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Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Unrest Reverberates in Global Economy
The turmoil in Egypt is reverberating around the world, battering stock markets, driving up oil prices and raising questions about whether the rising cost of crude could slow the global economy.
The Egyptian stock market is expected to be closed Monday, after shares fell 17% late last week. Most Persian Gulf markets fell Sunday, with Dubai tumbling 4.3% and Oman 3%. The Saudi Arabian stock market ended up 2.5% after sliding 6% on Saturday. Prices for U.S. benchmark crude futures leapt $3.70, or more than 4%, to $89.34 a barrel on Friday. In Asian trading early Monday, U.S. oil futures were trading up 87 cents, or 1%, at $90.21 a barrel.
![[EGYPTECON]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AE232A_EGYPT_NS_20110130210012.jpg)
The Egyptian economy is relatively small, with total output of just about $217 billion last year. But the nation carries outsize importance as home to the Suez Canal, a key shipping route for oil and other products between the Red Sea and Mediterranean.
Apart from oil, about 8% of the world's seaborne trade passes through the Suez canal, according to Egyptian government figures. Over the weekend, a dusk-to-dawn curfew across the country caused shippers operating in the canal to warn customers of potential delays.
Canal traffic has continued unhindered through the protests. But if the violence in Egypt spreads to its oil-producing neighbors, crude prices will likely top $100 a barrel, which would damp an economic recovery gaining momentum in many countries.
"The biggest fear out there is if there's any kind of suggestion that there could be instability, political problems or unrest with Saudi Arabia," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
Anti-government protests in Egypt have affected world financial markets, with US stocks suffering the biggest one-day loss in six months. Video courtesy of Fox News
J.P. Morgan economists estimate that a 10% increase in oil prices, if sustained, would slow global GDP growth by a quarter-percentage point. They expect global output to rise at a 3.6% annual rate this quarter.
"The principal concern is that civil unrest spreads to Middle Eastern and North African oil producers, producing significant reverberations in financial asset prices and confidence," J.P. Morgan said in a research note.
For the U.S., the surge in oil prices comes just as the economy appears to be growing at a pace, which, if sustained, could bring down unemployment in the months ahead. Several European economies are growing more slowly or even contracting due to the continuing effects of the financial crisis.
About a million barrels a day of crude and refined products are shipped northward on the Suez Canal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. A separate pipeline across Egypt carries 1.1 million barrels a day between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Together, that is roughly 2% of global oil production.
Closing the Suez Canal would force ships to seek other routes, adding about 10 days to the time it takes for Mideast oil to reach the U.S. and 18 days for the trip to Northern Europe. That alone would push up crude prices even if supplies were adequate due to emergency reserves around the world.
Oil markets barely budged, however, through the summer of 2009 during sweeping antigovernment protests across Iran, one of the world's largest oil producers. The different market reactions underscore how the global supply-and-demand picture has changed in the past 18 months. After falling sharply in 2009 during the global downturn, crude demand picked up in recent months because of the improving health of the U.S. economy and rapid growth in China and other developing economies. This has made markets much more sensitive to the threat of supply disruptions.
Although Egypt's oil output isn't sizable, the country is a significant exporter of natural gas. Some of that goes by pipeline to neighbors inthe Mideast. But most of Egypt's gas exports are nowshipped as super-chilled liquefied-natural gas, aboard tankers bound for U.S. and Asian markets.
So far, oil and gas field operations appear unaffected by the unrest. But international oil companies have closed their Cairo offices. A Royal Dutch Shell PLC security official said some expatriate staff had left the country.
Egypt also is the world's largest buyer of wheat and a significant cotton exporter. On Friday, wheat futures fell more than 2% in Chicago in part on worries that regime change in Cairo could hurt Egypt's ability to pay for wheat. The government's official wheat buyer said Sunday it had no plans to change orders. Lower wheat prices would hurt U.S. farmers, but benefit global consumers who have been hit by rising food prices.
Cotton prices, however, could rise if Egypt's exports are curbed by the lack of security and curfew. Global cotton prices are already at their highest levels in about a century and a half.
Egypt also is host to one of the region's most globalized financial markets, making the country's equities a popular play among emerging-market investors.
"Emerging markets investors, if they are benchmarked, are going to have the exposure [to Egypt] … and they are going to be hit," said Eiji Aono, head of research for NCB Capital, a Riyadh-based investment firm.
In recent years, Egypt saw a surge in foreign direct investment as the government, with the aid of the International Monetary Fund, shifted state-owned companies to private control and adopted other market-oriented policies. Egypt's economy grew 5% to 7% annually over the past few years, in part due to its increased attractiveness to outside investors. But that growth has slowed since the global financialcrisis and the nation remains gripped by chronichighunemployment —particularly among the nation's youth— and disparities in wealth.
"The recent growth was not equitable regionally and in terms of populations," said Samer Shehata, a Georgetown University professor of Arab politics. "The growth came at a very high price, which is record levels of consistently high inflation. For ordinary Egyptians, things have gotten worse, not better, in the last five years."
—Shereen el Gazzar,
Tahani Karrar-Lewsley
and Nikhil Lohade in Dubai
contributed to this article.
oil price information service, saudi arabian stock market, egyptian stock market, global gdp, suez canal, egyptian economy, crude futures, oil futures, gaining momentum, seaborne trade, shipping route, global output, oil analyst, gdp growth, egyptian government, government figures, crude prices, global economy, tom kloza, early monday
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Lovely lousewort
Lovely lousewort
Coil-beaked lousewort near Paradise Creek, Mount rainier national park, Washington.
