#everyone's final result (from the 6 nations) was either equal to or only one step worse than their result from 2019

[delphinia13]

Well done England! At the start of the tournament I said I kinda wanted the final to be a rematch of one of the pool matches for the drama - instead I got that in the 3rd place play off. It was definitely a more enjoyable match than the England v Argentina game there, I was almost hoping for Argentina to get the final score to get it level again for the drama, but I'm glad England got their medal in the end.

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Imagine being Sokka’s childhood best friend who left to join the war and reuniting with him years later.

You and Sokka were friends before either of you could walk. Children were in short demand in your tribe so when you were born only 6-months apart it was a given you’d be playmates but you and Sokka also became inseparable almost instantly. You both had the same dry sarcastic humour and your personalities worked well together. For the first few years of your life all you were concerned with was staying taller than Sokka and Polarbear dogs but then fire nation attacked and killed Sokka’s mother.

After the brutal attack the remaining tribesman decided to make one final stand against the fire nation and all the eligible men began preparing to leave with one exception...you. You had just turned 11 and so based on past custom weren’t too young to go to war. Of course your tribe didn’t want to take a child but your only family was your father and he was leading the war effort with Hakoda. You had no other family left to watch you and so you managed to talk your father into bringing you along. Sokka tried to do the same but as he was 10 Hakoda said he was too young. Sokka had been furious to say the least. He didn’t see why you’d be allowed and he wouldn’t be, 6 months was hardly anything and his sexist attitude made it sting all the more. He pouted constantly up until the day you left when he suddenly sprinted to the shore at the last minute and hugged you tightly. “I’m still mad at you but if only one of us can go to war....well I’m glad it’s you and not one of the other kids”. You smiled “not quite a heartfelt goodbye but i’ll take it”. “Y/n come on” your father called and you nodded. “I have to go...”. Sokka nodded “of course, kick some fire bender butt for me and erm....don’t die”. You laughed “you too” and with a final smile to Sokka joined your father and the other men to go to war.

That was 5 years ago and you hadn’t seen or heard from Sokka since. You thought about him and home a lot but honestly life at war was very demanding. You were largely sheltered from it by your fellow tribesmen and didn’t actually engage in any combat until you were 14 but still you felt the burden of the impossible victory on your shoulders. Every time you took a step forwards the fire nation seemed to push you back three...but things changed when the avatar came back. It shook the fire nation and surely but slowly you were making gains in the war.

After one successful victory you were in particularly high spirits and woke up early to go and fetch some water for you and your father. As you returned to camp you set the water down in your tent and headed to get breakfast. The camp seemed different you noted, people seemed to be hurrying to the centre excitedly and so you picked up your pace. You suddenly heard a loud cry and worrying you were under attack began to run to camp. A large group had gathered and you looked for the threat but realised everyone seemed happy...not scared. Everyone was focused on a group of men who had come out of the war tent. The group of men themselves were all talking excitedly, focused on one man in particular. You knew every single man in this camp but couldn’t work out who this one was. He was definitely water tribe and young, around your age and looked oddly familiar. He had bright blue eyes and a sharp chin which suited him very well. Everyone seemed to know him and it frustrated you that you couldn’t work out who he was. He was talking to your father and Hakoda warmly and you stared at his face feeling you knew him. Then it clicked, it was Sokka.

Sokka’s POV

Sokka had been nervous to walk into camp but the second he did everyone rushed to hug and welcome him. Sokka felt happier than he had in a long time. He stood next to his father unable to remove the smile from his face when he spotted your father and a thought occurred to him. "Where’s y/n?" Sokka asked when he spotted you feet away. You looked like you’d just arrived here and were staring at Sokka as if you couldn’t work out who he was. Sokka went to call out to you when you smiled. "Sokka?" you asked in disbelief and Sokka blushed. It may’ve taken you a second to recognise him but he’d know your face anywhere. "It’s me y/n" he smiled and your own smile turned into a large grin. You rushed forwards and hugged Sokka tightly. Sokka heard a lot of “awes” from the crowd but he didn’t process them, he was too focused on you. You pulled away and both grinned at one another babbling greetings and questions. Then there was an awkward pause where you both just stared at one another. It had been over 5 years since you’d seen each other and you had both changed a lot since then so it took a lot of effort to process. Sokka was pleasantly surprised to find he was taller than you now. As kids he had steadily caught you up over the years but you left before he could claim his victory. Now he was undeniably taller than you and he couldn’t wait to tease you about that but he noted you’d beat him in other aspects. Your arms were more toned and bigger than his, well defined and taut after the years of training and Sokka could see the same went for all your limbs by the shape of your neck and shoulders. Your hair too was longer and partially braided which Sokka had never seen before. Of course the braids symbolised battles you’d been a part of and Sokka felt proud not envious at how they decorated your face. Your face too was also more defined, your cheeks seemed higher and more angular but your eyes had remained striking and your lips still bright pink. Even the way you held yourself was different, you were a warrior now Sokka realised and that thought made him feel fuzzy.

Your POV

When the silence between you got too awkward Hakoda coughed "y/n, Sokka has travelled here from his journey with the avatar". "What?" you cried in disbelief and Sokka just smiled lazily “yeah...”. "Sokka why don’t you go with y/n to our tent and tell her all about it over breakfast?" your father suggested. Sokka nodded and you led him away to your family tent. You kept staring at him convinced he wasn’t real. Sokka had changed a lot. The height difference was a shock but not the biggest. His face had lost its baby cheeks resulting in chiselled cheekbones and his hair was a lot longer. He was more toned too, not muscley per se but his arms had definition and you struggled not noticing. His eyes were the same though and they were the one thing that made you sure this was your friend. They made you feel at ease as they always did and you just turned to Sokka and laughed “I can’t believe you’re here”. “Me either!” Sokka cried “I...I imagined this day for so long”. “We all missed you a lot” you said worried Sokka was still upset you got to go when he didn’t “and thought about you every day” you added. “You did huh?” he asked with a smirk and you realised Sokka was fine. You did not need to be worried. “I said we, not me” you said pointedly and Sokka grinned “yeah but I know you meant you missed me, you just didn’t want to admit it”. You forgot how well Sokka could see through you and shook your head “okay I guess I missed you...now tell me everything! How on earth did you become friends with the avatar?”.

Throughout Sokka’s story you stared in awe and barely touched your food. Everything Sokka told you sounded insane and you made him promise several times that he was being serious. Sokka animatedly told each part of the story and you couldn’t help smiling at how enthusiastic he was. You’d missed this and him a lot. 

“So you two all caught up?” your father asked suddenly entering the tent and Sokka shook his head “not even close! I was just telling y/n about our fight with the fire nation navy in the northern water tribe”. Your father laughed placing a hand on Sokka’s shoulder “well that will have to wait, y/n has training...maybe you’d like to join her?”. You saw Sokka’s eyes light up at the thought of attending actual warrior training and smiled. “Yes!” he cried leaping up “if erm...you don’t mind of course”. You smirked “it’s been five years since I saw you, do you really think i’m letting you out of my sight?”. Sokka blushed looking down but you didn’t notice. You were already tugging Sokka out of the tent “come on! If we show up first we get the good armour!”.

Sokka’s POV

All-day you sparred and trained in water tribe drills. Sokka was equally exhausted and exhilarated. When his father declared the session over his exhaustion won however and he collapsed on the sand and crawled to the water. He heard a laugh and you appeared next to him “tired huh?”. “No! I could go for hours!”. You raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Sokka sipped his water and glanced at you. You were cleaning your sword and the sun reflected off it making your eyes shine. Your eyes had always been darker than the traditional light blue, they were a very dark blue and only when the sun shone on them was their true colour illuminated, like now. Sokka forgot how beautiful they were and looked away before you could notice him staring. “You were really good in training” he said softly and you smiled glancing at him “no sarcasm? Was that a genuine compliment?”. Sokka grinned “yes! You know I can be serious”. “Wow you have changed” you smirked and Sokka blinked “you think?”. You nodded your head “you’re more mature now, you have this sureness about you and an air of confidence like a leader does...it’s nice” you smiled “and then you make a goofy face and you’re back to the 10-year old I remember”. Sokka smiled and leant back on his elbows just enjoying this moment in the sun with you. “You’ve not changed a bit” he told you and you blinked “really?”. He nodded “I saw you earlier trying to work out who I was but I didn’t need two seconds to spot you”. “Well duh i’m the only girl here!” you cried but Sokka shook his head. “That wasn’t it, I’d know your face anywhere. I worried after you left I’d forget it but you’re exactly as I remembered...every detail like I pictured”. You blushed as Sokka spoke so softly but soon regained your bearings, “and you pictured me often?”. Sokka didn’t even blink “of course I did”. Your blush rose again at Sokka’s confidence and you saw he had a small smirk on his face. Sokka went to speak again when an alarm rang out. You both jumped to your feet. “What does that mean?” Sokka asked and you frowned “nothing good, come on” and ran back to the camp. Everyone was gathered around grabbing armour and weapons. “Dad, what’s going on? Are we under attack?” Sokka called. Hakoda nodded “yes, y/n get ready, Sokka.....”.  “Dad I can fight, please let me come with you” Sokka said loudly and you looked at Hakoda to see what he’d say. Hakoda stared at Sokka before he looked directly past him to at you “how would you like to lead your first duo mission Y/n?”. You grinned “I’d love to”. “Great, Sokka stick with y/n and do everything she says, do as she does and you’ll be just fine”. Sokka nodded and rushed to your side. “This is so cool” he whispered and you smirked as you helped him put on his armour. “Don’t get too excited these things can get dangerous quickly, stay with me okay?”. “And you’ll protect me?” Sokka asked batting his eyelashes but his smirk fell away when without a second thought you nodded “of course I will”. Your low voice filled with determination made Sokka blush and look away. “You ready?” you asked and Sokka nodded “ready” and you rushed into battle.

Sokka did exactly what you said and the battle was a success. He was impressed at how much you’d learned and how great a leader you were. You largely kept the fighting away from him by making yourself the bigger target but when Sokka did engage you were always on hand to help push away any fatal blows. Sokka got out of his first battle without so much as a scratch and it was all down to you. When Hakoda declared victory everyone began to cheer and Sokka grabbed you “That was....you were amazing out there y/n!” Sokka grinned and you smiled “it’s nothing...”. “Are you kidding? There were men there twice your age and size but you knocked them aside like they weighed nothing”. “Well what about you?” you asked “you’ve clearly been training a lot since we left, I take back everything I said about your boomerang it’s a great weapon”. “Wow you’re admitting you were wrong? You had changed” Sokka smirked and you smiled.

As this was the first battle Sokka has successfully fought in he was due his first-ever warrior braid. Hakoda explained it wasn’t a large ceremony, he basically just went into a tent without a braid and came out with one but still Sokka was nervous. Of course he’d practised them lots, all water tribe children did for the day they’d get to add one to their hair but now the day was finally here....he was very anxious.

Your POV

You waited with all the other men for Sokka outside the tent. It was taking a while and you wondered what was taking Sokka so long. “I’ll just check he’s okay” you told your fathers and walked through the flap of the tent. Sokka was fiddling with her hair muttering to himself angrily. He didn’t seem to like the type of plait he was making and would shake it out each time with an irritated mutter. “Sokka?” you asked and he jumped. “I can’t get it right!” he cried “I’ve been dreaming of this day since we were five but I can’t make it work. Sokka tried again seizing his hair tightly and you noticed his hands were shaking. You came to stand behind Sokka and pushed his hands away softly “let me”. You grabbed Sokka’s hair carefully and began to braid it into the traditional warrior plait pattern. Sokka watched and saw the concentration on your face as you twisted his hair effortlessly into a pattern. “There” you said softly tying a small band around it “your first warrior plait, is it okay?”. You held up a mirror and Sokka grinned at his reflection, he was finally a warrior! “I love it!” he cried “thank you y/n” and hugged you. You laughed and hugged Sokka back, “no problem, now come on let's show it off”. You and Sokka walked outside and Hakoda grinned. “My son is officially one of us” he cried and everyone broke out into cheers. 

Sokka’s POV

Everyone crowded around to congratulate him and Sokka’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much. The celebrations were well underway and all the men were keen for Sokka to join them but after a courteous sweep of them Sokka found his way back to you.

You were sat on the outskirts of the camp staring out at the ocean. “Not one for festivities?” Sokka asked sinking beside you and you shrugged “I don’t mind them...but peace and quiet are just as appealing” you smiled “that’s hard to get with a camp full of men”. As if to prove your point a loud water tribe chant broke out and you both laughed. “Well let's go for a walk then” Sokka said jumping up and you followed him. You and Sokka walked towards the ocean and you asked him to carry on his story. He talked rapidly about the attack of the northern water tribe. You listened and just let Sokka’s words sweep over you. You were mainly just watching him amused at how many expression he could pull at once and had to look away to stop yourself from chuckling. When Sokka finished his tale and took a breath you smiled “wow that sounds...unreal!”. Sokka nodded “it was, a lot of things on my travel have been like that, from moon spirits to banished princes, i’ve seen it all!”. “You’re quite the explorer aren’t you” you commented and Sokka nodded “yep, and you’re quite the warrior, we’re certainly doing our tribe proud”. “That we are” you nodded and silence fell. You were sat close together and an idea suddenly struck him. What would you do if he placed his arm around you? He wasn’t sure what made him think that, you and he had always just been friends but now...Sokka wasn’t too sure why that was. Out of everyone in camp you were the person he’s been most excited to see and that didn’t feel just like friendship to him. Without really thinking, caught up in the moment, Sokka went to move his arm when you noticed his movement and glanced down at his arm. Sokka blushed and pretended he was scratching it. “Are you okay?” you asked and Sokka nodded “yep just my arm fell asleep”. “Ow that makes sense, you know for a second there I thought you were going to put it around me...”. Silence settled and you realised Sokka had been planning on doing that. Sokka was blushing vividly and you blinked unsure what to do or say. “Sokka i...” you started when you heard loud gasps from camp and both looked up to see Appa. Sokka frowned confused, Aang wasn’t due back for another three days but here he was. Aang soon dismounted and appeared in front of you both “Sokka! Good you’re still here...”. “Yeah we just got back a few hours ago” Sokka explained "Aang this is y/n my friend from the southern water tribe and y/n this is Aang the avatar". "Wow" you said wide-eyed "it’s amazing to meet you". Aang smiled but it was a tense smile "Sokka we have to go" he cried. Aang explained Katara was in danger and worry ran across Sokka’s face. “We have to leave now” Aang said and Sokka nodded “sure just give me two minutes”. Sokka spun around and you were surprised to see he looked nervous. The tension from earlier had gone, this was more serious. "Y/n i’m sorry but i have to go..." he started to explain nervously when you cut him off. "Of course you do" you cried "Katara needs you!". Sokka smiled sadly "i know but it’s been so nice to see you again after all this time, so I was thinking...would you want to come with me?". You were utterly taken back "go with you?". "Yeah, you could travel with us? It’s dangerous and we get attacked a lot but i bet a warrior like you can handle it". You paused "Sokka i’d really like to but i made an oath to our elders to fight in this war...i don’t think i can change it and come with you no matter how much i want to". Sokka’s smile slipped but he nodded his head "it’s okay i figured as much but thought it was worth a shot". You nodded and touched his arm "are you planning on coming back soon?". Sokka bit his lip "i don’t know and we really have to go...i’ll try okay, i really will so hopefully i’ll see you soon". You nodded believing him but also studied his face again in case you didn't see him for another 5 years. "I’ll come back I promise y/n" Sokka told you and you smiled hugging him "i believe you". Sokka melted into you when Aang’s noises of impatience made him pull away. "Until then keep up the good work" Sokka smiled saluting you. You saluted him back as he walked away and flew off on the air bison with the avatar. 

Sokka made Aang tell him absolutely everything and then they sat in silence waiting to arrive back in Ba Sing Sei. Fear filled Sokka’s mind but as scared as he was, you kept coming back into his mind. He wondered what you had been about to say before Appa arrived and wondered if you could possibly, maybe like him too. The fact he liked you was a new sensation for Sokka but he realised he had just been oblivious before and it had always been there. You had always been the one he came to, the one he liked being around the most, the one he cared about more than himself or anything. He’d always liked you he just hadn’t realised it. “Your hair looks nice” Aang said suddenly “the plait suits you”. Sokka touched it absentmindedly and smiled “my friend y/n did it for me”. “The girl you were with?”. Sokka nodded “yeah she’s my best friend”. Aang smiled “I bet it was nice to see her”. Sokka nodded “it really was” and blushed, he’d find a way to see you again and he’d been damned if he had to wait another five years.

[love-on-your-wrist]

Analyzing Social Climb (pt.1)

K, so after finally getting back home and having actual WIFI in here, i decided to watch social climb again in its entirety and express some of my thoughts and observations i guess? Anyways lets go

The video starts with a 10-Second long animation of the band´s logo, and directly moves over to the visuals of a fancy-looking house. Over it, there is a bit of text and a headline:

                           “the TELEFOUNDATION presents

                              THOUGHT REFORM

           &THE CORPORATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL RECONDITIONING”

Now, let´s try and analyse this :D

What is Telefoundation?

On the internet, i wasnt able to find any mentions of the word, let alone a definition of the word, so i assumed it was the name of a fictional firm in the iDKHOW universe  But, i was able to find a similar word, “early television foundation” and also a link to something else here: http://www.cftf.org.uk/ if you want to take a look at that. The first one tho, it is a museum “dedicated to the preservation of the technology from the early days of television.“, as directly quoted from their website.

