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October 12th, 2012 12:15

Tax bills are set to rise – whoever we vote for

Tax is the point at which politics condenses into something more substantial than hot air and hits you in the pocket. So, as the party conference season draws to a close, this might be a good time to ... Read More

February 29th, 2012 14:00

Sir Mervyn King loses his cool at the Treasury Select Committee

Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, made a remarkable statement in front of the Treasury Select Committee this morning. I’ll include his whole quote below, but let me sum it up. Andy L... Read More

November 18th, 2010 7:38

HMRC's new computer targets tax avoidance on second homes

The taxman is taking a much tougher line with owners of holiday homes and buy-to-let properties who try to follow MPs’ example by ‘flipping’ the place they call home to avoid Capital Gains Tax (... Read More

July 9th, 2010 17:53

The ghost of Gordon Brown still lurks at the Treasury

George Osborne's shiny new Office for Budget Responsibility has hit some early turbulence. As is his wont, Danny Blanchflower, the outspoken former MPC member, has already described it as about as ind... Read More

May 21st, 2010 12:09

Britain no longer has the worst deficit in Europe

You have to feel for Alistair Darling. No sooner is he ejected from Number 11 Downing Street than the Office for National Statistics declares that Britain’s budget deficit last year was actually sig... Read More

May 11th, 2010 15:00

French promise to punish Les Rosbifs for not supporting the euro

Les Rosbifs seem mortally to have offended the French by refusing to take part in the eurozone's €440bn loan guarantee scheme. Jean-Pierre Jouyet, head of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, has ... Read More

May 11th, 2010 10:32

Blimey! Manufacturing is surging

Britain's cyclical recovery continues apace. Manufacturing production was again sharply up in March, confirming the strong trend we have seen in PMI surveys. The upshot is that first quarter growth fo... Read More

April 20th, 2010 12:14

Volcanic ash cloud is no obstacle for Mervyn King

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, probably won't be attending this weekend's meeting in Washington of the IMF and World Bank. What with the Greek meltdown, financial reform and banker taxes at the top... Read More

April 8th, 2010 19:16

Four lessons from the National Insurance row

National Insurance turns 100 next year, an anniversary which looks likely to be marked by about as much controversy as its birth. Back in 1911, the fuss surrounded the creation of the early welfare st... Read More

April 5th, 2010 15:17

Alistair Darling has got his National Insurance figures consistently wrong

Why does Alistair Darling keep misleading the public over his national insurance tax rises? “People under £20,000 will not be affected,” he claimed this morning on the BBC's Today programme. He ... Read More


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Threat to Indian democracy and modernity

May 26, 2012, 11:56 pm IST in The Mainstream Maverick | India | TOI

Small incidents make up the big picture, so goes an old Chinese proverb. Several seemingly inconsequential recent occurrences and quotations in India highlight a worrisome trend: that of a backlash against Indian modernity.

Dominated by economic reforms and neo-liberal ideas, the past twenty years should have led India towards a path of tolerance and openness. But the opposite seems to have happened. A whole range of discomfiting reality checks, belittle daily, the work done by Indian modernists. Recently, a controversy over old cartoons depicting Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Dr. BR Ambedkar—two genuine modernists India ever produced—in text books taught at the college level—erupted with great acrimony. Despite the fact that these cartoons were part of text books for some years now, the Government of India thought it fit to remove the same. Two prominent Indian social scientists resigned from the National Board that prepares college level prospectus.

Notably, this topic did not hit the roof in the 1970s or the generally illiberal 1980s. It came forth in 2012 when India has a more active media, a new generation of modern youth impatient with the ways of their fathers and mothers and better awareness about the rights of women, minorities and individuals.

The contemporary reaction against modern,  liberal values can be seen in various fields. A Mumbai High Court judge asks a married woman seeking divorce on grounds of domestic violence to go back to her husband and behave like Sita. The problem here is not just the callous injustice inherent in the judge’s stance. Worrisome is the stolid conservatism entrenched in an organ of the Indian state and the recourse to ancient symbols to resolve a current contradiction.

A similar conundrum exists in the statement of a Saharanpur DIG (now transferred)—in Uttar Pradesh—that he would have killed his sister had she eloped with a man of her choosing. Here again, the issue is not whether there are certain officers with a feudal mind-set in the Indian  system. Several mobile carrying, Audi driving, youths in jeans and t-shirts in and around Delhi and other Indian metropolis also talk casually of marking the forehead of their sisters with a bloody bindi (dot)—in effect shooting them straight in cold blood—if they dare choose to marry outside caste.

Honour killings have risen sharply in the last twenty years. In the kinder, gentler, Gandhian India of yore, people perhaps were far more traditional. But dissent was tolerated. Violence against women was not condoned openly. The situation in new economy areas like Gurgaon or Surat or Mangalore or Pune or Kolkata or Bengalaru or Chennai is so bad that one shudders to think of what will happen to several freedoms won by Indians after severe struggles against patriarchy, brahminism and feudalism.

A grimmer picture emerges from the reactions of a significant section of Patels of Gujarat to the conviction of members of their community in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases. Instead of remorse and guilt at the murder of muslim women and children, the perpetrators have expressed a siege mentality and a subtle justification of their acts. A major Gujarati Patel leader has even gone far to express the community’s  linkage with Vallabbhai Patel, as if India’s first home minister—known for upholding the Indian constitution and respecting  liberal values—would have pardoned barbaric acts.

The question here again, is the total absence of the concept of individual responsibility. Incidentally, Gujarati Patels have a skewed male-female ratio—allegedly, female infanticide is practiced widely. A case for connect between their participation in communal riots and their resistance to modernity can be made.

Yet, as a community, Gujarati Patels do not have caste councils. They are known for their upwardly mobile and often flexible, quasi-progressive principles. Something terrible must have happened to their ethos and their state.

Social attitudes impact the polity in various subtle ways. Germany, Italy and other smaller European nations that went over to fascism in the 1930s exhibited first, intolerant socio-cultural values. In Germany, Hitler’s rise was preceded by a strong reaction against modernist trends in art and culture. Feminism, sexual freedom, gay and lesbian currents were condemned as alien to German culture. Experimentation in German drama and cinema—that went on to create history in the US and Hollywood after the migration of several dramatists and filmmakers like Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang in the Nazi era—was sought to be banned. Nazis saw these experiments as representing `modernist decadence’.

Fearing Nazi persecution, Walter Benjamin, one of the foremost literary critic and chronicler of German modernism, committed suicide. Besides artistes, hundreds of thousands of student and women activists were silenced. In Spain, fascists shot and killed Lorca, one of the greatest modernist poets and dramatist in the history of Spanish letters. The grouse against Lorca was not just that he was part of the anti-fascist popular front during the Spanish civil war. The poet was targeted because he represented individual liberty and championed modernist experiments in personal and political life.

In India, the MF Hussein incident brought to light, weaknesses of Indian liberalism. Hussein’s experiments in art celebrated fun, sensuality, the power of symbols and the historical code of the Indian nude. The way he was denounced and hunted out of the country recalled Germany of the 1930s. Nazis too once deprecated the German nude.

Is India moving towards some form of fascism then? In Indian society, the emergence of a Hitler type leader—who condemns individuality as a foreign phenomenon and urges all to unite behind an authoritarian, pseudo-nationalist idea—cannot be discounted. The Indian tragedy lies in the fact that naked fascism is capable of creeping in under the cover of parliamentary democracy. Already, the support of corporate,  pro-rich—and right wing liberal forces—to a rabid, fascist chief minister of a certain state—blamed widely for complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots—lays bare the discomfiting reality.

Hitler too was supported by right wing liberals of Europe and the German big corporate forces. He first got elected through the ballot—then he used bullets to kill democracy, dissent, modernity and Parliamentary institutions. As the countdown to 2014 elections begins India’s D day with fascism might not be far. At stake is not just Indian democracy but modernity as well.

Faced with the possibility of a fascist takeover, Europe in the 1930s gave birth to various resistance movements and anti-fascist political initiatives. Chief amongst these was the formation of a Popular Peoples front—a rainbow coalition of anarchists, socialists, communists, liberals, centrists and other anti-fascist forces. Fascism in countries like France was averted because of the formation of a Popular Front in the mid 1930s. A popular front government in Spain gave right wing fascists the fight of their lives. Fascism triumphed in Spain only because of external help provided by Germany and Italy to Spanish fascists.

In Germany, the failure of anti-fascist forces to forge a Popular Front was the chief reason behind Hitler’s triumph. In India, we cannot afford to make this mistake. The formation of a Popular Peoples Front—that encompasses Maoists, civil-human-Dalit-minority rights activists, Left-of-Centre politicians, Communists, Socialists, Centrists and all anti-fascist forces—is the need of the hour, in time for the 2014 elections. In this, two trends need to play a major role: Left-of-Centre figures inside the Congress and radical Left-democratic forces who explore a wide range of political options extending from participation in electoral politics to struggles on the streets. No popular front can survive in India without defending parliamentary democracy. Progressive forces inside the system constitute an essential part of this programme.   At the same time, such a project has to have striking power on the Indian street to combat fascist hordes.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Forum for International Research Collaboration at The Great East Japan Earthquake Memorial Day

By Rosanna Smith, on 1 May 2012

Hello, and welcome to the UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction Blog. I’m afraid this first post, about my attendance at a forum for international research collaboration and a related international disaster research symposium to mark the 1st anniversary of the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami that occurred on 11th March 2011, is a little late in coming. I hope that you will still find it interesting.