Photo #3340
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mount rainier national park, washington photo, paradise creek, mount rainier, rainier national park
Friday, January 28, 2011
Report Details Wall Street Crisis
Twelve of the 13 largest U.S. financial institutions "were at risk of failure" at the depth of the 2008 financial crisis, while at least 50 hedge funds tried to capitalize on it, according to a report released Thursday by a U.S. panel investigating how the financial system unraveled.
![[FCICDOC_ALT]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-BK058_FCICDO_DV_20110127175107.jpg)
Bloomberg News
Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, displays a copy of the report Thursday.
The report quantifies a huge run on the bank at Morgan Stanley, describes the alleged trading practices of a secretive hedge fund and tallies the number of such funds betting against U.S. homeowners.
The 545-page document paints a picture of a financial system let loose by lax regulation and careening out of control. Regulators now are hammering out a financial-regulatory overhaul, though some analysts say not enough has been done since to prevent a recurrence.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission didn't produce new culprits or scandals in a crisis already analyzed at length by the news media, a U.S. Senate investigation, a congressional oversight committee, an inspector general and financial regulators.
Partisan divisions that emerged in the report's drafting could also detract from its impact, with Republican members saying they couldn't support the majority's conclusions.
Journal Community
How would you grade the performance of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission?
The report described a shadow banking system that helped trigger a more than tenfold surge in financial-sector debt, to $36 trillion in 2007 from $3 trillion in 1978.
More
Partisan Rancor Undercuts Probe
See selections from the FCIC report referenced in this story.
Then it crumbled, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the commission in a November 2009 interview.
"As a scholar of the Great Depression, I honestly believe that September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression," Mr. Bernanke said, according to the commission's report.
Of the 13 most important U.S. financial institutions, "12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two," the report quoted Mr. Bernanke as saying.
Mr. Bernanke declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
The list of potential failures included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., people familiar with the report said. The only major financial institution not at risk at the time was J.P. Morgan Chase.
Spokesmen for J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the report.
After regulators let Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapse in September 2008, one of the most vulnerable banks was Morgan Stanley, the report notes.
Hedge funds pulled $86 billion in assets from the investment bank in the week following the Sept. 15 Lehman bankruptcy filing, stemming from concerns about Morgan Stanley's viability, according to a Morgan Stanley email at the time to the New York Federal Reserve titled "Liquidity Landscape."
"Many of our sophisticated clients started to liquefy," Morgan Stanley Treasurer David Wong told the commission in October. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined to comment.
The report also provided clarity about the number of hedge funds gambling homeowners couldn't pay their mortgages.
In an interview with the commission, former Deutsche Bank AG trader Greg Lippmann—who played a key role in facilitating short bets—told the commission that in 2006 and 2007 he handled trades for at least 50 hedge funds and "maybe as many as 100" betting that mortgage-backed securities would fall.
An FCIC survey of some hedge funds found they had a total of $45 billion of short bets, which easily outweighed roughly $25 billion of bullish positions they had on mortgages.
The panel also scrutinized the conflicts of interest—involving Wall Street banks, hedge funds and investors—created by the pools of mortgage debt known as collateralized debt obligations.
The crisis panel cited a $1.5 billion CDO called "Norma," underwritten by Merrill Lynch & Co. in 2007. The assets backing the CDOs were to be selected and overseen by a third-party "collateral" manager called NIR Capital Management.
As Norma's value crumbled, some investors and others complained that Magnetar Capital—a hedge fund that had placed bearish and bullish bets on the Norma CDO—played an active role in helping to select Norma's assets.
This would potentially have created a conflict because Magnetar, a Merrill client, would have had an incentive to select poor-performing assets and benefit from short bets it made against the CDO.
The crisis panel said Magnetar had "executed approximately $600 million in trades for Norma" and that Merrill failed to disclose that Magnetar "was selecting collateral when it also had a short position that would benefit from losses."
On Thursday, a Magnetar spokesman said the hedge fund "did not control the selection or acquisition of assets in any CDO, including Norma."
A spokesman for Bank of America, Merrill's current owner, said: "While most of these matters have been closely scrutinized and addressed, the work of the commission is important and we'll review their reports carefully."
Write to Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com, Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@wsj.com and Serena Ng at serena.ng@wsj.com
federal reserve chairman ben bernanke, federal reserve chairman, financial regulators, congressional oversight, risk of failure, senate investigation, oversight committee, inquiry commission, great depression, morgan stanley, global history, u s senate, republican members, financial institutions, rancor, financial sector, page document, culprits, banking system, hedge fund
NZ Womans Single - Emma Twig
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World Rowing Champs 2010
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Winter in Bremen
Winter in Bremen
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
[25/365]Some water, some blue.
[25/365]Some water, some blue.
I need relax!!!
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Let's Win the Oddball Events, Too
The Vancouver Games, two days away, may be remembered as a major turning point for the U.S. Winter Olympic movement. Specifically: the moment when this nation of 304 million got over itself and learned how to compete in offbeat sports like Nordic combined.
The emergence of gold-medal contenders Todd Lodwick, Bill Demong and Johnny Spillane in this unheralded sport—a combination of ski jumping and cross-country skiing—and Andy Newell, Kris Freeman and Kikkan Randall in cross-country skiing, is the result of a plan scratched out nearly 20 years ago by a winter-sports coach named Tom Steitz.
Journal Community
Vote: Which country will win the most Olympic medals in Vancouver?
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Reuters
Bill Demong of the U.S. during the ski-jumping event at a World Cup Nordic combined in Italy in January.
