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Insulin is 90 Years Old and Costs More Than Ever — Why?

Cattle and swine pancreases — that’s where the first ever insulin used to treat diabetes was extracted from. Researchers from Toronto then, as part of a clinical trial, gave it to diabetics.

For the overwhelming majority, it worked, and sometimes in a miracle-like fashion, earning the label, “a lifesaving drug.” Insulin then couldn’t be produced at a fast enough level; high demand, low supply, right?

And soon, the patent for insulin was sold to the University of Toronto. When was this? In the early 1920s, over ninety years ago.

For how much was the patent sold? $1

Fast-forward to 2015. Diabetics that aren’t covered by insurance typically pay somewhere between $120 and $400 per month for their insulin. Extrapolated, that’s $1,440 to $4,800 per year. Which is puzzling. You’d think that a drug available to the public for over 90 years could, and would, be made affordable. And you’d be right in thinking that; that’s what usually happens over time — the patent(s) on a brand-name drug run out, and a generic drug becomes available for a lesser cost to the consumer. But oddly not for insulin. Why? In short, insulin cost has risen because the chemistry of the drug has continued to evolve over time.

  • 1920s – Insulin extracted from cattle and swine

  • 1930s/1940s – Insulin becomes longer-acting

  • 1970s – The first human insulins become available

  • 1990s – The first synthetic insulins become available (short-acting)

  • 2000 – The first long-acting synthetic insulin becomes available

Some would argue that these changes failed to truly improve insulin for diabetes. Some would even say that there are more things to be wary of nowadays than in the past.

Yet many would say that they have been for the better, taking strides toward a safer, more effective administration and reception of the insulin. What still strikes us as strange, though, is that each change has resulted in the extension of patents — patents that belong to brand-name players in the pharmaceutical industry.

The extension of patents means that, even though insulin for diabetes is over 90 years old, it cannot become a “generic drug”. What are generic drugs? According to HealthSmart: “A generic drug is a chemically equivalent, lower-cost version of a brand-name drug, costing 30-80% less! A brand-name drug and its generic version must have the same active ingredient, dosage, safety, strength, usage directions, quality, performance and intended use.”

Thirty to 80 percent less; a significant decrease.

And there is light at the end of the tunnel here. Reportedly, the patents on synthetic insulin expired last year. What continues to delay the transition into “generic drug” territory is that there is a lengthy process through the FDA concerning unpatented versions.

Alas, for now, the wait continues.

We shouldn’t have to wait for that lengthy process.
No, we should take action.

Oscar-Nominated Sondra Locke Dead at 74 After Battle with Cancer: Click “Next” below!

Garrett D. resides in West Michigan. When he isn’t writing (or editing), you can find him outside, riding a bike, reading a book, or just plain running. Other interests include sports (of any kind), music (again, any kind) and cinema (a bit pickier here). ALZ
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Well, We Have A New Favorite Flash Mob Video!! LOVE This!

Plenty of sports teams have “Pink Games” to raise awareness for breast cancer. But sometimes, the fans come together to make these types of events extra-special…

Before a University of Miami and Virginia Tech college football game, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in Miami started a flash mob! Patients, staff, researchers, and fans all came together to salute breast cancer fighters and survivors.

These dancers pull off a flash mob with tons of energy, talent, and style — set to an upbeat montage of songs. You’ll definitely want to get up and dance, too!

Check it out!

Oscar-Nominated Sondra Locke Dead at 74 After Battle with Cancer: Click “Next” below!

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• The Alhambra – an Andalusian Ambition Fulfilled

    12th October 2013Places to VisitStephanie Donaldson
    The view of the Alhambra Palace

    The view from the Generalife gardens to the Alhambra Palaces

    I’ve finally been to the Alhambra and it did not disappoint (except for the crowds). It is a place that has been on my ‘must visit’ list for a very long time.  The Moorish architecture is, of course, sublime, but the gardens were so much greener and more colourful than I expected, especially in October when the surrounding landscape is so parched.  Looking at photos of the Generalife Gardens in the past, it does appear that the planting was far from inspired, but these days it is replanted as often as every 6 weeks and it was positively zinging with colour. It is contemporary planting, using many plants that would have been unfamiliar to the Moors – but historically accuracy can be dull and given that much of the Alhambra has been rebuilt and restored many times, with varying degrees of reference to the original, some horticultural creativity was fine by me.

    Stephanie at Alhambra Palace Gardens

    salvia and lemon basil in border

    A border planted with Gomphrena, Lemon Basil and a salvia

    River of fire

    Unruly variants of the traditional red bedding salvia create a river of fire through the Generalife gardens

     Purple Celosia, lemon basil and roses

    Purple Celosia, lemon basil and roses

    zinnias in the sun

    The zinnias were zingily gorgeous

    single morning glory flower

    And the morning glories were glorious

    hedge trimming at the Alhambra

    After an initial trim using electric hedgecutters, the seemingly endless hedges are hand-finished. I do hope they get to do other things !

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Archives for : Steve Holy

Tickifieds Top 10 Weekly Searches – Five in a Row for 1 D

One Direction TourOk, this is getting a bit ridiculous.  How many weeks in a row can One Direction absolutely dominate the search rankings?  Now that Justin Bieber has completely fallen off the map, there are no contenders in sight to knock 1D out of the top spot.  This week marks 5 in a row for the British boy band…is it time for college football yet?

A good sign that football is not too far away is the fact that WVU came in at #6 and the SF 49ers  came in at #8 on the list this week.  Other than those two sporting events, the results this week were dominated by music festival and country music.
1.  One Direction

I’m boycotting 1 Direction this week….

2. KattFest

The 2012 Katt Fest lineup includes Hinder, Papa Roach, Buckcherry, Puddle of Mudd, P.O.D., Red, Crossfade, and Drive A….no wonder this event comes in at #2 this week.

3.  Aerosmith

Steven Tyler is back on the road with Aerosmith.  Their concert at Milwaukee Summerfest on July 7th is particularly popular this week.

4.  Sugarland

The Sugarland 2012 In Your Hands Tour is kicking strong despite falling 2 spots from last week.  Sugarland should be a mainstay on the list.

5.  Eric Church

Eric Church keeps the country theme this week going strong.  His  2012 The Blood, Sweat & Beers Tour has been a huge success.

6.  West Virginia

Fans in Morgantown are excited about the WVU Football season.  What’s not to like about a top #10 team moving into the Big 12?

7.  Country Throwdown

With a lineup that includes Gary Allan, Rodney Atkins, Justin Moore, Josh Thompson, Eric Paslay, and Sunny Sweeney it no wonder Country Throwdown it generating quite a bit of interest.

8. San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers almost made it to the Super Bowl last year.  Fans are assuming they will take the next step forward and are securing their seats early to stave off inflated tickets prices.

9. Bunbury Music Festival

Festival season is certain upon us with the 2012 Bunbury Fest taking place on July 13th – July 15th.  The 2012 Lineup includes Weezer, Death Cab for Cutie, Jane’s Addiction, Airborne Toxic Event, Minus the Bear, OAR, and many more!

10. Country Thunder

Country music continues to shine this week with another music festival.  The 2012 lineup includes Toby Keith, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Brantley Gilbert, Luke Bryan, Big & Rich, Steve Holy, Easton Corbin, Hunter Hayes, Wade Bowen, and many more!

This top 10 list is compiled from internal search data from and organic traffic from search engines.  Search terms are ranked by using a combination of both sources of search data.


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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Drugmaker sheds light on path of rebate dollars

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We hear from more and more people living with diabetes about the challenges they face affording healthcare, including the medicines we make. We take this issue seriously and have been thinking about what we can do to better support patients. This has become a responsibility that needs to be shared among all those involved in healthcare and we’re going to do our part.

As a first step, we've taken a position on affordability, outlining three tenets that will be our focus. One is creating more pricing predictability so customers like pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and payers can effectively anticipate and budget for our price increases. We will support that by limiting any potential future list price increases for our medicines to no more than single-digit percentages annually. This is one action we are taking immediately.

A second area of focus is transforming the drug pricing system, which is incredibly complex and has resulted in a lot of confusion around what patients pay for medicines. News reports on drug prices have left the public with an impression that companies like ours realize all the profits from the “list price” increases we’ve made over the last decade.

In other words, a list price increase by XX percent leads to an automatic XX percent profit for the drug maker. We believe that is misleading and here’s why: As the manufacturer, we do set the “list price” and have full accountability for those increases.

