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"Charlie X" es el segundo episodio de la primera temporada de Star Trek: La serie original, fue transmitido por primera vez el 15 de septiembre de 1966. Fue repetido por la NBC el 1 de junio de 1967. Es el episodio número 2 en ser transmitido, y el número 8 en ser producido. Fue escrito por D.C. Fontana, con el relato de Gene Roddenberry y dirigido por Lawrence Dobkin.

Resumen: La Enterprise recoge a un inestable adolescente con peligrosos poderes mentales.

Trama
En la Fecha Estelar 1533.6, la nave estelar USS Enterprise, bajo el mando del capitán James T. Kirk, se hace cargo de Charlie Evans (protagonizado por Robert Walker Jr.), un adolescente que viajaba en una pequeña nave de carga llamada Antares. Siendo más joven él fue el único sobreviviente de una nave de transporte que se había estrellado en el planeta Thasus. Durante catorce años Charlie se crio solo, varado en el planeta y solo con los restos destruidos de la nave, solo aprendió a hablar usando los computadores de la nave que de alguna forma permanecieron intactos.

El joven debe ser llevado por la Enterprise a sus parientes más cercanos que viven en el planeta Alpha V. Cuando es traído a bordo por el capitán y el primer oficial de la Antares, ellos no dejan de alabar a Charlie. Sin embargo, parecen demasiado agradados de dejar al joven en la Enterprise, y después de dejarlo se alejan rápidamente. Charlie es sometido a una revisión médica por parte del doctor McCoy y le dice al doctor que la tripulación de la nave de investigación no le quería mucho, y que todo lo que él desea es agradar a la gente.

Charlie rápidamente se convierte en alguien muy molesto, y también muestra señales de que posee extraños poderes. Charlie se siente atraído por la Paje Janice Rand, quien fue la primera mujer que él había visto. Charlie le regala un perfume, que resulta ser uno de sus aromas favoritos, a pesar de que la nave no lo tiene en sus provisiones. Habiendo observado a un hombre en ingeniería que, después de acordar una cita en la sala de recreación, golpea con la mano el trasero de su cita, él hace lo mismo con Rand lo que la molesta. Charlie se encuentra nuevamente con Rand en la sala de recreación, donde el Sr. Spock (a quien Charlie llama Sr. Orejas) toca una Lira Vulcana mientras la teniente Uhura canta. Charlie queda molesto tanto con la canción que Uhura improvisa acerca de él como por el hecho de que Rand le preste más atención a su actuación que a él. Por ese motivo Charlie provoca que Uhura pierda la voz temporalmente.

Cuando la Antares está casi fuera del alcance de los sensores, transmite una alerta a la Enterprise, pero el mensaje acaba bruscamente. Charlie hace un curioso y siniestro comentario "no estaba bien construida", poco antes Spock ha determinado que la Antares ha explotado. A continuación, comienzan a ocurrir extraños eventos a bordo de la Enterprise. Por ejemplo, un cocinero (con la voz de Roddenberry) informa que la carne sintética ha sido transformada en carne de pavo real.

De regreso a la sala de recreación, Kirk derrota a Spock en una partida de ajedrez tridimensional. Charlie queda intrigado con el juego y trata de duplicar el uso de Kirk de un juego intuitivo pero pierde rápidamente frente a lógica de Spock. Kirk y Spock dejan la sala pero un enfurecido Charlie causa que las piezas blancas del ajedrez se fundan, revelando tanto un mal temperamento como una poderosa habilidad telequinética.

En un intento de alejar a Charlie, Rand le presenta a la Yeoman de tercera clase Tina Lawton (quien tiene la misma edad que Charlie), pero Charlie solo tiene ojos para Rand y descarta a Tina, enfureciendo a Rand. Más tarde, Kirk trata de enseñarle a Charlie habilidades masculinas llevándole a entrenar en combate con artes marciales. Sam, el compañero de entrenamiento de Kirk, se ríe de una las caídas de Charlie, y éste le hace "desaparecer"— Sam se desvanece. Molesto con lo que ha presenciado, Kirk llama a unos guardias de seguridad para escoltar a Charlie a su habitación, pero éste dice que él no les dejará que lo dañen, entonces hace desaparecer sus fásers. Kirk sospecha que Charlie ha recibido poderes que la leyenda dice que una antigua raza de Thasianos poseían y enfrenta a Charlie respecto de eso. Charlie admite que él usó su poder para destruir a la Antares, pero se excusa diciendo que la nave se hubiera destruido de todas formas tarde o temprano, e insensiblemente agrega, "ellos no fueron amables conmigo".

Charlie descubre el plan de Kirk para desviarse de Alpha V, y toma el control de la Enterprise y de su tripulación. Fuerza a Spock a recitar poesía, convierte a Tina en un lagarto y persigue a Rand. Cuando ella se resiste a sus avances él se pone furioso y la hace desaparecer diciendo "ella no era agradable en absoluto". Charlie les dice a todos que él puede hacerlos desaparecer a todos en el momento que él quiera. Kirk y Spock intentan atraparlo dentro de un calabozo pero esto no resulta. Charlie pierde el control por la furia y convierte a una joven tripulante en una anciana y elimina los rostros de otros tripulantes que se encontraban riendo.

En ese momento una nave thasiana se aproxima a la Enterprise. La cabeza y el torso superior del comandante thasiano aparecen flotando en el puente, y explica que ellos le habían dado esos poderes a Charlie para ayudarlo a sobrevivir en su mundo y que sería muy peligroso para Charlie vivir entre los humanos. Los thasianos devuelven a la Yeoman Rand y arreglan los actos de Charlie. Él se disculpa con Kirk y le promete que se llevará Charlie a vivir con ellos. Charlie le ruega a Kirk que lo perdone y que no deje que los thasianos se lo lleven ya que ellos no tienen emociones humanas. Cuando Charlie se desvanece Kirk concuerda que eso es lo mejor para Charlie.

Remasterización del aniversario de los 40 años
Este episodio fue remasterizado en el año 2006 y fue transmitido por primera vez el 14 de julio de 2007 como parte de la remasterización de los 40 años de la serie original. Fue precedido una semana antes por "Regreso al mañana" y seguido una semana más tarde por "El escudero de Ghotos". Aparte de la remasterización del video y del audio, y la animación por computadora de la Enterprise que es lo normal para todas las revisiones, los cambios específicos a este episodio son:

 La Antares es mostrada por primera vez al lado de la Enterprise en la secuencia de apertura, cosa que no se había visto en el episodio original. El diseño de la nave es una reminiscencia de las naves de carga automatizadas (mostradas en el episodio de Star Trek: La serie animada "Más Tribbles, más problemas") con la adición de una sección delantera para la tripulación de la Antares.
 A la nave thasiana le fue dada una forma ligeramente más sólida en contraste al brillo amorfo que aparecía originalmente.

Historia del episodio
 La premisa para este episodio formó parte de la presentación original de marzo de 1964 de Gene Roddenberry para Star Trek, bajo el nombre de "El día en que Charlie se convirtió en Dios". Cuando la serie entró en producción le fue asignada a D. C. Fontana su redacción.
 Por un tiempo durante la producción el episodio fue conocido como "La ley de Charlie"— un nombre que sobrevivió en la adaptación de James Blish del episodio para Bantam Books. En una escena en el guion que no se transmitió, la ley de Charlie se declara como "Es mejor que seas amable con Charlie... o sino".
 Gene Roddenberry hizo un cameo de audio no acreditado como el cocinero que dice que la carne sintética se ha convertido en carne de pavo real.
 Hay un pequeño error de discontinuidad durante este episodio. En la escena donde Kirk le explica a Charlie el palmetazo, él es llamado al puente. Kirk entra al turboascensor vistiendo una camisa amarilla pero sale al puente vistiendo su túnica cruzada de color verde.

Secuela no-canónicas
El personaje de Charlie Evans reaparece en la mini serie no oficial Star Trek: De dioses y hombres (representado por William Wellman Jr.), aun teniendo un resentimiento contra Kirk después de cuarenta años de haberlo abandonado a los thasianos. Él usa al Guardián de la Eternidad para regresar en el tiempo y cambiar la historia, al matar a la madre de Kirk antes de que él naciera. Esta acción lleva a que Gary Mitchell se apodere de la galaxia, ya que Kirk no estaba para detenerlo. Cuando es enfrentado por Pavel Chekov (ahora un combatiente de la libertad anarquista), John Harriman (ahora un sádico capitán de la flota de Mitchell) y Nyota Uhura (que tiene algunas memorias residuales), él restaura las memorias de ésta y expresa su remordimiento. Inicialmente él se rehúsa a permitir que el Guardián sea usado, temeroso de las consecuencias. Sin embargo, cambia de opinión después de una batalla mental con Gary Mitchell, donde logra resistir al autodeclarado dios, aparentemente drenando gran parte del poder de Mitchell. Finalmente regresa en el tiempo y se mata a sí mismo antes de que pueda usar al Guardián, logrando así que la historia vuelva a su curso normal, dejando solo a Chekov, Harriman y a Uhura retener sus recuerdos que sucedieron.

