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Then there's a scene where everyone's screams about this rabbit for awhile.The majority of the 'action' consists of Chip meandering through High School School High being awkward, usually by literally acting out such common expressions as "keep your fingers crossed," "I don't want to hear another word out of you," "go blow a goat," etc. Obviously this embarrasses poor Becky, who tells Chip that if he doesn't start picking up on cooler slang everyone will think he is "a total lame-o" and she won't get to bone Beefy McStudderboat. But fear not Beckatron, turns out that acting like you're mildly autistic is the best way to attain popularity in a suburban high school! In fact, one cute blond in particular is so fond of Chip that she blatantly achieves sexual release on-screen whenever he appears. Pretty Blonde Girl actually kind of scares me, wooing Chip with such sexy pick-up-lines as "You're cute. Is your dad as cute as you?" Oh Chip, you suave tiger you!
But all is not well! Disney rather amusingly decided to make their villains TOY TYCOONS, you know, ludicrously wealthy WASPS who make billions of dollars off of brainwashing little kids? Oh ho ho. Anyway, the comedy in Not Quite Human that doesn't come from Chip be-booping around stems from watching the two main villains -Dr. Dad's boss and his gibbering sidekick- be silly grown-ups. They like to shout a lot and call each other MISTER this and MISTER that until their elaborate hair pieces fly off, as well as calling everyone and anything TWERP, sort of like Team Rocket but with more erectile dysfunction. They're angry at Dr. Dad because he was supposed to build them a prototype for a new toy to seal a deal with a big company, but instead he made a midlifecrisis-bot and skipped town. That sounds a lot like breaking a contract to me so raddest shirtMISTER Mister and Friends probably could've just sued his ass off, but instead they decide to lurk around in vans and snap photographs of nubile high school students.
MISTER Mister's genius plan is to hijack Chip because he has super secret indestructible technology, so he can use Chip totake over the worldmake a really cool toy! Fortunately when they finally kidnap Chip after spending 20 minutes trying to break into a child's bedroom, they find him protected by a sophisticated "anti-reprogramming device." Yeah it goes without saying that every electronic device in this movie blinks a whole bunch and makes noises like a hyperventilating goldfish. Behbloopabloopabloopabloopa!
Anyway after a long scene of arhythmic swiveling at the school dance, the villains decide that shouting isn't mean enough and do weird shit involving televisions and bull dozers and some vaguely threatening meandering, but not enough to make Mommy and Daddy steal their whimpering baby away from the evil mean picture-box. The dramatic finale involves Dr. Dad and Becky in some sort of mortal peril that Chip remedies by running forward in a determined fashion. Then he inexplicably dies. Really, that's the end of the movie. Forever.
Or it would've been, if they'd only had a heart.
|Music / Sound||-5|
Something Awful is in the process of changing hands to a new owner. In the meantime we're pausing all updates and halting production on our propaganda comic partnership with Northrop Grumman.
Dear god this was an embarrassment to not only this site, but to all mankind
Yes, there are finally enough games for a new round of One Sentence Reviews
Something Awful reviews the absolute worst movies out there. We focus mostly on horror and science fiction, because all writers here on Something Awful are huge nerds.

domain: entertainment


text:
Join FREE | Login
Looking for a cottage cheese dish? Then check out this salad recipe that’s made in just 15 minutes.
Mixed Fruit and Cheese Salad
Marinated Antipasto Platter
Cheesy Spinach and Cauliflower Dip
Dipped Cream Cheese Strawberries
Strawberries and Cream Pie

domain: food


text:
The basic unit was the 2,000-man cavalry regiment consisting of three squadrons. Each 600-plus-man squadron was divided into five companies, a machine gun company, and an engineer unit. Cavalry regiments were organized into larger units--brigades or divisions—which included artillery and service support units. The chief advantage of this force was mobility over the great distances in Mongolia: small units were able to cover more than 160 km in 24 hours.
List of Mongolian Army division and other units

domain: history


| Aug 20, 2014
Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller missed all of two games and most of a third last season with a knee sprain. The Buckeyes won those contests by a combined 170-41.
Translation: Miller, only the fourth player to earn two Chicago Tribune Silver...
| Aug 20, 2014
| 4:09 PM
Ed O’Bannon is the only player in the last quarter-century to score at least 30 points and grab at least 15 rebounds in the NCAA tournament title game. His 30-and-17 performance in 1995 led UCLA past defending champion Arkansas, giving the Bruins...
| Aug 19, 2014
| 5:02 PM
Melvin Keihn knew his mother would never listen to him, not with him being thousands of miles away on a college campus in southwest Virginia, while she was on the west coast of Africa.
When he spoke to her on the phone two weeks ago, he still couldn&...
| Aug 14, 2014
| 6:35 PM
BLACKSBURG — Maybe the only obstacle standing in Virginia Tech running back Shai McKenzie’s way for playing time as a true freshman is the one he’s dealing with between his ears.
McKenzie is one of at least 10 true freshmen who have...
| Aug 14, 2014
| 1:51 PM
Mark Shuman started his Virginia Tech career as a promising offensive line recruit, but he never got the playing time expected of him, and now his playing days are over early due to injury.
Shuman, a 6-foot-7, 315-pound senior offensive tackle who was...
| Aug 11, 2014
| 3:44 PM
BLACKSBURG — Though he says there's an easily accessible list of the Atlantic Coast Conference schools inside his office desk drawer, Virginia Tech men's basketball coach Buzz Williams insists he's resisted reviewing the list and playing the "who...
| Aug 8, 2014
Among Paul White's goals as he enters his first season leading the Apprentice School's football program is to better mine Hampton Roads' abundant talent supply. Toward that end, he has assembled an impressive staff rich in local ties.
White is plenty...
| Aug 7, 2014
| 5:47 PM
With Old Dominion's announcement that a third football game against North Carolina State is finalized, school officials now work to bolster future non-conference schedules with attractive regional and national matchups.
ODU's 2015 schedule is complete...
| Aug 5, 2014
| 6:18 PM
CHARLOTTESVILLE — While there's no denying Virginia has work to do this preseason to attempt to position itself for a return to respectability on the football field, the Cavaliers' woes haven't seemed to hurt them much on the recruiting trail....
| Jul 21, 2014
| 5:10 PM
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Michael Brewer can't pass up a fishing or hunting trip, has a serious competitive streak — even in drills — and he might be Virginia Tech's next starting quarterback.
So far, that's the book on Virginia Tech's newest...
| Jul 14, 2014
| 10:41 AM
Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage last month restated the Cavaliers’ 10-year goal of winning 70 ACC and 12 national championships. At first blush, the numbers are clearly ambitious. The conference record book reveals just how ambitious....


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Sunday, 31 August 2014
Brajesh's Review : On Safari - The Tiger and the Baobab Tree
While on a week-end get-away at the Velavadar black buck sanctuary, I found this beautiful book - "On Safari. The Tiger and the Bobab Tree" by Babi Nobis in the resort library.
The size of my list of unread-but-purchased books, gives me little motivation to purchase expensive photo books. These photo-books end-up being a one-time indulgence. Hence every time I find an opportunity to lay my hands on a photo-books I try and flip through it immediately.
“On Safari” is a collection of photos by Babi during his journeys in India and Africa. My favorite section is the one on the Indian Tiger which has many amazing pictures. These are beautifully laid out and printed on a very fine paper, both increasing the impact of these great photographs.
I have attached two collages from the book (pictures taken of the book) to give you an idea of how powerful the images are.
Babi is the founder board member of the wildlife protection society of India and his love for the animals is evident in the stories and nuggets accompanying the photos.
Rating : 3.5 / 5