Mr. Steitz, who lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo., knew that Americans could compete in these events. But to do so, he figured he had to lay waste to the oldest Olympic cliché in the books: the ascetic athlete who toils in solitude for years practicing some obscure sport in the hopes of achieving one singular moment in the spotlight.
His plan was a system of constant oversight and accountability that was uncompromising and almost Orwellian in its outlook but has, so far, shown great promise as a way of boosting the U.S. medal count. "These kids don't have any more talent than the guys who came before them," said Mr. Steitz, who coached the U.S. Nordic combined team from 1988 to 2002. "We just had a better system and a better plan."
Mr. Steitz is a management consultant now, but he remains a godfather figure to the Nordic combined athletes he first got to know as pimply teenagers, as well as to much of the staff at the United States Ski and Snowboard Association, which later adapted his plan for Nordic combined success as the template for success in all sports. (Tim Burke, who's a contender in biathlon, and Erin Hamlin, a contender in women's luge, were developed under a system similar to what Mr. Steitz developed for the Nordic combined).
When he came up with the idea of beating the Austrians, Norwegians and Germans who literally grow up on Nordic skis, Mr. Steitz was one of the only believers. Luke Bodensteiner, the vice president of athletics for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, competed for the U.S. in the 1992 and 1994 Olympics in cross-country skiing. In 1993, he met a Norwegian woman he later married. "Her mother knew more about cross-country skiing than any coach I'd ever had," Mr. Bodensteiner said.
WSJ's Reed Albergotti gets a lesson in luge at Lake Placid with Olympic silver-medalist Gordy Sheer. This is the latest installment of the WSJ series, "The Olympics: How Hard Can it Be?"
More Olympics Videos
Video: 'Green Coats' Gear Up for Olympics
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Video: Young Curling Captain Poised for Gold
At that time, investment in Nordic sports by the USSA and the U.S. Olympic Committee was minimal, and respect abroad was even harder to come by. In the early 1990s, Mr. Steitz said the USSA gave him $50,000 to cover expenses from October through March, when his 20-member team spent most of the time training and competing in Europe. They traveled with sleeping bags and had a rotation of who would sleep on hotel-room floors. At one event in Norway, organizers didn't even bother to give the U.S. squad a heated tent like all the other teams received to tend to their equipment.
"When we complained they told us it wouldn't matter in terms of the results anyway," Mr. Steitz recalled.
Mr. Steitz knew it was absurd to think that a cross-country-skiing prodigy would appear out of the blue. So he decided to create a factory, albeit a small one, where the focus would be on finding and bringing together raw teenagers, then teaching them a largely obscure skill over the course of a decade the way the former Soviet machine did.
When Mr. Steitz found Mr. Lodwick, the Vancouver medal contender, he was a fearless 15-year-old who liked to hang around the Howelsen Hill ski jump in downtown Steamboat. He had no idea how to race on cross-country skis. During Mr. Lodwick's first summer of training, Mr. Steitz made him trek on his dry-land skis to the ski jump each morning to hone his racing technique while everyone else rode in the team van.
"I didn't get into the sport to make a billion dollars, it was something to do to have fun, and I just ended up doing it pretty seriously," said Mr. Lodwick, now 33.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Todd Lodwick at a Nordic Combined in France in January.
Mr. Steitz found another of this year's contenders, Mr. Spillane, in Steamboat—living just six houses down the street from his own home. He said Mr. Spillane, now 29, didn't have a lot of natural talent but trained harder than any young teenager he'd known. Another member of the team, Mr. Demong, was a solid 15-year-old junior level cross-country skier from upstate New York when Mr. Steitz found him—but he wasn't much of a jumper.
Mr. Steitz made everyone on his team move to Steamboat, where he found host families for the kids (in 2002 the team moved to Park City, Utah). Training took place all year, instead of during periodic camps.
Each athlete's progress was carefully measured and tracked. Simply being the best American at the discipline wasn't enough to maintain a spot on the national team. If an up-and-coming athlete wasn't progressing at the same rate as the up-and-coming athletes in Europe, Mr. Steitz would cut him, along with the coaches whose charges weren't producing required results. Searching for the right mix, Mr. Steitz churned through 10 coaches in 10 years and dozens of athletes. "We placed bets on a few young guys, and fortunately they paid off," Mr. Steitz says.
Mr. Steitz's Nordic squad had little money, especially when compared with the government-funded programs in Europe. But in 1996, Mr. Lodwick, then 19, scored Nordic combined's first breakthrough with a win at the junior World Championships in Italy. Later that year, Bill Marolt began his tenure as chief executive of the USSA, and during his first week, Mr. Steitz drove to Utah and, over sandwiches, outlined his program on a luncheonette napkin, showing how the success and progress could be measured from an early age. A day later, Mr. Marolt signed on. By 2000, the USSA was spending about $600,000 a year on Mr. Steitz's Nordic combined squad and using the basic underpinnings of his system as a model for other sports. Mr. Steitz augmented that funding with a half-million dollars in private donations.
After seeing Mr. Steitz's success, the USSA in 2000 developed a residency program near its headquarters in Park City for its cross-country team. Ms. Randall and Messrs. Freeman and Newell all moved there as teenagers and spend much of the next eight years training under the close supervision of USSA coaches.
Depending on sponsorships, the USSA now spends $550,000 to $850,000 a year on Nordic combined, according to Mr. Bodensteiner, and has about 80 kids, teenage and younger, in a development pipeline. In addition, team members benefit from some $800,000 the USSA spends each year at its Center of Excellence in Park City.