Furthermore, the website says: “Our website's mission is to preserve and make available to the public the history of early television, from the mechanical systems of the 1920s through the introduction of color televsion in the 1950s.“

Aha, so that museum just showcases different TVs from around 1945, how´s that connected to social climb and idkhow? I dont have an idea, but we know that the mv for social climb is a brainwashing propaganda video from 1977, broadcasted over television.

What is Thought Reform?

thought reform is another word for brainwashing used by Robert Jay Lifton, one of the first phsychologists to study both brainwashing and mindcontrol. Lifton was a US-american phsychatrist and author in the 60s. 1970 he was accepted as a teacher at washington school of psychatry. Later, he released his books called “Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans. Neither Victims nor Executioners (1973), and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” (1986), of which the publishing years bring us near to the time in which the iDKHOW story takes place.

returning back to ´thought reform´, Lifton offered 8 steps/methods of manipulating minds. I have copied them off http://changingminds.org/techniques/conversion/lifton_thought_reform.htm  for anybody interested:

#1 Milieu control

All communication with outside world is limited, either being strictly filtered or completely cut off. Whether it is a monastery or a behind-closed-doors cult, isolation from the ideas, examples and distractions of the outside world turns the individuals attention to the only remaining form of stimulation, which is the ideology that is being inculcated in them.

This even works at the intrapersonal level, and individuals are discouraged from thinking incorrect thoughts, which may be termed evil, selfish, immoral and so on.

#2 Mystical manipulation

A part of the teaching is that the group has a higher purpose than others outside the group. This may be altruistic, such as saving the world or helping people in need. It may also be selfish, for example that group members will be saved when others outside the group will perish.

All things are then attributed and linked to this higher purpose. Coincidences (which actually may be deliberately engineered) are portrayed as symbolic events. Attention is given to the problems of out-group people and attributed to their not being in the group. Revelations are attributed to spiritual causes.

This association of events is used as evidence that the group truly is special and exclusive.

#3 Confession

Individuals are encouraged to confess past 'sins' (as defined by the group). This creates a tension between the person's actions and their stated belief that the action is bad, particularly if the statement is made publicly. The consistency principle thus leads the person to fully adopt the belief that the sin is bad and to distance themselves from repeating it.

Discussion of inner fears and anxieties, as well as confessing sins is exposing vulnerabilities and requires the person to place trust in the group and hence bond with them. When we bond with others, they become our friends, and we will tend to adopt their beliefs more easily.

This effect may be exaggerated with intense sessions where deep thoughts and feelings are regularly surfaced. This also has the effect of exhausting people, making them more open to suggestion.

#4 Self-sanctification through purity

Individuals are encouraged to constantly push towards an ultimate and unattainable perfection. This may be rewarded with promotion within the group to higher levels, for example by giving them a new status name (acolyte, traveller, master, etc.) or by giving them new authority within the group.

The unattainability of the ultimate perfection is used to induce guilt and show the person to be sinful and hence sustain the requirement for confession and obedience to those higher than them in the groups order of perfection.

Not being perfect may be seen as deserving of punishment, which may be meted out by the higher members of the group or even by the person themselves, who are taught that such atonement and self-flagellation is a valuable method of reaching higher levels of perfection.

#5 Aura of sacred science

The beliefs and regulations of the group are framed as perfect, absolute and non-negotiable. The dogma of the group is presented as scientifically correct or otherwise unquestionable.

Rules and processes are therefore to be followed without question, and any transgression is a sin and hence requires atonement or other forms of punishment, as does consideration of any alternative viewpoints.

#6 Loaded language

New words and language are created to explain the new and profound meanings that have been discovered. Existing words are also hijacked and given new and different meaning.

This is particularly effective due to the way we think a lot though language. The consequence of this is that the person who controls the meaning of words also controls how people think. In this way, black-and-white thinking is embedded in the language, such that wrong-doers are framed as terrible and evil, whilst those who do right (as defined by the group) are perfect and marvellous.

The meaning of words are kept hidden both from the outside world, giving a sense of exclusivity. The meaning of special words may also be revealed in careful illuminatory rituals, where people who are being elevated within the order are given the power of understanding this new language.

#7 Doctrine over person

The importance of the group is elevated over the importance of the individual in all ways. Along with this comes the importance of the the group's ideas and rules over personal beliefs and values.

Past experiences, beliefs and values can all thus be cast as being invalid if they conflict with group rules. In fact this conflict can be used as a reason for confession of sins. Likewise, the beliefs, values and words of those outside the group are equally invalid.

#8 Dispensed existence

There is a very sharp line between the group and the outside world. Insiders are to be saved and elevated, whilst outsiders are doomed to failure and loss (which may be eternal).

Who is an outsider or insider is chosen by the group. Thus, any person within the group may be damned at any time. There are no rights of membership except, perhaps, for the leader.

People who leave the group are singled out as particularly evil, weak, lost or otherwise to be despised or pitied. Rather than being ignored or hidden, they are used as examples of how anyone who leaves will be looked down upon and publicly denigrated.

People thus have a constant fear of being cast out, and consequently work hard to be accepted and not be ejected from the group. Outsiders who try to persuade the person to leave are doubly feared.

Dispensation also goes into all aspects of living within the group. Any and all aspects of existence within the group is subject to scrutiny and control. There is no privacy and, ultimately, no free will.

Most of these methods are intigrated into the social climb music video, showing an elite, almost cult-like group of people most liekly cut off of the rest of the world, etc. i think #3 could also be a reference to the song “modern day cain” by iDKHOW, of which (for example) the pre-chorus is:

“So now you've done a little wrong And you need to be forgiven By the Vicar and the company you keep And then you conjure up a fiction To get the pretty girl to listen“

and also the main chorus that is:

“This is the sin That I will confess to release myself From consequence And everyone can tell“

in which method #3: Confession is mentioned directly. (Oh boi, i think we gettin to the point now, but after 2 hours just straight out researching and writing the first two explanations/theories i kinda dont know how to formulate the next section. i´ll take a short break.)

What is Social Reconditioning?

As i did my research on the internet, the term “social conditioning” seemed to have appeared way more often in results, and doesn´t seem to differ that heavily from social reconditioning, so let me explain it first. Social conditioning is  the definition of training someone to behave in a manner that is generally approved from society and/or peer groups in society. “Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses. “ (Wikipedia)

So now that we´ve got that figured out, what would Social Reconditioning mean? I myself would explain it as having to adjust from one specific social pattern/structure to another. an example i provide is a soldier coming back home from the war and having to adjust into the general city-life from the strict life in an army. The “corporate guide to social reconditioning” is most likely to be a book in the iDKHOW universe abouthow to fit into a generally acepted form of society again. But what other social structure, or rather group of people is it, that one has to recover from?

 This is what i think is worth mentioning in this wikipedia article:

“Propaganda.

Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew and the father of propaganda and public relations, used many of his uncle's theories in order to create new methods in marketing. In Propaganda, he published that "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it".[4] He used the herd theory in order to create public relations, thus conditioning the public to need particular goods from certain manufacturers. In the same publication he stated, "A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable."[4] His theories and applications in social conditioning continue throughout his work. “

In Summary/Conclusion

Social climb is a propaganda/brainwash video

It is from the late 70s (1977 to be exact)

The band iDKHOW is in it, joined by Whiteshadow (the white skull person with the mask), possibly meaning that Bamd has time-traveled into 1977

Social climb is very likely to be referencing Modern Day Cain, and probably MDCs music video

The propagande video might be advertising or warning the public about a cult-like group of elite people

Which are a Illuminati-like organization, if not Illuminati itself

speaking from scenes like the one at 1:19, where the Pattern on the table undoubtedly is a pyramid with an eye in the middle, having the letter i,d,k,h,b,t,f and m in each rectangle in the first row

if i get any more stuff facts about the actual video into this i might as well make a second part out of this

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Over the past few weeks, FiveThirtyEight has explored who led in early primary polls of presidential cycles from 1972 to 2016 and who went on to win the nomination. And what we’ve seen is that national surveys conducted in the year before a presidential primary are relatively good indicators of which candidates will advance to the general election, especially when polling averages are adjusted to reflect how well known each candidate was. Now, in the third and final part of our series, we are going to analyze 40-plus years of polls to better understand their predictive power.

There are a number of ways to tackle this question, but one relatively easy way to see how predictive early polls are is to compare a candidate’s polling average1 to their eventual share of the national primary vote. And we found that as a candidate’s polling average increased, their vote share in the primaries also tended to increase. In the chart below, for the calendar year before the primaries began, we averaged each candidate’s polls in the first half of the year (January through June) and in the second half of the year (July through December), and then plotted those two averages against the share of votes each person won in the next year’s primaries, for every competitive nomination process from 1972 to 2016. The correlation is pretty strong for both halves of the year,2 though polls from the second half of the year matched the outcomes a little better, which is not surprising — after all, those polls were conducted closer to the start of primary season.

But it’s easier to see trends if we group some candidates together rather than looking at them all individually, so let’s sort candidates into six big buckets based on their polling average. That clearly shows us that candidates with higher polling averages were also more likely to win higher shares of the primary vote and, therefore, the nomination. Those polling at 35 percent or higher rarely lost the nomination, regardless of whether they attained those heights in the first or second half of the year. They also, on average, won more than half the national primary vote. But those polling below 20 percent in either the first half or second half of the year had at best a 1-in-10 chance of clinching the nomination, and they rarely won a sizable chunk of the popular vote.

High polling averages foreshadowed lots of primary votes

Candidates’ share of the national primary vote by average polling level in the first half of the year before the presidential primaries and polling average in the second half of that year, 1972-2016

First half Second half Poll Avg. Share who became nominee Avg. Primary Vote share Share who became nominee Avg. Primary Vote share 35%+ 75% 57% 83% 57% 20%-35% 36 27 25 25 10%-20% 9 8 9 12 5%-10% 3 7 10 10 2%-5% 5 5 0 4 Under 2% 1 2 1 1

We included everyone we had polling data for, no matter how likely or unlikely they were to run. If a candidate didn’t run or dropped out before voting began, they were counted as winning zero percent of the primary vote.

Sources: POLLS, CQ Roll call, DAVE LEIP’s atlas of u.s. presidential elections

We can also take these polling averages and estimate the probability of a candidate winning a party’s nomination using a logistic regression. And as you can see, candidates polling above 20 percent — whether it’s in the first half of the year (the orange line) or the second half (purple line) — have a higher probability of winning the nomination. In fact, the results for the first and second half of the year are nearly identical — in the second half of the year, candidates with the same polling average had a slightly lower win probability, but we’re talking about a maximum difference of less than 4 percentage points.3 There are certainly more sophisticated ways one could look at this data, but even these simple methods can show that polls conducted this far out in the primary season still have a reasonable amount of predictive power.

We can go a step further and improve our analysis by accounting for a candidate’s level of name recognition.4 In previous installments of this series, we rated candidates’ fame on a five-tier scale,5 and this time we’re using those previous rankings to split up our polling data into two roughly equal groups — candidates with high name recognition6 and those with low name recognition.7 This gives us a broader understanding of whether being well known influenced a candidate’s chances of winning the nomination. (We also limited this part of our analysis to just the first half of the year to see what role name recognition played very early in the cycle.)

And as you can see, well-known candidates who polled in the double digits tended to win a higher share of the primary vote. But candidates who had high name recognition while only polling in the single digits were generally in trouble. Of the 84 highly recognized candidates who polled below 10 percent in surveys from the first half of the year before the primaries, only President Trump went on to win his party’s nomination. And Trump was an unusual case — Republicans started out with strongly negative views of him but quickly changed their tune even though they were already familiar with him. Meanwhile, candidates with lower name recognition in the first half of the year only occasionally advanced to the general election, and in each case, it was on the Democratic side — George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992.

Name recognition makes a big difference

Candidates’ share of the national primary vote by average polling level in the first half of the year before the presidential primaries and whether they had high or low name recognition, 1972-2016

High name recognition Low name recognition Poll Avg. Share who became nominee Avg. Primary Vote share Share who became nominee Avg. Primary Vote share 35%+ 75% 57% — — 20%-35% 36 27 — — 10%-20% 9 8 — — 5%-10% 0 4 14% 19% 2%-5% 5 3 5 6 Under 2% 0 0 2 2

We included everyone we had polling data for, no matter how likely or unlikely they were to run. If a candidate didn’t run or dropped out before voting began, they were counted as winning zero percent of the primary vote.

Sources: POLLS, CQ Roll call, DAVE LEIP’s atlas of u.s. presidential elections

In fact, we can use a logistic regression to estimate a high- and low-name-recognition candidate’s chance of winning the nomination based on their polling average (much like we did above, but last time we didn’t sort candidates into categories based on name recognition). And as you can see in the chart below, a low-name-recognition candidate didn’t stand much of a chance of winning unless they were able to climb past 10 percent in the polls in the first half of the year before the primaries. If they were able to hit that mark, then their odds of winning were slightly less than 1 in 4, which put them ahead of a high-name-recognition candidate polling at the same level.

Intuitively, this makes sense — relatively few unknown candidates could poll as high as 10 percent this far out in the election cycle. But for those who could get that much support even though only a small share of people knew about them, their polling numbers signaled a great deal of potential. Take Dukakis in the 1988 cycle: His polling average was about 8 percent in the first half of 1987, and we estimated that his average name recognition was somewhere around 20 percent. Not a bad polling average when you consider that most respondents didn’t know who he was.

In other words, a candidate’s adjusted polling average — polling average divided by name recognition, which we delved into at length in the first two parts of this series — is a decent proxy for teasing out the strength of a candidate, especially early in the election cycle. By accounting for how well known a candidate is, we can get a better read on the field in front of us, including here in the 2020 election cycle. As primary season draws nearer, we’ll be keeping an eye on any candidates with low name recognition who still manage to win a significant chunk of support in the polls.

[the-real-xmonster]

The Olympic Men’s Free Skate Queue

Yuzuru’s StSq

Hello Alice! I’m sure that Seimei have gotten a level 4 Step Sequence in another competition. What do you think might cause it to get only a level 3 in the Olympics?

Why did Yuzu's StSq get a lv3? And did you see TAT and Yuzu hugging?? Sooo cute!! Did Yuzu get coached by her? They seem close, like mother and son

I’m so relieved and happy for Yuzu... I’ve seen a bunch of people complain that he got a level 3 on the stsq, but is it just me or was he a bit out of time with the music for the whole thing? Wouldn’t that downgrade him?

TAT and Yuzu hugging and she showering him with kisses was so freaking cute I had to punch a stuffed animal and down a shot of espresso (because I don’t do alcohol) to restore my cold-hearted bitchiness after I saw them. I don’t think Yuzu has ever got coached by her officially but they are quite close. He respects her a lot and she absolutely adores him, thinks the world of him really!

For the anon who asked me who TAT is: Tatiana Tarasova is a prominent Russian figure skating coach and is currently the Russian national team’s adviser. She is a legendary coach and is a highly respected authority in the figure skating world. Incidentally, she was the person who suggested Yuzuru to skate to Notte Stellata :)

So, on to Yuzu’s Seimei StSq, it got a level 3 the other day because of this turn:

This was from his first combination of difficult turns. He was going for a rocker-counter-twizzle combo there, but you can see on the close up on the right: his counter was jumped, as in he didn’t keep his blade on the ice throughout the turn. This mistake cost him an entire level, because one of the features for a level 4 StSq is you must have two valid combinations of difficult turns done on different feet. It also happens that from the 2017-2018 season, the ISU rule has changed so that only the first combination attempted on each foot can be counted. So even though in this Seimei StSq, Yuzu had an additional combination on the left foot, that one was not counted either for level purpose.

Yuzuru’s Score

Hi... If Yuzu went Clean with his free program as he planned, how much his score could be? I’ve done a rough calculation and I found that he could broke his total score record with that... what do you think about it?? Thank you ☺️ P.s : I really love ur blog

The most material mistake Yuzu made in the FS was on the second 4T. When he failed to put that jump in combination, he lost at least 11 points. The intended combo was 4T+1Lo+3S, which, in the second half, is worth 16.72 in BV. With the 4T in REP, he lost 30% of that jump’s BV and got also negative GOE for the step out, earning only 5.87 on that element. 

He also lost a couple points on the last 3Lz. So, yes, considering that his final total score of 317.85 is 12 points below his WR of 330.45, if he hadn’t made those two jump mistakes, he’d have broken that WR for sure. 

Yuzuru’s Ankle

Aaaaand back at worrying about Yuzu's ankle. Why??? :((

Alice, he was wonderful. He was so wonderful. Yuzuru Hanyu is the greatest of all time. I hope he feels all the love like a warm and soothing hug. It sounds like his ankle has ways to go, so everything crossed that he takes the time to let it heal completely. What a champion. We are not worthy. Now for the ladies. *dies a little*

So happy that Yuzuru was able to overcome his ankle injury and do THAT at the Olympics! Do you know if he plans to attend Worlds now?

did he touch his ankle bc he was in awe that it allowed to perform like this or bc it hurt?? in so emo rn ajdhsjsj

His ankle is still a cause for concern, since it obviously is far from being fully healed. Yuzuru himself said that he skated throughout this week on painkillers and he’d need to get his injury examined again after the Games. The jumps in the second half of Seimei caused him visible trouble and pain so when he went down to touch his ankle after the skate, I’m pretty sure at least half of it was because it really hurt.

I can’t believe I am actually saying this, but I sincerely hope that he would withdraw from Worlds and allow his body all the time it needs to recuperate. 

Yuzuru’s Plan

Hi, what a day! Do you think Yuzu will try to put the 4Lo back in the programs in next month's Worlds? I can't help but think that he loves SEIMEI too much to let it go without raising the difficulty one last time.