During the recovery from the great earthquake and tsunami disaster in Tohoku, many of the disaster scientists and other senior academics of Tohoku university realised that there were many important lessons to be learned from this disaster, and that they wanted to share these lessons with the international community, not only within Japan and its disaster hit region. To this end, Tohoku will launch a new International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) in May.  In this new research institute, they will pursue research into the science and sociology of natural disasters and their impacts with the aim to improve forecasts and warnings, whilst also contributing to on-going recovery and reconstruction efforts.  A key part of their mission statement is to build upon disaster management lessons from around the world and to share the lessons they have learnt with international partners and collaborators. Therefore, they decided to host a forum for international research collaboration on the anniversary of the great earthquake and tsunami disaster, ahead of the launch of their new research institute. I was honoured to be invited to this event, as the representative for the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction.

The forum began with solemn statements of remembrance for the lives lost in the earthquake and tsunami from representatives of Tohoku University and UNISDR. Professor Arata Hirakawa, leader of the research group on disaster prevention and management at Tohoku University, then introduced the new International Research Institute of Disaster Science to the Forum participants. Finally, the President of Tohoku University and the invited guests signed a joint statement for international research collaboration, in which all the signatories pledged to explore the possibility of pursuing wider cooperation with the aims to:

  1.     Conduct joint post-disaster investigations and research and to compile the data and information from recent disasters into a common system
  2.     Share the lessons learned from experiences and analysis through collaborative works
  3.      Perform joint risk assessments and quick evaluations of damage following disasters
  4.     Improve disaster forecasting and warning as well as hazard zonation mapping and emergency communication systems for information exchange that remain functional during disasters
  5.     Jointly develop scientific knowledge and mitigation technologies leading to such disaster reduction measures

The Joint statement was signed by representatives from the following institutions:

  1. Tohoku University, Japan
  2. Nagoya University, Japan
  3. University of California, Los Angeles, USA
  4. University of New South Wales, Australia
  5. Tsinghua University and Sichuan University, China
  6. Kyoto University, Japan
  7. University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
  8. Harvard University, USA
  9. University of Tokyo, Japan
  10.  University of Florence, Italy
  11. German Aerospace Center, Germany
  12.  University College London (IRDR), UK
  13.  Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
  14.  Kobe University, Japan
  15.  Fukushima University, Japan
  16.  Niigata University, Japan

Each signatory made a brief statement about their institution and its commitment to this collaborative effort. I hope that the signing of this statement will be a first step towards a fruitful collaboration between IRIDeS in Tohoku and the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, with the exchange of researchers, students, and knowledge between our 2 research institutes, which have such similar goals. This forum was followed by a symposium where research findings following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were presented, and I met with many researchers who were keen to engage in international research collaboration and excited about the launch of their new research institute.

Signatories of the joint statement for international research collaboration at the Tohoku forum for international research collaboration on 11-Mar 2012

After signing the joint statement, each signatory made a short speech.

I spent my final evening in Japan in Tokyo, before taking a flight to London the following morning. Sitting in the hotel lobby, I felt a rumbling, which was reminiscent of trams going by when I used to live beside a tram-line. Then I remembered there are no trams in Tokyo, and the shaking became a little stronger. As soon as it dawned on me that it was an earthquake, the shaking subsided. Seeing that there was no damage, and the earthquake didn’t seem severe, I set to looking up the details online. The earthquake magnitude was 6.1, located 20km to the east of where I was staying at 10km depth. Though earthquakes of that magnitude can cause a large amount of damage, such as the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake that devastated the city, this one caused no damage at all. Tokyo regularly experiences earthquakes of this size and larger, with buildings designed to withstand this, but who knows how big the next one may be in that region?

On that cheery note, I’ll close the first UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction blog post, but check back soon as we’ll be posting more!

Thanks to Tohoku University, the British Embassy, and UCL IRDR for funding my attendance at this International Forum.

Rosanna Smith, IRDR Deputy Director.


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US: Gadhafi Fires First Scud Missile of Conflict

Posted August 15th, 2011 at 8:25 pm (UTC-5)
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A U.S. military official says Libyan government forces have fired a scud missile for the first time in their conflict with anti-government rebels.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the missile landed in the desert about 80 kilometers outside Brega. Libyan forces and the rebels have battled over the strategic oil port city for months.

NATO and U.S. air strikes have targeted Libyan scud missile facilities and air defense sites out of concern that Mr. Gadhafi would use the missiles to target areas beyond government control.

There is no independent confirmation of the scud missile firing.

Also Monday, a senior Libyan Interior Ministry official flew to Egypt with nine family members in what appears to be another defection from Mr. Gadhafi's government.

Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah and his relatives arrived in Cairo on a private jet from the Tunisian resort island of Djerba. Abdullah is believed to be a deputy interior minister. He entered Egypt on a tourist visa and did not meet any representatives of Mr. Gadhafi's embassy in Cairo.

Western news agencies quote sources in Djerba as saying Mr. Gadhafi's aides met Libyan rebels at a local hotel on Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Libya envoy Abdul Ilah al-Khatib arrived in Tunisia Monday to join the talks between the two sides.

In an audio message broadcast on Libyan state television Monday, Mr. Gadhafi urged his people to fight to “to liberate Libya” from rebels who began their uprising in February to end his 42-year rule. He called the rebels “traitors” and denounced NATO as a “colonizer” for staging airstrikes in support of the uprising.

Rebels said Monday they were in control of most of Zawiya, a strategic town 50 kilometers west of Mr. Gadhafi's power base in the capital, Tripoli. Rebel fighters entered Zawiya Saturday in their closest approach to the capital since government forces crushed Zawiya's rebel movement in the early weeks of the uprising.

Pro-Gadhafi forces exchanged fire with rebel fighters in Zawiya Monday, trying to push them back from the town center.

Rebel spokesmen said their fighters also captured the towns of Surman, 60 kilometers west of Tripoli, and Gharyan, 80 kilometers south of the capital. Their claims could not be independently verified. Rebels in Libya's Western Mountains have been trying to cut off Tripoli's supply routes as they edge closer to the capital.


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Mark Miles ’76 – new CEO of Hulman & Co.

Mark Miles ’76 is named the new CEO of Hulman & Co., which owns Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar series.

Mark is a board member of Hulman & Co. and a local economic development leader, and currently CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.  He served as chairman of the 2012 Super Bowl Host Committee and is a former CEO of the ATP Tour, which helps oversee men’s professional tennis.

Click here to read the press release from this morning’s announcement.

Congratulations, Mark!

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Netflix: Hollywood’s Worst Nightmare

Netflix is going Hollywood. And that should make Hollywood sweat even more than they already do about the movie rental and video streaming service. (But maybe not for the reason you think.)

Netflix is negotiating a deal to distribute its first big-budget original TV series, “House of Cards,” based on a British miniseries and backed by the “Social Network” director David Fincher and actor Kevin Spacey.

There are at least two possible rationales we can see for Netflix in this TV deal. One of those is perhaps crazy. The other is deviously smart.

Possibility One: Netflix wants to be the next HBO. So far, Netflix has insisted it doesn’t want to get into the messy game of making or airing movies and TV shows. It’s hard to blame them. Historically, movie studios have been barely profitable, and Hollywood is a painful, hit-driven business. reported Netflix may spend more than $100 million for its version of “House of Cards.” If that’s true — and our Journal colleagues say that figure is a bit high — Netflix would need to add roughly 926,000 more customers to pay for the series, at the company’s 2010 rate of revenue per subscriber.

Possibility Two: Netflix new TV series is a ruse. What they really want is leverage in negotiations with the TV and movie companies.

Netflix owes media companies more than $1.2 billion over the next several years for the rights to show movies and TV shows to 20 million subscribers. Media companies love cashing these checks, of course, but they’re getting spooked that Netflix has too much power. They want more money. In the meantime, media companies also can afford to push Netflix around like a little sister. Sure, we’d love for you to buy our newly released DVDs. Oh, lil’ sis, but we’ll make you wait 30 days. Oh, yes, please steam our TV shows online. As long as they’re the episodes from last year. Don’t forget who’s boss, the media companies said. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes compared Netflix to the Albanian army.

Here’s where “House of Cards” could get interesting. It gives Netflix something it didn’t really have before: leverage in negotiations. If Netflix doesn’t get what it wants — allowing subscribers to rent new DVDs right away, for example, or getting the rights to TV series actually airing right now — it can threaten to make 10 more “House of Cards” series and put a real dent in HBO, or your cable company.

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    • I think "Red Box" will have an impact on NetFlix just when it appeared nothing could.

    • Hollywood is not one giant cohesive organization that acts in its collective interests.

      There are the major studios, to which I believe you are referencing , and yes they generally negotiate as one unit, in their best interests.

      Beyond the major studios are literally tens of thousands of producers and creators, who have no existing contracts with the major studios and looking for their opening. Also, there are tens of thousands of actors looking for work at any one time. So Netflix has many thousands of creators to work with in Hollywood alone, not to mention other areas where creators and producers live, such as NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, SF, Miami, Austin, and every country in the world.