domain: literature


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by April Sullivan.
Put Your Heart into Everything You Do
I met Glenn Towery at the Austin VA Outpatient Clinic when he first moved to Austin. I first knew him as a Vietnam Veteran and a clock painter, but soon learned there was so much more to Glenn. He is a vibrant man with passion and a never-give-up attitude, which has served him well throughout the years.
The (Non) Gang Life
Glenn grew up in Los Angeles. He was raised in an all-black neighborhood that had some gang activity. He steered away from the gangs and spent time with friends and his younger brother Stonewall. As kids, Glenn and Stonewall would put together routines and sing and dance for any visitor that came to their house. He was struck by the show biz bug when he and Stonewall went to see the film West Side Story. He was in shock: A movie about gangs, but they had dance fights! He and Stonewall saw that movie at least 10 times and knew all the songs and some of the dance moves. When Roy, a good friend, was beaten up by a gang, it angered Glenn and he went through a drought of creativity.
When Glenn was 13 years old, his father passed away and Glenn used some of the Social Security benefits from his late father to go to acting school in Hollywood. He loved acting, even if he didn’t get any work.
At the age of 18, Glenn’s friends began to be drafted to serve in the war in Vietnam. He went with a friend to watch the process and saw young men randomly lined up and called off to join the Army, the Navy, the Air Force or the Marines. Glenn decided he wanted to be in charge of his choices and enlisted in the Navy. He liked their uniform the best. The Navy was the first place Glenn encountered racism.
Acting as Therapy
When Glenn returned from his service in the military, he went right back to acting. He gravitated toward the loud or heavy roles filled with anger and crying. He realized much later he was using these roles as therapy for his PTSD. He won a few acting awards over the years, but just as his career was gaining momentum, it all crashed down around him.
The Breaking Point
Glenn had written a script that was stolen. When he confronted the thief, he was offered some money to stay quiet about it and just accept it. His friends told him that’s what happened to black writers in Hollywood. He was prepared to go along with this plan, but at the last minute decided to stand up for his rights on behalf of himself and his fellow black writers. He ended up blacklisted in Hollywood. Glenn became depressed and broke, and one day just walked out of his apartment and his life, disappearing onto the streets of L.A. He was found homeless on the street a month later by his friends, who helped him out and got him back on track. He says he couldn’t have done it without their love.
Glenn met and married his wife Juanita, a painter. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she couldn’t paint, and Glenn also went through a creative drought as well. He wanted to help her, so he kept suggesting that she paint something on the ugly clock in their den. One day she got so fed up with his suggestion that she said, “You paint it!” So he did! When she came home and saw it, she smiled. Glenn was so happy about cheering her up that he went on to paint clock after clock. He now has over 100 painted clocks. Juanita beat her cancer. They moved to Austin in 2013. Juanita is painting again, and Glenn is still painting clocks.
Helping Others as a Selfish Act
Glenn learned from his experience helping Juanita battle her cancer that helping others took him away from his own problems. He has used that over the years to begin many endeavors. He started the Veteran Suicide Prevention Channel as a way to help guide Veterans out of suicidal thoughts. He started AVAFest, the Austin Veteran Arts Festival, in 2019, to heal Veterans through the arts. He recently took on the role of Executive Director of Spectrum Theatre to help keep Austin’s only African-American-based theatre company alive.
Doing What’s Right
There was a time when Glenn thought he ruined everything back when he lost his acting career. He wonders if maybe he should have stayed quiet and taken the money. Maybe now he would be that big star he always wanted to be. But now, he is happy with his choices. When he looks in the mirror, he sees a whole person, not a sell-out or someone who was afraid. If he were to do it all over again, he would have been louder and more outspoken on behalf of his fellow black writers.
Creating Art That Matters
Glenn’s current work is a wood-burned series of portraits of black people killed by police officers: George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice and others. He does this as a release, but also as a way to keep their aspirations and dreams alive. Glenn puts his heart into everything he does. For him, it is the goodness and caring that makes things happen and lets you know you are doing the right thing.

domain: artistic


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Edward S. Smith, a former Mineola politician, Mineola Chamber of Commerce president and civic leader, died Sept. 6 at age 92.
Smith served as Mineola’s mayor from 1975-1985 after a 10-year term as deputy mayor, Newsday reported. He later sat on North Hempstead’s Board of Zoning Appeals and the county’s Assessment Review Commission.
Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss said that when he was a boy, his father brought him to public meetings so he could see how the village ran.
Then-Mayor Smith was a fixture at those meetings, Strauss said, and he came to hold him “in high regard.”
“He did a lot for this village and a lot for this community in general, and like many others who have gone before him, he’ll certainly be sorely missed,” Strauss said, leading a Mineola Board of Trustees meeting of his own Sept. 9.
Smith founded Edward S. Smith & Co. in 1949, which was responsible for many residential developments in Mineola, Newsday reported. He also started Mineola-based Smith & DeGroat Real Estate in Mineola in 1955, which his son Matthew runs today.
He was active and highly involved for 60 years in the Mineola Lions Club, which was named after him in 2000. The club raises between $50,000 and $75,000 each year to help people who are blind, Matthew Smith told Newsday.
Smith also led the Mineola Chamber of Commerce from 1986 to 1989, building its membership from 50 to about 200.
Smith lived in Mineola until he retired to Winsted, Conn., in 2003, where he died.
He was buried Friday at the Cemetery of Holy Rood in Westbury, following a memorial service at the Church of St. Aidan in Williston Park. He was highly active in the church, serving as one of the parish council’s first members, Newsday reported.
In lieu of flowers, the Smith’s family has asked those wanting to remember him to donate to the Lions Club’s Blind Fund.
Donations can be sent to 27 E. Jericho Turnpike, Mineola, N.Y. 11501.


Avery Hill '15: Heading to law school with eyes on JAG program and public service
Major: Economics - Public Policy track
Hometown: Westminster, MD
Path: A career in public service
Avery Hill ’15 has long been clear about his lofty career aspirations: “I want to be the president of the United States.”
Through his Hassenfeld Institute internship, Hill "was able to see the background of how to interact with constituents and how to form public policy."
Before college, his goal often was met with ridicule. Entering Bryant, he recalls, “I expected reactions like ‘let’s be more realistic.’ Instead I have received nothing but positive support. I have met with faculty for advice in pursuing this goal and they have passed along relevant contacts. Bryant also gave me opportunities to speak to first-year students about this dream and I cannot even count how many students have already said they are excited to see my name on the presidential ballot.”
The University’s “requirement that all liberal arts majors must minor in business, was a huge benefit to me,” says Hill. “Many liberal arts majors go into government but don’t understand the business side of things, and that’s where I feel Bryant has given me a leg up.”
Internship opened doors to government officials
Hill interned at the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership, where he was mentored by Founding Director Gary Sasse, who served for three decades as executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, a nonprofit research and education organization that analyzes the state’s finances. Sasse also is a former director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration and the Department of Revenue, and led the Governor’s Tax Policy Group.
The Institute, supported by a generous grant from Alan G. Hassenfeld ’85H, a former Bryant trustee and chairman of the Executive Committee of Hasbro, Inc., the Rhode Island-based multibillion-dollar international toy company, through the Hassenfeld Family Initiatives, LLC, helps local public officials develop the tools and skills needed to make informed decisions so they can lead public sector and nonprofit organizations effectively.
Through his work with Sasse, Hill says, “I was able to see the background of how to interact with constituents and how to form public policy. The Institute staff allowed me to network with so many important people who will help me in the future such as presidential candidates and Rhode Island state government officials.”
On campus, Hill founded The Community Activism and Leadership Organization (CALO), a social enterprise venture that encourages community activism. The group works with Providence companies and schools to plan service related goals, encourage their skilled employees to serve in the community, and showcase what companies are doing to positively benefit the public.
Heading to law school, Marine Corps
Hill, who graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a concentration in public policy, will receive a Graduate Studies Certificate in Communication this spring. He has been accepted to law school at Liberty University where he will study constitutional law and religion this fall. He also has applied to intern between semesters at the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) program of the U.S. Marine Corps. That path takes him first to boot camp in Quantico, VA, this summer.
“After I get my law degree, I hope to serve as a lawyer for the Marine Corps for two years,” says Hill, “and then take the steps to work on a campaign or write policy for a congressman.”
“My main focus is service-based,” Hill says. “I hope to carry that through law school and continue that when I get more involved with government.”


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Disney+ Hotstar, Apple TV, YouTube
The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios` grand conclusion to twenty-two films, "Avengers: Endgame."


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text:
People wait for service at an unemployment office in Detroit as the number of jobless Michiganians surpasses 400,000. (Wayne E. Smith / The Detroit News)
The state is hiring 90 temporary workers, forcing employees to work overtime, added a new computer server and opened seven problem-solving offices in a furious attempt to deal with the tens of thousands of laid-off Michigan workers who are desperately trying to get their unemployment checks.
State officials admit they've got their work cut out for them. They're missing possibly hundreds of thousands of calls each day from jobless Michiganians seeking unemployment benefits, because they can't keep up with the crush.
Only about 11,000 callers are getting through to unemployment claims processors each day via phone, while the vast majority of callers get no more than a recorded message informing them that "all circuits are busy now."
State officials suggest citizens exercise "persistence and patience" and keep dialing.
That's not what Phillip DiMambro wants to hear.
The 26-year-old Hamtramck resident was laid off Dec. 10 as a truck driver and has grown increasingly frustrated that he can't get help.
"I called every day. I tried to do it online and the system froze up," said DiMambro, who joined a steady flow Wednesday at the unemployment office in the state office building in Detroit's New Center.
He was waiting to talk to an appeals board about a problem with his jobless claim and in the meantime isn't getting benefits.
"I got a 5-month-old son to put diapers on. The rent is due and I'm already a month behind," he said shortly after meeting with a claims worker. "I hate having to come down here. I hate sitting on my hands."
Andre Sneed, who lost his job at Lear Corp., also went to the Detroit office after he tired of listening to the telephone recording.
"You just can't get through," he said. "You can't get through at all."
That's a familiar refrain in Michigan, which leads the nation with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate and has 103,000 more jobless residents than it did a year earlier.
More than 400,000 Michiganians are claiming unemployment benefits -- a number that grew by 110,000 in November alone, said Norm Isotalo, a spokesman for the state's Unemployment Insurance Agency.
The average benefit is about $295 a week for a maximum 26 weeks. The federal government granted two extensions -- one in July, another in November -- that gave laid-off workers in Michigan a maximum of 59 weeks of benefits, he said.
Michigan isn't the only state overwhelmed by unemployment claims.
With the national unemployment rate at a 15-year-high of 6.7 percent, claims offices are being swamped across the nation. In recent days, electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in New York, North Carolina and Ohio.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm "is acutely aware of the problem and is taking a number of steps" to deal with it, said her spokeswoman, Liz Boyd.
The governor directed the hiring of 90 temporary new workers by month's end to help the 240 employees who are handling the mushrooming unemployment claims. The seven problem resolution offices have opened so people can cut through red tape to collect benefits.
Besides mandatory overtime, the state has suspended flexible work schedules for agency employees to make sure they are available during peak times, Boyd said.
"We're trying to be as responsive as possible, but the stark reality is that we have hundreds of thousands of people unemployed in this state and this is one unfortunate result of that unemployment rate," she said.
In Michigan, the situation is likely to worsen in the coming months. State fiscal experts are forecasting the state's unemployment rate will top 11 percent during both 2009 and 2010.
The problem in connecting to unemployment offices was exacerbated by decisions made earlier this decade, when Gov. John Engler closed more than 40 unemployment offices around the state and converted to a cheaper telephone/computer system, Isotalo said. Six of those offices have since reopened.
Isotalo said he has no way of knowing how many of the hundreds of thousands of daily phone calls that are attempted, but don't connect with the state, are from people who may be calling a dozen or more times trying to get through.
He said the state encourages people to file their claim online. He acknowledged that the electronic system was difficult to deal with Monday because of the heavy volume of people trying to use it after a holiday weekend. But he said the online system seemed to be performing normally on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Dionne Scott, a 41-year-old Detroiter who lost her environmental services job at a hospital, showed up at the Detroit office on Wednesday to check her status after her phone calls went unanswered.
"We're already going through stress and then this happened," she said.