Its still hard to believe today. We all knew he was going to win yet we had our doubts. I am just wondering, if nathan continues to do 6 quads, how will yuzuru improve seimei to have a higher technical score?

Nobody knows yet whether Yuzu is planning to compete in Milan - I think even he himself cannot say that for certain right now. If he eventually decides to go to Worlds, I hope it is because he is fully fit, in which case, yes, I think he is going to bring back the 4Lo. I don’t think he needs to factor in Nathan’s 6 quads while deciding his layout. Nathan’s 6-quad free skate still ended up with a lower score than Seimei at NHK 2015, you know, the one with, like, 3 quads in it?

Nathan’s Free Skate

Thoughts on Nathan’s free skate?

It was a redemption and I am happy for him. Other than that... he landed 6 quads and that is the only thing I remember from his skate. There was hardly any connection between his jumps in transitional terms, or connection between his jumps and the music, or connection between him and the audience. To give that program anything more than 8 in any component score is utterly ridiculous. I can accept that he won the free skate, but it was by no means imaginable a 210+ program. 

I hope I won't stir up anything by asking this, but had Nathan skated a clean SP, would he have won gold in your book? I'm just curious and your personal take is always refreshing to me. I hope this question isn't annoying. Also I love your blog. I legit check it every week. I learn so much from just reading your posts. Thank you for your time and patience. :)

Yes, theoretically speaking, Nathan could have won the competition if he had skated a clean SP. But, also, theoretically speaking, Yuzuru could have skated a clean free skate too. If we continue along that line, both of them could have bombed and Javier could have won, or Shoma, or Boyang, or Vincent, or Patrick, or anyone, really. That’s what a sporting competition is all about: any competitor has a chance to win, and the result is ultimately determined by what each and everyone of them delivers, not in theory, but in reality.

Javier and Shoma’s Placements

Why was Javier behind Shoma? Asking cause I know nothing about tech and to me Javier looked like he skated a cleaner and better set of programs

It was a matter of base value. Javi was scored higher than Shoma in PCS in both the SP and FS and I think the gap more or less adequately reflected the difference in their program components. The final base value of Javi’s FS is 19 points lower than Shoma’s (a gap widened by Javi’s mistake of popping the second 4S into a double, which lost him about 10 points) and that’s the main reason he lost. 

On Shoma’s base value, though, there’s this:

Hi Alice! Sorry to bother you, but could you take a look on Shoma's quad loop (the one where he fell) in his free skate in Pyeongchang? I heard a lot of people saying that it's underrotated, and I thought that I'll ask you for an unbiased opinion. Thanks a lot!    

Yes, his 4Lo was very much under-rotated:

There you can see how he landed at over 90 degrees short of rotation. From this angle it’s hard to say for sure, but I suspect that his blade touched the ice even earlier than that, around this point:

If the tech panel is strict, this level of miss in rotation can even result in a downgrade of the jump.

As it happened, his 4T in the combo was borderline, too:

So, all else being equal, and considering how close their total scores were, if the technical panel had made these UR calls on Shoma’s jumps, the Silver very well should have gone to Javi.

[kristinsimmons]

Recommendations From the Coalition for Physician Accountability’s UME-to-GME Review Committee: Winners & Losers Edition

By BRYAN CARMODY

If you’re involved in medical education or residency selection, you know we’ve got problems.

And starting a couple of years ago, the corporations that govern much of those processes decided to start having meetings to consider solutions to those problems. One meeting begat another, bigger meeting, until last year, in the wake of the decision to report USMLE Step 1 scores as pass/fail, the Coalition for Physician Accountability convened a special committee to take on the undergraduate-to-graduate medical education transition. That committee – called the UME-to-GME Review Committee or UGRC – completed their work and released their final recommendations yesterday.

This isn’t the first time I’ve covered the UGRC’s work: back in April, I tallied up the winners and losers from their preliminary recommendations.

And if you haven’t read that post, you should. Many of my original criticisms still stand (e.g, on the lack of medical student representation, or the structural configuration that effectively gave corporate members veto power), but here I’m gonna try to turn over new ground as we break down the final recommendations, Winners & Losers style.

–

The Coalition for Physician Accountability consists of 13 corporations that dominate medical education, residency training, and physician practice.

LOSER: BREVITY.

The UGRC recommendations run 276 pages, with 5 appendices and 34 specific recommendations across 9 thematic areas. It’s a dense and often repetitive document, and the UGRC had the discourtesy to release it in the midst of a busy week when I didn’t anticipate having to plow through such a thing. But this is the public service I provide to you, dear readers.

–

WINNER: COMMITTEES AND FURTHER STUDY.

All told, the UGRC recommendations aren’t bad.

Some – like Recommendation #11 below – are toothless but hard to disagree with, and many of the recommendations that are more specific don’t go as far as I’d like.

Hard to disagree with anything in Recommendation #11… but also hard to believe that asserting any of it is going to change anything. (To me, the most interesting part of this recommendation was the typing style shown in the clipart.)

But most of the recommendations are good, and almost all are thoughtful and offer the promise of improvement… someday, at some indefinite point in the future (after futher study and additional consideration by more special committees, of course).

There are a few immediately actionable recommendations (such as the proposal for exclusively virtual interviews for the 2021-2022 season) which are unlikely to generate much controversy. And there are a handful of others that ought to inspire more debate.

–

Recommendation #18 calls for reporting the results of both the USMLE and COMLEX-USA on the same normalized scale.

WINNER: OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL STUDENTS.

Currently, around three quarters of osteopathic medical students take both the USMLE and COMLEX-USA. In almost all states, either one is sufficient for licensure – but residency program directors strongly prefer the USMLE.

The de facto requirement for DO students to take two licensing exams is expensive and wasteful, and I’m on record as opposing it. If program directors could assess relative exam performance at a glance – through use of a single normalized score – many fewer DOs would feel compelled to take the USMLE.

(It’s worth pointing out, however, that the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME) doesn’t need the UGRC in order to make COMLEX-USA and USMLE scores more easily comparable: all they’d have to do is replace their ‘distinctive’ 200-800 score range with the 300 point scale more familiar to most program directors.)

Approximate percentile conversions for the COMLEX-USA Level 1 and Step 1 examinations.

–

LOSER: MDS AND IMGS.

The problem with treating COMLEX-USA and USMLE scores the same is that not everyone can take either exam. Although DO students are allowed to sit for the USMLE, MDs and international medical graduates (IMGs) are not eligible to register for COMLEX-USA.

Put another way, a DO student who is unhappy with his/her COMLEX-USA score might choose to take the USMLE to try to improve it – but an MD or IMG gets only one shot.

But that’s not the only bad news for MDs and IMGs.

Although there is wide individual variation, DO examinees overall score ~20 percentile points lower on the USMLE than they do on COMLEX-USA.

This mirrors pre-existing differences in standardized test performance between DO and MD medical students: the average MD student scores around the 81st percentile for MCAT performance, while the average osteopathic matriculant scores around the 58th.

For students matriculating to an MD school, the average MCAT is around 511; for osteopathic matriculants, it’s 504.

In other words, to achieve the normalized score that will appear on ERAS, DO students taking COMLEX-USA compete against a somewhat less-accomplished group of standardized test takers than MDs and IMGs taking the USMLE.

(This potential source of unfairness could, of course, be rectified by allowing MDs and IMGs the option of taking COMLEX-USA.)

–

WINNER: THE NATIONAL BOARD OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL EXAMINERS.

Recently, the NBOME has faced increasing questions about whether maintaining a ‘separate but equal’ licensing exam for DOs does more harm than good. I’ve argued – in direct response to a letter from the CEO of the NBOME himself – that all physicians should just take the USMLE, and that the NBOME should limit their exams to assessing specifically osteopathic competencies. Obviously, this kind of thinking presents an existential threat to the NBOME.

But if Recommendation #18 succeeds in establishing the COMLEX-USA as being equivalent to the USMLE for residency selection, the NBOME’s existence is all but assured – and they’ll find themselves in the enviable business position of selling exams to the rapidly-growing captive audience of osteopathic medical students for years to come. (You may therefore be unsurprised to learn that the NBOME’s CEO was a member of the specific UGRC workgroup that advanced this recommendation.)

–

With apologies to Captain Jack Sparrow.

WINNER: THE SHERIFF OF SODIUM.

While perusing the references for Recommendation #18, I was a bit surprised to see a link to an old Sheriff of Sodium post mixed among the references to authoritative academic journals.

Let’s just say this citation reflected a very selective reading of my bibliography as it relates to the NBOME… but I appreciated the credit nonetheless.

–

LOSER: THE UNMATCHED.

The preliminary report from the UGRC included 42 recommendations; the final report, just 34. Among the specific recommendations left on the cutting room floor was the old #19, which called for studying the unmatched.

Recommendation #19 from the UGRC preliminary report called for a committee to study unmatched applicants.

Sure, the final report still notes the need to “explore the growing number of unmatched physicians in the context of a national physician shortage” in recommendation #2, but you can’t escape the feeling that unmatched doctors are de-emphasized in the final report. (Other preliminary recommendations that seem de-emphasized include the previously enthusiastic support for an early result acceptance program, which follows a letter from the NRMP noting that they would not pursue such a program this year.)

–

WINNER: STUDENT LOAN LENDERS.

For many students, transitioning to residency is a period of serious financial stress. The student loans that were disbursed in August are long gone… but the first paycheck of residency may not come till mid-July or even the first of August.

To address this important issue, the UGRC brings us Recommendation #33, which calls for funding these predictable expenses “through equitable low interest student loans.”

Which, I guess, is one way to do it.

Of course, another way would be for programs to subsidize this transition. You know, insofar as residents are revenue generators for the hospital well beyond the value that they are compensated. (n.b., if anyone tries to use selective accounting to argue otherwise, simply ask them why some keen-eyed hospital administrator hasn’t cut the residency program if it’s such a money loser.)

Nope, says the UGRC. “These costs should not be incurred by GME programs,” going as far as to make a specific enjoinder against even offering sign-on bonuses.

Why go there? If a program chose to help with moving expenses or give a small signing bonus – possibly because they realized that doing so was a more effective way of recruiting under-represented minority applicants than giving them a lanyard or can koozy with the hospital logo – why stop them?

(The only reason I can think of is that if some programs started doing this, others might feel compelled to do it, too. Better for everyone to link arms, hold the line, and make less affluent residents take on more loans.)

–

Every year, students interview at more programs and submit longer rank lists – even though overall match rates are unchanged.

WINNER: INTERVIEW CAPS.

Recommendation #24 calls for limiting the number of interviews that an individual applicant can accept.

When 12% of residency applicants consume half of all interview spots in specialties like internal medicine and general surgery, this is low hanging fruit.

(My only criticism is that the proposal for specialty-specific limitations on interviews is unnecessarily complicated in a world when many applicants apply to multiple specialties – and may also have the unintended consequence of encouraging some well-qualified-but-nervous applicants to double apply.)

–

When programs aren’t transparent about their filters, applicants pay the price.

WINNER: TRANSPARENCY.

Recommendation #6 calls for a verified database of programs that will include “aggregate characteristics of individuals who previously applied to, interviewed at, were ranked by, and matched for each GME program.”

If this is implemented – and I have doubts it can be practically accomplished while maintaining the confidentiality of residents in the program – it would be a big victory for applicants, who may spend thousands of dollars applying to programs who never even read their application.

–

WINNER: DOXIMITY RESIDENCY RANKINGS.

Transparency about what kinds of applicants match at each program doesn’t just help applicants – it will be a data gold mine for Doximity Residency Navigator or any other company that purports to produce an ordinal list of residency programs by their quality.

Whatever data get included in the UGMC’s “interactive database” will be scraped by bots and used to judge the quality of the program (as if all residency programs were engaged in a direct competition amongst each other for a single goal). Look for more foolish metric-chasing to follow as programs try to make their reported data look good lest the rankings find them unworthy.

–

WINNER: CHEAP INTERN LABOR.

In my original post, I pointed out the somewhat head-scratching preliminary recommendation calling upon the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to change the way that they fund residency positions (so that a resident could change specialties and repeat his or her internship without exhausting the CMS subsidy that the program receives). Gotta say, I was disappointed to see this recommendation persist in the final report (now at #3).

I get it: some residents realize only during their internship that they’ve made a horrible mistake with their career choice and need a mulligan.

But to the extent that this problem occurs, does it reflect a failure of GME funding – or a failure of the medical school to provide adequate exposure to that specialty before someone spends a year of 80-hour workweeks doing something that they don’t want to do?

What’s most perplexing is assertion that this move will “lead to improved resident well-being and positive effects on the physician workforce.” Buddy, lemme just stop you right there – no one’s well-being is going to be improved by doing an unnecessary internship. Seems more like a way to turn career uncertainty into extra cheap intern labor.

Instead of “Try this internship! If you don’t like it, you can choose another one next year!” we should instead push medical schools to prevent this problem by abbreviating the preclinical curriculum, pushing core clerkships earlier, and giving students more opportunity to explore careers before application season rolls around.

–

LOSER: CHECKED-OUT FOURTH YEARS.

We’ve all kinda come to an agreement that the fourth year of medical school doesn’t pack same kind of educational calories as the first three years. For better or worse, fourth year has become a mixture of application season and rest/recovery before residency. Though there are exceptions, most students don’t receive educational value commensurate with the tuition they pay.

But Recommendation #30 calls for “meaningful assessment” after the Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE) is submitted in September, so that a individualized learning plan can be submitted to the student’s residency program prior to the start of residency.

That’s fine, as far as it goes – but it was the description of what that assessment might be that really made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end:

This assessment might occur in the authentic workplace and based on direct observation or might be accomplished as an Objective Structured Clinical Skills Exam using simulation.

If this were a WWE pay per view event, the announcers would be shouting, “Wait!!! It can’t be!! That’s the NBME’s music!!!” as the new, rejuvenated Step 2 CS exam strides into the arena through a cloud of fog. Maybe I’m being paranoid… but I just can’t believe Step 2 CS is gone for good, despite carefully-worded assertions to the contrary.

–

Want to be convinced that we need application caps? Give me 45 minutes of your time.

WINNER: APPLICATION CAPS.

I mocked the preliminary recommendations for repeatedly and correctly noting that Application Fever is the root of much of what ails the UME-GME transition – but failing to acknowledge the most logical solution. But now, in response to feedback received during the period of public comment, I am pleased to report that the final recommendations now includes the words “application caps.”

I’m telling you, momentum is building for application caps. Go right ahead and hop on the bandwagon. Plenty of room on board.

–

WINNER: INNOVATION.

Recommendation #23 calls for more innovation, which is hardly controversial or noteworthy. But what’s interesting is that the committee actually recommends some parameters for success.

Appendix C notes that goals could include a 20% reduction in applications submitted per position (i.e., from 132 to 102, or back to 2010 levels), or that we should stabilize the fraction of applicants who match outside their top three ranks (a fraction that has been steadily rising each year). And innovation should be allowed so long as the Match has matching rates of +/- 2% from 2020 Match rates (when they were 94% for US seniors, 91% for DOs, and 61% for IMGs).

And maybe this is what I find most encouraging about the otherwise-tepid UGRC recommendations. It does feel like there is some momentum building for real, practical change. More and more people are recognizing the problems and starting to think, at least, about ways of doing things other than how they’ve always been done, and we’re starting to set some parameters for how those changes might occur. These recommendations won’t get us where we want to go – but they build upon and keep those conversations going, and have to be considered a step in the right direction.

(Hey, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.)

Dr. Carmody is a pediatric nephrologist and medical educator at Eastern Virginia Medical School. This article originally appeared on The Sheriff of Sodium here.

Recommendations From the Coalition for Physician Accountability’s UME-to-GME Review Committee: Winners & Losers Edition published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[nikhilgraphic]

Showcasing Diversity in Illustration: Advice From 10 Artists

Diversity may be a topic on many people’s minds lately . For designers and illustrators, the question they often ask themselves is how they will meaningfully contribute to the present urgent discussion on equality and variety . Through the visual arts medium, designers and illustrators have more power and influence than they'll realize, now available their course also, you have to just find the best university or institutions who has providing the best graphic designing course in Delhi, so get start your creativity and work hard.  When it involves showcasing diversity in your illustrations, don’t believe stereotypes to make equity, as that defeats the aim entirely. Instead, take the time to actually get to understand different cultures. Design and illustrate with a more sensible approach to how the planet really is and appears . To get experts’ opinions on the way to add more cultural diversity in illustration, we spoke directly with our Creative Market Shop Owners. We wanted to seek out out where they get their inspiration and references, how they are doing their research, and, ultimately, how they create their designs more inclusive. Here’s their insightful combat things.

1. Use real locations as inspiration sources

One surefire thanks to showcase more diversity in your illustrations is to base your drawings on a true location on the earth . This overcomes the temptation to stereotype since you’re handling factual, on-the-ground information as against mere assumptions. In Alone Sawchuk’s case, her inspiration for her Social Diversity/Objects Collection was a visit to at least one of Sweden’s most multi-cultural neighborhoods. “The Diversity Collection theme originated in Stockholm, Sweden. There’s a neighborhood in Stockholm called Rinke by. I had the chance to feel the atmosphere of this area, and 90% of the inhabitants there are immigrants or first and second generation with foreign roots.

 They formed the idea of my collection. Also, I take most of my topics from the environment now that I'm in Poland. I watch women strike, smog within the air, and dirty water. you'll already understand what is going to form the idea of my next collections.”

To ensure this cultural diversity successfully makes it into her designs, Alona follows a specific process:

“First, I decide what the gathering will contains . These are mainly characters, banners, seamless textures, posters, and postcards. These are often applied in several areas or, for instance , complete the location . i feel about what colors would be better to convey the theme. i really like black and white. I feel that such a mixture means there’s no got to consider details and obtain lost in colors. there's only the essence of what you would like to convey,” she revealed.

