text:
B2 relating to the standards of good or bad behaviour, fairness, honesty, etc. that each person believes in, rather than to laws:
It's her moral obligation to tell the police what she knows.
The Democrats are attempting to capture the moral high ground (= are trying to appear more honest and good than the other political parties).
C1 behaving in ways considered by most people to be correct and honest:
She's a very moral woman.
Oh, stop being so moral!
More examples
- My moral duty as Secretary-General of the United Nations is to do everything possible to avoid war.
- My grandmother, as usual, lamented the decline in moral standards in today's society.
- He has very strong moral convictions.
- How on earth can you say that? Do you have no moral values?
- There is a very moral tone to this book.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Morality and rules of behaviour
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
moral noun (STANDARDS)
morals C2 [ plural ]
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
moral noun (MESSAGE)
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words


text:
It only takes a minute to get started. Fill out our simple sign up form and login to the website.
This step is voluntary but will seriously enhance your chances of getting interest from other members on the site. Let people know a bit about yourself, your hobbies and upload a nice photo of yourself.
Utilise our website's advanced search to spot members who match your requirements. Or just flip through listings and spot singles that interest you.
Discovered someone who looks interesting? Send them a word or two or just a wink and see what happens next. With a little luck you'll be on your way to finding your proper date.
It'll only take 30 seconds

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In what year did the idea for the first Paralympics start?
Which city hosted the Paralympics in 2008?
How many gold medals did Paralympic champion Tanni-Grey Thompson win during her career?
Who is the Paralympian in the picture at the top of this quiz?
Joanne Round was the youngest-ever Paralympian when she was just 12 in the Seoul Paralympics in 1998. What sport did she do?


text:
Product Information
This cute plush Holiday Hedgehog is sturdy enough for chasing, chewing and tumbling, yet it's soft and cuddly for snuggling pleasure! The Holiday Hedgehog wears a festive Santa hat. Large grunts and rattles, while junior has a squeaker! Fun for hours!
Sizing Information:
We have an 18 year old poodle who loved a toy very similar to this in her youth (It did not have a Santa hat). For Christmas, I bought her this one to hopefully jog her memory. I did get her to play for a little bit, which super-sized my Christmas spirit! Our other dog managed to steal it and chew the hat off, but overall it was money very well spent!
Gave this to my dog for christmas, and she absolutely loves it!
This is a nice quality toy, but unfortunately I should have read the dimensions for a size large hedgehog toy -- it was much smaller than I expected. I really thought size large would be bigger than 8.5in. My dog is 90lbs.! She had a larger one before (it got lost) and loved it. I was so disappointed because I wanted to replace her old one. So I spent twice as much (I've seen this toy in stores) for not reading all the product info.
My dogs love this toy they play all the time with it!!!


text:
Mike Mueller-Smith is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan and a NICHD Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Population Studies Center. His research examines topics related to the economics of crime, discrimination, and public assistance programs, most notably the wide-ranging effects of incarceration and the lives of sexual minorities. He is currently working on studying the household spillovers of the criminal justice system, felony disenfranchisement and safety net bans resulting from felony drug convictions. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2015 and will transition to being an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan in 2017.
To sign up for office hours, go to: https://goo.gl/1Icqg0. They are held in Lorch Hall #208.


text:
Senior Software Engineer
- Recruiter
- Systems Search
- Location
- Salary
- Competitive
- Posted
- 19 Jan 2013
- Closes
- 22 Jan 2013
- Sector
- Technology, Software Development
- Hours
- Permanent
Sr Software Engineer
Seeking expertise in software design, development, implementation and maintenance of software applications. Candidate must have fluency in many development environments and web-based tools to provide technical expertise and guidance in the development of complex, high-performance software and systems (many of which are web-based).
This position requires the use of creativity and innovation, and through these vehicles influence and bring positive impact to the market.
- Lead and/or support the full life cycle of application development, using documentation-based and/or agile-based management processes
- Responsible for planning, processing and performing projects & tasks in an efficient manner with minimal assistance from direct supervisor
- Author quality source code. Document your code, including high level and detail level designs. Review team source code, as necessary. Solve problems quickly and completely. Identify tasks which require automation and automate them
- Lead and perform solution analysis, code analysis, requirements analysis, software review, identification of code metrics, system risk analysis, and software reliability analysis. Assist with the delivery of supporting technical documentation. Make specific determinations about system performance, and review changes in code and environment that can affect system performance
- Lead and/or assist application database design and implementation. Be comfortable in large database environments
- Align specifications and user manuals with source code/solutions
- Manage and respond promptly and professionally to defect reports. Provide assistance to testers and support personnel as needed to determine system problems
- Lead junior development staff, as needed
- Support, maintain and document existing software functionality
- Assist with the implementation of our solution within client solutions
- Assist with project planning and project management
- Strong and effective inter-personal and communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of clients and staff, while maintaining positive client and staff interactions
- Act as an interface to complementary teams as needed
- Provide recommendations to management concerning issues of programmer productivity and software development management
- Research and recommend software tools to management. Perform current technology assessment on an on-going basis to determine area of improvement
- Requires a Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent degree in Computer Science, Computer/Electrical Engineering, or a closely related Engineering degree
- 6 years of experience in the job offered
- Must have experience in: C#; Object-Oriented design; Microsoft ASP.NET; Microsoft ASP; Microsoft Visual Studio; Java J2EE & Eclipse; Oracle; Microsoft SQL Server; Database Design; and Delphi
- Must have legal authority to work permanently in the U.S.


text:
Strategic use of employee opinion surveys: Using a quasi-linkage approach to model the drivers of organisational effectiveness
Mason, Claire M., Chang, Artemis C., & Griffin, Mark A. (2005) Strategic use of employee opinion surveys: Using a quasi-linkage approach to model the drivers of organisational effectiveness. Australian Journal of Management, 30(1), pp. 127-144.
Traditionally, organisations use benchmarking to evaluate their employee opinion survey data. This approach is useful for identifying strengths and weaknesses in organisational performance, but it does not tell us how to bring about improvements on those indicators. Although linkage research (whereby survey data are linked with other organisational measures of performance) can provide this information, this approach is often not feasible. The 'quasi-linkage' approach described in this paper represents a practical compromise. We illustrate this approach using survey data collected from 1246 employees, demonstrating how it can be used to derive strategic information from employee opinion data.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
|ID Code:
|Item Type:
|Journal Article
|Additional Information:
|For more information, please refer to the journal's website (see hypertext link) or contact the author.
Author contact details:email@example.com
|Additional URLs:
|Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > COMMERCE MANAGEMENT TOURISM AND SERVICES (150000) > BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT (150300)
|Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > QUT Business School
|Copyright Owner:
|Copyright 2005 The Australian Graduate School of Management
|Deposited On:
|03 Jul 2007 00:00
|Last Modified:
|03 Jul 2017 09:03
Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX
Repository Staff Only: item control page


text:
During your holiday at Adler Family & Wellness Hotel Resort and Clubresidence find some time for yourself, to relax and rest immersed in a peaceful athmosphere after a day spent to discover the beauty of Moena and of Fassa Valley, in our exclusive wellness center AquaVitalis where you can find:
|Swimming pool: after a day fully immersend in the nature here you can rest by the swimming pool and the relax area.
|Wellness area: equipped with sauna, turkish bath, thepidarium, kneipp, solarium.
|Gym: furnished with Technogym equipments to keep fit also during the holiday
- children under 14 years are admitted to the swimming pools area only, and only accompanied by an adult
- admittance to the wellness area is reserved for people over 16 years
- in the wellness area the use of swimswit, or bathrobe, or towels is required
- complete rule list available at the reception.
Pools: 10-12am and 3.30-9pm
Wellness area: 3.30-9pm
Gym: Â 10-12am and 3.30-9pm
Kinny and all the staff of the BABY CLUB are waiting for the children to have fun all together with the funny entertainment programme for children 3-10 years with timetable 3.30pm - 6.30pm and 8pm - 10pm (only on request also 10am-12am) with games, fun and the evening baby dance.
Outside the Resort, in the garden there is a beautiful children's playground for our little guests, and for the consolle lovers we have also a game room with ping pong and electronic games.


text:
Dir. LouiseArchambault. Can. 2005. 102mins.Louise Archambault's cheerful debut may bebookended by some ambitious statements about the inevitability of geneticinheritance, but by the end has proved to be a light romp that is more than happyto settle for crowd-pleasing solutions.If audience responseat Locarno, where Familia played last week, is any indication, then itshould go ...
Restricted Content
Registration is required to read the entire article and to gain access to other restricted areas of the website


text:
Sun Table Sudia Design Labs
2 Recommendations
eliztbone's recommendation
The Sun Table by Sudia Design Labs is a large solar panel integrated into a table. After 3 hours of charging the table will power devices, such as a laptop, for about 3 hours. The table is also weatherproof so it is great for outdoor spaces. At $3600 this isn't the new eco-friendly trend for everybody. But, if you have the dough, you might as well be stylish and earth friendly at the same time!
espy's recommendation
Modern form and a truly modern function! The Sun Table stores enough energy to power a laptop for four hours. It's completely weatherproof and stores a full charge in another four hours of direct sunlight. Sure it's not cheap at $1999-- but it is less than it was a few months ago (see other review). Besides it looks cool AND it may help you stay outdoors a few more hours this summer.