domain: economics


All six Greendale School Board candidates are expected to attend a forum from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. March 27 in the Greendale High School multipurpose room, 6801 Southway.
The candidates will compete for three open seats April 2.
The Greendale Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County will host the forum, and the public is invited to attend.
Candidates will answer questions posed by the audience and non-biased questions through a moderator. Each question will be directed to all candidates.
WHAT: School Board candidate forum
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 27
WHERE: Greendale High School Multipurpose Room, 6801 Southway
CONTACT: Todd K. Michaels (414) 423-2100
- Warrior Dash obstacle course coming to The Rock Aug. 13
- Franklin High School wins awards for "Fiddler on the Roof"
- News & Notes: May 26, 2016 issue
- Classes resume at Franklin High School following evacuation
- Franklin police report: May 26, 2016 issue
- Things to Do: May 26, 2016 issue
- Ryan schedules mobile office tour dates
- Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Oak Creek Memorial-ize the holiday
- Construction blooms in Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Oak Creek
- Sink or Swim: One Franklin family's fight with rare bone cancer


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The purposes of this study were to develop protocols and procedures for a large-scale biomarker pipeline based on targeted MS and to test the hypothesis that the pipeline would be sufficient to support large-scale clinical biomarker studies in humans. Previous work has characterized the performance of the individual components in isolation, such as AIMS, SRM and immuno-SRM technologies. Nonetheless, they had not been assembled in a pipeline, and were generally carried out in small numbers of reference samples and small numbers of analytes, inadequate to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying them in clinical studies.
To be useful for human biomarker studies, a pipeline must enable (i) data-dependent prioritization of hundreds of candidate biomarkers, (ii) cost-effective de novo development of tens to hundreds of assays of sufficient precision, specificity and sensitivity for human studies and (iii) multiplex biomarker verification studies allowing testing of tens to hundreds of candidate biomarkers in hundreds of clinical samples while consuming a minimal volume of biospecimens.
Based on these criteria, the procedures and protocols we have described, along with our benchmarking activities, demonstrate that the analytical performance of the targeted proteomic pipeline should be sufficient to support large-scale verification studies in humans.
First, the AIMS and SQ-SRM stages of the pipeline enabled data-dependent prioritization of hundreds of candidate biomarkers. Because of the ability to schedule AIMS detection based on the known or predicted retention times of the target peptides, >1,000 parent ions can be monitored in a single LC-MS/MS run, enabling a large number of candidates to be screened for detection in plasma in a single run. This high capacity enables prefractionation of plasma, thus enabling detection of analytes in the low ng protein/ml plasma range (levels consistent with many known cancer biomarkers). Of the 1,908 candidates identified from genomic and proteomic data sets, proteotypic peptides could be identified for 1,551 candidates (81%). This already high coverage will expand further as ongoing projects designed to characterize proteotypic peptides for all human proteins mature (http://www.mrmatlas.org/
). Of the 1,144 candidates targeted for detection in plasma by AIMS, ~50% were detected in plasma, despite the fact that many of the candidates had been discovered in tumor tissues, not plasma.
Although AIMS provided confirmation that a candidate biomarker could be detected in the plasma of tumor-bearing animals, it did not provide quantitative comparison of the levels of the candidates in cases versus controls. The gold standard for quantitative MS in the clinical laboratory is SRM-MS, which has been used for decades to quantify small molecules in human blood samples30
. An isotopically labeled internal standard typically is used for rigorous quantification, but label-free approaches provide a potential cost-effective method for rapid semiquantitative screening of large numbers of candidates25
. In this study we normalized the SRM signals of candidate biomarkers to those from a set of housekeeping proteins each of whose abundances did not, on average, differ between cases and controls (Supplementary Results Section 3
). Three hundred eighty-three of the 572 candidates (67%) detected in plasma were associated with proteotypic peptides that met criteria for SRM-based quantification (Supplementary Results Section 3
). Of these, 373 (97%) contained transitions that were reproducibly detectable with a signal-to-noise ratio ≥8, and were thus analyzed by SQ-SRM in pooled case versus control plasma to estimate whether the corresponding biomarker candidates were differentially abundant and thus might be useful biomarkers.
By far, the most challenging stage of the pipeline was verifying the specificity of the detected transitions in SQ-SRM. The difficulty resulted from the lack of internal standards, which provide reference signals for the verification of analyte specificity. Thus, in our experiment, the choice of candidates for quantitative SRM assay development was limited to the most abundant proteins or peptides for which multiple transitions were identified. For example, of the 373 analytes tested, only 164 (44%) were associated with at least three transitions with perfectly aligned retention times, indicating high confidence for specificity of the detection for the targeted analyte. Indeed 171 of the 373 analytes (46%) could not be substantiated with confidence, owing to difficulty in detecting transitions. The use of more affordable, albeit less pure, stable isotope standards from a process generally referred to as spot or membrane synthesis31
remains to be tested but may offer a viable, cost-effective, alternative strategy to circumvent this issue. Furthermore, the specificity in SQ-SRM could also be improved by using recent advances in the data-dependent inclusion of transitions, such as intelligent SRM32
. It is notable that the success rate in verifying the credentialed candidates was very good (36/91 candidates or 40%). Therefore, MS-based techniques can be used to triage candidate biomarkers.
The second activity that a biomarker pipeline must support for human studies is the cost effective de novo
development of tens to hundreds of assays of sufficient precision, specificity and sensitivity for human studies. The cost of reagents for generating Q-SRM assays are those of the SIS peptides, for which heavy-light pairs can be obtained for <$1,000 per analyte. Reagent costs for generating a novel immuno-SRM assay with >90% success rate is <$5,000, and the average yield of an affinity-purified polyclonal antibody allows for testing of hundreds of plasma samples to assess the utility of a marker before investing in monoclonal antibody development33
. Lead time for assay generation is ~24 weeks, including selection of proteotypic peptides, synthesis of immunogens, generation of antibodies, optimization of assay conditions and generation of response curves. In this study, 88 novel assays were developed and characterized in <1 year by one laboratory. In contrast, it would be extraordinary for a single academic laboratory to successfully configure 1–10 ELISA assays de novo
in 1–2 years, especially at a comparable cost.
Regarding precision, as precision of the assay deteriorates, there is a nonlinear increase in the dispersion of the results, and thus the clinical signal may be drowned out by analytical noise. For example, biomarker measurements using an assay with poor precision will have a broader reference interval (due to analytical variation) and will thus be of less value for clinical classification of patients. As discussed elsewhere20
, statistical verification of a novel biomarker showing comparable biological variation to prostate-specific antigen would require testing plasma samples from a minimum of 500 cases and 500 well-matched controls using an assay technology associated with CV ≤ 20%. In this study, we observed CV < 15% for the majority of assays, demonstrating the feasibility of our approach for human biomarker verification studies.
Beyond verification studies, true clinical validation will require an even larger-scale case-control or cohort study to carefully examine the impact of other covariates on the proposed marker test, to determine the positive predictive values and false referral probabilities in real practice, and to compare or combine the new test with existing clinical tests. In the field of clinical chemistry, quality specifications for assay precision are routinely based on biological variation34
. It is widely accepted among clinical chemists34
that the desirable level of imprecision in measurements should be <50% of the average within-subject variation (in which case the amount of variability added to true test-result variability is ~10%). Where desirable performance standards are not attainable with current methodology, the minimum level of imprecision in measurements should be <75% of the average within-subject variation (in which case the amount of variability added to true test-result variability is ~25%). Across 163 protein analytes for which human biological variation has been determined (http://www.westgard.com/biodatabase1.htm
), the median within-subject biologic variation is 10%; hence, the median desirable specification for assay precision is 5%. Achieving this very high bar for clinical implementation of the immuno-SRM assays in hospital laboratories will likely require optimization of the individual assays on an analyte-by-analyte basis.
Regarding specificity, SRM-based assays have a distinct advantage over conventional immunoassays, which are prone to interferences35
. With SRM, assay specificity is ensured by monitoring multiple transitions from each analyte and by inclusion of an internal isotopically labeled standard. Furthermore, where interferences are present, they are readily detected and can be avoided by selection of alternative transitions.
Regarding sensitivity, many known human cancer protein biomarkers are in the ng-to-pg of protein/ml plasma concentration range; early disease detection, such as in cancer, may require much higher sensitivities. In this study, assay LOQs in the low ng protein/ml plasma range were typically achieved when starting with only 10 μl of plasma (small volumes were used in this study due to the limited plasma yield from individual mice). However, immuno-SRM assays can achieve low pg protein/ml plasma LOQs when capturing from higher plasma volumes29
. Immuno-SRM assays are readily amenable to the testing of hundreds of biospecimens in human studies, as sample handling is minimal and largely automated and performed in a 96-well format29,33
. In contrast, for Q-SRM studies (without an anti-peptide antibody), sensitivity remains the primary obstacle to use of SRM assays, without enrichment of the target analyte. Coupling SRM with abundant protein depletion and sample fractionation significantly improves LOQs36–38
, but multiplex assay configuration may be difficult for hundreds of candidates, and the intensive sample processing required has a great impact on sample throughput. Hence, for large-scale biomarker verification studies on hundreds of plasma samples, it is beneficial to generate an antibody for immuno-SRM measurements, obviating the need for depletion or fractionation.
The third activity that a biomarker pipeline must support for human studies is multiplex biomarker verification studies that permit testing of tens to hundreds of candidate biomarkers in hundreds of clinical samples20
, while consuming a minimal volume of biospecimens per analyte. The SRM technology is highly amenable to multiplex measurements, as demonstrated in this study and others39
. Current instrumentation and software allow for scheduling of the transitions being monitored (based on peptide retention times on the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) column), theoretically enabling hundreds of peptide analytes to be quantified in a single LC-MS run. The high multiplex level of these technologies also allows a very large number of measurements to be made in a relatively short period of time, accelerating progress from the discovery step to verification. For example, in this study 80 plasma samples were run in triplicate for 88 analytes, totaling 21,120 assays run in one laboratory in <6 months, demonstrating the feasibility for human biomarker studies. The ability to test ten to hundreds of biomarker candidates in multiplex also makes the use of larger plasma volumes a viable option for early human biomarker studies, allowing for increased assay sensitivity (as discussed above).
In this study, we demonstrate that a staged, targeted proteomic pipeline enables triage and follow-up quantitative testing of a far larger number of candidates than would have been possible using conventional technologies, marking a substantial improvement over the current state of biomarker evaluation. Although the true impact of this or any biomarker development pipeline will not become apparent until it is successfully used to discover novel biomarkers in humans, this study uses an animal model to benchmark the performance of the proposed pipeline and thereby demonstrates the feasibility of, and thus sets the stage for, applying the pipeline to human biomarker studies. Because biological and disease subtype heterogeneity (pre-analytical variables) likely differ between mouse models and humans, biomarkers identified using mice will not necessarily be of clinical utility in humans. Nonetheless, because the analytical performance of the technologies (e.g., sensitivity, precision, specificity and multiplex characteristics) as well as pre-analytical sample processing are not species-specific, we can confidently extrapolate the analytic performance observed using a mouse model to analogous studies with humans, even if the specific biomarkers are of limited clinical potential.

