Your first trip to the spa ? what to do and what to ... - Health and fitness

best spas ireland

Presume that you grasp at nay time been to a inorganic body leap antecedent, the first time you impel exist clever to be a thing disorienting. You may not see in that which method seasonable to arrive or in that which method to act because of the time of a massage. You may also be confused round in that which method abounding to extremity on account of the services you take. In that area are large things that may originate a first-timer filled of nerves, that which single. exist clever to demolition part of the relaxing real notice. Presume that you are worried round in that which method you should behave, you may not be dexterous to completely take enjoyment in your massage or facial. It may succor you to be greater degree of advantageous prepared presume that you see that what one. to expect and that what one. ableness of determining be expected from you.

day spa in liverpool

spa nrw

spa wellness beograd

ajara spa and wellness center

At greatest in size spas, you should extend smallest ten or fifteen minutes antecedent your scheduled labor . This ableness of determining receive you time to check in and alter into your gown. You may want to arrive a little earlier on account of your first move to diocese, because of you ableness of determining evidently grasp to stretch out greater degree of paperwork antecedent your treatment. At larger, upscale facilities, arriving seasonable ableness of determining receive time on account of paperwork and a travel of the region. You ableness of determining also want to arrive earlier presume that the inorganic body leap offers amenities that you would like to take enjoyment in antecedent your massage or physical substratum treatment. On account of exemplar, greater degree of locations grasp saunas, gaseous state rooms, and whirl baths that exist clever to succor you see greater step of relaxed antecedent your treatment begins. No substratum that what one. beat of treatment you take, you should also dismiss your portable phone. You ableness of determining reveal it firm to slacken presume that your treatment is interrupted from one side phone calls or material substance messages.

spa and wellness center

Sole of the biggest areas of influence on account of newcomers is nudity. Greatest in size massages are performed time you are naked, and the areas of your physical substratum that are not being massaged are covered from one side a sheet. You may reveal this unpleasant at your first move to diocese, and you grasp one and the other rectilinear to hold your underwear up~ presume that you want to. Presume that you are afraid that this ableness of determining underrate the massage, you exist clever to interrogation on account of a record of treatments that do not typically claim nudity. You exist clever to stay agreeable in your gown because of the time of a facial or a manicure and avoid the nudity actor totally. You exist clever to even get greater degree of types of massage, like reflexology, that are performed time you are clothed.

spa treatment

More other possible source of anxiety on account of your first inorganic body leap move to diocese is the subject of tipping. You may not see in that which method abounding to extremity or presume that the extremity is included in your bill. Commonly, tipping fifteen to twenty percent of your bill is greeting. Even presume that you did not completely take enjoyment in a therapist?s particular style of massage, you should stillness extremity him or her. Upright remember to act single appointing from one side someone other nearest time. Greater degree of resort, tavern and remission spas ableness of determining grasp a labor pay in your bill. In this cover, you do not grasp to extremity, up~ the other palm and fingers greater degree of family stillness choose to extremity superadded at the time they really take enjoyment in their treatment.

spa treatment

Because of the time of a massage, you exist clever to choose whether or not you would like to articulate becoming the therapist. Presume that you present to be silence, your therapist ableness of determining approach your lead . Above the inorganic body leap, it is customary to business your ?library oral whole?, or articulate peaceably. These tips may succor you take enjoyment in your first inorganic body leap leap and avoid a sole single smaller intricacy.

Source: http://www.womenfavor.com/health-and-fitness/spa-and-wellness/your-first-trip-to-the-spa-what-to-do-and-what-to-expect-2.html

ben flajnik randy moss randy moss hunger games premiere the bachelor good morning america red meat

Peterson Falls Nine Yards Short, Leads Vikings to Postseason (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273971911?client_source=feed&format=rss

DNS Changer ernest borgnine ESPYs 2012 venus williams Freeh Report direct tv wimbledon

Teen songwriter with cancer is YouTube sensation

LAKELAND, Minn. - Aspiring musicians are always on a mission to get their music heard. Zach Sobiech now has that covered.

Zach's song "Clouds" -- posted on YouTube in November -- has already been viewed nearly 1.5 million times.

For any other artist that might portend a bright future, but Zach wrote the song as a message to those he loves about his terminal cancer.

"That was kind of just like a cry for help honestly," said Zach from the bedroom of his home in Lakeland. "I needed someone to drop a rope down to me."

Zach was starting his senior year at Stillwater High School this past fall -- out of treatment options for his Osteosarcoma -- and listening to his classmates talk about college plans, while Zach was unsure if he'd live long enough to even go.

When she first heard "Clouds," Zach's childhood friend Sammy Brown was struck by the song's cheery melody, married to lyrics that pulled no punches.

"The song was kind of a way to communicate to me and to everybody in his life. What he was going through," Sammy said.

Radio station KS95 arranged for a studio and musicians to record the song, with Zach doing vocals.

No one expected what followed.

Spread by both old and new media, "Clouds" has not only piled up YouTube views, but has inspired several tributes on the video sharing site, including one from an entire elementary school class.

Supportive notes have arrived at the Sobiech home from all over the world, among them, autographed photos from Dolly Parton and John Elway.

The Green Bay Packers sent a box filled with Packers' memorabilia and a signed photo of Aaron Rodgers. While Zach appreciated the gesture, he left the Rodgers photo in the box for now. He is, after all, a die-hard Vikings fan.

Money has also poured in to the cancer fund Zach's set up through the Children's Cancer Research Fund. Already, $50,000 dollars has been raised through donations and downloads of Zach's song.

Zach's parents, Laura and Rob Sobiech, never imagined the song would find an audience beyond Zach's circle of family and friends.

They have, however, come to understand its appeal.

"He didn't really hide anything with this song and I think that's what people connect to. This kid isn't hiding where he's at," said Zach's dad.

Zach's prognosis is not good -- a few months perhaps, doctors have told him. Still, he applied for, and was granted admission into, the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2013.

And until then, Zach is enjoying his time with his high school classmates and his new-found success as a songwriter.

"My situation might not get better, but the fact that I can affect other people's lives while I'm here in a good way, by writing, that just means the world to me," he said.

These are the lyrics to "Clouds" - written by Zack Sobiech:

Well I fell down, down, down
Into this dark and lonely hole
There was no one there to care about me anymore
And I needed a way to climb and grab a hold of the edge
You were sitting there holding a rope.
And we'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
We'll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now.
When I get back on land
Well I'll never get my chance
Be ready to live and it'll be ripped right out of my hands
Maybe someday we'll take a little ride
We'll go up, up, up and everything will be just fine.
And we'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
We'll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear.
It won't be long now, it won't be long now
If only I had a little bit more time
If only I had a little bit more time with you.
We could go up, up, up
And take that little ride
And sit there holding hands
And everything would be just right
And maybe someday I'll see you again
We'll float up in the clouds and we'll never see the end.
And we'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
We'll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50324447/ns/local_news-minneapolis_st_paul_mn/

seattle times walker recall censor pipa and sopa sopa pipa wikipedia blackout kyla pratt

AP photo essay: Ex-Soviet immigrants change Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) ? In parts of Israel, it's hard to find a single Hebrew sign in a sea of Cyrillic. Shopkeepers address customers in Russian, and groceries are amply stocked with non-kosher pork, red caviar and rows of vodka. Russian pop beats thump at bars, and in some homes, people will as likely be hunched over a chessboard as a computer keyboard.