      All of these creators can start their own programs, many of them very inexpensively. You only need a studio if you want multi million dollar monthly advertising (which the studios often fail at) and expensive pyrotechnics and over priced actors) I would argue the studios have a creativity drought currently.

    • Don’t worry, us consumers won’t have this wonderful option if Comcast and other internet providers have their way with Net-Neutrality.

    • Uhm, what leverage are you talking about? Unless Netflix wants to go out and start its own studio, it still has to deal with Hollywood to create & produce those new shows. Netflix then has to work really hard to make those shows popular. Meanwhile Hollywood will still stand firm on its terms, unless Netflix figures out a way to find & distribute content that's equal or better than Hollywood productions, for less money.

    • at $160 million a month in subscriber revenue, they have enough cash to sign several of these series.

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Bank Earnings Estimates Keep Getting Worse

Another day, another earnings downgrade for some of America’s largest financial institutions.

Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Collection
Yeah, it’s ugly.

Citigroup weighs in with its estimates for second-quarter earnings results for big banks and trading houses Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. And like other analysts of late, Citi is hacking back its earnings estimates on three of the four big boys on belief that limp trading revenue is going to whack bank results.

Citi’s estimate for Morgan Stanley earnings goes to 43 cents a share from 59 cents. The Goldman expectations shrink to $2 a share from $3.75. Even the full year and 2012 estimates get a haircut from Citigroup. The earnings estimate on J.P. Morgan is trimmed by 3 cents to $1.36 a share. Goldman’s price target drops to $180 from $200, while Morgan Stanley gets trimmed to $26 from $28.

There’s some good news wrapping the week-old fish of bad news for Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz believes each company’s stock price already is so battered, the ratcheted-back second-quarter expectations may not hurt the stocks much. The Citigroup market scribblers keep buy ratings on Bank of America, Goldman and J.P. Morgan.

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    • I'll say Ugly...But that picture is not ugly enough...Go ahead and look at the KBW Bank Index...the 50 EMA has broken threw the 200 EMA and the index is under the 500 SMA....OUCH...Go Bears!!!!

    • Beautiful picture.You see, in the old days bankers were humble (really reminds me of Lloyds).

      They didn't need $ 10,000 suit, neither jets, nor Robin Hood's Lady Gaga's charity evening tax deductable dinner.

    • Looks like our Government is going overboard with regulation after regulation. This is what people do when they want to cover up all the problems they have caused. Play to those whom you have hurt the most and squeeeze out a few more votes in the process. The truth of the matter is that you should be run out of town.
      Get your sticky fingers out of business and start doing what you were elected for.

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Real Time Economics: Vital Signs: Rising Rents: The cost of renting a home in the U.S is climbing. Rents for primary residences rose 2.5% year-over-year in December, according to the government’s consumer-price index.

New Spat Over Upper East Side Rent: A real-estate developer is seeking to demolish one of the city’s oldest, privately developed low-income housing complexes, saying the Upper East Side apartments can each only fetch rent of $600 a month in their current state.

Hospital Site’s Plan Advances: Plans to remake the St. Vincent’s Hospital site in the West Village into an $800 million residential project were approved on Monday by the City Planning Commission.

Alex Rodriguez Slides out of Condo: After owning a condo at the Rushmore, a new 41-story condominium tower on the West Side, for less than a single baseball season, Alex Rodriguez, has made a deal to sell his four-bedroom apartment at a substantial profit, brokers said. Read More »


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Has IndyCar Racing Outgrown Smaller Tracks?

    • Indycar needs to learn lessons from F1!!!!

    • Yes, 1.5 mile ovals designed for NASCAR with high banking is absolutely NOT the place IndyCar should run. If they run on ovals at ALL it should be on near flat and at Indianapolis.

    • A 1.5 mile track is not technically a short track...They are considered speedways in NASCAR...Anything over 1 mile in length is considered a speedway while tracks less than 1 mile in length are considered short tracks...Daytona and Talladega are classified as Superspeedways at 2.5 and 2.66 miles in length respectively...

      The problem is the open wheels and the break neck speeds for a field littered with novice oval track drivers...

      Sad day indeed...

    • Lets start with what is the true problem when a life is taken. The Indy Car program is at best a struggling lost cause. The fan market has bailed the owners are lost and the management is clue-less. The racers are the same in any motor sport hard working, deticated and win driven then ad ass backward thought and you end up with this result.
      The lose of Dan will be remembered 'but the management will not take responiblity for his death.
      Now lets discuss why cars that depend on down force to race safely are prone to areo push when passing and add a high banks were you cannot see ahead to avoid any problems. But Indy Car offers to what amounts to a Bounty and places it fastet racer at the back of the field on a track were cars have problms if they were using stickum (ie old foot ball days) on the tries. The cars that spun early are in the rear for a reason because they are not as fast and have a learning curve to over come. The front cars are fast causing the nornally slower cars to attemp speeds they are not ready for ( Indy Car Wisedom). Indy type cars are heavier than Formula One making them harder to hold in place when side draft is occuring but Formula one learned that many years ago after close contact racing and bumping produced tragedy along with many deaths. Dan will not be the last in motor sports but it would be nice to know that people who call themselfs intellingent use the powers they harbor to make racing a true safe sport before cars hit the track and drivers are forced to jump in to a delema they cannot surive.
      To Dan's family one day you will awake from this to explain what Dan was like to his Boys and I hope for the sake of the world wide racing family this never happens again. Drivers open your mouths, Owners protect your racing familys from this mindless racing before it brings down a sport that Dan and so many others love.

    • I was under the impression the Vegas Motor Speedway was designed more for IRL (at the time) than NASCAR. I remember the NASCAR drivers complaining about the new tracks and the lack of banking making it tough to race on the "mid-sized" ovals. There was a big marketing push to make the open wheel league as big as NASCAR...

    • Answer? No. And, it does not need to become the completely digitized F-1. (software are us!) Nothing like a lot of kneejerk reaction...

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Debt-Ceiling Debate: Come on Feel the Non-Panic

    • If the debt ceiling is NOT raised, then the US borrows no new money to pay expenses. Therefore, expenses must be cut! Same way you and I behave when faced with expenses that exceed our income and borrowing!

    • If the Debt limit is not increased. Your boss will probably have to stop paying you because businesses rely on revolving credit to pay their bills, and credit will freeze as well as be much more expensive.
      This is no an academic idea that only affects the Government. It will affect you and I directly.

    • No doubt they'll raise the debt ceiling, but we're still headed for very troubled times ahead...

      Fortunately a friend told me
      about this site put together
      by a millionaire.

      I am getting tremendous value
      from the information, very practical.

      Here it is-

      How to Profit like the Ultra-Rich in Times of Economic Chaos

      Complimentary Video here-

    • Buy your puts now while they are still cheap. I take DeMint at his word they will vote it down at least once.

    • I agree with Mike. And when the debt limit is reached automatic cuts are enacted and congress will then be forced to decide what they will pay for and what they won't.

      We don't need any more spending hikes, we are already committed for the next 100 years.

    • Excellent work

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      Pair and Configure your Bluetooth Cell Phone with your Vantage Lite.
      This example uses the link to the Phone Configuration screen through Phone Dial Pad, however the MAINTENANCE MENU also has a Phone Configuration menu which is slightly different from the menu used in this article.1. From the PHONE Activity Row, select the PHONE DIAL PAD key .2. Select the Phone Configuration key.В  3. On your phone, go to the "Bluetooth Menu". To find this menu you may have to read the manual that came with your phone.4. Put your phone in "discoverable" mode. Note:В  "Discoverable mode" on your phone may be labeled "discoverable" or "paired" or "find me" or something else entirely. Different Bluetooth cell phones call the pair button different things. If you are unsure which option to select, look at the instructions that came with your cell phone.5. On your Vantage Lite select the Pair to Phone key . 6. Your phone will display a message asking you to enter a passcode.On your phone, enter four zeros: 0000. You must use this passcode. Then select OK orthe button on your phone that accepts your selections and exits.7. When your cell phone is paired with the Vantage Lite you will see "Paired" or "Connected" in the Bluetooth Status box in the Phone Configuration Menu. You will also see Bluetooth cell phone icons in the Status Display Area of the Vantage Lite.Text Messaging If your cell phone supports Bluetooth text messaging, you will see "Text Messaging Supported" in the Bluetooth Status box. If you do not see this message, your phone will not support Bluetooth text messaging. IMPORTANT NOTE:В  Even with advanced technology these days, there are a very limited number of phones available that are capable of sending text messages using a Bluetooth signal.В  We have found 3 phones available.В  The Sony Ericsson W580, W350 and W760a.В  These phones were testedВ using A T $ T wireless support.В  Due to constant change with technology, the phones listed may have been discontinued since this article was posted.В  Please check with your service provider for a list of available phones.Bluetooth Icons Visible in Status Display AreaThe green figure to the left of the cell phone indicates the battery charge. A blue phone indicates you are not using the phone.The green phone indicates that you are talking on the phone.This icon indicates that you are making or receiving a call.The Paired Devices key allows you to view all the Bluetooth cell phones you have been paired with.The Disconnect key allows you to disconnect (or "un-pair") from the phone you are currently using.The Ringer Menu allows you to set the standard tones for Ringer and Notify Message. The ability to import ring tones will be available in future software development.Also in the Phone Configuration menu are Internal and Audio Volume Controls. Internal Input Volume and Internal Output Volume refer to the VTL.There is also an option to Turn Bluetooth Beep Output OFF/ON. When this is ON the person you are talking to will be able to hear your Vantage Lite beep as you make message selections. If you turn it OFF, the listener will not hear anything while you select your messages. Support » Bluetooth Technology » Bluetooth Cell Phone Card
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text:
• By
  • James Willhite
James Willhite
Drag queen Pussy Couture by the DJ booth at Out magazine’s celebration of the year’s “most compelling people.”