"If you're young and on the way up," says John Farra, the current Nordic director, "we're going to want to be with you every day."
Just as Mr. Steitz would have it.
Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.comqtdz
Online.wsj.com
Pools near summit
Monday, January 24, 2011
Chuvas em Florianpolis
Chuvas em Florianpolis
Chuvas afetam quase 750 mil pessoas em Santa Catarina.
O relatrio da Defesa Civil de Santa Catarina divulgado ontem mostra que 746.360 mil pessoas j foram atingidas por fortes enxurradas em 51 municpios desde o ltimo dia 18. Os profissionais que atendem s vtimas j encontraram cinco mortos - trs em Florianpolis, um em Jaragu do Sul e uma criana de trs meses em Massaranduba. Trs helicpteros j operam no Estado para reforar o atendimento aos municpios atingidos pelas chuvas dos ltimos dias.
Fonte: jcrs.uol.com.br/site/noticia.php?codn=52828
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Flickr.com
Sunday, January 23, 2011
All set to join the crowds to do 2hrs of Zumba!
All set to join the crowds to do 2hrs of Zumba!
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
Gaels ground Purple Eagles
Sean Armand came off the bench to score 15 points and Mike Glover had 10 points and 17 rebounds as the Iona held off Niagara 72-66 last night in Lewiston, N.Y., for their fifth straight win.
The Gaels (13-6, 7-1 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) led 33-27 at the half, then Glover and Kyle Smyth opened the second half with layups to increase the lead to 10 points.
The Purple Eagles (4-16, 1-7) then launched a 15-5 run, including three 3-pointers to tie it at 42, but could get no closer.
Eric Williams had 18 points and Anthony Nelson 17 for the Purple Eagles, who have lost three in a row.
Armand answered with three consecutive 3-pointers in a span of 1:04 to give Iona a nine-point lead with 13:30 to go.
Fairfield 67, Canisius 60
In Buffalo, Derek Needham scored 19 points as Fairfield defeated cold-shooting Canisius.
St. Peter's 77, Siena 69
Ryan Bacon scored 28 points and grabbed 15 rebounds to lead St. Peter's over Siena.
purple eagles, metro atlantic athletic conference, mike glover, layups, eric williams, canisius, iona, armand, smyth, needham, st peter, rebounds, pointers, siena, fairfield, bacon, bench, second half, span, buffalo
qtdz
Nypost.com
Friday, January 21, 2011
Bog bodies baffle scientists
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Scholars have long tried to make sense out of one of the oddities of the archaeological world —bodies pulled from ignominious burials in cold water bogs everywhere from Ireland to Russia.
Hundreds of these bog bodies have been found over the past two centuries. But who were they and why were they dispatched to the great beyond in mucky swamps? The theories range from executed deserters, to witches to everyday people.
The Irish Countess of Moira back in 1783 launched scholarly explorations by suggesting that bog bodies were victims of Druid ceremonies. Others, citing the ancient Roman writerTacitus, quickly saw them most likely as executed deserters. Arguments over individual finds have continued ever since the first look that year by the Countess at the Northern Ireland "Drumkeeragh" bog body, a woman dressed in wool clothes.
"Unfortunately the focus has been almost exclusively on the most spectacular finds, the mummified bodies," says archaeologist Moten Ravn of Denmark's Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, writing in the current Acta Archaeologica journal. Rather than arguing from just one body, Ravn suggests a survey of all the bodies might offer better clues to how they ended up buried in bogs.
What is a bog and how does it preserve anything? Cold-weather swamps, basically, where mosses turn waters brown. Roughly 560 bog bodies have turned up in Denmark alone, Ravn notes, usually discovered when farmers try to turn wetlands into farmland. His survey focuses on 145 bog bodies dating to the early Iron and late Bronze Age, roughly 500 BC to 100 BC, the pre-Roman era in northern Europe.
Acids found in bog waters have mummified some of the bodies, or more accurately tanned them into leather. Mosses release chemicals that leach calcium from the bodies, "which means that the bones of the bog bodies take on the consistency of rubber," Ravn writes. Other bogs rich in lime have preserved other bodies only as bones.
Scholars have raced up and down the human pecking order in ascribing identities to the bodies. The historian Niels Petersen in 1835 decided that the "Haraldskaer" woman's body found at the site of a copper factory belonged to the Norwegian Queen Gunhilde, drowned by King Harald Blatund (Bluetooth) in the Ninth Century. By 1907, archaeologist Johanna Mestorf became convinced they were all executed criminals, noting many of the bodies were bound and naked.
Shades ofRaiders of the Lost Ark, Nazi archaeologists dominated bog body research starting in the 1930's until the end of the Third Reich, Ravn notes, "interested in proving that the so-called Nordic race were direct descendants of the proto-Germanic race," dating back to the Bronze Age.
All of these ideas have problems, starting with Queen Gunhilde, who was unlikely to have been buried in leather scraps, as she was found. Also a 2004 Journal of Archaeological Science study notes that carbon dating finds the "Haraldskaer" bog body was actually 2,500 years old, not in King Bluetooth's reign.
As for executed criminals, Ravn notes there are only 21 Danish cases where the bodies have demonstrably been restrained, which, "may be a general protection against ghosts and not something reserved for criminals," he writes. About 34% of the Bronze and Iron Age bodies in his sample are clothed, and clothing may not endure in bogs as well as flesh does, explaining its absence. A 2009 study, also in the Journal of Archaeological Science led by Ulla Mannering of the University of Copenhagen, reports 44 instances of bog bodies found with clothes in Denmark, most dating to the Roman era.
