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Welcome to guest blogger Deana Sidney of Lost Past Remembered, a blog dedicated to discovering, replicating and adapting historic recipes. In this saucy series she demystifies one of the cornerstones of classic French cuisine: the mother sauces.
Bordelaise Sauce
Sam Ward was one of the great entertainers of the 19th century. He virtually invented lobbying in Washington. He had a talent for creating great dinners with perfectly assembled guests who then made deals since they were in a great mood after great food and conversation.
When I looked at one of Sam's dinner menus, I could see what all the fuss was about –– it is everything you would imagine it to be. The menu is thoughtful and yet full of piquant touches like the Sorbet au Marasquin –– a touch of prussic acid from the cherry pits in maraschino liqueur in the sorbet to aid in digestion and cleanse the palate for the last of the dinner. His nephew, another renowned tastemaker named Ward McAllister, said Sam made sure he would never allow that lest "the fatal mistake should occur of letting two white or brown sauces follow each other in succession; or truffles appear twice in that dinner." It was always a perfectly choreographed dance of flavors –– and conversation. Without both, the event will never be as great a success.
What would I chose for the 4th dish from Sam's dinner table? I think that Crêpes a la Bordelaise are the perfect choice –– a great addition to a beef dinner with steak or roast, potatoes and a vegetable. My crêpes are light and airy with a winey, mushroom-y bordelaise sauce. They could be served flat or as a beggar's purse. I know they will delight at your dinner. I have made a white wine bordelaise before for you HERE, but this calls for the red wine version.
Bordelaise is another addition to my Sauce Series that uses both the mother sauce Espagnole and demi-glace. I have included recipes for both but it's a breeze to order your demi-glace from D'Artagnan and store it in the freezer. I just slice off what I need and put the rest back in the freezer. Bordelaise is great for any steak. You can make it ahead and freeze it easily so you can make your meal in a snap.
If you are so disposed, you can dissolve a spoon of marrow into the mix, as was done long ago. I skipped that step and let the meatiness of the mushrooms add additional flavor and depth. It's really pretty easy to make if you have the basics in your freezer.
Crêpes Bordelaise for 4
1 recipe for crêpes
1 recipe for bordelaise
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 T butter
Sauté the mushrooms in the butter. Add the mushrooms to the bordelaise. Fold your crêpes into quarters on your plate and ladle the sauce over them or serve the sauce on the side. They can be plated separately or served on a platter.
Crêpes (makes 12)
3/4 c milk
2 eggs
1/2 c flour
1/4 t salt
butter for pan
Throw the milk, eggs, flour and salt into the blender and let it rip for a minute.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Use a stick of butter like a marker and run it all over your pan (or you can use a spoon of clarified butter if you have it). Be especially generous for the first few and use butter before each pour of batter. Swirl 2 T of batter around the pan and flip once it has set –– do not allow to brown too much. Keep warm or reheat gently when you are ready to serve.
2 shallots, chopped fine
2 t oil or butter
1 c red wine
1 clove garlic, chopped
6 T demi-glace from D'Artagnan
3 T Espagnole sauce* (or add a t. of flour to the sautéed shallots with 1 t. of tomato sauce or ketchup and a little more demi-glace)
stems from 4 mushrooms
1/2 bay leaf
pinch of cloves
1 1/2 c mushrooms, sliced
1 T butter or oil
Sauté the shallots in the oil till softened somewhat.
If you are skipping the addition of Espagnole, you can add a teaspoon of flour to the shallots to give the sauce the extra body and add a t. of tomato sauce or ketchup for the right flavor.
Put the wine, garlic, shallots, demi-glace, Espagnole (if you are using it) and stems from mushrooms into a pan and reduce at medium heat until thickened.
Strain the sauce –– you should have about 1/3 cup of sauce about the texture of chocolate syrup –– a bit less if you don't use the Espagnole. This sauce keeps well for a few days.
*Super-quick version of Espagnole Sauce
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 T bacon
1 T onion
1 T white wine
1 t ketchup
1 cup stock
2 T demi-glace from D'Artagnan
Sauté the flour in the butter till medium brown. Add the rest and cook on low for 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour — till thickened. Keep watch lest it go too far. Strain and use.
•Quick Version of Espagnole Sauce
4 T butter
4 T Flour
3 T diced carrot
3 T diced onion
3 T bacon
2 c stock
1 t thyme
piece of bay leaf
2 T white wine
1/4 c demi-glace from D'Artagnan
2 T tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Sauté the flour and butter till it is a medium brown on a medium flame –– stirring all the time.
Add the vegetables, ham and bacon and stir. Slowly add the stock, wine and demi-glace. Cook over a low flame for 45 minutes and add the tomato sauce. Cook for another 10 minutes and strain, pressing hard on the solids. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Save the rest for other uses. It is an invaluable addition to sauces. Freeze it in small portions. Quickest and easiest is to put it in ice-cube trays in 1 T portions and store them in a baggy in the freezer. Then it's a breeze to use.


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The laser laboratory is dedicated to the development and application of infrared and terahertz lasers. Several laser systems have been developed by the department "Experimental Planetary Physics". Each of them is unique in the sense that their operation parameters are optimized for particular applications. There are no lasers commercially available which will serve in these applications. These lasers are used in heterodyne spectrometers (GREAT, upGREAT on SOFIA) as well as in gas-phase and solid-state laser spectroscopy for planetary research and security applications. One of the laser systems based on a THz quantum cascade laser is currently being commercialized in a cooperation project with PDI, FBH, HUB and Eagleyard Photonics GmbH.
In addition to the lasers developed in-house, the laboratory has a wide range of commercially available infrared and terahertz lasers. These are:
These lasers are used in time-resolved spectroscopy, an important tool for detector characterization, to pump THz lasers which are used in heterodyne spectrometers as well as in laboratory spectroscopy. All lasers, home-made as well as commercial, are equipped with control electronics and, where necessary, with vacuum or cryogenic equipment (mechanical cryocoolers for 4-300K, 4K dipsticks, magnetic field facilities up to 3T, high-voltage power supplies, etc.). To characterize the lasers, a wide variety of equipment is available: Grating spectrometers (wavelength coverage 0.4 – 1.5µm, 9 -11µm, and 40 -500µm), a Fourier transform spectrometer (50 – 500µm) to determine the emission frequency, optical components such as polarizers, filters, lenses, etc. to shape the laser beam, power meters and detectors to calibrate the output power, and a beam-profile measurement setup for the wavelength range from 10µm to 1000µm (for M2 measurements).

subset: commoncrawl


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Tourists Flock to Furry Beast Jesus Fresco
Last week, when it was discovered that a well-meaning octogenarian had attempted to restore a fresco and created a sort of beast-like Jesus portait in its place, many observers thought she had "ruined" the painting. In fact, she created a tourist attraction:
On Saturday, hundreds of curious visitors queued up outside the Iglesia del Santuario de Misericordia church, where the image is painted on a column.
"The previous painting was also very pretty, but I really like this one," a woman who had travelled to the town said on public television.
When the heartwarming foreign comedy is made about Jimenez and the Fur Family Jesus, the final scene will be people lining up to see the painting, and the tourist industry saves the town from bankruptcy, then the stuffy culture ministry bureaucrat will finally admit his feelings for the free-spirit waitress, or whatever.