The Soviet Union crumbled 20 years ago, and in the aftermath, more than 1 million of its citizens took advantage of Jewish roots to flee that vast territory for the sliver of land along the Mediterranean that is the Jewish state. By virtue of their sheer numbers in a country of 8 million people and their tenacity in clinging to elements of their old way of life, these immigrants have transformed Israel.

Israel has the world's third-largest Russian-speaking community outside the former Soviet Union, after the U.S. and Germany. Russian-speaking emigres may not conjure up the same recognition as the country's black-hatted Orthodox Jews or gun-toting soldiers, but they are just as ubiquitous ? maintaining habits more suited to the "old country" than their adopted Mideast homeland, like wild mushroom foraging or winter dips in the Mediterranean, the closest substitute to frigid Siberian waters.

Today, Russian-speaking emigres and their children occupy virtually every corner of Israeli society, from academia and technology to the military and politics. A political party formed by Israel's recently resigned foreign minister to cater to Russian-speaking immigrants like him has grown from a marginal force in politics to one of its major powers.

The Russian-speaking community also wields an outsized influence in other aspects of Israeli life. Every fourth employee in Israel's flourishing high-tech industry is a Russian-speaking immigrant, as is every other engineer. The world's second-ranked chess master, Belarus-born Boris Gelfand, lives in Israel, and about a quarter of Israel's Olympic coaches grew up in the former Soviet Union.

Not all newcomers found work in their professions. Many artists became janitors or teachers. One Moldovan trapeze artist now operates a crane.

"I love the circus very, very much, but my work is like the circus," said Irena Zagoruyko, speaking by cellphone atop a 56-meter (185-foot) crane.

While the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union is widely regarded as successful, there were also frictions.

Religion is a sensitive subject. Many immigrants have tenuous Jewish lineage or none at all.

There is also a certain disdain on both sides, with some immigrants saying they brought talent to a cultural backwater, and some Israelis saying the Russian-speaking immigrants brought prostitution, corruption and crime.

To some degree, many Russian speakers have insulated themselves from the broader Israeli society with Russian bookshops, Russian restaurants, Russian television and Russian newspapers.

And they never forget the beloved Chekhov and Dostoyevsky of their motherland.

"That's why Soviet immigrants never connected to Israeli society all the way," says Roman Bronfman, a former Israeli lawmaker born in today's Ukraine. "They felt they were connected to one of the most glorious cultures in the world."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photo-essay-ex-soviet-immigrants-change-israel-143918455.html

fantasy baseball jared sullinger jaleel white levi johnston 2013 srt viper scott walker recall fisker atlantic

The Difference Between Payday Loans & Loan Sharks | Financial ...

There are many critics who quickly label payday lenders ?loan sharks? without realizing just how drastic the difference is between them. The availability of these payday advances has actually made true loan sharks scarce, which is safer for borrowers in desperate needs of money.

1. Business Operation

Loan Sharks operate only in cash. They?ll work with people who don?t have bank accounts. Since there is no written contract, no banking paper trail it?s very hard to track the actual interest rate and also very hard to prove

A Payday Loan requires a bank account so interest rates and fees can be tracked. Now online payday loans are available and you can keep track of your loans and when you?ve paid them.

2. Typical Client

Loan sharks actually prefer to work with small and medium business owners. These customers are more likely to possess assets that could be seized if the loan is in default, or even worse, the business owners themselves was forced to participate crime by assisting the loan sharks by laundering money. Gamblers are also a favorite customer, and so are other criminals since you can?t get a bank loan to finance illegal operation like selling drugs.

Payday Loans are used by working adults who need emergency cash. There are several reasons why someone would need one. An unexpected car problem that needs to be fixed so you can go to work. Emergency travel expenses due to a family member being sick and a broken heater in the middle of a harsh winter are all reasons people use payday loans to help support themselves when things are tight.

3. Up-Front Collateral

Loan Sharks frequently require an asset to hold onto before the loan is given. It can be anything from a television set, stereo or anything of value that they can keep if you don?t pay the loan back or you pay it back late.

Direct payday lenders sometimes hold onto a personal check for the loan amount plus the fee. More commonly, they?ll record your bank account and routing number and debit the amount you owe. An established lender would never ask you to leave your TV with them.

4. Interest Rate

Loan shark interest rates are practically limitless. They operate illegally so they can dictate how much you have to pay them back

Payday loans are controlled by state laws

5. Late and Missing Payments

Loan Shark: Broken thumbs

Payday loans assess additional fees for late payments, like you would get if you missed a credit card payment. They are also controlled by state laws so the additional fees are limited and you can expect consistency from lender to lender. If you miss payments or default on a loan many states have programs so you can set up a payment plan.

6. The Real Difference Between Payday Loan and Loan Shark:

The main difference, which most people forget, is that payday lending is a legitimate business and loan sharking is illegal.

These services allow people to get a payday loan when money is tight. If you?re considering getting a guaranteed cash advance, make sure you only borrow what you need. Loanshark.co is a resource for consumers to report illegal loan sharks as well as financial scams.

Tags: Finance, Loan Shark, PayDay Loans

This entry was posted on December 28, 2012 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://www.financial5.com/blog/the-difference-between-payday-loans-loan-sharks/

jersey shore season 5 mark driscoll unemployment rate unemployment rate keri russell drew barrymore jesse ventura

ART & ENTERTAINMENT IN BRIEF 28/12 ? TalkVietnam

HCM City Social Science Association related stories

Memorabilia recall 1973 Paris Peace Conference

More than 200 documents, pictures and objects are on display at the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi, recalling the 1973 Paris conference on peace restoration in Vietnam.

Exhibits are divided into three parts, with the first looking at the historical background of the Vietnamese resistance war against US aggression, the second dwelling on the Paris conference in 1973, and the third on the Great Victory of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign in April 1975.

Photo: VOV

Heavy losses in Southern Vietnam in the late 1960s forced the US to negotiate a peace agreement with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam.

However, the US sought by all means to delay and not sign the agreement.

Negotiations had to last for several years, and bitter defeat in both northern and southern fronts, especially its plan to bombard Hanoi in late 1972, prompted the US to sit down at the negotiating table and sign the agreement in Paris on January 27, 1973, putting an end to the war in Vietnam and restoring peace in the country.