At the entrance to the Out100 party in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood on Thursday night, Aviva Drescher, from the cast of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” said as flashes popped, “I’m just here to support the LGBT community,” throwing up her hands and smiling, “and spread the love.”

That’s about as serious as things got at Out magazine’s celebration of its “most compelling people of the year,” an evening ostensibly to celebrate people who have been important to the gay community this year, but is really just a big party, much to everyone’s pleasure.

Passed plates included shrimp cocktail in shot glasses, one shrimp atop a dollop of sauce. The volume of skinny pants suggested a lot of people there might make a full meal from one of those shot glasses. Carb-conscious suspicions were confirmed by the lines at the sponsor bars — the Peroni beer bar had a line that ranged between small and nonexistent, whereas the Ketel One vodka bar had an early horde in front that seemed to lodge itself and not budge.

James Willhite
Rugby star and anti-bullying advocate Ben Cohen.

Rugby star and anti-bullying advocate Ben Cohen was there with his wife, cheerfully snapping photos with anybody who asked. A drag queen identifying herself as Pussy Couture summed up the very non-serious mood succinctly. “It’s honoring people, but there’s not a lot of honoring going on. It’s an excuse to get dressed up.”

Nods to the Out100 honorees — many of whom were not in attendance — were mostly limited to a few monitors and wall displays with photos of notables such as New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn with her wife, Kim Catullo. Others on Out’s list ranged from the obvious, Boy George and Jane Lynch, to the more obscure.

James Willhite
IPad-wielding door people in front of a packed room at Out magazine’s party at Milk Studios, Nov. 29, 2012.

Ingrid Jungermann, a designated “web star” for her work including a web series called “The Slope,” said that being named to Out’s list made her feel like she’d moved beyond the point when she’d first come to New York “on the train, and I was so lonely, and so broke.” Then laughing, she said, “now I’m just broke.”

The presiding DJ in a metallic gold sport coat blasted out beats by gay favorites like Robyn and Scissor Sisters, but nobody danced — everyone seemed satisfied to schmooze and tipple. Sharon Needles, current title-holder for RuPaul’s Drag Race, tottered in on high heels in a skin-tight leopard print mini-dress, a white coat over her shoulders and platinum hair swaying in the breeze. Her title on Out’s list of compelling people? “Style maker.”

Justin Garrett, Out’s vice president of digital sales, said the list of honorees was meant to focus on people who have “given to the community” during the year — and that the party was a chance to celebrate them, have fun with friends, and nod to other up-and-comers in the community (who needed an invite to make it past the iPad-wielding door guards). And, he said, the party “kinda kicks off the holidays.”

For the latest entertainment news


text:
All posts tagged Tom Cruise

  • 9:00 AM ET
    Jun 5, 2014

    Will Tom Cruise Hurt ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ at Box Office?

    “Edge of Tomorrow” is poised to be Hollywood’s first big budget flop of the summer and the question is already flying through Hollywood: Is the reason that it’s an original concept that people aren’t interested in among a slew of sequels, or is it star Tom Cruise?

    See a slideshow of Tom Cruise’s recent films.

    Pre-release surveys (known as “tracking” inside Hollywood) indicate the film will open this weekend to between $25 million and $30 million domestically, a bad start for a movie that cost about $175 million to make. Overseas, where the film has collected $26 million so far, expectations are a bit higher but still not strong, said a person close to the picture. Read More »

  • 1:22 PM ET
    Mar 25, 2014

    ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Vs. ‘Groundhog Day’: Is Hollywood Repeating Itself?

    The new trailer for the coming sci-fi movie “Edge of Tomorrow” shines more light on the sci-fi movie’s plot–and it’s looking a lot like “Groundhog Day.”

    The coming Warner Bros. film, which stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, appears to be a kind of mashup of “Groundhog Day” and “War of the Worlds,” with Cruise’s character endlessly re-experiencing the day of a lost battle.

    Watch the trailer. What do you think? Read More »

  • 5:23 PM ET
    Dec 11, 2013

    ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Trailer Cruises on Web

    In case you haven’t yet had your fill of explosion heavy sci-fi action films, Warner Bros. debuted the first trailer today for “Edge of Tomorrow,” which arrives in theaters on June 6, 2014.

    Doug Liman, who also helmed “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “The Bourne Identity” directed the film, which was previously known as “All You Need is Kill,” and is based on the illustrated artist-writer team of Yoshitoshi Abe and Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel of the same name.

    Emily Blunt stars as the all knowing mentor and trainer to Tom Cruise’s Major William Cage, giving Linda Hamilton‘s arms (think: “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” ) serious competition. Cruise meanwhile, is a bit of a bumbling, green solider who is fighting against a faceless but nonetheless determined to conquer Earth style alien invasion. Read More »

  • 6:00 PM ET
    Oct 25, 2013

    ‘Grimm’ Star David Giuntoli Previews the Season Three Premiere

    At the end of the second season of NBC’s “Grimm,” Nick Burkhardt (played by David Giuntoli), a homicide detective who doubles as a supernatural hunter, or grimm, takes an unearthly turn for the worse. Abducted and forced into a zombie, he makes some questionable decisions under the influence of the undead.

    “I kind of go berserk,” Giuntoli told the Journal.

    The season two finale drew an audience of 5.2 million viewers and will continue to remain on Friday nights, serving as a lead in for Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ “Dracula.”

    With the third season of “Grimm” premiering tonight, Speakeasy caught up with Giuntoli during a filming break to discuss “Grimm” and the expanding grey areas Nick will be forced to navigate in the show’s junior season. Read More »

  • 9:00 AM ET
    Aug 9, 2013

    How ‘Elysium’ Stacks Up in the Summer of Sci-Fi

    When “Elysium” premieres Aug. 9 with Matt Damon playing a futuristic industrial worker, the summer superstar sci-fi grand slam will be complete.

    It started in April, when Tom Cruise was a space-age maintenance man helping to look after a ravaged Earth in “Oblivion.”

    In May, Will Smith and his son Jaden landed back on our abandoned home planet by accident, fighting for survival, in “After Earth.”

    In June, Brad Pitt battled a raging global zombie-virus pandemic in “World War Z.”

    Now, in “Elysium,” a dying Damon accepts a dangerous mission so he can fly from devastated Earth to an off-planet habitat reserved for the privileged, where cure-all body scanners await. Read More »

  • 2:59 PM ET
    May 7, 2013

    Tom Cruise Accepts Another ‘Mission: Impossible’

    How do you top climbing up the tallest building in the world?

    Tom Cruise is willing to figure it out. The actor will produce and star in the fifth installment in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, Paramount Pictures announced Tuesday. He will once again become Ethan Hunt, the on-again-off-again agent for the Impossible Missions Force.

    “The last installment of the Mission series was the biggest in the life of this franchise. Tom has been at the heart of its success and we look forward to his great talent, and the continued global appeal for another Mission, to drive fans around the world to the next chapter of this series,” said Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brad Grey. Read More »

  • 12:03 PM ET
    Apr 21, 2013

    ‘Oblivion’ Cruises to Top of Box Office

    After several flops in a row signalling he was headed toward box office oblivion, Tom Cruise has turned things around with a film called “Oblivion.”

    The science-fiction movie opened to a healthy $38.1 million at the box office this weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to an estimate from distributor Universal Pictures, owned by Comcast Corp. That was not only good enough to make it No. 1, but Cruise’s best opening outside of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise since “War of the Worlds” in 2005. Read More »

  • 6:00 PM ET
    Apr 16, 2013

    Tom Cruise Tells Manhattan He’d Like a Spaceship

    Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski sat down last night to discuss the upcoming film “Oblivion,” due out in theaters this Friday, following an IMAX screening of the film in Manhattan. “I’d like to first of all apologize for destroying this beautiful city once again in a film,” said Mr. Kosinski, who directed “Tron: Legacy” in 2010, “But I promise you, it’s only out love.”

    The movie stars Mr. Cruise as a drone-repair man in an abandoned futuristic world. Morgan Freeman also stars, along with Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister on “Game of Thrones”). Read More »

  • 2:00 PM ET
    Dec 21, 2012

    ‘Jack Reacher,’ ‘This is 40,’ ‘The Guilt Trip’: Review Revue

    This week at the multiplex, we’ve got a military cop (“Jack Reacher,” starring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike); harried marrieds (“This is 40,” starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann); mother-son bonding (“The Guilt Trip,” starring Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen); and a fanciful circus (the performance film “Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away”). Find out what the critics have to say on Rotten Tomatoes.