Recepción
Zack Handlen del The A.V. Club le dio al episodio una calificación de 'B'. Handlen criticó al episodio por sus pobres personajes femeninos y el repetido uso de la palabra "dios-niño", pero alabó los elementos más "perturbadores" del episodio tales como las travesuras de Charlie y su eventual destino.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

 Charlie X en Memory Alpha, una wiki de Star Trek.
 Charlie X en StarTrek.com (en inglés)

 Charlie X comparación paralela del antes y después de la remasterización

Episodios de la primera temporada de Star Trek (la serie original)
Episodios de televisión de 1966

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The European court of human rights will be prevented from overruling decisions made by British courts under plans set to be announced by the Conservatives this week.
The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, said that the Conservatives wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act so that the final decisions in controversial cases could be made by the supreme court rather than the European court of human rights.
The policy, to be included in the party's manifesto ahead of the general election in May, was an attempt to return power to Britain, he told the Daily Telegraph.
The Tories have long wanted to curb the power of the Strasbourg-based court, which they believe has forced unacceptable decisions on Britain.
The party is planning a bill of rights to place the Human Rights Act that would abolish the right to appeal to the ECHR against decisions made by British courts.
Meanwhile, as the Tories prepare to gather for their annual conference in Birmingham, the culture secretary, Sajid Javid, said Britain should not be afraid of the prospect of leaving the European Union.
Javid said that the UK could still prosper economically even if it left the EU. "I think it would open up opportunities. I am not afraid of that at all," he told the Daily Mail.
David Cameron is preparing to fight the election on a pledge to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership and then hold an in/out referendum.
Javid insisted there was "reason to be confident" about the outcome of the negotiations. "Look at what we have already achieved – getting us out of the EU bailout fund, reducing the budget of the EU, vetoing a treaty," he said.


Smokie finds his forever home!
Our sweet Smokie, who came to the shelter last January and grew out of chewy puppihood in the shelter, has found his forever home! We are bursting with happiness for this wonderful boy who will be sleeping in his own bed tonight. He has a gentle older brother to keep him company and show him the ropes and a sweet little human sister to give him all of the cuddles he needs. Have a wonderful life, Smokie boy!!
Sydney found her forever home!


I never gag to the point of wanting to puke before my period, and I did last night, twice. I've also been experiencing cramps, headaches, and fatigue! I took an early pregnancy test but it came back negative but I feel pregnant, these are symtoms, right?
yes i beleave so! maybe you took your pregnancy test to early. you should go to the doctor!


