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The Lakers are riding high on 16 league championships, so the fans on “Stuff Laker Fans Say,” are bombastic and entitled. They defend Kobe against rape accusations, express nostalgia for the Zen Master and shove a Lamar Odom jersey to the back of their closet. The money quotes: “Derek Fisher’s so old. RETIRE!” and “We should trade Luke Walton for…” anyone.

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From lingerie bowls and puppy bowls to marathons of “Ab Fab” and “Law & Order” and new episodes of compelling dramas, we rounded up 18 other things worth watching on the NFL’s biggest day of the year.

And we’re not going to tell you what to do, but it’s worth noting that all of these viewing experiences, like most, can be greatly enhanced with some Super Bowl snacks. Skip the game, keep the chips and dips and enjoy!

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Q4 2011 Earnings Call

February 03, 2012 11:00 am ET

Executives

Shelly J. Doran – Vice President of Investor Relations

David E. Simon – Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Executive Committee

Richard S. Sokolov – President, Chief Operating Officer, Director and Member of Executive Committee

Stephen E. Sterrett – Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Quentin Velleley – Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Michael Bilerman – Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Jonathan Habermann – Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

David Harris

Christy McElroy – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Steve Sakwa – ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Paul Morgan – Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Alexander David Goldfarb – Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division

Ki Bin Kim – Macquarie Research

Jeffrey J. Donnelly – Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Carol L. Kemple – Hilliard Lyons, Research Division

Cedrik Lachance – Green

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VIDEO: Final Pitches Before Nevada Caucuses

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No soy tan distinta

El color de mi piel no me define

Ni tampoco el modo en que camine

Ni mi voz

Ni mi acento

Ni mi lugar de nacimiento

Deducir sin conocer

Predecir sin querer

Saber quién soy realmente

No tengas tan estrecha la mente

Si hubiera una significante diferencia

No nos quedaría ninguna herencia

De generaciones que dejan

Sus historias para que tejan

Un espacio mejor

Una mejor vida

Atraviesa la linea imaginaria

Esa que divide tu burbuja de mi area

Y verás que así no soy

que no soy así

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In short:

Sunday

Got four hours of sleep and used all day to prepare mock interview packages for Communications. Had a bad headache from lack of sleep (that was not caught up on properly).

Monday

Mock interviews were okay, even though I was not able to answer questions properly… I honestly think that it will be really easy to tell if I prepared well for a question or not, because if I get asked a question that I had not prepared for, I’d start to stutter and lose track of what I want to say.

Then there were lectures. Normal day I suppose.

Tuesday

Had the longest lab day in my entire life (so far). Was driven crazy with Microbiology + Cell Biology lab going on at the same time, so had to split tasks with partner to be able to leave at an acceptable time. Chem lab also spent half of my lunch hour.

Wednesday

Began adding GFP and making cells fluoresce in Cell Biology lab. Lab wasn’t too bad today but there was an extra hour to spare that I could have used as an extra hour of sleep. Day felt super long and I really wanted to nap but I had to understand probability before the quiz the next day.

Thursday

The day where everything kind of went kaboom and nothing went right.

Chem quiz I’m not sure about my performance on (I got most of the questions, except one where the wording was really weird…) but that was the least of my worries compared to everyone else. Probability quiz was awful and I definitely failed it. I will probably continue to dislike probability until I fully understand it someday… whenever that will be.

Then after my awful day, I went to the lab to prepare cherry tree buds to be inoculated into some growth medium and propagated into trees or flowers (hopefully). And I was highly unsuccessful. Out of the 5 buds I worked on, I only managed to get one of them into medium. The rest I either overshot and cut into pieces lol, or accidentally flicked off the petri dish and into non-sterile environment. Shame. Even now I am still not happy about that and I really hope to get extra chances to work on my cutting skills… if Keith still trusts me with this task .

But yeaahhh I went home and was really depressed but I still had to crank out resume + CL packages for co-op. Hopefully I didn’t express any negative thoughts in them.