“Finally, I mostly create characters on paper. These are the most characters or the most composition; I supplement them with different elements, and, from this, I combine seamless textures.”

2. Design realistic characters

Character design may be a multi-faceted process that comes with illustration, design, storytelling, and even technical skills in working with animation software.

 Character design is additionally integral to cultural diversity in illustrations since an outsized a part of a character’s design is predicated on outward appearance. For Anna Minkins, an illustrator from Erceg Novi in Montenegro, character design is that the basis for her design inclusivity, like together with her Nude Modern Diversity Collection. "Character design may be a big a part of my job. i really like the thought that each single person is gorgeous in their individuality, regardless of what age they're or what complexion or somatotype they need.

 Drawing diverse people isn't only a stimulating activity and a continuing test of skill, but (I would really like to believe) also an honest thing for contemporary society. As references for my sense of equality and variety , I usually use photos of individuals i do know or images from either Instagram or Pinterest. Using real photos also helps to point out cultural trends (like hairstyles and fashion) correctly. The representation of various cultures can help different people relate to the visual content far better.

3. Capture subtle physical differences If you’re truly committed to cultural diversity in your illustrations, there’s no substitute for extensive research.

 Doing quite just scratching the surface of varied ethnicities is that the key to fairly representing different groups of individuals .In Irina Mir’s case, research is that the differentiating factor that enabled her to make her latest graphic, Diverse Cartoon Avatars, et al.

 in her collections. "When doing research for my latest set, I looked into a wider range of ethnicities, aiming for tons of diversity in people's physical appearances. for instance , when trying to represent Asian people, it's often overlooked how Malaysian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people could also be different. 

an equivalent goes for Central and South America. there is a huge visual diversity here, which isn't really reflected within the broad term ‘Hispanic,’” she said. "I sleep in Chile, and it's an oft-discussed issue here how we've a spread of individuals of all shapes and colors , but the actors and models we see on national media and billboard ads are selected to seem tall, thin, and blond. this is often not how a mean Chilean looks and isn’t representative of the people I interact with daily. i think it is vital for our visual culture to reflect the range of our lived experience.

 "Something as accessible as Google Images can go an extended way toward enabling this diversity research." I just did plenty of Google Image searches with keywords like ‘middle-aged Indian woman,’ together example. It’s about listening to those photos that look more candid and trying to ascertain common trends (like how women tend to style their hair, which tends to differ between cultures and among ages).

4. Seek balance in your compositions

 Instead of only that specialize in one racial representation in your drawings, you'll attempt to include an equal quantity of varied ethnicities within the graphics you create, along side a balance between gender representations. That’s what Franz of Franz Draws did for her Huge Collection of 220 Diverse Faces set, with good results. 

"For the range face set, I loosely divided people into very generalized ethnic groups (Black, White, Asian, Latino, Arab). i attempted to draw an equal amount of girls and men for every group (15 women, 15 men, 7 boys, and seven girls).

 I honestly didn't think an excessive amount of about it. it had been a really simplified, very loose guideline that I had in my head,” she explained. "Of course, within the process of drawing, the boundaries became blurry, and lots of faces fit into quite one group, which i prefer.

 i do not want to squeeze people into categories. My main goal was simply to make an illustration where White race aren't the bulk and where everyone features a chance to seek out a face that they will identify with. 

"Using stock photo websites for inspiration and research also proves handy in Franz’s workflows. "I tend to look for photos and portraits as an idea for my illustrations. I especially use photos from free websites like Apixaban and Unsplashed to form sure that i do not infringe on any photographer's copyrights.”

5. Eliminate stereotypes 

This actionable takeaway is perhaps one among the harder ones for illustrators to use consistently because a number of it's subconscious thanks to popular culture and media dissemination.

 However, there are steps you'll fancy make sure that stereotypes don’t make it into your illustrations. As Spain’s Beatriz Gascony, creator of the Family Big Set

 1: Diversity graphic, understands it, artists should take care to not replace a scarcity of representation with simple stereotyping. "Diversity is everything. the planet isn't always fair, politics aren't always helpful, and we, as citizenry , don't grant an equal voice to everyone. That's a reality that we all should fight every single day and check out to form people understand.

 I cannot change the planet , but I can attempt to give them a voice in my drawings, to offer them representation,” she said.

 "About my research process, my main concern is stereotypes. Stereotyping does the maximum amount harm as non-representation.

 There are many sorts of stereotyping, from plainly hurtful simplifications to little needles we've stuck in our cultural baggage that we might not remember of.

 I always attempt to be conscious and sensible by trying to use empathy. Addressing diversity requires attention and respect. 

I attempt to surround myself with people that are different from me.”It also comes right down to being discriminating in what sources you employ to try to to your illustrations justice.

 "About my sources, I attempt to avoid the moment search on Google (again, probably filled with stereotypes). I follow tons of artists, and that i attempt to follow diverse artists.”

6. Research your material thoroughly

When conducting research for cultural diversity in your drawings, it’s important to really understand the topic matter. rather than just changing an attribute or feature of your character here and there, make certain to make wholly unique designs for them across different cultures. Lana Elanor practices this when in her workflows for her illustration process. It begins with honest and fair research right from the beginning.

“One of the common mistakes is when artists accompany attributes and clichés rather than creating different people. for instance , once I was performing on my Abstract Gallery Modern Women’s Prints collection, I researched and decided to form different women rather than just adding some significant attributes to ‘average’ people.

 i think the ‘create-average-to-sell-more’ era is finally getting to end, and other people want to acknowledge and be recognized,” she reasoned "So in Abstract Gallery, you'll see unique women with their different styles, backgrounds, and stories behind them.

 It’s not about just recoloring one to urge another race; they're obviously completely different women with many features to raised reflect real people and achieve the goal of celebrating diversity. And this makes these women alive.It is a contemporary issue, and that we all still should understand and learn such a lot about it.

 we'd like to widen the spectrum of our perceptions of what exactly inclusivity in art means to the planet and the way it impacts real people.”

7. Study history and empathize

 with other points of view Equality and variety can only happen once you apply empathy, which begs the question, how does one become more empathic?

 Walking in someone else’s shoes are some things we all strive to try to to , but many folks come short , regardless of what proportion we would like to. IN the case of designer Jerome from Dedra Studio, it comes right down to a three-pronged approach, which incorporates learning about history, taking into consideration the viewpoints of others, and being an honest listener. To start performing on an illustration like Black History Month Mosaic #BLM, I check out the events through recent history that have shaped the way we see these celebrations today.

 To be more objective and know what to incorporate , I'm going online and skim about other points of view. i feel that taking note of what these communities need to say (whether we belong to them or not) is vital to helping us understand how they feel—and the way to best represent that on an illustration.”

8. Travel, both face to face and thru research

A recurring theme among a number of our designers, with reference to inclusivity and cultural diversity in illustrations, is travel. Travel exposes you to different cultures, but, of course, that’s not always possible for everybody , especially now during the pandemic. For Antonio Santos from Spain, travel isn’t just something you'll neutralize person. It’s also a journey that solid research takes you on, which ends up in learning and more equality and variety in your illustrations. “I don't just attempt to represent diversity when the topic itself ‘demands’ it. for instance , once I designed my collection of wedding characters, I did it thinking that not only White race marry . That's something obvious, and that is why there are characters of various skin colors, races, etc. Throughout my life, I even have also been lucky enough to travel tons . I even have visited more or less 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and therefore the Americas. This has undoubtedly been one among my sources of inspiration to make several of the characters within the collection of 125 Kids of the planet Cartoon Style,” he revealed. Nonetheless, despite all his travels, there have been times when he wasn’t ready to experience a culture face to face , which is where travel through research takes over. “I don't always have a private reference, so in those cases, I search for information about the country from which I wanted to style a representative character. I search for something special, something that's unique thereto country. Something that, if an individual from that country saw it, they might identify it and feel that it represented a crucial and distinctive a part of their culture or customs. I remember, for instance , the case of the character from Sri Lanka . It’s a rustic that I wanted to seem within the collection, but I didn't know any regard to design a singular and representative character of the country. After long research, I discovered that their traditional wedding dresses are beautiful and unique. The character ended up wearing the suit of a standard groom from the country. That doesn't mean that everybody wears it. Still, i feel that anyone from Sri Lanka who sees the character will identify him as a representative of their country, and that is what i used to be trying to find . The truth is that designing this collection ended up being an exquisite trip round the world on behalf of me , during which I discovered and learned many things.”

9. Design so every team has players

You’ve heard it said that variety is that the spice of life. So it's with drawing, too. once you honestly strive to incorporate legitimate variety in your designs, you finish up designing for cultural diversity because the natural results of your effort. That’s what Svetlana Vasilkovskaya does as she goes through her creative workflows. “When I design with a spread of individuals in mind, I attempt to balance it in order that all groups are approximately equally represented. for instance , there should be approximately an equivalent number of youngsters , children , and older people, half men and ladies . Among these three groups, I confirm that there are representatives of various people and races. That even means people with glasses and without, with hair and without, with features and without, etc. This is all quite entertaining to form sure that every team is staffed with players, if you'll . Different people inspire me. it's interesting on behalf of me to see into their features and see differences and nuances, and then, using minimal means, show it in lines and color spots,” she said. Svetlana’s creative process is predicated on strong sketch work and her minimalist approach to style . Something as basic as navigating Google Images stirs her imagination and inspires her inclusive illustrations. “Whenever i want to urge able to work on a design like this, I just grab pencil and paper and attend Google. for instance , once I was drawing Diverse Crowd of individuals Wearing a Mask and other people of the planet Pattern, I looked for ‘portrait’ and just went through the results. If I liked an individual , I drew a portrait supported his appearance in my minimalist style. In the process, I could change something, like hairstyle or age, or mix it up. Take a hairstyle from one person, placed on glasses from another, and take a face from a 3rd. 

If i'm missing some details, then I also search for them in Google Images. for instance , once I drew men, it clothed that i prefer men in T-shirts. So I had to look for “man during a shirt" in order that I didn't get a crowd of athletes. The main thing is balance. If I see that one group outweighs another, I simply add representatives of the others.”

10. Explore teamwork as a topics

When we consider cultural diversity, we don’t immediately consider working together in teams. Yet, once you believe it more deeply, you start to know that working in teams may be a great opportunity to market equality and variety . For digital illustrator Mary Long, a team is that the perfect setting for this. “Each new illustration starts with a thought and a question: who might need it? Women’s History Month inspired me to make my Strong Women Together graphic designing.

 I've designed this product to point out the facility and therefore the opportunities of girls when they’re working as a team. Indeed, within the very diversity of the team or community lies its strength.

 I've included female characters of various nationalities and cultures, and i have worked on the small print , skin tones, hair color, accessories, and garments. 

I even have shown the individuality and strengths of every female character. At an equivalent time, the illustrations should promote a spirit of cooperation that's reinforced by this very diversity. I visit various design blogs, and I’m following illustrators on Dribble or Bedance to form sure that my images are currently relevant.” We hope you’ve gotten some powerful, actionable takeaways from our group of expert Creative Market Shop Owners. These artists practice what they preach, which is obvious to ascertain from the range in their illustrations.

[keywestlou]

BIDEN NOT SCREWING AROUND WITH STIMULUS BILL

You could tell from my writings the past few days of my concern that Biden was waiting too long towards moving the Democratic version of the stimulus bill and the Republicans would take advantage of him

My concerns were misplaced.

The Democrats yesterday began the voting procedures required to get things done in due course basically Biden’s way. What has been undertaken is the path to passing COVID-19 without threat of a GOP filibuster.

All 50 Democratic Senators voted as a block. Vice President Harris broke the tie vote with the Senate by casting her vote. Democrats won 51-50 as it should be with with an equally divided Congress.

Trump’s impeachment trial now gets in the way. Further voting on the stimulus package will have to await the end of the trial. Senators cannot chew gum and walk at the same time. It is expected the final package will be voted on in late February or March.

Many Republicans complained Democrats were resorting to “aggressive tactics.” I smile. What have the Republicans been doing for the last 10-12 years.

There is a flaw in the ointment from my perspective. Biden was willing to give on the $1,400 to satisfy Republican demands. Republican demands mean nothing now.

Two Democrats are playing politics, however. They want significantly less than $1,400. How much not certain. But nowhere near the $1,400 number. Based on some convoluted scheme.

The two Democratic Senators are West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Krysten Sinema.

I have my own opinion why Manchin wants the number cut significantly. I do not understand why Sineema does.

Manchin has been a Senator for many years. Governor of West Virginia before. He has been able to consistently win in a Republican state.

I think Manchin is flexing his muscles in this instant. Biden needs all 50 Democratic votes. Manchin is playing tough guy. Willing to provide Biden with his vote if Biden lowers the $1,400 number significantly.

Biden will have no alternative but to accede to Manchin’s demand. I suspect Manchin will play this game from now on. The situation has given him a power he previously did not have.

This morning’s Citizens’ Voice carried 2 interesting comments.

The first is “…..today’s Republicans are the weakest, wimpiest, most pathetic crop of needy nincompoops in American history.”

The second concerns Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. A mental case. The comment referred to Greene as “…..a O Anon-promoting female version of Trump-only without the charm…..Greene embraces the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and the slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School…..were staged. The woman is a CREEP.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene was marked a loser yesterday. The House voted to remove her from all committee assignments.

In my opinion, they should have removed her from Congress. Though I am not sure if the House has such power.

The woman lies. Continuously. Changes her stories more times than Trump did. She seems to get mixed up. The American people likewise seem to get mixed up hearing her.

A very large block of Republicans supported her. Only 11 voted with the Democrats to remove her committee assignments.

Such Republicans are crazy, also. However in a different fashion. They know better, but do not have the courage to stand against Trump and his supporters in the House.

The entertainment group SAG was preparing to throw Trump out of the organization because of January 6. Trump got wind of it. Beat SAG to the punch. He quit.

Those against Trump continue to surface each day. Makes me wonder if he would get 70 million plus votes today as he did November 3.

DAY 10…..Greece the First Time

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Key West Lou

  Hello world!

More of Louis from Santorini, Greece. Santorini is as close to God as you can get on earth. What a place!

Yesterday,  I had major problems with DAY 9. I lost most of it in never never land. Today, I had intended to play catch up. Instead things are moving on the euro front and I have decided to take a day off from reporting my trip to share the euro situation further with you. It is important not only to Greece, Spain, Italy and Germany, but most nations of the world. Including the United States.

I will play catch up tomorrow regarding the trip.

This euro problem is constantly fomenting. A bit more each day. The Greeks unquestionably hate the Germans. The Germans think the Greeks are stupid and know not how to manage money.

I compare the present euro situation to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. It was a German invasion with bullets and planes. Here it is an economic intrusion and the euros have replaced the bullets and planes.

The result is the same, however. War. Presently an economic one. It could turn into bullets, etc. One nation cannot deprive another of the sustenance required to live properly. Recoupment and retaliation are the result.

The Greeks are hurting economically.

Santorini for example is back where Key West was three years ago. For several years, Key West experienced unbounded prosperity. Everyone working. Most making more dollars than they ever had. Real estate prices going through the roof. Hotel and restaurant prices constantly on the rise.

There was no end in sight as to this ever escalating prosperity. Then came the mortgage crash. Primarily inspired by the banks. And persons who were greedy enough to think they could own a home costing more than they could afford were in trouble.

Santorini is in that place today. This is year one. The economic crash hit big time this year. Hotels and restaurants are learning they have to lower their prices. Tourists are not coming in the numbers they used to. They either have no money or have a fear of not having any. Everyone working for less. Every one doing whatever it will take to keep the business they have and encourage new business.

I had dinner the other night with a friend I met here. We dined at one of Santorini’s better restaurants. Each of us had an appetizer, five drinks between us, and a whole fresh fish each. Bill time arrived. A robust 40ish woman brought it to our table. She introduced herself as the owner’s daughter, thanked us for coming, asked that we return another time, and told us the two appetizers and five drinks were on the house.

I read this morning on the BBS news network that the Greek islands are in trouble. Santorini was not mentioned. Other islands were. Business dramatically down. One hotel having 20 rooms had only 3 occupied. Bad days not ahead. Bad days already here.

I read a long article on the euro problem also today. By the multi billionaire, maybe trillionaire, George Soros. It was well written. Soros basically said the present problem is of Germany’s making. They are the only nation that prospered under the euro situation. Everyone in Germany making more and more money. Germans buying up everything. Even real estate. Prices going up like there is no tomorrow. But so what, the  German’s believe their money making will go on forever.

Soros says no way! He gives the present situation three months before a severe economic crisis hits. Unless the right thing is done, of course. Which I think means Germany becoming more liberal and cheaper with its loaning programs to other European nations. Germany is the bank. The other nations the borrowers.

Soros thinks there will shortly be a short term solution. A band-aid one. Lasting about three months also. At that time most of the European nations will not be able to make their loan payments to Germany. Then the shit will hit the fan! Germany will also hurt because they are not being repaid. Eventually and soon there after there could be a European economic collapse leading to a world wide one.

Everyone will suffer. Including once again the Germans since the paper they hold evidencing the loans will have become worthless.

I got a manicure yesterday. At Hair & Soul. I spoke with the owner Catherine Risvani about the economic situation.

Think Key West as I share her comments with you.

The rent on her beauty parlor has gone up. The rent on her home has gone up. The price of beauty supplies has gone up. In the meantime, her business has gone down. Fewer visitors. Fewer locals being able to afford her services. How much can she raise her prices and still attract business?