However, after we set the list price, we negotiate with the companies that actually pay for the medicines, which we call payers. This is necessary in order for our medicines to stay on their preferred drug list or formulary. The price or profit we receive after rebates, fees and other price concessions we provide to the payer is the “net price.” The net price more closely reflects our actual profits.

Tyrone's comment: When asked, "what percentage of rebate dollars are you getting?" most Benefits Directors or CFOs will shout 90%! Or if it is a pass-through pricing arrangement they will be proud of the fact there is no spread yet are completely unaware of the cost for eliminating the spread. In other words, the non-fiduciary PBM will make up for lost margin, on the ingredient cost, with manufacturer revenue or rebates. My big takeaway from this article is that it gives self-funded employers an idea of just how much money is being left on the table from rebate dollars. I wasn't sure why drugmakers were making this information available until now. They want purchasers of PBM services to fight back! Of course, some of their logic is self-serving but at the end of the day binding transparency serves each of us better.

In the graphic showing our insulin, NovoLog®, you’ll see the difference between list price, which increases a lot after 2010, and the net price. The list price increases after those negotiations translated year-over-year to mid-single digit price increases for all our insulins, even when you don’t account for inflation.  And when you do, those net prices were closer to the Consumer Price Index – Urban, a common measure of the average price of goods.

So that probably prompts two questions: what does that mean for patients? And, what’s the point of increasing the list price if the drug maker is not necessarily realizing that profit?

Read more:  http://press.novonordisk-us.com/leadership-perspectives?item=1

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Do's and Do Not's, Examples, Facebook, Tips

How to Tailor Your Social Media Content For Mobile Users

Now that mobile users have surpassed desktop (and has since November 2016), it's time to think more strategically about the content you're posting on social media. Many users only use apps to...

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Sweepstakes and Giveaway Mistakes to Avoid
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5 Sweepstakes Mistakes That Will Ruin Your Day

Hey, we all make mistakes. It’s okay. But it’s nice when we can avoid them and be a hero instead of tanking the marketing budget and being crowned with the dunce cap. Hopefully, we can learn from these fatal Sweepstakes faux pas so we know what not to do.Keep Reading

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Digital Collection of Selma Dritz, Epidemiologist and AIDS Researcher

We’ve started work on our NHPRC grant project, “Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections.” Throughout the project, I’ll be posting regular updates on Brought to Light.

For our first installment, we’re highlighting the new digital collection of Selma Dritz. Selma K. Dritz, MD, MPH, served as Assistant Director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control and Chief of the Division of Occupational Health of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) from 1967-1984. She played a seminal role in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the San Francisco Bay Area, tracking cases and collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UCSF to help establish the etiology and epidemiology of the disease. She worked to educate gay and straight people about AIDS and its prevention.

The digital collection includes photographs, correspondence, research, ephemera, and other selected material.

The Dritz papers in part document the relationships Dritz cultivated with other physicians, researchers, and community advocates. For instance, during her tenure at SFDPH, Dritz developed a close working relationship with Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On, a groundbreaking work that chronicled the early years of the AIDS epidemic. The digital collection includes thank you cards Shilts wrote to Dritz and the program for Shilts’s memorial service and Dritz’s handwritten notes she prepared for it following his death in 1994.

To view the Dritz digital collection, visit There you can also view other digitized material from collections in the AIDS History Project, including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation records and AIDS Ephemera collection.

If you would like to research the Dritz papers (MSS 2009-04), please make an appointment with us.

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Bayer CFO Must Wring Synergies, Reduce Debt Following Monsanto Deal

Bayer’s headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany.
Bayer’s headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany. Photo: Getty Images

Figuring out a way to deliver cost savings from an acquisition while lowering debt are the main tasks for Bayer AG’s new finance chief Wolfgang Nickl.

Mr. Nickl took on his role on June 1, following the resignation of Johannes Dietsch. U.S. regulators approved the $63 billion transaction to take over Monsanto Co. on May 29.

Two days after Mr. Nickl became CFO, Bayer announced it would conduct a €6 billion ($7 billion) rights issue to raise additional funds for the transaction, valued at more than $60 billion. It also plans to issue bonds in various currencies with a total volume of up to €20 billion, CEO Werner Baumann said Monday, according to a transcript.

“We're going to be done with the debt issuance by the end of Q3,” Mr. Baumann said in an interview. The closing of the takeover is planned for June 7.

Bayer's former CFO Mr. Dietsch organized a $57 billion bridge loan in 2016 for the deal. Part of the loan will be repaid with the proceeds of various financial instruments, including a €4 billion convertible bond, a €3 billion share sale to Temasek Holdings Pte. and the sale of shares worth €9 billion in its former subsidiary Covestro AG.

Mr. Nickl, who joined Bayer from ASML NV, a Dutch supplier of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry, will have to prepare the bond sales, deliver on the company’s cost-savings promises and lower Bayer’s debt, said Jeremy Redenius, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC.

“Mr. Nickl has to make sure that Bayer squeezes cash from anywhere they can,” said Mr. Redenius.

The company said annual synergies would add $1.2 billion to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization before special items by 2022. “Delivering the synergies and making sure the integration of the two companies succeeds is key,” said Óscar Rodríguez Rouco, an analyst at Banco Sabadell SA.

Bringing down the company’s debt is another task for Mr. Nickl. The ratio of the Bayer’s net debt to ebitda will rise to 3.25 times at the end of the year, much higher than the 1.27 times at the end of 2017, according to Mr. Redenius. Liabilities were €13.81 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Moody’s Investor Service on Monday downgraded Bayer to Baa1 from A3, the second credit rating firm to cut the company’s creditworthiness grade. S&P Global Ratings earlier on Monday rated Bayer BBB, down from A-. Still, those concerns should not be overblown as Bayers should not find it difficult to sell its bonds, said Mr. Redenius. “It’s still an investment grade rating.”

The company will receive about €7.6 billion from the divestitures it had to make to gain regulatory approval for the transaction, Mr. Baumann said Monday.

“We have a strong record of deleveraging very rapidly after M&A. Our long-term rating target is A-, that has not changed,” he said.

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Half of IT Execs Don’t Tell Boards Truth About Breaches

CIOs and chief information security officers often tell company executives that cybersecurity breaches are under control, even when they’re not sure that’s the case, according to a survey released Wednesday by IT research firm Ponemon Institute LLC. The survey of 1,083 IT and IT security workers conducted in January 2014 shows that when reporting on cyber attacks to their CEOs and boards of directors, 19% say their CISOs “make a best guess based on initial information,” and 36% say they “take action on what is known and tell the CEO it’s been taken care of.” Overall, 55% make assertions that they can’t actually support. Only 39% tell their CEOs and boards, “it’s too early [to know] and more time is needed to investigate.”

Companies often don’t realize they’ve been hacked for weeks or months after the fact, and in some cases only learn they’ve been breached after being notified by law enforcement. Even then, it’s often difficult for CIOs and their security teams to determine the extent of a cybersecurity breach, let alone figure out how to fix the problem. But that’s not the kind of news that chief executives and boards of directors want to hear, especially after they’ve given IT large budgets to deal with the issue, which goes a long way towards explaining why IT executives obfuscate the truth.

The wide-ranging survey asked respondents to answer questions about how their organizations respond to cyber attacks, and how they believe other organizations react to the same situations. As disconcerting as the self-reported results may appear, answers about how they perceive other organizations’ tactics cast an even more unflattering light on communications between CISOs and their respective boards. For example, while 19% said their CISOs “make a guess,”  respondents say that happens at 46% of other organizations. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, says the pairing of questions is a way of mitigating what he calls the “halo” effect. In surveys that involve self-reporting, most people tend to overestimate the capabilities of their own organizations and exaggerate the deficiencies of others. According to Mr. Ponemon, the “big gap” between the 19% and the 46% “means the real answer is between the two extremes.”

Avivah Litan, an analyst with Gartner Inc. who specializes in cybersecurity, says the results are unsurprising. “CISOs are scared to death of losing their jobs,” she says. “People are defending what they’ve done and all the money they’ve spent” on cybersecurity tools.

According to Ms. Litan, the fault doesn’t lie entirely with CISOs and their teams. Until very recently, it’s been difficult for CIOs to secure funding for IT security, and now that the money has been flowing, they feel the need to justify those expenditures. “The last thing you want to say is ‘you wasted your money on me,’” Ms. Litan told CIO Journal.

It’s also hard to blame CIOs for making statements based on their best guesses when they are often flying blind. Veteran venture capitalist Ted Schlein, managing partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers says that threats now exist in a network for an average of more than 200 days before they are identified. That identification process needs to be brought down to one day, he said last week at The Wall Street Journal CIO Network conference.