Friday (today)

Day was somewhat normal up until this afternoon. Cell Biology quiz went without a hitch hopefully… the only reason I would get anything wrong is if I interpreted the question incorrectly, because I am confident I know my amino acids better than many others because I actually bothered to try and remember their structures as well. Ah, good ol’ winter break studying.

During lunch we worked on our fibroblast cells by looking at their fluorescence readings under the fluorescence microscope and with a plate reader. I’m not sure how to interpret the numbers yet but that’s okay. Then I found out that lab was “cancelled” today for Plant Phys because it was a lab dedicated to prepping cherry buds and I had already “done” them. I don’t know how to explain how I feel about that lol. So most of us were just hanging around and waiting to lyse our fibroblast cells and obtain the supernatant after microfuging the samples… where the sample will be used for next lab.

So after a bunch of us completed the lysing and stuff, everyone kind of went into the hall and “chilled”… if you could consider worrying about future co-op something “chill” to discuss.

So today there was supposed to be a Biotech event involving bowling and dinner somewhere. I will honestly say that the plans were a little “iffy” for me this time but  I still decided to go when the event was announced. However, I did not anticipate my Thursday AND this week overall to be so depressing and I immediately decided NOT to go after my awful experience with wasting cherry buds and legit failing my probability quiz (NTS: ask for more practice from David).

I know my problem when I have negative moods sometimes – I know it is better if I skipped out on events that I will not enjoy going to and I don’t want to explain why because I doubt anyone would understand and consider it a good reason to bail? I don’t want to be forced to participate in an event, shell out lots of money and be sour and glum the entire evening. I don’t pretend when it comes to emotions and I express exactly what’s on my mind. Heck, even my parents are fed up with me when this happens and they always tell me I should have decided to stay home instead of showing my ugly face in public.

And another thing – I don’t know about everyone else, but I think catching up on school stuff should be my number one priority right now, even more than going to an event to relax and have fun. My idea of fun at the end of an extra long sleep-deprived week is to catch up on sleep and begin clearing out my piles of homework and to-do papers on top of my printer scanner. When I got home, I was close to collapsing from being so tired and I randomly fell asleep for 2 hours with the light on because it was simply that bad. Many of you can survive on really low hours of sleep but I can’t survive for long. Also I have this aching uneasy feeling in my chest area because the only course I can say I have caught up on is Chemistry… and the second being Math because of weekly quiz review (and I haven’t 100% caught up on it either). I don’t need to improve my study habits for Chem; in fact I need to do so for the rest of my 4 courses. Probably should have used Jimmy’s study habits papers for some other course instead.

So when one of the club execs heard I was planning not to go, this person went off on a tangent about how we all confirmed on going but we shouldn’t be so irresponsible and not give any notice and just decide to not go last minute because all the bowling lanes and dinner seats were booked already. I completely understand and I am at fault for not making the decision earlier despite ANY reason at all. However I felt really pressured and guilty after getting lectured, and saying “no” for the final time felt like I was making the worst decision of my life. Props for having great persuasion skills I guess. I went home and felt super depressed again because of that. It’s probably not as big of a deal as I’ve made it but what’s done is done and what feelings I had were felt.

In Conclusion

This week made me bring up thoughts about whether or not Biotech was the correct choice in terms of WORKLOAD. I believe the work and time we have put into our work so far is comparable to working in a real lab, where you must maintain several different lab protocols at the same time and maybe spend OT and lunch hours working on stuff. I understand that nothing comes easy in life and that you have to put in the effort to get what you want, but is it worth suffering from 4 years of intense studying, lack of sleep, deteriorating health and stress over getting a co-op position just to get a degree? This is why I will not be dabbling with med school at all… not that I ever really wanted to. I think I was always more attracted to Dentistry lol, but the education is too expensive and they overprice patients. Even Dental Hygiene cost over 17k a year when I went to the info session on it a few years back, so I don’t want to imagine how much an actual Dentistry degree costs.