Catherine’s attitude was good. We have had problems before. We are having them again. This too will pass.

Encouraging. Hopeful. However, I am not sure she is correct. The devastation of the economy as suggested means businesses out of business. 1929 and the present U.S. recession all over again. But worse.

When people are without work, when parents cannot feed or educate their children, violence can occur. I sense that possibility here in Greece.

Enough for today. I have a ton of things which I wish to share with you. I am now two days behind. I promise to get caught up tomorrow. This euro thing captivated me.

Tomorrow you will read of a cold front. Yes, even here in the Greek Isles. Just like Key West. The story of Nikos and Maria. It will blow you out how they have succeeded and are now doing everything to make sure they can preserve that which they earned over the years by hard work.

How about solar panels for power? Yes,  here in Santorini. And apparently not expensive. No cable TV. Antennas on the roofs. A restaurant called something Katina sitting on a shelf in the water surrounded by a gigantic mountain of lava remaining from the volcano 3,500 years ago. Steps. More steps. A nude woman swimming. The story of a former Onassis property which sits right next door to Niko’s property. A description of my cave’s bathroom. Cheap alcohol.

And more.

Join me. Read me again tomorrow. All this is too good to miss.

In the meantime, enjoy your day!

BIDEN NOT SCREWING AROUND WITH STIMULUS BILL was originally published on Key West Lou

[thetoptwoinches-blog]

Underdog tag still the most comfortable fit for Ireland..

How far away November now seems..

Ireland launched their 2017 6 Nations campaign with a tricky, but eminently winnable trip to Edinburgh to face the ever-embryonic Scots in the tournament opener. Fresh from a November to remember and the apparent return to the European top table of Leinster and Munster with stellar Champions Cup group stage campaigns, expectations were understandably high. All across the national newspapers journos tipped Ireland to win the tournament, with many predicting that the sweetest of victories over the unbeaten English on Paddy’s weekend would be the cherry on top of the Grandslam cake upon which we would gleefully feast. Stuff of dreams.

As it happened, Princess Anne had scarcely time to take her seat in the Murrayfield West Stand before the swashbuckling Scottish three-quarters had caught the Irish defence in the headlights and put paid to our Grandslam hopes, almost before proceedings had begun. Signs of relative improvement followed with a promising, if unsuccessful, second half comeback, followed by a 10-try rout in the Rome sunshine and a professional and somewhat routine victory over the French in Dublin.

As England stuttered briefly in the face of Conor O’Shea’s admirable manipulation of the laws, thoughts of nicking the championship from them on the final weekend - like the fairytale said we would - seemed to reignite. Then, on Friday night we went to Cardiff and ran headlong into an immovable red wall for 80 minutes, much like we did in 2015. We left battered, bruised and pointless, and with the prospect of the seemingly unstoppable English Chariot coming bellowing down the track.

So where did it all go wrong?

You could slice and dice Ireland’s fortunes a million different ways. You could point the finger at coaching, at individual players, even at key moments on which each of the defeats swung. I’m not going to get into all that, but the truth is we probably weren’t as good as everyone thought we were in November, and we probably aren’t as bad as everyone thinks we are now.

What I do want to look at are ten of the more prominent results in Irish rugby over the past two years and how the age-old Irish (sporting) psyche, which we thought we’d put behind us, appears to burn as strong as ever. Expectation? No thanks. But don’t give us a chance in hell and you might just regret it.

6 Nations 2015, Game 5: Scotland 10 – Ireland 40

After losing in Cardiff in round three, Ireland entered the final day level on points with England and Wales. After the Welsh put a cricket score on Italy, Ireland needed to win by 21 points or more and then hope England didn’t better their effort. You could argue that this was pressure; but covering that spread against Scotland wasn’t likely and so, with the shackles off, we played some lovely stuff to win by 30 and take the title.

RWC 2015, Quarter Final: Ireland 20 – Argentina 43

After a big win over France in the last group game ensured we avoided the All Blacks in the quarters, there was an expectation that this was our time. But injuries hurt us, we never really fired a shot and the brilliant Argies ran riot.

Summer Tour 2016, 1st Test: South Africa 20 – Ireland 26

We had never beaten SA on their own patch. The squad was decimated with injury and without Healy, O’Brien, O’Mahony, Sexton, Bowe and Kearney. CJ Stander was red-carded after only 23 minutes. Seemingly an impossible mountain to climb but we gutted out an incredible win with 14 men.

Summer Tour 2016, 2nd Test: South Africa 32 – Ireland 26

Huge expectation of a series win after the first test victory. Led 26-10 with twenty to go but couldn’t withstand a late surge from the monstrous South African pack.

Summer Tour 2016, 3rd Test: South Africa 19 – Ireland 13

Expectation remained after the first test victory and dominance for much of the 2nd, that we could do something historic and win a test series against a below-par Saffa side. Battered their line right up to the 80th minute to get that all important second try but to no avail. Ever more so in hindsight, one that got away.

November Series 2016: Ireland 40 – New Zealand 29

All Blacks on a record breaking 18-game winning streak and fresh from six bonus points from six in the Rugby Championship. We hadn’t beaten them in 111 years and 28 attempts and were rightly given no chance by anyone. Played the game of our lives to make history.

November Series 2016: Ireland 9 – New Zealand 21

Expectation through the roof after the heroics of Chicago. There was a real feeling that we could somehow do the double as the All Blacks came to town. NZ came out firing and although we competed for 80 and had our chances, 3 kicks at goal was never going to be enough.

November Series 2016: Ireland 27 – Australia 24

Anticipation of finishing the November series on a high and ranked 4th in the world was quickly scuppered as injuries to Zebo, Trimble and Payne in the first half left the backline hanging together with out-of-position youngsters. It looked one step too far as Australia took the lead on 58 minutes but, with our backs against the wall, we fought back with a Keith Earls try and defended like men possessed for the last 10 to see it home.

6 Nations 2017, Game 1: Scotland 27 – Ireland 22

Expectation at fever pitch once again after the autumn just gone. Schmidt’s 3rd championship and possibly even a Grandslam on the horizon. Defend horribly in the first half as Scotland rip through us with ease. Fought back well in the second half only to throw it away once again late on.

6 Nations 2017, Game 4: Wales 22 – Ireland 9

After improved performances against Italy and France and the return of Johnny Sexton, expectations simmered once again that the Championship showdown with England on the final weekend would come to pass. Not to be as our Championship hopes were smothered by a relentless red wall of Welsh defenders.

Granted, I’ve left out many games over that period (including the damp squib that was our injury ravaged 2016 6 Nations campaign), but this highlights the supposed bigger games - W L W L L W L W L L - the consistency of our inconsistency is quite remarkable. But more so than that; it is painfully clear that the tag of underdogs is still the one which sits most comfortably. 

We thought the days of Roy Keane and Brian O’Driscoll had seen us move beyond the old give-it-a-lash underdog mentality. And for a time, in rugby at least, I think they had. But on the evidence of the ten results above, the fact cannot be avoided:

Pre-game expectation = post-game disappointment.

The reasons for this outcome, of course, are altogether more complex. There are more variables on which a game of rugby is won and lost than I care to get into, but one simple stat which may be a reasonable starting point is this:

-          Average number of tries scored in the four ‘low-expectation’ wins: 3.5

-          Average number of tries scored in the six ‘high-expectation’ defeats: 1.33

It’s obvious that the fewer tries you score the less likely you are to win, but what if it’s the case that, when expectation is highest, we play more conservatively or with inferior execution, and are therefore less likely to score tries?

Against New Zealand in Chicago, we adopted the caution-to-the-wind tactic of kicking to the corner unless the 3 points was an absolute gimme. We scored directly or indirectly from driving mauls on each of the three occasions that we did so. But that was a special day, a day when the stars seemed to align and everything we tried came off.

Since then we have stuck with the tactic of turning down relatively easy 3-pointers in favour of the lineout but, be it pressure or otherwise, time and again our execution has let us down and we’ve been left to rue the decision.

The final point worth noting in relation to this unfortunately reemerging pattern is more a tactical one than a psychological one: Sean O’Brien did not feature for a single minute in any of the victories over the big southern hemisphere three in 2016. The number 7 jersey was instead shared equally between Jordi Murphy and Josh Van der Flier over the three tests. This is of no small significance.

Sean O’Brien is a world-class rugby player and has been an incredible servant to Leinster and Ireland. But with the literal adoption of human wrecking ball CJ Stander at blindside flanker in the past 12 months, the inclusion of both men on either side of the scrum creates an imbalance. Carriers for days of course, but that means less emphasis on winning breakdowns and therefore less quick ball for Sexton et al to play with. And when you come up against a willing and physical defence like the Welsh or like New Zealand in the second November test, they lick their lips at the thought of the oncoming battering rams.

Murphy and Van der Flier are both on the medical table at present, but we remain spoilt for choice in the backrow; Peter O’Mahony, Tommy O’Donnell and Dan Leavy are all chomping at the bit. Any of those three would serve to offer greater balance and breakdown emphasis and subsequently a little more time and space for the backs to play with. Whether we will see such a change is another thing.

Selection aside, the consistent inconsistency, along with a general feeling of little hope against the world record-hunting English, might just mean that the return to underdog status is still enough to derail the Chariot on Saturday. 

Richard Moffett, TT2I

[ladystylestores]

Your Thursday Briefing – The New York Times

China may call the world’s bluff on Hong Kong

A common refrain from the U.S. and its allies is that China needs Hong Kong’s economy to keep prospering, and that threatening to choke off trade with the territory will make Beijing think twice about trampling on Hong Kong’s freedoms.

As a new national security law moves ahead, Hong Kong could suffer permanent damage to its economy. But China’s leadership is calculating that stability and control outweigh the benefits that one of the world’s top financial hubs has long provided.

Beijing has not budged, even as the Trump administration has threatened to end the special trade status the U.S. offers Hong Kong. Britain said it would open its doors to three million people fleeing the former British colony.

Context: Hong Kong has declined in importance to China as the mainland economy has surged. Its output is equal to less than 3 percent of the mainland’s. While investors still prize Hong Kong’s business environment, they are now accustomed to doing business in Chinese cities like Shanghai.

Quotable: “There will be some unhappy people for some time,” said a former Goldman Sachs president. “But the drum rolls, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. That’s the political judgment. They have had a fair amount of empirical evidence that the concerns will disappear.”

Related: In the latest tit-for-tat, the Trump administration said it planned to block Chinese airlines from flying into or out of the U.S. starting on June 16. The move came in response to Beijing’s decision to prevent U.S. airlines from resuming service between the countries.

The three former officers, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, were charged with aiding and abetting murder, court records show.

Mr. Chauvin, 44, who was arrested last week, faces an increased charge of second-degree murder. Mr. Floyd told all four officers that he could not breathe before he became unresponsive.

Protesters across the country have demanded that Mr. Chauvin face a more serious charge and that the other three officers also face justice.

Related: The police in Minneapolis used force against black people at seven times the rate of that against white people during the past five years, according to an analysis of city data. The disparity helps explain a fury in the city that goes beyond the killing of George Floyd.

Where the U.S. pandemic response went wrong

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was long considered by some to be a premier health agency. Yet the C.D.C. fell short in its response to the most urgent public health crisis in its history — the kind it was built to deal with.

The coronavirus has killed more than 100,000 people in the country, and the fumbled early steps are now affecting a scattershot nationwide reopening process.

Our journalists interviewed more than 100 officials, public health experts and C.D.C. employees, in addition to reviewing thousands of emails, and found that outdated systems and processes led to a cascade of problems.

“They let us down,” said an anesthesiologist who treated coronavirus patients in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Findings: The agency made early missteps in testing and failed to provide timely counts of infections and deaths, hindered by aging technology. There were also clashes with President Trump. Here are five takeaways from the C.D.C. response.

Related: The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine didn’t prevent Covid-19 in the first large study using the most reliable way of testing a drug’s effectiveness — in which patients are picked at random to receive either an experimental treatment or a placebo, researchers found.

The Times is providing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage, and our Coronavirus Briefing newsletter — like all of our newsletters — is free. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription.

If you have 6 minutes, this is worth it

The future of travel? It’s complicated

After months of locked-down borders, countries that have stifled the coronavirus are trying to choreograph a risky dance: how to bring back visitors without importing another burst of uncontrolled contagion. Above, disinfecting luggage at the Istanbul airport.

Australia and New Zealand are planning to revive unrestricted flights within their own “travel bubble,” for example, which Fiji, Israel and Costa Rica are clamoring to join. In interviews, travel experts, officials and business leaders describe the big undertaking that is just starting to take shape.

Here’s what else is happening

Cyclone Nisarga: The powerful storm slammed into India’s coast Wednesday, striking Mumbai as the city struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak. The cyclone moved inland in the afternoon and the authorities said Mumbai may have averted the worst.

Trudeau’s pause: The Canadian prime minister paused at his podium for 21 uncomfortable, televised seconds when asked about President’s Trump call for military action against U.S. protesters. Justin Trudeau did not openly criticize Mr. Trump in his response.

Snapshot: Above, protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Today is the anniversary, and also the first time that the authorities in Hong Kong have prohibited a vigil to remember those killed in Beijing’s crackdown. Protests were expected despite the ban.

What we’re reading: This article in Vox on coming out as a trans woman. “I haven’t read anything that made me feel hopeful in weeks now,” said Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a writer for The Times Magazine. But this piece “reminded me of the optimism of self-discovery that we’re all still capable of, even in terrible times.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: This potato chip omelet from the chef for El Bulli, the famous Spanish restaurant, evokes the flavors of a labor-intensive tortilla, but takes only minutes to assemble and cook.

Read: Masha Gessen’s new book “Surviving Autocracy” is a trenchant look at President Trump, who, she writes, was “probably the first major party nominee who ran not for president but for autocrat.”

Listen: We asked Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber and others to share the cello music that moves them. Listen to their choices.

Remembering Christo: The artist who wrapped on an epic scale died on Sunday at the age of 84. Here’s a look at his grand projects.

At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home.

And now for the Back Story on …

Feeling lost in the kitchen

Not everyone is using time at home to cultivate a sourdough starter. The food writer Priya Krishna wrote about how necessity has forced fledgling home cooks to confront their biggest fear: using their kitchens.

The result is a lot of blackened pots, smoke-filled apartments and frozen pizza disasters — but also some victories, like fried eggs and a decent carbonara.

Take, for instance, Melissa Hodges, who thought it would be her big opportunity to finally learn to cook. Then she tried to heat up a frozen cheese pizza.

“I stuck it in the oven at a random temperature because I didn’t bother to read the instructions,” recalled Ms. Hodges, 22, who didn’t put the pizza on a dish. “About 20 minutes in, it fell through the cracks of my oven.” The result was both doughy and charred.

A lack of enthusiasm for cooking can become even harder to bear when there are children involved.

“I don’t want to feed my son chicken tenders and frozen pizzas,” said Miranda Richardson, a police department administrator. But what she makes may not pass muster with him. “Kids tell the truth when they don’t like food.”

She pointed out that she is actually a good cook — she recently made a vanilla cake — but still dislikes it. “Being in that kitchen just does not make me happy,” she said.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Melina and Carole

Thank you To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is an interview with Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Leaning Tower city (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Opinion’s Jennifer Senior recently joined KCRW and KCBS Radio, as well as CNN’s Reliable Sources, to discuss President Trump and his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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[jeremyfrechette]

lies told about conservatives -

1) Conservatives are racist! Shall I quote the blissful bigotry of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton, or any slew of “socially conscious” crusaders; celebrities included? If I may, which party was founded as the anti-slavery party, ended Jim Crows and spearheaded the legislative movements for citizenship, suffrage and equal rights? Here’s a hint…it doesn’t rhyme with “rat”! Conservatives welcome all races and colors in our quest to defend and preserve America’s founding ideals. Likewise, we unilaterally reject divisive victimization rhetoric used solely to incite animosity along socio-economic lines for political gain. Although racism exist in all facets of America, such hateful attitudes are infectious and only invite future bigotry upon yourself, your peers and your loved ones. Progress is not measured by the number of times race is invoked or celebrated. It is personified by the number of lives liberated from its requirement. Why again would “racist” Republicans support Allen West, Ben Carson, Dinesh D’Souza, Mia Love, Condoleezza Rice and Marco Rubio, let alone spread the transcendent wisdom of Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. or Thomas Sowell? Refusing to support a rformer President’s spiteful, anti-American agenda doesn’t make anyone a racist, regardless of their heritage or political affiliation. It makes one increasingly cognizant of the destructive aftermath such deep-seated prejudice inevitably brings.

2) Conservatives are sexist! Naturally, because conservatives don’t have mothers, wives or daughters, nor do they care about their well being. We decry discrimination against either gender, detest violence against women in any form, and support equal rights and pay for all women. Conservatives simply reject the regressive agenda of modern feminism which seeks injustice where none exists – “psychological trauma” inflicted by patriarchal images, the sexism of “mansplaining” or the “rape culture” of “manspreading”, gender identity conditioning of children, free birth control and taxpayer funded abortions, the so-called prosecutable sexual paradox of “yes” means “no” – as a means of degrading the masculine image and traditional role of men in society. This adopted brand of radical activism ensures reverse discrimination by attempting to validate such absurd demands to the detriment of both society and all reasonable, responsible women that desire nothing more than equal opportunity and treatment under the law. Self-respecting women do no want to be coddled, made to feel hopeless and therefore given an emotionally crippled crutch of contempt. Whether pursuing a career of or raising a family full time, they deserve the right to live the life of their choosing without discrimination or the crass exploitation of bitter gender fascists. Parading around in public topless, shouting obscenities and performing vulgar acts doesn’t make you enlightened, let alone noteworthy. It makes you the willing subject of your own stupidity. Empowerment, much like equal rights, doesn’t illicit hatred or reject accountability.