    “Jack Reacher”

    Sometimes a relatively generic story can be redeemed by a confident central performance. Case in point: “Jack Reacher,” which critics say is a solid crime thriller that greatly benefits from Tom Cruise’s movie star charisma. Cruise stars as the title character, a former Army M.P. who’s called in to investigate a mass shooting, and soon discovers that he’s up against a dangerous foe. “Jack Reacher” is currently at 66 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer; check out some of the reviews here. Read More »

Speakeasy Spotlight

About Speakeasy

Barbara Chai Barbara Chai
Mike Ayers Mike Ayers
Michael Calia Michael Calia
Kelly Crow Kelly Crow
Ben Fritz Ben Fritz
 Neil Shah Neil Shah
Erich Schwartzel Erich Schwartzel
Anna Russell Anna Russell
John Jurgensen John Jurgensen
Jennifer Maloney Jennifer Maloney
Rani Molla Rani Molla


text:
• By
  • Yuliya Chernova

General Electric Co. is the latest industrial behemoth to get into the solar thermal power space, with an up to $40 million investment in eSolar Inc., via its GE Energy business unit, along with a licensing agreement.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

With GE in, the game now includes Alstom, which is a backer of Brightsource Energy Inc.; Areva SA, which has started bidding and winning business with solar thermal technology it bought from Ausra Inc. last year; and Siemens, which is in the market using technology from Solel, which it purchased in 2009.

All of these technologies use solar rays to heat up a liquid, turn it into steam, and power a steam turbine. Each has different configurations, efficiencies, and optimal size of their power plants, as well as costs.

“It’s clear that the world’s leading power companies see solar thermal as a critical resource for meeting the world’s growing needs for cost-effective and reliable energy,” wrote Keely Wachs, spokesman for Brightsource Energy, in an email to VentureWire.

With so many big players converging, competition for each utility contract clearly figures to heat up. Wachs says he has no problem with that — the important thing is that when big industrials line up behind solar thermal, the entire industry gets validated in the market’s eyes, which helps companies like Brightsource compete with photovoltaic and other renewable energy technologies.

“For a long time we were the only guys in solar thermal making noise,” said Wachs.

For the majors, links with solar thermal technology developers are not just about competing in the power business. Alstom, for example, has an agreement to sell steam turbines to Brightsource projects. GE also has a major turbine business that could benefit from a growing solar thermal market.

The big players have spent differing amounts of capital to buy into the solar thermal technologies.

Siemens paid $418 million for all of Solel in 2009, while Alstom paid about $150 million for an 18% stake in Brightsource, which is in registration to go public.

Terms of the deals for eSolar and Ausra weren’t disclosed, but both technology companies ran into some problems before linking up with the big companies. Ausra changed its strategy to licensing technology, because it saw power plant construction as too expensive for a venture-backed smaller company. And eSolar had an investor, NRG Energy, switch to using photovoltaics in at least one of its projects in California that was originally intended to use eSolar’s technology.

One investor in Brightsource Energy has said previously that sometimes corporate investors make the mistake of going after a worse technology simply because it’s cheaper. Brightsource says its technology is the most cost-effective and competitive. But it’s too early to say which technology would win on the market.

Brightsource’s first large power plant, the Ivanpah project in California, will cost $2.2 billion and have a power capacity of 400 megawatts, translating into $5.50 per watt. Areva, meanwhile, won a contract in April to add solar thermal power production capacity on a much smaller scale in Australia for just $2.43 per watt, though in that case solar would integrate with an existing coal power plant.


text:
3:32 pm ET
Aug 10, 2011

Sen. Paul Wants ‘No Confidence’ Vote For Geithner

    • I respectfully disagree with Rand Paul (R-John Birch society). The markets, and S&P, gave a vote of no confidence to Congress, not Geithner.

    • tell paul to check the GPS
      he's in DC, not in Rome

    • If Geithner resigns, the odds are the President will nominate someone even worse.

    • This is pretty silly. The guy decided to stay just for stability which is something we need these days. And this is coming from Congress?!

    • Ron Paul has announced his retirement at the end of his term. One down, many to go.

    • They're right, Tim. Hang it up. Maybe your successor will have some useful ideas.

    • How about a "no confidence" vote for Obama?

    • "Geitner to stay just for stability"?? Well, at least he and the captain of the Titanic can have something in common...

    • A blind pilot on a rudderless ship. They all thought that they were smarter than the market.
      Bernanke will be the next to go.

    • A ship at the bottom of the ocean is quite stable.

    • More grandstanding....

    • And people in Hell want ice water.

    • That's right, Mr. Paul, this has nothing to do with the GOP freshman and their puppetmasters talking down the economy for political gain.

    • I MUST respectfully disagree with the Senator. To place the blame for the recent dysfunctional actions of the Congress, the extremes of both parties, and the lack of leadership by the President, on Secretary Geitner is nothing but an attempt to avoid the responsibility for what our nations economy is NOW experiencing. As a life long Republican I am embarrassed by the actions of the extreme elements of my party, as I am equally disappointed in the extreme elements of the Democratic party. At times of National Crisis Americans have always risen above blind ideology and found the proper middle ground to move our nation forward. President Eisenhowser once said that America needs to be governed from the middle, the center line of the road. What we experienced over that last two weeks was not in that spirit. I fear for our childrens future if we do not address this deficit, but worse, i fear for the nations future if we dont accomplish a solution which is a compromise from both sides.

    • I respectfully disagree with Rand Paul (R-John Birch society). The markets, and S&P, gave a vote of no confidence to Congress, not Geithner.

      I am also concerned that Rand Paul (R-John Birch society) will ratchet sentiment that will expose further weaknesses within the Republican Party. As a nation we should focus on getting our fiscal house in order and avoid hurting the brains that have set out to secure our county onto the right path.

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text:
• By
  • John D. McKinnon

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) speaks addresses The Wall Street Journal CFO Network on June 17, 2014.
Paul Morse

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) warned in a May Wall Street Journal op-ed he plans to crack down on corporations that shift their tax addresses overseas, effective as of May 8. The aim, Mr. Wyden said Tuesday at a Wall Street Journal CFO Network conference, was to “put everybody on notice” of his plans as chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, to discourage companies from making the move.

But Mr. Wyden’s strategy of discouraging companies the deals hasn’t been uniformly successful so far. In an announcement over the weekend, Minnesota-based Medtronic Inc. said it plans to buy Dublin-based Covidien PLC and move the combined firm’s tax home to Ireland, a tax haven. More than a dozen major U.S. firms have made similar moves overseas in the past few years, in a wave of “inversions” aimed at ducking the relatively high U.S. corporate tax rate and restrictions on use of overseas income.

Medtronic’s deal includes a provision to unwind its purchase of Covidien if legislation such as Mr. Wyden’s proposal eventually passes, denying it tax benefits.

But Medtronic is still moving, at least for now. In other words, until the promised crackdown materializes some U.S. companies are likely to continue their gradual exodus to tax-friendlier climes.

On Tuesday, Mr. Wyden emphasized what he perceives as unfairness of the corporate moves.

“I want a tax code that gives everybody in America the opportunity to get ahead,” Mr. Wyden said on Capitol Hill. “I am not going to sit idly by when those who have the ability to do so can employ these armies of tax accountants and lawyers and figure out how to hot-wire a way to tap into a loophole.”

But there is no guarantee he will get his retroactive restriction on inversions, given Republicans’ lack of support for the backdating.

Lawyers and investment bankers say U.S. companies continue to consult on inversion deals. Most—such as Medtronic’s—are happening by way of mergers and acquisitions involving companies located in lower-tax countries such as Ireland and—lately—the United Kingdom.

Mr. Wyden was one of several lawmakers who spoke with Medtronic leaders on Tuesday. He said he wanted to “see how the numbers pencil out here” because inversions “invariably lead to somebody else having to pick up the bill.”

Medtronic officials said the firm’s global effective tax rate is 18%, while Covidien’s is 16%, so the combination of the two firms is expected to reduce the overall effective rate by about 1 to 2 percentage points. Medtronic said it was pleased to meet with elected officials and discuss the deal.

Rep. Sander Levin (D., Mich.), the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, also met with Medtronic on Tuesday. He has sought a short-term fix on the matter.

“Congress owes it to the American people to inquire seriously into each and every acquisition given the dramatic increase in the number of corporate inversions in recent years,” Mr. Levin said.

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text:
All posts tagged 2012

  • 6:53 AM ET
    Dec 5, 2012

    Sheldon Adelson: ‘I’m Basically a Social Liberal’

    In a three-hour interview with The Wall Street Journal,  casino mogul Sheldon Adelson excoriated President Barack Obama, Democrats and unions,  as one would expect of a top donor to conservatives and Republican causes in the 2012 election.

    But the billionaire, sitting with his wife Miriam, an Israel-born physician,  shared political beliefs that may leave some surprised.

    “Look, I’m basically a social liberal,  I know nobody will believe that,” Mr. Adelson said, as Dr. Adelson nodded. Read More »

  • 1:49 PM ET
    Dec 4, 2012

    How Exit-Polling Firm Withstood Hurricane Sandy

    Associated Press

    By Carl Bialik

    When Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast in late October, many businesses shut down operations, delayed projects and waited until the storm’s effects on their workplace and employees had dissipated.