text:
THE E-NEWS MAGAZINE OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA • v. 7, no. 5
[ View archive ]
Services & Supplies
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In this issue …
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Communicating the Value of Geoscience
Fun with Geoscience Trivia
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See our handy upcoming deadlines & events calendar!
Keep GSA Connection coming!
Add geosociety.org to your address book or approved sender list.
Portland, Oregon, USA.
18–21 October, Portland, Oregon, USA
This year's meeting includes 40 field trips:
Abstracts submission is now open. Help shape the meeting and get your abstract in today! Still have field work to do? You now have until Tuesday, 11 August, to prepare and submit abstracts. Please note: All speakers must register for the meeting.
[ submit abstract ]
Registration opens the first week of June; the early registration deadline is 14 Sept.
By registering early, you'll…
Space Requests: If you are planning an alumni party, reception, banquet, business meeting, or other social event to take place at the annual meeting, please reserve space for that event by 23 June.[ reserve now ]
The Salmon River near Stanley, Idaho, USA.
Photo by K.E. Asmus.
29 Aug.–4 Sept.
Explore the geomorphology and hydrology of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River on a fully outfitted rafting expedition through the Impassable Canyon. Seats are filling up quickly, so reserve your spot in the boat today![ learn more ]
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13–16 March: Northeastern–Southeastern Sections Joint Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Abstracts deadline: 8 Dec. 2009.
11–13 April: North-Central–South-Central Sections Joint Meeting, Branson, Missouri, USA. Abstracts deadline: 19 Jan. 2010.
21–23 April: Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. Abstracts deadline: 26 Jan. 2010.
27–29 May: Cordilleran Section Meeting, Anaheim, California, USA. Abstracts deadline: 9 Mar. 2010.
Special Paper 451
Management and Restoration of Fluvial Systems with Broad Historical Changes and Human Impacts
edited by L. Allan James, Sara L. Rathburn, and G. Richard Whittecar
Papers in this volume bridge classic late-twentieth-century fluvial geomorphology with modern concepts of river management and restoration.
Special Paper 453
Preservation of Random Megascale Events on Mars and Earth:Influence on Geologic History
edited by Mary G. Chapman and Laszlo P. KeszthelyiThis volume expands our geoscience horizons by examining various short-duration random geologic processes that have been recognized on both Earth and Mars.
Special Paper 454Earth Science in the Urban Ocean: The Southern California Continental Borderlandedited by Homa J. Lee and William R. NormarkThis volume summarizes recent efforts to understand fundamental natural processes in the distinctive environments of the Southern California Continental Borderland and associated Western Transverse Ranges.
[ Geology | GSA Bulletin | Geosphere | Lithosphere ]
Government Affairs
You are invited to join GSA's PolicyComNet wiki, a new online geoscience-based networking tool for GSA members. This Web site will help you plan communications with public policy officials on pending regional, state, and local decisions.
Calendar Close-ups
• 2-5 October, NGWA Theis Conference: Ground Water and Climate Change, Boulder, Colorado, USA. Participation submissions due 10 June.
The Earth Portal Web site provides a comprehensive resource for timely, objective, science-based information about the environment and incorporates three components: The Encyclopaedia of Earth, The Earth Forum, and The Earth News (a weekly newsletter).
Supported by the Environmental Information Coalition and the National Council for Science and the Environment.
GSA member benefits include savings in many areas — U.S.-based GSA members can SAVE up to US$3,300 on the purchase of a new Subaru
through the Subaru VIP Program.
Communicating the Value of Geoscience
Giant trilobite from Portugal (see Gutiérrez-Marco
et al., Geology, May 2009).
Work by Juan Gutiérrez-Marco et al. (Geology, May 2009) on giant trilobites found in a rock quarry in northern Portugal received extensive attention in the U.S. and European press.[ abstract | Discovery Channel article ]
A paper by Jeff Dingler et al. (GSA Bulletin, posted 24 April 2009 online ahead of print) detailing findings of a high-resolution seismic imaging technique (known as CHIRP) used to supply a comprehensive view of faulting beneath the Lake Tahoe Basin received local coverage in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, the Sierra Sun, the Reno Gazette-Journal, and other news outlets.
[ abstract | Sierra Sun article ]
Research by Richard Fiske et al. (GSA Bulletin, May-June 2009) cites new evidence of a violent past for Hawaii's gentle Kilauea volcano.
[ abstract | National Geographic News article ]
A new study by Ari Matmon et al. (GSA Bulletin, May-June 2009) describes the oldest known expanse of Earth's surface as preserved and protected by desert pavement armor in Israel. The story was reported by Live Science, and appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, Yahoo News, and elsewhere.
[ abstract | NY Daily News article ]
Research by Birger Rasmussen et al. (Geology, May 2009) detailing traces of primitive cave bacteria and strengthening a hypothesis that similar bacteria could exist on Mars appeared on MSNBC and Discovery.com.
[ abstract | Discovery Channel article ]
Work by Robert Larter et al. (Geology, May 2009) was reported on Huliq News, Red Orbit, Environmental News Network, e! Science News, Science Daily, and other sites. The study uses onboard ship sonar technology in the Antarctic to find new clues about possible sea-level rise.
[ abstract | e! Science News article ]
GSA's EarthCache™ program received coverage on Ohio.com in an article titled "Sport weds technology, nature."
[ Earthcache Web page | Ohio.com article ]
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Click here to manage your GSA e-News subscriptions.
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Visit the GSA Connection archive on the Web any time. To sponsor this newsletter or place an ad, contact the GSA Advertising Manager,
© 2009, Geological Society of America, 3300 Penrose Place, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; www.geosociety.org. All rights reserved.
GSA Connection is a monthly e-publication of The Geological Society of America, containing news and items of interest to the geoscience community. This publication may contain links to sites on the Internet that are owned and operated by third parties. GSA is not responsible for the content of any such third-party site. GSA Connection may also contain advertising for science-related goods and services.


text:
The center back came close to leaving White Hart Lane two years ago and made just 16 Premier League appearances last season, but is hoping to prove his worth at the club
Whether Dawson is in the plans of new manager Mauricio Pochettino remains to be seen, but the player - who made 41 appearances in all competitions last season - is confident of remaining at the club.
MORE: U.S. Soccer MVP rankings | USA vs. Turkey photos
And instead of discussing speculation on his future - with just one year remaining on his current deal - Dawson is focused on helping Tottenham reach the top four and qualify for Champions League football.
"I've been at Tottenham for nine-and-a-half years," Dawson said on talkSPORT. "It's a great football club and I've loved every minute of it while I've been here.
"The expectations are high and the players want to achieve them. We want to be in the top four and hopefully next year we'll have another push."


text:
An investigation on the accuracy of regional ocean models through field trials
Smith, Ryan N., Kelly, Jonathan, Nazarzadeh, Kimia, & Sukhatme, Gaurav S. (2013) An investigation on the accuracy of regional ocean models through field trials. In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2013), 6 - 10 May 2013, Kongresszentrum Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Submitted Version
Administrators only | Request a copy from author
Recent efforts in mission planning for underwater vehicles have utilised predictive models to aid in navigation, optimal path planning and drive opportunistic sampling. Although these models provide information at a unprecedented resolutions and have proven to increase accuracy and effectiveness in multiple campaigns, most are deterministic in nature. Thus, predictions cannot be incorporated into probabilistic planning frameworks, nor do they provide any metric on the variance or confidence of the output variables. In this paper, we provide an initial investigation into determining the confidence of ocean model predictions based on the results of multiple field deployments of two autonomous underwater vehicles. For multiple missions conducted over a two-month period in 2011, we compare actual vehicle executions to simulations of the same missions through the Regional Ocean Modeling System in an ocean region off the coast of southern California. This comparison provides a qualitative analysis of the current velocity predictions for areas within the selected deployment region. Ultimately, we present a spatial heat-map of the correlation between the ocean model predictions and the actual mission executions. Knowing where the model provides unreliable predictions can be incorporated into planners to increase the utility and application of the deterministic estimations.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
|ID Code:
|Item Type:
|Conference Paper
|Additional URLs:
|Ocean Models, Field Validation, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Mission Planning
|Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > EARTH SCIENCES (040000) > OCEANOGRAPHY (040500) > Oceanography not elsewhere classified (040599)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES (080000) > ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND IMAGE PROCESSING (080100) > Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics (080101)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > ENGINEERING (090000) > MARITIME ENGINEERING (091100) > Special Vehicles (091106)
|Current > Institutes > Institute for Future Environments
Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Science & Engineering Faculty
|Copyright Owner:
|Copyright 2012 The Authors
|Deposited On:
|23 Sep 2012 22:41
|Last Modified:
|17 Jul 2017 21:09
Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX
Repository Staff Only: item control page