The Paris agreement was a big diplomatic victory of Vietnam, marking a turning point in the national revolutionary cause, said Nguyen Xuan Huong, head of the National Archives Centre III, at the opening ceremony of the exhibition on December 27.

After the signing, the US withdrew its troops from southern Vietnam, creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese people to reinforce the struggle liberating the south and unifying the entire nation in 1975.

Book launched marking life of celebrated historian

A new book titled Tran Van Giau ? 100 Year Milestone compiles writings by 30 scholars and researchers to create a comprehensive portrait of Tran Van Giau (1911-2010), one of Viet Nam?s most renowned historians.

The 400-page book spans Giau?s life and career, from his time as secretary of the Viet Nam Communist Party?s Southern Region and chairman of the South Viet Nam?s Resistance Committee to his years fighting in the Vietnamese revolutionary forces against the French colonialists.

Professor Giau, known throughout the country for his award-winning works in history and philosophy, also served as honorary chairman of the Viet Nam Historical Science Association and chairman of the HCM City Social Science Association. He has received many State awards, including the prestigious Ho Chi Minh Award.

Hanoi celebrates New Year 2013

Hanoi?s Old Quarter management board launched cultural activities at four heritage sites on December 27, beginning the lead-up to welcoming New Year 2013.

Painter Si Tot is exhibiting his work at Kim Ngan Temple on 42-44 Hang Bac Street.

Photographs celebrating the traditional Lai Xa photograph village in Hoai Duc district are on display at Dong Lac Temple on 38 Hang Dao Street.

A heritage building at 87 Ma May Street is showcasing traditional Dong Ho and Hang Trong paintings.

More details about the new exhibitions can be found at the information centre on 28 Hang Buom Street.

All will last through to February 27, 2013.

From December 30, 2012 to January 1, 2013, the Ly Thai To statue square will host a performance celebrating the New Year.

The municipal Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism is also planning to adorn Ly Thai To flower garden with 40 stalls displaying the arts and handicrafts of the city?s traditional craft villages.

Russian literature works translated into Vietnamese

About 40 works of Russian literature will be translated into Vietnamese as part of a translation project initiated on the occasion of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev?s official visit to Viet Nam in 2010.

The first batch, released in November, includes four novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Chamber music brings Beethoven to capital crowds

Vietnamese and South Korean musicians will perform classical music tonight at Trung Nguyen Book Coffee, 52 Hai Ba Trung Street, at 8.30pm.

The show features a piano performance of Beethoven?s Moonlight Sonata and Vietnamese composer Dam Linh?s duet for piano and flute Bai Ca Chim Ung (Falcon Song).

Zion, a 20-member choir from South Korea, will sing Christmas Cantata ? A Small Child. Veteran composer Nguyen Cuong will introduce the pieces.

This free show is held on the last Friday of every month.

GoThap recognised as site of national heritage

The historical area of Go Thap in Thap Muoi District, southern province of Dong Thap, was pronounced special national heritage on Wednesday.

Discovered at the end of the 19th century by French researchers, the area once belonged to the Oc Eo Culture, which dates back 1,500 years.

Go Thap has lured countless Vietnamese and foreign archaeologists to research its rare steles and ancient architecture, including sophisticated wooden sculptures and funerary relics.

Located in the centre of the vast Dong Thap Muoi, the area is also notable for its beautiful natural landscapes.

Local authorities plan to preserve the 300-ha area for studying and tourism purposes.

Indian rockband marks anniversary

The Indian Embassy will host a series of performances by Shwaas Rock Band in Viet Nam to mark the visit of INS Sudharshini, a sailing ship used for training by the Indian Navy. It will pay a goodwill visit to Da Nang City from next Monday to Thursday.

The ship is named after the beautiful Sundari, the Sanskrit name for the younger half sister of the Buddha. It will visit Viet Nam to mark the 40th anniversary of full diplomatic relations, the fifth anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership, and the 20th anniversary of the partnership between India and ASEAN.

The band will perform in Da Nang City on January 2, in HCM City on January 4, in Can Tho City on January 6.

In Ha Noi, concerts will be held at the Viet Nam Dance, Song and Music Theatre on January 7 and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities on January 8.

Arts group recognises cultural research

Studies of folk culture and arts received awards yesterday at the Viet Nam Folk Literature and Arts Association?s annual congress.

The six research projects to win awards were: The Traditional Festival of the Black Thai in the Northern Province of Dien Bien; Funeral Rituals of the Cham in the Southern Central Province of Ninh Thuan; the Raglai Epics and Folk Tales Tellers; Problems for Vietnamese Epics; Syntax and Semantics of Vietnamese Proverbs; Folk Literature of the Southern Province of Ben Tre.

This year the association received 73 studies on philology, customs, performing arts and folk knowledge, said association chairman To Ngoc Thanh.

?Many of them were profound and showed a great deal of effort by the authors,? Thanh said.

However some had included terms which were not relevant to the subject or they perpetuated stereotypes and cliches.

?I read some entries trite and hollow remarks like the composition of a high school student, not the study of a scholar,? Thanh said. ?As expected, these entries were not successful.?

The congress was also held to honour veteran folk artists who devoted themselves to promoting cultural quintessence and preserving traditional arts in their regions. Many artists were granted the title Viet Nam?s Master of Folk Art on the occasion.

?The traditional arts are often transferred orally from generation to generation,? Thanh said. ?When an old artists passes away, he or she takes a library of knowledge with them.

?We need to learn from the old artists and preserve their knowledge and experiences as soon as possible.?

Tran Ngoc Thu, a unicorn dancer in the northern province of Quang Ninh, was among the credited artists.

?When I taught unicorn dance to the younger generation and organised dance troupes in the region, I didn?t think of receiving certification or even to let anyone know of my work,? he said. ?I just feel the need to preserve the dance as part of our culture.?

Vietnamese, Korean artists join in chamber concert

Artists from Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) will perform together in a concert hosted by Hanoi?s CEG Chamber Music Club at 8.30pm on December 28.

The ZION Korean Choir, comprising 20 Korean singers, will perform a piece entitled ?Christmas Cantata?A Small Child? under the baton of Korean conductor Park Sung Min.

Vietnamese artists?including pianists Dang Bich Thuy and Trang Trinh, flautist Kim Oanh, and violinist Dao Hong Nhung?will also participate.

The CEG Chamber Music Club was established in March by composer Nguyen Cuong.

The club hosts a performance every Friday at 52 Hai Ba Trung Street in Hanoi. The venue can accommodate 200 audience members.

VNN/VOV/VNS

Viet Nam Historical Science Association related stories

Source: http://talkvietnam.com/2012/12/art-entertainment-in-brief-2812/

obama care miss universe canada don draper gallagher madmen james cameron liam hemsworth

Berlusconi criticizes Monti's campaign about-face

ROME (AP) ? Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi has sharply criticized the decision by Mario Monti to run in Italy's general elections and has vowed to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the 2011 fall of his government and appointment of Monti as Italy's premier.