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My rejection of the National Marriage Project's "Before 'I Do'"
August 27, 2014 May 8, 2018 Categories In the news5 Comments on My rejection of the National Marriage Project's "Before 'I Do'"
All day today, "The Decisive Marriage" has topped the New York Times most-emailed list. The piece is a Well Blog post, written by Tara Parker-Pope, which reports on a report published by the National Marriage Project and written by Galena Rhoades and Scott Stanley, "Before 'I Do': What Do Premarital Experiences Have to Do with Marital Quality Among Today's Young Adults?"
I have frequently criticized the National Marriage Project, run by Bradford Wilcox (posts listed under this tag), and I ignore their work when I can. But this report is getting a lot of attention now and several people have asked my opinion. Since the research in the report has not been subject to peer review, and the Pope piece does not include any expert commentary from non-authors, I figured I'd structure this post like the peer review report I would dash off if I had been asked to review the piece (it's a little different because I have access to the author and funding information, and I wouldn't include links or graphics, but this is more or less how it would go if I were asked to review it).
Before "I Do"
This paper reports results from an original data collection which sampled 1,294 people in 2007/08, and then followed an unknown number of them for five years. The present paper reports on the marriage quality of 418 of the individuals who reported marrying over the period (ages 18-40). The authors provide no information on sample attrition or how this was handled in the analysis, or the determinants of marriage within the sample. Although they claim (without evidence) that the sample was "reasonably representative of unmarried adults," they note it is 65% female, so it's obviously not representative. More importantly, the analysis sample is only those who married, which is highly select. Neither sexual orientation of the respondents, nor gender composition of the couples described is reported.
The outcome variable in the study is a reasonable measure of "marital quality" based on a four-item reduced-form version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (originally developed by Graham Spanier), which includes these items:
How often do you discuss or have you considered divorce, separation, or terminating your relationship?
In general, how often do you think that things between you and your partner are going well?
Do you confide in your mate?
Please circle the dot which best describes the degree of happiness, all things considered, of your relationship.
The authors provide no details on the coding of these items, but say the scale ranges from 0 to 21, and their sample included people who scored from 0 to 21. However, the mean was 16.5 and the standard deviation was 3.7, indicating a strong skew toward high scores. Inexplicably, for the presentation of results the authors dichotomize the dependent variable into those they classify as "higher quality," the 40% of respondents who scored (19-21), versus everyone else (0-18). To defend this decision, the authors offer this non-explanation, which means exactly nothing:
This cut point was selected by inspection of the distribution. While it is somewhat arbitrary, we reasoned that these people are not just doing "above average" in their marriages, but are doing quite well.
The average marriage duration is not reported, but the maximum possible is 5 years, so we are talking about marriage quality very early in these marriages.
The main presentation of findings consists of bar graphs misleadingly labeled "Percent in Higher-Quality Marriages, by…" various independent variables. These are misleading because, according to the notes to these figures, "These percentages are adjusted for race/ethnicity, years of education, personal income, religiousness, and frequency of attendance at religious services." Here is one:
The method for arriving at these "adjusted" percentages is not given. This apparently confused Parker-Pope, who reported them as unadjusted percentages, like this:
People who lived with another person before marrying also reported a lower-quality relationship. In that group, 35 percent had higher-quality marriages. Among those who had not lived with another romantic partner before marriage, 42 percent had higher-quality marriages.
The statistical significance of this difference is not reported. However, if this were a simple difference of proportions, the difference would not be statistically significant at conventional levels (with a sample of 418, 39% of whom lived with someone else before, the test for difference of proportions for .42 and .35 yields a z-score of 1.43, p=.15). The full report includes an appendix which says they used multilevel modeling, but the form of the regression is not specified. The regression table provided includes no fit statistics or variance components so the efficacy of the model cannot be evaluated.
Regression says: Adding 100 people to the wedding party 5 times would not equal the effect on marital quality of not being Black.
Much is made here (and in the Pope article about these findings) about the wedding-size effect. That is, among married couples, those who reported bigger weddings had higher average marriage quality. The mean wedding size was 117. In the regression model, each additional wedding guest was associated with an increase in marriage quality (on the 0-21 scale) of .005. That is, if this were a real effect, adding 100 wedding guests would increase marital quality by half a point, or less than 1/7 of a standard deviation. For comparison, in the model, the negative effect of being Black (-2.69) is more than 5-times greater than the effect of a 100-guest swing in wedding attendance. (The issue of effect size did not enter into Pope's description of the results.)
The possibility of nonlinear effects of wedding size or other variables is not discussed.
Are the results plausible?
It is definitely possible that, for example, less complicated relationship histories, or larger weddings, do contribute to marital happiness early in the marriage. The authors speculate, based on psychological research from the 1970s, that the "desire for consistency" means "having more witnesses at a wedding may actually strengthen marital quality."
Sure. The much bigger issue, however, is two kinds of selection. The first, which they address — very poorly — concerns spurious effects. Thus, the simplest explanation is that (holding income constant) people with larger weddings simply had better relationships to begin with. Or, because personal income (not couple income — and note only one person from each couple was interviewed) is at best a very noisy indicator of resources available to couples, big weddings may simply proxy for wealthier families.
Or, about the finding that living with someone else prior to the current relationship is associated with poorer marriage quality, it may simply be that people who have trouble in relationships are more likely to have both lived with someone else and have poor quality marriages later. Cherlin et al. have reported, for example, that women with a history of sexual abuse are more likely to be in transitory relationships, including serial cohabiting relationships, so a history of abuse could account for some of these results. And so on.
The authors address this philosophically, which is all they can do given their data:
One obvious objection to this study is that it may be capturing what social scientists call "selection effects" rather than a causal relationship between our independent variables and the outcome at hand. That is, this report's results may reflect the fact that certain types of people are more likely to engage in certain behaviors—such as having a child prior to marriage—that are correlated with experiencing lower odds of marital quality. It could be that these underlying traits or experiences, rather than the behaviors we analyzed, explain the associations reported here. This objection applies to most research that is not based on randomized experiments. We cannot prove causal associations between the personal and couple factors we explore and marital quality.
However, because they have rudimentary demographic controls, and the independent variables chronologically precede the outcome variable, they think they're on pretty firm ground:
With the help of our research, we hope current and future couples will better understand the factors that appear to contribute to building a healthy, loving marriage in contemporary America.
This is Wilcox's standard way of nodding to selection before plowing ahead with unjustified conclusions. This is not a reasonable approach, for reasons apparent in today's New York Times. Tara Parker-Pope does not mention this issue, and her piece will obviously reach many more people than the original report or this post.
They hope people will take their results as relationship advice. In Pope's piece, Stanley offers exactly the same advice he always gives. If that is to be the case, the best advice by far — based on their models — is to avoid being Black, and to finish high school. Living with both one's biological parents at age 14 helps, too. In relationship terms, unfortunately, most of the results could just as easily reflect wealth or initial relationship quality rather than relationship decisions, and thus tell us that people who have healthy (and less complicated) relationships before marriage have healthy relationships in the first few years after marriage.
Perhaps more serious, however, for this study design, is the second kind of selection: selection into the sample (by marriage). Anything that affects both the odds of marrying and the quality of marriage is potentially corrupting these results. This is a big, complicated issue, with a whole school of statistical methods attached to it. Unless they attend to that issue this analysis should not be published.
On the funding
The authors state the project was "initially funded" by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, but the report also acknowledges support from the William E. Simon Foundation, a very conservative foundation that in 2012 gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Witherspoon Institute (which funded the notorious Wilcox/Regnerus research on children of same-sex couples), the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and other conservative and Christian activist organizations. Details on funding are not provided.
The National Marriage Project is well-known for publishing only work that supports their agenda of marriage promotion. Some of what they publish may be true, but based on their track record they cannot be trusted as honest brokers of new research.
Does sleeping with a guy on the first date make him less likely to call back?
March 1, 2014 September 9, 2014 Categories In the news16 Comments on Does sleeping with a guy on the first date make him less likely to call back?
I have no idea. But there is a simple reason that it might seem like it does, even if it doesn't.
Let's imagine that a woman — we'll call her "you," like they do in relationship advice land — is trying to calculate the odds that a man will call back after sex. Everyone tells you that if you sleep with a guy on the first date he is less likely to call back. The theory is that giving sex away at a such a low "price" lowers the man's opinion of you, because everyone thinks sluts are disgusting.* Also, shame on you.
Photo by Emily Hildebrand, from Flickr Creative Commons
So, you ask, does the chance he will call back improve if you wait till more dates before having sex with him? You ask around and find that this is actually true: The times you or your friends waited till the seventh date, two-thirds of the guys called back, but when you slept with him on the first date, only one-in-five called back. From the data, it sure looks like sleeping with a guy on the first date reduces the odds he'll call back.
So, does this mean that women make men disrespect them by having sex right away? If that's true, then the historical trend toward sex earlier in relationships could be really bad for women, and maybe feminism really is ruining society.
Like all theories, this one assumes a lot. It assumes you (women) decide when couples will have sex, because it assumes men always want to, and it assumes men's opinion of you is based on your sexual behavior. With these assumptions in place, the data appear to confirm the theory.
But what if that those assumptions aren't true? What if couples just have more dates when they enjoy each other's company, and men actually just call back when they like you? If this is the case, then what really determines whether the guy calls back is how well-matched the couple is, and how the relationship is going, which also determines how many dates you have.
What was missing in the study design was relationship survival odds. Here is a closer look at the same data (not real data), with couple survival added:
By this interpretation, the decision about when to have sex is arbitrary and doesn't affect anything. All that matters is how much the couple like and are attracted to each other, which determines how many dates they have, and whether the guy calls back. Every couple has a first date, but only a few make it to the seventh date. It appears that the first-date-sex couples usually don't last because people don't know each other very well on first dates and they have a high rate of failure regardless of sex. The seventh-date-sex couples, on the other hand, usually like each other more and they're very likely to have more dates. And: there are many more first-date couples than seventh-date couples.
So the original study design was wrong. It should have compared call-back rates after first dates, not after first sex. But when you assume sex runs everything, you don't design the study that way. And by "design the study" I mean "decide how to judge people."
I have no idea why men call women back after dates. It is possible that when you have sex affects the curves in the figure, of course. (And I know even talking about relationships this way isn't helping.) But even if sex doesn't affect the curves, I would expect higher callback rates after more dates.
Anyway, if you want to go on blaming everything bad on women's sexual behavior, you have a lot of company. I just thought I'd mention the possibility of a more benign explanation for the observed pattern that men are less likely to call back after sex if the sex takes place on the first date.
* This is not my theory.
Is the price of sex too damn low?
February 24, 2014 April 29, 2015 Categories In the news35 Comments on Is the price of sex too damn low?
I'm sorry this is so long. If you're in a hurry, some of the funny parts are toward the end.
In an animated video rant against sexual liberation, Mark Regnerus gives the 10-minute version of an essay he published in the journal Society in 2012 (with a Slate companion piece) — using professional drawing hands and narrators. Since it has received more than 80,000 views, and some fawning in the conservative press, I wanted to comment a little.
The video asserts that in the market for sex, women sell and men buy.
On average, men initiate sex more than women, they're more sexually permissive than women, and they connect sex to romance less often than women. No one's saying this is the way it ought to be. It's just the way it is! Women, on the other hand, are likely to have sex for reasons beyond just simple pleasure. Her motivations for sex often include expressing and receiving love, strengthening commitment, affirming desirability, and relationship security. So in an exchange relationship where men want sex more often than women do, who decides when it will happen? She does, of course. Sex is her resource.
Let me just stop here for a minute. If I grant you that, on average, contemporary American men want sex with women more than the reverse, does the size of this difference matter at all? In a response to Regnerus, Elaine Hatfield and colleagues remind us that difference within the genders are greater than the differences between them (which, in turn, are shrinking over time). If the difference between men's and women's attitudes toward sex were observable but tiny, would it still be true that the system is one in which women sell and men buy? Of course not. The difference has to be big enough to drive the whole system. No one can say how big it is, or needs to be, because the crackpots running this theory don't care. They are just spinning out the why-pay-for-milk-when-the-cow-is-free analogy without regard to the specifics of the model.
Anyway, what is the "price" women charge for sex? It's "a few drinks and compliments," or "a month of dates and respectful attention," or "a lifetime promise to share all of his affections, wealth and earnings with her exclusively." So, which will it be? To explain why we have too much casual sex and not enough marriage nowadays, Regnerus turns to an inadvertently comical lesson on supply and demand, starting with this figure.
"When supplies are high, prices drop," the narrator says, "since people won't pay more for something that's easy to find. But if it's hard to find, people will pay a premium." Cow, milk, etc. The reason this figure is funny (and how it differs from real supply/demand curves) is that it also shows that rising prices lead to lower supply. But whatever – the point is, feminism is bad.
To Regnerus, the falling marriage rate (the only fact offered as evidence for this) means the supply of sex has increased and its price has fallen. The narrator asks, "So how did we get here? How did the market value of sex decline so drastically?" Answer: the Pill, which "profoundly lower[ed] the cost of sex." From there the video goes on to blame women for abandoning their centuries-old cartel, which restricted the supply of sex, thus propping up the price. The video says:
In the past, it really wasn't the patriarchy that policed women's relational interests [because isn't that what you thought patriarchy was all about?], it was women. But … this unspoken pact to set a high market value of sex has all but vanished. But in a brave new world where sex no longer means babies, and marriage has become optional, the solidarity women once felt toward each other in the mating market has dissolved. Women no longer have each other's backs. On the contrary, they're now each other's competition. And when women compete for men, they tend to do so by appealing to what men want.
So, women have sold each other out. As a result, they've lost their leverage and men have an advantage they don't deserve, given their randy minds. To conclude, the narrator declares:
Today the economics of contemporary sexual relationships clearly favor men and what they want. Even while what they are offering in the exchange has diminished. And it's all thanks to supply, demand, and the long reach of a remarkable little pill.
In the article version, Regnerus writes:
I assert that if women were more in charge of how their romantic relationships transpired—more in charge of the 'pricing' negotiations around sex—we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts by men, fewer hook-ups, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on (and perhaps even at a slightly earlier age, too). In other words, the 'price' of sex would be higher: it would cost men more to access it.
Yes, that does contradict the point earlier about how women always decide when they will have sex, because it's inherently their resource. But who cares, feminism is bad.
This is all tricky to reconcile with the common lyrical formulation, in which both men and women "give it" to each other (though not in the same song). So Tom Petty fits the theory, trying to lower the price to zero:
It's alright if you love me / it's alright if you don't / I'm not afraid of you running away / honey I've got a feeling you won't
There is no sense in pretending / your eyes give you away / something inside you is feeling like I do / and we've said all there is to say
Baby, breakdown, go ahead and give it to me…
But I think it's more common for men to "give it" to women, too, as in Tanto Metro and Devonte or 50 Cent among many others.
Anyway, a few thoughts on this big ball of wrong.
First, what about actual economics? If women sell sex and men buy it, and women set the price by how slutty they act, there is still the issue of the value of what men have to offer — to women. Like Hana Rosin, who bemoans the cardboardness of today's man — unable to respond to changing times — Regnerus assumes unchanging men. When it comes to sex, that's presumably because it comes from God, evolution, or (in Regnerus's Catholic view) God acting through evolution. But even if all they care about is sex, the value of what they have to offer for it — relative to what women have and need — has surely changed a lot. So, as the relative value of the men's lifetime promise of wealth and earnings falls toward the value of a couple drinks and compliments, it's only natural that women will be less and less able to distinguish the two.
As Paula England notes in her (disappointingly mild) critique of Regnerus, his theory has a problem explaining why marriage has declined so much more for the less-than-college-educated population. Among those men and women, the male/female ratio has grown markedly as women flee for higher ground. So, with the relative shortage of women, they should be in command — so they could demand marriage.
But if women insist on marrying a man with a job, as I just showed recently, they actually face a shortage of men. In the video's terms, they're back in this situation:
But that's only because women insist on a man with a job. In other words, the value of what men have to offer (relative to what women need) matters. (England argues against this "it's the economy, stupid" perspective, for reasons I don't find convincing.) So why doesn't Regnerus talk about actual economics?
In the Society version of this video Regnerus says he gets this sexual economics theory from Baumeister and Vohs (and the video resource guide links to several of Baumeister's papers), including the basic story that sex is something women sell and men buy, and the thing about how feminism dissolved female solidarity.
Interestingly, however, Baumeister and his several co-authors are much more keyed in to the economics questions that Regnerus all but ignores. While Regnerus focuses on the Pill, they write in the 2004 paper he relies on that one of the "preconditions of market exchange" in sex is that, "In general, men have resources women want." It's not just the Pill that has changed things, in other words, it's also the end of men: "Once women had been granted wide opportunities for education and wealth, they no longer had to hold sex hostage."
Regnerus really does the theory a disservice by leaving all this out. In another recent article, Baumeister and Mendoza reiterate:
According to sexual economics theory, when women lack direct or easy access to resources such as political influence, health care, money, education, and jobs, then sex becomes a crucial means by which women can gain access to a good life, and so it is vital to female self-interest to keep the price of sex high.
The real problem now, according to the intellectual godfather of Regnerus's version of this theory, is gender equality, but Regnerus doesn't want to say that. Baumesiter and Mendoza write: "when women have direct economic clout, they do not need to use sex to bargain for other resources, and so they can make sex more freely available." Thus, they show that casual sex is positively associated with a measure of gender equality across 37 countries. I've made a figure from their findings. This is the percentage of people in an international online sex survey who say they ever had sex with someone just once (on the y-axis), by the level of gender equality according to the World Economic Forum (on the x-axis):
The logic here is approaching random. Get this: When women were poor, they needed to withhold sex to get money. Now that they have more money — and are less dependent on men — they don't need to withhold it, so they give it away. Wait, what? If they don't need to sell it anymore, and we already know they don't want to "have" it (that is, do it), then why don't those Scandinavian women just keep it, for f#cks' sake? (Amanda Marcotte made a similar argument about Baumeister)
It seems likely the differences between Regnerus and Baumeister are of emphasis rather than principle. Believe it or not, Regnerus's explanation, focusing only on sex and the Pill, would be stronger if he latched on to this crazy economics argument. But I reckon he stays away from that because taking a stand against women's equality is a political and cultural nonstarter, and Regnerus's ambition is social influence.
If you've read this far, you deserve some insanely sexist quotes. Because Baumeister has no such qualms about offending women. Besides representing what I think Regnerus really thinks, Baumeister and Vohs are also much more entertaining than Regnerus (in this piece, anyway). In their response to Regnerus, they blame women's sexual permissiveness for just about everything. That's because, "Giving young men easy access to abundant sexual satisfaction deprives society of one of its ways to motivate them to contribute valuable achievements to the culture."
Did you get that? Women giving away sex is literally ruining the culture. If I knew my classics I'm sure I'd know the analogy here. I'm thinking of the early Christian adaptation of the Greek sirens, which sometime before A.D. 700 changed them from magical creatures to vile humans, "prostitutes who led travelers down to poverty and were said to impose shipwreck on them." If that seems overdramatic, it's just because you haven't read the whole essay.
In the feminist era Baumeister and Vohs describe, rather than just marriage in exchange for sex, women have upped their demands: "Women, meanwhile, want not only marriage but also access to careers and preferential treatment in the workplace." (I'm not sure how this fits with the idea that women have lowered the "price of sex," but logic isn't the point here, hating feminism is.)
Here are some key snippets:
The giant trade thus essentially involved men giving women not only easy access but even preferential treatment in the huge institutions that make up society, which men created. Today most schools, universities, corporations, scientific organizations, governments, and many other institutions have explicit policies to protect and promote women. It is standard practice to hire or promote a woman ahead of an equally qualified man. Most large organizations have policies and watchdogs that safeguard women's interests and ensure that women gain preferential treatment over men. … Nobody looks out for men, and so the structural changes favoring women and disadvantaging men have accelerated.