3) Conservatives are Nazi “extremists”! Unless you passed a concentration camp on the way to work, hauled the smelted gold taken from numbered corpses, this is nothing more than media driven hysteria designed to justify progressive policies that are incompatible with our founding ideals, or better yet, common sense. You do realize Adolf Hitler, the infamous leader of the Third Reich, was a rabid German socialist who denounced individuality, capitalism, Christianity, and free speech? He also advocated imprisoning or executing political dissidents and all inferior ethnicities. Do you know what other fascist movement harbors almost identical beliefs? Progressivism. Conservatives aren’t the ones silencing intellectual diversity on campuses, clamoring for state-run media, physically attacking Trump supporters, rioting in the streets over a free election result, singling out Christian businesses for prosecution, mocking traditional values or publicly demonizing white Americans. Liberal fascism, the once fringe element that officially hijacked the Democratic party in 2008, is now the single greatest threat to liberty, tolerance, due process, prosperity, and the survival of America. Considering the Nazis sought absolute control and conservatives loathe intrusive, unilateral government, this accusation is about as wise as a transgender Jewish man asking to be circumcised by a Muslim butcher before he uses the little girls restroom. “Halal No” or until hell freezes over, the left is by far the greatest embodiment of extremism in America today. When the end justifies the means, truth is of no consequence.

4) Conservatives oppose immigration! Hardly. America was founded as a beacon of hope for all races, creeds and colors. On the contrary, we rightfully object to the pardoned excuses of “illegal” immigration and the mass influx of untraceable “refugees”. Not supporting our immigration laws, those protocols every civilized nation enacts and enforces, is a slap in the face to every man, woman and child who immigrated to America legally, not to mention those 3,000 victims who died on 9/11. Abandoning our borders, not shielding citizens from criminally and medically unvetted threats, is a dereliction of duty and a clear and present danger to our country’s sovereignty and security. Encouraging, dare I say “engineering”, illegal immigration solely to win elections and demographically override our founding principles is nothing short of treason. Despite such disingenuous ploys, all are welcome who respect our sovereignty and complete the process afforded by law. Perhaps someday activists will understand this “revolutionary” concept when sentenced to decapitation by an Islamic tribunal or while picketing corporations in the progressive soup lines of socialism.

5) Conservatives are gun fanatics! Like our forefathers, we unequivocally embrace people’s right to defend themselves against all forms of tyranny; Thomas Jefferson’s most profound reason for preserving our right to bear arms. Gun violence isn’t a disease but a sociological symptom that reflects a parenting failing and an obvious psychological disconnect. Rather than addressing the obvious moral erosion infecting our communities – an endeavor Hollywood has worked overtime to achieve by mocking our religious values – progressives are content exploiting national tragedies to justify their insatiable desire to repeal the Second Amendment. Not only is gun confiscation historically the final lynch pin to uncontested subjugation, gun control does little to deter those who truly want to harm others; especially when you realize both the Oklahoma City Bombing and 9/11 were carried out without a single shot being fired. Every day firearms deter crime and save far more lives than the soulless   of any disturbed individual. You can no more regulate human nature than an inanimate object can pull its own trigger and be convicted for murder. When mass death is the ultimate goal, the weapon of choice is moot for people will always find a vessel to deliver their wrath. The fact these mass shootings rarely occurred 50 or even 25 years ago is a costly reminder that parents, schools and our elected leaders have failed to instill our children with the proper values and universal respect for their fellow man. The question isn’t why do so many citizens own a gun. The question is why are so many comfortable ending a human life? Leaving decent, law-abiding Americans helpless against thugs, terrorists and aspiring dictators is never the answer; it’s the broken promise of armed regret.

6) Conservatives hate the poor! Of course…because we never get sick, lose our jobs or struggle to provide for our families. Sorry but poverty doesn’t discriminate and any President that doesn’t create jobs, lower taxes and eliminate waste is no friend of the American people. One of the benefits of living in a nation as resourceful as America is the financial assistance available to those in need. Nearly all people struggle, require assistance time to time, and there is no shame in that. And yes, Americans are a compassionate and generous people. However, Conservatives take great umbrage with those smug parasites who view welfare as a career opportunity and conspire incessantly to defraud the system when they should treat such blessings as a stepping stone to reclaim their life. Stealing bread from the mouth of honest labor – those taxpayers who have watched the number of welfare recipients and the national debt nearly double since 2008 – is a slap in the face to all hard-working Americans, as well as those families that struggle with real misfortune and lingering disabilities. Everyone owes it to themselves, their family and their country to find a job. A paycheck is a means to a means, a self-sustaining gateway to a better life, whereas welfare is a meal ticket to endless dependence, debt and discontent. For when the fog of propaganda and entitlement clears, no economic system has liberated more people from the clutches of poverty than capitalism; that independent engine of ambition most synonymous with liberty, prosperity, and human discovery. However, please note, and much to the chagrin of Marxists everywhere, capitalism only works if you do! A healthy work ethic is the fastest path to personal success.

7) Conservatives are religious radicals! Clearly. What’s the terrorist score card of the century? Which religion has never had a reformation? Yet again, this is but another baseless claim designed to insight fear, hate and paranoia at the expense of dispelling dangerous misconceptions. America, Western Civilization, was founded upon Judeo-Christian ideals; a fact liberals malicious muddle, twist and insistently attempt to discredit. Opposing abortion – the death of a human being even in its most glorified state – or rejecting Gay Marriage – the political corruption of a “religious” institution in Western Society which threatens the family dynamic – hardly makes us harbingers of hate or the equivalent of Islamic militants; those extremists who deny women basic human rights and kill gays for merely existing. As ardent constitutionalists, Christian conservatives advocate the tolerance of all competing beliefs that coincide with our founding values. No, Christianity is not perfect or without historical indignities. Christians simply learned killing in the name of God was a fruitless endeavor that undermined every tenet of their faith. What we absolutely refuse to condone is empowering those ideologies that violate people’s natural born rights, i.e. Sharia Law, or threaten our founding values to the debasement of our culture and national ethos. Not all laws are just or justified; not all boundaries are meant to be broken.

8) Conservatives are war mongers! Yes, because once again, Conservatives, those who are most likely to serve their country or volunteer for during times of crisis, do not have families who sacrifice and grieve so that “We the People” many live free from harm and bask in those liberties so often denied to millions across the globe. Like all Americans, Conservatives detest war and view it as an absolute last resort of recourse. That being said, we do not live in a world were evil does not exist and circumstance can rely on the unwavering good nature of our fellow man. To unconditionally reject military intervention regardless of the prevailing circumstances is the equivalent of watching a rape across the street and doing nothing about it. Frankly, when did we stop caring? The question all liberals should be asking themselves, and that of the entire civilized world, is why aren’t more nations and leaders taking a stand against mass injustice and depravity? No, America cannot be the savior of the free world or right all wrongs of humanity. We simply must refuse to be the doormat of tyranny and criminal apathy. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

9) Conservatives hate the environment! I’d love to indulge this popular progressive fairy tale, but we too drink from the sources of water, breathe the same air, and educate our children about the ravages of pollution. Rather, conservatives refuse using science fiction as to implement unnecessary regulations, collect more taxes, solely to expand government and claim more austerity over our everyday lives. The same bureaucrats who can’t balance their checkbook, protect our borders, or give the people a straight answer, want to control every aspect of your life out of the goodness in their hearts. No, right-minded Americans aren’t fearful of science, anything but, for we eagerly embrace its universal necessity, power and wonder. What we don’t accept is a political alarmist, i.e., a pseudo scientist named Al Gore and his celebrity salesmen, proclaiming the Arctic ice shelf would cease to exist within a decade and that the entire city of New York would become the lost ruins of Atlantis due to the impending catastrophe known as climate change. Sadly, not to spoil the inconvenient truth about his “D” in Natural Sciences, or his six figure speaker fees, glacier coverage of the planet is now as prominent as it was 20 years ago and the Yankees have yet to give away floaties during a single promotion. Bummer.

As firm believers in empirical data, reputable science, conservatives recognize the existence of global cooling and warming; we merely view both as natural climatic cycles that far outweigh the shameless ploys of politicians. Now that’s not to say mankind has no negative impact on the environment, bio diversity or even global temperatures. I have no doubt whatsoever. It’s just that our presence pales in comparison to the mercurial power of the sun and the instinctive reflux of mother nature. After all, if the truth be known, one of the hottest years ever recorded in our nation’s history occurred in the 19th century during pre-industrialized America. Believe it or not, just as many if not more conservatives live off the land, utilize nature for recreation, and tirelessly work to protect and preserve the source of their greatest blessing…their preferred way of life. Protecting our environment against corporate waste and individual apathy is nonnegotiable. Listening to those politicians who manipulate scientific data for political and financial gain, on the other hand, is entirely optional.

10) Conservatives are out of touch! Or perhaps we’re painfully astute of history and vigilant to the ides of tyranny. As the proud torchbearers of the timeless ideals America was founded upon – individual liberty, limited government, God, hard work, accountability and duty – conservatives pose the biggest threat to the globalist agenda: a secular, soulless paradigm of mass conformity and institutionalized dependence. Progressivism cannot survive without inciting distrust, division and discord to conceal the truth from low information voters; those vulnerable souls most easily cajoled by such sensationalist propaganda. Any ideology that cannot stand on its own merits and is counter-intuitive to the Constitution – statism, Socialism, and Marxism – is inherently radical and a tangible threat to our way of life. If I may, how are any of these philosophies remotely synonymous with our founding creed, not to mention the supreme law of the land? Historically speaking, one must work far more diligently to protect a lie than to simply speak on the behalf of self-evident truths. Conservatives believe, and freely attest, man’s natural born rights are derived from a divine creator and not ransomed by the “benevolence” of centralized despots. At its most rudimentary core, our elected government has three fundamental duties: to protect our lives and liberties, to honor and uphold the prescribed limitations of the Constitution, and to provide transparency in all its dealings. I’m sad to report the corrupt cesspool of polarized bureaucrats known as Washington have egregiously failed on all three accounts. Defending the ideological cornerstones America was erected upon doesn’t make conservatives “extreme” or detached in any sense of the word. It makes our detractors hopelessly ignorant, toxic and irrefutably malicious.

[nurseresident-blog]

How to prepare for the dreaded NCLEX...

In nursing school, you are preparing to become a nurse.  You are learning how to become a critical thinker, you are learning how to perform both basic and complex skills, you are learning how to care for the sickest of patients.  However, you are also preparing for the NCLEX at the same time, because that is what you need to take in order to become a Registered Nurse.  So I made a list of questions that I had when I was preparing for the NCLEX.  If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer them! 

1. What is the NCLEX? 

The NCLEX exam, also known as the National Council Licensure Examination, is a standardized exam that each State Board of Nursing uses to determine whether or not a candidate is prepared and safe enough to practice nursing at an entry-level. Before you are able to sit for the NCLEX, your first step is to successfully complete an accredited nursing degree (either Associate’s or Bachelor’s). 

2. How do you sign up for the NCLEX? What is the process? 

This varies by state so I can only give you the overall process. Most schools will walk you through the process as well, which is nice.  Before you graduate, you can apply to your State Board of Nursing and complete any requirements such as fingerprints, a background check, or any other paperwork before graduation.  I would suggest you apply and complete your requirements as soon as you can because sometimes the State Board of Nursing can get backed up when a large influx of applications come in. Once you graduate from an accredited nursing school, the College of Nursing will send your completed degrees to the registrar office to be awarded.  Once your degrees are awarded, the College of Nursing will send your awarded degrees to the State Board of Nursing.  From then, the State Board of Nursing will receive everything and determine if you are qualified to sit for the exam.  Once the State Board of Nursing determines you are qualified, they will send you your Authorization To Test (also known as ATT).  Your ATT will let you schedule yourself to take the NCLEX.  You are able to take the NCLEX at any Pearson Testing Center.  For instance, if you applied to be registered in the state Florida, you can travel to Georiga to take the exam even though you will be registered in Florida.  I personally applied to be registered in Pennslyvania, but I took the exam in Florida.   

3. How many questions are there? 

The minimum amount of questions you can have is 75.  The maximum amount of questions you can have is 265.  However, you can have any amount of questions in between that.  My computer didn’t shut off until question 95.  The NCLEX is a computer adaptive test, so that means it will keep going until it feels that you have passed or failed.  There is a standard that you must be above to pass (the line is used to measure minimum competency allowed for you to safely practice).  If you are clearly above the passing standard at this time, you will pass; likewise, if you are clearly below the standard you will fail. If you are too close to the standard to allow a definitive result to be determined, you will continue to answer questions until a final assessment can be made.

4. What are the types of questions on the NCLEX?

In the past, all NCLEX questions were multiple choice. Although many are still of the multiple-choice type, a lot of questions are now in a different format. However, a good amount of the questions continue to be multiple choice. Questions come in three levels. Level 1 is general knowledge and generally delivered as multiple choice. Level 2 is on analysis and application, which may or may not be multiple choice. Level 3 questions are the hardest of all and require you to apply facts, processes, and rules in order to answer them. Often, these questions are open questions. Around 90% of the exam is made up of level 2 and 3 questions.

The types of questions you could possibly have on the NCLEX are: 

Multiple Choice 

Select All That Apply: Think “true or false”

The select-all type questions are pretty self-explanatory: They include more than one answer in the same question, usually with five possible options. When you read through them, it’s best to consider each answer as either true and false, with the true options being the correct answers. Here’s the tricky thing: With these types of questions, you get all or no points. No partial credit is given if you choose only some of the correct answers. That may seem daunting and even frustrating, so remember to take your time. Make sure to review several select-all questions as you study, so you’re familiar with and prepared for the format. Many students find these to be the most difficult questions, which means it can get easier from here.

Ordered Response: Order everything

Ordered response questions are those that require you to place the answer options in the correct order using the drag and drop method with the computer mouse. There’s nothing wrong here, but there is only one right order from start to finish. Whatever the scenario of the question, you’ll use all of the options and rank them in the correct order as directed.

Fill-in-the-Blank: Study up on your calculations

Fill-in-the-blank formats may seem intimidating, because you won’t have any answer in front of you, but with the right studying you’ll know exactly how to find it. These questions are often used for calculations of medication dosage, IV drip rates, intake and output, and due dates for pregnant women (using the first day of their last menstrual period as a guide). As long as you study and know how to do these and similar calculations, you’ll be fine.

Hot Spots: Pay attention to specific areas

Hot spot questions are often used with pictures of a body part. You’ll be asked to use the mouse to click on the specific area indicated in the question’s scenario. For instance, you may be asked the best place to auscultate the apical heart rate. You would then click on the correct place on the picture of the chest.

Exhibits/Chart: Remember how to interpret (and use) bedside charts

Exhibits/Chart questions include tabs that, when clicked on with the mouse, will give you more information about the client, similar to a bedside chart. There may be several tabs to open to reveal the information needed to answer the question. You’ll use this information to guide you toward the correct answer.

Graphic: Think in pictures, not words

Graphic questions use graphics (e.g., pictures, diagrams, heart rhythm tracings) instead of words as answer options. For instance, you may be asked to identify the heart rhythm that requires the most rapid action by the nurse, and would then choose from four different illustrations of rhythms. Or, you may be told that your laboring client is having back pain so you would need to choose a picture of the best position to relieve this client’s pain.

Audio: Listen close for answer clues

Audio questions will require the use of headphones to listen to an audio clip of information. This may include heart sounds, lung sounds, or client speech patterns. You’ll then be asked to interpret what you hear or make a decision for care based on what you hear. Take your time, and listen closely. You’re allowed to replay the audio if needed.

5. What are the topics on the NCLEX? 

The content of the NCLEX-RN is organized into four major Client Needs categories. Two of the four categories are divided into subcategories: 

Safe and Effective Care Environment

Management of Care

Safety and Infection Control 

Health Promotion and Maintenance

Psychosocial Integrity

Physiological Integrity

Basic Care and Comfort

Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies „ 

Reduction of Risk Potential

Physiological Adaptation

All of the questions asked on the NCLEX will be related to these topics. 

5. How many practice questions should I take? 

Personally, I answered about 2,500 practice questions.  However, everyone studies differently.  Some people I know practiced way less and some people I know practiced way more than I did.  It is recommended that you practice as many questions as you can in order for you to feel comfortable.  

6. What are the best study materials? 

Here is a list of the best NCLEX study materials: 

Saunder’s Comprehensive Review for NCLEX-RN Examination

Organized in 20 units and 77 chapters, the book offers detailed reviews of all of the nursing content areas that are relevant for the NCLEX-RN. Equally important is the guide’s provision of practice questions: Each chapter includes targeted multiple choice and alternate item review questions and there is a comprehensive test covering all subject areas in the book’s final unit. Every question is accompanied by detailed answers and explanations. Furthermore, as part of these explanations, the book also provides helpful test-taking tips and strategies on how to tackle the various types of questions

Saunder’s Q & A for the NCLEX-RN Examination

Now offering more than 6,000 test questions, the guide provides an excellent source for garnering practice with NCLEX-RN type questions.  Practice, after all, is often the difference between a passing and a failing score, and this book makes sure that you will get that much-needed practice.

Kaplan’s NCLEX-RN Premier 2017

The book offers a full-length NCLEX practice test as well as an answer key and detailed explanations for all the answers.  In addition, it offers access to a second NCLEX practice test online.  Exam-style questions broken down by each of the sections of the NCLEX-RN test, DVD video tutorials, and mobile study resources are also provided.  Further bonuses include a guide on becoming licensed, tips for taking the test after previously failing it, and a guide for international nurses.

Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment: Practice Exercises for NCLEX

To this end, the guide provides focused content review, case studies, and challenging practice questions – complete with detailed answers – that mirror the various types of questions that you may encounter on the actual exam. Especially noteworthy is this book’s effective threefold organization, which progresses from foundational skills review to application of those skills, to extension of complex patient/health scenarios.

UWorld

UWorld’s NCLEX prep includes over 1900 challenging questions, 30% select-all-that-apply (SATA) and alternate items, Includes two (2) 75-question self-assessments with NCLEX readiness predictor, detailed rationales for correct and incorrect options, and multiple concepts per question to reduce preparation time.  

7. One last piece of advice... 

When studying, I often became overwhelmed, just thinking of how much information there was and how much I could realistically cover. It is then, during moments of panic, that you should take a step back, have a snack, breathe in some fresh air, and take your mind off nursing for a brief period. Go take a walk, go out to eat with some friends, go do something fun.  Go do anything to get your mind off studying, even if it’s just for 30 minutes.  Anytime you catch your mind wandering or having to constantly re-read you should take a break because you aren't retaining anything at this time. 

Remain positive and confident during the whole process.  Realizing that you are so much smarter than you think will help to build your test-taking confidence tremendously.  Try not to psych yourself out, because it will only lead to downfall.  

Spend the day before, and the morning of, doing something for your mental health. Relax and try your best to keep any thoughts of NCLEX out of your head, at this point you know everything you need to in order to pass, you just have to be mentally prepared. For myself, I used copious amounts of lavender oil to help reduce my anxiety and to help me sleep well the night before. I also took a bottle of lavender oil to the testing facility, which I never needed because I wasn’t there long enough to need a break, but it was a nice comforter. 

Lastly, go into the testing center with a smile on your face, tell yourself that you ARE smart enough, and you WILL pass the NCLEX. 

If you would like more information about the NCLEX-RN, visit https://www.ncsbn.org/nclex-faqs.htm for more information! 

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

[kristinsimmons]

Recommendations From the Coalition for Physician Accountability’s UME-to-GME Review Committee: Winners & Losers Edition

By BRYAN CARMODY

If you’re involved in medical education or residency selection, you know we’ve got problems.

And starting a couple of years ago, the corporations that govern much of those processes decided to start having meetings to consider solutions to those problems. One meeting begat another, bigger meeting, until last year, in the wake of the decision to report USMLE Step 1 scores as pass/fail, the Coalition for Physician Accountability convened a special committee to take on the undergraduate-to-graduate medical education transition. That committee – called the UME-to-GME Review Committee or UGRC – completed their work and released their final recommendations yesterday.

This isn’t the first time I’ve covered the UGRC’s work: back in April, I tallied up the winners and losers from their preliminary recommendations.

And if you haven’t read that post, you should. Many of my original criticisms still stand (e.g, on the lack of medical student representation, or the structural configuration that effectively gave corporate members veto power), but here I’m gonna try to turn over new ground as we break down the final recommendations, Winners & Losers style.

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The Coalition for Physician Accountability consists of 13 corporations that dominate medical education, residency training, and physician practice.

LOSER: BREVITY.

The UGRC recommendations run 276 pages, with 5 appendices and 34 specific recommendations across 9 thematic areas. It’s a dense and often repetitive document, and the UGRC had the discourtesy to release it in the midst of a busy week when I didn’t anticipate having to plow through such a thing. But this is the public service I provide to you, dear readers.

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WINNER: COMMITTEES AND FURTHER STUDY.

All told, the UGRC recommendations aren’t bad.

Some – like Recommendation #11 below – are toothless but hard to disagree with, and many of the recommendations that are more specific don’t go as far as I’d like.

Hard to disagree with anything in Recommendation #11… but also hard to believe that asserting any of it is going to change anything. (To me, the most interesting part of this recommendation was the typing style shown in the clipart.)

But most of the recommendations are good, and almost all are thoughtful and offer the promise of improvement… someday, at some indefinite point in the future (after futher study and additional consideration by more special committees, of course).

There are a few immediately actionable recommendations (such as the proposal for exclusively virtual interviews for the 2021-2022 season) which are unlikely to generate much controversy. And there are a handful of others that ought to inspire more debate.

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Recommendation #18 calls for reporting the results of both the USMLE and COMLEX-USA on the same normalized scale.

WINNER: OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL STUDENTS.

Currently, around three quarters of osteopathic medical students take both the USMLE and COMLEX-USA. In almost all states, either one is sufficient for licensure – but residency program directors strongly prefer the USMLE.

The de facto requirement for DO students to take two licensing exams is expensive and wasteful, and I’m on record as opposing it. If program directors could assess relative exam performance at a glance – through use of a single normalized score – many fewer DOs would feel compelled to take the USMLE.

(It’s worth pointing out, however, that the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME) doesn’t need the UGRC in order to make COMLEX-USA and USMLE scores more easily comparable: all they’d have to do is replace their ‘distinctive’ 200-800 score range with the 300 point scale more familiar to most program directors.)

Approximate percentile conversions for the COMLEX-USA Level 1 and Step 1 examinations.

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LOSER: MDS AND IMGS.

The problem with treating COMLEX-USA and USMLE scores the same is that not everyone can take either exam. Although DO students are allowed to sit for the USMLE, MDs and international medical graduates (IMGs) are not eligible to register for COMLEX-USA.

Put another way, a DO student who is unhappy with his/her COMLEX-USA score might choose to take the USMLE to try to improve it – but an MD or IMG gets only one shot.

But that’s not the only bad news for MDs and IMGs.

Although there is wide individual variation, DO examinees overall score ~20 percentile points lower on the USMLE than they do on COMLEX-USA.

This mirrors pre-existing differences in standardized test performance between DO and MD medical students: the average MD student scores around the 81st percentile for MCAT performance, while the average osteopathic matriculant scores around the 58th.

For students matriculating to an MD school, the average MCAT is around 511; for osteopathic matriculants, it’s 504.

In other words, to achieve the normalized score that will appear on ERAS, DO students taking COMLEX-USA compete against a somewhat less-accomplished group of standardized test takers than MDs and IMGs taking the USMLE.

(This potential source of unfairness could, of course, be rectified by allowing MDs and IMGs the option of taking COMLEX-USA.)

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WINNER: THE NATIONAL BOARD OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL EXAMINERS.

Recently, the NBOME has faced increasing questions about whether maintaining a ‘separate but equal’ licensing exam for DOs does more harm than good. I’ve argued – in direct response to a letter from the CEO of the NBOME himself – that all physicians should just take the USMLE, and that the NBOME should limit their exams to assessing specifically osteopathic competencies. Obviously, this kind of thinking presents an existential threat to the NBOME.

But if Recommendation #18 succeeds in establishing the COMLEX-USA as being equivalent to the USMLE for residency selection, the NBOME’s existence is all but assured – and they’ll find themselves in the enviable business position of selling exams to the rapidly-growing captive audience of osteopathic medical students for years to come. (You may therefore be unsurprised to learn that the NBOME’s CEO was a member of the specific UGRC workgroup that advanced this recommendation.)

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With apologies to Captain Jack Sparrow.

WINNER: THE SHERIFF OF SODIUM.

While perusing the references for Recommendation #18, I was a bit surprised to see a link to an old Sheriff of Sodium post mixed among the references to authoritative academic journals.

Let’s just say this citation reflected a very selective reading of my bibliography as it relates to the NBOME… but I appreciated the credit nonetheless.

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LOSER: THE UNMATCHED.

The preliminary report from the UGRC included 42 recommendations; the final report, just 34. Among the specific recommendations left on the cutting room floor was the old #19, which called for studying the unmatched.

Recommendation #19 from the UGRC preliminary report called for a committee to study unmatched applicants.

Sure, the final report still notes the need to “explore the growing number of unmatched physicians in the context of a national physician shortage” in recommendation #2, but you can’t escape the feeling that unmatched doctors are de-emphasized in the final report. (Other preliminary recommendations that seem de-emphasized include the previously enthusiastic support for an early result acceptance program, which follows a letter from the NRMP noting that they would not pursue such a program this year.)

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WINNER: STUDENT LOAN LENDERS.

For many students, transitioning to residency is a period of serious financial stress. The student loans that were disbursed in August are long gone… but the first paycheck of residency may not come till mid-July or even the first of August.

To address this important issue, the UGRC brings us Recommendation #33, which calls for funding these predictable expenses “through equitable low interest student loans.”

Which, I guess, is one way to do it.

Of course, another way would be for programs to subsidize this transition. You know, insofar as residents are revenue generators for the hospital well beyond the value that they are compensated. (n.b., if anyone tries to use selective accounting to argue otherwise, simply ask them why some keen-eyed hospital administrator hasn’t cut the residency program if it’s such a money loser.)

Nope, says the UGRC. “These costs should not be incurred by GME programs,” going as far as to make a specific enjoinder against even offering sign-on bonuses.

Why go there? If a program chose to help with moving expenses or give a small signing bonus – possibly because they realized that doing so was a more effective way of recruiting under-represented minority applicants than giving them a lanyard or can koozy with the hospital logo – why stop them?

(The only reason I can think of is that if some programs started doing this, others might feel compelled to do it, too. Better for everyone to link arms, hold the line, and make less affluent residents take on more loans.)

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Every year, students interview at more programs and submit longer rank lists – even though overall match rates are unchanged.

WINNER: INTERVIEW CAPS.

Recommendation #24 calls for limiting the number of interviews that an individual applicant can accept.

When 12% of residency applicants consume half of all interview spots in specialties like internal medicine and general surgery, this is low hanging fruit.

(My only criticism is that the proposal for specialty-specific limitations on interviews is unnecessarily complicated in a world when many applicants apply to multiple specialties – and may also have the unintended consequence of encouraging some well-qualified-but-nervous applicants to double apply.)

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When programs aren’t transparent about their filters, applicants pay the price.

WINNER: TRANSPARENCY.

Recommendation #6 calls for a verified database of programs that will include “aggregate characteristics of individuals who previously applied to, interviewed at, were ranked by, and matched for each GME program.”

If this is implemented – and I have doubts it can be practically accomplished while maintaining the confidentiality of residents in the program – it would be a big victory for applicants, who may spend thousands of dollars applying to programs who never even read their application.

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WINNER: DOXIMITY RESIDENCY RANKINGS.

Transparency about what kinds of applicants match at each program doesn’t just help applicants – it will be a data gold mine for Doximity Residency Navigator or any other company that purports to produce an ordinal list of residency programs by their quality.

Whatever data get included in the UGMC’s “interactive database” will be scraped by bots and used to judge the quality of the program (as if all residency programs were engaged in a direct competition amongst each other for a single goal). Look for more foolish metric-chasing to follow as programs try to make their reported data look good lest the rankings find them unworthy.

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WINNER: CHEAP INTERN LABOR.

In my original post, I pointed out the somewhat head-scratching preliminary recommendation calling upon the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to change the way that they fund residency positions (so that a resident could change specialties and repeat his or her internship without exhausting the CMS subsidy that the program receives). Gotta say, I was disappointed to see this recommendation persist in the final report (now at #3).

I get it: some residents realize only during their internship that they’ve made a horrible mistake with their career choice and need a mulligan.

But to the extent that this problem occurs, does it reflect a failure of GME funding – or a failure of the medical school to provide adequate exposure to that specialty before someone spends a year of 80-hour workweeks doing something that they don’t want to do?

What’s most perplexing is assertion that this move will “lead to improved resident well-being and positive effects on the physician workforce.” Buddy, lemme just stop you right there – no one’s well-being is going to be improved by doing an unnecessary internship. Seems more like a way to turn career uncertainty into extra cheap intern labor.

Instead of “Try this internship! If you don’t like it, you can choose another one next year!” we should instead push medical schools to prevent this problem by abbreviating the preclinical curriculum, pushing core clerkships earlier, and giving students more opportunity to explore careers before application season rolls around.

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LOSER: CHECKED-OUT FOURTH YEARS.

We’ve all kinda come to an agreement that the fourth year of medical school doesn’t pack same kind of educational calories as the first three years. For better or worse, fourth year has become a mixture of application season and rest/recovery before residency. Though there are exceptions, most students don’t receive educational value commensurate with the tuition they pay.

But Recommendation #30 calls for “meaningful assessment” after the Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE) is submitted in September, so that a individualized learning plan can be submitted to the student’s residency program prior to the start of residency.

That’s fine, as far as it goes – but it was the description of what that assessment might be that really made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end:

This assessment might occur in the authentic workplace and based on direct observation or might be accomplished as an Objective Structured Clinical Skills Exam using simulation.

If this were a WWE pay per view event, the announcers would be shouting, “Wait!!! It can’t be!! That’s the NBME’s music!!!” as the new, rejuvenated Step 2 CS exam strides into the arena through a cloud of fog. Maybe I’m being paranoid… but I just can’t believe Step 2 CS is gone for good, despite carefully-worded assertions to the contrary.

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Want to be convinced that we need application caps? Give me 45 minutes of your time.

WINNER: APPLICATION CAPS.

I mocked the preliminary recommendations for repeatedly and correctly noting that Application Fever is the root of much of what ails the UME-GME transition – but failing to acknowledge the most logical solution. But now, in response to feedback received during the period of public comment, I am pleased to report that the final recommendations now includes the words “application caps.”

I’m telling you, momentum is building for application caps. Go right ahead and hop on the bandwagon. Plenty of room on board.

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WINNER: INNOVATION.

Recommendation #23 calls for more innovation, which is hardly controversial or noteworthy. But what’s interesting is that the committee actually recommends some parameters for success.

Appendix C notes that goals could include a 20% reduction in applications submitted per position (i.e., from 132 to 102, or back to 2010 levels), or that we should stabilize the fraction of applicants who match outside their top three ranks (a fraction that has been steadily rising each year). And innovation should be allowed so long as the Match has matching rates of +/- 2% from 2020 Match rates (when they were 94% for US seniors, 91% for DOs, and 61% for IMGs).

And maybe this is what I find most encouraging about the otherwise-tepid UGRC recommendations. It does feel like there is some momentum building for real, practical change. More and more people are recognizing the problems and starting to think, at least, about ways of doing things other than how they’ve always been done, and we’re starting to set some parameters for how those changes might occur. These recommendations won’t get us where we want to go – but they build upon and keep those conversations going, and have to be considered a step in the right direction.

(Hey, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.)

Dr. Carmody is a pediatric nephrologist and medical educator at Eastern Virginia Medical School. This article originally appeared on The Sheriff of Sodium here.

Recommendations From the Coalition for Physician Accountability’s UME-to-GME Review Committee: Winners & Losers Edition published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[junker-town]

South Carolina football is on the rise under Will Muschamp! Maybe!

It’s easy to talk yourself into the Gamecocks. It’s also easy to talk yourself out of the Gamecocks.

I’m not going to lie: I’ve been arguing with myself about South Carolina all offseason. I have no idea what to think about the Gamecocks in 2017, and it’s beginning to drive me crazy.

This really wasn’t a very good team in 2016.

Muschamp generated a little buzz by doubling South Carolina’s win total from three to six in his first year succeeding Steve Spurrier. The Gamecocks beat division rivals Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Missouri, established a defensive identity, and nearly beat a strong USF in the Birmingham Bowl. Granted, the fact that this was progress says a lot about how far they fell in Spurrier’s final season.

This was undeniable progress. Except, it was only progress on paper. Their S&P+ rating was minus-3.1 adjusted points per game in 2015 (as in, they were 3.1 points per game worse than the average team) and minus-3.6 in 2016.

The defense improved by about five points, but the offense regressed by an equal amount. The schedule allotted wins against three bad teams (ECU, UMass, Western Carolina), and SC beat them by an average score of just 33-25. They played like the worst team in the conference, closer to a five-win team than six, but benefited from nearly three points per game of turnovers luck.

But they were better when Jake Bentley took over.

South Carolina averaged just 14 points per game through six contests, so Muschamp and offensive coordinator Kurt Roper tore the redshirt off the true freshman. From that point, the Cocks averaged 27 points per game and rebounded from 2-4 to qualify for a bowl. So if you’re an optimist, you’re setting the offensive bar there and not at the full-season averages.

But they were only a little bit better and quite lucky.

That scoring average includes 78 points against UMass and Western Carolina and 55 against collapsing Tennessee and Missouri defenses. And while the Cocks did win four games with Bentley, only one was against a team better than 69th in S&P+ and only WCU fell by more than 10 points.

Meanwhile, the Cocks beat Tennessee and UMass by a combined nine points ... with 9.3 points’ worth of turnovers luck. They were outgained by Missouri but won because of two red zone interceptions. They ended up fighting USF to a virtual draw, but that required a mad comeback after falling behind by 18 points. They got destroyed by Clemson and were lucky to stay within 13 points of Florida.

The second-half surge was a bit of a facade, in other words.

But they were young as hell. And Muschamp is recruiting well.

There’s something to be said for maintaining your level in a youth movement. My goodness, was this a green team, especially on offense. Bentley was not only a true freshman, he was a young true freshman, having basically skipped his senior year of high school. Running backs Rico Dowdle and A.J. Turner were freshmen. The top nine receiving targets were freshmen or sophomores. Twenty-four of 65 offensive line starts went to sophomores.

Of course the Cocks’ offensive numbers were bad. They’re only going to get better.

Plus, Muschamp went out and signed the No. 21 recruiting class in the country, per the 247Sports Composite. Of the other teams trying to dig out of the bottom half of the SEC East, Kentucky (30th), Missouri (42nd), and Vanderbilt (64th) can’t match that. Per 247, Muschamp signed six four-star prospects; those other three schools signed zero.