The Nazi theory is just crackers, of course, with even their own archaeologists pointing out bog bodies turned up in Ireland and elsewhere, even as far south as Crete, far outside any "proto-Germanic" home.
Instead, "most archaeologists today support the sacrifice theory," Ravn writes. Proposed in the 1950's, the basic idea is that bog bodies were mostly offerings to the Nordic gods Odin or Nerthus ("Mother Earth"), with the rest either murder or accident victims. People were mostly cremated in the era, a point which suggests a bog burial must have been a special event.
An alternative is the idea proposed in 2002 by historian Allen Lund that the bog bodies belonged to witches. Ancient people knew about the preserving nature of bogs and sought to suspend their supernatural foes in a state between life and death to forestall being haunted by them.
Ravn proposes a new theory to explain some of the bog bodies — maybe they were just people who died of natural causes and were sent to their burial in the bogs by their relatives. There is nothing special about the range of 145 people in his survey, men, women, young and old. Some were clearly placed in excavated holes lined with bark and cotton, buried with glass beads or gold jewelry in their mouths, a Roman custom. In Celtic myths, bogs and lakes were places of healing, Ravn suggests. "Is it possible that there was a wish to pass on these healing characteristics of the bog to a person who died a natural death so that the deceased could arrive healthy in the realm of the dead," he asks.
Overall, bog bodies are "not so easy to explain," Ravn says. The oldest one, the Koelbjerg woman, dates to 10,000 years ago. Others date to modern times, such as Johann Spieker, a hawker (person who used trained falcons to hunt), who died in 1828. "The reason that people were given their final resting place in the bog was not because of any one single tradition or one single ritual," Ravn concludes. "Some were due to accidents and others to murder. Some may have been sacrificed and others may have died of natural causes and were buried in the bog."
viking ship museum, druid ceremonies, late bronze age, wool clothes, release chemicals, archaeological world, cold weather, ravn, deserters, pecking order, northern europe, ancient roman, everyday people, burials, countess, moira, northern ireland, swamps, farmland, leach
qtdz
Usatoday.com
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Hibiscus
10 Top Tinted Moisturizers
Keeping skin healthy is so easy with a moisturizer that protects you against the sun, evens out your skin tone and gives you a glow!
-Jenny Beres, BettyConfidential.com
When you’ve just got to show off that radiant skin…Sometimes it’s a shame to hide it in under gobs of foundation. When light coverage is just enough, these ten tinted moisturizers are the very best to keep you glowing all day long!
1. Becca Luminous Skin colour tinted mositurizer SPF 25 ($42, beccacosmetics.com). It contains anti-oxidant Vitamins A, B, D and E and soothing anti-inflammatory ingredients.
2. Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer SPF 20 ( $42, sephora.com). Lightweight and gives a sheer finish.
3. Mark Get a Tint SPF 15 ( $9, avon.com). This tinted moisturizer has a skin balancing oil-free formula and is safe for sensitive skin.
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4. Clarins Hydra Care tinted moisturizer SPF 6 ($43, neimanmarcus.com). It’s sheer and balances out skin tones.
5. Olay Definity Color Recapture moisturizer SPF 15 ($23.39, soap.com). It comes in three skin tones: Fair to Light, Light to Medium and Medium to Deep. This sheer tinted moisturizer works against wrinkles and lines because it contains a glucosamine complex that also fights skin discoloration.
6. Wet N’ Wild Ultimate Sheer tinted moisturizer SPF 15($3.99, cvs.com). It adjusts to your skin tone while evening it out.
7. Mary Kay tinted moisturizer SPF 20 ($18, marykay.com). It comes in 6 shades from ivory to bronze.
Read Win It: Tickets To The Wedding Party
8. Cover Girl Smoothers SPF 15 tinted moisturizer ($6.69, soap.com). Dries in seconds, super sheer and evens out skin tones.
9. Jane Nearly Foundation tinted moisturizer SPF 30 ($5.99, beautyboutique.com). Great SPF, you don’t need an additional sun block when you use this tinted moisturizer.
10. Jane Iredale Dream Tint SPF 15 ($36, nordstrom.com). Prevents water loss, and the algae extracts quiet inflamed skin while it improves skin’s elasticity.
Jenny Beres is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter living and working in Los Angeles.
Check out more from BettyConfidential.com:
Gotta Have It SPF to Go
7 Sunscreens That Work!
Get Sunscreen Smart Right Now
Sunscreen Sense
Skip the Sunscreen?!!
laura mercier tinted moisturizer, moisturizer spf, olay definity, tinted moisturizers, wrinkles and lines, nordstrom, mary kay, inflamed skin, radiant skin, skin discoloration, skin tones, skin colour, water loss, skin tone, jane iredale, sun block, beres, gobs, clarins, sensitive skin
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Shine.yahoo.com
Salton Sea - Bombay Beach Sunset
Salton Sea - Bombay Beach Sunset
It's just impossible to have a bad sunset at Bombay Beach
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Dinner for Schmucks, DVD review
Dinner for Schmucks, DVD review
Funny supporting performances don't manage to save this cringeworthy film. Rating: * *
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By Daisy Bowie-Sell 1:48PM GMT 17 Jan 2011
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12 cert, Paramount, £19.99
Supporting performances from Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), David Walliams and Lucy Punch save proceedings from complete disaster, supplying a few laugh-out-loud one-liners. Otherwise, it’s a pretty stodgy repast.