“I have been in the security business for three decades and it only gets worse,” Mr. Schlein said

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China’s Total Debt Load Equals 282% of GDP, Raising Economic Risks

China’s overall debt load has risen quickly since the global financial crisis. While still manageable, it raises some concerns for investors, the McKinsey Global Institute says in a new report.

The prospect of a major economic slowdown in China is among the key concerns for policy makers and investors in a turbulent global outlook. Many believe the Chinese government has the resources to manage a smooth transition to a slower growth rate without causing a financial crisis.

But the speed of Chinese debt growth, much of it related to real estate, raises risks that an unwinding of the country’s two-decade growth boom might not go down so smoothly.

Here are some key facts from the report.

Total Debt Equals 282% of GDP: That’s how big China’s total debt load, including borrowing by the government, banks, corporations and households, had gotten by the middle of 2014, the report says. That’s far above the average for developing countries and higher than some advanced economies including Australia, the United States, Germany and Canada.

One-Third of Global Debt Growth: China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, has added $20.8 trillion in new debt since 2007, accounting for more than a third of total debt growth globally in that period.

Corporate Debt Soars, Especially in Real Estate: The largest driver of this growth has been borrowing by non‑financial corporations, including property developers. At 125% of GDP, China now has one of the highest levels of corporate debt in the world.

Shanghai or New York? After a steep rise in property values in recent years, some high-end real estate prices in Beijing and Shanghai are starting to approach those of Paris and New York.

The three major risks identified in the McKinsey report:

  1. About half the debt of households, non-financial firms and government is either directly or indirectly linked to real estate.
  2. Rapid growth in lending by local governments, “many of which may not be able to repay”
  3. Around a third of total outstanding debt in China is provided by a highly opaque shadow banking system, made up of various forms of non-bank lending.

“A plausible concern is that the combination of an overextended property sector and unsustainable finances of local governments could result in a wave of loan defaults in China, damaging the regular banking system and potentially creating a wave of losses for investors and companies that have put money into shadow banking vehicles,” the report says.

While damaging to economic growth, the Chinese government "could probably bail out the financial sector even if default rates were to reach crisis levels,” the McKinsey Global Institute said. “This would most likely prevent a full-blown financial crisis.”

Related reading:

Obama Pushes for Trade Support, Warns on China

U.S. Trade Gap with China, 80% of Trade Deficit, Hits Historic High

How the iPhone 6 Fueled a Record U.S. Trade Gap With China

China Economy On Track For Sweeping Reform, Asia Society Report Finds

China Getting Used to the ‘New Normal’ of Slower Growth

China’s Productivity Problem Drags on Growth

World Bank Economist: China May Face US-Style Financial Crisis

China’s Economy Surpassing U.S.? Well, Yes and No

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When your company needs snacks, call in the professionals — Blue Sky Supply.

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One in two Australian business travellers have safety concerns regarding domestic travel

More than half (54%) of Australian business travellers have domestic security concerns while travelling for work, according to a survey commissioned by American Express Global…..

The cost of loyalty in business travel – why employees are booking outside company travel policy

With airlines and hotels offering a range of personal incentives for continued loyalty, it appears that personal rewards provide sufficient justification for some employees to…..

ACTE & GBT research reveals flexibility and quality of life critical to business traveller satisfaction

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Dynamic coding of face information in inferior temporal cortex

BMC Neuroscience201011 (Suppl 1) :P21

  • Published:

  • Neural Mechanism
  • Firing Pattern
  • Visual Scene
  • Face Perception
  • Hebbian Learning

We can recognize rapidly and effortlessly complex visual scenes. Such amazing ability in visual recognition needs the effective processing of visual information along the multiple stages of visual pathways. Neurophysiological experiments have provided evidence for a “simple-to-complex” processing model based on a hierarchy of increasing complex image features. It has been also shown that inferior temporal (IT) cortex is shape-selective [1, 2]. However, little is known about how the information about a whole object and its parts are represented in IT cortex.

Recent experiments have reported dynamic responses of IT neurons in face perception. Hirabayashi and Miyashita [3] demonstrated that the IT neurons exhibited different responses in spike synchronicity for face and non-face images. Sugase et al. [4] found that single IT neurons conveyed two different scales of facial information in their firing patterns, starting at different latencies. However, it is poorly understood the neural mechanism underlying the dynamic properties of IT neurons in face perception. To address this issue, we present a functional model of IT cortex, which performs face perception via an interaction between three IT layers and face recognition layer (FRL).

The model was based on the face information that is processed by three resolution maps in early visual areas. The network model of IT consists of four kinds of networks, in which the information about a whole face is combined with the information about its face parts and arrangement. The neurons of IT layers and FRL were modeled with Hodgkin-Huxley model. The synaptic connections between the four layers were made based on Hebbian learning.

We demonstrated that the spike synchrony, induced by the learning due to coincident spiking, was needed to make the functional connections between the IT layers and FRL. After the learning, the information about face parts and the whole face were combined by the synchronous firing of the IT neurons. Furthermore, “global-to-local” processing of face information could be mediated by the top-down signal between three IT layers and FRL. These results were consistent with the experiment results of the previous studies [3, 4]. The present study provides an insight into understanding the mechanism of how the information about a whole face and its parts are processed in the IT cortex.

We presented a model of IT cortex and investigated the neural mechanism underlying the dynamic properties of IT neurons in face perception.

Authors’ Affiliations

Graduate School of Information Network Sciences, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan
Department of Applied Physics and Chemistry, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan

  1. Logothetis NK, Sheinberg DL: Visual object recognition. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1996, 19: 577-621. 10.1146/ ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  2. Tanaka K: Inferotemporal cortex and object vision. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1996, 19: 109-139. 10.1146/ ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  3. Hirabayashi T, Miyashita Y: Dynamically modulated spike correlation in monkey inferior temporal cortex depending on the feature configuration within a whole object. J Neurosci. 2005, 25: 10299-10307. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3036-05.2005.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  4. Sugase Y, Yamane S, Ueno S, Kawano K: Global and fine information coded by single neurons in the temporal visual cortex. Nature. 1999, 400: 869-873. 10.1038/23703.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar

© Kashimori and Yamada; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd.


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Extending the tempotron with hierarchical dendrites allows faster learning

BMC Neuroscience201516 (Suppl 1) :P37

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  • Input Pattern
  • Synaptic Weight
  • Fast Learning
  • Positive Pattern
  • Background Pattern

Certain functional classes of neurons seem to be able to differentiate between input patterns with high temporal precision. As input patterns to neurons can consist of up to thousands of inputs, the ability to identify target patterns amongst statistically similar background patterns is impressive and has been suggested to occur via modification to synaptic weights. Yet how does learning that occurs locally at the level of synapses converge, without global coordination? While this question is important for understanding how synaptic learning gives rise to dendritic computation, it is impractical to test experimentally. Insight from abstract neuronal models, such as the multilayer perceptron networks [1], provide a potential glimpse of the difficulty of how to ensure that global convergence during learning when weight changes are local. In this work, we report that by extending the tempotron model [2], we are able to demonstrate that learning can, indeed, learn locally but also converge globally. By arranging dendritic units in a hierarchical manner which feeds into a master dendrite and soma, learning occurs over two timescales: locally on each dendritic branch, using a simple incremental plasticity rule; and at a slower timescale on the main branch, where information is integrated across branches. We observe that the inclusion of dendrites reduces the learning time required by allowing dendrites to subsample the entire input space. In comparison to one single dendrite receiving n inputs, the inclusion of m dendrites means that each dendrite is now subsampling n/m inputs, which not results in faster learning epochs before convergence but also improves the overall robustness against noise. Thus, the move from a single tempotron to a set of hierarchically configured tempotrons, representing dendrites, imbues the unit with recognition of pattern fragments (with a pattern capacity > m!), faster convergence during learning and increased noise tolerance (both of which scale with m). The inclusion of dendrites also allows for them to signal in sequences with varying relative temporal offsets, granting the neuron the opportunity to differentiate between multiple positive patterns to identify not only which pattern was observed but also when. Furthermore, we have also demonstrated that tempotrons can be extended to work for non-episodic patterns i.e. ongoing and without reset, and can also perform well when number of distractor patterns greatly outnumber positive patterns. Conceptually, our model reconciles the tempotron learning rule with work on dendritic computation which argues for dendrites as computation units [3]. It also provides a potential explanation to phenomena observed experimentally, such as neurons in visual cortex whose dendrites had other preferred orientations that were different to those of the soma [4].

SJ is supported by EU FP7 Marie Curie fellowship (PIEF-GA-2013-628086). RC is supported by EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network 289146 'NETT'.

