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The spa resort of Bad Füssing in Lower Bavaria offers a superlative thermal spa experience: 120,000m² of pools and water – ample space for a wonderful health break.
Each of these pools is filled with Bad Füssing's thermal water, which has travelled from 1,000 metres below ground before gushing to the surface at 56°C.
A superlative thermal spa resort
In addition to its thermal springs, delightful Bad Füssing has plenty to offer in the way of other health treatments including traditional Chinese medicine and the latest high-tech therapies for the most discerning patients, all within a short journey from Passau. Expert health professionals are on hand to support and advise every guest on the best individual treatment. However, the highlight of any stay in Bad Füssing is its three thermal springs, which were only discovered by chance when drilling for oil brought the water bubbling up to the surface. The composition of the water is highly beneficial; it contains a particular type of sulphide sulphur that assists patients with joint complaints.
Superlative thermal spa experience
Bad Füssing's fabulous choice of thermal pools – Therme I, Europa Therme and Johannesbad – means that visitors are giving their health a boost as well as seriously relaxing.
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Parks and Recreation may resurrect one of its best gags for a sequel! So get ready to Treat Yo' Self!
Parks executive producer Mike Schur tells TVGuide.com that the writers have been kicking around ideas for Round 2, which would surely see Donna (Retta) and Tom (Aziz Ansari) reunite for their annual day of luxury, during which they treat themselves to the spa and shopping.
Parks and Recreation Scoop: Will Leslie win back the lot?
"We've certainly talked about it because it was a thing that caught on with the fans and the internet lit up, but it's very risky to do that," Schur says. "You can only do it if it's better than the first time, because there's nothing worse than a disappointing sequel."
Considering "Treat Yo' Self" is Tom and Donna's annual tradition - which first aired during an October Season 4 episode - it seems likely we would see it return sometime before the end of Season 5.
Parks and Recreation Scoop: Leslie's wedding and Tom's new business venture
"We really loved it and we thought it was really funny and I think it's maybe the funniest that Retta's ever been," Schur adds. "It's maybe one of my favorite Tom episodes and everyone was great, but we're only going to do it if we can do it in a way that feels like it's something new and different and more fun than the first time."
Do you think Parks should resurrect our favorite day? And what would you like to see Tom and Donna - and hopefully Ben (Adam Scott) again - do during "Treat Yo' Self 2.0"? Hit the comments!
Parks and Recreation airs Thursdays at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.
View original Will Parks and Recreation Bring Back Treat Yo' Self for Round 2? at TVGuide.com
Related Articles on TVGuide.com
Parks and Recreation Scoop: Leslie's wedding and Tom's new business ventureParks and Recreation Scoop: Will Leslie win back the lot?
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Adam ScottAziz AnsariMichael SchurRettaParks and Recreation


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Are RIAs and other financial professionals guilty until proven innocent? Not quite, but the burden of proof on the part of the SEC against those accused is so low it might appear that way. It could easily result in a lifetime bar from the advisors' main source of income.
Russell Ryan, a former assistant director of the SEC's division of enforcement, exposes the mark regulators must reach to win their case. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday, Ryan argues the SEC can impose quasi-criminal penalties based on the mere "preponderance of evidence."
Using the trial of ex-Goldman Sachs vice president Fabrice Tourre, set to begin this week, as a jumping off point, he employs a sports metaphor to indicate just what Tourre will face.
"Envision a one-possession football game with the government team receiving the kickoff," Ryan writes. "Beyond reasonable doubt requires the government to score a touchdown to win; clear and convincing evidence requires a field goal; and preponderance of evidence requires advancing the ball at least an inch past the 50-yard line."
It's the last that the SEC must demonstrate in the Tourre case, with which Ryan takes issue.
"Even in civil cases, however, charges of fraud are often subjected to an intermediate standard that requires proof by 'clear and convincing evidence.' Oddly enough the SEC usually isn't held to this standard either, even when it accuses people of fraud."
Why does the SEC have such a negligible burden of proof?