    But Edison Research, a polling firm based in hard-hit Somerville, N.J., was working on one project with a  firm deadline: Election Day exit polls for a media consortium that includes the Associated Press and five TV networks.

    Edison staffers were set to man polling places around the country to interview voters about the ballots they cast. Their answers help inform news organizations as they call races on Election Night. The information, including demographic information and even a last-minute question about President Barack Obama‘s handling of the hurricane response, are archived at the University of Connecticut’s Roper Center and will be used by researchers and reporters for years to come… Read More »

  • 5:26 PM ET
    Nov 29, 2012

    The Debt Ceiling Returns to Center Stage

    On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked congressional leaders to give the White House permanent authority to unilaterally increase the government’s borrowing limit as part of a deficit-reduction deal, according to Republican aides. Such a move, if approved by Congress, would essentially upend legal constraints that have been in place since 1917.

    The request was not a casual one (it’s not like asking for $10 million for road projects in Arkansas). Rather, it came from a man – in likely his last 60 days in the Obama administration – who was so infuriated by the 2011 fight over the government’s borrowing limit that he has accused Republicans of holding the government’s credit standing “hostage” for political reasons. Read More »

  • 7:34 AM ET
    Nov 28, 2012

    As Dust Settles, Obama’s Win Looks a Bit Larger, Turnout Lower

    As the final stray votes from Election 2012 are logged, two things are becoming clear: President Barack Obama’s victory was a little more impressive than it seemed on election night, but overall turnout really did decline.

    According to a running tally kept by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, the current vote total has Mr. Obama winning just under 65 million votes nationwide, while Republican Mitt Romney won 60.5 million. Read More »

  • 5:34 PM ET
    Nov 26, 2012

    Capito Enters 2014 West Virginia Senate Race

    WASHINGTON—Not wasting any time, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.V.) said Monday she intends to run for the Senate in 2014, offering up a challenge to five-term incumbent Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV.

    Ms. Capito, just elected for a seventh two-year term in the House, said West Virginians are ready for a change in an announcement of her plans to run for the Senate. Read More »

  • 2:54 PM ET
    Nov 21, 2012

    Boehner Wants ‘Obamacare’ as Part of Deficit Talks

    We’ll know soon enough whether everything really is on the table in the deficit-reduction talks between the White House and Congress.

    In an opinion piece that ran on the Cincinnati Enquirer’s website Tuesday evening, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R., Ohio) wrote that he wants changes to President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law to be part of any talks aimed at addressing the country’s debt challenges.

    “The president’s health care law adds a massive, expensive, unworkable government program at a time when our national debt already exceeds the size of our country’s entire economy,” Mr. Boehner wrote. “We can’t afford it, and we can’t afford to leave it intact. That’s why I’ve been clear that the law has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation’s massive debt challenge.” Read More »

  • 1:56 PM ET
    Nov 21, 2012

    If Congress takes up a major overhaul of the tax code next year, there will be plenty of fresh eyes on the monumental task – but few old hands who were on Capitol Hill the last time the job was tackled in 1986.

    The new Congress will have only 10 House Republicans who were in Congress when the 1986 tax reform passed, and none of them sit on the House Ways and Means Committee, according to a headcount by John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.

    Veterans of the 1986 tax reform include 12 House Democrats and 21 senators. Two of those House members, Democratic Reps.  Sander Levin 0f Michigan and Charles Rangel of New York, are members of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and nine senators on the Finance Committee are ’86 vets:  Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, the committee chairman;  Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia; Ron Wyden of Oregon; Charles Schumer of New York; Bill Nelson of Florida;  and Thomas Carper of Delaware, as well as Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah, the committee’s ranking Republican, along with Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Pat Roberts of Kansas… Read More »

  • 5:20 PM ET
    Nov 20, 2012

    Iowa’s GOP Governor: Time to End the Straw Poll

    Associated Press

    Is one of the quirkiest rituals of the Republican presidential election calendar heading for the grave?

    It is, if Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad has his say.

    Eyeing the wreckage of the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, which Rep. Michele Bachmann won only to fizzle as a candidate soon after, Mr. Branstad wants to do away with the whole thing.

    “I think the straw poll has outlived its usefulness,” Mr. Branstad said of the 33-year-old GOP ritual. “It has been a great fundraiser for the party but I think its days are over.”

    Going back to 1979, Republican presidential contenders have flocked to Ames, Iowa, in August to eat fried food, dance to country bands and wheedle votes from the party faithful in what amounts to an overblown party fund-raiser disguised as a trial run for the real Iowa caucuses early the next year. Read More »

  • 1:33 PM ET
    Nov 20, 2012

    Karl Rove: GOP Needs Better Message and Better Machinery

    Republican strategist and Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Contributor Karl Rove says Republicans need both a better message and a better machine for turning out voters. “I’ve got a foot planted firmly in both camps,” he tells Washington Bureau Chief Jerry Seib. Also, the faces that are most promising for the GOP now. Watch “The Big Interview.” Read More »

  • 12:17 PM ET
    Nov 20, 2012

    Rep. Allen West Concedes Defeat

    Florida Rep. Allen West, one of the fieriest members of the 2010 class of House Republicans, conceded defeat Tuesday to Democratic rival Patrick Murphy, ending the congressional career of a lawmaker whose unyielding conservatism seemed to embody the tea party movement.

    Mr. West’s concession, along with the resolution of other races whose outcome was uncertain on election night, means the party breakdown of the House next year is apparently set at 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats, a net gain of eight for the Democrats. A  race in Utah and one in North Carolina are not entirely settled.

    That’s less than the 25 the Democrats needed to retake control, or even the 12-15 they predicted privately they’d win for much of the campaign. But as Election Day approached, many analysts thought Democrats would gain only a handful of seats or even lose some, so they see recapturing eight seats as a success, and Democratic House campaign chairman Steve Israel (D., N.Y.) is keeping his position for another two years… Read More »

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text:
Saturday, December 1, 2012

BFI celebrate 50th throughout 2013

The BFI Southbank is to screen classic Doctor Who stories each month in 2013, leading up to the show's 50th Anniversary in November. Each screening will focus on a particular Doctor and feature guests pertinent to the era with an introduction and a Q&A panel session after.

The first event, The First Doctor: An Unearthly Child, takes place on January 12 and it's a screening of the William Hartnell debut tale - tickets available to the public from Dec 11. Guests to be announced.

Visit the BFI site HERE for more details and tickets.

The Snowmen - Radio Times cover
Latest series of micro-figures launched!
Christopher Eccleston talks 50th
BBC One Christmas trailer
The Snowmen - New details & pics

1 comment:

Ross said...

I had this plan myself the other day! Works out well: 11 Doctors, 11 months until the anniversary. Perfect!


text:
Saturday, February 26, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

Fuhrer Fury helpin me out with the Shovel

Mondays Mantra...

"I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty."

Friday, February 18, 2011

"Female /n./ Life support system for a pussy."
Been slavin' over at Biltwell as of late and laggin' on my flics of females and werdz of wisdom and for that, I aplogize.  Stay tuned 'cuz Otto has turned over a new leaf

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Hipsters, take note

U didnt invent skinny jeans and you'll prolly never be as rad as Dee Dee. So just do us all a favor and throw in the towel, son

Monday, February 14, 2011

Friday at Ricos'

Media darling, international superstar, globe-trottin' sickle ambassador...Rico's none of those things but he is a helpful dude that gets around some and knows his way around a bottom end, no pun intended...Check what some of his Nazi friends are doin' to get him to Germany this year...RICOMETER!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Prolly took 50 pics today...

...and this was the only one I thought worthy of the Blotto blog...and today, I'm ok with that

Friday, February 11, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Sanger for Sale, son! No motor but super cool paint n trailer package, could be yours for cheap! U wanna build a jet or switch it to a V-drive, this is the boat. Get at me for more info

Monday, February 7, 2011

Been messin with a set of ol Shovel bags on my Dyna, gettin ready for   Biltwells EDR n maybe a Colorado trip this summer. Most the bags u can   buy are uber gay n pricey too so Pinchy Norman helped me get these on   my bike n so far they ain't fell off. Billdozer said my scoot looks   like Batmans going on vacation but I think with a lil fairing it won't   look too fugly. Billdozer also hooked me up with a Biltwell prototype cast points cover n I'm diggin it's subtle styling, son! Split lanes, take names, bang dames son!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Ran into Lucky Tim at a red light in Temec today. Good peeps


text:
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.05.11

Iris Mäckel, Das Zeitbewußtsein und der Bürgerkrieg. Eine Untersuchung zur geistigen und politischen Situation im Umbruch zwischen Republik und Principat. Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft, Beihefte, Bd. 11.   Göttingen:  Duehrkohp & Radicke, 2002.  Pp. 334.  ISBN 3-89744-203-5.  €42.00.

Reviewed by Werner Riess, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (
Word count: 2472 words

In spite of the extensive literature on the Roman Republic and the early Principate, Mäckel (M.) tries once more to reconstruct in this PhD dissertation to what extent the generations between the Caesarian civil war and the early empire experienced a change in the awareness and consciousness of their own time (ZEITBEWUSSTSEIN). She bases her study on Cicero, Vergil, Horace, and Propertius.