All of this is a bit ironic, in historical context. The large institutions have almost all been created by men. … Even today, the women's movement has been a story of women demanding places and preferential treatment in the organizational and institutional structures that men create, rather than women creating organizations and institutions themselves. … All over the world and throughout history (and prehistory), the contribution of large groups of women to cultural progress has been vanishingly small. …
Indeed, the world of work is a daunting place for a young man today. Feminists quickly point to the continued dominance of men at the top of most organizations, but this is misleading if not outright disingenuous. Men create most organizations and work hard to succeed in them. Indeed, an open-minded scholar can search through history mostly in vain to find large organizations created and run by women that have contributed anything beyond complaining about men and demanding a bigger share of the male pie.
Warning, the excerpts grow more and more offensive from here on…
Why have men acquiesced so much in giving women the upper hand in society's institutions? It falls to men to create society (because women almost never create large organizations or cultural systems). It seems foolish and self-defeating for men then to meekly surrender advantageous treatment in all these institutions to women. … Because of women's lesser motivation and ambition, they will likely never equal men in achievement, and their lesser attainment is politically taken as evidence of the need to continue and possibly increase preferential treatment for them.
But this pattern of male behavior makes more sense if we keep in mind that getting sex is a high priority for men, especially young men. Being at a permanent disadvantage in employment and promotion prospects, as a result of affirmative action policies favoring women, is certainly a cost to young men, but perhaps not a highly salient one. What is salient is that sex is quite readily available. As Regnerus reports, even a man with dismal career prospects (e.g., having dropped out of high school) can find a nice assortment of young women to share his bed.
The male who beds multiple women is enjoying life quite a bit, and so he may not notice or mind the fact that his educational and occupational advancement is vaguely hampered by all the laws and policies that push women ahead of him. After all, one key reason he wanted that advancement was to get sex, and he already has that. Climbing the corporate ladder for its own sake may still hold some appeal, but undoubtedly it was more compelling when it was vital for obtaining sex. Success isn't as important as it once was, when it was a prerequisite for sex.
(Did I mention I'm not making this up? I'm sorry to just keep excerpting, but this stuff just writes itself.)
Unfortunately for society, women taking over the economy has a real downside:
Still, replacing male with female workers may bring some changes, insofar as the two genders approach work differently. Compared to men, women have higher rates of absenteeism, seek social rewards more than financial ones, are less ambitious, work fewer hours overall, are more prone to take extended career interruptions, and identify less with the organizations they work for. They are more risk averse, resulting in fewer entrepreneurs and inventions. … Women are less interested in science and technology fields. They create less wealth.
And finally, "the implications of the recent social changes for marriage could fill a book." (Really, a whole book?) In that book (which we're really quite happy to wait for), casual sex is also ruining marriage because it's increasing the crushing depression that naturally follows from female-dominated marriage:
The female contribution of sex to the marriage is evanescent: As women age, they lose their sexual appeal much faster than men lose their status and resources, and some alarming evidence even indicates that wives rather quickly lose their desire for sex. To sustain a marriage across multiple decades, many husbands must accommodate to the reality of having to contribute work and other resources to a wife whose contribution of sex dwindles sharply in both quantity and quality—and who also may disapprove sharply of him seeking satisfaction in alternative outlets such as prostitution, pornography, and extramarital dalliance.
Yes, in their zeal to describe the sexual disaster of modern marriage, they forgot to even nod to the ideal wife's housework and child rearing contributions.
We speculate that today's young men may be exceptionally ill prepared for a lifetime of sexual starvation that is the lot of many modern husbands. The traditional view that a wife should sexually satisfy her husband regardless of her own lack of desire has been eroded if not demolished by feminist ideology that has encouraged wives to expect husbands to wait patiently until the wife actually desires sex, with the result that marriage is a prolonged episode of sexual starvation for the husband. … Today's young men spend their young adulthood having abundant sex with multiple partners, and that seems to us to be an exceptionally poor preparation for a lifetime of sexual starvation.
Yes, that was a third "sexual starvation" reference in one paragraph. (I am completely above making a joke about this, but The Onion isn't.)
Regnerus cites this guy Baumeister up and down. If all Muslims have to personally disavow Bin Laden, I think it's only fair that we expect Regnerus to comment on this.
What about lesbians?
Oh, that. When Regnerus wrote his post in Slate, Belle Waring wrote a nice piece about it, which included this:
Please note also that under the economic model, lesbians can't exist, since they have nothing of value to exchange for sex, except for…um…sex? And since women only use sex as a means to an end, and exchange it with men; and since further, sex has been explicitly devalued to something cheap, well, hm. I submit that if you propose a model of human sexual behavior, and it positively forbids the existence of a whole class of people who nonetheless actually exist, then maybe there's a problem with the theory? Just a thought.
I promise I'll stop now, but Regnerus actually has talked about lesbians recently — though not to explain how they have sex without a buyer. This from a speech just last month at Franciscan University of Steubenville, at which he implied homosexuality emerged partly because of the Pill, too, based on his reading of Anthony Giddens' Transformation of Intimacy. He said: "Giddens draws an arrow from contraception to sexual malleability to the expansion of homosexuality."
So, if he thinks lesbians are an unnatural creation of modern sexual plasticity, then I guess it's not surprising that he also believes (at about 9:10) that lesbians produce asexual children:
Despite comprising a mere 1.3 percent of the population, respondents in the NFSS [New Family Structures Survey] who said that their mothers have had a same-sex sexual relationship made up 15 [50?] percent of all the asexual identifiers in the NFSS. So, 15 [50?] percent of them come from 1.3 percent of the population.*
The hatefulness of this is what's most important (you have to see the smirk when he jokes to the Franciscans that asexuality might be "convenient" for people pursuing celebacy). But for what it's worth, I also interpret this as further evidence that his data is garbagey. When a substantial number of respondents answer questions at random or incorrectly — as was the case in the Regnerus/Wilcox NFSS data (see p. 333 here) — then highly skewed items will be unreasonably correlated (e.g., if 3 percent fill it out the question at random, and the actual asexual population is 1 percent, then most of the people counted as asexual will be random; and if the same happens for mothers' sexual history, then the two variables will have a surprisingly large overlap.)
It would be tempting (and more enjoyable) to simply ignore Mark Regnerus forever. His record of scientific manipulation and dishonesty in the service of the movement to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians is well documented, and social scientists of good will won't trust him again unless he comes clean. I wish that he and the people of good will could just agree never to interact again. But he's young and ambitious, and it's likely that he'll be back. So we should keep an eye on him.
* On listening to this again, it's hard to tell, but I think he says 15%, not 50%, as I first transcribed it.
Does happy marriage cause happy marriage?
February 10, 2014 September 14, 2014 Categories Research reports7 Comments on Does happy marriage cause happy marriage?
I don't know how I missed this one, from two Valentine's Days ago…
For an introductory methods course discussion on: when does something cause something else. Question: Are happier couples happier? Some writers think so:
Washington Post: The Groupon effect: Can date-night deals save your marriage?
Huffington Post: Date Nights: They Make Your Marriage Work
Inquisitr: Date Nights Improve Marriage, Better Your Sex Life [Study]
USA Today: 'Date night' can improve marriage, sexual satisfaction
Cosmopolitan: Why Date Night Is So Important
I can see the study design now: a randomized group of couples were given coupons for date nights, and some time later were compared with a control group without the coupons. Or not. Cosmo summarized:
For their study, researchers from the University of Virginia's National Marriage Project surveyed 1,600 couples and asked them about everything from relationship satisfaction to sex. They discovered that couples who spend at least one night a week alone together say they're more committed to their relationship than those who don't hang out together as much.
(The report, by Brad Wilcox and Jeffery Dew and posted online at the National Marriage Project, is here.)
BREAKING: Researchers discover murder less common among happy couples.
Is that it? A simple association between being together and being happy? Almost. First, they say (there are no tables) that they "control for factors such as income, age, education, race, and ethnicity." Such as? Anyway.
Second, they also claim to have analyzed historical data from the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1994). They write:
Because we had data from spouses at two time points in the NSFH, we were also able to examine the direction of effects—to determine whether or not couple time reported during the first wave of the survey was associated with marital quality at the second wave. Here, the more couple time individuals reported at the time of the first survey, the more likely they were to be very happy in their marriage at the second survey, five years later. Although the NSFH evidence does not provide us with definitive proof that couple time causes increases in marital quality, the longitudinal character of the data suggests that the relationship may indeed be causal.
So, Wilcox and Dew point #1: If something happened before something else, "the relationship may indeed be causal." They go on:
It is certainly intuitively true that greater satisfaction with one's partner should also lead to more time spent in positive, shared activities. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to assume that two partners who intentionally set out to increase positive couple time spent together would typically not benefit from such time with increases in connection and happiness.
So, point #2 is, We already knew the answer before we did the research, because it's flipping obvious, so who cares about this analysis — it's almost Valentine's Day!
There are ways to actually get at "the direction of effects," like the randomized trial I suggested, or even using longitudinal data and assessing changes in happiness, or controlling for happiness at time 1. Not this.
Anyway, can we think of examples of things that occur before other things without causing them? Here are a few off the top of my head:
One sibling dies of a genetic disease now, and then the other one dies from the same disease later: Shocking new evidence that genetics works sideways!
Someone has tennis elbow now, and is playing sports later: The surprising way that getting hurt makes you athletic!
People who spend more money now have more money later: The more you spend, the more you save!
And of course, people who have a lot of sex now are good looking later: Sex up your looks!
I'm open to suggestions for better examples.
Note: I guess in some social science neighborhoods it's common to analyze the effects of extremely similar things on each other, like pleasure being associated with happiness, or strong left arms being associated with strong right legs. Dew and Wilcox actually published a peer-reviewed article, using this survey, on the association between small acts of kindness in marriage and marital satisfaction. And the result? Couples who are nice to each other are happier.
Why does the news turn social science into garbage?
August 5, 2013 August 5, 2013 Categories In the news6 Comments on Why does the news turn social science into garbage?
I'm reading garbage. But I look smart. I feel smart. And doggone it, I'm pretty wealthy.
Okay, I could have added "sometimes" in the title.
Someone at the New York Times's One-Page Magazine took this interesting study (paywalled) of conversational styles among a sample of older couples over a period of 13 years and turned it into this:
Forget counseling: a new study in The Journal of Marriage and Family found that couples who have been married for more than 35 years and are over the age of 60 are more likely to change the subject rather than confront toxic topics in their relationship.
Forget counseling? Not only do the authors not say this is a good thing (the study did not include marital outcomes), they specifically suggest the research might help shape future approaches to marital therapy at older ages.
But why care? It's just another gossipy piece of social science fluff that doesn't reference the actual study, written to give NYT readers a harmless chuckle while they peruse the Sunday paper. Ha ha. Ick.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The economic significance of road planning in hazard prone areas is high. By reducing natural hazard related damages to our roads, we can significantly reduce the resources that need to be spent on maintenance, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and we can lengthen their useful service life. All this will lead to a considerable reduction in expenditure. This is of crucial importance in the Caribbean region, where large chunks of capital expenditure are spent on road construction. In addition, preventing hazard related damages reduces secondary losses. These are losses associated with the closure of a section of road over a particular period of time, which reduces the alternatives for people to travel. This is particularly the case on many of the Caribbean islands, where few roads exist and most roads are vital lifelines that connect people to their work, education, health care, and other activities.
Developing roads in hazard prone areas is a challenging planning problem that involves a thorough understanding of many issues: the actual hazard conditions and their spatial extent, but also the location of people and facilities to be served, the topography, geology, land-use, land value, construction options/costs and others.
In this section we will discuss two analytical approaches to road planning in hazard prone areas. The first one is based on the evaluation of a set of predefined alternative routes, whereas the second one refers to the generation of an optimal route.
Since the execution of both methods typically involves Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA), reference is made to chapter 6.4 on Spatial Multi Criteria Analysis in the methodology book. In chapter 3.1.2. of the use case book, a practical example of the applied method is provided for the planning of a road between Dennery and Choc on the island of St. Lucia.
Provide a basic methodology for road planning in hazard prone areas that planners can use in their day-to-day work, when carrying out the planning themselves, when preparing terms of reference for advisory services or when supervising such services.
Planners and engineers working on road planning in hazard prone areas, consultants.
Of particular importance to road planning are high frequency hazards such as landslides and floods which are also the focus of the CHARIM project. Low frequency events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are less relevant because they occur seldom and their effects are difficult to quantify. On the islands, with respect to the transport sector, major damages occur to roads because of landslides that are triggered by high intensity rainfall events. In addition, man-made activities such as deforestation, irrigation and mining may have a negative impact on road related landslide hazard. Also, road construction itself often weakens a slope, as the road may cut through and destabilize it. The effect of landslides on roads is often that entire sections of the road are pushed out, leaving no other option than complete reconstruction. In other cases the road stops the debris flow, which makes it unpassable until it is cleaned up and the road surface repaired.
In the case of flooding, the trigger is mostly an extreme rainfall event. Such event usually causes damage to a road around its structures. Primary processes involved are erosion around structures such as bridges, culverts and drains, particularly if the water carries a lot of sediment and debris, which is often the case with the high energy flash floods that we see on the islands and in parts of Belize. Also here deforestation can be a key contributor to more frequent and high intensity flooding events, along with developments in the catchments at large.
Carrying out a proper hazard analysis is therefore an important input into the route planning procedure, without it, no proper analysis of risk can be made and routes may be chosen through areas that are unsuitable, leading to damage that could have been avoided.
The basic objective of route planning that we are considering here is to find or choose the best route for a road between two locations.
However, what is the "best" route? In fact, in most cases, there is no such thing as the "best" route in the sense of the most optimal route, the alternative that stands out above the others, rather there will be a number of route options, all of which have their pros and cons, and determining which one is the "best" will depend to a large extent on who is making this judgment. Several stakeholders may have different opinions on which factors or criteria need to be taken into account and which importance should be attached to each criterion. For this reason, route selection of roads is a typical planning problem that involves multiple criteria and views of different stakeholders in decision making. Keeping the above in mind, for the purpose of this chapter if we refer to the best alternative, we mean the route that achieves the highest suitability scores of the alternatives in the methodology chosen, for a given set of criteria and for a certain stakeholder involvement.
As the simple illustration below shows, there may be different options to connect locations, each with their advantages and disadvantages. A route may be the shortest, but it may go through hilly terrain which could involve high construction costs and high costs for risk mitigation. The shortest possible route is therefore often not the most suitable route. Particularly in hilly and mountainous regions such as the eastern Caribbean islands, geological conditions and topographical conditions related to landslide and flood hazards are important in determining what the most suitable route is.
In the first method, usually the planning or infrastructure agency has already developed a number of alternative trajectories, out of which the best needs to be chosen on the basis of pre-defined criteria. This method is a typical multi-criteria evaluation method in which involved stakeholders can bring criteria to the table that they deem important. These can then be scored and weighted, leading to an overall score and the best choice among the alternatives provided.
In the second method, no predefined alternatives are provided, however a computerised optimisation is carried out to determine a so called least cost path. Such a path is generally based on the evaluation of all (usually thousands) possible routes through a landscape of costs (or benefits) that are based on particular criteria. This may be similar criteria as applied in the first method and in principle also here stakeholder input may be part of the process. We will also discuss this method in this section.
To choose the best route for a road out of a selected number of alternatives will generally depend on many factors that all need to be considered. The most important ones are discussed in the section below. A methodology is proposed that guides the planner through a step-by-step approach as indicated in the flowchart. By clicking on the items in the flowchart that have an orange band, more detailed steps are shown within each phase when applicable.
The flowchart below provides an SMCA based approach to the route planning problem. We refer to chapter 6.5 on MCA for more details on the general method.
The above already indicates that proper route planning can be a very complex and data intensive exercise. The adding of more and more criteria however is not necessarily recommended, as it will only average out the final suitability scores and add complexity to the analysis. It is advisable to select only key criteria and work with those, certainly in a first iteration, and possibly at a later stage do a second iteration with additional criteria to fine-tune or to evaluate differences between two final route alternatives.
A lot of the information that needs to be collected will come in the form of maps, such as the items mentioned under 1,2,3, 4 and 5, others may also come as not spatial criteria in the MCA, although they will always have a spatial component, e.g. 6, 7 and 8. In carrying out the SMCA we can also incorporate the non-spatial criteria, depending on the software that we use for this purpose.
Prior to the carrying out of the SMCA this information needs to be prepared in such a way that it can be used as a criterion map. For example, if one of the criteria is the number of inhabitants that is located within 500 m of the road to be planned, a GIS analysis needs to be done in which population data are overlaid on a buffer map of the roads to produce a criterion map. It should be noted that all maps that are to be used in the SMCA need to be raster maps of the same spatial extent and resolution and therefore need to be prepared as such. An illustration of this process is given in use case 3.1.2 in this handbook.
In this phase the actual evaluation of the route alternatives takes place. It allows for the involvement of stakeholders in the final decision on which criteria to include and in the weighting of the criteria scores. If required, certain visions/scenarios can be built into this process. E.g. a low hazard vision, where the maps that present the hazards are given a high weight, or an environmental vision, where the impact on the environment is given more importance. The use of visions can be a useful way to represent the interests of certain stakeholder groups that come to the table with a particular perspective (e.g. environmental NGO's, the transport sector, banks, etc. etc. ) that can be modelled through a scenario approach. Figure 4 provides an overview of the SMCA phase.
As can be seen from the flow-chart, the methodology can be used iteratively, where in a second iteration other criteria can be added, or changes to criteria maps can be made based on potential interventions, e.g. to reduce the hazard in a certain location through structural measures.
In this procedure it is also possible to consider a sensitivity analysis as part of the approach, to test the robustness of the assessment. This usually makes sense after different iterations and scenarios have been completed. If suitability scores remain relatively unchanged even after alterations, then this implies a robust assessment. There are different ways to carry out sensitivity analysis, as discussed in section 6.5 of the methodology book. As a result of the sensitivity analysis it is clear to what extent the suitability scores are sensitive to the values of the different criteria maps and the weights obtained. This can prompt a more detailed analysis of input data, or a different setting of weights. For example, it could be that the suitability score of a location is very sensitive to its being just inside, or just outside a low risk area. If this is the case, the quality of the risk map should be verified to ensure that the limits between these zones are real.
At the end of the analysis an overall score is generated for both alternatives and the best alternative is known. This may then prompt a further analysis such as a Cost Benefit Analysis to evaluate whether road construction is sensible from an economic perspective.
In the case that no route alternatives are on the table, it is also possible to carry out an automated route assessment in GIS. In such case all possible routes between the two locations are evaluated on the basis of the result of the criteria scores. In principle many of the same criteria can be used for this approach, and the same method of scoring and weighting, but some of the maps would need to be redeveloped. In this procedure it is important that the criteria maps carry values for all locations (a full raster), so that all possibilities are evaluated. Absence of values implies that no route can be generated to that part of the area, so this situation should be avoided, unless we are dealing with a spatial constraint criterion. Also here it is crucial that criteria are defined as being cost criteria or benefit criteria. The final route calculation procedure should be done on either cost criteria only or benefit criteria only; in the former case the benefit criteria need to be inverted and turned into cost criteria, and in the latter case the cost criteria should be inverted to benefit criteria.