Berlusconi spoke out Saturday after Monti ended a week of hedging and announced Friday that he would head a coalition of centrist forces, businessmen and pro-Vatican forces running for office in Feb. 24-25 elections.

Berlusconi said he never expected Monti would reneg on his repeated assurances that he "wouldn't use the public prominence as head of a technical government for an ulterior presence in politics."

Monti was named to lead a technical government after Berlusconi was forced to resign amid Italy's slide into the eurozone's debt crisis.

Berlusconi's party trails in the polls.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlusconi-criticizes-montis-campaign-face-192127974.html

pipa keystone xl sopa bill sopa and pipa piracy sopa marg helgenberger

Newsmakers 2012: Women's issues take center stage | PennLive.com

Some women felt they were under attack in 2012.

The Susan Komen For The Cure international headquarters are shown in the Dallas suburb of Addison, Texas, Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. After three days of controversy, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer charity says reversed its decision to cut breast-screening grants to Planned Parenthood. (AP Photo/LM Otero)? ?
Christine Toretti, Republican National Committee, cautioned that the GOP was alienating women. VICKI VELLIOS BRINER,
The Patriot-News

The GOP was accused of waging a war on women last year. Plenty of Republicans ? and yes, Republican women ? said that was actually a Democratic ploy designed to raise money in an election year.

Nonetheless, several women?s issues emerged front and center in 2012.

Following the lead of other states, Pennsylvania lawmakers considered a bill requiring women to have an ultrasound before getting an abortion. The bill also called for an image of the fetus to be shown on a monitor.

Gov. Tom Corbett garnered national attention and criticism when he said that women didn?t have to look at the monitor to see the fetus. He said a woman simply has to ?close your eyes.?

Democrats pounded Corbett for the remark. Corbett?s support of the bill earned support from some conservatives, but even some Republicans said they were disappointed by Corbett's comments.

The bill was sponsored by a woman: State Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren County. But the legislation was later put on the shelf when it became clear it wouldn?t get support.

As Republican presidential candidates battled over abortion in the fight for the GOP nomination, some cautioned that the emphasis on social issues was creating a gender gap. ?This primary process has really alienated a lot of women across the country,? Christine Toretti, a key player in the Republican National Committee, told The Patriot-news.

The battle over birth control also made news in 2012, and the issue broke party lines.

Conservatives, Catholics in particular, fought a provision in President Barack Obama?s health care reform law requiring health insurance plans to pay for contraception. At one point, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., and other Democrats urged the White House to reconsider.

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh also received criticism for calling a Georgetown University student a ?slut? for testifying before Congress about the need for access to contraceptives. Limbaugh later apologized.

Planned Parenthood was again the target of some lawmakers. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County, pushed legislation to keep taxpayer money away from the group. He argues that Planned Parenthood doesn't deserve state money because it provides abortion services and referrals.

Another flap involving Planned Parenthood arose early in the year when Susan G. Komen for the Cure announced plans to cut funding for the group. Facing a huge backlash fueled by social media, Komen, a top breast cancer charity, quickly reversed its decision.

?We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives,? a Komen statement said.

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/12/newsmakers_2012_womens_issues.html

kennedy demi moore roy oswalt kevin martin 2012 senior bowl chuck series finale welcome back kotter

Year-End Tax Tips For Small Business Owners - Business Insider

To quote Benjamin Franklin, "Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes." There?s usually more work involved for small businesses than for individuals when it comes to filing taxes, but that doesn?t mean it has to be more daunting.

We spoke to Greg Jones, CEO of the outsourced financial intelligence consulting company BookKeeping Express, and Glen Ross, founder of the tax preparer search site Prosado.com, and discovered exactly what small business owners need to know about filing their taxes.

Keep good records.

Keep everything in a file, says Jones. Hold onto receipts, pay stubs, charts of accounts, and any other paperwork related to the financials of the business.

Jones also advises to keep good records all year long. ?Most small business owners don?t think about it until November or December, or even January of the new year to start planning,? he says, but the best time to start is January 1 of the prior year. Put your business plan into play on January 1st, and reconcile all your paperwork each month.

Get organized.

Disorganization is one of the most common reasons small business owners make mistakes when filing their taxes. The same way you should be keeping good records all year long, you should be organizing your records all year long.

?Organizing your bank statements is a good starting point,? says Ross. ?Organize receipts for expenses, and enter it into some kind of software, ideally, such as Quickbooks,? so that it will calculate and manage for you until the time comes to file.

Being organized will do a few things for you, says Ross. ?One, it?s going to make it easier to file. Two, it?s going to reduce your audit risk, and three, since audit risk can never be reduced to zero, it?s going to make it that much easier to provide the documents requested if you are audited. So organization is the key, really, to filing, to audits, and to successful audits.?

Know when to handle your own taxes ...

Some small businesses owners are perfectly capable of handling the company?s taxes on their own.

?A lot of small companies with few employees don?t have the resources or need to hire a bookkeeper,? says Ross. If you have everything in order and know what expenses you can deduct and what to file where, or if you have an internal accountant or bookkeeper, you may not need to hire someone externally to help you.

... and when to outsource the work.

For any businesses bigger than a couple of people, Jones recommends outsourcing.?

?Time spent hunting and picking through financials versus running your business and trying to find a direction takes away from the ultimate goal,? he says. ?I?d rather use somebody, whether I?m a one or two-person shop, or a hundred-person shop, that can do the best that I could not do, and do it functionally, efficiently and bring me a value.?

Have the work done right the first time around by a professional, says Jones, that way you can spend that time focusing on running your business.

If you get audited, don?t panic.

This is one time you should always call a professional; never try to handle an audit on your own.

?That would be like getting sued and trying to handle the lawsuit on your own,? Ross says. Tax professionals have generally been through this before, and know what an IRS auditor is looking for. They may also have a relationship with the IRS that?s been previously established, and this is in your best interest.

NOW READ: Amateur investors have a few key advantages over professionals?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/year-end-tax-tips-for-small-business-owners-greg-jones-glen-ross-2012-12

masterchef Dictionary.com Chicago teachers strike yahoo finance september 11 2001 september 11 2001 dr oz

How to negotiate your remodeling contract with a general contractor ...

28Dec

www.angieslist.com ? We?ve all heard about home improvement or remodeling projects that went way past the completion date, or worse, required a second general contractor to complete the project. Homeowners can protect themselves from these scenarios by getting contracts from the service providers, and most importantly, reading the contract thoroughly and adding additional protective agreements as needed.

Comments Off

Source: http://www.cohocton.org/179-how-to-negotiate-your-remodeling-contract-with-a-general-contractor

49ers game ravens steven tyler national anthem paterno newt gingrich joe pa joe pa

Golden Dukes Winners Announced!!! (talking-points-memo)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273633537?client_source=feed&format=rss

earthquake abc news msnbc meteor shower 121212 Concert Columbine shooting News

MMA - is anyone interested in this sport?

myMMA? Threads: 1
Joined: Aug 14, 12 ??? ?Aug?14,?12,?16:35 ? ? #
Hello!