Authors’ Affiliations

Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK

  1. Rumelhart DE, Hinton GE, Williams RJ: Learning representations by back-propagating errors. Nature. 1986, 323: 533-536.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
  2. Gütig R, Sompolinsky H: The tempotron: a neuron that learns spike timing-based decisions. Nature Neuroscience. 2006, 9 (3): 420-428.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
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© Jarvis et al. 2015

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.


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Tyler Vision – December

TylerVision – December, 2011 from TiogaBMX on Vimeo.

In this December issue of Tyler Vision he gives us an insight into his training with Coach G (Greg Romero), it’s also interesting to see a few of the training techniques he uses, he also comments on qualifying for the olympics, you also get too see Corben Sharrah, David Herman and Amanda Carr.

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Local Tattoo Shops Looking For Apprentices

About years ago went under an apprenticeship at local tattoo shop was years old in my first year of col to be blunt it was one of the worst my story as tattoo artist why quit […]

It got cut out but go down to your local tattoo shop for the people that ask on my instagram how do you start its not the best really didnt try was finishing apprenticing at shop […]

Tattoo apprenticeship with body art soul tattoos sergio meza […]

Some fun footage one day at the dark cloud tattoo shop where used to work in santa maria ca that is daniel cardona in the gl he owns the shop and working in an old skool cali gangsta tattoo shop […]

Li tips on how to behave for tattoo shop customers working for years in tattoo and piercing shops and seeing same thing again and again might be tips for tattoo shop customers […]


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Revolution, Counter Revolution and the Economic War in Venezuela

Member of the Venezuelan National Guard stands by a large supply of hoarded cooking oil. (PHOTO:Venezuelasolidarity)

Member of the Venezuelan National Guard stands by a large supply of hoarded cooking oil. (PHOTO:Venezuelasolidarity)

A Decisive Battle is at Hand

Source: Counterpunch

In a speech outside the Miraflores palace on January 17, 2015, upon his return from a twelve day trip abroad, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro Moros addressed an expectant crowd of well wishers. Seizing the moment in the midst of an economic crisis and an intense opposition campaign against his administration, Maduro spoke with a renewed sense of confidence and determination: “This economic battle is decisive. We have the resources, the organized people [pueblo organizado], the historic project, the only one that exists in Venezuela. We have the force, moral and spiritual. We have the historic purpose. I am calling for meeting the challenge of the rebirth of the economy of the country.” Just days earlier, perennial presidential candidate of the opposition coalition (Democratic Unity Roundtable, MUD) and leader of the right wing Justice First party, Henrique Capriles Radonski, argued that the combination of falling oil prices and scarcity of basic consumer goods, constituted “a perfect storm for changing the government.” As rumors of an imminent coup against Maduro spread and predictions of economic collapse appear in the some of the corporate international press, the broad spectrum of Chavismo is circling the wagons around the revolutionary project.

Venezuela is not alone, as over the past year there have been expressions of solidarity with the Maduro administration from the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the G77 plus China, and the Non-Aligned Movement as well as from progressive forces from around the world. At the height of the guarimbas (violent demonstrations) during the first quarter of 2014, the majority position of the Organization of American States (OAS) too came down on the side of the constitutional order. The late President Hugo Chávez and now Maduro have played leadership roles in the regional associations of Latin American independence and integration; for this reason social movements, Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples, and peasants and workers throughout region are among the stakeholders in Venezuela’s revolutionary project.

A great deal hangs in the balance with regard to the feasibility of advancing a democratic socialist project while under the continuous attack of a U.S. backed opposition, elements of which are bent on restoring the neoliberal regime. One gets the sense that a decisive battle is underway for the political future of Venezuela and indeed, for the cause of sovereignty throughout the region. For all of these reasons Maduro’s annual address to the nation (Memoria y Cuenta) on January 21, 2015 held special weight as Venezuelans and international observers heard the government’s vision for the way forward.

Last Wednesday, President Maduro gave his annual address before the national assembly and the country (Memoria y Cuenta), in his role as head of state during the year 2014. He made his way, walking along the streets towards the National Assembly amid the enthusiastic greetings and embraces of a great multitude of followers. Addressing the nation, he said: “In the year 2015 we will implement a special plan of protection for Venezuelan families through the Great Mission of the Households of the Country, having as our objective to protect, through holistic policies, the attention given to children, and to increase pensions for families and in particular for Venezuelan women.” The government of Venezuela understands that in the face of the difficult economic situation it has to fortify, not retrench, the social programs that benefit the most needy. The Maduro administration is committed to maintaining the Grand Housing Mission that up to now has built 673,416 housing units and it has approved the resources to build 400,000 more housing units this coming year. It has also promised to increase the number of scholarships and pensions as well as increase the minimum wage by 15 percent and preserve the Food Mission. “This is a holistic strategy: protect the family, the households of the country, our young students; advance our powerful Housing Mission of Venezuela which also will generate a great amount of economic development; advance the powerful Great Mission New Barrio–Tri-Color (housing renovation project); to continue the social development of our country,” emphasized Maduro. At the same time, Maduro ordered the immediate inspection of all of the food distribution networks of the country and threatened to bring the full weight of the law against those who continue the economic sabotage. At this writing (January 22) the Minister of Commerce, Isabel Delgado announced that the government is meeting with 100 of the country’s largest producers and distributors at the Miraflores Palace to discuss distribution issues in the coming days.

This essay will offer a briefing on the current political standoff in Caracas and argue that only an effective counter offensive by the government, with the support of the popular sectors, can push back the opposition economic coup underway in Venezuela and start the country down the arduous road to economic recovery. By distinguishing the anatomy of the coup in Chile in September of 1973 from the short lived coup in Venezuela in April of 2002 and by reviewing the use of food as a political weapon during the oil strike in Venezuela from December 2002 to March 2003, we aim at interpreting the dialectic at work in the present confrontation between revolution and counter revolution in this South American nation.

1. Overview of the Current Political Climate in Venezuela

Both the opposition coalition MUD on the one hand, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and allied parties on the other, are now preparing to mobilize their constituents for demonstrations during the third week of January, marking the anniversary of the overthrow of the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez on January 23, 1958. While it appears that the MUD has moved its march to the 24th, the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal has confirmed a number of anti-government student demonstrations are planned in Sucre, Mérida, Zulia, Guayana, Táchira, Carabobo, and Miranda on the 23rd. The 23rd of January has cultural significance because it marks a break in Venezuelan history, when a dictatorship gave way to a power sharing arrangement between the major political parties (AD, COPEI, URD) called the pact of Punto Fijo or puntofijismo. This representative democracy (also referred to as the Fourth Republic) advanced the interests of transnational capital and the ruling class of Venezuela. It was characterized by routine rampant corruption and the prevalence of poverty for more than half the population.

At this writing, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has called for a “march of the undefeated” in west Caracas, “in honor of those who were assassinated and persecuted by the fascist right during the governments of the fourth republic.” The MUD has called on its followers to participate in an anti-government demonstration in Caracas on the 24th of January which it designates as “the march of the empty pots, against hunger and for change.” The MUD action is also a protest against “scarcity, the lines, the insecurity, and the repression.” It appears that the MUD will transmit a message “to the nation” on the 23rd with a proposal for change. The 23rd and 24th of January are therefore set to be days of struggle for the hearts and minds of Venezuelan constituent power.

1.2 The Psychological War

In addition to an economic war, some political analysts suggest that there is also psychological warfare being perpetrated by the opposition press and rumor mill. Oscar Schémel, President of Venezuelan polling firm and think tank Hinterlaces argues that the psychological campaign is aimed at the neurotization of the public:

One of the variables on which these campaigns are based is the exacerbation of the problems, the exaggeration of the problems, mediated by a campaign of rumors to generate a climate of anxiety. After just a week on the queues, people were buying candles, in addition to food, because they heard that a coup was coming, because there was going going to be a magnicide, because there was going to be generalized looting, because there was going to be a social explosion. This generates anxiety and this anxiety does not disappear but accumulates.

Although, observes Schémel, this sort of strategy has worked at bringing about a social explosion in other countries, it will not work in Venezuela: “This accumulation of anxiety in Venezuela does not generate a neurotic response because Venezuelans think that chaos or violent, irrational, unconstitutional exits can make the situation worse.”

