Live Blog 7PM EST Tonight with Samantha Clark

Awesome! Samantha is incredible, I love listening to her. I can't wait to ask her what William Fox-Pitt and Oliver are like in person. Also, can we get any sort of a hint on who the rider might be?

I'm with The859! Would love a hint!!

Hehehe I know who the rider is!!!

The A to Z of 2008's Great Ideas ----S

Scrupulosity DisorderBy JASCHA HOFFMANIn a paper published in the August issue of The Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Chris Miller and Dawson Hedges of Brigham Young University estimate that as many as one million Americans may suffer from a moral-anxiety-cum-mental-illness known as “scrupulosity disorder.” They define it as obsessive doubt about moral behavior often resulting in compulsive religious observance — and they warn that it can lead to depression, apathy, isolation and even suicide.
As the believing man's version of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the diagnosis raises questions about where, exactly, the line is to be drawn between probity and perversity. It isn't obvious how to treat someone who can't sleep for worrying about their rectitude — or a devout Christian who is seized by the urge to exclaim, Goddamn! and repeatedly reproaches himself for it. Rather than try to fight off obsessive worrying, therapists might ask patients to give in to it, so that they can see that their supposed transgressions might be harmless. “If you believe in a God that's all-knowing, you should trust him to know these blasphemous thoughts are mental noise and not what's in your heart,” says Jon Abramowitz, director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The diagnosis might raise some difficult issues. Ritual hand washing could seem compulsive in an atheist, but surely it isn't for a Muslim, for whom such behavior is ordinary religious observance. Are the anxieties and fears that may accompany a passionate religious life themselves pathological? Abramowitz, who has treated scrupulous Christians, Muslims and Jews, is confident that a therapeutic approach to obsessive spirituality does not threaten religion. He says that when patients are gradually released from crippling doubt about their own virtue, they can emerge with a new sense of faith.
Sean Avery Rule, TheBy DEAN ROBINSONInstant taboo. It sounds like an oxymoron — you need time for a custom to take hold, after all — but it’s a pretty good description of what happened at a playoff hockey game in April. That’s when Sean Avery,cheap polo ralph lauren, then a left wing for the New York Rangers, parked himself in front of the New Jersey Devils’ goalie, Martin Brodeur,nike football cleats, to block his view. It’s a common tactic, of course, to “screen” the goalie and redirect oncoming shots, but the offensive player usually keeps his back to the goal and watches the action on the ice. Avery didn’t even bother:he faced Brodeur head-on, frantically waving his hands and stick at Brodeur’s eye level.
Technically,nike soccer cleats, this wasn’t a rules violation, but it seemed like such an undeniable transgression that it had to become one. So it did, the very next day. An unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty was added to the rule book, “effective immediately,” for any player who “engages in actions such as waving his arms or stick in front of the goaltender’s face, for the purpose of improperly interfering with and/or distracting the goaltender as opposed to positioning himself to try to make a play,” according to a statement from the N.H.L.
Brodeur was more succinct. “That’s not hockey,soccer cleats,” he said after the game. He was clearly invoking the unwritten rules of sport. Except the thing about unwritten rules is that everyone knows what they are. Avery’s tactics were so novel, however, that even the unwritten rules didn’t apply. Nor is it entirely logical why they should have. Team sports routinely embrace the competitive virtues of distraction — basketball players are told to stick a hand in a shooter’s face, for instance. Still, what Avery did felt wrong to nearly everyone.
The Sean Avery Rule puts Avery in the small, somewhat shady pantheon that includes the eponyms behind the Roy Williams Rule (no horse-collar tackles in the N.F.L.) and the Wilt Chamberlain Rule (no camping under the basket). The big difference is that the others were epitomes, not inventors. Avery alone seems to have inspired a rule for something only he did.
Smart GridsBy CLAY RISENIn March, Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based power utility, announced plans to build the country’s first city-scale “smart grid” in Boulder, Colo. It’s a response to what economists would call a tragedy of the commons: people use as much energy as they are willing to pay for, without giving any thought to how their use affects the overall amount of energy available. And because traditional power grids are “dumb” — that is, there’s no way to monitor power use once it leaves the station — utilities err on the side of oversupply, which wastes energy and harms the environment.
Enter Xcel’s $100 million initiative, called SmartGridCity, a set of technologies that give both energy providers and their customers more control over power consumption. It relies on a network of fiber-optic cables, high-tech meters and sensor-laden transformers to provide power stations with real-time data on demand all along the grid, allowing them to fine-tune the electrical supply, detect failing equipment and predict overloads. Consumers, through a Web-enabled control panel in their homes, are able to regulate their energy consumption more closely — for example, setting their A.C. system to automatically reduce power use during peak hours.
Ontario, meanwhile, has committed itself to a 20-year energy plan that includes smart grids, while a consortium of technology and energy companies has pilot programs under way in Dallas and Houston. Even the federal government is getting in the game: the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 provides an annual $100 million to encourage utilities to implement smart-grid technologies.
The next step, which Xcel plans to introduce in a year or two, is “dynamic energy pricing,polo ralph lauren shirts,” in which the cost per watt would vary during the day depending on systemwide usage. Homeowners would be able to preset or manually control the electrical consumption of their home appliances, lighting and A.C. systems to achieve a desired price point. Eventually, smart grids could allow utilities to buy energy from independent sources — say, homes with roof-mounted solar panels — in effect turning homeowners into miniature power companies themselves.