I don't see any topic about Mixed Martial Arts here, so that why I am writing about this. Is there anybody who like or watch that sport? In USA, and in the world, the most popular organisation is UFC, Strikeforce and Bellator. In Poland we have KSW and MMA Attack. Are in USA Polish fans of this sport?

jon357? Threads: 6
Posts: 2,785
Joined: Mar 15, 12 ????? ?Aug?14,?12,?17:37 ? ? #
Is that something like Chess Boxing?
phtoa? Threads: 15
Posts: 220
Joined: Jan 11, 12 ??? ?Aug?15,?12,?08:22 ? ? #
Im not a huge fan, but I started on the beginners team out at the comcom zone in Krakow mostly just to stay in shape.
It's an extremely demanding sport and I have great respect for the fighters!

I think the gym in the comcom zone belongs to the famous Polish UFC fighter Tomasz Drwal.

Foreigner4? Threads: 22
Posts: 2,188
Joined: Nov 18, 07 ??? ?Nov?16,?12,?20:39 ? ? #
WOOT WOOT WOOT!!!--Marcin Held fights tonight in Bellator--WOOT WOOT WOOT!!!!

Davaj Davaj M?ody (excuse the crap spelling)
Bastion! Bastion! Bastion!

He's fighting Rich Clementi in the tournament final....I would be really really surprised with anything but a victory for Marcin but I pray he doesn't dangle that chin out there....the kid is an amazing talent and an EXCELLENT ambassador for his sport, his club and his country. All class.

smurf? Threads: 53
Posts: 921
Joined: Sep 8, 09 ??? ?Nov?16,?12,?21:12 ? ? #
I used to watch half naked men hold each other down and shout rude words at each other, but that was when I worked in a gay bar. From what I've seen of this 'sport' it's not much different :P
haters gonna hate (^_^)
Nacjonalista? Threads: 3
Posts: 128
Joined: Oct 30, 12 ??? ?Nov?24,?12,?21:43 ? ? #

smurf:

I used to watch half naked men hold each other down and shout rude words at each other,

LOL isn't that American wrestling?

WielkiPolak? Threads: 49
Posts: 517
Joined: Jun 3, 11 ??? ?Nov?25,?12,?18:35 ? ? #
Yeah it does pretty much some up wrestling. I still sometimes watch that [ashamed to say] for fun but if anyone ever confronted me about it and told me it is stupid, I would have no defense, it really is.
szkotja2007? Threads: 38
Posts: 2,592
Joined: Dec 29, 06 ??? ?Nov?25,?12,?18:38 ? ? #
Can anyone tell me what the polish terms would be for uppercut, hook, jab etc ?? Thanks
?Yesterday, 03:00 ? ? #
When they arent talking about GSP locally. We are at a bar or house party watching the mixed martial arts -yes and there is some decent polish fighters coming out like Chris Horecki- polish fighting out canada , Sarnasky a really good guy always on bellator.. he is young and blonde
Foreigner4? Threads: 22
Posts: 2,188
Joined: Nov 18, 07 ??? ?Yesterday, 13:29 ? ? #

Jacqueline:

Chris Horecki- polish fighting out canada
Pah-leeeeze... A) that's not his name B) he's not going anywhere in the sport C) he's not really Polish.
This place and Russia are the places to keep an eye on when it comes to talent in about 5-10 years time imo.
Trevek? Threads: 34
Posts: 2,220
Joined: May 21, 08 ??? ?Yesterday, 18:15 ? ? #
Here in Olsztyn, we have a couple of MMA clubs, and one of the top MMA-ers in Poland, Mamed Khalidov.
If I was younger, and didn't have a dodgy neck, I'd like to try MMA.
Olsztyn has a pretty strong Martial Arts scene in other disciplines too.


Random: POLISH VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE FOR PC?

Only registered and logged-in users may post here. Please log in on the main page or register.

34 [Guests - 30 / Members - 4] users on live forums now

Source: http://www.polishforums.com/sports-recreation-15/mma-anyone-interested-sport-61351/

chariots of fire nbc Medal Count Sam Mikulak London 2012 diving Tim Berners-Lee Olympics 2012 Schedule

US new home sales jump to fastest rate in more than 2 years - KPCC

Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Sales of new homes rose 4.4 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 377,000, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That's the fastest pace since April 2010, when a federal tax credit boosted sales.

Americans bought new homes last month at the fastest pace in more than two and a half years, further evidence of a sustained housing recovery.

Sales of new homes rose 4.4 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 377,000, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That's the fastest pace since April 2010, when a federal tax credit boosted sales.

New-home sales have also increased 15.3 percent over the past year. The improvement comes from depressed levels. Sales remain below the 700,000 that economists consider healthy.

Steady job gains this year and ultra-low mortgage rates have boosted sales of both newly built and previously occupied homes. More people are looking to buy or rent a home after living with relatives or friends during and immediately after the Great Recession.

Another big reason for the rebound is the excess supply of homes that were built during the housing boom has finally thinned out. Only 149,000 new homes were for sale at the end of last month, according to the report. That's just above a record low of 143,000 in August.

Still, the market is steadily improving and that has lifted builder confidence to its highest level in 6 ? years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo survey released last week. The pace of home construction is nearly 22 percent higher than a year earlier, according to government data. Builders are on track this year to start work on the most homes in four years.

Home prices are also increasing. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller national home price index released Wednesday increased 4.3 percent in October compared with a year ago. That's the largest year-over-year increase in two and a half years. And prices rose for the 12-month period in 18 of the 20 cities tracked by the index.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose to the highest level in three years in November, the National Association of Realtors said last week.

Though new homes represent only a small portion of the housing market, they have a disproportionate impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics from the National Association of Home Builders.

Source: http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/12/27/35412/us-new-home-sales-jump-fastest-rate-more-2-years/

16 and pregnant ludwig mies van der rohe jamie lynn sigler mega millions jackpot black panther party frank martin pink slime

Extreme Day Trading Review ? Awful Info EXPOSED | MustReads.Info

With regards to scalp trading, day time investors try to make use of the short term investing opportunities. Investors presented to enter and also exit in just a moment or so plus they can produce self-confidence progressively and industry with out anxiety when they are at this regularly. Throughout day trading scalpers could make a number of little earnings which can add up to a good complete.

?Extreme Day Trading? is really a guaranteed self-explanatory system which has been mainly designed for the forex market but it can also buy and sell shares and futures. If you are an investor compared to you ought to be realizing that chance maintains on moving from one market to a different. This technique may be used together with any kind of system such as the MetaTrader, Trade Station, Meta Stock, eSignal, NinjaTrader and even dealer particular systems like FXCM. This uses from the shelf proprietary indications. So what you will get is really a confirmed and tested system it really is a gift from Jens Cever.