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For all press and media enquiries please contact Jon Flinn on 07811 397122 or email [email protected]
ABRSM scholar profile: Bobby Chen
Every year we provide more than 70 scholarships for talented British and international musicians to study at the four Royal Schools of Music in the UK, in addition to our core donation to each of the Schools.
Bobby Chen, concert pianist
Our latest article in a series of features about our former scholars focuses on professional concert pianist Bobby Chen, a Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal Academy of Music graduate who is eloquently described by International Piano magazine as "an armour-clad player of complete technique, a thinking musician, a natural Romantic." Bobby has appeared at numerous prestigious concert venues throughout the world as a recitalist and concerto soloist, including at the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, the Fazioli Hall in Italy, the Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, Hong Kong's City Hall and Dublin's National Concert Hall. He memorably participated in the first-ever South East Asia performance of the complete Beethoven sonata cycle in Singapore, and debuted a new piano concerto at Cadogan Hall to celebrate Malaysia's 50th birthday. Bobby was a soloist under Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Sir Neville Marriner, has broadcast on Classic FM, PianoForte Chicago and Radio Television Hong Kong, and has recorded with Russian cellist Leonid Gorokhov.
The early years
Bobby was born in Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia, and moved to Kota Kinabalu as a young child. After being introduced to classical music by a neighbour at the tender age of seven, Bobby undertook his first serious piano lessons under the guidance of Sylvia Chong, rapidly developing his skills and gaining performance experience in Sabah and West Malaysia. Following a series of outstanding performances in his ABRSM exams, Bobby came to the attention of ABRSM's then-Regional Consultant for South-East Asia, Geoffrey Smith, who was so impressed by his playing that he recommended auditioning for the Yehudi Menuhin School. Bobby was accepted as a full board scholar at the Surrey-based institution at the age of twelve, honing his abilities for six years prior to joining the Royal Academy of Music as an ABRSM scholar. He describes both experiences as "incredible, in that I was able to work on my music with the most wonderful international tutors. These formative years allowed me to cultivate an international outlook, and to develop full confidence in my musical skills."
Giving back to aspiring musicians
Bobby's desire to give deserving young musicians a chance to also benefit from the hugely positive experience he had of Yehudi Menuhin School training led to him establishing the Overseas Masters Winter Piano Academy (OMWPA) at the institution in 2010. This intensive two-yearly course enables students from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to enhance their skills with individual piano lessons, sessions on general musicianship, lectures and evening recitals from expert music professors attached to the Royal Schools of Music, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Trinity Laban, Chetham's School of Music and the Yehudi Menuhin School itself. The course culminates with a performance from each student at The Menuhin Hall on a hand-made Fazioli concert grand. The ambition behind the course is to allow aspiring pianists to broaden their individual musical horizons, network with other talented musicians and learn more about London as a possible location for future musical studies. Bobby's advice to young musicians is: "Whatever you do, it is incredibly important to be as adaptable, innovative and resourceful as possible, and to always cultivate and use a wide skill set. It is vitally important that you develop your all-round musicianship skills, and not just know how to play your instrument."
Looking to the future
Bobby's busy international schedule for the 2017-18 season include a concerto in Kuala Lumpur, recitals in Luxembourg, Ho Chi Minh City, Manchester, Bath and China, and trips to Malaga and Lidköping for chamber music performances. This year he is also composing a short piano-based work to celebrate Malaysia's 60th anniversary, to be premiered in London.
Find out more
- Find out more about ABRSM's scholarships


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The complete range of TRIAX LNB's ensures a reliable SAT reception, every time. They are available in single, dual, quad and octo as well as Quattro versions for multiswitch systems.
They have low noise, high cross-polarity isolation and positive gain slope (this prevents high band intermodulation problems). Our LNB's are also waterproof and qualified for harsh environments. Packing is flexible w/ single or bulk packed or packed together with TRIAX dishes.
- Gold with gold plated connectors - for a long lasting connection


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When addressing and triaging usability-related bugs, I frequently find that I must resort to making a show or elaborately and dramatically describing the user's pain around an issue. While I'm sure I'll always have to do some of this, I wish there was a more standardized way of communicating how severe a problem is / feels. I read about people at Mozilla tagging bugs with which heuristics they break, which I think is a great idea, but it doesn't really help with severity. Does anybody have any good ideas or processes out there?
An example might be, one bug can feel to a designer, oh my god we should never release this in this condition, but to a developer who programmed it the behavior may seem obvious so it seems not very severe at all.


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Signing with Docracy just got an upgrade — read about our new eversign eSign integration What's changed?
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But let us know what you need and we'll try to get it for you.


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L.L.Bean Deluxe Book Pack®, 32L, Print
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Modelart111 Collection
MODELART111 - 02 : Set 250 GTO #4491
1/43 based on the chassis 4491 GT in white metal mastered and built by Mike Craig who offers today the best standard of quality.
250 GTO chassis 4491GT was delivered to David Piper at the end of June 1963 and through its lifetime was extensively modified; both he and PeterSutcliffe raced it with considerable success. The 4491GT set will be made up of 3 models charting the evolution of the car.
1st model : Trophée d'Auvergne 1963 with David Piper Normal version
2nd model : Kyalami 1964 with John Love / Peter De Klerk - Low roof -
In the winter 1963-1964 extensive modifications were carried out on the car. The frontal area was reduced by cutting down the windscreen then the roof was lowered and re-shaped. Aluminium-alloy covers were fitted over the headlamps and Plexiglas covers were also fitted over the spotlights then both the sidelights and indicators were removed. The front and rear wings were re-profiled to accommodate wider wheels and twin vents were also fitted in the rear screen panel
3rd model : 1000 kms Nurburging 1965 with Peter Sutcliffe - Low roof + bump -
Peter Sutcliffe's preparation for the 1965 season consisted in repainting the car in his racing colour of dark Sherwood green and modifying the driver side roof line, due to the lowered roof and his height he was unable to sit in the car with a crash helmet on without the addition of the roof bump.
Specific versions for this set
Limited edition of 5 sets.
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Editor's note: This article originally was published March 4, 2009. We are re-posting it because thundersnow was observed in New York City during the storm that hit the East Coast in the past few days.
It's been more than 30 years—during the Blizzard of 1978 to be exact—since Neil Stuart saw "thundersnow," a weather phenomenon featuring the unusual combination of thunder, lightning and snow. The National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist was 10 years old, living near Boston. The storm—which he says "is famous in meteorological circles" and influenced his career path—dumped 27 inches (67 centimeters) of snow on the ground over two days. The heaviest snow, however, came during a six-hour thundersnow storm that delivered one foot of snow over a six hour period.
Seeing thundersnow come down is "like watching a time-lapse movie of the snow building up, because it falls so quickly," Stuart says.
Thunder and lightning during a snowstorm is different from a run-of-the-mill snowstorm; it is extremely rare—fewer than 1 percent of observed snowstorms unleash thundersnow, according to a 1971 NSW study. But recorded observations of the phenomenon date back to 250 B.C., say ancient Chinese records translated in 1980 by atmospheric scientist Pao-Kuan Wang, now of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Today, researchers are interested in thundersnow for its predictive value. According to Patrick Market, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri, a 30-year study of snowfall found that when lightning is observed during a snowstorm, there is an 86 percent chance that at least 15 centimeters of snow will fall within 113 kilometers of the flash. Researchers are trying to determine the combo of atmospheric conditions required to create thundersnow to help them better predict heavy snowfall—which they define as at least 20 centimeters falling at a rate of 7.5 to 10 centimeters per hour—and issue warnings about hazardous weather before it hits, giving people time to prepare, take cover and get off the road. (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that more than 800 deaths were caused by snow-related traffic accidents in 2007.)
By the time the lightning flashes during a thundersnow-storm, it is often already too late to prepare local residents for the whiteout on the way. "If we're talking about the observation of thundersnow," Market says, "the predictive value is on the order of minutes to hours."
Thundersnow-storms share some characteristics with summer thunderstorms. In both, a region of relatively warm air causes moisture to condense into clouds. A temperature gradient then forms with colder air farther up and warmer air closer to Earth's surface. If the relatively warm air begins to rise, the turbulence causes some water molecules to lose electrons and others to gain them, forming charges within the atmosphere that lead to electrification (discharged as lightning) and a sudden heating and expansion of the air. Thundersnow is unique, scientists believe, because due to the subzero temperatures, interactions between supercooled liquid water, ice crystals and larger ice particles can also generate lightning. In both types of storms, thunder results from the sound waves created by the rapid cooling and contraction of the air superheated by the lightning.
In the U.S. thundersnow is most likely to form in mountainous regions like the Rockies (thanks to warm air pockets caused by sudden changes in elevation) as well as in the vicinity of comparatively warm and large bodies of water such as the Great Lakes. Snow requires a cold environment, adequate moisture to form clouds, and rising air; thundersnow makes an appearance when a fourth ingredient is added: thermal instability, which is created by the addition of relatively warm air. (Market estimates that temperatures need to get cooler by at least four degrees Celsius per 1.6 kilometers of altitude as warm air travels upward to create the needed turbulence. Scott Steiger, an assistant meteorology professor at the State University of New York at Oswego, recently discovered that there are about six thundersnow storms a year in the lower Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario) region, most of them in November and December.
"These storms don't move, so they can dump up to seven feet [two meters] of snow in one day," he says. "They are very intense snowstorms, but they are very local."
When thundersnow occurs away from mountains and lakes, its heat sources aren't found near the ground but rather at altitudes upward of 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). It is these less-frequent occurrences—in more populous areas in the Great Plains and the Northeastern U.S., as during the 1978 blizzard—where this type of storm has the greatest potential to cause damage. During a March 1 thundersnow storm that covered parts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, five to to 7.6 centimeters fell per hour, an extremely rare occurrence in that part of the country, Stuart says. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport reported visibility of only about 402 meters for more than an hour around noontime that day, and there were power outages in some areas of northern Georgia due to the heavy, wet snow, he adds.
Market last month joined a team of storm-chasing University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign researchers using various radars to examine what takes place inside storm clouds to cause snowfall. The team is surveying atmospheric conditions in several locations in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. A field mill, a device that measures electric fields near the ground, will be used to determine whether there is an accumulation of charged ice particles in the clouds above. The team next year plans to fly into snowstorms in NWS planes and drop parcels containing thermometers, barometers and other devices that, like weather balloons, will measure temperature on their way down. If the team encounters thundersnow during its study, it may be able to confirm the conditions needed to produce it, making such icy tempests easier to forecast.
"With some lead time, [be it] hours or even a day or two," Stuart says, "we can see a big storm and predict which areas will see extreme snowfall."