Tim (Paul Rudd) is an ambitious executive who, in order to win promotion, has to find an idiot to take to dinner with his boss so they can all make fun of him.
This is a cringe-worthy Hollywood remake of French movie Le Diner de Cons with Steve Carrell as its star, but he is far from at his 'Office’ best here.
Released on DVD on 17 January
steve carrell, paul rudd, flight of the conchords, tim paul, diner de cons, david walliams, jemaine clement, le diner de cons, one liners, cert, daisy, paramount, lucy, laugh, proceedings download, boss, disaster, hollywood
qtdz
Telegraph.co.uk
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Bugs in the Library
Red Back spiders!
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Luis SuŠ±rez is prepared to quit Ajax for Liverpool
Luis Suz is prepared to quit Ajax for Liverpool
Liverpool target Luis Suárez is believed to have made it clear to Ajax that he would be prepared to leave the Dutch club for Anfield should a suitable offer arrive in the remaining two weeks of the transfer window.
On the move: Ajax are resigned to losing Suarez Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Rory Smith 7:00AM GMT 18 Jan 2011
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The Eredivisie side’s new manager, Frank de Boer, has stripped the Uruguay international of the captaincy after a number of controversial incidents and is thought to be resigned to losing the striker.
Liverpool have emerged as favourites to secure Suárez’s services after Tottenham chose not to further their interest in the 23 year-old, who would contemplate a move to England only should he be able to join a club with a core of Spanish-speaking players.
Though Ajax are prepared to listen to offers substantially below the £35 million valuation they placed on the striker after an impressive World Cup — which included his infamous handball in Uruguay’s quarter-final win against Ghana — the Dutch club will not countenance selling the player for less than £18 million.
Whether Liverpool match that fee will depend on whether the club’s owner, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), believes Suárez’s age, potential and marketing power make him a worthwhile investment.
The club’s manager, Kenny Dalglish, and director of football strategy, Damien Comolli, will attempt to convince the group’s principal backers, John W Henry and Tom Werner, of that in the coming days.
Suárez is not expected to be Liverpool’s only attempt at recruitment this month, though FSG’s philosophy means the club will not spend money if their first-choice targets are either unavailable or out of their price range.
Dalglish and Comolli have scouted Charles N’Zogbia, the Wigan winger, intensively, and the Frenchman may prove a cheaper alternative to another long-term target, Aston Villa’s Ashley Young. The England international would cost around £15 million should Villa release him, roughly twice the amount needed to buy N’Zogbia.
Reports that Liverpool had made an approach for Young’s team-mate, Stewart Downing, are wide of the mark, though another Villa player, the out-of-favour left-back Stephen Warnock, is being monitored. Dalglish may look to bring the
29 year-old back to the club he left in 2007 on an initial loan until the end of the season.
The Scot is thought to be keen to bring as many as four new faces to Anfield in the next 13 days as he looks to inject some much-needed confidence into his jaded side.
Quite how hard the past 18 months of failure has been on Liverpool’s current squad — and quite how crucial an infusion of fresh blood is if this season is to end in anything other than ignominy — is illustrated by Dirk Kuyt, who came into the campaign on the back of the proudest moment of his career and now finds himself facing an unexpected relegation battle.
“It is difficult for me,” he said. “Six months ago, I was playing in a World Cup final. Last week, I had my second defeat of the season by Blackpool. That’s not something that should have happened, because we are better than that. I am better than that and the team is better than that.
“That is the thing about football: fortunes change quickly, but now I am confident that with the manager we have and the players we have that we will do better than we have early in the season. It is just a matter of time until we perform again.
“It’s good that we will have a couple of sessions extra to be ready for the next game. It’s always important for a new manager, especially when you come in during the season, to have a bit of time to change and speak with the players about how you want them to play.”
How numbers add up for ‘The Cannibal’
1 Banned for one game for handling goal-bound shot in World Cup quarter-final against Ghana. “Mine is the real ‘Hand Of God’,” he said
35 League goals scored for Ajax in 2009-10, from just 33 games
16 Goals in 38 internationals for Uruguay
8 Strike partnership with Diego Forlan at 2010 World Cup in South Africa yielded eight goals
7 Banned for seven games last November by Dutch FA for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal. Dubbed a ‘cannibal’ by media
fenway sports group fsg, fenway sports group, kenny dalglish, frank de boer, principal backers, getty images, tom werner, controversial incidents, dutch club, football strategy, marketing power, director of football, worthwhile investment, target, mdash, altern, suz, winger, ajax, striker
qtdz
Telegraph.co.uk
Monday, January 17, 2011
U.S., Canada Set to Face Off for Gold
![[canhockey0226]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-HR857_canhoc_F_20100226230723.jpg)
Associated Press
Canada's Sidney Crosby waits for the puck to be dropped in a face-off against Slovakia.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Another young, fast team outdid a veteran-laden opponent to reach the finals of the Olympic men's hockey tournament Friday, as Team Canada defeated Slovakia 3-2 to set up a rematch with Team USA for gold Sunday.
"The guys are already looking forward to it," Canadian goalie Roberto Luongo said.
The game was much closer and more hard-fought than the U.S.-Finland game earlier in the day that was over in the first 10 minutes. But it followed a similar pattern. Canada, like the U.S., jumped out to an early lead, using its forecheck to bottle up the opposition and let its goalie escape barely tested.
The twist was that the Slovakians pushed Canada much harder, scoring two goals in the final period after the Canadians perhaps started listening to their delirious fans, who with 12 minutes left were already chanting "We want USA!"