text:
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 06:52 PM
Tansy_Gold (15,648 posts)
STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 21 February 2013
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 21 February 2013[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 20 February 2013
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 20 February 2013
[center][font color=red]
Dow Jones 13,927.54 -108.13 (-0.77%)
Nasdaq 3,164.41 -49.18 (-1.53%)
[font color=green]10 Year 2.01% -0.03 (-1.47%)
30 Year 3.21% -0.03 (-0.93%)[font color=black]
[HR width=85%]
[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]
[HR width=95%]
[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
[HR width=95%]
[HR width=95%]
[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]
41 replies, 4355 views
|41 replies
STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 21 February 2013 (Original post)
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Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:01 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
1. Finance and the American poor: Margin calls; Life on the edges of Americas financial mainstream
ONLY one thing is worse than the financial industry dangling inappropriate products in front of poor customers, and that is not providing them with financial services at all. In December the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released a survey that found roughly one in 12 American households, or some 17m adults, are unbanked, meaning they lack a current or savings account.
The survey also found that one in every five American households is underbanked, meaning that they have a bank account but also rely on alternative servicestypically, high-cost products such as payday loans, cheque-cashing services, non-bank money orders or pawn shops.
Not all the unbanked are poor, nor do all poor people lack bank accounts. But the rate of the unbanked among low-income households (defined in the FDIC survey as those with an annual income below $15,000) is more than three times the overall rate. The proportion of poor Americans without an account compares particularly badly with other rich places (see chart).
The unbanked usually have no alternative but to use cash for all their transactions. Without an account to put pay-cheques into, they have to use cheque-cashers. This does not just mean incurring a fee; carrying large amounts of cash also increases the risk and harm of theft. To pay their utility bills the unbanked need either a non-bank money order, for which they have to pay a fee, or a place that accepts utility payments in cash....
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:10 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
2. Want Higher Productivity? Stop Treating Employees Like Children
You could get a lot more done if your employees would just get off the Internet and get to work, right? Some estimate that time spent not working results in $130 billion (with a b) in lost productivity. So the last thing you want is your employees on Facebook or personal email. (Reading Inc.com is, of course, always good for your business.)
But a new study done by a team of economists reports that, even if theyre working, its the the temptation of the forbidden Internet that actually lowers their productivity. Im always skeptical of research involving 60 volunteers, who are undoubtedly college students who had to volunteer for a study to get credit for their introductory psychology classes. Even so, the results are intriguing: They showed that concentration dropped when there was a video that the participants wanted to watch but were told not to.
The theory is, the energy to resist temptation detracted from their ability to focus on the task. Lesson: If you just let them watch the video, they can then focus on the task at hand.
Im sure that is true. Any time were focused on something other than the task at hand, were more likely to make mistakes. But the unspoken problem here is not the temptation itself but the idea that the manager is going to swoop in and discipline them for taking a break. The authors of the study latched on to the Internet as the example of how this plays out in the workplace, but the reality is, the Internet is only one small attention sinkhole. Co-workers, planning your kids birthday party, last nights episode of Downton Abbey, and everything else under the sun can also be a distraction to your employees. I think its more of an issue of micromanagement. So, with all these things competing for your employees attention, just how do you increase productivity? I say, let them be grownups. Dont say, No Internet for you! Not because its a waste of time, but because grownups should be monitoring themselves. You should be looking at results and not monitoring minute-by-minute productivity. When a problem is happening with the result, you deal with that. The reality is, some people need absolute silence and can concentrate on a project for hours without taking a break. Other people work better with music and with frequent interruptions, be it with other humans or the Internet. Some work best in an office environment. Others work best at home. Some people do their best thinking in the morning. Others are brilliant only after 10 p.m....
Read more: http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/want-higher-productivity-let-your-employees-be-grown-ups.html#ixzz2LU3W53JH
Read more: http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/want-higher-productivity-let-your-employees-be-grown-ups.html#ixzz2LU3GpZX2
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:16 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
3. Janet Yellen explains our crummy recovery in three charts by Ezra Klein
Yellens core question is simple: deeper recessions are usually followed by stronger-than-average recoveries. But this recovery has been significantly weaker than past experience would have predicted. Why?
As all great orators do, Yellen begins with a chart. The dashed line in exhibit 1 shows how real GDP would have been expected to increase in this recovery, based on the experience of the United States and other advanced economies and given the depth and duration of the Great Recession, she says.
Yellens innovation in this speech is that rather than focusing on whats holding this recovery back, she focuses on the forces that have driven past recoveries the tailwinds, as she calls them that have been absent from this one.
Tailwind #1: Fiscal policy. History shows that fiscal policy often helps to support an economic recovery, Yellen says. But thats not been the case in this recovery. In the year following the end of the recession, discretionary fiscal policy at the federal, state, and local levels boosted growth at roughly the same pace as in past recoveries, as exhibit 3 indicates. But instead of contributing to growth thereafter, discretionary fiscal policy this time has actually acted to restrain the recovery.
Tailwind #2: Housing. Before the Great Recession, housing investment added an average of 1/2 percentage point to real GDP growth in the two years after each of the previous four recessions, considerably more than its contribution to growth at other times. During this recovery, in contrast, residential investment, on net, has contributed very little to growth since the recession ended.
Tailwind #3: Faith. Another important tailwind in most economic recoveries is one that tends to be taken for grantedthe faith most of us have, based on history and personal experience, that recessions are temporary and that the economy will soon get back to normal, says Yellen. Even during recessions, households expectations for income growth tend to be reasonably stable, which provides support for overall spending. In the most recent recession, however, surveys suggest that consumers sharply revised down their prospects for future income growth and have only partially adjusted up their expectations since then.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:19 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
4. Bhutan to Be First Country to Go 100% Organic By Anthony Gucciardi
...What this comes down to is no GMO, no pesticides, no herbicides, no fluoride-based spray products, no Monsanto intrusion at all, and a whole lot of high quality food available for the 700,000 citizens of Bhutan. Food that, at one time, was simply called food...
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:28 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
5. Feds Outline What Insurers Must Cover, Down To Polyp Removal
The Obama administration on Wednesday released its final rule on essential health benefits, which sets out the coverage insurers must offer starting in 2014. Insurers must cover 10 broad categories of care, including emergency services, maternity care, hospital and doctors' services, mental health and substance abuse care and prescription drugs.
Essential benefit requirements apply mainly to individual and small group plans. The requirements also apply to benefits provided to those newly eligible for Medicaid coverage. A few of the requirements also affect self-insured plans and large group plans offered by employers. Limits on the maximum out-of-pocket costs a consumer would face each year, for example, would apply to all policies. That amount would be $6,250 for a single policyholder and $12,500 for a family based on this year's rate. The 2014 number is expected to be slightly higher. The 149-page final rule retains requirements that insurers offer at least one drug per therapeutic category, or the same number as a state's benchmark plan, whichever is greater. Many state benchmark plans require at least two drugs per class.
Responding to concerns from some advocacy groups, the final rule also states that insurers must have procedures to allow patients to get "clinically appropriate" prescriptions not on the plan's list of covered medications.
"This is an improvement," said Stephen Finan, director of policy for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. "It suggests that if you need a drug and that's not on the formulary, you can get it, which was not the case before."..
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:39 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
6. Why the Market Dropped 100+ in an hour Wednesday
...Stocks then fell to fresh lows after the minutes indicated Committee members saw little change to the economic outlook. Along those lines, members-with the exception of Esther George-maintained their support for the continuation of highly accommodative policy...
Response to Demeter (Reply #6)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 07:52 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
7. U.S. stocks slump after Fed minutes
U.S. stocks fall from multiyear highs as investors react to conflicting views from the Federal Reserve on its monetary policy.
U.S. stocks fell sharply on Wednesday, retreating from multiyear highs, after minutes from the Federal Reserves last meeting illustrated differing views over continued stimulus.
If the Fed is talking about ending its asset-purchase program, its because they view the economic landscape as better, said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG LLC.
Gold sinks below $1,600 amid death cross talk
Gold futures tumble below $1,600 an ounce Wednesday, pressured by strength in the dollar to settle at their lowest since late July, just ahead of the release of minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserves January meeting, as talk of a so-called death cross in gold prices spooks investors.
... A death cross is a crossover resulting from a securitys long-term moving average breaking above its short-term moving average or support level, said Chintan Karnani, an independent bullion analyst based in New Delhi. Additionally, the long-term moving average becomes the new resistance level in the rising market. In laymans terms, this implies that golds long-term bull run is over and that it could be in a bear phase, he said. Fundamentals are there as investors are shunning gold exchange-traded funds. Indian gold demand is not there due to a nationwide strike today by workers.
The death cross hasnt been reached because both moving averages need to be moving lower, said Ross Norman, chief executive officer of Sharps Pixley. Gold death cross, if there is one, is not golds only problem. Even so, the truth is that gold has been weak for a while and bears exploited it, Norman said. Golds not necessarily in a long-term bearish trend, according to Karnani.
In the past, gold has reversed many times between $1,530 and $1,550, said Karnani. For gold to be in a long-term bear trend, it needs a daily close below $1,520 for a week, he said. The next one week is very crucial for gold prices. I am optimistic and do not expect gold prices to fall below $1,470 under the worst-case scenario....
Fed, uneasy over QE, plans bond-buy debate
The Federal Reserve will consider major changes to its quantitative easing program at its next meeting in March. Ideas on the table including varying the pace of the $85 billion per month purchases, or ending them. One new idea would have the Fed maintain the size of its balance sheet longer than expected...
Response to Demeter (Reply #7)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:34 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
20. 7 signs that stocks are about to slide (BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?)
The VIX fear index is at its lowest level since 2006. Big-time buyouts are making waves on Wall Street. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poors 500-stock index have been pushing all-time highs. Well, maybe things arent so hot. The general consensus in the blogosphere is that a market pullback is likely in the next several weeks, even if the long-term trend is decidedly higher.
Many folks like to run their mouth about the macro concerns supporting the correction case. Recent items of interest include softness in consumer spending, the hangover from Washingtons sequester shenanigans, Europe (as always) and some disappointing housing data.
But the causes of a pullback in the next month or two are likely structural and not based on headlines. Even long-term bulls are looking for a short-term dip after the strong rally to start the year, lest stock valuations get ahead of themselves....
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 08:00 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
8. Duty calls, and it's a paper night
Response to Demeter (Reply #8)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 09:14 PM
Tansy_Gold (15,648 posts)
9. Be careful out there
Response to Tansy_Gold (Reply #9)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:55 AM
hamerfan (1,404 posts)
29. Thank you, Tansy!
Snowing and really windy here right now. Getting 2"-4" of snow per hour.
Work called and told me to stay home, a first for that!
Response to hamerfan (Reply #29)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:03 AM
Tansy_Gold (15,648 posts)
30. I had to walk through snow last night
I heard the "rain" on the roof about 7:00 last night, and my old, never-forgotten midwestern senses told me it wasn't rain. So I walked outside and sure enough, WHITE STUFF WAS FALLING FROM THE SKY.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 01:17 AM
Fuddnik (8,846 posts)
10. Six-year housing hangover tough to shake off
If this is a housing recovery, then its a recovery in name only. The patient remains pretty ill, and its going to be a long road back to health after one of the worst housing busts on record.
Fresh data released this week paint a mixed picture. The government reported Wednesday that housing starts fell 8.5 percent in January, though starts on single family homes edged up higher. Building permits a barometer of future construction posted solid gains.
But the pace of construction remains less than half what it was during the late-2005 peak of the housing boom. And the recovery has come in fits and starts. On Tuesday, a closely-watched report from the homebuilding industry noted sluggish sales traffic last month after steady gains through 2012.
The single-family market in the Northeast, hurt by high foreclosure rates and a slowdown in population growth, is struggling, said Patrick Newport, a housing economist at IHS Global Insight. The single-family segments in the other three regions are picking up -- but slowly, and levels remain depressed."
Despite multiple government policies to spur sales, including the Federal Reserves ongoing effort to hold mortgage rates near the floor, sales of both new and existing homes still badly lag normal levels.
Response to Fuddnik (Reply #10)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:30 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
12. You can't buy a home and maintain it without a job that pays more than minimum
When will this fact of life register with the 1%?
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:29 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
11. Looks like a general global financial panic set in
Precious metals, oil, stocks all dropping. Abe still depressing the yen. Dollar strengthening and people rushing for the shelters....
Response to Demeter (Reply #11)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:21 AM
Hotler (5,113 posts)
18. 10 big worries about this market
Can we rally on?
Over the past few weeks, I've been one of the few voices calling for caution and even cynicism in the face of the stock market's push to multiyear highs. It's patently obvious what's happening: Out of desperation, central bankers are using currency manipulation to bolster stocks in a last-ditch attempt to stave off a recession that's already hitting in much of Europe, Japan and, soon, the United Kingdom.
Why are they scared? Because the wounds from the last downturn have yet to heal, and government finances, which blunted the pain of the 2008 wipeout, are tapped out. Of course, this strategy won't work. There is already chatter of a 1930s-style "currency war," with the recriminations and trade protectionism that inevitably follow. And, as happened with cheap-money-fueled stock rallies in 2011 and 2012, the economy will buckle under the pressure of higher energy prices. Gasoline has already hit record levels for early February.
Have a good day everyone. Snowy and shitty here in Denver.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:38 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
13. Defense Cuts May No Longer Be Political Sacred Cow by Scott Horsley
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warns the automatic spending cuts, due to hit the Pentagon and other branches of government next week, will damage U.S. national security. In a letter to Congress, Panetta warned those cuts would put the military on a path toward a "hollow force." But the warnings don't appear to be moving the needle with lawmakers or the American public.
The automatic spending cuts don't officially take effect until March 1, but they are already being felt. As President Obama noted this week, the Navy has decided not to send one of its aircraft carriers on a scheduled deployment to the Persian Gulf.
"As our military leaders have made clear, changes like this not well thought through, not phased-in properly changes like this affect our ability to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world," he said.
At one time, idling an aircraft carrier to save money would have been unthinkable. The White House thought that prospect would be so alarming to congressional Republicans that they'd never allow the automatic spending cuts to take effect...Some Republicans are alarmed. House Speaker John Boehner calls the military cuts "devastating." But Congressional expert Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution says the GOP is no longer united when it comes to protecting the Pentagon.
"There's a defense wing of defense hawks, and they've been pretty vocal about the impact on the Defense Department and national security, generally," she said. "And we know there's a hard-core group as well that's opposed to any and all revenue increases.
Obama is trying to enlist the public's help. He did a series of local TV interviews Wednesday, and he's planning to visit a military community outside Washington next week. White House spokesman Jay Carney says the idea is to ramp up pressure on lawmakers to suspend the automatic cuts. "The fact of the matter is, congressional Republicans are going to listen to the American people," Carney said. But the American people aren't necessarily convinced cutting the Pentagon budget is a bad idea.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:47 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
14. A Game of Chicken By CHARLES M. BLOW
Well, here we go again. Another season, another manufactured, self-inflicted, completely preventable crisis of government. This time its the sequester. We may as well put these things in the Farmers Almanac...Now were engaged in a finger-wagging blame game of who proposed it, who supported it and who is opposed to preventing it.
Lets lay out some of the facts of this disaster.
The sequesters origin is quite muddy. President Obama, responding to Mitt Romney in an October presidential debate, said: First of all, the sequester is not something that Ive proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen. John Boehner, on the other hand, now says that the sequester is Obamas baby. In a speech on the House floor this month, Boehner said: The president first proposed this sequester in 2011 and insisted it be part of the debt-limit agreement. In an opinion piece published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Boehner wrote, Having first proposed and demanded the sequester, it would make sense that the president lead the effort to replace it.
PolitiFact rated Obamas claim that the sequester was proposed by Congress as mostly false saying:
It was Obamas negotiating team that came up with the idea for defense cuts in 2011, though they were intended to prod Congress to come up with a better deal for reining in the deficit, not as an effort to make those cuts reality. Meanwhile, members of both parties in Congress voted for the legislation that set up the possibility of sequestration. Obamas position is that Congress should now act to avoid those across-the-board cuts. Obama cant rightly say the sequester isnt his, but he did need cooperation from Congress to get to this point.
PolitiFact bases its assessment largely on assertions in the new book The Price of Politics, by the renowned Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. The Web site does, however, point out that there are dissenting views, including that of Christopher Preble at the libertarian Cato Institute. PolitiFact quotes Preble as saying, I do not believe it accurate to refer to the cuts that will occur in both defense and nondefense discretionary spending under sequestration as Obamas cuts. And John Avlon, a senior columnist for The Daily Beast, wrote Wednesday that he happened to come across an old e-mail that throws cold water on House Republicans attempts to call this Obamas Sequester.
According to Avlon:
Its a PowerPoint presentation that Boehners office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011. Intended to explain the outline of the proposed debt deal, the presentation is titled, Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable. Its essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But its clear as day in the presentation that sequestration was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending the conservatives necessary condition for not having America default on its obligations. The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as automatic across-the-board cuts (sequestration). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.
So, theres that.
But Im not sure where all this you- are-the-father origination blame game gets us. The bill got bipartisan support in the House and at the time Boehner bragged: When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. Im pretty happy. And President Obama signed it...So once again the American people are caught in the middle of a game of chicken between Democrats, who rightly warn that the sky could fall, and Republicans, who want to burn the coop....