Despite how I feel, I have always loved conducting labs. I think pretty much all of my labs have a fun aspect to it, whether it be trying to get isolated colonies from a streak plate, getting cool gel images from SDS-PAGE, making cells fluoresce with GFP, or even just staring at plant cells under the microscope. Labs are where I’m at for my future, and Biotech exceeds all other degrees when it comes to lab work and training. I just wonder why employers don’t contact a lot more of our students for a co-op position so far, since we are all 100% qualified for lab jobs. Perhaps my next cover letter needs to emphasize that.

Thus my main worry is catching up on the “knowledge” aspect of my courses because I’ve spent enough time on lab note booking and lab prep and stuff.

Finally, this entry was long. 1536 words.

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Q. What kind of man was Boaz before he married?

A.Ruthless.

Q. What do they call pastors in Germany?

A. German Shepherds.

Q. Who was the greatest financier in the Bible?

A. Noah. He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation.

Q. What was the greatest female financier in the Bible?

A. Pharaoh’s daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.

Q. What kind of motor vehicles are in the Bible?

A. Jehovah drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden in a Fury. David’s Triumph was heard throughout the land. Also, probably a Honda, because the apostles were all in one Accord.

Q. Who was the greatest comedian in the Bible?

A. Samson. He brought the house down.

Q. What excuse did Adam give to his children as to why he no longer lived in Eden?

A. Your mother ate us out of house and home.

Q. Which servant of God was the most flagrant lawbreaker in the Bible?

A. Moses. He broke all 10 commandments at once.

Q. Which area of Palestine was especially wealthy?

A. The area around Jordan. The banks were always overflowing.

Q. Who is the greatest baby sitter mentioned in the Bible?

A. David. He rocked Goliath to a very deep sleep.

Q. Which Bible character had no parents?

A. Joshua, son of Nun.

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An article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal highlighted GMAC application trend data, noting that some European schools saw the number of applicants fall by more than 10 percent even before the latest round of economic challenges hit the region. Even schools in more economically stable countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom have been affected, in part because their tuitions have been rendered increasingly steep by falling currencies in neighboring countries.

According to the Journal article, European students who can afford it have been looking to programs overseas – either at U.S. schools or at the overseas campuses of European schools – as a means of setting themselves up for better post-graduate employment options. Spain’s IESE Business School in Barcelona saw its application volume drop 5 percent this year as locals, deterred by the country’s 22.9 percent unemployment rate, have applied overseas instead, the Journal reports.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, IMD Business School is having a harder time convincing European students that its program is worth the investment, especially as the euro’s value has dropped against the Swiss franc. Applications from students from Western Europe, which account for 20 percent of the Swiss school’s class, dropped 10 percent. IMD has increased financial aid by a third, delayed payment deadlines and encouraged students to apply for more loans in an effort to counteract the drop in applicants, the Journal reports.

Likewise, Italy’s SDA Bocconi School of Management is now extending merit-based tuition waivers, one for 50 percent of tuition costs and another for 70 percent, to students from countries other than Italy in Western Europe.

Other European schools with campuses in different regions of the world have seen European students favor those locations instead, the Journal article added. For example, the Shanghai campus of France’s Grenoble Graduate School of Business has had an uptick in European students over the past two years.

Telio Gourdon, a master’s student in international business at Grenoble’s Singapore campus, says he was motivated to leave his native France by the prospect of greater international exposure and better post-graduation employment options. “Singapore is a good place to be for a businessman,” he told the Journal.

For the complete Wall Street Journal article, click here.

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However, just because a product occupies shelf space in a boutique food store doesn’t mean it’s any better for you than its generic counterpart. Advertisers are very aware of the powers of “mood affiliation”, which is the tendency to associate familiar claims with one another. For example, consumers are very likely to believe a food that has no cholesterol is very likely to have no fat as well, even though the two are unrelated.