Instances of the sort of rumor mongering observed by Schémel can be found in the opposition press. For example, El Nacional published an opinion piece by journalist Marianella Salazar which lays out the details of an alleged military conspiracy to force Maduro to resign and seek asylum in Cuba where Raul Castro has already allegedly agreed to receive him! Here is how Salazar speculates that the plot might then unfold: “on the agenda for the transition has emerged the name of General Raúl Baduel. Although he is in the military prison of Ramo Verde, he has auctóritas in the heart of the Bolivarian Armed Forces and they consider him a conciliator without intentions of installing a military dictatorship.” Among the outcomes of such a coup is that Venezuela could then “leave the China Fund and go to the International Monetary Fund.” The author also imagines that should General Baduel take the helm of the executive branch of government he would “avoid the Caracazo.” Perhaps this is supposed to give readers comfort. The Caracazo refers to an uprising originating in the poorer sections of Caracas in February 1989 in response to an IMF “structural adjustment package” imposed by then President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Pérez responded by declaring a state of emergency and between 300 and 3000 Venezuelans were killed by the security forces. Yet a return to the IMF is just what Salazar has in mind!

1.3 Polarization versus Accommodation

These sorts of economic and psychological opposition campaigns are not new to Venezuelan politics. Since Hugo Chávez was elected President in 1998 the counter revolution has been relentless in its quest to bring about regime change, with hard liners willing to deploy terrorist attacks and sabotage. Each onslaught by the ultra right has been deterred by the civic military alliance that has continued to back the constitutional order to this day. But is this time different? Are we witnessing the eve of another break in history, one that will restore a rehabilitated version of the neo-liberal regime of the fourth republic? Or will the Bolivarian cause weather yet another political and economic storm?

The last fifteen years show that Chavismo does not strengthen its position by negotiating with the right but by confronting it. After the April 2002 coup Chávez resorted to conciliation and compromise to no avail. Something similar has happened during the Maduro administration. After narrowly winning the presidential election in April of 2013, the opposition presidential candidate refused to concede the electoral victory to Nicolas Maduro and urged his followers to “drain the outrage.” The opposition waged an unsuccessful international campaign to delegitimize the outcome of the presidential election and an estimated eleven Chavistas were killed by anti-government extremists. Yet Maduro called for dialog with the opposition, and UNASUR as well as the Vatican helped to mediate the discussions. Maduro took some heat from the left for these talks and the shortages and price gouging only continued.

Later in the year (2013), Maduro launched an offensive to enforce price controls and anti-hoarding laws. While evoking the antipathy of big business, such measures may partly account for a recovery in the electoral base of Chavismo in time for the municipal elections in December that year. The PSUV and their allies won about three quarters of the municipalities in the December 2013 municipal elections. In what opposition leader Capriles had vowed would be a plebiscite on Chavismo, the PSUV and its allies together also won the popular vote by a margin of about 6.5 percent. Of course, a year later things are different: the economy is in recession and despite intensified government efforts to curtail contraband, speculation, and hoarding, the shortages have persisted.

A poll released in October 2014 by Venezuelan Institute of Data Analysis (IVAD) shows an erosion in the public approval rating of President Maduro though the think tank and polling firm Hinterlaces maintains that the opposition is in no better shape with regard to public confidence. In terms of the mood of the electorate, Venezuelan journalist Eleazar Díaz Rangel argues that the shortages could provoke apathy among voters and therefore influence the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary elections. He urges that Maduro needs more effective “political communication and to execute what he promises.”

To be sure, there are indeed signs of some dissatisfaction with the government response to the shortages even in the popular barrios. But this does not necessarily translate into widespread disaffection. Those who are prepared to write the obituary on Chavismo will probably join their like-minded predecessors of the last fifteen years in underestimating the driving force behind the Bolivarian revolution: the millions of formerly excluded constituents, now protagonists in a politics of liberation, who will not easily succumb to military, economic, or parliamentary coups, the success of which they reasonably suspect would once again relegate them to the margins of social and economic life.

2. Historical Precedents

2.1 Venezuela Compared to Chile in 1973

The situation on the ground today in Venezuela, in particular the shortages of basic goods, is in some respects analogous to the the conditions leading up to the 1973 coup against the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. A major tactic of the right-wing Chilean opposition and the Nixon administration was to “make the economy scream” by provoking food shortages, a truckers strike, and mayhem in the streets. Researcher Peter Kornbluh, in The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes declassified cables that indicate in the days preceding the overthrow of Allende a terrorist paramilitary group and a “large segment” of the business community were “undertaking actions to increase discontent and incidents of violence…in order to create an atmosphere in Chile which would be propitious for a military coup” (2003, p 91).

A similar game plan was played out, albeit unsuccessfully, during the short lived coup against Chávez in April 2002. In the months leading up to the coup there was a fall in oil prices, an economic slowdown, growing resentment within the PDVSA management over government interventions, and some erosion in Chávez’s approval ratings. A general strike called by the anti-government Federation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) and the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce (fedecámaras) on December 10, 2002 met with what Wilpert calls “moderate success” (2007, p. 23). The fedecámaras–Media–Military coup went into action on April 11 and by the afternoon of April 12 the most extreme elements within the golpista camp exhibited their brand of democracy. Political analyst Fernando Coronil describes the scene inside Miraflores Palace that day:

Pedro Carmona [then head of fedecámaras] proclaimed himself provisional president in the name of the law of Chávez’s constitution. Immediately afterwards he named some members of his cabinet, summarily dismissed the National Assembly, the state governors, and municipal leaders (all of them democratically elected), disbanded the Supreme Court, and fired the Attorney General and the People’s Defender. (2011, p. 49)

No sooner had this regime been sworn-in amidst a great deal of celebration and fanfare by the golpistas than the coup began to unravel.

The situation on the ground today in Venezuela, especially the shortages of basic goods, is reminiscent of the U.S.–backed coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. That coup succeeded and Chile was subjected to a decade and a half of brutal rule by the Pinochet dictatorship. By contrast, the short-lived coup of April 2002 against Chávez, once again supported by a U.S.–backed opposition, was derailed by an enormous show of popular power and by the loyalty of a majority of army and security forces. This reversal of a military coup was unprecedented in Latin America and it came as a great surprise to the Venezuelan golpistas. Since that time a persistent slogan of Chavismo has been that “for every April 11 there will be an April 13.” On January 17, 2015, Maduro urged: “In the face of this 11th of April in process, in the arena of economic sabotage, we need to wage an economic 13th of April….”

2.2 The Oil Strike of December 2002 to March 2003

The short lived 2002 coup against Chávez removed the military option from the arsenal of the counter revolution. Just months later, the same opposition groups launched an attempt at an economic coup against the Bolivarian government. Chávez had issued 49 laws by decree, a temporary power (the enabling law) granted by the National Assembly. Some of these laws, in particular those relating to land reform and oil industry policy, did not sit well with landowners and PDVSA. With the possibility of privatizing the state owned oil industry foreclosed by the 1999 Constitution, Chávez sought to ensure that a substantial part of oil revenue would be directed towards social investment (referred to often as by Bolivarians as “paying the social debt”), but he was up against an entrenched group of oil executives that coveted their independence.

PDVSA management argued that Chávez was seeking to politicize PDVSA and undermine what it took to be a “meritocracy”. According to Gregory Wilpert’s history of the period, the company was unwilling “to go along with the government’s plans to increase taxes on the oil industry, to reduce costs, to increase transparency in its international operations, and to appoint a pro-Chávez board of directors.” Wilpert observes that this conflict came to a head during the April 2002 coup attempt “when PDVSA managers actively supported the coup by shutting down one of Venezuela’s main refineries during that crisis…” (p. 95). After a brief period of what Wilpert calls a “retreat” by Chávez in the aftermath of the coup, the opposition called for a “general strike” which led to “a combination of management lockout (of the oil industry), administrative and professional employee strike, and general sabotage of the oil industry” (25). It is important to note that in addition to placing a stranglehold on the country’s main source of export revenue, there were “food and gas shortages throughout Venezuela, mostly because many distribution centers were closed down” (25). In a move that brought most harm to the poor and working class, gasoline and food were being used as a political weapon against the Bolivarian project.

Richard Gott’s history of the Bolivarian revolution draws attention to the impact of deliberate food shortages during the oil strike: “The mass of the population bore the food shortages with equanimity. They tolerated the electricity blackouts, the oil scarcity, and the transport failures” (2011, p. 251). Historian Bart Jones (2007) also describes the scene and Chávez’s decisive actions at the time:

The situation was desperate. Gasoline supplies were dwindling, and service stations were closed. So Chávez did something else previously unthinkable in a nation with some of the world’s largest oil reserves – he imported gasoline. He contacted Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Russia and other countries to ask them to send what they could. When basic foods grew scarce, he cobbled together another informal supply network, persuading Colombia The Dominican Republic, and others to send rice, flour, milk, meat and other products. (p. 378)

After weeks of an industry lockout and acts of sabotage against PDVSA infrastructure Chávez went on the offensive, using troops to stop the hoarding of food and to keep schools and banks open (254). The opposition attempt to cripple the oil industry did not sit well with the military, who were called in to secure the facilities. The management of PDVSA was replaced and an overall 18,000 (almost half the workforce) lost their jobs.