But that schedule is brutal. And almost everybody in the East returns as much as the Gamecocks do.

The East was crazy-young in 2016, and division teams ranked seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 31st, and 50th in my initial returning production figures. Only Tennessee returns less than 67 percent of production. That will temper the Gamecocks’ developmental gains. So will a schedule that, per S&P+, features seven opponents projected 32nd or better, six relative tossups, and four likely losses.

So South Carolina is improving but isn’t and is gaining ground on the division but isn’t. Glad I could help clarify that for everyone.

Photo by Todd Bennett/GettyImages

Will Muschamp

2016 in review

2016 South Carolina statistical profile.

Even adjusting for opponent, South Carolina’s offense took a step forward when Bentley stepped behind center.

First 6 games (2-4): Avg. percentile performance: 37% (16% offense, 60% defense) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.3, SC 4.8 (minus-0.5) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-1.4 PPG

Last 7 games (4-3): Avg. percentile performance: 47% (45% offense, 46% defense) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.9, SC 5.4 (minus-0.5) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: plus-3.6 PPG

The offense went from awful to average, but defensive slippage offset most of those gains. Each of the last four regular season opponents — Clemson, Missouri, and even Florida and Western Carolina — averaged at least 6 yards per play on the Gamecocks.

There weren’t any obvious, injury-related reasons, but run defense was the culprit. Missouri’s Damarea Crockett and Ish Witter combined to rush for 162 yards on 24 carries (6.8 per carry), Florida’s Jordan Scarlett went for 134 in 20 (6.7), WCU’s Detrez Newsome and Tyrie Adams went for 214 in 33 (6.5), and a foursome of Clemson backs went for 217 in 37 (5.8).

That senior tackles Taylor Stallworth and Ulric Jones and senior linebackers Skai Moore (who missed 2016 with injury) and Bryson Allen-Williams return is a good thing for the run defense, but depth in the front seven has been whittled by attrition, and it evidently wasn’t very strong last year either.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

You could basically see one layer of the offense Roper intends to install: even if the passes weren’t going anywhere, South Carolina had a nice completion rate. This wasn’t the case for the first month (53 percent), but even before the switch to Bentley, it had begun to rise (last nine games: 66 percent).

This didn’t result in actual efficiency, mind you.

The SEC was dictated by big plays in 2016. Ten of 14 offenses had success rates that were at least a little above average, but big play ability varied wildly. Four teams were both inefficient and non-explosive. South Carolina was one of them.

Still, easy pitches and catches can be step one toward a complex, efficient attack. Step two: a run game that can take advantage of defenses that are getting stretched from sideline to sideline.

The Gamecocks began to do that when Rico Dowdle took over as primary ball carrier. He didn’t play until October, but while A.J. Turner and David Williams combined to gain five yards on just 33 percent of their carries, Dowdle did so on 42 percent (slightly above the national average). His season averages were plumped up by a huge game against WCU (21 carries, 226 yards), but the offense still took a step when he was in.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Rico Dowdle

Step three in the build: once offenses are stressed and stretched, and you’re capable of gaining five yards on any given play, it’s time for the big plays to begin. Either a receiver breaks a tackle on a short pass (or a running back on a hand-off) and goes a long way, or the play-calling takes advantage of defenders who are trying to anticipate and jump routes and inserts some well-timed play-fakes and pump-fakes.

I’m not sure about Dowdle’s big-play ability (it should be at least average or above average), but in receivers Deebo Samuel and Bryan Edwards, the Gamecocks might have a pair of big-play guys.

Samuel missed three early games with nagging injuries, but over the final eight games he averaged 6.9 catches per game and 13 yards per catch. Over a full, 13-game season, that’s a 90-catch, 1,200-yard pace. Meanwhile, Edwards averaged 13.8 yards per catch when Bentley took over. And in the comeback-mode bowl game, they combined for 20 catches and 261 yards.

If any of these players get hurt — Bentley, Dowdle, Samuel, Edwards — then the drop-off could be considerable. Bentley’s backups are untested junior Michael Scarnecchia, walk-on Danny Gordon, and true freshman Jay Urich, Turner has a lot to prove at running back, and the only two other returning wideouts in the rotation (Terry Googer and Chavis Dawkins) combined for 15 catches and 4.7 yards per target. There are some exciting freshmen at receiver (OrTre Smith and Shi Smith were both four-star signees, and Chad Terrell was close), but you hate to rely on that.

With these four in the lineup, though, Roper might have what he needs. And he at least has depth at tight end, where juniors Hayden Hurts and K.C. Crosby (combined: 59 targets, 44 catches, 360 yards, 5 TDs) return.

Photo by Todd Bennett/GettyImages

Deebo Samuel

He’ll have more experience to work with up front, too. Eight Gamecock linemen started at least one game, and seven of them, all juniors and seniors, are back. This isn’t an enormous line — though with an average size of 6’5, 306 pounds among those seven returnees, it’s not exactly small either (and 330-pound JUCO transfer Dennis Daley could figure in the rotation, too) — but it’s got plenty to prove.

South Carolina ranked 111th in Adj. Line Yards and 116th in Adj. Sack Rate last year, and while you can pin some of that on the incredibly young backfield ... you can’t pin it all on that.

Defense

The Gamecocks’ run defense went from good to horrible as the season progressed, finishing at 68th in Rushing S&P+; the pass defense, meanwhile, remained a strength in a very bend-don’t-break way. SC ranked just 84th in passing success rate but sixth in passing IsoPPP (which measures the magnitude of successful plays) — while the Cocks allowed 111 passes of 10-plus yards (66th in FBS), they allowed only 10 of 30-plus (second).

With five of last year’s top six defensive backs returning, I doubt that changes much. Muschamp and defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson do have to replace four contributors at safety (namely, starter Chris Moody), so depth could be an issue behind senior D.J. Smith, but they’ve still got Smith and junior Steven Montac. And in seniors Jamarcus King and Chris Lammons and junior Rashad Fenton (combined: 8.5 tackles for loss, seven interceptions, 20 breakups), they’ve got one of the steadier cornerback trios in the SEC.

Photo by Todd Bennett/GettyImages

Chris Lammons

So what the hell happened to the run defense? For the most part, opponents figured out they couldn’t pass but were plenty satisfied to stick to the ground attack; SC faced rushes on 62 percent of standard downs (45th-most) and 38 percent of passing downs (28th), and it was increasingly effective.

I don’t have an immediate explanation for this. The line rotated eight players, and none missed a game with injury. And while Skai Moore was indeed out, the three starting linebackers also combined to miss just a single game.

Whatever the cause, Muschamp obviously knows how vital improvement in run defense will be. He made the point of mentioning the importance of his three leading seniors up front — tackles Taylor Stallworth and Ulric Jones and end Dante Sawyer — at SEC Media Days.

It will be interesting to see how new and old mix together here. Stallworth, Jones, Sawyer, Moore, and Bryson Allen-Williams have been around a while; Allen-Williams and Sawyer are former star recruits, and Moore was probably the team’s best defender in 2015. But the Cocks will also be leaning on some key sophomores — ends D.J. Wonnum and Keir Thomas, tackle Kobe Smith, linebacker T.J. Brunson — and, potentially, some newcomers.

JUCO tackle Javon Kinlaw is a monstrous 6’6, 326 pounds, JUCO linebacker Eldridge Thompson could figure into the rotation quickly, and freshman linemen Brad Johnson and M.J. Webb were two of the four-stars from February’s signing haul. Yes, the seniors are important, but the growth of the youngsters will dictate whether we’re talking about a defense with a top-40 ceiling or a top-25 ceiling.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Skai Moore

Special Teams

Special teams were a net gain for the Gamecocks. Longtime place-kicker Elliott Fry was perfect inside of 40 yards and pretty good outside of 40 (5-for-9), and the combination of Chris Lammons on punt returns and Deebo Samuel and A.J. Turner on kick returns gave the Cocks an above-average return game. Perhaps most importantly considering the state of the offense, punter Sean Kelly was solid, too.

Fry and Kelly are gone, though. The return game should be fine, but the legs are almost brand new. Punter Michael Almond showed promise in two punts, but ... two isn’t a large number.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep vs. N.C. State 27 -2.7 44% 9-Sep at Missouri 53 0.4 51% 16-Sep Kentucky 41 3.4 58% 23-Sep Louisiana Tech 82 14.7 80% 30-Sep at Texas A&M 19 -9.1 30% 7-Oct Arkansas 32 0.7 52% 14-Oct at Tennessee 24 -7.0 34% 28-Oct Vanderbilt 63 6.8 65% 4-Nov at Georgia 20 -9.1 30% 11-Nov Florida 15 -8.5 31% 18-Nov Wofford NR 23.9 92% 25-Nov Clemson 6 -13.0 23%

Projected S&P+ Rk 36 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 63 / 28 Projected wins 5.9 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 6.7 (42) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 21 / 20 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 7 / 0.3 2016 TO Luck/Game +2.6 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 81% (91%, 72%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 5.3 (0.7)

Man, I just don’t know. The offensive starting 11 could be strong, but any injury could expose a soft underbelly. The defense has plenty of seniors and gets Moore back, but the cratering of the defensive line over the second half of the season rang alarm bells.

South Carolina’s six wins last year may have been a bit misleading, but we did catch a glimpse of what Muschamp wants to build, and we saw at least a few hints that he might be able to build it. Even with the regression against the run, the Gamecocks still improved from 95th to 50th in Def. S&P+, and the offense did take the first step toward a safe, semi-dangerous efficiency offense.

If we assume normal improvement from the many young players, then they will improve offensively for the next couple of years. If the defense takes at least a little bit of a step forward again, then they’re in business.

With this schedule, though, S&P+ projects the Gamecocks a healthy 36th but projects only 5.9 wins.

I tend to view games with win probability between 35 and 65 percent (about one possession) as relative tossups and games outside of that range as likely wins or losses. Using that definition, the Cocks are looking at two likely wins, four likely losses, and six tossups. Three conference games (at Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas) are projected within 3.4 or fewer points. The range of outcomes is pretty large, but SC might have to win at least four of those six tossups just to get back to the postseason.

If the turnover luck flips after last year’s happy run, South Carolina could improve pretty considerably on paper but finish about 4-8. Such is life when you play in an improving division, when you draw two top-32 teams in inter-division play, and when you play two good to great ACC teams (NC State, Clemson) in non-conference.

Team preview stats

All power conference preview data to date.

[yes-dal456]

End the Outdated, Discriminatory Ban on Blood

  Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-05), who penned the following piece, serves as Vice-Chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus.

This past Tuesday, in Washington D.C., a 21 year old man named Jay Franzone donated blood. On the surface, this act seems common, almost routine, especially as we observe National Blood Donor Month. Americans donate blood every day—on high school and college campuses during blood drives, in workplaces after a coworker falls ill, and in hospitals as loved ones prepare for surgery. What makes this scenario unique is the fact that Jay is gay, or as a blood bank would classify him, MSM—a man who has sex with men. And because of this, he is required to abstain from sex for 12 months in order to qualify as a healthy blood donor.

To his credit, Jay did just that—refrained from sexual contact of any kind for an entire year—in order to donate blood, partially as an act of protest but also in an attempt to raise awareness on a discriminatory policy that many Americans do not know exists.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for regulating blood donor safety and produces best practices guidelines that are used at all credible blood banks. The FDA first began prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood in the early 1980’s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the risk from blood transfusion was just beginning to be understood. In the decades to follow, the “lifetime ban” was left largely unchanged. Finally, in 2015, the FDA rolled back the lifetime ban on MSM to the current 12-month deferral policy.

Despite the perceived progress this policy change made, time-based deferrals are arbitrary and unsupported by science. Since the 1980’s, we have dramatically improved our medical and scientific understanding of HIV/AIDS and are regularly improving our screening and detection capabilities. Technology has aided in serious advancements so that HIV detection tests now have near perfect results. And those tests can detect HIV in the blood an average of nine to 11 days post-infection.

Last year’s attack at Pulse Nightclub highlighted the cruel irony of the blood ban when members of the LGBT community—the very community targeted by hate and terror that night—were unable to donate blood to the victims in Orlando. The LGBT community was understandably eager to stand up and help the response effort. During times of national tragedy—mass shootings, natural disasters or an accident – giving blood is a common and necessary expression of service and support. It’s a simple way for ordinary Americans to show solidarity, patriotism and most importantly, provide life saving resources to those in need.

I first became passionate about this issue when I came to Congress in 2009, and in 2010 I led a letter with then Senator John Kerry, asking the Commissioner of the FDA to reconsider their lifetime ban. Since then, my office has been relentless in working with and calling on FDA and Department of Health & Human Services leaders to update the blood donor questionnaire, conduct the necessary scientific studies, and ultimately move to a risk-based assessment policy. After the shooting in Orlando, I was proud to have 115 of my House colleagues—including 6 Republicans—join me in sending a letter to Commissioner Robert M. Califf calling on the FDA to change, once and for all, its outdated deferral policy.

As a heterosexual man, I can only imagine how frustrating it is given the arbitrary nature of both the 12-month timeframe as well as the fact that other groups with similar risk factors are not barred from donating blood, either explicitly by policy or in practice

It’s long past due that the FDA implements an individual risk-based screening process that is tied directly to risky behavior and not sexual orientation alone. Risk based assessment has been successfully implemented in Spain and Italy, with other countries likely to soon follow suit.

There is no doubt that blood must be screened in order to keep Americans safe and healthy and I am committed to working with the FDA to ensure a safe, secure blood supply, across the board. However, public policy must always be rooted in the facts, not fear. We have near perfect technology that could render time-based deferral periods obsolete and we should use that technology for good. Not only can we craft a more inclusive policy, but we can increase blood safety for everyone. It’s a win-win.

Jay’s story reminds us that change comes as a result of small steps, taken by passionate individual citizens. Congress has a lot to learn from Americans like Jay and we all have a responsibility to break down barriers and reduce the stigmas that divide us.

After all, blood is blood, gay or straight.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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[imreviewblog]

End the Outdated, Discriminatory Ban on Blood

  Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-05), who penned the following piece, serves as Vice-Chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus.

This past Tuesday, in Washington D.C., a 21 year old man named Jay Franzone donated blood. On the surface, this act seems common, almost routine, especially as we observe National Blood Donor Month. Americans donate blood every day—on high school and college campuses during blood drives, in workplaces after a coworker falls ill, and in hospitals as loved ones prepare for surgery. What makes this scenario unique is the fact that Jay is gay, or as a blood bank would classify him, MSM—a man who has sex with men. And because of this, he is required to abstain from sex for 12 months in order to qualify as a healthy blood donor.

To his credit, Jay did just that—refrained from sexual contact of any kind for an entire year—in order to donate blood, partially as an act of protest but also in an attempt to raise awareness on a discriminatory policy that many Americans do not know exists.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for regulating blood donor safety and produces best practices guidelines that are used at all credible blood banks. The FDA first began prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood in the early 1980’s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the risk from blood transfusion was just beginning to be understood. In the decades to follow, the “lifetime ban” was left largely unchanged. Finally, in 2015, the FDA rolled back the lifetime ban on MSM to the current 12-month deferral policy.

Despite the perceived progress this policy change made, time-based deferrals are arbitrary and unsupported by science. Since the 1980’s, we have dramatically improved our medical and scientific understanding of HIV/AIDS and are regularly improving our screening and detection capabilities. Technology has aided in serious advancements so that HIV detection tests now have near perfect results. And those tests can detect HIV in the blood an average of nine to 11 days post-infection.

Last year’s attack at Pulse Nightclub highlighted the cruel irony of the blood ban when members of the LGBT community—the very community targeted by hate and terror that night—were unable to donate blood to the victims in Orlando. The LGBT community was understandably eager to stand up and help the response effort. During times of national tragedy—mass shootings, natural disasters or an accident – giving blood is a common and necessary expression of service and support. It’s a simple way for ordinary Americans to show solidarity, patriotism and most importantly, provide life saving resources to those in need.

I first became passionate about this issue when I came to Congress in 2009, and in 2010 I led a letter with then Senator John Kerry, asking the Commissioner of the FDA to reconsider their lifetime ban. Since then, my office has been relentless in working with and calling on FDA and Department of Health & Human Services leaders to update the blood donor questionnaire, conduct the necessary scientific studies, and ultimately move to a risk-based assessment policy. After the shooting in Orlando, I was proud to have 115 of my House colleagues—including 6 Republicans—join me in sending a letter to Commissioner Robert M. Califf calling on the FDA to change, once and for all, its outdated deferral policy.

As a heterosexual man, I can only imagine how frustrating it is given the arbitrary nature of both the 12-month timeframe as well as the fact that other groups with similar risk factors are not barred from donating blood, either explicitly by policy or in practice

It’s long past due that the FDA implements an individual risk-based screening process that is tied directly to risky behavior and not sexual orientation alone. Risk based assessment has been successfully implemented in Spain and Italy, with other countries likely to soon follow suit.

There is no doubt that blood must be screened in order to keep Americans safe and healthy and I am committed to working with the FDA to ensure a safe, secure blood supply, across the board. However, public policy must always be rooted in the facts, not fear. We have near perfect technology that could render time-based deferral periods obsolete and we should use that technology for good. Not only can we craft a more inclusive policy, but we can increase blood safety for everyone. It’s a win-win.

Jay’s story reminds us that change comes as a result of small steps, taken by passionate individual citizens. Congress has a lot to learn from Americans like Jay and we all have a responsibility to break down barriers and reduce the stigmas that divide us.

After all, blood is blood, gay or straight.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2j8GZe2