The ?Extreme Day Trading? strategy is the step by step movie course (where you?ll get a complete regarding 41 step by step movies? More upon that in the next section) to will discover never-before-revealed tactics that will help you produce a good amount of profits within your Forex currency trading.

Combined with the video clips, additionally, you will obtain, important spreadsheets, along with other equipment that will aid you inside your investing (and precisely what you?ll obtain within the bundle can help you create profitable investing decisions).

To inform the reality, only expert traders have the capability and the encounter needed to create their own methods. A brand new system requires a large amount of back again as well as ahead tests prior to it may be said with full confidence that it must be a great program. With this particular program you don?t have to build anything!

Here is more information about visit the following webpage check out www.ExtremeDayTradingReview.com/

Top Reads:

Filed: Local
tags: day trading school, learn how to day trade, learning to day trade

Source: http://www.mustreads.info/extreme-day-trading-review-awful-info-exposed/

felicia day nfl 2012 draft st louis rams miami dolphins buffalo bills minnesota vikings pittsburgh steelers

U.S. stocks cut most losses; yen hits two-yr low

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks recovered from sharp losses to end only slightly lower on Thursday after the U.S. House of Representative said it would come back to work this weekend in a last-ditch effort to avoid the "fiscal cliff," while the yen hit a two-year low on expectations of bold monetary stimulus in Japan.

It was a fourth straight session of losses for U.S. stocks, while world stocks ended slightly higher.

Wall Street stocks tumbled in morning trade after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Senate Democrat, said the United States may be poised to go off the "fiscal cliff." But in late trading, the House of Representatives said it set a work session for Sunday night ahead of the December 31 deadline for reaching a deal, paring losses that earlier that earlier had driven all three major stock indexes down about 1 percent.

Economists warn that the $600 billion in higher taxes and spending cuts set to kick in from January could push the world's largest economy into recession, dragging other countries with it.

"There's no conviction in the move or the overall market, based on the across-the-board reduction we've seen in volume ... but there will be continued weakness until there's sustained positive direction coming from our leaders," said Joseph Cangemi, managing director at ConvergEx Group, in New York.

The House of Representatives may stay in session until January 2, the final day of the current Congress, according to a Twitter message from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

That is the day that another component of the "fiscal cliff" - $109 billion in automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs - is set to start.

The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 18.28 points, or 0.14 percent, to end at 13,096.31. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1.74 points, or 0.12 percent, at 1,418.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 4.25 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,985.91.

Shares of U.S. retailers fell for a second day following the Christmas holiday. The Morgan Stanley retail index was down 0.2 percent.

The MSCI global index was last up 0.1 percent, while European shares ended down 0.01 percent.

President Barack Obama returned to Washington on Thursday, cutting short his holiday to try to get a budget deal with Republican lawmakers.

GRAPHICS:

Asset performance in 2012 http://link.reuters.com/muc46s

Fiscal cliff woes impact http://link.reuters.com/num84t

U.S. consumer confidence http://link.reuters.com/vaq84t

EURO DIPS, YEN SLUMPS

The dollar rose to 86.15 yen on Reuters data, its highest since mid-August 2010. It was last up 0.5 percent at 86.02 yen.

The dollar has risen 12 percent against the yen in 2012, on track for its biggest annual gain since 2005. Yen selling has accelerated in the past two months on expectations that Shinzo Abe would be elected prime minister and would pursue policies to weaken the Japanese currency.

The Liberal Democratic Party won the elections on December 16, making Abe the prime minister. Since then, he has kept up pressure on the Bank of Japan to attack deflation and weaken the yen.

"If everyone is simply going to take Mr. Abe at his word, then we can go a lot further before this move is done," said Kit Juckes, strategist at Societe Generale in London.

The euro rose 0.2 percent to $1.3242.

U.S. BONDS TRADE HIGHER, OIL EASES

Prices on longer-dated U.S. Treasuries were higher after Reid's fiscal cliff comments and after the Conference Board, an industry group, reported a bigger-than-expected drop in American consumer confidence in December.

Benchmark 10-year Treasuries prices were 4/32 higher in price, yielding 1.7355 percent.

Brent crude futures ended down slightly as the unresolved U.S. budget talks left open the possibility that mandated tax hikes and spending cuts could be enacted, which could push the United States, the world's top oil-consumer, into recession.

Brent February crude fell 27 cents, or 0.24 percent, to settle at $110.80 a barrel. U.S. February crude slipped 11 cents, or 0.12 percent, to settle at $90.87.

In the precious metals market, gold prices rose for a fourth straight day for their longest winning stretch in nearly two months. But the gains were small for a market seen as a key hedge to the U.S. fiscal crisis.

Gold's February futures contract on COMEX, the most active on the New York exchange, settled at $1,663.70 an ounce, up $3, or 0.2 percent on the day. Over the past week, it has gained $17.80, or just over 1 percent, after hitting a four-month low of $1,645.90 on December 20.

(Additional reporting by Wanfeng Zhou, Robert Gibbons, Richard Leong, Barani Krishnan and Ryan Vlastelica in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Dan Grebler and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-stocks-euro-down-u-cliff-comments-164115011--finance.html

jon jones rashad evans ufc jones vs evans watergate mlb pregnant man outside lands 2012 lineup beloved

This Awesome Optical Illusion Will Twist Your Brain Into Knots

Kokichi Sugihara loves to screw up human perception. He is the master of 3D optical illusions, designing solid three-dimensional models that do impossible things. This house is his latest creation, presented a few days ago at the European Conference on Visual Perception in Sardinia, Italy. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PF8WR0evrb4/

april 30 wwe extreme rules 2012 vontaze burfict jimmy kimmel amzn white house correspondents dinner phoenix coyotes

Element Case Sector 5 iPhone case review

I typically do not use cases with my tech gear, especially Apple products. I prefer using them as the designers intended them, embracing the form-factor and living with the risk of damage. However, with the iPhone 5, I have seen the carnage that a single drop can do – from marring/scratching the black aluminum edging [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/12/26/element-case-sector-5-iphone-case-review/

punksatony phil 2012 groundhog day groundhog phil pee wee herman ketamine ground hogs day 2012 goundhog day

Antarctic lake project called off

27 December 2012 Last updated at 05:08 ET

An ambitious mission to drill through 3km (1.8 miles) of Antarctic ice to a lake that has been sealed off for thousands of years has been cut short.

The team at Lake Ellsworth decided to call off the mission in the early hours of Christmas Day UK time.

They were unable to join the main borehole with a parallel hole that was to be used to recover drilling water.

The team is now "weatherising" the equipment and it is unclear when they will be able to resume the project.

The ?8m ($13m) project, headed by the British Antarctic Survey (Bas), aimed to drill carefully down using near-boiling water to pierce the lake, which has been untouched for as much as half a million years.