domain: medical


text:
Though still very much in its infancy, tidal energy is gaining momentum. In 2006, the first test rig turbine was installed and generated electricity to the UK grid using OpenHydro prototype. Seven years on, the Meygen project in the Pentland Firth is planned to be the UK’s first commercial tidal project, initially comprising six turbines with a total installed power of 9MW with planned further expansion to 86MW.
Unlike offshore wind, which has seen huge investment from major energy companies, smaller developers and intelligence investors have been the key players in this emerging market. Despite limited capital, a number of Tidal Energy Converter (TEC) devices have now been installed at several locations around the UK.
The primary design challenges inherent in high tidal energy environments include geotechnical uncertainties. For one, the bedrock geology of the UK coastline is complex and varies significantly across the country. From Precambrian age well indurated marine sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone and shale in the West of Scotland, and indurated slates and schists around the Welsh coastline, a variety of basement type materials need to be considered for foundation design. In addition to this basement geology, a thin veneer of unconsolidated coarse sediments often blankets these materials.
Site investigation of tidal turbine environments can be extremely difficult and challenging; hence geotechnical design and installation elements pose a major risk to the project unless properly considered and effectively managed. Jagged hard substrates often present challenging seabed profiles (see rendering) to design around and where typical seabed preparation techniques, such as rock carpeting or dredging, may not be practical or feasible.
In order to promote efficient design and realise cost savings, a comprehensive site investigation program should be developed. Ideally, this should begin with a detailed desktop study, shore site walk-over and geophysical and visual camera survey for initial investigations before moving to more complex and costly geotechnical surveys comprising potentially onshore, nearshore and offshore drilling.
A detailed geophysical survey combining surface and subsurface techniques, such as multibeam echo sounder, side scan sonar and sub-bottom profiler, are essential to understand the topography of the development area to select and optimise not only the location of the TECs, but also the lay routes of inter-array and export cables. The aim of such surveys is to identify hazards whereby potential mitigation measures may need to be developed.
Geotechnical data to deeper depths (~20m to ~30m below seabed) may be required to perform a detailed foundation design to address such issues as foundation capacity, soil-structure interaction and install ability.
Whilst offshore geotechnical drilling can seem expensive, the data can potentially be further supplemented by data from an onshore drilling campaign which will allow for further laboratory tests to be carried out in an attempt to better understand the variation in the properties of the bedrock and their geotechnical characteristics at a fraction of the cost of any marine investigation.
Additionally, material specific research on soil-material interface friction may also to promote efficient foundation designs. Acquisition of appropriate data to coincide with appropriate project milestones will culminate in a comprehensive understanding of the geological features and geotechnical conditions relevant to design.
Initial design evaluations typically use geotechnical parameters derived from qualitative descriptions of shore geology and from camera surveys, thus resulting in potentially very conservative foundation designs to safely accommodate the uncertainty in site conditions and seabed materials. As a result, base structures may grow significantly in size and cost. Whilst this may be acceptable for front end engineering design (FEED) considerations, it may lead to issues with certification during detailed design whereby optimisations are actively investigated.
Currently, the design of each tidal turbine varies significantly between manufacturers; hence a wide variety of foundation systems have been installed to date, including: drilled and grouted monopiles, pin piles and gravity-based solutions. The foundation solution is typically governed by not only the seabed conditions, but also the TEC design which may limit potential foundation solutions to a challenging environment. Selecting the appropriate TEC to both the seabed and tidal conditions is key to effective project development. Together with smaller demonstrator sites, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) test site off the coast of the Orkney Islands has provided a catalyst for innovation into wave and tidal energy research. Appropriately, EMEC is located near the treacherous Pentland Firth which boasts high velocity marine currents and challenging geomorphology. Reports suggest that the Pentland Firth area alone could theoretically generate around 1.9GW of tidal power.
Examples of currently installed demonstrator sites around the UK include: Marine Current Turbines (MCT) SeaGen device installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough in 2008 that utilised a novel foundation installation approach. A quadrapod design base was temporarily ballasted for stability onto which a temporary work deck was installed on top of the turbine structure above water level. In a similar manner to the OpenHydro device, this allows the turbine assembly to be raised above the sea surface to realize reduced maintenance costs.
Additionally, in mid-2011 Voith installed the foundations for their prototype HyTide 1MW device at the EMEC test site. Unlike SeaGen and OpenHydro devices, which protrude above the sea surface the device is completely submerged.
Possibly the most conventional design of TECs are those which feature large gravity based or piled tripod foundation configurations similar to those sometimes used at German wind farm sites. A prototype HATT with a gravity-based foundation solution is depicted in Figure 2.
Typically in shallow seas (<200m water depth) pipelines and cables laid across the seabed are protected by being placed into a trench or covered with crushed graded rock. Cable casings are also sometimes utilised to provide protection. This protection serves multiple purposes, including fishing gear interaction, dropped objects and anchoring. It also ensures on-bottom stability from hydrodynamic forces. The extent of product protection will likely be selected based on protection philosophy, the requirements of other sea users and the level of risk the developer is willing to accept.
The decommissioning aspects are key design considerations for new offshore developments and should be considered early in the design phase to minimize future environmental impact, offshore activities and associated costs.
As the installation of tidal turbines is typically remote, it is presumed that decommissioning will also take place remotely. In 2011 the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published guidance notes on decommissioning of renewable energy installations, including some brief guidance on the removal of foundation elements and cable deburial.
A detailed assessment of the recovery loads of a structure placed on a seabed for a typical 20-year design life requires careful consideration to determine the additional loads arising from marine growth, seabed suction and potentially cementation. Additionally, careful consideration of the capacity of any existing lifting points intended for re-use would be required. At present there are few recorded cases of recovery of large, gravity-based subsea structures after long periods of use. However, it is likely that as North Sea decommissioning activities pick up pace, these will be better understood in the coming years.
Harnessing tidal power
Extreme environmental conditions and complex geotechnical challenges make the development of tidal energy projects a huge undertaking. The ambition for tidal to become a viable and reliable source of renewable energy for the future continues to require significant financial and intellectual input; however, the challenges are being overcome and solutions found. As part of this it is important that a thorough understanding of seabed conditions and materials are adequately investigated prior to deployment to minimize project risk of such complex and innovative devices.
Whilst the design of each device varies significantly between manufacturers, each type of device has the same fundamental issues to resolve from concept to project sanction, through asset integrity to end of life. The Meygen project, as the UK’s first commercial initiative, could prove to be turning point of the tidal industry.