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:51 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
15. What Could Go Wrong? White House to Partner With Big Business to Combat 'Online Radicalization'
... As FireDogLakes DSWright points out, the White House is looking for ways to counter online speech that is radical and tied to terrorism.
A White House statement released earlier this month states that the Federal Government is committed to empowering members of the public to protect themselves against the full range of online threats, including online radicalization to violence. As DSWright notes, what the government is saying is that the internet is gaining in power and we have not figured out a way to dominate it yet. And thats scaring the government.
The groups involved in online radicalization to violence include, of course, Al-Qaeda and white supremacist groups. But its not a stretch of the imagination to realize that trying to regulate the speech of extremists can bleed into regulating the speech of plain old law-abiding dissidents.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the White House plan to counter online radicalization is its plan to work with industry to do so. The Federal Government will collaborate with industry to explore how we might counter online violent extremism while protecting lawful Internet use and the civil liberties and privacy of individual users, according to the White House. Many companies have developed voluntary measures to promote Internet safety (such as fraud warnings, identity protection, and Internet safety tips), and we look forward to hearing their views about how we might apply similar measures to counter online radicalization to violence.
As DSWright writes, this is nothing to welcome. Big Government and Big Business working together, all to help us. This marriage of state and corporate power to regulate the internet sounds great doesnt it?...Allowing the government to work with industry to develop countermeasures to radical speech is a great way to protect all our freedom. What could go wrong?
Response to Demeter (Reply #15)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:53 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
16. FOR EXAMPLE: 40 Cities Around Globe Set to Protest 1,000th Day of Bradley Manning's Imprisonment
40 cities around the world are set to mark the 1,000th day of WikiLeaks source Bradley Mannings imprisonment. Mannings whistleblowing acts will be honored and his imprisonment without a speedy trial denounced this weekend in places ranging from Denver to Rome to Sydney.
Manning is alleged to have been the source behind massive amounts of information WikiLeaks exposed, including the State Department cables that exposed nefarious dealings in U.S. foreign policy as well as the Collateral Murder video that showed U.S. Army helicopters firing and killing Iraqi civilians.
The rallies around the world are being organized by the Bradley Manning Support Network. Supporters are gathering in cities across the U.S., Europe and Australia for marches, rallies, art installations, concerts, live theater, and other events to criticize the unjust prosecution and raise awareness about Manning's case, the network states.
Mannings court martial trial is set for June of this year--three years after his initial arrest. His imprisonment by the military was marked by punitive abuse that included isolation and his clothes being removed from him. A UN rapporteur called Mannings conditions cruel, inhuman and degrading, and earlier this year a judge confirmed that Mannings conditions were excessively harsh and constituted pretrial punishment, which is prohibited under military law.
Response to Demeter (Reply #15)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 12:37 PM
amandabeech (9,893 posts)
36. Business may not care about Bradley Manning, but they do care about ordinary citizens
demanding justice for corporate wrong-doing and corporate influence and demand that government regulate corporations for the public good, like keeping the corps from poisoning the ground water with fracking.
Will our government collaborate with corps to keep economic dissidents in check?
Why did Obama golf with energy types while the streets of DC were filled with citizens demonstrating for more attention to climate change?
This all just smells of Mussolini in the morning.
Response to Demeter (Reply #15)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 02:31 PM
snot (10,225 posts)
39. Cf. declaring Occupiers "terrorists"
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:56 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
17. American Assassination History for Dummies by Mark Ames
...As everyone knows, Carters presidency was one long bummer. But what most people dont know or have forgotten is that Carter did more than any president to bring the national security state under control. Especially the CIA, which Carter gutted, purged, and chained down with a whole set of policies and guidelines meant to protect American citizens civil liberties. In his first year in office, Carter purged nearly 20% of the Agencys 4500 employees, gutting the ranks of clandestine operatives, sending hundreds of dirty trickster vets into the private sector to seethe for the next few years. Carter signed an executive order worked out with Frank Church and the Senate committee on intelligence putting more serious limits on the CIAs powers unequivocally banning assassinations, restricting the CIAs ability to spy domestically, and putting their covert operations under strict oversight under the president, Congressional committees and the attorney general. The CIAs paramilitary was even disbanded, though not banned. Carters people understood that real fundamental change in the CIA and national security state would only come through democratic politics through passing laws. He and Sen. Church tried, but they were outmaneuvered and ground into mulch.
A Washington Post article from the summer of 1978 captured the changing mood, and the first early wave of gloom setting in with Democrat reformers that their days were over and their chance was missed:
Two years ago, when David Atlee Phillips and like-minded defenders of the Central Intelligence Agency set out on the college lecture circuit, they were routinely confronted by hecklers and protesters denouncing them as "assassins."
The climate has changed. The investigations are over. The recriminations have subsided. The apologists have turned into advocates, urging, even demanding a stronger hand for the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community despite the record of abuses.
A comprehensive piece of legislation, the National Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act of 1978 (S.2525), has been drafted and debated at Senate hearings for months now, but all sides dismiss it as nothing more than a talking paper, a starting point.
Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), who served as the chairman of the original Senate Intelligence Committee and its unprecedented investigations, thinks it is already too late.
"Reforms have been delayed to death," he said in an interview. "This has been the defense mechanism of the agency and it could easily have been foreseen . . . Memories are very short. I think the shrewd operators, the friends of the CIA, recognized that time was on their side, that they could hold out against legislative action."
And yet even as comparatively progressive as Carters and Churchs proposed reforms were this was the brief high point for civil liberties, its all downhill from here nevertheless, pretty much everyone across the spectrum hated Carters and Churchs reforms for their own reasons, and Carter did little to inspire.
Carters gutting of the CIA and his new guidelines restricting domestic surveillance by the FBI and other agencies won him few friends among grandstanding professional liberals. If anything the country turned against Carter as the world went to shit around him Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Jonestown paving the way for Reagan to "restore" American power.....
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:25 AM
Hotler (5,113 posts)
19. Xchrom are you there?????? I hope you are ok. n/t
Response to Hotler (Reply #19)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:42 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
23. i'm ok -- thanks hotler for the vibes!
Response to Hotler (Reply #19)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:44 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
24. I've seen X posting in other fora this morning
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:35 AM
mahatmakanejeeves (12,877 posts)
21. ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (02/21/2013)
Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
Read more: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/eta20130306.htm
In the week ending February 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 362,000, an increase of 20,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 342,000. The 4-week moving average was 360,750, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average of 352,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4 percent for the week ending February 9, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending February 9 was 3,148,000, an increase of 11,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,137,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,186,250, a decrease of 6,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,193,000.
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 346,428 in the week ending February 16, a decrease of -14,758 from the previous week. There were 346,659 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending February 9 were in Kansas (+2,344), Puerto Rico (+492), Virginia (+465), Indiana (+205), and Rhode Island (+176), while the largest decreases were in California (-4,830), New York (-4,401), Oregon (-2,211), Pennsylvania (-2,020), and Wisconsin (-1,670).
== == == ==
Good morning, Freepers and DUers alike. I ask you to put aside your differences long enough to read this post. Following that, you can engage in your usual donnybrook.
That's a big increase this week.
I have been posting the number every week for at least a year. I seriously do not care if the week's data make Obama look good. They are just numbers, and I post them without regard to the consequences. I welcome people from Free Republic to examine the numbers as well. They paid for the work just as much as members of DU did, so I invite them to come on over and have a look. "The more the merrier" is the way I look at it.
I do not work at the ETA, and I do not know anyone working in that agency. I'm sure I can safely assume that the numbers are gathered and analyzed by career civil servant economists who do their work on a nonpartisan basis. Numbers are numbers, and let the chips fall where they may. If you feel that these economists are falling down on the job, drop them a line or give them a call. They work for you, not for any politician or political party.
The word "initial" is important. The report does not count all claims, just the new ones filed this week.
Note: The seasonal adjustment factors used for the UI Weekly Claims data from 2007 forward, along with the resulting seasonally adjusted values for initial claims and continuing claims, have been revised. These revised historical values, as well as the seasonal adjustment factors that will be used through calendar year 2012, can be accessed at the bottom of the following link: http://www.oui.doleta.gov/press/2012/032912.asp
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:41 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
22. thank you everybody for your Good Wishes...they really worked! check it out...
Response to xchrom (Reply #22)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:45 AM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
26. I thought you went to the hospital, not the hairdressers
Response to Demeter (Reply #26)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:49 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
28. they're not the same? nt
Response to xchrom (Reply #28)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:47 AM
DemReadingDU (15,938 posts)
34. lol!
Glad you are back, hope things went well.
Response to DemReadingDU (Reply #34)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:49 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
35. thanks -- so far so good. nt
Response to xchrom (Reply #28)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 01:39 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
38. Very good riposte
(Note to self: do NOT hand a straight line to X, it will be stolen...)
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:45 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
25. Philippines takes new aim at China
MANILA - After a year of failed multilateralism and bilateral brinkmanship, the Philippines has abandoned hope of pressing China into a compromise on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. While Manila's recent decision to submit its case for United Nations mediation ups the diplomatic ante, Beijing's out-of-hand rejection of the move indicates tensions could rise before they wane. [1]
After a year of diplomatic deadlock at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) under the chairmanship of Cambodia, one of China's staunchest regional allies, few expect a swift and decisive multilateral resolution under Brunei's more neutral leadership in 2013 considering the significant divisions that have opened inside the 10-member grouping.
Based on the proceedings and outcomes of regional summits and
gatherings held last year, Manila has come to realize the extent to which China is willing to use its multiple levers of influence to thwart any efforts at forging a unified regional response to the maritime disputes. Beijing has consistently insisted that the disputes should be settled exclusively through bilateral mechanisms.
At the same time, the economic stakes driving the disputes are rising. The US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) recently estimated that the South China Sea could hold as much as 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in proven and probable reserves. The EIA also projected significant undiscovered hydrocarbon deposits in the Spratly islands, specifically around the contested Reed Bank. [2]
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:47 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
27. Washington debates the pivot to Asia
Over the last two years, the Obama administration has executed what the president has termed the "Pivot to Asia" strategy, whereby the United States' global military force posture is being reconfigured to focus on the Asia-Pacific region as Washington's central front.
Movement has been rapid, with Washington expanding its naval exercises with Japan, sending marines to Australia, conducting military exercises in the Philippines with its allies, and supporting the negotiating positions of the Philippines and Vietnam on the dispute over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, or what Filipinos now call the West Philippine Sea. Sixty percent of the US Navy's strength has been deployed to the Western Pacific.
Containment of China is the aim of the pivot strategy, which has
drawn criticism from liberal critics of the policy like Robert Ross, a professor of Political Science at Boston University and a China expert. Writing in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs, Ross acknowledges that China's actions in the South China Sea - including claiming the whole area as Chinese territorial waters - come across as aggressive. However, the pivot, he claims, is based on "a fundamental misreading of China's leadership," which Ross says is now given to "appeasing an increasingly nationalist public with symbolic gestures of force".
For Ross, China's increasingly bellicose rhetoric stems less from expansionist intent than from the insecurities brought about by high-speed growth followed by economic crisis. Long dependent for its legitimacy on delivering economic growth, domestic troubles related to the global financial crisis have left the Communist Party leadership groping for a new ideological justification, which it has found in nationalism. Countering China's rhetoric with a military cordon sanitaire, says Ross, would deepen the "insecurities" of Beijing, heightening the possibility of an outbreak of conflict while losing China's cooperation in managing conflicts such as the crisis in Syria.
Response to xchrom (Reply #27)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 01:15 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
37. Might as well try to contain the Pacific Ocean
What a waste of time, money, and energy.
Does it ever occur to the Hawks that we are greatly outnumbered by the Asians? If China and India got together, they could sink us...and they did already, economically.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:17 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
31. UBS $76 Million Coke Bottler Trade Said Probed by Mexico
Mexican regulators are probing a $76 million trade UBS AG (UBSN) executed in Coca-Cola Femsa SAB (KOFL) shares hours before the bottler announced its biggest acquisition in 16 months, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The Jan. 17 trade was the biggest in Mexico City-based Coca-Cola Femsas shares since August, equivalent to more than six times the stocks average daily trading volume over the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Mexican stock exchange. UBS, Switzerlands largest bank, acted as the broker on the transaction, according to the exchange.
The trade took place at 8:30 a.m. local time, according to the data. After markets were closed for the day at about 9 p.m., Coca-Cola Femsa said in a regulatory filing it agreed to buy the Mexican drinkmaker Grupo Yoli SA in a deal valued at 8.81 billion pesos ($692 million). In trading the next day, Coca-Cola Femsa shares advanced 1.2 percent.
Mexicos National Banking and Securities Commission is trying to uncover what motivated the transaction, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the investigation is still private. Neither Zurich-based UBS nor Coca-Cola Femsa has been accused of any wrongdoing, the person said.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:26 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
FFor a city enthralled by intelligence work, like Washington, D.C., provocative intellects are a rare breed. So Leland Miller didnt expect a warm reception when he rolled into town recently, declaring that everything everyone thinks he knows about Chinas economy is wrong. Miller had no sooner introduced himself at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, when the audience, made up mostly of middle-aged white men in dark suits, stiffened.
Miller was talking about his new publishing project: an insiders guide to the Chinese economy for investors. A thirty-six-year-old lawyer with a long chin and product-perfect hair, he studied Chinese history at Oxford and speaks Mandarin. A couple of years ago, he and some China-minded friends from Wall Street and Washington arrived at a conclusion. The game is completely rigged, he said. Every policy wonk and financial adviser interested in China had to rely on economic data provided by the Chinese government. There is no way to validate whether any of the Chinese numbers are right or wrong, he said.
So Miller devised a solution, which he calls the China Beige Book. Its modelled on the U.S. Federal Reserves Beige Book, a report, published eight times a year, that gives a regional, incremental snapshot of the American economy. The latest edition of the U.S. version came out last month. Curious about used- and new-car inventories in Chicago? Theyre picking up. Traffic on the Mississippi River? Delays, because of low water levels. Hog prices in Minnesota? Theyre down.
Miller set out to cull similar data and trends from China, and, a year ago, he dispatched pollsters around the country to ask questions. He tabulated and analyzed the results by quarter. In the third quarter, he determined, among other things, that instances of worker unrest far exceeded what was reflected in reported data, and that automobile manufacturing had dipped in every region except the southwest. In the fourth quarter, furniture sales slowed in Inner Mongolia and the north, and investments in the Central Regions food sector increased (even after a British firm cancelled its plan to build a foie-gras plant following a protest campaign backed by the actor Roger Moore). The Atlantic Council, which is chaired by Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense nominee, had asked him to project where China was heading in 2013.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2013/02/25/130225ta_talk_schmidle#ixzz2LY1Iahyd
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 11:35 AM
xchrom (108,903 posts)
33. 5 Reasons Why the Keystone XL Pipeline is Bad for the Economy
1. Building the Keystone pipeline and opening up the Tar Sands will negatively impact national and local economies: Burning the recoverable tar sands oil will increase the earths temperature by a minimum of 2 degree Celsius, which NYU Law Schools Environmental Law Center estimates could permanently cut the US GDP by 2.5%. At the same time state and local economies are already buckling under the real-time economic effects of our nations dependence on fossil fuels. In the past two years, the vast majority of U.S. counties 67 percent were affected by at least one of the eleven $1 billion dollar extreme weather events. Superstorm Sandy alone caused an estimated $80 billion in damage. The drought that affected 80% of US farmland last summer destroyed a quarter of the US corn crop and did at least $20 billion damage to the economy.
2. The same fossil fuel interests pushing the Keystone pipeline have been cutting, not creating, jobs: Despite generating $546 billion in profits between 2005 and 2010, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP reduced their U.S. workforce by 11,200 employees over that period. In 2010 alone, the top five oil companies slashed their global workforce by 4,400 employees the same year executives paid themselves nearly $220 million. But at least those working in the industry as a whole get paid high wages, right? Turns out that 40 percent of U.S oil-industry jobs consist of minimum-wage work at gas stations. Instead of bankrolling an industry that is laying off workers and threatening our economic future, isnt it time to take the billions in subsidies going to oil companies and invest instead in a sector that both creates jobs and protects the planet?
3. Unemployment will rise: According to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moodys Analytics: Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, the number of workers filing unemployment claims in Vermont went from 731 before Irene to 1,331 two weeks afterwards. Hurricane Katrina wiped out 129,000 jobs in the New Orleans region nearly 20 percent. For the U.S. economy as a whole, 2011 cost US taxpayers $52 billion.
4. Poor and working people will be disproportionately affected: KXL and projects like it result in disproportionately negative impact on already struggling working families. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress called Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans, lower-and middle income households are disproportionately affected by the most expensive extreme weather events. Sixteen states were afflicted by five or more extreme weather events in 2011-12. Households in disaster-declared counties in these states earn $48,137, or seven percent below the U.S. median income.
Response to Tansy_Gold (Original post)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 05:29 PM
Demeter (85,373 posts)
40. I just had to steal this!
Response to Demeter (Reply #40)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:04 PM
bread_and_roses (6,335 posts)
41. Stole it! & hope X is OK
Didn't have time to read whole thread - didn't know Xchrom was under the weather and hope all is well - and for all other SMWers too! An island of sanity here ,,,


