The style of officiating of women's NCAA hoops has become a major risk to player injury. Traditionally, they were slow to call almost any category of violation. The results produce games with lots of wild slapping at the ball (up to the elbows) that produce steals, flying leaps for rebounds, and piles of bodies on the floor with no calls. While a slow whistle might have been OK under the old "hald-court" rules, it needs to change.

UNC and MD this year are by far the two fastest, most physical, and roughest women's teams I have ever seen. If the refs don't initially call fouls on the rougher stuff, a game between these two quickly escalates into a slugfest and puts all the players at risk. And it goes both ways. While Latta was too aggressive at the very end, she was held and taken down near the endline with a minute or two to play. I do not think the (lacks of) calls last night favored either team, but they probably enraged fans of each team. Carolina needs it best game against MD, and they didn't last night: weak FT and 3PT shooting and rarely able to get into transition.

As a biased Tarheel fan, I believe that this MD team routinely undercuts their opponents on drives and rebounds. In the first UNC-MD game this year, there were multiple resulting injuries to UNC players. I saw that game in person and was amazed at just how out of control it was (and I have watched a lot of ACC men's basketball). That was possibly the worst-officated game I have ever seen, live or TV. The ref's were too slow to handle the transition game of either team, allowed "scrums" of 5-6 players on the floor with no call, and were just incompetent. When they did call a foul (often a "touch" one), the offending team and fans got angry about all the previous no-calls. It is harder for MD to do this against Duke because Bales is so big. Help!! I may be forced to pull for Dook in the final because I really hate how BF works the refs (and tells her team that "they never get a call")! Horrors!! :) End of my rant.

I seriously hope that the ACC and NCAA will focus on this problem before next season because each of these teams return nearly all their players and the current trend is dangerous for all of them.

Several years ago, Bush appeared in SD in front of a mural of Mount Rushmore when the real thing was nearby. Most "news" coverage at the time did not expose the fake(s).

Probably "clever" transition of "Mohawk" to "Mo' Caca" as in more shit.

"He's not Mo' Hawk, he's Mo' Caca."

This is just more racist "poppycock". :]

I am quite disappointed by both the cluelessness of the original poster and of almost every post since then. You (and unfortunately many of the World's experts[sic]) treat this widespread and deadly disease as a moral failing, a personal weakness unable to resist manipulation by advertising. This repeats the mistakes of society and doctors in understanding and treating other mental illnesses, nearly all of which were initially attributed to bad parenting, moral failings, laziness, and such. Recent research indicates that eating disorders are primarily attributable to their genetic components.

If you or someone you care about has an eating disorder, get help immediately by learning the real nature of this disease and what treatments actually work. Most everything you read in the popular press or even in a lot of the medical sites are based on myths and misinformation that can kill you.

I recommend you start by going to the site for The Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for information on the latest research and most effective, out-come based treatment programs. Its director, Dr. Cynthia Bulik, who has the first (and maybe still the only) endowed university chair in Eating Disorders in the US, leads this multi-discipline treatment center.

http://www.UNCEatingDisorders.org

(My non-professional guess is that most of the overly thin models were already suffering from an eating disorder by the time they began to model; the culture of modeling just amplified and reinforced their already-existing illness. Preventing those too thin from modeling might help prevent someone's death, but only if they get real, immediate help.)

Get help now. Be skeptical of easy answers, doing it by yourself, using just some internet site, or checking yourself into some spa-like facility promising results or one modeled on drug or alcohol treatment. But you can beat this disease, with the help of those who truly understand what you are going through.

I mostly follow IP issues affecting IT, but I believe that the EU grants copyright protection to fashion designs for three years. The protection of design as IP goes back for centuries in Europe (e.g. French petit patents).

The US has generally disallowed such copyright protection by classifying them as utilitarian and not artistic enough to qualify. A great example of hair-splitting. I remember seeing that efforts continue to obtain similar protections in the US, but face a difficult future.