigger deal during this event was the smaller iPad, the iPad Mini. It's 0.68 lbs, and as thin as a pencil (7.2 millimeters).
Apple seems to want to explain the iPad Mini's 7.9-inch screen, in part because it's not a "Retina" display.?It's a?1024 x 768 pixel resolution display, the same resolution as the iPad 2, so all apps look good and work. How does that compare to the 7-inch?Android tablets, particularly Google's Nexus 7, though? With a diagonal screen of 7.9 inches, that translates to a huge total surface area advantage:?21.9 square inches for the competitor, versus 29.6 square inches on the iPad Mini.
The iPad Mini has an Apple A5 chip,?FaceTime HD front-facing camera, a?5MP iSight camera on the?back, LTE cellular?wireless capabilities (in some models), speedy 802.11?A/B/G/N Wi-Fi, and, of course, a Lightning connector.
It's got 10 hours of battery life, just like fourth-generation iPad.
The iPad Mini will start shipping Nov. 2 (for the Wi-Fi only version), and will cost $329 and up. The LTE-enabled model will ship two weeks later.?(See the above pic for all the prices.) You can pre-order the iPad Mini starting on?Friday, along with the fourth-generation iPad.
As far as the rest of Apple's announcements on Tuesday go, the first news of the event was a new version of iBooks, with continuous reading, language support for Japanese and Chinese,?and pages?synchronized across iCloud, so that?? as with?Amazon's?Whispersync???your place is saved no matter what device you're on. You can download the new iBooks today.
After iBooks, Schiller started his stage revue?by revealing a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display: It's got 4 million pixels, four times the pixels of its predecessor.?To put that into perspective, consider that the average HDTV has a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. This means that the new MacBook Pro has almost double the pixels of an HDTV.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is .75 inches thick?and weighs?3.5 lbs.???much more slender than the older model. There's no optical disc drive, of course.
The base configuration, which you can order today, costs $1699, and comes with a Core i5 dual-core processor, 256GB of memory and 8GB of RAM.?You can custom order it?with?a storage array of up to 768GB of flash memory, and an Intel?Ivy?Bridge Core i7 processor.
Schiller also introduced a new?Mac Mini with a neat removable bottom. A base configuration with a 2.5GHz dual-core i5 processor starts at $599, and a server model is available for $999.
The star of the Mac show was the next-generation iMac, however. It's incredibly thin.
Apple got it so much thinner by laminating the display to the glass. It comes in two sizes: A 27-inch model with a?2560?x?1440 screen and a?21.5-inch version with a?1920 x 1080 screen. Schiller says there's 75 percent less reflection than on?the previous generation, and from what I can tell after using a MacBook Pro with Retina display, that sounds about right.
This new iMac is 8 pounds lighter than its predecessor. Still, it's got all the jacks and speakers and cameras you'd expect.
The key under-the-hood feature is the "Fusion Drive,"?a hybrid drive that has 128GB of Flash memory, integrated with a 1 or 3TB magnetic?drive. The hybrid drive is coded into OS?X, so that your file management is speedy, delivering "nearly the performance of flash," says Schiller.
The base configuration of the new iMac is $1299, and you get a?2.7GHz processor, 8GB of RAM and regular?1TB drive. There's no optical drive on any configurations, just an add-on accessory.?
As usual,?Cook started off the Apple event?by recapping sales of all Apple products.?There was a video of the iPhone 5 sales launch, naming it the fastest-selling phone in history. Next was a recap of iPod sales ? over 3 million of the new ones sold already.?
On to software, where Cook mentioned that iMessages have been sent 300 million times, at a rate of 28,000 per second. 35 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple App Store, and there are 275,000 titles in there that are just for iPad. Developers have made $6.5 billion from selling wares in the App Store.?
You can check out Apple's video recap of Tuesday's event, but pay attention to the system requirements.
Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.
I bought a WSO 2 days ago, which is a sales funnel for promoting affiliate programs.
I like this type of products after learning from Alex. But one affiliate program it promote has shut down doors to new comers. So I think the sales funnel has become worthless and want to request a refund.
In fact,the sales funnel includes a good squeeze page, and over ten auto responder messages, and with a free e-book as a gift to new subscribers. It should be a good thing for me, and I want to install it on my websites and auto responder account. I can find other similar affiliate programs to promote in the auto responder series. The list is the most important.
Posted in Internet Business Journal |
Leave a reply Oct 06 How To Make More Money Online (from DeanHolland.com) Posted on October 6, 2012 by dengkane According to Alexs recommendation, I visited DeanHoland.com, which is Deans blog. I found one great post, and want to share it here. The blog link is: http://deanholland.com/how-to-make-more-money-online/.