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You might just want to add me on wechat: curiousoffice
Instagram: curiousoffice
Web: www.kellysmith.com
What follows is a bunch of "I's". Not because I'm narcissistic. But because I guess this is the part where we're supposed to talk about ourselves. It's but one of the many uncomfortable aspects of online dating or friending or whatever. I was once told my profile was too wordy. Ironically, I realized my wordiness (nerdiness) served a purpose. Its own filter, so to speak. So. We'll keep it. Stay with me:
I do "digital" stuff. Apps. Software. Kind of in an executive capacity but very much an independant thinker. I take pictures. Sometimes I will paint something. I have lived in 38 different cities. I believe chemistry is under-rated. I notice and appreciate good vocabulary. I would appreciate your witty notes. I am sensitive to the energy around me and the moods of others. I find my morning coffee to be a ritual that I look forward to when I'm getting ready for work. I am not religious but I went to private religious schools most of my life. I don't mind if you challenge me. I would like that. I think silence is often more powerful than words, yet I can sometimes be the life of the party. I will get in my car and drive for hours without a destination. I will get on an airplane for a weekend but may not have known the night before that it was going to happen. I sometimes like eating breakfast for dinner. I will laugh a lot. I'm funny. I am lucky. I will treat you with kindness. I am hard to be nervous around. I would never send you home wishing you hadn't met me even if we don't think there was a spark. I will be honest with you. I don't post photos that look some 10 year old rendition of me. I am not an online dating expert. I laugh at my own jokes. I do pay attention to the things you say that you like. I don't need lots of input to know what would make a good gift. I try to understand people's motivations. I can be temperamental. I am often good at helping people get out of a bad mood. I am often not great helping me get out of my own bad mood. I aim to please. I need attention. I have a lot of attention to give even though it seems my career wants to take all of my attention away. I am very social and do a lot of very social things but love early nights and movies and home and bed and quiet too. I tend to know what people are thinking. I learn quickly. I worry. I want things to go well. I get tired of hearing myself talk and would like to focus on someone else. I feel I've come farther than I ever thought I would. Life has been good to me. I am thankful. I have two brothers who are boisterous and odd and funny and good. I apparently don't know how to create new paragraphs. Or, I'm just interested in being unique and different. Probably that's it. I know that this profile probably makes me sound very serious but I'm really not. I relate to music. I would play music as a career in another life but now I make software. Maybe I'll get another chance. Maybe we all will? I will now throw out some good adjectives that I think fairly describe me. Dating buzz word bingo if you will:
A typical movie: Lives of Others
Typical music: Indie, Alt Country
Typical food: yes please
Something else I'm not thinking of right now.
Or, hanging out with friends.
Or, at a show.
Or, just at home throwing paint on something.