Spray-On Condom, TheBy REBECCA SKLOOTJan Vinzenz Krause, a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, says that condoms should be more like shoes. “You go into a shop,polo ralph lauren, tell them your size and you get shoes that fit your feet,” he says. “Not so with condoms.” Aside from the occasional extra-large brand, condoms essentially come in one size: about 6.5 inches long. Penises, however, come in many sizes. This leaves many men squeezed into condoms so tight they cut off circulation (and impede erections) or so large they’re floppy and nonfunctional. To fix this, Krause has invented the world’s first condom that can be custom made for each man: the spray-on condom.
Several years ago, Krause created a Web site called the Online Condom Advisor, where he catalogued details of more than 100 brands to help men find the right fit. Soon users began asking him to recommend condoms that were large or small, wide or thin, but Krause couldn’t find any. Eventually one man asked, Isn’t there a condom that can be custom-sized to each man?
The idea for the spray-on condom came to Krause in a car wash, where he realized could make a tube into which an erect penis could be inserted and then sprayed with liquid latex from all sides (as in a car wash) to create a perfectly fitting condom. He got PVC tubing and 30 nozzles from a hardware store, and the resulting condoms,mercurial vapor, according to Krause, feel like second skin — far more sensitive than traditional condoms. This year, 30 men tested a version of the device for ease of use and condom size. Their reviews were all positive. The only drawbacks: it takes two minutes for the condom to dry, and, as Krause says, “the spray is a bit cold.” So far, testing hasn’t involved intercourse with a partner, but Krause reports that it works well. “I am the developer,” he says with a giggle, “so of course I did a bit more testing of my own.”
Unfortunately, a regulatory agency has contacted Krause to point out the European Union’s strict product standards. “That will make it difficult to bring to market,” Krause says. He has developed My Size, a line of traditional condoms available in multiple sizes, which went on sale in November. But he doesn’t see spray-on condoms being commercially available any time soon.
Spreading the OffenseBy RICHARD MORGANThis year, a strong season from a small suburban San Francisco high-school football team drew attention to its radical A-11 offense, a sprawling formation in which all 11 players are potentially eligible receivers. And in the pros, the idea of creatively spreading the offense found expression in the so-called Wildcat formation, which the Miami Dolphins first used in September to pummel the New England Patriots in a surprising 38-13 victory. It is now popular leaguewide.
The A-11, which employs a legal but cleverly modified punt formation, can use linemen as receivers and commonly includes up to four quarterbacks at once. Steve Humphries, the offensive coordinator at Piedmont High School who created the A-11, did so to help his undersize team compete against larger squads. “Because A-11 makes everybody eligible, it looks a lot more like soccer and less like guys slamming into each other,” Humphries says. Defenses are often left baffled, and even angered, by the formation’s various possible permutations and unorthodox passing schemes. Though the A-11 complies with the current rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, the federation plans when it meets next month to address the controversy over whether the offense is an unfair loophole-abusing gimmick or a legitimate addition to offensive strategy.
In the Wildcat offense now popular in the N.F.L., the running back lines up at quarterback, the quarterback splits wide as a receiver and another running back lines up at wingback. It’s an adaptation of the single-wing formation created in 1907 and was revived (as the Wildhog) a few years ago by the University of Arkansas running back Darren McFadden, now with the Oakland Raiders. The Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach, Mike Tomlin, said this fall that N.F.L. coaches watching McFadden’s consistent, deft use of the offense gave rise to its use in the pros.
Some observers dismiss the innovation as mere fashion. “Wildcat got crazy,” says the football analyst Aaron Schatz. “Everyone’s doing some knockoff version built around giving a direct snap to a running back. But it’s a silly fad, like leg warmers and parachute pants.”
Stock Transfer Tax, TheBy STEPHEN MIHMWant to prevent bouts of speculative mania like those that sparked the current financial crisis? Here’s a simple but effective cure: impose a small tax on the sale or transfer of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other securities, thereby encouraging people to “buy and hold” rather than to engage in the frenetic transactions typical of a speculative bubble.
In the past year, the economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has emerged as the most vocal proponent of the tax. “We want a financial system that allocates money to people wanting to save or invest,” he says. “There’s no reason for it to be a casino.” He estimates that a small tax of up to one quarter of 1 percent imposed on the sale of a wide range of securities would do more than curb speculation; it would also yield $100 billion to $150 billion — money that could go toward paying for aid to Wall Street. Better still, Baker contends, most of the revenue would end up coming from Wall Street, not ordinary investors.
The basic idea of a stock transfer tax is an old one, and economists who have voiced support for variations of it in the past include Lawrence Summers and Joseph Stiglitz. But Baker also sees new uses for a transfer tax, noting that it would have an especially powerful effect on financiers who traffic in the sort of esoteric securities that are at the heart of the current mess. “If you had a complex derivative instrument based on slicing and dicing securities,” Baker says, “you would end up having to pay tax several different times.” To those who complain that the tax would make the creation of these instruments prohibitively expensive, Baker is blunt: “That’s the idea.”

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