Raskolnikov enters Porfiry's place trying to conceal his laughter. He is surprised to see Zametov, the chief clerk of the police department. He is then introduced to Porfiry. He tells his host of his official business: He had left Alyona Ivanovna some small items not of much value, to which he attached great sentimental value, particularly a watch left him by his father. Porfiry announced that he had indeed been expecting Raskolnikov, since everyone else who had pledges with the old pawnbroker had already made their claims.
Porfiry lets Raskolnikov know that he knew all about his pledges and they had been wrapped up carefully by the old pawnbroker and dated with his name on them. Porfiry subtly lets Raskolnikov know that he is aware of Raskolnikov's sickness, of his meeting with Zametov, and of his presence at Marmeladov's death. All these revelations disturb him, and he thinks to himself that Porfiry is playing with him, "like a cat plays with a mouse." He momentarily thinks of confessing the whole truth, especially since he feels that the police already know everything.
A discussion of the relationship of crime to one's environment ensues, which leads to Porfiry's announcement that he has read Raskolnikov's article on crime, which had appeared in a prominent magazine two months ago. Everyone, including Raskolnikov, is surprised that the article has indeed been published. Porfiry then asks Raskolnikov to explain parts of his theory in more detail, which he undertakes to do.
The essence of Raskolnikov's theory about crime as he presents it involves the duties and obligations of a class of people classified as the "ordinary people" as contrasted to the "extraordinary people." He outlines that (1) the perpetration of a crime is always accompanied by illness. Either the illness causes a person to commit the crime or else committing the crime causes one to become ill. (2) All men are divided into "ordinary" and "extraordinary." (3) Ordinary men have to live in submission and have no right to transgress the law because they are ordinary. (4) On the contrary, the extraordinary man has the right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way because he is extraordinary. That is not an official legal right but an inner right to decide in his own conscience whether to overstep the law or any obstacle that stands in the way of the practical fulfillment of his idea. (5) All great men would (or should) have the right to eliminate a few men in order to make their discoveries known to the benefit of all humanity. (6) All great men capable of giving something new (some "New Word") must not submit to the common law, or if they do, then this is proof that they do not belong among the extraordinary people. Being great means breaking from the common rut of ordinary laws. (7) In conclusion, men are divided into two categories the inferior (or ordinary) who can only reproduce their kind, and the superior "men who have the gift or talent to utter a new word."
After his explanation, Porfiry subtly wonders if Raskolnikov might have thought of himself as being "extraordinary" while composing or formulating this particular theory. Raskolnikov maintains that even if he did think that, he would not tell Porfiry, but he assures him that he does not consider himself to be a Napoleon or a Mahomet. Porfiry wonders then if this superior person would suffer, and Raskolnikov responds that "suffering and pain are always obligatory on those of wide intellect and profound feeling."
After hearing the explanation, Porfiry then returns to the business of the pledges and asks Raskolnikov if he remembers seeing some painters at work there. Raskolnikov feels that there is a trap here somewhere and tells that he cannot recall seeing any painters, but that someone was moving out. Razumihkin reminds Porfiry that the painters were only at work on the day of the murder and that Raskolnikov's last time there was several days before the murder. Porfiry pretends to have been confused and offers Raskolnikov his apologies.
This chapter presents us a full view of the 35-year-old Porfiry, and it is immediately apparent that Raskolnikov has a worthy opponent. For example, in the discussion of Raskolnikov's article on crime, Porfiry wants to know if while he was composing it Raskolnikov didn't consider himself to be an extraordinary person because he has uttered a new word. That is, if Raskolnikov's theory is believed, then he must have considered himself extraordinary, even though he assures Porfiry that he is no Napoleon or Mahomet.
Even though Raskolnikov disclaims his pretensions to being an extraordinary man, nevertheless, what is new, really new and original in his theory (thus possibly making him one of the extraordinary) is that he "sanctions bloodshed in the name of conscience." That is, the great man is obligated to give to the world his new word, and if it means killing a person (or a louse) in order to do so, then the great man must do that.
Porfiry is also very clever when he asks Raskolnikov in a casual, off-handed manner if he by chance saw two painters when he went to the pawnbroker's. This is a trap, and Raskolnikov knows it is because there were no painters on the day he pawned his watch, but there were painters there on the day Alyona was murdered. Raskolnikov is clever enough to discover the trap and thus escape. His perception of this trap again shows the return of his rational powers. Consequently, Porfiry is, as Raskolnikov earlier thought, playing "cat and mouse" games with him.
If there seem to be contradictions in parts of Raskolnikov's theory, such as maintaining that the great will suffer and also later that the great must be above sympathy and dependence on the ordinary, these contradictions are not unintentional on Dostoevsky's part. Instead, it must be emphasized that Raskolnikov at the time of the murder had not worked out his theory in complete detail. The contradictions exist so that later Raskolnikov will have to justify them when he is trying to explain his crime to Sonya.