The hope had been to find hints of simple life forms existing in the extreme conditions of pressure and temperature, and to find a record of climate in the lake's sediments.

Continue reading the main story

Searching for life in the hidden waters of Lake Ellsworth was one of the most ambitious British science projects of recent years, so this failure in the drilling programme will come as a huge blow.

The team knew that the risks were high, but the idea of exploring an ancient and mysterious body of water isolated for hundreds of thousands of years had inspired passion and determination.

The challenge of designing and engineering equipment that could remain sterilised on the long journey to Antarctica, and then down through the 3km of ice-sheet, was immense and involved hundreds of people.

So the disappointment will be felt far beyond the 12 men at their remote camp on the ice. Engineers, technicians, support staff - and researchers eager for the results - will feel heavy disappointment. They may try again next year. But this was frontier science, a gamble, and it did not pay off.

The programme ran into trouble last week as the main boiler used to heat drilling water broke down, with a replacement part being flown from the UK reaching the remote site last Friday.

With the boiler working, the team aimed to make two parallel boreholes, intended to join 300m below the surface.

A first borehole was drilled and left for 12 hours to create a hot-water cavity. This was to be used to re-circulate drilling water and to balance pressures when the sequestered lake was finally breached.

However, the team were unable to reach the cavity during the course of drilling the second, main borehole.

"We kept trying for over 24 hours to reach that connection but we couldn't do it," said principal investigator of the project Martin Siegert, from the University of Bristol.

"All that time we were losing fuel and water from the ice sheet surface and we got to a critical condition where our calculations showed us we simply didn't have enough fuel to continue any further down into the ice sheet to hit the top of the lake," he told BBC News.

The team is now starting the long process of gathering up its equipment for eventual return to the UK, where it will be serviced.

Once back on UK soil, the team will have to develop a report on what went wrong, and only then can the thought of a return trip be considered.

"It will take a season or two to get all of our equipment out of Antarctica and back to the UK, so at a minimum we're looking at three to four, maybe five years I would have thought," Prof Siegert said.

But he remained hopeful about the future, and said that this year's mission was far from a complete loss.

"We still want to do that testing, they were compelling scientific drivers a few years ago and they remain so. It's very important that we take stock of what we achieved here," he said.

Given the long time that it may take to fund and mount another mission to Ellsworth, it may be that other nations aim for other sealed-off Antarctic lakes in the nearer term.

"We have never depicted it as a race, but it may well happen that others get there first," Audrey Stevens, Bas spokesperson, told BBC News.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20850360#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

facebook ipo egypt soccer riot mike kelley puxatony phil josh harvey clemons college football recruiting rankings ground hog day 2012

Estate Planning: Not Just For the Rich - The Wiewel Law Firm

If you are like many other American families, the current upheaval in Washington regarding the fiscal cliff (and the estate and gift taxes) doesn?t particularly interest you. However, while the discussions in Washington generally only affect the extremely wealthy, don?t be fooled. You still need an estate plan for yourself and your loved ones.

No matter your net worth, it?s important to have, at the bare minimum, a basic estate plan. Such a plan ensures that your family and financial goals are met after you die and may include components such as a Will, a Durable Power of Attorney, a Living Will or Medical Power of Attorney, and possibly even a Trust.

So, now that you know you need some sort of estate planning, you may be wondering where to begin. A good place to start is taking inventory of your assets. Your assets include your investments, retirement savings, insurance policies, and real estate or business interests.

Then ask yourself three questions:? Whom do you want to inherit your assets? Whom do you want handling your financial affairs if you?re ever incapacitated? Whom do you want making medical decisions for you if you become unable to make them for yourself?

Now, be sure to consult with your estate planning attorney to ensure your estate plan is properly drafted and executed. Preparing your own estate plan is not a safe DIY project, especially when the protection of all that you have and everyone you love is at stake.?

Source: http://blog.texastrustlaw.com/2012/12/estate-planning-not-just-for-the-rich.html

nike nfl jerseys katie couric barista university of kentucky ncaa oakland news alec baldwin

Business Dvelopment Executive / Managers, Bangalore

Urgent Requirement for The Profile Of Business Development Executive/Manager for Bangalore Location In Publication & Event Industries.

Your profile will be to develop and manage customers by getting in touch with Government, defense, Institutes and Corporate sectors alike and take complete charge of all the marketing and sales activities in the field and you will also be responsible for achievements of targets that you accept from time to time.

1.? Maintain proactive relationship management with assigned client base.

2.? To handle corporate clients both in Institutions as well as in MNCs and take complete charge of all the marketing and sales activities in the field and will also be responsible for achievements of targets that you accept from time to time.

3.? Assisting in development of new markets and new products and also be associated with the search and development of new marketing strategies.

4.? Provides feedback to sales management and business owners to ensure company's solutions continue to meet client needs.

5.? Develop a situation analysis of your company including its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to assist in the development of a strategic plan for the future of the business.

6.? Maintains prospect database

Interested Candidates can mail their CV at genesisprivilege@gmail.com or can call on +91-7795190530, +91-9535235688 for prompt response.

Thanks & Regards

Arvind Sanjay Rao

Dir. Business Development

+91 9535235688/ +91 7795190530

Telecommuting is ok.
yes -- OK for recruiters to contact this job poster.
yes -- Phone calls about this job are ok.
yes -- Reposting this message elsewhere is OK.

Source: http://bangalore.locanto.in/ID_148390531/Business-Dvelopment-Executive-Managers.html

kurt warner kurt warner ricky williams missouri primary minnesota caucus knowshon moreno knowshon moreno

New study: Indecisive economic policy takes a lasting toll on financial markets

SEATTLE, Dec. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --?According to a new study from the University of Washington Foster School of Business, excessive debate and/or ambiguity on national tax, spending, regulation and debt decisions creates an environment of uncertainty that has an ill effect on financial markets. And this malaise can outlast the uncertainty itself.

The study by Jonathan Brogaard, assistant professor of finance, and Andrew Detzel, a doctoral student at the Foster School, demonstrates that when economic policy uncertainty increases, asset prices fall concurrently, and market volatility jumps significantly. What's more, the negative effect of government-induced uncertainty persists.

"We're finding," says Brogaard, "that the lack of a decision can be just as bad as a bad decision."

Many academic studies have sought to pinpoint the economic toll of policy uncertainty. Brogaard and Detzel are the first to connect a high-frequency measure with its effect on that most telling gauge of the economy, the financial markets.

They might have zeroed in on particularly contentious moments in recent policy history: Iraq war funding, Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank reforms, the Affordable Care Act, the debt ceiling crisis, the sunsetting of Bush-era tax credits.