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By Charles E. Spurgeon
'lt is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man.' Psalm 118:8
Doubtless the reader has been tried with the temptation to rely upon the things
which are seen, instead of resting alone upon the invisible God. Christians often
look to man for help and counsel, and mar the noble simplicity of their reliance
upon their God.
Does this portion meet the eye of a child of God anxious about temporals, then
would we reason with him awhile. You trust in Jesus, and only in Jesus, for your
salvation, then why are you troubled? 'Because of my great care.' Is it not written,
'Cast thy burden upon the Lord'? 'Be careful for nothing, but in everything by
prayer and supplication make known your wants unto God.' Cannot you trust God
for temporals?
'Ah! I wish I could.' If you cannot trust God for temporals, how dare you trust
Him for spirituals? Can you trust Him for your soul's redemption, and not rely upon
Him for a few lesser mercies? Is not God enough for thy need, or is His all-sufficiency
too narrow for thy wants? Dost thou want another eye beside that of Him who sees
every secret thing? Is His heart faint? Is His arm weary? If so, seek another God;
but if He be infinite, omnipotent, faithful, true, and all-wise, why gaddest thou abroad
so much to seek another confidence?
Why dost thou rake the earth to find another foundation, when this is strong enough
to bear all the weight which thou canst ever build thereon? Christian, mix not only thy
wine with water, do not alloy thy gold of faith with the dross of human confidence.
Wait thou only upon God, and let thine expectation be from Him. Covet not Jonah's
gourd, but rest in Jonah's God. Let the sandy foundations of terrestrial trust be the
choice of fools, but do thou, like one who foresees the storm, build for thyself an
abiding place upon the Rock of Ages.
Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.


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Part of Panel Discussion's mission is to look at the ways and places where comics and video games intersect and here in Crossover, we'll be talking to game creators about the comics stories and creators who've shaped their sensibilities.
Anyone familiar with the full scope of Ken Levine's resume probably figured out that the Irrational Games CEO is an old-school comics nerd from way back. Levine wrote for the fondly remembered Freedom Force RPGs and channeled a lifetime of four-color fandom into that game universe. The worlds he's created since then betray less comic-book influence than Freedom Force, but Levine still says that he learned thing that have helped the BioShock franchise come alive. I spoke to Levine—who've we've dedicated past comics coverage to—last week and he discussed how being a comics reader has affected his sense of game design.
Read on to find out why there aren't any BioShock comics (yet), the super-villain that inspired Andrew Ryan and which super-hero Levine dreams of writing adventures for.
Kotaku: What was the first comic you ever remember reading?
Levine: I don't remember what the year or the issue number was but my earliest significant comic-book memory is of an issue of Amazing Spider-Man featuring the Punisher. Since the art was by Ross Andru, it was most likely written by Gerry Conway. I started off as a Marvel guy but read both Marvel and DC nowadays.
Kotaku: Which comics did you have in the back of your mind while you were creating Columbia and Rapture?
Levine: You know, it's funny, I based Andrew Ryan on [Objectivist writer] Ayn Rand and when I was doing the research on her, I found out that she sounded a lot like Dr. Doom! There was that imperious, declarative sound to her voice that would brook no interference, just like in classic Stan Lee-written style. That was weird.
I think what's great about comics is they always created sort of a unified feel for the viewer. Some creators like Kirby and Ditko were quite good at creating a whole aesthetic for their worlds. If you look at where Dr. Strange would go into these alternate realties, they'd be incredibly bizarre yet totally readable.
Or you look at something like the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier or something like that, that Kirby or Steranko would draw, you get a real sense of a consistent aesthetic in a complete world. And there's a visual experience that's told, Especially when you get Kirby in the '70s when you look at, say, OMAC or The Eternals or something like that.
There's a very consistent visual look for the world. I think that was something we really strove to take away in making BioShock. The lesson was in telling as much of the story we can through the world and making sure that nothing we had from the world was "Yeah, we need a building here. Somebody make a building." We always try to think about what story we're telling with every visual element we introduce.
Kotaku: What can games writers learn from comics writers?
Levine: I think one thing that comic book writers do really well is they know that you have to have a reason to turn the page and they really get that. And I think one thing game writers do quite often is, there's a classic rule of writing, which is come into your scene as late as you possibly can.
You want to start the scene as late as you possibly can. You don't want to have a bunch of exposition that you don't need. You don't need to have the guy come into the room, knock on the door and say, "Hello. Come in." Start the action later than that when the actual interesting stuff is happening. And you want to get out of the scene as soon as you possibly can. And I think a lot of games, especially, I think the tradition of JRPGs especially, is like long silences and long set-ups and intros.
And I think that doesn't do a service to your storytelling necessarily. So I think there's a lot that you can take away from comics in terms of the economy they tell their stories with. And that's gotten much more economical over time, Frank Miller, for instance, coming along and really saying, "Do we need this many words?"
Kotaku: Yeah, absolutely. There are whole sequences in the Sin City books where nobody says anything. It's just action.
Levine: Yeah, and leveraging the visual medium as much as possible.
Kotaku: What are you currently enjoying that you feel like everybody needs to read?
Levine: I'm a pretty mainstream comics guy when it comes to it. Kind of embarrassingly so. I'm still reading the Ultimate Spider-Man and whatever other Spider-Man books come out. I'm really enjoying Jason Aaron's stuff. Both his Wolverine and his Punisher stuff. I think that's really nice.
You've already scolded me about not picking up the latest Daredevil stuff, which I need to dig into. Especially since I think Mark Waid's a great writer. And I think Marcos Martin is amazing. I don't think he's doing it anymore. I think he only did a couple issues, but he's really one of the best artists in comics going right now.
Especially, there's an issue of Spider-Man he did a while ago that was some dream sequence. I can't remember exactly. It was one of the most beautiful piece of visual storytelling. Do you remember that book?
Kotaku: It was right after J. Jonah Jameson's wife died.
Levine: Yeah, it was the funeral issue.
Kotaku: Yeah, it was like a two page layout. That was utterly incredible. I know what you're talking about.
Levine: Every artist working in any medium should be looking at that book. I was bringing it around to artists in the company, showing them. I was like, "Oh my God. Look at this!"
Kotaku: Did you read Batgirl: Year One?
Levine: Yeah, absolutely. I love him. I just love him. He's just great. Simplicity. His simple lines. He's a storyteller.
Kotaku: Would you say you prefer that in terms of art style? Like a clean line as opposed to a complicated hyper-detailed stuff?
Levine: It's really different. Because I really get into a...you go read something like Hush or something like that. Jim Lee. Really detailed lines. Really detailed background. Which is great. There's a whole range of really detailed artists that I like. But then there are guys who are quite simple like Marcos Martin that I adore. Or Bruce Timm, that I really like because they do so much with so little.
Kotaku: Tons of games coming out have comics attached to them. Is there ever going to be a BioShock comic?
Levine: Actually, there's been a lot of conversations about it, and we've had some really good productive conversations. The biggest problem is if there's going to be BioShock comics, I need to make sure that I'm either writing or on top of the stories, and right now I have so limited time.
If I need to spend time on a story right now, it's going to be on the BioShock Infinite story for the game. It's really tough. Because I don't want to just outsource this thing. All the stories in BioShock games really have to be things that I feel are of the quality level and are in the canon, et cetera.
I've learned through past experience that you really need to be on top of this stuff. It's one thing to do action figures or something because you can review that fairly quickly and make sure they're right on the money. Comics, you gotta be deeply involved.
Kotaku: Yeah, even if it's just a miniseries.
Levine: : Yeah, absolutely. Listen, you know me, I would love to see a comic book series. It's just a question of time.