The oil lockout and the subsequent government takeover of the management of PDVSA struck a great blow against the economic power of the oligarchy. As George Ciccariello-Maher points out in We Created Chávez, A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution:

If the reversed coup marked the political destruction of the anti-Chávez opposition, then the defeat of the oil lockout effectively crushed the opposition’s economic power, wresting the national oil company PDVSA–often referred to as a ‘state within a state’ as a result of its de facto autonomy–from their greedy hands to be put instead into the service of the Revolution. (2013, p. 181)

Ciccariello-Maher also documents, through interviews with activists who resisted the oil strike, that pro-Chavista workers played a role in taking back control of the oil installations from striking managers and workers (p. 182). Another account by a PDVSA insider, former PDVSA president (2004 – 2014) and currently Venezuela’s ambassador the the United Nations, Rafael Ramírez, supports this view:

In the petroleum industry something very interesting happened. Being a vertical organization the workers knew who had given the instruction to bring the industry to a hault. So just as on April 13, the patriotic soldiers and officials rebelled against the senior military officials. The patriotic workers and managers rejected the indications of their bosses who were committed to sabotage. The petroleum meritocracy was very arrogant and demeaning towards the people [pueblo]. (German Sanchez, 2012, p. 283)

It is important to note that popular power ensured the return of the democratically elected government of Chávez to power in 2002 and defended the government again during the oil strike in 2002-2003. These events occurred prior to the implementation of the social missions later in 2003. These are the social programs that have done so much to reduce economic inequality in the country, alleviate poverty and increase access to education, healthcare, and housing for millions of formerly excluded Venezuelans. It appears that the popular sectors had cast their lot, despite the trappings of economic and psychological warfare, for staying the Bolivarian course rather than opting for a restoration of the neoliberal regime.

The damage wrought by an attempt at an economic coup by crippling the oil industry was devastating. According to Jones (2007) “Production plummeted to as little as 150,000 barrels a day, compared with normal output of 3 million a day. Exports typically averaging 2.5 million barrels a day dropped to next to nothing” (p. 379). Furthermore, Jones writes that “the economy nearly collapsed, contracting by 27 percent in the first fourth months of 2003” (p. 386). Jones puts the total cost to the oil industry of the lockout at $13.3 billion USD (2007, p. 386). Economist Alfredo Serrano Mancilla indicates that by the end of the strike unemployment shot up to 20.7 percent and about 700,000 jobs were lost. Many small and medium size businesses went bust because they depended for their supplies on businesses under the umbrella of the opposition Fedecámaras. Poverty reduction that had been underway since 1998 suffered a reversal that could not be effectively remedied until the implementation of the missions established in the aftermath of the oil strike in 2003 (pp. 308-310).

After the oil strike, the opposition regrouped and within months Chávez faced a recall referendum in which he won a resounding victory. On August 15, 2004, 5,800,600 (59.25 percent) voted for Chávez and 3,989,000 (40.74 percent) voted for recall. So in just a three year period, the Bolivarian revolution faced down a military coup, an economic coup and constitutional referendum by an opposition that sought regime change even this meant resorting to extra constitutional means. As a result, argues Ciccariello-Maher, the revolution only became more radicalized and determined.

3. The Economic Model Must Change

Today there is universal agreement among both the broad spectrum of Chavismo and the various factions of the opposition: Venezuela is facing an economic crisis, perhaps even an emergency, that requires urgent “rectificación”. While high inflation, a broken currency exchange system, and falling oil prices have indeed been urgent issues, the scarcity of basic goods reached crisis proportions in the days preceding and during Maduro’s trip abroad and still stands in need of a sustainable remedy. The government and the opposition approach these problems from radically different perspectives and propose dialectically opposed solutions. Something has to give, and give soon.

3.1 The MUD–Fedecámaras Position

The opposition MUD–Fedecámaras position is that the current economic crisis can be resolved by free market oriented reform. Fedecámaras has called on the government to respect private property rights, repeal the Law of Just Prices, deregulate the economy, correct the “excesses” of Labor Law, and establish one floating exchange rate. The director of the Chamber of Commerce of Caracas, Victor Maldonado, maintains that “If we begin to make these corrections today in the economy in the medium term one will see the results.” Fedecámaras representatives also blame some of the scarcity of consumer products on a lack of sufficient divisas (dollars) available at preferential exchange rates for the import sector.

For Capriles Radonski, Venezuela is facing a state of emergency on account of a failed economic model and therefore the game is up for the Bolivarian project. On January 14 he called for a divided opposition to unite in the common cause of a “constitutional” change of government. His call appears to have gotten some traction. On January 18, Jesús Torrealba, executive secretary of the right wing MUD, announced that the various factions within the MUD have united: “This (situation) is grave and for this María Corina [Machado], [Leopoldo] López and [Henrique] Capriles are in agreement.” Torrealba also said that on the 23rd of January the opposition will march and go “where the pueblo are, where there is urban and rural poverty, we recall that 54% of the population live in the barrios.” [As we noted above, the MUD demonstration appears to have been changed to January 24.]

3.2 The Government Position

The government position is that basic commodity shortages are being caused by elements of the private sector that control the importation, production and distribution of food and other products and criminal speculators and smugglers who are sometimes allied with this sector. These actors are allegedly responsible or complicit in the illegal stockpiling of products in warehouses aimed at bringing about artificial shortages. There is empirical evidence for such claims. Thousands of tons of products, including subsidized items, have been diverted from the marketplace for sale in Colombia in 2014. Warehouses full of goods that ought to be on store shelves are frequently discovered by the authorities. Subsidized food items are often purchased by speculators for resale at higher prices in the domestic market. Some importers have been buying products at the subsidized currency exchange rate but then selling those products as though they were purchased at the much higher parallel rate. Fictitious “importers” are also blamed for massive amounts of currency fraud by obtaining divisas (dollars) at the preferential exchange rate under pretext of importing priority goods and then selling those dollars on the parallel market or holding on to them in expectation of further devaluation of the bolivar, a practice that suggests the corruption of some public servants as well. What are we to make of these observations about scarcity?

To be sure, the government has made its share of mistakes in managing the economy and Maduro has made it clear in his address to the nation (Memoria y Cuenta) on January 21 that some changes to economic policy, and in particular the currency exchange system, will now be implemented as part of an Economic Recovery Plan. There is empirical evidence, however, reported with some frequency in Venezuelan newspapers and by Venezuela Analysis, that while some of the hoarding, reselling, and speculation is likely being perpetrated by opportunists, there is also collusion by the private sector. So there is an economic war underway in Venezuela aimed at producing leverage through scarcity to scale back government price controls and labor protections and cause disaffection with the government. As the President of Fedecámara, Jorge Roig remarked, during a recent interview with journalist Vladimir Villegas: “how long will the lines last? As long as the government continues to attack private enterprise.”

For Maduro, the game is up for the economic coup being waged by the political opposition and its allied collaborators in the private sector. He has delivered an ultimatum to food distributors to cooperate with efforts to overcome food shortages and in his January 21, 2015 address to the nation (Memoria y Cuenta) vowed to immediately launch an all out effort to bring the diversion of commodities from the marketplace under control. This means that the government will more aggressively enforce laws against hoarding, continue to intercept contraband, and move to alleviate panic buying. There is growing pressure on the Maduro administration to also increase prosecutions of those committing currency fraud, including collaborators in the state bureaucracy, and to allow an independent audit of the currency exchange transactions. The state, backed by workers, is also expected to continue to support the resumption of production in plants abandoned by the owners.

3.3 The Economic Model Debate

Opposition leader Capriles is certainly correct that the current economic model is not sustainable, but what is that model? While there has been a great deal of state intervention in the economy and significant social investment through the missions under Chavismo, Venezuela is still largely a capitalist country, and food imports and distribution, despite the growing number of cooperatives and socialist or mixed run enterprises, is still mostly in private hands. So the debate is not over whether the economic model has to be changed, all are agreed, but in what direction: should there be more or less social control over the means or terms of the production and distribution of goods and services?