domain: geography


text:
Starting a business while still at university based on the idealistic belief that the world's energy production should be turned 100% green could be seen as both naive and overly ambitious. For Germany's Fred Jung and Matthias Willenbacher, however, making that decision 13 years ago has got them where they are today - heading an international renewable energy firm with a turnover set to hit more than EUR1 billion in 2011.
"Energy supply with 100% renewable energy is possible for Germany and other countries now, not in the distant future," says Willenbacher.
In 1996, when the pair established Juwi as a two-man operation to develop wind power, Jung was majoring in agricultural economics at the University of Hohenheim and Willenbacher in physics at the University of Mainz. Today, they employ 300 people at Juwi's headquarters in Worrstadt, Germany, and a further 150 abroad. Their business comprises wind, solar and biomass projects in Europe, North America and Latin America and earlier this year they branched into the hydro and geothermal sectors. Juwi is now one of a handful of across-the-board renewable energy suppliers.
The company is confident of continued growth. Turnover last year was EUR400 million. This year the forecast is EUR650 million. Projects in the works, including a 3000 MW wind project portfolio, have put EUR1 billion in sight. By 2011, the number of staff is expected to top 1000 worldwide. "We are still able to finance all our projects, thanks to long-standing relationships with banks and investors who are eager to finance Juwi projects in Germany, France and the US," says Jung. A reputation for reliability and competence with the banks is "very important for Juwi since our projects are financed to a large extent with loans." Equity is supplied from three main sources: large institutional investors, energy and other companies, and Juwi itself. "This way, even in the midst of the economic crisis, we can get larger projects financed without problems," he says.
Juwi's solar photovoltaic business started in 1999 and is now its leading division for turnover. Its wind development business comes a close second, although the company will not reveal specific financial details. It lays claim to having "designed, developed and built more than 300 wind turbines," amounting to 450 MW of capacity. Most of that is installed in Germany, while around 85 MW is split between France, where it has completed four wind farms totalling 35 MW, and Costa Rica, where a 49.5 MW project is close to completion.
Within the next two years, its total installed wind capacity is set to quadruple, with a 2 GW by 2012 target. The company is "very confident" it can secure turbines for all future projects thanks to "very close and longstanding relationships" with a diverse range of manufacturers, including Germany's Enercon and Siemens, Denmark's Vestas and America's GE Energy. Last year, Juwi added Kenersys Europe, owned by India's Kalyani Group, to the list. Under a framework agreement, Kenersys will supply 35, 2.5 MW turbines to Juwi over the three years to the end of 2011 for projects in Germany and other European countries.
Juwi plans to stay fully independent. "Our independence secures us the necessary freedom to pursue a sustainable and successful company strategy that is not fixated on maximising short term profits," says Willenbacher. It will continue to focus its investment and development activities on western and southern Europe as well as on north and Latin America over the next ten years, although eastern Europe is also on its radar. Germany will remain its top market for some time. Here, it intends to install a further 800 MW of wind capacity by the end of 2012. Much of this will go up in the company's home state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where it is working closely with local communities and district authorities. "Achieving one hundred percent renewable energy is our big goal and reaching this with communal partners in Rhineland-Palatinate is an important step," says Willenbacher.
In Rhineland Palatinate, Juwi is already pioneering the use of wind energy in forested areas, with 51 turbines totalling 105 MW installed in projects at Kisselbach, Morbach, Hartenfelser Kopf and Nehring near Trier. Generating around 230 GWh a year, these machines alone supply about 3% of the state's electricity generation. In April it also formed a joint venture, BKWind, with Swiss firm BKW FMB Energie. BKWind plans to develop, install and run about 200 MW of wind plant in Germany by 2015. The first, a EUR12.4 million 8 MW project in Rhineland Palatinate, is due for commissioning next month.
Such partnerships are a key factor in its success and important for the renewables sector as a whole, says Jung. Joint construction and operation of plants "is a win-win situation and takes us a step closer to a decentralised, and therefore independent, reasonably priced and secure supply of clean energy," he adds. Subsidiary Juwi Netzwerk was founded specifically as a vehicle for establishing such co-operation, including one with energy company Pfalzwerke in Ludwigshafen to form a company called Pfalzwind in 2003 and another with municipal utility Stadtwerke Mainz in 2005, in addition to the BKW venture. It is also a partner in a recent project involving the use of a steel and concrete hybrid tower, built by Dutch tower specialist company Advanced Tower Systems (ATS), which takes turbine hub height to 133 metres and total height to 180 metres (Windpower Monthly, February 2009). Tall towers are essential to reach decent wind strengths in largely land-locked Germany.
Juwi anticipates getting 200 MW of wind capacity installed in France by 2012. "At the moment, France is our second strongest market and will continue to expand, thanks to high quality project development and our close relationships with local and regional decision makers and the local communities," says Jung. The company's French subsidiary, Juwi energie eolienne, has been operating since 2001, with offices in Normandy and Provence.
A further two projects, for 26 MW, are due online this year and another 80 MW is in the permitting process, with the total portfolio amounting to 350 MW, mostly for sites in Brittany, but also in the Normandy, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne regions.
Juwi's European portfolio spreads further east to Poland and the Czech Republic. It first began wind development in Poland in 2007 and hopes to have commissioned 50 MW there by 2012, with construction on its first project to start next year. In the Czech Republic, the company is "building on successes in the solar sector" and expects to have one or two wind projects underway or installed there by 2012, although it does not reveal details.
Further afield, Juwi has a nearly 2 GW portfolio of projects in development in the US and a few more in Latin America. It entered the US market in 2002, kicking off its activities in Kansas as JW Prairie Windpower, based in Lawrence. This division, with a 750 MW portfolio, focuses on its home state and Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa. In Kansas, it is working on the 120 MW Munkers Creek Wind Farm planned for Morris County, the 129 MW Nemaha Wind Farm in Nemaha County, and in Nebraska the 60 MW Flat Water Wind Farm in Richardson County. All will use GE 1.5 MW turbines.
In 2006, Juwi established further US ventures: JW Great Lakes Wind, based in Cleveland, Ohio, and Penn Wind in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. The Great Lakes office has around 1 GW of onshore wind projects in development in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. It is also involved in a ten-turbine near shore project in the waters of Lake Erie, in cooperation with several other companies (Windpower Monthly, September 2007).
Penn Wind, unlike the other two subsidiaries, which are 100% owned by Juwi, is a 50/50 joint venture with DGP Power of Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It has a project pipeline of over 500 MW with its business focusing on Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, New England, Virginia, West Virginia and Texas.
"Our activities and services in the United States are manifold," says Juwi Wind US. "We plan and develop our own projects but also act as consultants for various services." Construction on a first 50-100 MW project "somewhere around the Midwest" is to start this year, it says, with commissioning in 2010. At least four onshore projects totalling around 250 MW should be installed in the US by 2012. "We would not rule out offshore development involvement in the Great Lakes region once this proves to be profitable, especially in view of our role as lead consultant on the Cleveland Offshore Study," adds Juwi Wind's Marie-Luise Portner.
In Latin America, the company is making a name for itself with its 49.5 MW La Gloria Proyecto Eolico Guanacaste project in Costa Rica's Guanacaste region. It is located at what the company describes as "one of the best wind sites in the world." Installation of all 55 Enercon 900 kW turbines is nearing completion as Juwi's biggest wind power project to date. The company is now planning three more projects in Costa Rica, it says, while it is also involved in consulting work in Argentina and has activities in Uruguay, Chile and Peru at different stages of development.

domain: news


text:
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Oliver's Christening Card
I had a lot of fun trying to decide what to do for his Christening card and what embellishments to use to decorate it.
I wanted it to look classic but not too plain and simple. I think I got the balance right and as this was one of my first ever cards that I have ever made and its for my son's christening it was very personal to me and I am very proud of what I achieved.

domain: design


A Dear John letter is making the internet rounds.
But this "brake" up letter is directed at someone named Shawn. It's from Rachel, and she wants him to "git it together." Because if he doesn't, he will never get "mareed."
The letter was posted to the Instagram account of ddem2000. The account owner hasn't responded to ABC News' inquires on the letter, so it's unclear how he knows Rachel or Shawn.
The reason behind the "brake" up letter? Apparently Shawn hasn't talked to Rachel since he asked her out three months ago.
KHSD appoints police chief
The Kern High School District (KHSD) has appointed Joseph Lopeteguy as the new Chief of Police.
Fire burns in East Bakersfield
Kern County firefighters worked to put out a fire in the 3000 block of Niles Street.
Prosecutors to detail contract killings case
A man who acknowledged killing dozens of people across the United States as an enforcer for Mexican drug cartels will hear evidence in court…
128 vehicles vandalized during 2-day spree
The Bakersfield Police Department has released the total numbers of vehicles vandalized during a two-day spree.


text:
Jennifer Aniston has revealed that she once threw a chair at one of her directors.
The Horrible Bosses actress declined to reveal the identity of the filmmaker, only saying that he wasn't treating his crew fairly.
Aniston told Elle: "I threw a chair at a director. It wasn't my proudest moment. He was treating a script supervisor horrible.
"When the director walked in, I threw a chair at him. I missed, of course. I was like, 'You can't speak to people like that'. I can't tolerate it."
Aniston also told the magazine that she is not desperate to have a baby and will only start a family when the timing is right.
She will next appear on the big screen opposite boyfriend Justin Theroux and Paul Rudd in Wanderlust, which is released on November 25 in the UK and February 24, 2012 in the US.
Watch Jennifer Aniston in the Horrible Bosses trailer below:

domain: celebrity


text:
Traveler's Guide to Ispentine
The mythology of this world is predominated by the view of the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. The Greater Goddes are the main eight deities of purely divine origin that are the most widely recognized. They have the most influence on mortal affairs. In addition, there are many Lesser Goddes that have niches of worship particular to different cultures and aspects of mortal experience.