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1345.4 - SA Stats, Feb 2011
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 22/02/2011
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South Australia's young males moving away from sports
The participation rate in sports and physical recreation for South Australian males aged 18-24 years was significantly lower than those aged 15-17 years, as reported in data released by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.
In 2009-10, two thirds of males aged 18-24 years participated in sports and physical recreation while the participation rate for males aged 15-17 years was 9 out of 10. This was in contrast to South Australian females where the participation rate was similar for 15-17 year olds (65%) and 18-24 year olds (69%).
The 91% participation rate for 15-17 year old South Australian males was significantly higher than female 15-17 year olds (65%).
A similar trend was evident in the national data. In 2009-10, males aged 15-17 years had a significantly higher participation rate (86%) in sports and physical recreation than those aged 18-24 years (69%). For females aged 15-17 and 18-24 years the participation rates were similar at 71% and 70% respectively.
The national participation rate in sports and physical recreation for persons aged 15-24 years was 72% in 2009-10. This was similar to 2005-06 when the participation rate was 73%. In South Australia, the participation rate for persons aged 15-24 years was 70% in 2009-10, which was also similar to 2005-06 when it was 74%.
The full article on Young People, Sports and Physical Recreation in South Australia can be found in the February edition of SA Stats (cat. no. 1345.4).
Further information is available in Participation in Sports and Physical Recreation, Australia 2009-10 (cat. no. 4177.0).
Media note: When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
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In an effort to enhance the Web experience and speed things up for users, Google is getting into the DNS business. DNS has privacy and security implications, though, that Google has to take into consideration in providing this service.
I will let my PC World peer David Coursey explain DNS: " DNS is an Internet protocol that acts as both telephone directory and switchboard. It provides for the translation of a URL, such as https://www.pcworld.com/, into the IP address of the server that hosts the site."
Privacy is a concern with virtually everything Google touches. The very nature of many of Google's core offerings is based on cataloging and indexing every possible detail about everything. To provide the best search results, it has to create the most comprehensive site index. To provide the most detailed maps, it has to painstakingly catalog every street in the world. Sometimes the goal of providing information oversteps the privacy boundary.
The privacy concern with Google Public DNS though is more about the Big Brother status that Google achieves by acting as the DNS resolver to the world. With recent purchases like AdMob and Teracent, Google is aggressively expanding its advertising footprint. The ability to monitor and capture detailed Web data from the DNS traffic could be a goldmine for Google.
David Ulevitch, founder of OpenDNS, challenges Google's altruism in his blog post: "Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection. But you have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet. To think that Google's DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive."
Privacy issues aside, DNS also comes with some inherent security concerns. The Google Code Blog acknowledged the security implications of DNS in the post announcing Google Public DNS. "DNS is vulnerable to spoofing attacks that can poison the cache of a nameserver and can route all its users to a malicious website."
There have been a number of issues discovered with DNS and attacks that exploit weaknesses in DNS in recent years. It was designed in a Utopian era before Internet or Web security were issues. DNSSEC has been developed as a next-generation, more secure implementation of DNS, but it is not yet part of the mainstream.
Google is aware of the security flaws with DNS though and has taken steps to protect against them. "Until new protocols like DNSSEC get widely adopted, resolvers need to take additional measures to keep their caches secure. Google Public DNS makes it more difficult for attackers to spoof valid responses by randomizing the case of query names and including additional data in its DNS messages."
DNS cache poisoning can be a very effective exploit if successful, and Google Public DNS will provide a very tempting target. The steps Google has taken are a good interim action while we wait for the widespread adoption of DNSSEC.
These measures don't address the Big Brother privacy concerns, but that is a whole different battle that Google will have to fight probably as long as it is in the business of indexing the world and providing targeted advertising.
Tony Bradley tweets as @PCSecurityNews, and can be contacted at his Facebook page .