As Venezuelan philosopher Carlos Lanz points out, the problem of scarcity and price gouging is not an aberration but a symptom of what he has called “the model of speculative accumulation” being imposed by the major food distributors and importers, a model that drives the economic war and is the major cause of scarcity in this South American country today (Email communication, 01-19-2015). The so called “economic war” is not just something being waged by elements of the private sector. It is at least in part an expression of the contradiction between the interest of capital in maximizing profits and the interest of labor in a more equitable distribution of socially produced wealth and of the income generated by the nation’s natural resources. In this light, one can interpret management induced production slowdowns and hoarding as a form of leverage to obtain concessions from the state on the repeal of price controls and to rein in some of the legal guarantees that favor labor over private interests. Maduro has taken a firm stand on the answer to this question in his speech to the nation on January 17 and again on January 21, 2015: “It is necessary to further advance the model, not to change it.”

4. The Balance of Forces

The announcement by the MUD of a march that would enter the Chavista strongholds in Caracas on January 23 (a march that we indicated might not take place) drew a quick response from the mayor of Caracas, Jorge Rodríguez: the MUD does not have permission to realize any sort of gathering in the municipality of Libertador this 23rd of January. “We will not permit demonstrations of a violent nature in the municipality of Libertador. How does one believe the opposition, that they are going to develop a peaceful demonstration if up until now they have not done this…. It is inadmissible, we have the obligation to protect the physical integrity of the inhabitants and the property” he emphasized. Rodríguez also indicated that the security forces are prepared for whatever irregular situation that might be posed by the opposition. “We have to assume as though it were an equation, that the opposition will behave in a violent manner.”

Historic memory probably plays some role in Rodríguez’s decision to deny permission to the opposition march to enter his municipality. On the 9th of April 2002, fedecámaras, together with the CTV called for a general strike to force the resignation of then President Chávez. The march calling for the general strike congregated on the 11 of April 2002 at the main headquarters of the PDVSA. From there the then president of of the CTV said in an impassioned manner: “I do not rule out the possibility that this crowd, this human river, marches to Miraflores to expel the traitor of the Venezuelan people” (see Jones, 2007, p. 319). They marched up to the areas near to the Miraflores palace with the permission of the then mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Peña who was part of the opposition. In hindsight, this march arguably had as its objective the creation of chaos, assassination, and eventually the justification of a coup d’état. On the heels of a violent attempt at extra constitutional regime change earlier last year, and amid rumors of an imminent coup, the municipality of Libertador has decided not to lend itself at this time to the contingencies of an opposition march that may harbor, however unintentional, similar golpista elements.

Both the Maduro administration and the MUD now seek to augment their respective bases of support especially among the undecided and disaffected voters who will determine the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The opposition has suffered divisions over the past year between the more moderate forces open to dialog with the government and committed to liberal democratic procedures, and the hardliners who want to defeat the Bolivarian cause even if it takes extra constitutional means. The MUD defeat at the polls in the nominal “plebiscite” municipal elections of December 2013 led to the resignation of the executive secretary of the MUD and a leadership vacuum. Just months later national polls indicated that the large majority of Venezuelans (88 percent) rejected the violence at the barricades. After these setbacks, it appears that the major players within the opposition, at least according to the new MUD executive secretary Jesús Torrealba, have regrouped and now seek to win seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections as part of an effort to bring about a change of government. Capriles has recognized, perhaps more than his colleagues in the MUD, the importance of winning over at least some of the traditionally pro-government electorate in order to garner enough votes to retake the legislative and executive helm of the liberal democratic state. One of the slogans that the MUD is presently using in this regard: “Chavista Comrades, Unite With Us.”

The Maduro administration, in the midst of an economic crisis exacerbated by plummeting oil prices, has been taking heat from both a determined opposition and Chavista dissidents who think he has been moving too slowly in advancing the transition to socialism according to the Plan de la Patria (2013 – 2019). Independent community media and a number of leading Chavista public intellectuals such as Luis Britto García, José Vicente Rangel, and Gonzalo Gómez have articulated an analysis that is not persuaded the government is principally responsible for the scarcity of basic goods, on the contrary, they express no doubt that there is an economic war being waged against the government. But as the keen observer and analyst of Venezuelan public opinion, President of Hinterlaces, Oscar Schémel points out, the government still has to communicate a stronger case, through deeds, that it can effectively deal with the economic crisis. If it can achieve this objective promptly, the government can shore up its electoral base in time for the parliamentary elections.

Another important factor in considering the current balance of forces is the civic military unity built by the late Hugo Chávez. This alliance was instrumental in reversing the coup of April 2002 and it ended the oil lockout and economic war of 2002-2003. This unity was demonstrated once again during the first quarter of 2014 when the guarimbas failed to gain a foothold in the popular barrios. These events indicate that without the support of the popular sectors the military is highly unlikely to intervene on behalf of imperial and oligarchic interests.

Perhaps most important to shoring up the government’s immediate fiscal position was the recent CELAC–China conference in Beijing and President Maduro’s twelve day international trip. Maduro has secured agreements with China (about 20 billion dollars in investments) and other countries that have given some needed oxygen to Venezuela’s federal budget. Although Maduro did not bring home an OPEC agreement, the trip at least set the stage for a meeting next week in Caracas of technical teams from OPEC countries with the goal of reaching “global consensus on petroleum prices.” At a time when the U.S. is imposing unilateral sanctions on Venezuela, Maduro’s trip has also fortified his relationships with a number of nations and raised the profile of Caracas on the world stage. Moreover, Venezuela has the strong support of allies not only in Latin America, but among the Non-aligned Movement countries as well.

While the images of long lines and empty store shelves are played over and over again in the international corporate media, there are other scenes that show another side to Venezuelan political reality. As the Worker-President Nicolas Maduro drove a bus through the streets of Caracas on January 17, upon his return from a twelve day trip abroad, he was greeted by well wishers at ten different points in the city. And as he walked to the National Assembly Building on the way to deliver his address to the nation on January 21, the streets were lined with cheering well wishers. There is indeed growing public resentment over the shortages and long queues as there was in 2002 and again in 2003. Nevertheless, in those cases popular power, at the critical hour, remained firmly on the side of the Bolivarian cause, despite the hardships caused by scarcity. The MUD is trying to capitalize on “the perfect storm” by whittling away at Chavista support for Maduro in the popular barrios, but this will be an uphill battle so long as the opposition retains the stain of the intensely unpopular April 2002 coup. As a number of political commentators have urged, it is most important now for Maduro to follow up on his announcements of remedies and reforms with more details and effective action if Chavistas are to achieve an electoral edge in the coming parliamentary elections. If the last fifteen years of the Bolivarian revolution are any indication of the future, then once again, just as during the coup of 2002 and the subsequent oil strike, the organized expressions of popular power will probably be decisive in determining the outcome of the present economic and political crossroad.

William Camacaro, originally from Venezuela, is co-founder of the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York and is an artist, radio host, and activist in New York City.

Frederick B. Mills is a Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Professor of Philosophy at Bowie State University.

Note: Translations by the authors are unofficial.

References to Books:

Ciccariello-Maher, G. (2013). We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution. Durham: Duke University Press.

Coronil, F. (2011). “State Reflections: The 2002 Coup against Hugo Chávez.” In Thomas Ponniah and Jonathan Eastwood, Eds. The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change Under Chávez. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gott, R. (2011). Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. New York: Verso.

Jones, B. (2007). !HUGO! The Hugo Chávez story From Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution. Hanover New Hampshire: Steerforth Press.

Kornbluh, P. (2003). The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York: The New Press.

Mancilla, A. S. (2014). El Pensamiento Económico de Hugo Chávez. Spain: El Viejo Topo.

Sanchez, G.(2012). LA NUBE NEGRA: Golpe Petrolero en Venezuela. CA: Vadell Hermanos Editores.

Wilpert, G. (2007). Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government. New York: Verso.

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Disney Fairies: The Pirate Fairy

The Chapter Book

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When a misunderstood dust-keeper fairy named Zarina steals Pixie Hollow’s all-important Blue Pixie Dust and flies away to join forces with the pirates of Skull Rock, Tinker Bell and her fairy friends must embark on the adventure of a lifetime to return it to its rightful place. However, in the midst of their pursuit of Zarina, Tink’s world is turned upside down. She and her friends find that their respective talents have been switched and they have to race against time to retrieve the Blue Pixie Dust and return home to save Pixie Hollow. Read the entire adventure in this chapter book based on the Disney Fairies animated movie!

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This weekend, there's a POSSESION at the box office! - TRAILERS

Last weekend, “Wreck-It Ralph 2” was #1 at the box office bringing in a decent $56.2 million dollars! I actually though the new Sylvester Stallone film “Creed 2” would have been at the top. It landed at #2 with $35.5 million!