- ABOUT MassCEC
Second Round of 2013 Massachusetts Solar Incentive Program Opens for Applications
Solarize Mass program seeks at least eight communities to participate
Sep 12, 2013 –
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) today announced the second round of the 2013 Solarize Massachusetts (Solarize Mass®) program is now accepting applications from cities and towns interested in participating.
“This bulk purchasing program has saved residents and businesses money, while aiding in the Patrick Administration’s goal of creating local jobs and expanding our use of home-grown energy sources,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rick Sullivan. “We’re excited to find the next round of Solarize Mass communities.”
The program – designed to increase the adoption of solar energy and further reduce the overall cost of solar power – offers residents and businesses discounted pricing for solar. The more people who sign up, the greater the savings are for everyone.
“The momentum around this program has been building since it was launched in 2011,” said MassCEC CEO Alicia Barton. “Community-by-community, we’re working with local leaders and volunteers to spread the word on the economic and environmental benefits of solar power.”
The program is open to all Massachusetts communities, including those designated by DOER as Green Communities, a designation made by DOER to cities and towns that meet five clean energy requirements, including a commitment to reduce their energy use by 20 percent.
“Solarize Mass continues to fulfill the desire of so many individuals, businesses and communities to be part of Massachusetts’ clean energy revolution,” said DOER Commissioner Mark Sylvia. “This program provides the pathway to do that in a smart, engaging way that benefits them and future generations at the same time.”
The program is open to all Massachusetts communities, including those designated by DOER as Green Communities, a designation made by DOER to cities and towns that meet five clean energy requirements. By statute, those requirements include adoption by the municipality of "as-of-right" siting and expedited permitting for renewable energy projects."
The first round of the 2013 Solarize Mass program is underway now in 10 communities: Bourne, Brookline, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Lee, Medford, Medway, Newton, Northampton and Williamstown.
Individual cities, towns and groups of contiguous municipalities can apply for the second round by downloading a request for proposals and applying by Oct. 22.
MassCEC and DOER expect to select at least eight communities or groups of communities to participate in this round of the program.
In the first two years of the Solarize Mass program, 21 cities and towns participated in the program, contracting more than 900 solar electricity systems with more than 5.5 megawatts of solar energy capacity.
Through programs like Solarize Mass, Massachusetts reached Governor Patrick’s ambitious goal of installing 250 megawatts of solar electricity capacity four years earlier than the 2017 deadline.
At an April event commemorating the achievement, Gov. Patrick announced a new goal of installing 1,600 megawatts of solar capacity by 2020. Once the goal is reached, solar electricity systems across the Commonwealth will generate enough electricity to power 240,000 average Massachusetts homes.


text:
Welcome to the Smallville Fan Club's
What: Smallville - Season 4, Episode 8: Spell -Witches!
Hulu/iTunes/YouTube/Google Play/Vudu/Amazon Prime
When: October 31, 2021 11:00 PM
This event will contain spoilers and discuss the series as a whole.
It’s the best episode in Smallville history, the homage to Hocus Pocus (1993)!
Lana, Chloe and Lois are possessed by a coven of ancient witches bent on obtaining power. Clark discovers his invulnerability doesn’t hold up to magic.
Chaos ensues…can Clark save the day?
Refresh of the series up until this episode!
This text will be hidden
Cast & Crew
Tom Welling Clark Kent
Kristin Kreuk Lana Lang/Margaret Isobel Thoreaux
Michael Rosenbaum Lex Luthor
Erica Durance Lois Lane/Brianna Withridge
Allison Mack Chloe Sullivan/Madelyn Hibbins
Jensen Ackles Jason Teague
John Glover Lionel Luthor (credit only)
Annette O’Toole Martha Kent
John Schneider Jonathan Kent
William S. Taylor Mr. Jacobson
Mark Acheson Magistrate Wilkins
Lara Gilchrist Madelyn Hibbins
Melanie Papalia Brianna Withridge
Tim Niverth Young Party Guest
Micah Gardener Party Guest (uncredited)
We will keep track of all the unconscious characters and ruined vehicles to add to the Smallville Incident Report!
CAN’T WIN IF YOU DON’T PLAY – You must have a way to access the episode and a DCUI membership to interact during the watch along.
DUAL-WIELDING – Watch-Alongs are best experienced on two devices; your phone or computer for comments, and the big screen for viewing.
2, 1 LET’S JAM – Have your clicking finger on the “play” button and ready for action - we’ll be starting at the stroke of the hour.
LET THE CREDITS ROLL – Who would want to skip that Remy Zero anthem anyway?
A WRINKLE IN TIME – If you get lost in the timestream you can calculate where the audience is by checking the minute.
For example, it it’s XX:15pm then we are 15 minutes into the episode.
The fun continues all month long! Find the schedule to the rest of this month’s events at the Super Spooktacular Smallville Festival!
Looking for more Smallville content? Join the Smallville Fan Club and get notified about our club activities!