text: Attracting, retaining and engaging employees is job number 1 for employers in 2016 as the IT talent crunch intensifies. The improving economy, aggressive recruiting practices and an emphasis on workplace culture have drastically shifted the relationship between employer and employee. Experts from The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated and the Staples Advantage 2015 Workplace Index weigh in on their top 10 workplace predictions for the coming year. \n1.\tThe year of talent\nThe improved economy, aggressive recruiting practices and websites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn have all contributed to a dynamic shift in the employer-employee relationship, according to The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated. Talented workers have more leverage than ever before, and it is nearly impossible for an organization to hide its true corporate culture from job candidates. \n\n\n\n\n\nAlso on CIO.com\n\n10 hottest tech skills for 2016\nIT Resume Makeover: How to cut through the technical noise\n6 traits of up-and-coming IT stars\n\n\n\n\nProgressive organizations understand that the only sustainable business model is to ensure they have the right talent, in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills. The C-suite will be more directly involved in talent management strategies in 2016 with a focus on winning with engaged employees, says Joyce Maroney, senior director, customer experience and services marketing, The Workforce Institute at Kronos.\n"The ease with which existing employees can record their experience very publicly, and the ease that job seekers can find this information before they take a job is really changing the game. Sites like Glassdoor are a very legitimate way to get information about job opportunities and options. In fact, here at Kronos we find Glassdoor is one of the top drivers of traffic to our careers site," Maroney says. Bottom line: if your culture is toxic, it's critical to fix it or you won't make much headway in the battle for IT talent, she says. \n2.\tCompliance, regulation and workers' rights \nAs the Obama Administration enters its final year and the spotlight on workers' rights shines brighter around the world, government regulation around paid time-off, overtime, minimum wage, healthcare, schedule fairness, family leave and more will put increased pressure on organizations to maintain compliance, according to The Workforce Institute. Organizations large and small will require tools and technologies to juggle different regulations across cities, states and countries where they do business while ensuring employees are treated fairly within the law with the capability to generate reports that prove compliance and avoid fines and penalties.\n"The rising tide we see is not only around affordable healthcare, but also fair scheduling, raising the minimum wage, offering paid leave -- movements toward workers' rights, whether hourly and front-line workers or in the freelance economy, are gaining ground. This presents a challenge for smaller organizations to manage not just increased costs, but to engage your people so you're optimizing productivity," Maroney says. \nWhile flexible schedules, continued training and career progression planning have been best practices for a long time, many organizations that felt they couldn't manage to do these things are going to have to step up to the plate, she says.\n3.\tRegulations tighten around employee self-service, mobile, and scheduling technologies \nHand-in-hand with the consumerization of workforce management technology and a focus on workers' rights is a push toward wider adoption of employee self-service, mobile and intelligent scheduling technologies that empower the worker while unburdening managers, according to the Workforce Institute. Employees will have tools to take more ownership of their schedules, while smarter technologies will support greater equity in staffing models; the growth of the freelance economy will increase the need for white collar workforce features to be added to these tools. \nHowever, as these technologies are implemented to balance productivity, compliance and fairness, organizations should expect increased government scrutiny on how workforce management innovations are used in the workplace, Maroney says. "There are very specific issues tied to scheduling around fairness, lead time and the like, and how technology can help ensure more worker-friendly policies. For example, in retail or hospitality, avoiding having a worker close down a shop at night and then report for work to open the next morning, or figuring out transportation, or scheduling child care or dependent care around changing shifts," Maroney says. While some of these technologies are mandated and legislated, employers should consider their own investments in automation and self-service, she notes. \n"If you're looking for talent, make sure that these technologies afford them trust and transparency so that your workers get flexibility around their home lives. Anything that makes it harder for them to get daycare, or to schedule healthcare appointments is going to discourage them from working for you, and that's a problem," she says. \n[ Related stories: 9 Steps to Build Your Personal Brand (and Your Career) ]\n4.\tOrganizations invest in the next generation of leaders\nOrganizations that have not begun investing in their next generation of leaders will feel the sting in 2016 as the exodus of Baby Boomers continues, the Workforce Institute says. Leadership development, succession planning and training programs that tackle the skills shortage will be major themes in 2016 as an increasing number of organizations will invest more in middle management to ensure they can properly hire, coach, and motivate their millennial and Generation X employees who are moving up the ranks and, in some cases, managing workers older than themselves. \n"In 2015, for the first time, millennials were the biggest portion of the workforce, but because of the recession they haven't had as much investment in training and leadership development. Now, organizations are going to be paying more attention to succession planning and leadership training. Thus far, businesses have benefitted from Boomers staying in the workforce longer, but that seems about to change," Maroney says. \n5.\tUnique benefits become a competitive advantage\nThe talent-first focus in 2016 will cause many organizations to rethink and retool their benefits strategies to create a competitive advantage in the war for talent, the Workforce Institute says. Since benefits will be used to attract and retain the most diverse and multigenerational workforce in history, there will be an emergence of unique benefits that target employees at different stages of their lives, from student loan repayment programs, unlimited vacation, and paid time off for hourly workers to expanded parental leave, child care support, retirement assistance, and medical benefits that help care for aging parents. \n"You have to set yourself up to tailor your benefits to the needs of the employees. Things like healthcare, dependent care, paid time off -- those are just table stakes. Consider benefits tailored to your workforce, like student loan consolidation services, college scholarships for employees' children; you can't do 'one-size-fits-all' anymore with such a multi-generational workforce," she says.\n[ Related stories: IT careers: How to put your career on the fast track) ]\n6.\tEmployers will invest further in wellness\nInitiatives that power employee productivity and help control healthcare costs will be critical in 2016 as employee burnout erodes productivity and rising healthcare costs continue to chip away at the bottom line, according to Staples Advantage 2015 Workplace Index, which surveyed 2,602 employees in May 2015. \nAt a time when 66 percent of employees claim burnout is eroding their productivity, wellness efforts that focus on physical and mental wellness can be valuable ways to enhance employee health and productivity. Wellness initiatives also play a role in retaining top talent, as 38 percent acknowledge that burnout is a motivator for a new job search, says Neil Ringel, executive vice president, Staples Advantage. \n"As the workplace continues to evolve, companies are continually challenged with recruiting and retaining top talent. It's critical for businesses to implement strategies focused on improving employees' productivity, health and happiness. While the talent crunch definitely holds true for IT companies, every organization should aim to foster a work culture that creates a collaborative, inspiring and enjoyable place for employees to work every day," Ringel says.\n7.\tDesire for workplace flexibility will continue to drive the freelance economy \nAmong part-time freelancers, nearly half acknowledged they would quit their primary job to freelance full-time if they could achieve more work flexibility, the Index revealed. Nearly four in 10 employees said workplace flexibility would increase their workplace happiness, and 24 percent report flexible schedules motivate them to do their best at work. In addition, one in five employees identify the ability to have a flexible work schedule as a leading contributor to their loyalty.\n"The Workplace Index revealed that work-life balance is top of mind for employees in the United States. Organizations can take a number of steps to facilitate this, such as providing flexible work options to avoid employee burnout and better motivate workers," Ringel says.\n8.\tThere will be a reconfiguration of the traditional office space\nTraditional office space will be reworked to serve multiple functions and accommodate a diverse, mobile workforce, according to the Index. Nearly half of employees surveyed say they would like more attention paid to office design, and they think a well-designed office would improve creativity, interest in their work, and their work ethic. In addition, 31 percent say a well-designed office would improve the amount of work they do.\nAs the physical workspace needs to accommodate an increasingly diverse, mobile workforce, a reconfiguration of the physical office will become a need, not just a want. It's not just workspace, but "break" space that will need to adjust, according to Ringel, "Nearly half of employees feel they cannot get up from their desk to take a break, 45 percent eat lunch at their desks, and 53 percent are burnt-out.\nTo combat this, employers should encourage employees to take break times to refresh and recharge so they come back to their desks ready to tackle their work. The onus is also on employers to provide a well-stocked breakroom where employees can relax and disconnect. Employers should ensure the breakroom is stocked with healthy snacks and beverages as well as comfortable furniture to allow employees to unwind," he says.\n[ Related stories: Are we clear? Writing well can be key to your career ]\n9.\tEmployers will begin to leverage sustainability as a recruitment tool\nSustainability will be a major factor in employers' employee value proposition in 2016, rather than just a corporate social responsibility (CSR) and reputation management initiative, says Ringel.\n"While CSR and reputation are the biggest drivers of sustainability efforts today, it's likely they will be front and center in recruitment strategies. When making an employment decision, half of millennials say an eco-friendly company is important, so we'll see employers leverage sustainability more this year as a tool to recruit and retain top talent," he says. \n10.\tContinued investment in mobile technology\nAs millennials continue to gain ground and power in the workplace, so does the technology that powers an increasingly mobile workforce. The majority of telecommuters say that remote work improves work-life balance, work productivity and their overall happiness, according to the Index. As more and more employees work outside the physical office, and nearly two-third of employees attribute poorly performing technology to decreased productivity, employers will need to ensure they have the right technology in place to maximize ROI and enable a more flexible work model.\n"Empowering workers with the right technology is also very important to promote work-life flexibility. The majority of millennials say increased flexibility will improve their happiness and productivity, so it's no surprise that we see more businesses offering more flexible work options, whether it's flexible hours or technology enabling them to telecommute," Ringel says.