Once a "sleepy regulator" with relatively little power to punish wrongdoers," he explains, Congress has now transformed (or is attempting to transform) the agency into an "aggressive punisher."
Ryan concludes with what he calls "a modest proposal."
"When a federal law-enforcement agency sets out to punish a private citizen or business based on accusations of fraud or similar wrongdoing, it should have to prove its case by more than just a preponderance of the evidence. While proof beyond reasonable doubt may be too high a hurdle in nominally civil cases that can't result in incarceration, proof by clear and convincing evidence seems the least that due process should demand."
Check out Former SEC Compliance Chief Tells White: Stop Suing Compliance Officers on ThinkAdvisor.


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The island of Poel is an enticing destination, thanks to its healthy sea air and picturesque scenery. Beautiful natural surroundings, long sandy beaches and a charming harbour district are all features of the largest Baltic island in the Bay of Mecklenburg.
The tranquil island of Poel is situated between the three Hanseatic towns of Rostock, Wismar and Lübeck. Covering an area of 40 square kilometres, this lush green haven boasts salt marshes with an abundant variety of flora and fauna, and long stretches of beaches. The island's countryside is rich and diverse, with rugged cliffs standing in contrast to the gently sloping sandy beaches.
Poel is a treasure trove of rare bird and plant species, which, like the salt marshes, are given special protected status. The small sister island of Langenwerder, located just offshore to the north of Gollwitz, became the region's first designated bird sanctuary nearly 100 years ago. Guided walks of the island provide a great chance to get close-up views of the breeding marine birds.
Visitors to Poel often go on boat trips to nearby towns, with sailings to Hanseatic Wismar from the picturesque harbour in Kirchdorf a particular favourite. Those who prefer a more active boat ride can charter a fishing cutter in Timmendorf and venture out into the Baltic Sea, where the ship's captain will show them the best places to drop anchor and enjoy a spot of traditional fishing.
The island also has a huge number of sporting activities on offer, including pedal boats, windsurfing, sailing trips, water skiing, beach soccer, tennis and horse riding. And after so much sport and exploring, where better to enjoy the evening than in one of the island's beautifully appointed holiday homes or hotels?
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The word bully is one parents dread, and it doesn't matter whether their child is on the giving or the receiving end of the problem.
Bullies are a common problem in schools today. How you handle bullying can have a large impact on this and future situations, and set the stage for what is and is not appropriate behavior for your child. If you've recently found that your child is being bullied or is a bully, get involved, get active, and help curb bullying behavior before it goes too far.
Address the issue of bullying with your child: This isn't something parents can handle on their own -- you must involve your child in the decision to end the bullying cycle.
If your child is being bullied, parents need to understand how and to what extent the bullying is taking place. FamilyLobby.com lists multiple types of bullying including digital bullying, physical bullying and emotional bullying. The effects of each are equally harmful and powerful. Determine what type of bullying is taking place and proceed from there.
If your child is the bully, he or she may not be willing to admit to his or her misbehavior. However, don't brush the behavior off with a quick, "Don't do it again." It's important for parents of a bully to figure out what's going on so they can change their child's behavior.
Speak with school or sports officials, not other parents: Though we'd like to believe that all parents are understanding of the issue of bullying, that isn't always the case.
Bullying can be a learned behavior. Going directly to a child's parents might not always be the best course of action. PBSKids.org notes the importance of addressing bullying with teachers, principals or coaches, depending on where the bullying is taking place. Professionals who deal with children on a regular basis should have training in addressing issues such as bullying; letting them take the reins here is a good idea. This is true for parents of the bullied and the bully. If you suspect that your child is a bully, talk to his teacher or coach to get a clearer picture of the situation. This can help you as you address the issue with your child.
Stay active and involved: After you've addressed the issue of bullying with your child and involved adults, don't assume that the issue is closed. Stay active and involved in the bullying situation so that you can quickly intervene again should the situation get out of hand.
Stay in contact with teachers and coaches and expect that they will do the same with you. Talk to your child regularly about school, sports and extracurricular activities.