The Church of St Mary's, Surlingham is one of 124 existing round-tower churches in Norfolk. As well as being a place of worship it hosts a variety of community events, from 'messy church' to concerts. The adjacent Church Marsh nature reserve is overlooked by the ruins of St Saviour's church.
The ruins of St Saviour's church, Surlingham form a prominent and evocative land-mark overlooking the marshes of the Yare Valley. The church was an early Mormon (late 11th Century_ foundation and is notable for its large coursed flint-work and axial tower plan. Originally there were two parishes in Surlingham, and St Saviour's was linked to the nearby Surlingham manor. By the 13th century it was under the control of the Abess of Carrow Abbey. The population of the parish subsequently declined and eventually St Saviour's was subsumed into the parish of St Mary's in 1705. It gradually decayed, a process accelerated by the robbing of the church for building materials.
For the last two centuries the site has provided a tranquil destination and a place of contemplation for generations of local people, walkers, naturalists and antiquarians. It is also the final resting place of a number of local residents including 'the people's naturalist', Ted Ellis (1909-1986) writer, curator and founder of Wheatfen nature reserve.
St Saviour's was repaired and preserved in 2011. Click here for an architectural history published by Norfolk County Council.


This ultra modern waste bin solution from Hailo will solve your waste management problems while remaining subtle inside your kitchen. Designed in such a way that the lid can be used as a shelf this waste bin doubles as a space saver and waste management. The CargoSoft bin comes with two compartments to help you seperate your waste and easily manage food waste.
We are conscious now more than ever about our enviroment and the waste we throw away each day affects our planet and the people we share it with. Recycling is now thankfully an everyday occurance and therefore our disposal systems have evolved over time to accomodate different types of waste. At lightsupplier.co.uk, we have brought together waste bins to suit every type of household, regardless of space, kitchen style or budget, you will find a recycling bin that works for your project.