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Hugh argues that this is a new phenomenon, and on the increase as a result of central bank bubble inducing activity. While immigration is a vital tool aiding economies to manage the population ageing process, it is important that economic activities be balanced and sustainable. Immigration which fuels boom/bust cycles is far from innocuous, and can harm a country just as much as a sudden stop in capital flows if the flows suddenly invert and immigration is followed by emigration.
Detlef Gürtler: Well Edward, you personally lived through one of the most important real estate booms in European history - the recent Spanish one. Is the real estate boom we are witnessing in Switzerland in any way comparable?
Edward Hugh: Before I start, I think it's worth pointing out that it goes without saying the Swiss are quite different from the Spaniards; and the Swiss economy is completely different from the Spanish one. In this sense every boom or crisis is in its own way different from anything before. That said, such "trivia" doesn't normally stop economists like me from trying to draw comparisons, even if in this case I have to be extremely careful, since while I know quite a lot about Spain I know much less about Switzerland. So perhaps you will help me.
Detlef Gürtler: Yes, economists do make comparisons, and you were even so bold as to draw one between the German 1990s housing boom and the one which took place in Spain after the start of the century.
Edward Hugh: Well this comparison isn't so strange as it may seem. Many talk today about Spain becoming the new Germany - in the sense of an export powerhouse - and while this idea may have a rather dubious basis in reality the shift from domestic consumption to exports is quite striking.
In both cases the subsequent "regeneration" was preceded by a significant consumer boom, in both cases there was a strong increase in real estate prices including a construction boom, in both cases there was an increase in household indebtedness, in both cases the current account deficit deteriorated. And then in both cases there was a rude awakening. The only real difference was one of scale, and in this case scale is important. Spain had what was at the end of the day the mother of all housing bubbles.
Detlef Gürtler: But in each case there was a completely different historical background and there were very different underlying motifs.
Edward Hugh: Yes, of course. But does that really make a difference when it comes to economic ambition? East Germany's citizens in 1992 - just like their Spanish equivalents in 2002 - saw how big the distance was between their consumption level and the western (or northern) one, and since they could in each case contract debt on what was for them fairly favorable terms they decided to put history straight and to carry out a rapid catch up in consumption. Really, Europe as a democratic political project has some of the responsibility here, since there was no equalizing mechanism put in place, but at the same time people felt they were entitled to similar living standards.
One of the new MEPs from the newly formed Podemos party put it like this in a recent interview: "they have sold us a system in which they told us we would all be rich and we were all going to live very well, and there was a period like that, but all that's over now."
Detlef Gürtler: The Germans, on the other hand didn't find themselves with mortgages well below the actual value of the relevant property, while Spaniards are already facing this problem.
Edward Hugh: No, you're right, but this isn't the whole picture. Weren't there massive tax breaks for builders and developers in East Germany, tax breaks which were rapidly converted into 100% financing whereby the government effectively assumed the cost of write-down?.
Detlef Gürtler: Only in the prospectuses of tax-saving-scheme promoters. In fact, many investors ultimately remained sitting on a mountain of debt, debt which was higher than the long-term obtainable sale price for the property.
Edward Hugh: I see. In Spain, instead, creative valuation techniques were used. The economic end result is the same: you lose the property but get stuck with a large part of the debt.
Detlef Gürtler: And how does Switzerland fits into this picture?
Edward Hugh: Well lets start with something which at face value seems positive. For many years there was virtually no inflation in Switzerland, sometimes the situation was more like deflation. Now a bubble economy without inflation, surely that would seem to be a novelty.
Unfortunately, when you come to look into things a bit more it isn't quite the novelty it seems to be. In fact Larry Summers, in his secular stagnation speech to the IMF 2013 research conference drew attention to this phenomenon.
"Many people believe that monetary policy was too easy. Everybody agrees that there was a vast amount of imprudent lending going on. Almost everybody believes that wealth, as it was experienced by households, was in excess of its reality. Too easy money, too much borrowing, too much wealth. Was there a great boom? Capacity utilization wasn't under any great pressure. Unemployment wasn't under any remarkably low level. Inflation was entirely quiescent. So somehow, even a great bubble wasn't enough to produce any excess in aggregate demand."So it seems bubble economies without inflation are becoming more common. The big question is why.
Detlef Gürtler: But if we look at real estate itself we see a different picture. In many market segments show annual price increases of more than ten percent.
Edward Hugh: Well, that is presumably in no small part due to investors from around the world seeking a safe haven for their money in Switzerland.
Detlef Gürtler: Yes. But especially since the franc was coupled to the euro these investors switched from the Swiss currency into Swiss real estate.
Edward Hugh: And obviously this increase is not (or is only insufficiently) taken into account in the consumer price inflation rate. Here again we find a similarity with Spain where the large rise in house prices was not reflected at all in the official consumer inflation rate. So despite official price stability life feels like it is becoming significantly more expensive, especially for those looking for a new apartment.
Normally when addressing the question of whether a real estate bubble exists or not, it is important to think about leveraging, about whether the home purchases are financed by credit. If real houses are paid for with real money paid, and this money comes from the outside, the economic effect could be seen as more economically similar to exports: A foreigner buys a piece Switzerland. If the price falls back, it is largely a problem for the external investor, not for the Swiss themselves or the Swiss banks.
On the other hand, if all this "speculative" activity drives up property prices in a deflationary environment where wages are stationary, the affordability problem creates a different issue for Swiss nationals.
Detlef Gürtler: And what about the British market? Would you say this is currently more driven by "irrational exuberance" than Switzerland ?
Edward Hugh: Great Britain has at the present time the fastest growing economy among all industrialized countries. But why should Britain suddenly have become a stellar economy, an exceptional out-performer? Again all this euphoria in the UK really reminds me of Spain, since Spain in its day was also considered to be an "out-performer", experiencing a major economic miracle.
London house prices are up 18% year on year, and the current account balance is worsening. At the moment national insurance data indicate that roughly 600,000 economic migrants are arriving in the UK annually. Not as many as in Spain during the boom times - either in absolute terms or proportionally - but still a significant number. Because the immigration is mainly focused on London, it is leading to large distortions which affect the whole economy. The new arrivals need homes, but naturally they start without work and are not looking to buy. They end up renting - in maybe groups of 3 or 4 - and are thus able to collectively pay rental prices which a normal family cannot afford. Hence the buy to rent business become interesting.
Sadly many of the young Spaniards arriving (maybe 60,000 a year) are fleeing the consequences of one bubble only to inadvertently fuel another.
Detlef Gürtler: But isn't this an example of exactly the kind of labour mobility the EU in general and (the euro zone in particular) wanted to see? People move from countries and regions were there is little work to those where there is plenty? This pattern of behavior was legendary in the USA. Isn't it good that it now comes to Europe?
Edward Hugh: Well, yes and no. The key point is that the employment growth needs to be sustainable. Look at Spain, nearly half a million former immigrants left the country last year. And yet one more time it is important to understand that Euro Area countries have a different set of institutional arrangements to the ones which apply to US states. When Detroit went bust, the Federal Government was there to act as backstop.
When such activity is not sustainable there is a self perpetuating component which is highly undesirable. As Londoners feel better off since the value of their home has risen the borrow and spend more. They become more leveraged. This boost to economic activity in turn attracts new immigrants, which push up rents even further and with them property values, making Londoners feel even richer, and so on. As a result you get what you could call an unbalanced but self-reinforcing economic recovery. Hence the "superstar economy" aspect.
So the point is that while developed economy societies need positive migration flows as they age, they don't need just any old kind of flow, otherwise you could end up with problem bigger than the one you started with.
Detlef Gürtler: Thus, labor mobility has a procyclical effect. Where the economy runs well , the process works through increasing migration with everything getting better and better and better, until that is the day bubble bursts.
Edward Hugh: What we are talking about here is a new phenomenon. When people say our economies are becoming "bubblier" they normally are thinking in term of financial flows. This is the area first are in which the self-reinforcing dimension of the process was evident. Think of what happened to small countries like Iceland or New Zealand in the run in to the global financial crisis.The Danish economist Carsten Valgreen coined the phrase global financial accelerator to describe what was happening.
Detlef Gürtler: You mean the way in which large speculative inflows produced a boom, which the respective central banks tried to contain by raising interest rates, but somehow these increases in interest rates only served to attract more speculative funds.
Edward Hugh: Yep this was the the original pattern, but it's different now. This is in fact the most important thing which has changed since the German property boom of the 1990s. Migration flows have started to play a role which is just as important as the financial flows one. The migrant flows we are seeing today are exceptionally large, and have the characteristic that - just like capital flows - they may reverse rapidly. You could call this the global labour flow accelerator. I am convinced that we are dealing here with something new, with a hitherto hardly recognized phenomenon - namely speculative labour flows, or if you prefer" Hot Labour ".
Detlef Gürtler: "Hot Labour "? Never heard of it .
Edward Hugh: Neither had I, till I saw what was happening in Spain. As we mention above, I started speaking about this in 2006.
Detlef Gürtler: Did you invent the expression yourself?
Edward Hugh: No, I got the idea from someone called Pepe .
Detlef Gürtler: Pepe ? Which Pepe ?
Edward Hugh: Well I don't know him personally, or even his full name . Pepe was a commentator who showed up on my Blog. He used this term to distinguish those immigrants looking for a new home, a new life, and a new society to integrate in, from another group, those just moving for work or adventure without for any clear plan. Locate work quickly, and if a crisis hits then change country. Possibly this is not a conscious initial decision, but this is how it works out in practice.
Many young Spaniards working now in London or Berlin seem to fit this category. They don't really plan to emigrate, they just want to survive what they perceive as a "difficult period". If asked in a survey about how they see their future they will normally say they are working abroad "temporarily" and will eventually return home. In fact they may never return home, emigration is a process which is not the product of a firm initial decision, but they also may be forced to move on quickly if the economic recovery where they have foudn work becomes volatile.