Michael B Jordan Trailer GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Have a look at what’s out this weekend! I have a feeling Ralph will be staying ta the top of the chart though! I could be wrong, again.

“The Possession of Hannah Grace” – Starring Shay Mitchell

“Anna and the Apocalypse” – Starring Ella Hunt

“Head Full of Honey” – Starring Emily Cox

“Sicilian Ghost Story” – Starring Julia Jedlikowska (Limited)

Details on all new films HERE

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© 2018 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Montana in the Best of the Web Directory

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Official state travel site offering information on places to do and things to do, places to stay, activities and events including information on Glacier and Yellowstone national parks. visitmontana

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The Many Uses For Dental Crowns [infographic]

Restorative Dentistry | Boynton Beach, FL Dentist - Dr. Hugh B. Rosenblatt

You could say that dental crowns are the building blocks of restorative dentistry. They have been used for centuries in one form or another to repair or replace missing teeth.
And modern dental crowns are better than they have ever been. The BruxZir zirconia crowns we use at our dentist office in Boynton Beach, FL, are more durable and more lifelike than they have ever been.
Rather than try to explain what dental crowns can do, we decided to show you in the infographic below. If our dental crowns could help you with any of those issues, all you need to do is make an appointment with Dr. Hugh B. Rosenblatt.
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Recent Comments

Pee Wee’s Ice Fishing Adventure

GAME NOT WORKING? This game only works on computers with the Flash plugin installed. It does not work on phones or tablets.
Please visit our new HTML5 Games section for fun games that can be played on any device.

33 Comments on Pee Wee’s Ice Fishing Adventure

  1. this is fine, but how do I save my catch?

  2. The game is so fun

  3. backwoods boy // June 14, 2017 at 10:11 pm // Reply

    so boring whats the point of the game.

  4. #MadPlantguy // October 17, 2016 at 3:35 pm // Reply

    I don’t know about this….

  5. sort of boring. Stop sliding, Pee Wee!

  6. How do you get the fish in your bag

  7. noahintheark // June 20, 2015 at 1:51 pm // Reply

    it is and can they make more games please!

  8. Bo-ring!

  9. it is awesome

  10. Sorry, Just to hard for me. (stop sliding, pee wee!)

  11. Cool game though i can’t get past level one. DX

  12. I figredout how to do it becase of jay but it is stil hard!

  13. this game is so fun

  14. so boring

  15. Rock Star 627 // June 29, 2013 at 3:35 pm // Reply

    This game is so confusing! Pee Wee slides all over the place and when I make a fishing hole, it’s not where I want it! Don’t like it.

  16. Man, this is so awesome! I figured out how to catch fish. What you do is you hold down on the space bar and you make a hole. The fish swim by and if 1 goes by your hole, you catch it. Beat the entire game!!!!!!!

  17. BORING and HARD!!!!!!!!!!

  19. fishinninja // March 20, 2013 at 5:54 pm // Reply

    fun but kinda hard

  20. sorta hard. ive got to level 2

  21. this game is boring its not fun

  22. Very boring

  23. BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  24. levle 7 HARD…………… BEST GAME EVER

  25. 383

  26. hate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  27. kidflash2244 // October 4, 2012 at 5:25 pm // Reply

    It’s fun but dredd speed’s defenders of the earth is better.

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text:
Rails Reloader: A Lesser Known Railtie Hook

I recently wrote a book about integrating with Rails from a Ruby gem, which specifically touched on using a Railtie to extend ActiveRecord, ActionController and ActionView . While these are the 3 more popular Rails libraries, there’s plenty others that are configurable.

A recent issue in Sucker Punch caused me to go digging through the Rails source code. Ultimately, the to_prepare method on ActionDispatch::Reloader resolved the issue, but I surprised was to find very little documentation about it.

The Problem

Sucker Punch lazily creates the Celluloid pools used for background job queues. For the purpose of keeping track of the queues already initialized, Sucker Punch makes use of the Celluloid Registry. Think of it as a class-level hash.

This works swimmingly in production, but not so much in development. Rails makes our lives easier by reloading code in between requests while in development, due to this setting in config/environments/development.rb:

  config.cache_classes = false

Without it, we’d be forced to restart the server after almost every request. If that sounds like a giant PITA to you, I whole heartedly agree!

So now you make your awesome job class, do some background work (send an email for example) and reload the page and boom:

Celluloid::PoolManager: async call `perform` aborted!
ArgumentError: A copy of SendInvitationJob has been removed from the module tree but is still active!
        gems/activesupport-4.0.3/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:446:in `load_missing_constant'
        gems/activesupport-4.0.3/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:184:in `const_missing'
        my-app/app/jobs/send_invitation_job.rb:6:in `block in perform'

The Celluloid registry still has reference to a the original SendInvitationJob class when it was initialized, however, reloading the code has caused the original reference to disappear and all hell breaks loose when the queue key is fetched to send another job to the class.

In my head, it made sense for the queues to be cleared out upon every request in development. In general, because Sucker Punch doesn’t have persistent queues, the best use case is for quick one-off jobs that aren’t extremely important — email and logging come to mind. Since both of these examples are typically pretty speedy, it’s unlikely there will be a huge job backup upon subsequent requests.

I knew what I wanted, but didn’t know how to accomplish it.

The Solution

Knowing the issue was related to the setting config.cache_classes = false in the development environment, I broke open the Rails source code and searched for cache_classes. The first result was the ActionDispatch reloader middleware. Fortunately, there’s a very descriptive comment at the top of the class:

  # By default, ActionDispatch::Reloader is included in the middleware stack
  # only in the development environment; specifically, when +config.cache_classes+
  # is false. Callbacks may be registered even when it is not included in the
  # middleware stack, but are executed only when <tt>ActionDispatch::Reloader.prepare!</tt>
  # or <tt>ActionDispatch::Reloader.cleanup!</tt> are called manually.

This functionality is exactly what I needed!. From here, I just needed to know what callbacks were valid. A few lines in to the class are the following methods:

# Add a prepare callback. Prepare callbacks are run before each request, prior
# to ActionDispatch::Callback's before callbacks.
def self.to_prepare(*args, &block)
  unless block_given?
    warn "to_prepare without a block is deprecated. Please use a block"
  set_callback(:prepare, *args, &block)

# Add a cleanup callback. Cleanup callbacks are run after each request is
# complete (after #close is called on the response body).
def self.to_cleanup(*args, &block)
  unless block_given?
    warn "to_cleanup without a block is deprecated. Please use a block"
  set_callback(:cleanup, *args, &block)

to_prepare and to_cleanup…and like the comments say, they do exactly what you’d expect. Given that I wanted to clear our the Celluloid registry BEFORE each request, on_prepare is the golden ticket. Now I just needed to figure out how to clear the registry.

A quick glade over the Celluloid::Registry class documentation shows some methods that might be of value. It turns out that these are instance methods for an instance of the Celluloid::Registry class. Unfortunately, when Celluloid boots, it instantiates a registry to use internally, so we need a way to get at that particular instance and clear it out. Sure enough, a class method to do just that in Celluloid::Actor is available.

Now that we all the pieces of the puzzle, it was time to put together a Railtie to trigger the behavior. Prior to needing this functionality, the Railtie in Sucker Punch was pretty simple:

module SuckerPunch
  class Railtie < ::Rails::Railtie
    initializer "sucker_punch.logger" do
      SuckerPunch.logger = Rails.logger

All it did was connect the logger to the existing Rails logger. Adding the callback to ActionDispatch looks like:

module SuckerPunch
  class Railtie < ::Rails::Railtie
    initializer "sucker_punch.logger" do
      SuckerPunch.logger = Rails.logger

    config.to_prepare do

Now when the Railtie is loaded, the Celluloid::Actor.clear_registry method is triggered before the reloading of code in the development environment, clearing out the Celluloid registry and allowing Sucker Punch to instantiate new job queues for each request.

I was unaware of any of these methods when the issue was submitted. Rather than throw my hands up and close the issue because it didn’t affect me, I thought through an approach that could work, and only then started to write code. And in fact, didn’t know what code to write!

Comments and well written code serve as great documentation. I probably wouldn’t have stumbled on ActionDispatch::Reloader without the detailed comments at the top of the class. Sure, I would’ve found the cache_classes line, but might not have given it more thought.

Next time you have a question about the syntax of a method or the order of its arguments, clone the repo (if it’s open source, of course) and do a search. I think you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can find what you’re looking for. My guess is you’ll also be pleasantly surprised at the other things you stumble upon in the process.

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