If the bullying continues, it may be necessary to expand the participating parties, especially because bullying behavior has been shown to have disastrous consequences for some children. An outside professional or a group meeting may become necessary if parental and school involvement does not result in a satisfactory conclusion.


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Seven minutes of behind-the-scenes Hunger Games footage has been circulating this week, enough b-roll to give the average fan an idea of how the much-anticipated movie was made. Despite the inclusion of a hunting scene with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), we never do get step-by-step instruction on how to hunt squirrel and/or Hunger Games Careers with the stealthy precision of Katniss Everdeen -- but there are even more glaring omissions from the preview reel.
Where's the party footage from Lenny Kravitz's hotel room? According to the cast, who's been doing more and more interviews leading up to the Hunger Games' March 23 release, Kravitz's place was the place to be every evening. There'd be music, probably some of that fancy clear liquor Haymitch enjoys so much -- and as Lawrence told People, the vibe at Kravitz's regular afterwork parties "was like some weird summer camp."
"That is where it all happened," Hunger Games actor Woody Harrelson told Entertainment Weekly, talking up the times spent hanging out at Kravitz's place after hours. "I remember going up there and all of us sitting around talking and Lenny would put on this incredible music. You can just imagine him DJ'ing! Then he had these racks of all these different clothes for his stage show, and also I suppose some of them just for him in life, they're all hung up on roller racks. So we're all trying on the different jackets and shirts and clothes and taking pictures and laughing."
We repeat: Why isn't there video of this?
Kravitz told EW that the party tradition began on Stanley Tucci's (Caesar Flickerman) first day of filming. "We had dinner together and we ended up hanging out in my room," Kravitz told EW -- and co-stars including Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and director Gary Ross eventually joined them. "Just hanging out," says Kravitz.
Watch behind the scenes footage from the Hunger Games shoot below, even if it doesn't feature a Panem hotel room dance party:
What's On Tonight for


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|Petunia Dursley (née Evans)
|Biographical information
In or prior to 1959
|Blood status
|Marital status
|Also known as
Tuney (by Lily Evans)
|Physical information
|Hair colour
|Skin colour
|Family information
|Family members
- "Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that . . . that school--and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn, turning tea-cups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was . . . a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"
- —Petunia to Harry Potter.[src]
Petunia Dursley (née Evans) (fl. 1959—1997) was a Muggle, the eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Evans, and the older sister of the Muggle-born witch Lily. During her childhood, she broke off contact with her sister and refused to have any contact with the wizarding world.
She married a Muggle, Vernon Dursley, and they had a son, Dudley. However, when Lily was killed by Lord Voldemort, Petunia became guardian of her nephew, Harry Potter, who was only an infant then. She allowed him a room of his own after receiving his acceptance letters to Hogwarts (prior to this time he had been confined to the cupboard under the stairs), but for the most part neglected him. In 1991, when Harry went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she became very angry. She and her family left their home in 1997 in order to be protected from Voldemort and his Death Eaters. After the Second Wizarding War, she had several grandchildren and remained on civil terms with Harry.
Early lifeEdit
- Lily Evans: "… I'm sorry, Tuney, I'm sorry! Listen – Maybe once I'm there – no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I'm there, I'll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!"
- Petunia Evans: "I don't – want – to – go! You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a – a… – you think I want to be a – a freak?"
- Lily Evans: "I'm not a freak. That's a horrible thing to say."
- Petunia Evans: "That's where you're going. A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy… weirdos, that's what you two are. It's good you're being separated from normal people. It's for our safety."
- — Petunia and her eleven-year old sister at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters just before the latter boards the Hogwarts Express for the first time.[src]
Petunia was the oldest child of Muggles Mr and Mrs Evans, and had a sister, Lily, who was younger than she. However, Lily had many unusual abilities, such as making a flower's petals move without touching them, which her sister viewed with a mixture of envy and disapproval. One reason could have been because of the fact her parents praised Lily for her abilities and Petunia might have been jealous.