Ive had 100?s of students achieving great results for themselves following my methods, and in fact this has taught me a lot too over the last 8 12 weeks. That brings me onto the topic of todays post, Im going to share something that applies to all marketers. Whether youre just getting started trying to make your first $1 or youre making 6 figures online, this is highly relevant to all and WILL help you make money online ( or more of it!
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Found At: (best cellulite remedies and treatments) http://www.geeyo.com/blog/view/6715/anti-cellulite-remedy-reviews-6-solutions-to-select-from
The immune system is comprised of multiple cell types each capable of specialized functions to protect the body from invading pathogens and promote tissue repair after injury. One cell type, known as monocytes, circulates throughout the organism in the blood and enters tissues to actively phagocytose (eat!) foreign cells and assist in tissue healing. While monocytes can freely enter most bodily tissues, the healthy, normal brain is different as it is sequestered from circulating blood by a tight network of cells known as the blood brain barrier. Thus, the brain must maintain a highly specialized, resident immune cell, known as microglia, to remove harmful invaders and respond to tissue damage.
In certain situations, such as during disease, monocytes can enter the brain and also contribute to tissue repair or disease progression. However, the potential for monocytes to actively replace old or injured microglia is under considerable debate. To address this, Nicholas Varvel, Stefan Grathwohl and colleagues from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) T?bingen and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research in T?bingen used a transgenic mouse model in which almost all brain microglia cells (>95%) can be removed within two weeks. This was done by introducing a so-called suicide gene into microglia cells and administering a pharmaceutical agent that leads to acute death of the cells. Surprisingly, after the ablation of the microglia, the brain was rapidly repopulated by blood-circulating monocytes. The monocytes appeared similar, but not identical to resident microglia. The newly populated monocytes, evenly dispersed throughout the brain, responded to acute neuronal injury and other stimuli ? all activities normally assumed by microglia. Most interestingly, the monocytes were still present in the brain six months - nearly a quarter of the life of a laboratory mouse - after initial colonization.
These studies now published in PNAS provide evidence that blood-circulating monocytes can replace brain resident microglia and take over the essential immune surveillance of the brain. Furthermore, the findings highlight a strong homeostatic mechanism to maintain a resident immune cell within the brain. The observation that the monocytes took up long-term residence in the brain raises the possibility that these cells can be utilized to deliver therapeutic agents into the diseased brain or replace microglia when they become dysfunctional. Can monocytes be exploited to combat the consequences of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases? The scientists and their colleagues in the research groups headed by Mathias Jucker are now following exactly this research avenue.
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"Microglial repopulation model reveals a robust homeostatic process for replacing CNS myeloid cells", Nicholas H. Varvel, Stefan A. Grathwohl, Frank Baumann, Christian Liebig, Andrea Bosch, Bianca Brawek, Dietmar R. Thald, Israel F. Charo, Frank L. Heppnerf, Adriano Aguzzi, Olga Garaschuk, Richard M. Ransohoff, and Mathias Jucker, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210150109
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html
Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison and Rupert Friend as Peter Quinn in Homeland
Photo by Kent Smith/Showtime.
In Slate?s Homeland TV Club, June Thomas will IM each week with a different partner?policy experts, intelligence researchers, critics, and even Slate commenters. This week she chats with Slate copy editor Miriam Krule.
June Thomas: Miriam, we've got to begin with the I-didn't-see-that-coming final scene. Homeland has a long history of great cliffhangers, but seeing Brody being led away in handcuffs and with a hood on his head leaves me with no idea of what's coming next?and we're only one-third of the way into the season. What do you think of this plot twist?
Miriam Krule: I definitely had that reaction at first, too. I was getting excited for some Wire-style surveillance, but then I remembered that on The Wire they were trying to catch the guy; here they already had him. There wasn?t much about Brody that we viewers didn?t know, so how much surveillance-related drama could there possibly be? In Season 1, it was all about what we didn?t know?Season 2 has to deal with Brody?s true nature so there?s no real suspense in watching him do his thing for an extended period of time. The one thing I will miss about the surveillance room is the strange Carrie-Quinn dynamic.
Thomas: Yes, I feel the same way. It's been a while since we met a new character, so I was looking forward to the Carrie-Quinn sparring?and to hanging out with Virgil and Max. It almost seemed like Carrie was going to investigate Quinn the way she investigated Brody. And I suppose that's not a crazy thought?after all, this season she seems to be really going with her instincts, whether that involves ignoring everyone's instructions not to return to Abbas' apartment in Beirut or blowing up the surveillance by going up to Brody's room.
Why do you think she did it? She said she "saw ... in his eyes" that he was onto her. Do you believe that? I almost thought she was mad at him for bringing up her ECT.
Krule: I thought the scene at the CIA, where she ?bumped into? Brody, was Carrie at her best?she did the most amazing, awkward encounter where she was completely in control. In their second interaction, he had all the power (he was the one that called, after all), and she was just reacting, something we?ve seen she?s not very good at. So her reaction was to try and take the power back. I don?t know what she ?saw ? in his eyes,? but once he called, I had a feeling she would find a way to crack.