domain: hobby


text:
This guide aims to provide background support to Annex 8 of the revisions to the GMS Contract 2006-07 ‘Excessive or inappropriate prescribing: guidance for health professionals on prescribing NHS medicines’ to support LMCs in their work with Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) on prescribing matters.
Within the GMS and PMS regulations and APMS directions there are clauses in relation to prescribing and dispensing:
Excessive prescribing - 46
(1) The contractor shall not prescribe drugs, medicines or appliances whose cost or quantity, in relation to any patient is, by reason of the character of the drug, medicine or appliance in question in excess of that which was reasonably necessary for the proper treatment of that patient.
(2) In considering whether a contractor has breached its obligations under sub-paragraph (1) the Primary Care Trust shall seek the views of the Local Medical Committee (if any) for its area.
We are aware of cases where PCOs and LMCs seem to have taken a different view on what constitutes excessive prescribing, and in some cases PCOs have made financial threats to practices.
We have detailed suggestions on how best to understand issues around excessive prescribing in practice, and what is or is not possible within the regulations.
Appropriate and cost-effective prescribing
Cost-effective prescribing is a dynamic situation and the choice of the most cost-effective drugs changes with time.
GPs have historically been involved in measures to ensure appropriate and cost effective prescribing, not least through prescribing incentive schemes, and there is provision in the Quality and Outcomes Framework for rewarding good medicines management.
Prescribing budgets make up a very significant amount of PCO spend in primary care and in an NHS with finite resources the GPC recognises that every decision made by a doctor, whether prescribing or referral, has resource implications and GPC supports best practice in prescribing which includes consideration of cost effectiveness.
Some PCOs, in an effort to cut costs, provide a list of drugs they wish to stop providing within their PCO area. They are, in essence, advising GPs that they should no longer prescribe them. We have had queries regarding whether GPs could be in breach of their contract should they continue to prescribe such a drug for a patient and if indeed PCOs could exact a financial penalty for prescribing such items.
We would make the following comments in relation to such lists:
The only drugs which a GP may not prescribe under the NHS are those on the “Black” or “Grey” lists.
A practice is required, under all types of contract, to prescribe any drugs, medicines or appliances which are needed for the treatment of any patient.
National guidelines and advice should be considered where available.
A PCO cannot impose a local “black list”. A PCO and LMC may draw up local prescribing guidelines, but such guidelines should be evidence based and flexible to allow the needs of individual patients to be met. There may, indeed, be some medicines that GPs would consider it reasonable to restrict. For instance, we are aware of one example where, amongst other drugs, expensive topical NSAIDS have been restricted where there are cheaper versions available.
If the LMC agrees to such a local policy with the PCO (and the financial situation of PCOs may mean that many LMCs are forced into discussing this issue) this will clearly affect some patients and GPs will want to ensure that those patients understand where the desire to restrict is coming from. The LMC should ensure that all practices that will be affected by a local prescribing policy receive from the PCO details of the preparations and drugs they should not normally prescribe; PCOs should make available the evidence base used in drawing up local guidance.
The LMC must insist that any such guidance can only be advisory and that GPs must remain free to prescribe any drug on the drug tariff if they believe it appropriate. Practitioners prescribing outside local or national guidelines should be advised to keep contemporaneous medical records detailing the reasons for the prescription. If it is outside of the guidance, they may have to justify their decision with reasons and it will be for the PCO to decide, in consultation with the LMC, whether para 461 has been contravened. GPs must also be mindful of the views of the GMC and medical defence organisations that patients must never have appropriate and necessary treatment withdrawn for financial reasons alone.
GPs are always free to prescribe as they believe and can justify are clinically appropriate. There is no regulation stopping them from prescribing any drug not on the Black or Grey lists.
PCOs may threaten practices with the withholding of funds or non-payment in relation to prescribing. This is not possible. Prescribing as a clinical activity does not receive specific remuneration and therefore money cannot be withheld in relation to it. There is no regulation that allows this behaviour and any PCO threatening to withhold funding should be asked to indicate the regulation they imagine does permit it. A PCO could only take action against a practice if they could demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the LMC, that the practice had contravened para 461, and thereby breached their contract.
Breaches of contract, with the exception of paragraph 114 actions (i.e. patients are at danger if the contract is not terminated), are rarely the result of single events but usually progressive. All breaches of contract are subject to dispute resolution in the Family Health Services Appeal Unit (FHSAU) or the courts. Financial sanctions are also subject to dispute resolution and the courts.
Statements by PCOs indemnifying individual practices against future action by patients who believe that they have been damaged by refusal-to-treat decisions have no legal force and do not provide any protection at all.
Shorter duration prescribing
There have also been requests for GPs to consider shorter duration prescribing (i.e. 28 day prescriptions). Prescribing intervals should be in line with the medically appropriate needs of the patient, taking into account the need to safeguard NHS resources, patient convenience, and the dangers of excess drugs in the home.
A recent report on prescribing durations recognises that shorter prescriptions are associated with significant increases in dispensing and other transaction costs, together with reductions in compliance in previously stable patients, and an increase in dissatisfaction amongst patients because of travel costs and time to obtain regular medicines.
They can also place significant and unnecessary workload on the doctor and surgery staff.
Many practices will probably have experienced an instruction to change all patients on drug X to drug Y because it would have saved the PCO a said amount of money.
This form of wholesale drug switching is both an inconvenience and interference that practices would not normally choose. The change may be clinically appropriate and in certain cases it may be financially appropriate (i.e. if there are significant savings to be made as opposed to simply switching from month to month to save a few pennies here or there).
Where it is reasonable to switch a patient then practices may agree to do so. However GPs must always use their clinical judgement and, where they can make a clinical case for not switching a patient, they have every right to continue to prescribe as they feel is clinically appropriate.
GPs are responsible for anything they sign and, even if they feel they are being coerced to change by the PCO, they should only change prescribing if they believe it to be correct for an individual patient.
Practices should also be able to decide on the most appropriate method of switching, e.g. bulk switching, where a whole of a practice’s relevant population are switched to the new drug en masse, or switching at routine review.
Where a bulk switch is made at the request of the PCO they should provide adequate resource to facilitate the switch including the input of the PCO pharmacy advisor and resources to inform patients of the change.
General points for LMCs to consider when negotiating with PCOs
PCOs spend money that can go into GP practices and primary care services. They should be made aware that prescribing needs to be fully funded and where there are cost savings they should normally be reinvested in primary care.
Many patients are oblivious to the cost of their drugs. Some would argue that those who are aware rarely object to changing to a lower cost drug of equivalent clinical effectiveness knowing that the savings can be reinvested in services for patients.
Most GPs would accept that high prescribing costs only reduce the total money available for other services. Managing prescribing in a cost effective way need not necessarily affect the quality of clinical care.
There should never be any question of rewarding anyone for withholding treatment. Newer drugs are constantly being developed and it is important that patients should benefit from improvements in medical care. Prescribing decisions should be made, first and foremost, on the basis of good clinical care.
Where there are GPs in the LMC area who have prescribing patterns of a historic basis that appear to be significantly out of step with other colleagues and which cannot be explained by demographic or other arguments, the LMC will want to encourage the PCO to work with the practice, and provide the relevant educational input, to enable progress towards more efficient prescribing.
Focus on excessive prescribing (PDF)

domain: law


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I love coming up with unique ideas and the other day i decided to say that Coins in Mario might be souls, not only did i find more and more evidence that worked with this but it slowly got larger and larger into it turned into what i’m writing now. I’ve decided to do it on a per game basis at the moment but i may change it around later.
SUPER MARIO BROS 1
Everyone that has played this game has probably already heard the ‘theory’ that because Bowser turned the inhabitants of mushroom kingdom into blocks and the fact that Mario breaks blocks throughout the game means that not only is he a murderer but its so believable that most people think of it as canon. Then it hit me, how do these blocks have coins in them then? What if they were souls and Mario was basically harvesting them.
Someone then asked why some blocks have many coins and the others have none at all. My reason is that the toads are actually already dead and that the souls are gathering in one spot (because they supposedly do that). The reason i can say this is from my knowledge there is no evidence that any of them turned back after you finish the game.
About the other coins, have you noticed that the higher the world the less and less coin there are. To coincide with the Dark nature of my theory i like to imagine that Mario is not the only person that went to save the princess but a large Mushroom army tried to save her as well. World after World there was less and less survivors and hardly anyone managed to make it to World 8.
There are also 2 special places that you can go to during the first game, they are the underground special stages and ‘Coin Heaven’. While the underground special rooms seem like mass graves of sort due to being dark and gloomy the Coin Heaven could be renamed to ‘Soul Heaven’ and then what mario is doing is just beyond evil.
Why is Mario given a 1-Up the minute he collects 100 souls. Its because he has made a pact with Death or maybe even satan himself. He is not using the power of souls to come back from the dead but simply bargaining.
Even the Mushrooms aren’t innocent, not like you could ever trust something with a face on it. I believe that they get their nutrients from corpses. Considering that they can be found inside bricks (which are supposed to be toads) they may even grow using lifeforce. This makes sense since a 1-Up mushroom lets you come back from the dead.
The Fire Flower is in this game but it doesn’t have the strange powers it has in later games (see Super Mario World).
SUPER MARIO WORLD
This is where the Fire Flower shows its true self, every time you killed an enemy with it a coin was released. Although being able to get a coin from the koopa and the shell is definitely strange it makes sense that the coins left behind are there souls. Stronger Souls may fragment into multiple coins anyway.
Why don’t other attacks give you a coin though you ask, well everyone knows that fire is sacred and that the idea of a cremation is to release the soul from the body. Although i didn’t really want to go with this answer having something else would mean there’d be no way to explain how the spin jump works (as it completely destroys the enemy).
Some idiot did try to say that the enemies just happened to keep money on them. Its is easily dismissed when you think that the coins are easily as big or bigger than some of the enemies you can get them from. Also, if they had money on them then they’d drop it no matter what.
The normal coins aren’t the only coins in this game though, it is also the dawn of the yoshi coins. It isn’t that hard to guess who’s souls i’m going to say they belong too. I even have a theory that gives you a good idea why they are so much bigger than the souls of everything else.
When yoshi eats an enemy, you somehow gain a coin. There is no real way that’d work unless… Yoshi is a soul devourer. There’s even something else mysterious about yoshi, it has the ability to grow and breed quickly by absorbing the life force of whatever it eats. In this game it can even lay eggs containing mushrooms which as i said earlier in this theory probably grow using lifeforce.
I plan to add on to this but for now i will leave it at that. I hope you enjoyed what is here so far and feel free to comment on anything that also fits this theory.