Severus Snape was a boy who also lived in the town of Cokeworth[1] who possessed similar abilities, and the two (Petunia and Snape) treated each other disdainfully. Lily, however, was intrigued by Snape and soon became good friends with him. When she received a letter from Hogwarts confirming that she was a witch, Petunia wrote to Albus Dumbledore asking if she could also study there too. Even though he responded kindly, Petunia felt hurt and left out, which also in part could have been because her parents were so proud of Lily's talents. From that point on, Petunia wanted nothing to do with magic or the wizarding world and frequently called Lily a "freak".
Marriage to Vernon and estrangement from LilyEdit
- "I have lived in this house for twenty years."
- —Petunia mentioning her house.[src]
At some point in the 1970s, Petunia left her home in Cokeworth to pursue a typing course in London. This led to her getting a clerical job, where she met Vernon Dursley, a junior executive whose complete ordinariness she found appealing. Vernon also took a fancy to Petunia, and the two went on a number of dates, which mainly involved Vernon discussing himself and his narrow views of the world.[1]
Vernon proposed to Petunia in his mother's sitting room[1] in late 1977.[2] Petunia gladly accepted, but secretly worried what Vernon would think when he met Lily, who was then in her seventh year at Hogwarts. She eventually told Vernon about Lily being a witch on a date in his car that was parked overlooking a chip shop from which they had purchased battered sausage, and while he was shocked, he assured her he would not hold it against her.[1]
The couple's first meeting with Lily and her boyfriend, James Potter, went poorly. Vernon tried to impress James with the car he drove, and when James responded by describing his racing broom, Vernon assumed he must be living on unemployment benefits. James told Vernon about his parents' fortune in Galleons, but since Vernon could not tell whether he was being had on or not, he became angry. The evening ended with Vernon and Petunia storming out of the restaurant and Lily bursting into tears.[1]
Petunia and Vernon were married and settled at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey by the end of 1977.[2] Fearing that she would be overshadowed, Petunia refused to have Lily as a bridesmaid, which upset Lily.[1] At the reception, Vernon would not talk to James, but described him as "some magician" within his earshot.[1]
Petunia had little contact with her sister thereafter. She and Vernon chose not to attend James and Lily's wedding, and the last piece of mail Lily sent her was an announcement of her son Harry's birth on 31 July, 1980, which she took one look at and promptly threw away.[1] However, Lily mentioned having been sent a vase for Christmas by Petunia in a letter to Sirius Black dated around 31 July, 1981.[3]
Petunia and Vernon's only child, a son named Dudley, was born on 23 June, 1980. The couple took pride in being a "normal" family, unlike Lily's.
Giving a home to her nephewEdit
- Vernon: "Their son... he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"
- Petunia: "I suppose so."
- Vernon: "What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"
- Petunia: "Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."
- — Petunia and Vernon on their nephew.[src]
Everything changed on 1 November, 1981 when Petunia opened her door to find a baby on her doorstep. The child turned out to be her sister's son, Harry Potter. A letter had been left by Albus Dumbledore, explaining the circumstances of Harry's arrival, including the death of both her sister, Lily, and her brother-in-law, James. As she was the only member of the family that had her sister's blood running through her, this ensured the protection of Harry and his family from Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. She reluctantly agreed to take her orphaned nephew into her home and family, taking the responsibility to not tell Harry or anyone else about the fact that Harry was a wizard. Petunia, however, did not treat Harry as a welcome addition to her family. A constant reminder of her sister and the world she herself had been excluded from, she treated Harry like a disease, even keeping him in the cupboard under the stairs as a bedroom for much of his childhood. She made a point of showering Dudley with gifts while completely ignoring Harry, although they were both around the same age. She forced him to do all of the chores around the house, while Dudley was free to do anything he pleased. Petunia also told Harry that his parents had died in a car crash and that the scar on his forehead came from that same accident. She did not let Harry ask any questions about his family, nor generally any questions at all for that matter.
Harry's letter from HogwartsEdit
- Petunia: "Vernon, look at the address... how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"
- Vernon: "Watching... spying... might be following us."
- Petunia: "But what do we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want..."