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QSR Automations® helps table and quick serve restaurants increase efficiency, quality, and guest satisfaction. QSR's ConnectSmart® includes kitchen display and table management with web and mobile call aheads and reservations. QSR's DineTime™ wait list and seating app for iPad provides text message notifications plus access to statistics and guest information.
SCS is a national company specializing in the delivery of Point-of-Sale services to multi-unit restaurant operators. These services include procurement, cabling, installation, and maintenance. SCS is the only national company exclusively focused on providing technology services to the multi-unit restaurant industry.
Data Central by Restaurant Magic Software delivers a powerful restaurant back office system to any web-connected device in your organization. Are you battling COGS Variance, struggling with theoretical food costs, inventory challenges eroding your profits? Data Central gives you the intelligence to solve these and many other challenges faced by restaurants every day.
Paytronix has redefined what loyalty means to restaurateurs: motivating guest behavior to drive incremental sales. Through guest experiences via social media, mobile, online and in-store, Paytronix connects your brand with its guests – for a greater share of mind and wallet. Reward Programs • Email Clubs • Data Insights • Gift & Comp
CBS is the creator of NorthStar Order Entry, an iPad-based POS system that features "order from anywhere" capabilities. CBS is also the creator of NorthStar Recipe Viewer, the web-based system that delivers recipes and training direct to restaurant kitchens. Recipe Viewer is now deployed in more than 1000 kitchen across the U.S.
PAR has 35 years of success delivering advanced point-of-sale, enterprise back-office, food safety and mobile solutions with more than 50,000 installations in 110 countries. PAR offers innovative technology solutions for the full spectrum of restaurant operations, from large chain and independent table service restaurants to international quick service chains.
MICROS provides comprehensive restaurant point-of-sale systems that can be scaled to meet the needs of every type and size of restaurant, whether you operate a single restaurant or hundreds. With our modular restaurant POS systems that let you buy what you need, our restaurant point-of-sale software solutions are perfect for any business!
MegaPath is the leading provider of network, voice and managed security solutions for restaurants. Offering one of the largest network footprints in the US, world class security and a variety of access technologies, MegaPath provides complete PCI compliant solutions to many of the largest restaurant operators in North America.
MIRUS provides above store reporting and analysis solutions for restaurant companies. Our clients increase their revenues and profits by leveraging the value of the data in their Point Of Sale, Back Office and Enterprise systems. Promotion analysis, loss prevention, customer service times, and overtime reduction are a few of the benefits our clients report. MIRUS gives you a single place to consolidate all your data, and the tools for reporting and understanding what it all means.
Vantiv is a leading provider of payment processing services and related technology solutions, differentiated by a single, proprietary technology platform. We work with merchants and financial institutions of all sizes developing programs that simplify payments and focus on new revenue and opportunities. Let's discuss your future success.
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SICOM is a POS, Enterprise, Digital Signage and Loyalty company headquartered in Doylestown, PA dedicated to the research, design, development, manufacturing, marketing and service of technology systems for the demanding restaurant industry. The largest approved POS and Digital Signage vendor for BURGER KING® restaurants throughout the United States, Canada, South and Central America, Caribbean, United Kingdom and the EMEA as well as Popeyes® Louisiana Kitchen, Carl's Jr,® Arby's® and H-E-B Supermarkets.
XPIENT software powered 17 of the QSR Top 50 in 2012. Our Industry-leading IRIS POS solutions deliver fast, conversational ordering, while slashing training time. Our Xenon enterprise solutions let you scale and manage from store, to region, to thousands of locations. At XPIENT, that's how We Put Hospitality Into Technology.™
WorldPay is a global card payment acquiring business operating in over 30 countries which allows customers to accept card payments both at the point of sale and over the internet. We offer services across the entire payment value chain, including transaction capturing, merchant acquiring and transaction processing.
Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, retail's first choice for point of sale, provides innovative solutions to address the competitive challenges facing today's food and hospitality industry. With the performance, durability and design of solutions such as TCxWave and SurePOS 500, merchants can surpass customer expectations during every visit.
Red e App connects the lengthy restaurant communication chain – consistently, in real-time, and securely from restaurant mangers to staff – without relying on bulletin boards or partially attended staff meetings to ineffectively relay messages. Red e App delivers announcements, product training, HR documents, and operating procedures to the employee's mobile device.
Bematech is a leading provider of Kitchen Display Systems, All-in-One systems, retail hardened computers, and POS peripherals. Bematech has a solid reputation in the Hospitality industry and produce solutions that redefine consumer experience at the point-of-sale. The Company offers management systems, services, training in 37 countries and operates in Brazil, China, Taiwan, and USA. Visit www.bematech.com for more information.
Red Book Connect is a global service-driven SaaS solutions company serving the restaurant and hospitality industries. Red Book Connect's innovative solutions suite is designed around the most complex managerial problems such as hiring, training, scheduling, back office, and standardization. The Red Book Connect family includes the best of breed industry leaders: Red Book Solutions, HotSchedules, Macromatix, GoHire and Schoox. Currently serving more than 1.2 million users in over 128,000 locations across 26 countries worldwide, Red Book Connect is backed by TPG Growth, a global private investment firm, and Instawares Holding, an investment firm of best-in-class technology serving restaurants.
Quickcue is your restaurant's floor map, waitlist, reservation calendar, guestbook and party paging system all beautifully integrated into one iPad app at your host stand. Improve your guest experience, increase front-of-house efficiency and help your staff provide exceptional hospitality to every guest, every time.
Contingent is a global technology services company specializing in managed wide area networks, integration, logistics & maintenance for large enterprises. Our largest segment is restaurants. We deploy and manage infrastructure like circuits, security appliances, routers, switches, wireless devices, digital signage, POS and other components found in large, multi-site restaurant networks.
MobileTummy is an enterprise cloud platform company that provides multi-channel ordering for restaurant operators, guests, food suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, and merchants into one system. It has robust and easy-to-navigate tools, such as menu management, order processing, proximity ordering, and personalized marketing executed by location-based push-notifications. The platform can also be branded and hosted as the restaurant to tailor to its business model, such as chain, franchise, multi-unit, or single-owned.