This cognitive bias allows the food industry to make a variety of claims that confer fictitious health benefits, often resulting in higher prices and no value to you.

Let’s take a look at the perpetrators.

• Deception #1: Excessive Use of the Word “No” on Labels.
  The expectation that health foods contain no man-made ingredients is strongly held, and not without reason. However, health food manufacturers are much more likely to emphasize the lack of certain ingredients on their label, even when their commercial counterparts have the same qualities. For example, a Stanford professor compared the labels of 12 different brands of potato chips, and found that organic and specialty chips were 6 times more likely to emphasize the lack of ingredients such as soy, trans-fats, and cholesterol, even though this is just as true for Lays and Ruffles. There was no difference in health quality between the two groups of chips.
• Deception 2: Organic Food Is Always Better
  Despite common perceptions, there’s not a whole lot of evidence that the nutritional quality of organic food is much higher than non-organic food. This is because the term organic itself refers to particular manufacturing protocols used to make the food, and not necessarily the end product itself.

  However, people frequently commit attribution errors when making judgments about organic food. A study conducted at the University of Michigan found that people assume an organic product has less-calories than a similar non-organic product, which causes people eating processed organic food to consume more calories than they would have otherwise. In some cases the inferred benefits of eating organic extend beyond nutrition, and gives people a belief that they need to exercise less because they eat organic.

• Deception 3: Fair Trade = Healthy
  The Fair Trade certification industry is guilty of two swindles:
  • #1: It doesn’t help poor people (much).
  • #2: It has little relation to the nutritional content of the food.

  The Fair Trade certification industry is complicated to judge, mostly because it’s a collection of heterogeneous agencies that have different criteria for assigning its badge. It’s also become a profit channel more so than a statement of an organization’s ethics.

  However, it’s important to realize that most Fair Trade certification agencies (supposedly) grant their certification based on production inputs that bear no direct relation to the quality of food being produced, such as worker treatment and eco-friendly business practices. Much like the organic label, people mistakenly assume that Fair Trade means a food has less calories and more nutrients because it’s Fair Trade, which isn’t true.




• Deception #4: Grass-Fed Beef
  Grass-fed beef has become popular in America, and it’s purported benefits are that it has a more beneficial ratio of Omega-3/Omega-6 fatty acids, a higher concentration of anti-oxidants like superoxide dismutase, and lower levels of nitrates, which creates healthier beef.

  These health benefits are either non-existent or exaggerated.

  It’s true that grass-fed beef has a higher concentration of omega-3 fatty acids and anti-oxidants than grain-fed beef, but the total amount of these and other nutrients in any kind of beef is very small compared to plant sources. To get the recommended 1.6 grams of omega-3 fatty acid a day from grass-fed beef alone, you’d have to eat 4.6 pounds of beef a day. The biggest health benefits of beef is its high protein content, and the minerals iron and zinc, which have a very high bio-availibility when consumed from meat. The differences between grass and grain-fed beef for these nutrients are not different from one another.

  And while it’s true that grass-fed beef has a higher concentration of “good” fat like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), these observations are typically made with raw meat, and it’s usually lost after cooking. Similarly, the nitrate content in beef is influenced by many variables in the production process, such as the fertilizer used in the soil, run off from nearby water sources, and the moisture level the grass when it’s eaten.

• Deception #5: Going gluten-free is good for everyone
  About 1% of the western population has Coeliac’s disease, which is an autoimmune disorder caused by a genetic modification to a peptide in the intestine which breaks down when it comes in contact with gluten based molecules. The consumption of gluten causes an inflammatory response within the intestine when it’s ingested.

  If you are one of these people, by all means, avoid gluten. You’re allergic to it.

  If you’re not one of these people, relax a little bit, and do yourself a favor by being more discerning about food labels. It’s true that gluten-intolerance is showing up with an increasing regularity, but it’s still a small percentage of the population and partly caused by people’s increased awareness of it.