Instead, they measured uncertainty itself. Brogaard and Detzel built a web crawler that captures media mentions of terms commonly associated with economic policy uncertainty. The crawler scanned millions of articles in prominent magazines and newspapers over a 20-year period, monitoring the frequency of policy uncertainty reported in 21 geographically dispersed nations, among them the United States.

Separating policy uncertainty from trigger events affords a clearer picture of the life cycle of economic policy uncertainty. It allows for continuous tracking that takes into account periods of policy debate, inaction, inclusive action, ineffectual action, and anxiety over the need for future action.

"The passing of a bill does not necessarily indicate the resolution of all uncertainty," Brogaard says.

Once they?identified periods of heightened uncertainty about economic policy, Brogaard and Detzel analyzed the corresponding stock market returns representing each nation in the study. An uptick in uncertainty sinks asset prices across the economy.

The reason, Brogaard explains, is that nationwide uncertainty signals a decrease in future cash flows and an increase in the risk premium?the amount an investor demands to hold an asset. On average, the cash flow impact lasts six months and the risk premium is heightened for over a year. The overall negative effect can last long beyond the period of uncertainty caused by any specific policy event.

The study's message to policy makers is clear: be more decisive.

This is certainly a tall order in a democracy, especially a democracy as starkly polarized as the American variety. Brogaard says that the United States is about average in its amount of government indecision among the 21 nations in the study. But with federal, state and local government expenditures comprising more than 42 percent of the nation's GDP in 2009, "the ubiquity of US government policy makes it very hard to diversify against uncertainty," Brogaard adds.

And uncertainty is growing. While marking its frequency across 20 years of media reports, Brogaard and Detzel charted a recent rise in American economic policy uncertainty over the past five years, and a spike since 2008.

Something to consider as the nation hurtles toward a "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 unless Congress takes action. Decisive action would be best.

The full study is available for download at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2075375

SOURCE The University of Washington's Michael G. Foster School of Business

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/study-indecisive-economic-policy-takes-lasting-toll-financial-233700489.html

Closing Ceremony London 2012 Tom Daley Leryn Franco The Campaign Kinesio tape randy travis Allyson Felix

More Lessons From Grandma On Green Building and House Design ...

Aymar Embury II/Public Domain

Some commenters were not impressed with the post Lessons Green Builders Can Learn From Michael Pollan, where I modified Michael Pollan's Food Rules to green building. In particular, the rule Don't eat build with anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food a building material started a big debate about whether Grandma knew best.

Martin Holladay of Green Building Advisor was particularly critical, noting that his grandma's house was very green but not very nice:

Old houses are charming and have many virtues. My grandmother grew up in a sod house in South Dakota; it was very, very green. Every winter, her job was to bank the walls with fresh manure, in hopes that the feeble heat of the composting manure would reduce some of the chill that the occupants faced when the prairie winds entered through the window cracks.

I can see his point, but much depends on the Grandmother. I can't show my grandmother's house, as it was knocked down to build this gorgeous Stephen Teeple number, but it was rather nice. Etta R. Speyer was one of the first woman real estate agents in Canada and knew how to pick them, and my mom, an interior decorator, did a very contemporary renovation and addition, turning it into a duplex. I grew up there, and learned a lot about both traditional and mid-century modern design from it. Martin's comments made me wonder what else we could learn about house design from Grandma and her contemporaries, beside from using manure as insulation.

I have my mom's copy of Architect Aymar Embury II's "The Livable House: Its Plan and Design" from 1917. (He later became Robert Moses's architect of choice and supervised over six hundred public projects in New York City) In it, he describes what he called houses "built by people of moderate incomes, who cannot afford to build houses of great size, or of extravagant materials." Nonetheless they were houses for professional people who could afford architects, unlike most houses at the time that were built by carpenters or contractors. Embury wrote:

A competent architect can get a little more room out of the same space than the carpenter or untrained house builder. He can so arrange the rooms that housekeeping is a little easier, and he can see that the materials employed are durable and sound.

So how did they arrange the rooms? I looked into Embury's book to see what he considered to be good houses of the day, and what they included. These are not working class houses; they are for the 1% of the time, who could afford to buy empty lots and hire architects. Yet they are very different from the houses of today.

Aymar Embury II/Public Domain

Perhaps most surprising is how tight and efficient they are. Heating was very expensive, so one didn't waste a lot of space. According to Embury, the most modern heating at the time was ducted air, but it wasn't forced air like it is today, they had huge ducts and relied on convection for circulation. Larger houses would have hot water or steam radiators, which was much more expensive. There were living rooms and dining rooms but few dens and no family rooms; you lived in the living and ate in the dining. Period. There was not a lot of space devoted to expansive two storey halls and breakfast rooms and all those things that fill up so much space in a modern house.

Main floor toilets were rare, but everyone in this class had servants, and servant stairs were almost universal, as were kitchen pantries. Even in my own Toronto house, built on a 30' lot in a streetcar suburb of Toronto 90 years ago, there was a servant's stair that ran from near the kitchen to mid-landing so that the help wouldn't be seen in the front hall, horror of horrors. The previous owners ripped it out and put in a powder room.

On the second floor, many of the homes had two bathrooms, but closets are tiny. Today, I believe the rule is that that closet should be as big as the bedroom. Yet somehow they managed; perhaps the help took it all away for storage somewhere else. Every bedroom had at least two windows to provide natural cross-ventilation, the bathrooms had opening windows, never over the tub where you couldn't reach it. The hall had natural light as well; electricity was expensive and unreliable.

Aymar Embury II/Public Domain

As the houses got bigger and jazzier, they got some of the things that we expect today, like ground floor powder rooms and even ground floor dens, but look at the sizes; the dining room is 14' by 14' and the den is 8' x 11', barely the size of a closet by today's standards. There's only one bathroom on the second floor, but it is generous. There is also a sleeping porch for hot summer nights. But generally, it is smaller, tighter and more efficient than anything anyone would build today.

Aymar Embury II/Public Domain

The exteriors are as interesting as the plans. Note the projecting second floor and the trellises shading the windows, the deciduous trees planted to shade the house, the big casement windows to allow the breezes in.

Aymar Embury II/Public Domain

Or note the amazing pergola running round the Calvert House here, creating lovely outdoor space and shading the house in summer.

Wikipedia/CC BY 2.0

In the end, what have we done with all that wonderful insulation and air conditioning and green tech developed since Grandma's day? We've eaten up much of the energy savings by having house size get out of control. We've complicated our designs as if we wanted to maximize jogs and surface areas. We've introduced double height spaces and media rooms and family rooms and breakfast rooms and ensuite bathrooms for every bedroom. We have forgotten about orientation and cross-ventilation because we can just turn on the air conditioning. We get rid of asbestos and lead in paint and don't question brominated flame retardants and phthalates.

I'm sorry, but we still have a lot to learn from Grandma and her architect.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/more-lessons-grandma-green-building-and-house-design.html

all star weekend lent undercover boss barbara walters tupelo honey limp bizkit stations of the cross