The book falls into six parts. The introduction sets the stage. The second chapter deals with Cicero and the bellum civile. It rehearses the history of events and leads to the correct conclusion that Cicero's stance on the Republic underwent a profound change from the days of the civil war against Pompey through the fight against Mark Antony.

The third chapter treats the poets Vergil, Horace, and Propertius and their experience of the civil war. M. analyzes Vergil's first Eclogue and demonstrates its main difference from Theocritus' bucolic poetry, i.e. inserting politics into poetry. The feature all three poets have in common is that they yearned for peace, in different forms though. Vergil's Eclogue 9 also displays criticism of contemporary circumstances. Only the fourth Eclogue manifests a certain optimism, and this is based on the hope for a new golden age. With Horace, M. starts off with an analysis of Epodes 7 and 16. Like Vergil, Horace discerns the reasons for civil war in mythology. The fratricide of Remus continues to weigh heavily on the Roman people as a curse (Epode 7). Mentally, Vergil and Horace flee from depressing reality and explain the present by resorting to mythical history. In the sphragis of his collection of poems called Monobiblos (I 21 and I 22), Propertius clearly addresses the topic of civil war and unmasks its futility without resorting to mythical topoi.

The fourth chapter puts these three authors into a larger socio-literary framework. This section offers good ideas for a sociology of Augustan literature by exploring the social preconditions of these poetic achievements. M. presents the poets in their social surroundings, especially in their relationships to Maecenas and Augustus. Their personal acquaintance with Maecenas leads to a very different tone in the later works of all three poets. Slowly the scars of the civil war were healing; the terror people had suffered gave way to a new feeling of optimism, even political confidence (p. 154). On pp. 158ff. M. discusses the problematic assumption of a closed circle of Maecenas with sound judgement. While of the three Horace is closest to Maecenas, Propertius keeps the greatest distance from this powerful man. Vergil holds an intermediate position. He always portrays Maecenas and Octavian in different spheres of life: Maecenas as private friend, Augustus as a politician who is totally dedicated to a most promising future and who is almost beyond the visible world, in a divine realm. Horace makes a similar distinction in his work, so that none of his satires makes reference to the civil war. In his ninth Epode Horace treats Maecenas and Augustus on two very different levels: whereas Maecenas is addressed as a friend, Augustus is the topic of the poem. Propertius shows us Maecenas in connection with Augustus and introduces new traits of Maecenas, his military side. In so doing Propertius moves the grand promoter of arts and literature closer to the military strongman par excellence, the princeps himself.

Chapter five is dedicated to the three poets and their presentation of the civil war. M. investigates the poets' technique of presenting subjects and persons in those poems that were written after the literary circle of Maecenas had been founded. As far as Vergil is concerned, M. makes an important observation: while the national poet of the Romans rejected any kind of war right after 29 BCE, heroic fights become the rule again in the Aeneid.

Horace celebrates the present and with it Augustus as the imposer of law and order. The princeps is never portrayed as a protagonist in the civil war, but as its terminator. Finally, the poet extols the monarch so as to lift him into godlike spheres. In III.24, a late ode, the civil war functions only as a topos. In the carmen saeculare the civil war finds no echo whatsoever, for understandable reasons. Also in the six so-called Roman odes the civil wars are no longer mentioned. Belonging to the civil war generation Horace felt partly responsible for the atrocities committed, but in his later works he looked ahead to a new time in which a carefree youth would enjoy the fruits of peace and order. In his elegy II.1, Propertius enumerates all the battles of the civil war. After 25 BCE the civil war does not play a role any more in Propertius. Actium is gradually reinterpreted as a battle against foreign foes. While the civil war always remains a topic for Vergil, Horace and Propertius push it into the background the older they get. Nevertheless Propertius writes poems against the war later in his life (III.5; III.12).

Whereas all three poets are imbued with a strong desire for peace, they still all praise the victories of the princeps. This is not schizophrenia, as M. thinks at first (p. 281), but rather a manifestation of the typically Roman distinction between detrimental civil war and glorious war against foreign enemies.

The sixth and final chapter deals with this ambiguity and raises the question of a paradigm shift in Roman thinking that might have occurred during this era of transition. A bibliography concludes the book. Indices, esp. of the passages cited, would have been useful.

Since the contents of chapter three and five overlap, they could have constituted a single chapter. Inserting the socio-literary analysis between chapters three and five disrupts the interpretation of the texts, and therefore this analysis rather should have been placed at the beginning of the poets' treatment in order to illuminate their historical context. M. does not make clear the differences between chapters three and five at any conspicuous point but rather chooses to scatter some hints throughout the book (98f., 138, 202ff., 205).

Fundamental problems characterize this book. We cannot rule out the possibility that the four great literary figures, Cicero, Vergil, Horace, and Propertius, wanted to grasp the atmosphere of their time and shape it in a representative way and were capable of doing so, but the question of how representative these four highly intellectual authors were should have been at least addressed. After all they came from the social elites. Several times M. transfers the opinions or utterances of these literary figures to the ZEITBEWUSSTSEIN of the broad masses (e.g. 148, 195, 233, 251, 275) without further ado. Meanwhile there is an abundance of books that investigate mass behavior during the critical transition period from the Republic to the Principate.1 Strangely enough, M. does not take advantage of these works, which have made crucial contributions to understanding the behavior of the lower classes of Roman society during this decisive period. Compared to the often fragmentary evidence available to ancient history in general, for the late Republic we have an unusually favorable situation concerning sources. The material for lower class opinion would have offered the unique chance to compare popular culture and perceptions with upper class notions of authors belonging to the leading elites. M. however is oriented around these leading literary figures in a conventional manner and draws her conclusion to the ordinary people of Rome exclusively from the views of the elite.

It is M.'s aim to trace contemporaries' consciousness during one of world history's most difficult phases of transition. Theoretical concepts of the collective and cultural memory, of memory cultures and of mentalities should have been applied. M., however, is meticulous in avoiding modern theory, which should have imposed itself on her subject-matter. Given the kind of topic being explored, it was a severe mistake to dismiss the entire discipline of the history of mentalities in one paragraph and a single footnote (p. 304, footnote 2). It should have been M.'s task to discuss theoretical models and to test their applicability instead of referring to Heuss's history of ideas and then only citing a few sceptical voices. Admittedly, one does not have to embrace the highly complex notion of mentality, but ZEITBEWUSSTSEIN and especially ZEITGEIST (spirit of the time) sound very Hegelian and outdated. These metaphysical terms used to be en vogue in the German humanities of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. M. fails to give a proper definition of either of these terms and does not differentiate the terms from each other, so that they are used synonymously (e.g. p. 100, 196, 200, 312). In addition, these terms, so central to M.'s point, are quite elusive. On a purely historical level, one is also startled to read that peace and security (p. 283) reigned within the Roman Empire.

Successful in her close reading of relevant passages, M. sometimes offers sensitive interpretations and valuable insights. In the chapter on Cicero, however, it is at the reader's discretion whether or not to go so far as to accept her postulation of a break in Cicero's thinking (p. 63) or even the loss of his political consciousness (p. 91).2 In chapter 2.5 Cicero is contrasted to his younger contemporaries. M. postulates that the older generation, who had seen and experienced the Republic fully functioning, had more and more difficulties communicating with the younger generation, who could no longer remember the Republic. There are multiple nuances in between these two generations, which M. disentangles with great subtlety. The section on Asinius Pollio (pp. 78-81), who holds such an intermediate position, is particularly well done.

M.'s generation-gap model is stimulating but not completely convincing, for it is not applicable to every situation. In literate societies people can study and learn. It may be correct that the way records were handed down in the late Roman Republic was far more oral than that of today's Western societies, but nevertheless, the elites at least had access to books, with which they could inform themselves about the past. It may also be correct that to the young Gaius Caesar his adoptive father was the political point of reference; it is certainly right that C. Caesar was too young to see the Republic still at work, but this does not mean that later he still had no idea of what the Republic had been about. After all we have proof that Augustus read and admired the works of Cicero (Plut. Cic. 49,3), whom he had proscribed. Augustus's gradually emerging political propaganda and self-representation testify to a deepened understanding of the Roman Republic -- its history, magistracies and traditions.

It is certainly legitimate to interpret poetry from a historical point of view, and M. is right in appreciating poetry as a historical source, because the poetic re-formulation of myths increasingly served the purpose of explaining contemporary history. But, although the author demonstrates a substantial knowledge of Augustan literature, she fails to fully appreciate the genuinely literary character of these texts.3 It is this highly complex interface between literary system and reference to reality that M. often blurs too easily. Due to a lack of familiarity with the techniques of modern literary analysis M., without hesitating, often equates the lyric I with the actual author (e.g. p. 133, 135ff., 267 with Propertius). Equally detrimental to M.'s analysis is the fact that she does not seem to realize the role character in large parts of Augustan poetry. Very often the poems under scrutiny are societal poetry. Since this form of poetry refers to certain social occasions and situations, one and the same author can change his tunes and even contradict himself from one poem to the next, a phenomenon which confuses M. and which she can hardly explain (p. 292). M. misinterprets Propertius' praise of the withdrawal into the private sphere as a deliberate personal reaction of the poet to the civil war and a novelty in Roman self-perception. In reality, this demeanor is a pose, which for a long time had been shaped by Epicurean philosophy. Propertius' Cynthia is a literary figure. The multiple refractions of reality, the poetological thoughts contained in this sublime poetry and the highly complicated net of intertextual cross-references are neglected by M. Of course, the chosen topic did not allow such in-depth analysis, but a greater awareness of these tricky issues could at least have been sketched.