domain: game


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By Uche Nworah (April 12, 2008)
It is 2.53 PM on a sunny Friday afternoon in Lagos, I’m seating at my desk thinking of what to do about lunch. Should I send Richard (aka Pastor) to Tetrazzini to buy their jollof rice, moi-moi and chicken or should I brave the lunch time Lagos island traffic for a short journey to Yellow Chili? As I pondered my options, I remembered that it has been a while since I last wrote an opinion piece. They say if you leave writing, writing leaves you. 45 days is a long time in this our business not to have written something. I have been feeling so ashamed of myself having not logged onto my blog (thelongharmattanseason.blogspot) in ages, talk about not wanting to visit a deserted house.
As I tried to open a Microsoft word page to string together some thoughts, I suddenly realized how rusty I had gotten, and how very much I miss writing. Not my fault if you ask me. Since I partially relocated to Nigeria, it has not been easy settling in. I am now caught up again in the Lagos hustle and bustle. So many things to take care of, so many issues to settle work- wise and home front -wise.
I am hunting for a house presently and at the same time trying to settle into a new job. New work ethics, new colleagues, new bosses, new sector, new everything. There are things to learn again, especially being a Nigerian again after sojourning abroad. Call this re-learning or unlearning if you wish but things are different here. Things move at the Nigerian pace, love it, hate it, this is Nigeria and that is the way we are.
I missed home for sure. All those years of paying my dues in another man’s country never really was my thing. It was Abacha that drove me and many other people of my generation away but things are better now, I think. Sure, we still have our wahala, the traffic, the power and energy situation, and the menace of the bad guys or armed robbers as they are called. There are also the thieving politicians but still, I’m happy to be back home. This is my country and the country of my forefathers.
As I am writing this, Ben, my driver and friend pokes in his head, just checking up on me. I don’t need him; I hardly do especially after he deposits me in the office in the morning. The next time if at all that I will need him will be late in the evening when he takes me back to the temporary accommodation my organisation has provided. I dismiss Ben with a wave of the hand and he goes back to his base office. Sometimes I feel that Ben is underutilized, such a young man should be doing more for himself and his country.
I have had this conversation with him but he says that this is the best he can do for now. This makes me to think that human capital in Nigeria is still not being well harnessed. The Bens of this world are caught up in a system that holds both the driver and the people they are driving down. I have recently encouraged Ben to stop spending his day idling away his brain in the driver’s lounge. Luckily, the guys in our general office have accepted for him to come in and help out with stuff. Hopefully, this will excite him well enough that he will begin to see endless opportunities, who knows?
Still on the issue of human capital development. There are indeed lots of hidden talents all over this country. Just the other day, I put forward a request to my bosses to allow me bring in a graphic artist to come in and train me and two members of my team on the use of Corel Draw. This was to enable us publish our in-house e-newsletter ourselves. Doing it ourselves will save the company tons of money judging by the quotes we got from external agencies who had indicated interest in producing the e-newsletter for us.
The consultant had asked for a fee of three hundred thousand naira for the two days training. Just a day before the scheduled training, I had to go into the general office to take care of some matter when along the line; the issue of the forthcoming training came up. You will never imagine my shock when Jerry, one of the office assistants whose other job includes going to the mama-put at Ghana High Commission in Obalende to buy food for staff told me that he could use Corel Draw with his eyes closed.
I challenged Jerry and in less than no time he knocked out a copy of the front page of the mock e-newsletter. I stood and stared at him in awe and just couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. So for this I had been willing to pay an external consultant 300K? Jerry went on to design the first edition of the e-newsletter and received full credits in the front page for it.
When I told my boss my amazing discovery, he was also surprised and elated at the same time and suggested that I feature Jerry in the Employee Spotlight section in our next edition as a way of encouraging other departments to dig deep and see if there are other rough uncut gems in their departments labouring away at tasks that do not stretch their skills.
I want to wait a couple of weeks to have a fuller portfolio of Ben’s work with the e-newsletter before taking up his case with HR. Although he was employed on the basis of his not possessing any formal qualification, I want to believe that there should be other ways he would be compensated for the added value services he is now providing.
Jerry’s case has now inspired others in the general office including Ben; they now congregate around the computer to observe how he does his magic when ever he is working on the e-newsletter. Some are even teasing him saying that ‘Jerry level don change’. This has been one of my most exhilarating moments since I relocated back to Nigeria almost 5 weeks ago.
There is yet the best to come from Jerry, and from this country. That I can assure you.
Nworah is a company executive in Lagos.


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Minister Kingsley Baah, the previous right-hand man of Bishop Daniel Obinim, has been in an vehicular accident.
The accident of the Pastor occurred on the Tema Motorway on Saturday,the 25th of May 2019.
A video of the accident recommends that it was an extremely serious occurrence, One Blow's vehicle was seen somersaulting several times.
As indicated by the storyteller in the video, One Blow was a piece of a convoy including Obinim and Reverend Obofour.
It took the intercession of some samaritans around who got One Blow and different travelers in the vehicle out.
One Blow's vehicle had two inhabitants who all endured a few wounds and were transported to the medical clinic.
One Blow came up in the news as of late after he was gifted a Range Rover vehicle by Obofour who is esteemed as an adversary to Obinim.
In the midst of the numerous reports that surfaced, One Blow allowed a meeting to Kofi Adoma Nwanwani on his Kofi TV and made cases about Obinim which recommended that his previous supervisor had neglected to satisfy a vehicle guarantee he made to him.
One Blow even asserted that his significant other nearly went mad because of the abuse they got in the hands of Obinim's better half, Florence.
It was after this meeting Obinim sobbed in his congregation and even chose to sack the majority of his lesser ministers.


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Currently Enrolling Trials
Duobrii is a combination of halobetasol propionate, a corticosteroid and tazarotene, a retinoid prodrug.
Duobrii is specifically indicated for the topical treatment of plaque psoriasis in adults.
Duobrii is supplied as a lotion for topical administration. Each gram of Duobrii Lotion contains 0.1 mg (0.01%) halobetasol propionate and 0.45 mg (0.045%) tazarotene. Apply a thin layer of Duobrii Lotion once daily to cover only affected areas and rub in gently. If a bath or shower is taken prior to application, the skin should be dry before applying the lotion. The total dosage should not exceed approximately 50 g per week because of the potential for the drug to suppress the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Do not use with occlusive dressings unless directed by a physician. Discontinue treatment when control is achieved. Avoid application of Duobrii Lotion on the face, groin, or in the axillae.
Mechanism of Action
Duobrii is a combination of halobetasol propionate, a corticosteroid and tazarotene, a retinoid prodrug. Corticosteroids play a role in cellular signaling, immune function, inflammation, and protein regulation; however, the precise mechanism of action in plaque psoriasis is unknown. Tazarotene is a retinoid prodrug which is converted to its active form, tazarotenic acid, the carboxylic acid of tazarotene, by deesterification. Tazarotenic acid binds to all three members of the retinoic acid receptor (RAR) family: RARα, RARβ and RARγ, but shows relative selectivity for RARβ, and RARγ and may modify gene expression. The clinical significance of these findings for the treatment of plaque psoriasis is unknown.
Adverse effects associated with the use of Duobrii may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- contact dermatitis
- application site pain
- skin atrophy
Clinical Trial Results
The FDA approval of Duobrii was based on three studies.
Studies 1 and 2, which enrolled a total of 418 patients, showed Duobrii was consistently more effective than vehicle in achieving treatment success (primary endpoint at eight weeks), demonstrating statistically significant superiority by week four (in Study 1) and week two (in Study 2). At week eight, 36 percent (Study 1) and 45 percent (Study 2) had achieved the primary efficacy outcome, compared to seven percent and 13 percent on vehicle (both p<0.001). The majority of responders maintained treatment success over the four-week post treatment period. A third Phase 3 multicenter, open-label study assessed the long term safety of Duobrii over a year in subjects with plaque psoriasis. Patients were given Duobrii once daily for eight weeks and re-evaluated every four weeks after for a year. Continuous treatment was allowed up to 24 weeks and as needed for up to 52 weeks. Treatment related adverse events > two percent were application site reactions such as itching, pain, irritation and inflamed hair follicles (folliculitis).


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Unlock the astonishing truths and hidden meanings inside the pages of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, the best-selling fantasy novel – and now major motion picture – that has captured the imagination of millions worldwide. This cutting edge film examines the secret codes and symbols of Lyra’s world – a parallel universe where each person is guided by their animal daemon and where dark, evil forces lurk behind facades of piousness and beauty. Utilizing the latest CG animation, stunning on-location re-enactments and rare archival footage, Beyond The Golden Compass: The Magic of Philip Pullman also includes revealing interviews with historians and experts as well as an exclusive talk with the author himself.Special Features:
- Exclusive interview with Philip Pullman
- Extended Interviews with Professors and Scholars
- Slide Show with director Jean-Pierre Isbouts
- Walk-Around Interview with Nicholas Tucker (author of Darkness Visible: Inside the World of Philip Pullman)
- Region 4
- Standard Edition
- 1.85 : 1
- Dolby Digital Surround 2.0
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text:
Hello i am Dannilla. My visa application have been denied under the 221 g act. They says its undergoing administrative processing and they will call or email me when they are ready to proceed with my case. I have no clue as to whats going on. Its a J1 visa for a job in the U.S. my arrival date is June 27 2018. I’m lost
What does it means when your visa application has been denined under the 221 g act but they have your passport
INA 221(g) is not a denial - it is simply the absence of some information or need for further verification of stated facts. If you have not been asked for anything, then USCIS is verifying information about your sponsor or employer.
Thanks alot because am confused. But thats what the paper says your application for a non-immigrant visa has been denied under section 221 g of the United States immigration and nationality act. Your case is now pending futher actions for the reason (s) indicated below.
your visa application requires additional administrative processing. We will contact you as soon as we are ready to proceed with your case.
Then they took my passport and my DS-2019 its a pink paper.


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Learn how to make mushroom and sausage pizza recipe
Rebecca Brand shows how to make Italian Sausage and Mushroom Pizza. Let's face itpizza, by its very nature, is a crowd pleaser. So go, try it out in the comforts of your own kitchen.
|Pizza dough||1 Cup (16 tbs)|
|Tomato sauce||3 Tablespoon|
|Mozzarella cheese||1 Cup (16 tbs)|
|Italian sweet sausage||2|
|Mushrooms||7 Medium (about 40 ounce)|
|Olive oil||2 Tablespoon|
Please watch the video for directions!


Welcome to visit us![email protected]
Oct 21, 2013 thailands siam cement group scg is mulling to set up a pulpwood plantation and fiber cement board factory in the philippines amid the countrys booming construction industry, the company said at a press meeting in manila on october 18, according to.
We are a large-scale joint-stock enterprise integrating scientific research, production and sales.Our leading products have crushing equipment, sand making equipment, mobile crusher, etc., Each type of product is with complete specifications. All products have passed ISO9001, CE and GOST international quality system certification.


Via email from Toastrider we have this:
For some reason I haven’t been able to find any commercially available ammo. It must be that a high demand for it hoovered the shelves like a lot of the other ammo. This would appear to be consistent with the abundance of large rifle ammo, moderate availability of .223 ammo, and scarcity of .22 ammo. Thus I claim we have proof that if the size of a gun is inversely related to penis size then the caliber of the gun owning man in this country is much larger than average.