Alder (Alnus; Ukrainian: vilkha). A genus of deciduous trees or shrubs of the birch or Betulaceae family that have dark-green leaves and conelike seeds. The black or European alder (Alnus glutinosa), which attains a height of 25 m, is the most common species in Ukraine. The gray alder (A. incana) grows in the Carpathian Mountains and attains a height of 10 m. Alder wood is soft and reddens on contact with air. It is used for underwater construction, furniture, and veneer. The bark is used in tanning and paint-making. The tree grows in moist soil, particularly in Polisia, where it forms whole groves. The European green alder (A. viridis), which has small leaves similar to birch leaves and which attains a height of 2 m, grows in the subalpine belt together with the mountain pine.


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Charles Richard Shyer (* 11. Oktober 1941 in Los Angeles, Kalifornien) ist ein  US-amerikanischer Filmregisseur, Drehbuchautor und Filmproduzent.

Leben
Charles Richard Shyer ist der Sohn von Melville Shyer, eines Mitbegründers der Directors Guild of America, und Lois Shyer. Er wuchs in Los Angeles auf und arbeitete nach Abschluss seines Studiums an der University of California für kurze Zeit als Regieassistent und Produktionsleiter, bevor er sich der Schriftstellerei zuwandte.
Im Jahr 1977 hatte er sein Debüt beim Film als Co-Autor in der Komödie Smokey and the Bandit (Ein ausgekochtes Schlitzohr). Wenig später lernte er seine zukünftige Ehefrau Nancy Meyers kennen und sie verfassten gemeinsam das Drehbuch zum Film Private Benjamin (Schütze Benjamin). 1980 heirateten die beiden. Sie arbeiteten auch weiterhin zusammen, sodass weitere Filme wie Irreconcilable Differences (Triple Trouble), Baby Boom, Vater der Braut oder The Parent Trap (Ein Zwilling kommt selten allein – nach dem Roman Das doppelte Lottchen von Erich Kästner) entstanden. Shyer gilt als Hauptautor der Hit-Comedy-Serie, The Odd Couple (Männerwirtschaft). Weitere Drehbücher für Sitcoms schrieb er für Getting Together und Happy Days.

1999 trennten sich Shyer und Meyers nach 19 Jahren Ehe. Sie haben zwei gemeinsame Töchter, die beide Schauspielerinnen sind. Vor seiner Ehe mit Meyers war Shyer von 1969 bis 1974 mit Diana Ewing verheiratet. Seine aktuelle Ehefrau ist seit 2004 Deborah Lynn-Shyer, mit der er zwei weitere Kinder hat.

Sonstiges
Ein Projekt Shyers für 2012 ist eine Produktion für HandMade Films, dessen Handlung auf dem Kinderbuch Eloise in Paris von Kay Thompson aus dem Jahre 1950 basiert. Das Drehbuch verfasst er gemeinsam mit seiner Tochter Hallie Meyers-Shyer und Larry Spencer. Als Starttermin für die Dreharbeiten ist der 12. August 2012 vorgesehen, sie sollen in Paris, New York und im Süden von Frankreich stattfinden. Uma Thurman, Billi Bruno, Jordana Beatty und Nicky Jones sind als Besetzung vorgesehen.

Auszeichnungen
Oscar
Nominierung
 1981: in der Kategorie – Bestes Drehbuch für Private Benjamin
Humanitas Prize
Nominierung
 1989: in der Kategorie – 30 Minuten Film für Baby Boom
Writers Guild of America
Nominierung
 1979: in der Kategorie – WGA Award (Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen) für House Calls
Gewonnen
 1981: in der Kategorie – WGA Award (Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen) für Private Benjamin

Filmografie (Auswahl)
als Drehbuchautor
 1977: Ein ausgekochtes Schlitzohr (Smokey and the Bandit)
 1977: Hausbesuche (House Calls)
 1978: Der Galgenstrick (Goin' South)
 1980: Schütze Benjamin (Private Benjamin)
 1984: Triple Trouble (Irreconcilable Differences)
 1986: Jumpin' Jack Flash
 1987: Baby Boom – Eine schöne Bescherung (Baby Boom)
 1991: Vater der Braut (Father of the Bride)
 1992: Es war einmal ein Mord (Once Upon a Crime...)
 1994: I Love Trouble – Nichts als Ärger (I Love Trouble)
 1995: Ein Geschenk des Himmels – Vater der Braut 2 (Father of the Bride Part II)
 1998: Ein Zwilling kommt selten allein (The Parent Trap)
 2004: Alfie
 2011: Ieri oggi domani (Kurzfilm)

als Regisseur
 1984: Triple Trouble (Irreconcilable Differences)
 1987: Baby Boom – Eine schöne Bescherung (Baby Boom)
 1991: Vater der Braut (Father of the Bride)
 1994: I Love Trouble – Nichts als Ärger (I Love Trouble)
 1995: Ein Geschenk des Himmels – Vater der Braut 2 (Father of the Bride Part II)
 2001: Das Halsband der Königin (The Affair of the Necklace)
 2004: Alfie
 2011: Ieri oggi domani (Kurzfilm)

als Produzent
 1980: Schütze Benjamin (Private Benjamin)
 1998: Ein Zwilling kommt selten allein (The Parent Trap)
 2001: Das Halsband der Königin (The Affair of the Necklace)
 2004: Alfie

Weblinks

 Biografie auf tribute.ca
 Kurzbiografie und Werksübersicht auf filmreference.com

Einzelnachweise

Filmregisseur
Drehbuchautor
Filmproduzent
US-Amerikaner
Geboren 1941
Mann


Bubble Shooter is a simple but highly entertaining matching arcade game with addictive game-play. You can make devastating combos by making combos of more than 3 or making the combos continuously.
Bubble Shooter is a puzzle game where a player's goal is to match three or more identical items in order to break them. The animations of Bubble Shooter are great and the game-play is fluid.
The controls are very simple and easy to handle. You can play lots of game modes in Bubble Shooter. Some modes have limited ammo for you to use while some offer unlimited ammo for you to play the levels for an enormous amount of time.
The environments are absolutely stunning that keep the players attached to the screen for a longer amount of time. You will find hundreds of amazing and tough levels in Bubble Shooter. It is a very entertaining and addictive game.
In order to install and enjoy Android games like Bubble Shooter for PC on Windows, you need to have an Android emulator installed.
Presently, there are lot of good Android emulator softwares available for both Windows and Mac operating systems. We recommend to first give Nox Player a try to install Bubble Shooter for Windows.
Try to visualize your next moves. continuously breaking the bubbles will increase the amount of score gained.