Can we back up a second, though? I?m confused about Carrie?s reinstatement. Yes, she was right about Brody, but that?s not why she was kicked out of the CIA. It seems crazy to me that David Estes would a) apologize b) let her back in. Wasn?t the issue that she?s bipolar? Shouldn?t they have realized that she would do something like this?
Thomas: I didn't think she was back in the CIA, but rather that Estes was using her as a non-company asset (same as Virgil and Max) for an off-the-books investigation. It's off-campus, no one at the CIA knows about it ... but Estes was responsible for renting that lovely bit of real estate and for sending over a pile of sweet CIA surveillance equipment and Quinn to "run it."
Not to beat a dead horse with the credibility factor, but ... I didn't buy that. Something that was bound to be as big a deal as a former prisoner of war/current congressman being revealed to be an al-Qaida sleeper couldn't remain a secret. And even if my long-simmering suspicions about Estes were true, and he was sneakily sabotaging the whole thing, why would Saul Berenson be sitting around the room like a broken toy just waiting for something to happen? He goes from being the Beirut station chief to a guy hanging out at an off-the-books operation?
Krule: I was about to bring that up! What happened to Saul? Yes he?s had a lot happen to him?his wife and prot?g? both left him in different ways last season?but after going door-to-door with the Brody video (that was strange and against protocol, surely)?he seems content to just mull about in the background. The more Mandy Patinkin, the better is my philosophy. My only, slight, consolation is Dana, who?s been filling the Sally Draper-sized hole in my heart. I?m usually not a fan of the family side plots, but I?m a sucker for Dana.
Thomas: You're right that there was a ton of interesting family stuff this week, and it began in the very first scene with Kenny Estes (the youngest person in the show) in Darth Vader garb telling Saul (maybe the oldest): "I am your father. Don't make me destroy you." Cue lots of family destruction: Nick Brody moving out of the family home, Estes cheating on the agency, and Saul acting like the impatient dad watching Carrie and Quinn bickering. But we also saw a little bit of bonding between Dana?who, I agree, always brings something to the table?and Finn. They're the next generation, complete with Dana dissing the old, dumb vice president. I have to say, though, kids today have some kinky text habits--she's Sally Hemings to his Thomas Jefferson? That's up there with the uncomfortable racial politics of the surveillance team focusing on "the dark-skinned" people that Brody interacted with. It must?ve been icky for Estes?the only person of color in the room at the time?to hear that, even as he accepts that it made sense. And how strange that Roya Hammad somehow became an honorary white woman. The power of the press!
Krule: One thing we haven?t talked about that?s been bubbling up for a while is how Brody?s former Marine friends have essentially solved what the CIA couldn?t and are the only ones asking any questions. Lauder bangs on Brody?s door (in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Carrie running on the lawn in last season?s finale) and basically demands to talk to Brody/find out what really happened to Tom Walker?only to be talked down by Mike. I couldn?t shake the feeling I had during Season 1?and it?s one of my biggest frustrations with the show?that Homeland seems obsessed with having ?crazy people? be right about everything, and all the ?sane/rational? people preventing them from doing what needs to be done.
Thomas: I know you're a big fan of Hatufim, the Israeli show that Homeland is based on. How would you compare the two shows?
Krule: Yes! I started watching Hatufim when Hulu began streaming it (as Prisoners of War) this summer, when I was anxiously awaiting Season 2 of Homeland. Although the American show is loosely based on the Israeli one, and many of the plot points overlap, where Homeland is full of suspense, Hatufim is full of emotion, for lack of a better word, making them very different shows. This makes sense: After all, Israelis are just celebrating the one-year anniversary of Gilad Shalit?s release, and they have an appetite for storylines about POWs coming home. The U.S. audience needs the added elements of suspense and intrigue. For example, the Carrie Mathison character is not only a minor presence on Hatufim, she is told to pose as one of the POWs? girlfriends (there are two in the Israeli show). Most of the focus is on the families and the internal drama. As a result, the pace of Hatufim is slower, and it focuses more on adapting and is therefore more true to life. When I watch Homeland, I?m usually at the edge of my seat. When I watch Hatufim, I feel emotionally drained?in the best possible way. Oh, and the Israelis were POWs for 17 years, more than double Brody?s absence.
Going back to your first question about what?s going to happen next, I?m most curious to see what they tell family and friends about where Brody is. I can?t imagine they?ll make some big announcement and let the public know. Then the show really would be over. My best guess is that they will try to turn him against Abu Nazir. The Carrie-Brody dynamic has to continue in some capacity, and this seems like the best bet.
Monday: What other writers and Slate commenters thought about Episode 4.