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Would you like to save as your currency permanently or for this visit only?
I stayed here before and it was as good as ever. My room was no-smoking (booking specified smoking).
hotel staff none smoking area inside/bar
Beautiful setting. Atmosphere very pleasant and staff friendly A bit expensvie because of poor exchange rate of euro to pound.
Excellent, Overall enjoyable due to fantastic staff, Infact very nice staff, and helpful, Food was good and ambience was good aswell at the restaurant. Rooms were very small, I had to pay more and upgrade to bigger room, but still it was small as compared to other rooms I have been to


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Reviews: Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Spain, All Male Group, 18-24
- Novice Nomad
Travellers Home Hostel, Sarajevo, Bosnia And Herzegovina
A five stars hostel.
- Anonymous
- Spain, Male, 18-24
- Novice Nomad
Hostel No9, Belgrade, Serbia
Nice hostel, worth the money.
Hostelworld Mobile Apps
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The opening of this towering monolith of black metal artistry is deceptive. Simple one-note synth sounds produce a thin and low-budget 'eerie astral' feel. However, from the thunder of the first unfurling of the band's thick and spectral twisting sound, you know you are not listening to a typical black metal band. In fact, this is the one so called 'black metal' band that uses every single overdone and so often cheesy trick in the book to sound majestic and evil, and despite this, actually achieves results to amazing effect.
For those unfamiliar with Abigor's chaotic sound: imagine, perhaps, a semi-raw but decently clear black metal band with the talent and energy of early Emperor or Immortal, but more of the structural qualities of Obsidian Gate, earlier Satyricon, demo-era Moonsorrow, and other bands that incorporate many voices into their vision of rather raw yet complex black metal. Add to this mix a strong classical and heavy metal influence, similar perhaps to the middle era of Diabolical Masquerade, and finally add all the cheesy elements of black metal (the samples, the German spoken word, the keys, the flutes, the tympani) that normally make you roll your eyes. Take this lump of juxtaposition heading in 15 different directions, keep that sense of unbalance, and toss everything together in the most amazingly haphazard yet perfectly orchestrated way, and you have an approximation of what Abigor, on this album, sounds like.
Complex and writhing yet melodic and energetic passages abound from the first song onward, from the riffs at 2:14 and 5:01 which show the band's attention to melody, harmony, and structure similar to metal greats such as Iron Maiden. Then, at 6:06, a simple horn flourish that would sound laughable on its own takes on a bizarre power as furiously fast guitar arpeggios of surprising originality run raging beneath the keys. This album is the apotheosis of all the disparate and conflicting elements that make Abigor an amazing band amidst a genre filled to overflowing with paradoxes of sound. Triumphant heavy metal guitar passages fold in upon themselves amid synth ambiance only to slam unexpectedly into intricate passages of jittery buzzing rage, only seconds later to wash into strange interludes of acoustic guitar and flutes that would be downright laughable, and still in a sense are here, but they move so quickly and with such a mad grandiose passion into spiraling towers of lush distorted guitar counterparts as to seem confusing yet self-evident. The paradox here is the key to this album's, and indeed all of Abigor's, insane genius. This is brilliantly dense hyper-melodic metal that also is campy and tongue-in-cheek: samples of icy winds garishly color the acoustic guitar passages, only to mutate into baroque passages of triple guitar counterparts, two distorted and one continuing on the nylon strings.
One of the hallmarks of Abigor is their ability to craft a vast latticework of melodic music that sounds deceptively like a distorted J.S. Bach partita, and yet have it stand alongside harsh atonal blocks of dissonant chords on one side and simple classic metal breaks and emotional dynamics. This comes into sharp focus on the third track of this album, particularly 4:41-5:24. This is Abigor at their paradoxical best. Deceptively simple guitar riffs are embellished and driven thematically astray by almost over-harmonizing and counter-riffing, each musical idea sputters, stops, and collides with others in a mad but obviously orchestrated drunk opera of riffage.
Those doubting Abigor's classical training and heavy metal inspiration, listen to the lopsided 4th track, Dornen. The song opens with a lush baroque 3-part triumphant guitar opus, only to seemingly sadistically abandon it's grace for a long slow passage of modal jazz-based slow guitar harmonizing with further alienating female vocals, only to come back at 3:59 with a blazing balls-to-the-wall guitar shredfest as the lead guitar becomes absurdly muted given the acrobatics it displays, providing a churning sea of twisting counter melody to float the main simple riff upon. Classical and heavy metal are not the only influences upon Abigor's unique sound, as midway though the 6th song, one finds a distinctly jazz melody carry another of the absurd yet not terrible section of female vocals. Later this riff leads to a passage of unique modern anti-modal almost atonal dark strange beauty, as guitars build vast intervals to contain dissonant masses of chords not normally heard in any musical genre. It is hard to gloss over and provide a musical overview of such a unique piece of work, yet there is a definite sound here that could only by Abigor's. The tympani alongside traditional metal drumming is one element, the near-constant counter-melodies and coexistence of distorted and acoustic guitar another, the amazingly varied percussion section another, and of course the definitely unpolished production despite all this intricacy helps as well.
Drumming here is an amazing find in the mediocre rhythm sections so representative of the raw black metal orthodoxy. Requisite blasts, double-bass, and standard metal drumming are all here (and some times furiously paced) throughout the songs, but the added dimensions of syncopation, particularly among the bass drums, provide differentiation between the 7 or 8 basic drum patterns black metal usually has at its disposal. The bass drum sound of Abigor is unique in that it is miked with even less low end than one might imagine a black metal band would want, becoming quick clean clicks uncharacteristically distinct and audible in a such an otherwise unpolished recording, on the other hand, the snare is so soaked in reverb as to become more secondary in the drum patterns, which gives Abigor's drumming a bizarre reverse emphasis. Vocals are a weak point, however, as the main screeches and screams seem almost monotone in register, and lacking of any soul. Within the dark splintered spirals of desolate cosmic void that is the Abigor universe, however, this works with the overall aesthetic very well.
Despite all the dense and opaque riffage on this album, there is a definite feeling of space and atmosphere, provided mostly by the scant use of female vocals (they average about 10 or 15 seconds per song), slower harmonized sections of non-tremolo melody, and distinctly non-modern synth sounds such as strings, flutes, and bells. Where bands like Dimmu Borgir or CoF manage to create a sense of simple majesty for the simple-minded, Abigor manages to create a complex feeling akin to the emotions of vast and cold spaces: majestic and cosmic, yet trembling and utterly earthly. This is the quintessential album of black metal paradox for me; a lumbering chimeral beast that inspires awe, terror, confusion, and even some laughter. If you can get past the silly elements that certainly are here (some fans try to pretend these elements have deeper meaning I do not see), and certainly the lyrics are no magnum opus, as nearly no metal lyrics are, you find a rare gem of black metal that never dulls. For all its faults, it still deserves to be hailed as a fearful and breathtaking god in the pantheon of black metal.