Have you ever wondered about faith, doubted that you had it, or wished you had more? Few things are more misunderstood than faith. Yet, few things are more important.
In 2 Kings 18, we read that the forces of Sennacherib (which means "Sin [the name of Assyria's moon god] sends many brothers"), the king of Assyria, came up against Judah. The Assyrian king demanded tribute, which Hezekiah (meaning, "Jehovah is my strength"), king of Judah, gave him, but the scoundrel wanted more. He sent a delegation, headed by Rabshakeh (not really a name but a position meaning "chief cupbearer").
By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.
As pointed out in the last installment of this series, five of the central beliefs of the Reformation took expression in what have been called the Five Solas: 1. Sola Scriptura—"By Scripture Alone," 2. Sola fide—"by faith alone," 3. Sola gratia—"by grace alone," 4. Solus Christus or Solo Christo—"Christ alone" or "through Christ alone," 5. Soli Deo Gloria—"glory to God alone." As might be expected given enough time, over the years individuals and individual churches that once adhered to the Five Solas have wandered from them. In many cases, the wandering has resulted in a return to Catholic doctrine, the false doctrine the Reformers were challenging.
Q. Why does James say, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only"? (James 2:24). This seems to directly contradict Paul's teaching that we are justified by faith.
An employee is charging personal items to her work expense account. A boy who is supposed to be asleep is reading with a flashlight under the covers. An adolescent girl who told her parents she would be sleeping over at her girlfriend's house is checking into a motel with her boyfriend. A wife enjoying the attentions of a young man at work continues to lead him on by flirting. A husband on a business trip asks a woman he meets in the hotel bar up to his room. What do these people have in common? They have all broken trust with people who are expecting them to be trustworthy.
Christ is the great and proper object of faith. My faith, therefore, should rest on Him—not on myself nor anything in myself. He that trusts in himself, or in his righteousness or holiness, is a Pharisee, not a Christian.


What is an EECO Group One?
Elevator Equipment Corporation (EECO) offers Group One Hydraulic Elevator Systems. These systems include a jack unit, pit support/buffers, power unit, sling & platform, guide rails, guide shoes, rail brackets, oil line material, and engineering layout drawings.
EECO has developed various pre-engineered systems in standard sizes which offer minimum lead times. EECO Group One Systems are available in either in-ground or holeless configurations and all are designed and manufactured in accordance with the Safety Code for Elevators & Escalators, ASME A17.1/CSA B44.
The following section contains a listing of all components included in the EECO Group One Elevator systems.
EECO manufactures jack units with precision equipment, skilled and experienced production personnel, and a knowledgeable engineering staff to comply with the exacting standards required to produce a quality product. Additional equipment included with jack units is described below per system type.
EECO has manufactured hydraulic elevator equipment since 1946, and is one of the leading suppliers in the industry for hydraulic elevator power units. We can provide power units for any application, from small capacity residential to the largest freight elevators.
In the Group One System, EECO can design and manufacture a car sling or platform to any size for any requirement that you may have. From home elevators to commercial passenger elevators, up to the biggest freight elevators, EECO can handle the job.
EECO provides the highest quality rail equipment, including seismic components when required.
EECO's Group One System provides the basic components you need for your elevator installation.


Mother's Day Gift Guide: Fine Chocolate Club + Coupon Code for a FREE month!
I don't know a whole lot of moms that don't like chocolate. As a mom of 4 myself, chocolate is always a welcome gift for me.
If you have a true chocolate lover in your life, Fine Chocolate Club is the perfect gift. Each month your recipient will receive fine chocolates from around the world.
The box I received had to large chocolate bars and a dark chocolate rabbit. The first bar I tried is a small batch hand crafted milk chocolate bar from the Dominican Republic that uses brown butter. This one was my favorite. Smooth, creamy, lots of flavor. It didn't last long.
The other chocolate bar was dark chocolate from SOMA chocolate makers in Venezuela. This dark chocolate was smooth as well. I had to appreciate the craftsmanship with the designs on the bar itself.
My 15 year old son sampled this one. He said it had really good flavor for a dark chocolate bar.
Last but not least it the solid dark chocolate bunny. It's handcrafted in California with 65% Belize Toledo dark chocolate. Packaged beautifully in a display package with Easter grass and all. The perfect basket filler for the dark chocolate lover.
I received the product sample pictured in order to complete this post. No other compensation has been received.
Love the dark chocolate bunny. Where my mom recently underwent radiation therapy for her cancer in her head/neck area, it has changed her taste buds and milk chocolate no longer tastes good but dark chocolate does.


Purchasing, trading, business development and business support services tailored to help and improve your supply chain.
We are a trading company based in Miami USA. We specialize in providing support services for international merchandise trade. With a successful history of the company for more than 12 years, trading operations. Our mission is to create a safe and reliable business penetration in the most interesting economies of the world.
Rehobot Corp helps your company source and purchase from the most competitive manufacturers in USA, China and India.
Rehobot Corp offers financial and investment support for assertive decision making.
Rehobot corp offers global cross-trade opportunities and best products available for immediate purchase.
Increase your target market, maximize opportunities and drive your overall business.


Description: A lovely girl wants to renovate her own house, but she can't do it all alone because she doesn't know many things about house decorations. Play this game and ask the minions to help you to decorate the lady's house with taste and style and she will be forever grateful. Have fun!


To be the best most trusted air conditioning and heating contractor in Toronto, ON. Providing superior customer service, exceeding customer expectations in everything that we do.
We will be recognized as the model service business. Listening to our customers needs and providing solutions through teamwork honesty and integrity. Delivering the most value for our customers dollar, exceeding expectations.
Absolute honesty and integrity, listens first and foremost, offer solutions to our customers needs based on what is truly needed, offer only quality products, leave the job cleaner than when we started, pay attention to detail, teamwork is the source of our strength.


It is crucial to invest in universities, publications and think tanks to create awareness regarding the radical terror ideologies associated with Takfiri Salafism- Wahhabism and Deobandism and the need and ways to neutralize such threat in a material and ideological manner. During the Cold War, we studied and deconstructed the Soviets. To take on Wahhabi/Salafi and Deobandi inspired extremism and rescue Islam from the extremists, we will need to study the historical and contemporary genesis of faith based terrorism.


North Havsen — Maine's smallest K-12 public school, located on a Penobscot Bay island, is seeking high school magnet students for the 2019-2020 school year.
North Haven Community School, which has a total enrollment of approximately 61 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, has hosted three magnet students during the 2018-2019 school year, and administrators hope to add more.
Magnet students are currently housed together with a "dorm parent" in a school rental home and return to their families on the weekends. Depending on the number of students participating in the program, magnet students may be housed with host families.
North Haven Community School offers opportunities for hands-on learning and rigorous academics. Students can participate in wilderness expeditions, personalized research projects, whale skeleton rearticulation, carpentry, small-engine repair, visual and performing arts classes and extracurriculars, 3D printing, work studies, and the Eastern Maine Skippers Program; as well as more traditional academic offerings, including AP courses.
Tuition for magnet students includes room and board, and the total cost is less than the state tuition amount. Students receive free ferry tickets.
For more information about North Haven Community School's magnet program, visit nhcshawks.org or email magnet@nhcshawks.org.


energy which helps to reduce tension and stress. Keeping a beat is one of our most primitive instincts and continues to be used by many cultures as a vehicle for achieving transcendental and meditative states.
which our inner sense of rhythm can be explored and developed. Using a variety of drums and percussion instruments, participants play diverse world rhythms with emphasis placed on ensemble skills as well as individual expression. Basic hand drumming techniques are presented in order to facilitate performance.
No previous drumming experience necessary.


I have been a patient of Rene Ng for many years, and the treatments I have received has done wonders for the pain I had. There was talk of surgery to relieve the pain which I did not have to do. I explain to people that after a treatment from Rene it is like a wonderful massage without anyone even touching you.
Thank you, Rene, for relieving my pain, and glad you are back in Florida.


text:
Tornado Cars Ltd was founded in 1957 by Bill Woodhouse and Tony Bullen based in Mill End,  Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England.

The first model was the Typhoon Sports, available either as a body for fitting to Ford 8/10 chassis (following a then current market trend for "specials" based on these mechanical components) or with a Tornado designed and manufactured chassis to which a range of engines and transmissions could be fitted. About 400 Typhoons of all variants are believed to have been produced through to 1962.

A similarly styled Tempest model featuring a Ford Anglia 105E engine and independent wishbone front suspension and live back axle. This was introduced around 1960–61, but only around 15 were produced. A Competition Tempest was also produced using the same front suspension, but with a highly tuned formula junior engine with twin 38 DCOEs. Fitted with a close-ratio gearbox and having an independent rear axle. Also from a Formula Junior with in board alfin drums. A Tornado Thunderbolt was also produced using a Triumph TR3 engine and a stronger chassis and suspension. Only one was built. This car survives today alongside the Competition Tempest, with the original constructor.

In 1962, the company introduced the Talisman 2+2 coupe carrying an attractively styled fibreglass body on a more sophisticated tubular steel chassis with Ford 1,340 cc or 1,500 cc engines in various states of tune. This model was available either in component form or factory finished and was praised for having lively performance combined with good ride and handling characteristics, and a high standard of finish. Cash-flow problems forced the company into liquidation in 1964 after just approx. 186 Talismans had been made.

The company was bought in 1963 by John Rex Glyn Bekaert, Jaguar racing driver and friend of Lofty England (Jaguar). The company was renamed Tornado Cars (1963) Ltd. and the first project was the build of the Talisman V8.  This car was based on the shortened and strengthened chassis of a Daimler SP250. Engine, gearbox and even suspension were reused from the Daimler and the Talisman body put on top. The car was presented to Jaguar Ltd. when finished and even taken into consideration by them, codenamed "Jaguar Intercity Car". Handling and performance were found to be brilliant and just two weeks after completion the car had won the Rallye de la Route in France when Pat Moss only made it to 6th place.

See also
 List of car manufacturers of the United Kingdom

References
The Tornado Register

Kit car manufacturers
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of England
Companies based in Three Rivers District