In the sixth and final chapter M. raises the question of a paradigm shift in Roman thinking that might have occurred during this era of transition. She is right to note that in Roman militaristic tradition proving oneself on the battlefield was always held in high esteem. It is only in Tibullus and Propertius that we find an unconditional rejection of war, and then only for a short period of time. Later on, the same poets praise heroism again. On p. 293 and 301 M. finally reaches a convincing solution of the alleged contradiction: the positive assessment of war during the entire Roman Republic is put into the background for a short period of time by the war generations and their desire for peace. M.'s synthesis lies in the precise differentiation, which she correctly undertakes on the basis of Vergil, Aen. VI 835 (proice tela manu sanguis meus) and Aen. VI 851-853 (tu regere imperio populos Romane memento - hae tibi erunt artes - pacique inponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos). Civil war is terrible and has to be avoided under all circumstances; war against foreign enemies, however, is heroic and glorious. The terms war and peace do undergo a shift in meaning in this transitional period, but one does not have to see a full-scale paradigm shift, as M. does. The lines of continuity extending from the early Republic through the Principate are too clear. But now victories could be celebrated that had been won by professional soldiers and no longer by militia of Roman farmers, which had ceased to exist centuries before. Geographically and mentally one had found some distance from the wars.

The language of the book is sometimes vague, e.g. M. speaks of "the" Roman (p. 262) or of Cicero's loss of his political consciousness (e.g. p. 91, 94, 307). It may be true that Cicero's belief in the Republic was seriously shattered, maybe he lost this belief altogether, but he certainly never gave up his political consciousness.

In spite of the distance between this PhD dissertation and modern theories and methods, a gap which makes the thesis seem not to be on the cutting edge of today's historical practice, the book is worthwhile reading. It offers a detailed report on the way Cicero, Vergil, Horace, and Propertius portray civil war, and in doing so it offers an introduction to the development of Cicero's political thinking as well as to Augustan literature.

1.   Wolfgang Will, Der Römische Mob. Soziale Konflikte in der Späten Republik, Darmstadt 1991; Karl-Wilhelm Weeber, Panem et Circenses. Massenunterhaltung als Politik im antiken Rom, Second edition, Mainz 1994; Francisco Pina Polo, Contra arma verbis. Der Redner vor dem Volk in der späten römischen Republik, Stuttgart 1996; Günter Laser, Populo et scaenae serviendum est. Die Bedeutung der städtischen Masse in der Späten Römischen Republik, Trier 1997; Alexander Jakobson, Elections and Electioneering in Rome. A Study in the Political System of the Late Republic, Stuttgart 1999; Henrik Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge 2001; Fergus Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the late Republic, Ann Arbor 2002.
2.   Jörg Spielvogel, Amicitia und Res Publica. Ciceros Maxime während der innenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen der Jahre 59-50 v. Chr., Stuttgart 1993 would have been relevant in the discussion on Cicero.
3.   A concise introduction into current scholarly debates on Augustan literature is now offered by E. A. Schmidt, Augusteische Literatur. System in Bewegung, Heidelberg 2003.

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text:
Top Definition
an orgasm, usually intense.
"He got me to the big O last night.
লিখেছেন- Starla Pureheart 29 de জুন de 2002
19 more definitions
Paradigm City is a place without a past. 40 years ago, something happened that wiped away the memories of everyone in it. Unfortunately, the people of Paradigm City were very busy before then, making Megadueses (giant robots) and monsters. People who were born after the memory wipe are gaining/recovering memories of the past and using them to build newer threats. Roger Smith keeps Paradigm City safe with the help of The Big O (a faithful giant robot), his butler Norman, and the android Dorothy. As problems mount and more memories surface, Roger's past and Paradigm's future begin to become suspect.
Big O aired in the U.S. on Toonami in 2001. There are a total of 26 episodes.
লিখেছেন- ♫ Highway to Hell ♫ 10 de সেপ্টেমবার de 2010
super intense orgasm in which female ejaculate is released (not urine)... speculation puts phenomena at 1 out of 20 women able to achieve
Cheryl knew all about the Big O
লিখেছেন- TXDOC 28 de মার্চ de 2006
a giant robot in the anime big O
guy:*looks at watch* BIG O! *robot appears*
লিখেছেন- O_oo_O 17 de জুলাই de 2003

1. an orgasm, a sexual climax

2. opium
Once I reach the big O, there is no turning back.
লিখেছেন- The Return Of Light Joker 4 de নভেম্বার de 2007
A sexy, Mexican male typically found in western areas of the continental U.S. Bigos are approximately 6 feet tall and vary in weight. Bigos are dark in color, including skin, hair and eyes and the voice of a Bigo resonates directly from your ears to your panties, creating instant moisture in the vaginal area. Bigos are strong and rude, yet possess a softness that is not often exposed. A genuine Bigo drinks beer, considers football a religion, loves large breasts, and has amazing preferences in music.
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লিখেছেন- r.v.r 15 de জুলাই de 2014
Traditional polish dish that consists of sauerkaut, sausage & mushrooms. Mainly eaten with bread
Englishmen hate bigos, but for poles it's delicious
লিখেছেন- Ozon 5 de জানুয়ারি de 2006

ফ্রী দৈনিক ই-মেইল

ফ্রী Urban প্রতিদিনের নির্বাচিত শব্দ পেতে নিচে আপনার ই-মেইল ঠিকানা লিখুন! থেকে ই-মেইল পাঠানো হয়ে। আমারা আপনাকে কখনো স্প্যাম করব না।


text:
Top Definition
Pronounced (EHN-bee)

Based off of the shortening of "non-binary", N.B.

A term used by the non-binary/genderqueer community as an alternative to girl/boy.
Are they a girl or a boy?
Neither, they're an enby!
লিখেছেন- kyej 1 de নভেম্বার de 2013
3 more definitions
"Enby" is a queer term that comes from N.B., standing for non-binary. Simply to be used as one would "boy" and "girl" (and as such "enbyfriend" in place of "boy/girlfriend"), by specifying that the person in question identifies outside the gender binary.
Sam prefers to be called an enby more than a boy or a girl.
লিখেছেন- puerluna 1 de নভেম্বার de 2013
from "NB", which stands for non-binary. These people do not identify with the male or female genders, and usually prefer "they" as a pronoun. They are neither men nor women, and should not be regarded as such.
Enbies can be genderqueer, agender, pangender, or any gender identity that is not binary.
"Chris is an enby, which means they're neither a man nor a woman."
"This is my enbyfriend, TJ."
লিখেছেন- teratophilia 1 de নভেম্বার de 2013
Enby is a term coined on Tumblr, acting as a term like "boy" and "girl" but rather for those of non-binary genders.
Person 1: I can't tell if that person is a boy or a girl.
Person 2: Maybe they're an enby.
লিখেছেন- KyuKyuKyu 1 de নভেম্বার de 2013

ফ্রী দৈনিক ই-মেইল

ফ্রী Urban প্রতিদিনের নির্বাচিত শব্দ পেতে নিচে আপনার ই-মেইল ঠিকানা লিখুন! থেকে ই-মেইল পাঠানো হয়ে। আমারা আপনাকে কখনো স্প্যাম করব না।


text:
User Profile for latindog
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I am a high school Latin teacher from Long Island, NY. I have been interested in hobby gaming since I was a kid in the 1970s. My interests now lie mostly in meaty Eurogames and Euro-influenced lower complexity wargames but I still regularly play abstracts, Amerigames, card games, sports games and some old school wargames. I have an appetite for variety in gaming and will generally prefer to play something new or something that hasn't seen the table in a while to something I've played a few times recently.

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Personal Finances / Living Below Your Means

Subject:  Re: Sauna Date:  10/7/2012  10:37 AM
Author:  Jeanwa Number:  867846 of 890130

Is there a way to work it into the bathroom remodel?
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Author: MakingTrax One star, 50 posts Old School Fool Add to my Favorite Fools Ignore this person (you won't see their posts anymore) Number: of 122998
Subject: Re: Any Tax Relief Here? Date: 3/26/2013 6:53 PM
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I suggest you check further into the 401k contribution situation. When I was in a similar position upon leaving a company, I was able to request from HR that a lump sum contribution (up to the annual max) be taken from my final paycheck, which helped with the tax bite. Typically, adjustments to the 401k contributions can be made throughout the year (although sometimes restricted to only one or two changes).

You may also suggest that your friend coordinate with HR/payroll as to how they will calculate withholdings for the final paycheck. Sometimes they withhold a much greater amount (because of the inflated income level), and then you end up with a large refund; it just depends on whether they make an adjustmetn or not. Or, in your friends case, it may need to be adjusted (due to higher than normal income) to ensure that enough tax is withheld to avoid the need for an estimated tax payment later in the year. In either case, coordinating with payroll now to work out the final paperwork before everything is processed is recommended.

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