So the distinction between immigrants and Hot Labour could be thought of as following the same pattern as a similar one which describes in capital flows, where people have long distinguished between foreign direct investment and speculative investments , as in the expression " Hot Money ".
Detlef Gürtler: In the case of capital flows it is not so hard to differentiate one from the other : direct investment normally relates to plants and machinery, Hot Money is normally associated with securities such as stocks and bonds. How would you differentiate the various migrant populations?
Edward Hugh: First of all : not at all. The vast majority of immigrants change countries for economic reasons, but this does not tell us anything about whether and how quickly they will leave the destination country if an economic crisis breaks out.
Detlef Gürtler: What would be " fast " in migration dimensions?
Edward Hugh: Well you could say a "fast " wave of migration today is one which turns around in a period of say five years. Previously such waves were conceptualized in terms of generations. So now we should really not take for granted that all the immigrants who come in a boom phase will remain in the country in the longer term.
Detlef Gürtler: As were the experiences with the boom and crisis cycles in Germany and Spain?
Edward Hugh: The 1990s German phenomenon largely predates the modern phenomenon. At the end of the nineties immigration stalled but hardly reversed. This was probably largely due to the noticeable influx of people of German descent coming from Eastern Europe - they came because there was an opportunity to do so, but they were more like classical immigrants, they came to stay.
But now we are seeing a different phenomenon in Germany, suddenly we have seen a shift in the direction of migrant flows. During the early years of this century the number of people leaving Germany and the number arriving more or less balanced. In 2008 and 2009 in fact more people left than arrived. But since 2010 the number arriving (and the difference between those arriving and those leaving) has steadily increased. The result has been that the German population, which was expected to start falling, is now rising. And since most of those arriving are in younger age groups the same is true of the working age population.
Provisional estimates from the German Statistics Office, suggest 1.226 million people emigrated to Germany in 2013, an increase of 146,000, or 13%, from 2012. The last time immigration on this scale was recorded in Germany was in 1993. On the other hand some 789,000 people left Germany in 2013, 77,000 (+11%) more than in the previous year. The result was net immigration of 437,000 – also the highest figure since 1993.Naturally such a large number of people entering is producing a pressure on property prices in just the same way as in London, especially in Berlin and Bavaria.
Detlef Gürtler: How does this recent German experience compare with Spain?
Edward Hugh: In Spain, both the growth and the subsequent decline have been very rapid. Between 2000 and 2010 the Spanish population grew by more than fifteen percent, from 40 million to 46 million. The number of non Spanish nationals in the country rose sixfold - from one million to 5.8 million .
Now all of this has completely inverted: in 2013 alone approximately half a million people left, most of them former immigrants. The National Statistics Office estimates that the country's population could fall by 2.5 million between now and 2023. The long term consequences for Spain, and the Spanish economy are hard to foresee at this point, but they are hardly going to be positive.
On the other hand people continue to arrive in Spain, principally from sub-Saharan Africa. This is a more classic immigration trend. People are not simply coming for work, they are also coming in search of a new life. Even though economic conditions are difficult most of these will stay and eventually take their lives forward.
Detlef Gürtler: Was the initial intention of most of the migrants who came to Spain during the first decade to stay?
Edward Hugh: I would say for the majority this was not initially the case. Back in 2002 I interviewed a group of Bulgarian immigrants about their intentions. The results were predictable enough. Certain groups who might have felt themselves disadvantaged in their own country - women, gays, religious minorities - wanted to make a long term change, but the majority felt they were in Spain temporarily, to earn some money and go home. This is what most of the literature on the topic explains. But most of the people I interviewed are still in Spain. This is normal. Time passes, you put down roots. Finally you have no real "home" to go back to.
Actually I would say that personally this is my own case here in Catalonia.
A somewhat similar phenomenon can be observed among the large number of female care and domestic workers who arrived from Latin America. This immigration was also a new phenomenon, since the women who arrived had largely been married and had children who were being looked after by grandparents. They sent virtually all their earnings home every month, possibly to buy a home. Some of these women have now left, but since caring for elderly at home is a growing occupation in Spain, and many Spaniards are reluctant to do it, the majority are still here, and increasingly they bring their children to Spain to live with them.
Detlef Gürtler: And how does all this compare with Switzerland ?
Edward Hugh: Well in immigration terms Switzerland has a net population growth of about one percent per year (most European countries have very little natural population growth), putting it somewhere between the nineties German value (of about 0.7 percent per year ) and the most recent Spanish one (about 1.5 percent growth per year).
Detlef Gürtler: Yes, and the immigration trend has recently accelerated. Already it is noticeable that something more than a normal recovery phase upswing is in motion. The older Swiss learned in school that their country had around six million inhabitants. The younger ones found the number had already risen to seven million . In 2013 we found that for the first time the country had more than eight million inhabitants, and many forecasts now predict that the number can easily reach nine million. This in a country with a total fertility rate of around 1.5.
Edward Hugh: It is interesting to note that the Global Property Guide single out immigration for mention in the context of recent house price movements in Switzerland. "One factor has been an increase in the number of immigrants which has led to higher demand for houses. From 2007 to 2011, net migration into the country reached 365,500 people"
What Spain has shown us is that such trends do not necessarily last forever. Anyone with high rates of immigration and a nicely booming economy should also consider that substantial outward migration can occur when the economy weakens. If we are talking about a boom-bust then naturally things are much worse. Sustainability has to be a key idea we get our heads around in this context.
Detlef Gürtler: Unless, of course, the immigrants had come to stay, as was once the case in Germany , with the German-born migrants from Eastern Europe.
Edward Hugh: Yes, but this doesn't seem to be to be the Swiss case. Switzerland is very open when it comes to labor flows when there is work, but much less open when it comes to the subsequent integration of migrants.
Detlef Gürtler: And with an extremely liberal labour market jobs in Switzerland can not only be created very fast, they can also be deleted very quickly.
Edward Hugh: Which makes Switzerland quite vulnerable to a Hot - Labour type phenomenon, with the capacity for a very rapid job creation phase followed by a rapid job destruction one. If that were to happen, then people shouldn't be surprised if an economic downturn transforms itself into a veritable downward spiral. When there is work, the new migrants are made to feel somewhat welcome, but when they are without a job, just how much support is available for them? Very little it seems.
Detlef Gürtler: So it's like a game of Monopoly, where at some point you simply get sent back to "Go", the original starting point. It looks like in Spain at the end of the recession many economic data looked more like those of the year 2000.
Edward Hugh: Would that you only got sent back to the starting point! On some indicators - unemployment for example - Spain by 2020 may still be worse off than it was in 2000. The age structure would be another example. Those currently leaving the country in droves in order to seek employment elsewhere are predominantly young and well educated. Those who remain are either older,or without either skill or qualification. There is a massive human capital loss, and population ageing is accelerated.
Detlef Gürtler: How do such movements affect things like pension systems?
Edward Hugh: Well the initial inward surge is, of course, very positive. Pensions look much more sustainable, but if things go wrong then suddenly they aren't and pension reforms become urgently necessary. Spain has now had two of these since the crisis started.
Detlef Gürtler: But that is looking at things from the point of view of the receiving country. What about the sending one?
Edward Hugh: Well obviously, migrants moving from countries with very low fertility - like Eastern and Southern Europe - leave a serious hole behind them. One which threatens the future of the pension systems there.
Switzerland, with its island type location and the very Hot - Labour type context can simply wring its hands over the situation as people who have contributed to the welfare system for years suddenly leave. But in the European Union, with its formal commitment to some sort of a politically shared project, there will inevitably be pressure for another kind of solution, one which involves some sort of common pension system.
People in the UK are want to complain about EU labour mobility, and arrivals from Eastern Europe, but countries like Latvia, for example, are hardly going to be sustainable if something isn't done. It seems to me to be quite irrational for a country to enjoy a boom as a result of immigration, one which in addition means many urgently necessary structural reforms are pushed aside, while another country suffers only the negative consequences of emigration, getting stuck in a long depression while the entire pension system is pushed towards collapse. And then just a few years later the economic situation and the migratory pattern rotates one more reproducing the twin picture of complacency and collapse .
Detlef Gürtler: The technical term for the EU institutional change you mentioned is "intra-European Compensation", which probably means what the Germans call "Social union ".
Edward Hugh: Right. If the Euro and the EU are to continue then this would seem to be inevitable. Or do you expect the Germans to declare that they, in the future, will maintain their pension level thanks to the contribution of Spanish immigrants? And that this outcome is socially just, just because so many Spaniards have benefited from coming to Germany and are willingly depositing their contributions in the German pension box to show their gratitude?
But wouldn't it be totally economically irrational that a common currency which is set up with totally inadequate institutional support, which overseas the generation of economic imbalances that cannot be corrected via either currency appreciation or depreciation, simply washes its hands of the search for a just solution. Other mechanisms must be established to allow these countries to recover and restore some sort of balance.
Detlef Gürtler: Balance? But don't many agree with George Soros when he argues that financial markets don't tend towards equilibrium, but fall into boom-bust cycles over and over again. Can it be that the the markets for human capital behaves similarly?
Edward Hugh: That could be, and that is the phenomenon I would like to draw attention to. However, the possibility has not been sufficiently explored so far, so let's just leave this outcome today as an "educated guess". But whether we are talking about booming labor markets, like Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, or busted ones, like those in Spain and Greece we are producing a lot of data with which it should be possible to either confirm or refute the conjecture.
And one last closing point. I have long favored (and continue to favor) sustainable immigration as one way to manage population aging (see my Message To Central Bankers Target Median Ages!: 2006, or my reply to Marty Feldstein "The Effects of the Ageing European Population on Economic Growth" of the same year). But for such a policy to work as intended we need to stop trying to reflate economies which for demographic reasons are trying to disinflate, and develop policies which are appropriate to the times we live in. The first step along this road is recognising that we have a problem.
The above is an adapted translation from German of an interview which originally appeared in the magazine GDI Impuls.