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Celebrity Twitter Chatter: Nicole Richie, Tom Daley, Chord Overstreet and More
Nicole Richie is the vodka whisperer, Tom Daley emergency lands in Russia, Chord Overstreet might tease, plus more fascinating celeb twitter posts and words of wisdom below.
I am the perfect person to chaperone a party… I can smell vodka from a mile away.
— Nicole Richie (@nicolerichie) July 21, 2014
Scary to emergency land in RUS after recent events, yet no word on what problem is after hour surrounded by fire engines #VirginAtlantic — Tom Daley (@TomDaley1994) July 21, 2014
Back here in the studio this morning. Maybe I'll tease an Instagram later — Chord Overstreet (@chordoverstreet) July 21, 2014
"@WilliamShatner: Sigh! This is almost embarrassing! @amellywood pic.twitter.com/YNxbGDHOQo" Almost?
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) July 21, 2014
A movie about a #sextape? Honestly. In my day, we didn't have sex tapes. We had sexy cave paintings, but they were clean.
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) July 21, 2014
So ur a fan? RT @slady_gaga: #kathy suck my ass — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) July 21, 2014
I haven't been keeping up – are they still under the dome? — billy eichner (@billyeichner) July 21, 2014
I am suspect… #TheHamptons #WhatTheyWear #partdeux pic.twitter.com/EcgFAoCwut
— Chris Meloni (@Chris_Meloni) July 21, 2014
Jimmy Crack Corn and I don't care
— ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) July 22, 2014
Keep the prayers coming… Still got more battles – please judge me by my character and not from the tabloids who are having a slow news day
— Sherri Shepherd (@SherriEShepherd) July 21, 2014
Thank you to everyone that went out and saw Snowpiercer! I have some wonderful supporters and I hope they know they're appreciated #grateful
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) July 21, 2014