  For the majority of the population, the presence or absence of gluten has little bearing on the quality of food being eaten. It’s the diet fad du jour, but any diet approach that exclusively emphasizes a single variable is too simplistic.

  If you doubt this is the case for gluten, then consider the previous “single variable” diet fads popularized in the past: lactose, fat, sugar, etc. They’ve all been proven wrong.

Conclusion
The bottom line in all these myths is that people mistakenly assume various certifications as proxies for nutritional quality, but their presence bears no meaning to the quality of food you eat when you hold other things equal. The best way to ensure you’re eating right is to consistently consume a diet of fresh foods with minimally processed ingredients, and spare yourself the confusion of deciphering the legitimacy of the latest fads of the health food industry.

References Used:

• Shan, Lu, et. al. “Structural Basis for Gluten Intolerance in Celiac Sprue”. Science. September, 2002, vol. 297 pgs. 2275-2279.
• Aggarwal, Sarrabh. “Screening for Celiac Disease in Average-Risk and High-Risk Populations.” Therapeutic Advances in Gastroentology. January 2012, Volume 5, pgs. 37-47. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263981/ ?tool=pubmed
• Schuldt, Jonathan, et. al. “The Organic Path to Obesity? Organic Claims Influence Calorie Judgments and Exercise Recommendations.” Judgment and Decision Making. June 2010, Vol. 5, pp. 144-150.
• Williams, Christine. “Nutritional Quality of Organic Food: Shades of Grey or Shades of Green?” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2002, pgs. 19-24.
• Comerfod, John. “Telling the Grass-Fed Beef Story.” URL: http://www.das.psu.edu/research-extension/beef/pdf/ Telling%20the%20Grass.pdf
• Blackman, Allen, et. al. “Producer Level Benefits of Sustainability Certification.” Conservation Biology. December 2011, volume 25, pgs. 1176-1185.
• Stoltenow, Charlie, et. al. “Nitrate Poisoning in Livestock.” North Dakota State University, September 1998.
• Daley, Cynthia, et. al. “A Review of Fatty-Acid Profiles and Antioxidant Content in Grass-Fed and Grain-Fed Beef.” Nutrition Journal. March 2010.
• Katz, David. “Is Gluten-Free Just A Fad?” Fooducate.
• Schuldt, Jonathon. “The “Fair Trade” Effect: Health Halos From Social Ethics Claims.” Social Psychological and Personality Science. January 2012.

Written on 2/3/2012 by Jonathan Bechtel. Jonathan is the founder of Health Kismet, a green superfood that condenses 35 raw greens, herbs, and probiotics into a powder that can be mixed with a drink or other food supplement. He blogs about health, diet, nutrition, and culture at blog.healthkismet.com.

Photo Credit: Simon Shek

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The Telegraph, Alain Ducasse’s Favourite Paris Haunts
Suivre M. Ducasse!

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Q4 2011 Earnings Call

February 3, 2012 1:30 p.m. ET

Executives

Art Coppola – CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors

Ed Coppola – President

Tom O’Hern – Senior Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer

Randy Brant – Executive VP, Real Estate.

Analysts

Craig Schmidt – Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Quentin Velleley – Citi

Paul Morgan – Morgan Stanley

Christy McElroy – UBS

Todd Thomas – KeyBanc Capital Markets

Vincent Chao – Deutsche Bank

Steve Sakwa – ISI

Cedrik Lachance – Green Street Advisors

Alexander Goldfarb – Sandler O’Neill

Wes Golladay – RBC Capital Markets

Ben Yang – KBW

Tayo Okusanya – Jefferies & Co.

Michael Mueller – JPMorgan

Presentation

Operator

Welcome to the Macerich Company fourth quarter 2011 earnings conference call. Today’s call is being recorded. [Operator instructions.] would now like to turn the call over to Jean Wood, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please

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