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Canadian players celebrate after winning their semifinal game against Slovakia.
Like the Finns, the Slovakians were thinner on talent. That forced them to include older players, some of whom couldn't establish themselves in the National Hockey League or have since left it. Players like Jozef Stumpel (37 years old), Zigmund Palffy (37) and Richard Zednik (34) were once consistent scorers in the NHL but have moved back closer to home for the sunset of their careers. Others, like defenseman Martin Strbak, never made it that far, drinking a cup of coffee in hockey's best league years earlier.
But unlike the Finns and other opponents, the Slovakians still had some top-end talent in their prime, such as one of the best defensemen in the NHL, Zdeno Chara, one of the league's top scorers, Marian Gaborik, and one of the best all-around forwards, Marian Hossa.
They consistently made life difficult for the Canadians, forechecking relentlessly, with Hossa especially effective in pinning the Canadians deep in their end – perhaps a lesson to the U.S. team, which has employed a similar strategy on other teams. Mr. Gaborik was also tricky, occasionally tearing up the left wing and zinging shots on Mr. Luongo.
Related
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Canada Eliminates Russia in Hockey
Team USA Neutralizes Switzerland
Chasing the True Team Canada
Canada's strategy for scoring was simple: put pucks on net and screen the Slovakian goalie, Jaroslav Halak, an up-and-coming netminder in the NHL. At 6-foot, Halak isn't an ideal size for netminders in today's hockey. Canada smartly placed forwards in front of him to create screens.
When Mr. Chara was on the ice this didn't work. He easily cleared away the Canadian forwards. But when some of the lesser Slovakian defenders were on the ice they couldn't contain the bulkiest Canadian forwads.
Vote: Best Olympic Reaction
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That led to goals early on by Patrick Marleau and Brenden Morrow, with Slovakian defender Lubomir Visnovsky victimized on both. Mr. Visnovsky, a power-play specialist with the Edmonton Oilers, was paired with Mr. Strbak, a big defender but not a great one. They were by far Slovakia's weakest defensive pairing early on.
Canada extended its lead in the third on a goal by Ryan Getzlaf in a goal-mouth scramble. But the Slovakians didn't give up. With Mr. Halak holding down the fort, it was up to two of its lesser lights to bring them within a goal.
First came Mr. Visnovsky, who made use of his rushing skills to charge up the ice and squeeze a backhand shot through a tiny space that Mr. Luongo had left – a goal that the netminder probably would have liked back. Then came a second by Michal Handzus, a big forward with the Los Angeles Kings, who batted in a goal after intense Slovakian pressure with 4:53 left.
But even after Slovakia pulled its goalie, it didn't quite have the firepower to score the equalizer and Canada held on, setting up a rematch with Team USA. Pavol Demitra had a chance to tie in the final seconds but missed an open net.
U.S. forward Patrick Kane said after his team's game that he was almost sorry that the game against Finland ended so quickly because it deprived his team of a chance to further test itself. "That was a great 15 minutes for us but it would have been nice to play a full 60," Mr. Kane said.
That's probably not a regret the Canadians had. The team looked chastened as the game ended and the fans began to chant "We want USA!" some more.
Write to Ian Johnson at ian.johnson@wsj.com
marian gaborik, national hockey league, richard zednik, zigmund palffy, roberto luongo, vancouver british columbia, zdeno chara, image getty, marian hossa, sidney crosby, olympic men, martin strbak, jozef stumpel, semifinal game, usa view, presscanada, hockey tournament, final period, defensemen, cup of coffee
qtdz
Online.wsj.com
Gabrielle Giffords shooting: Why it is time to change gun laws
Gabrielle Giffords shooting: Why it is time to change gun laws
The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords shows why it is time to rethink America's gun laws, says Harold Evans.
Sarah Palin was accused of incitement as politicians indulged in finger-pointing Photo: REX
By Harold Evans 8:42PM GMT 15 Jan 2011
President Obama brought the good news directly from the hospital bed where young Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords struggles to recover from a madman’s bullet through her brain. It was the most emotionally charged moment among many in the memorial service in Tucson on Wednesday evening. One by one, the President paid eloquent but precise tribute to all the victims of the attempted assassination, and to all the unarmed heroes who risked their lives to stop the killing.
One victim was left unnamed: America’s idea of itself, as an optimistic neighbourly nation of free enterprise with faith in the rule of law, and the openness of its democracy.
It is too painful for a nation traumatised by Tucson to reflect how these virtues have been betrayed once again by the insidious gun culture of America; by the pathetic weakness of laws which allow criminals and madmen to get their hands on real weapons of mass destruction that can fire hundreds of bullets in a minute; by the gun lobby’s intimidation of politicians in vulnerable seats; by the greed of the gunmakers who nowadays prefer to manufacture weapons more suitable for mass murder than for individual defence.
But will America open its eyes?
A law-abiding American citizen is far more likely to die with a bullet in his body than a British citizen. All the comparable Western countries with reasonable gun laws have long had vastly fewer gun homicides. The murder rate per 100,000 people for the US is 5.2. For Australia it is 0.07, for Japan, 0.05, and for the UK 0.06.
The overwhelming response to the tragedy has been to avoid any substantive discussion of such lethal discrepancies. Gun massacres are a sad commonplace of American life. In 2009, in six separate incidents over 23 days, gunmen killed 43 people. The mentally disturbed Seung-Hui-Cho, a student at Virgina Tech in 2007, murdered 32 and wounded 17.