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A smiling Kate, wearing a baby blue polka dot dress, carried the future monarch outside St. Mary's Hospital in central London so that he could be photographed by the dozens of international press members waiting outside.
The photos are likely to be reprinted for decades as the baby grows into adulthood and his role as a future king. His name has not yet been announced; that's expected in the next few days.
Kate, who said she felt "very emotional," passed the baby to her husband, who appeared relaxed and joked with reporters.
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William added: "He's a big boy, he's quite heavy," and laughed when a reporter asked him about the baby's hair.
"He's got way more than me, thank God," he said.
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The young family's first public appearance together has been the moment that the world's media and crowds of onlookers camped outside the hospital had long been waiting for. It recalls a similar appearance three decades ago, when Princess Diana and Prince Charles carried the newborn William out to pose for photographs on the same steps in 1982.
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In London, gun salutes were fired, celebratory lights came on, and bells chimed at Westminster Abbey, where William and Kate wed in a lavish ceremony that drew millions of television viewers worldwide.


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HomeWord - July 4, 2013
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- 2013 Jul 04
This devotional was written by Mike DeVries
Be still, and know that I am God. —Psalm 46:10
We live in a world filled with noise, don't we? It seems like everywhere we turn, it is increasingly more difficult to find places of silence and solitude in our lives. Television. Cell phones. iPods. Radios. It is almost as if we are addicted to noise... and afraid of the silence.
I've started to do some thinking about this lately. Why is it that we fill our lives with noise? Why is it that we are afraid of silence? And more importantly, is there a connection between a lack of hearing God's voice and the lack of silence in our lives?
Often, noise is our drug of choice. We self-medicate ourselves with noise because we are afraid of silence. Silence has a way of stripping us bare of all pretenses, forcing us to take a good long look in the mirror of our soul. For some of us, this is just too painful, just too raw for us to face. So we surround ourselves with noise, thinking that the longer we can drown out the voices, perhaps they might go away. But they rarely do!
I'm fascinated that the Scriptures are filled with people who heard from God. They connected with God in ways that were life changing, and pretty much every one of those was in a moment of silence or solitude. God rarely speaks in the storm, one passage says – He is in the gentle whisper.
Silence. Solitude. These were regular rhythms Jesus had as a part of His life. They were not merely luxuries Jesus enjoyed; they were central rhythms of His life. In times of sorrow, in times of busyness, in times of stress, in times of reflection – Jesus often found the time to get alone, seeking out places of silence and solitude. This was not merely Jesus' way of getting a break; He was demonstrating something far deeper. He was modeling the reality that at our very core, you and I were created with a hunger for silence and solitude.
Jesus knows this. This is why I believe He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" —Matthew 11:28. He is inviting us to embrace His rhythm – and in this rhythm, to find rest for our weary souls. The question is this: can I truly find this kind of rest if I do not find places of silence and solitude?
Maybe, for most of us involved in the noisy day-to-day business of life, it's time to stop... and listen.
1. Are you trying to hide something through the noise you allow in your life?
2. What are some things in our lives that we could do to begin to eliminate the noise and start introducing silence and solitude as a rhythm?
Matthew 14:12-13; Mark 1:32-35; 6:30-31; Luke 5:15-16
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Aspirin Advised for Women at High Risk for Pregnancy Complication
Pregnant women at high risk for the serious condition called preeclampsia should take low-dose aspirin every day after their first trimester, according to a new draft recommendation by an influential U.S. panel of experts.
Daily low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams) in middle and late pregnancy can significantly reduce the occurrence of preeclampsia among these women. And it can lower the risk of preterm birth or low birth weight resulting from the pregnancy-related condition, according to the recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
"Preeclampsia is one of the more common causes of serious health problems for both the expectant mother and their baby," said Dr. Michael LeFevre, chairman of the task force, and vice chair of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. "At least for pregnant women at high risk for preeclampsia, a low dose of aspirin taken daily can help prevent the condition and improve the outcome for both mother and child."
The evidence review upon which the recommendations are based was published online April 7 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Preeclampsia is a complex condition that occurs in pregnant women and involves an increase in blood pressure and excess protein in the urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy. About 4 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are affected by preeclampsia, according to information from the journal.
It's important to prevent preeclampsia because the only treatment once it takes hold is delivery, which can pose risks to the baby if performed before 34 weeks of gestation. Preeclampsia is responsible for more than one-third of the serious health problems that occur among pregnant women, and 15 percent of preterm births, the journal noted.
Pregnant women who contract preeclampsia can suffer potentially life-threatening organ damage or stroke. Unborn fetuses grow too slowly as the condition robs them of oxygen and nutrients, leading to low birth weight babies, preterm birth or stillbirth, the researchers explained.
"The baby grows too slowly, so you get a small baby, or you have to deliver the baby early to save the mother's life because it can lead to stroke," said Jillian Henderson, lead author of the evidence review and an investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.
LeFevre said women at high risk of preeclampsia include those in the following categories:
- have had preeclampsia in previous pregnancies,
- have high blood pressure or diabetes prior to pregnancy,
- are having twins, triplets or even more in a multi-birth pregnancy.
A doctor also might recommend daily aspirin use in women who have a combination of two or more moderate risk factors, LeFevre said. These include women who are:
- having their first baby,
- obese,
- older than 35 or black.
Daily low-dose aspirin use reduced the risk of preterm birth by 14 percent and of slow fetal growth by 20 percent, according to the new review of the latest medical data. And it led to a 24 percent reduction in the overall occurrence of preeclampsia, the review found.
In addition, there's no evidence of potential harm in daily low-dose aspirin use for pregnant women at high risk of preeclampsia, study author Henderson said.
However, any expectant mother should consult with her doctor before beginning a daily aspirin regimen, LeFevre added.
"We certainly don't want women to go out and start taking low-dose aspirin without talking with their prenatal provider about whether they are at high enough risk to begin taking aspirin," he said. "This is not something women should do on their own. This is something they should do in consultation with their health care provider."
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts that makes evidence-based recommendations about preventive medical services such as health screenings, counseling and medications.
The draft recommendation on aspirin treatment for preeclampsia has been posted for public comment at www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org. Comments can be submitted from April 8 to May 5.
Henderson said the new review echoes earlier research and evidence reviews that have supported low-dose aspirin to prevent preeclampsia in high-risk mothers.
"It's not a big difference from what's been found earlier," she said.
More information
For more about preeclampsia, visit the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Source: HealthDay
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