Each of these incidents was followed by long and often rancorous examinations of what should be done to control gun violence. Not this time. At 11am last Monday, the President and First Lady stepped out of the White House in the freezing cold to observe a national minute of silence, heads bowed, hands clasped, eyes closed.
That silence was a fitting symbol of a nation’s sadness, but there has been another truly chilling silence. This time the political establishment and most of the media have essentially shied away from confronting either of the real issues: the profusion of guns and the absence of care for disturbed people who are not declared legally insane.
There has been no insistent demand to know why a crazy young man could acquire a Glock 9mm, a semi-automatic pistol with a 33-round magazine and so easily kill six people, including Arizona’s chief federal judge, and wound 13 bystanders along with Congresswoman Giffords.
All we have been offered is evasion disguised as compassion. Asked if it is time simply to limit magazines to 10 rounds, as they were until 2004, spokesmen for both Democratic and Republican leaders mouth the same bromides.
For the Republicans: “This is as time for the House and all Americans to come together to mourn our losses and pray for those who are recovering, not a time for politics.” For the Democrats: “At this time, the leader’s thoughts are with Congresswoman Giffords and those who were killed and injured.”
Both parties were all too ready for a diversion from this tricky business of murder by gunfire, and one came along handily in remarks by the Pima County Sheriff Clarence W Dupnik who is in charge of the investigation into the 22-year-old shooter Jared Lee Loughner.
He called his state of Arizona “a mecca of bigotry and prejudice”, then suggested that “vitriol” in America’s national political discourse contributed to the shooting. Now there’s something to worry about – adjectives! Not the arsenal of privately owned guns, 250 million of them, nor the correlation observed in state by state studies of the number of guns and the number of homicides.
Left and Right and the Tea Party followers immediately began a competition in finger-pointing.
The New York Times editorial blamed the Right, the Wall Street Journal editorial blamed the Left. Everyone joined in. Cable TV and talk radio loves this kind of circus politics. They poured on the vitriol. Dupnik got a splash of it himself. He’d supported an amended version of the state’s curb on immigrants but that didn’t impress Rush Limbaugh, the hate radio host. He denounced Dupnick as someone who would like to see the shooter go free. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly assured his million viewers the Sheriff was a secret Leftist.
From the Left, Sarah Palin was accused of incitement for having placed cross-hair targets over Democrats she wanted defeated. One of those targeted was Giffords.
It is an ugly scene, but I doubt any direct connection will be found between the vitriol and the shooter. His wild paranoid ramblings are devoid of rational or even irrational thoughts. “None of us” said Obama, “can know exactly what triggered the vicious attack” and he is surely right.
“Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. In Christina, we see all of our children, so trusting, so energetic, and full of magic.”
Christina Taylor Green, the zestful nine-year-old victim buried on Thursday, had been recently elected to the student council at her elementary school.
Perhaps it is a little early for the classes to explore the meaning of Bill of Rights 2nd amendment to the constitution: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Was it intended to protect the states from overweening federal or foreign power? Or does it give a right for an unregulated individual to carry a gun?
More simply, schools and others could honour her memory by tracking day by day what happens after the profuse expressions of sympathy and prayers for families and the community.
If the past is any guide, they’ll see just how the National Rifle Association (NRA) and their spokesmen in Congress lie low while the shock of the killings is fresh in the public mind.
They’ll note how a 10-year ban on assault weapons was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 but allowed to lapse in the Bush presidency despite a US Department of Justice study finding that the share of gun crimes involving semi-automatic weapons dropped by 17 per cent to 72 per cent.
Inexorably they will see how persistently the NRA gets away with murder, how it ignores the appeals of the police forces of the country, and frustrates even the mildest of restrictions.
Does it make sense to enable the police to track the source of bullets used in a crime? It does, but the NRA has stopped it. Isn’t it dangerous to allow gun dealers at state fairs and flea markets to sell any number of weapons to anyone – juveniles, criminals, nuts – without any background checks? Yes, but the NRA has been able to keep the loophole.
How do they do it? They scare gun owners that any change in the laws will inevitably lead to an erosion of the 2nd amendment and even its abolition; and they exert every effort to unseat reformist candidates.
The President’s eulogy for the victims of the attempted assassination was altogether his most impressive oration since he was catapulted into the candidacy by his repudiation at the Democratic convention in 2004 of a “red state, blue state” division of America. I expect it will give him a boost in the polls.
Maybe it will give him heart to work now for a restoration of the ban on assault weapons he pledged in 2008. Call it Christina's Law.qtdz
Telegraph.co.uk
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Estero Island
Estero Island beach club...
I can recommend this site...but the hammerheads was visiting the beaches every morning, in only 3 feet deept, searching for stingrays..........
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qtdz
Flickr.com
Lady Gaga expected to earn $100 million in 2011: report
Pop singer, eccentric fashionista and entrepreneur Lady Gaga is estimated to earn $100 million in 2011, Forbes magazine reported Wednesday.
The 24-year-old -- whose real name is Stefani Germanotta -- earned $64 million in the preceding year, according to the magazine's estimates.
The financial bi-weekly projects the native New Yorker will reel in the dough from her aggressive touring schedule (41 shows in the next six months) and her new album, "Born This Way" set to drop in May, that is expected to be a hit-maker.
Additional cash would come from her array of product endorsements and merchandise deals that includes arrangements with VirginMobile and Polaroid.
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Lady Gaga.
“She’s just hitting her stride artistically and commercially now. We’re only seeing the beginning," entertainment attorney Bernie Resnick, who represents Gaga’s manager, Troy Carter, said.
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Nypost.com
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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