- Vernon: "No. No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... yes, that's best... we won't do anything..."
- Petunia: "But..."
- Vernon: " I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"
- — Petunia and Vernon after the letter arrived.[src]
When Harry's Hogwarts letter arrived in 1991, she supported her husband's decision to keep the truth from Harry. They constantly tried to burn or rip up the letters, but they found that nothing was helping to stop the letters coming to Harry, so Petunia and the rest of the family moved to different places in an effort to outrun this wizarding post, until finally they were tracked down by Rubeus Hagrid. When Hagrid forced the issue of Harry's origin, Petunia lost control and let loose all of the resentment she'd held in about Lily's life.
Over the next several years, Petunia still grudgingly permitted Harry to remain in her home over the summers, recharging the blood protections that kept him and her family safe from Lord Voldemort throughout the rest of the year.
Dudley's attack and contact with the wizarding worldEdit
- Vernon: "And what the ruddy hell are Dementors?"
- Petunia: "They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban"
- Harry: "How d'you know that?"
- Petunia: "I heard - that awful boy - telling her about them - years ago"
- — Petunia speaks of her knowledge of the wizarding world.[src]
In the summer before Harry's fifth year, Dudley and Harry were attacked by Dementors, and were only saved by Harry performing underage magic. She unintentionally revealed some knowledge of the wizarding world by telling Vernon what Dementors were. When asked how she knew, she said that she heard "that awful boy" and Lily talking about them (although Harry assumed at the time that this was referring to his father, due to his ignorance of Snape's childhood friendship with his mother). When Vernon ordered Harry out of the house, she reluctantly stepped in after a howler (later revealed to have been from Dumbledore) arrived telling Petunia to "remember my last."[4] Petunia cloaked her decision to allow Harry to stay in characterstic motives - that she knew it would appear strange to the neighbours if Harry suddenly vanished. Whether this was the true reason for allowing her nephew to remain there or perhaps a glimmer of family loyalty was left unsaid.
Hiding from Death EatersEdit
- "She stopped and looked back. For a moment Harry had the strangest feeling that she wanted to say something to him: she gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech"
- —Petunia fighting to say goodbye and good luck to Harry as she leaves.[src]
In the summer of 1997, the blood protections were due to expire. Petunia, Dudley, and Vernon were placed under the protection of Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones, both members of the Order of the Phoenix.
Just before the group left Privet Drive, Petunia watched her son offer the first words of acceptance Harry had ever heard from a Dursley, and she burst into tears on Dudley. Petunia walked towards the door to leave, looked back at Harry and opened her mouth to speak, but shortly after she pursed them back up and walked out. Petunia had wanted to wish Harry luck with his quest, but suppressed it and left Privet Drive with her family. They went into hiding from Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort, who probably would have tried to torture them into giving away Harry's whereabouts.
Later lifeEdit
- "I think that for one moment she trembled on the verge of wishing Harry luck; that she almost acknowledged that her loathing of his world, and of him, was born out of jealousy. But she couldn't do it; years of pretending that 'normal' was best had hardened her too much."
- —J. K. Rowling on what Petunia wanted to say shortly before the Dursley's departure.
In later life, her only son Dudley married and had at least two children, making her a grandmother and mother-in-law to Dudley's wife. Harry has said to have been on "Christmas card" terms with Dudley and his family and went to visit them occasionally, which his children hated.[5] It is unknown whether she remained in contact with her nephew thereafter.
Physical appearanceEdit
Petunia was a thin, blonde-haired woman with pale eyes, and described as having "nearly twice the usual amount of neck."[6] It is also mentioned that she looked like a horse when she pursed her lips. Many times it was also stated that she had horse-like front teeth.
Personality and traitsEdit
- "That's where you're going! A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy . . . weirdos, that's what you two are. It's good that you're being separated from normal people. It's for our safety."
- —Petunia confronts her sister before leaving the train station
Petunia was a nosy, repressed woman who, like her husband, was obsessed with "appearing normal". Petunia hated and was very much afraid of magic, and, indeed, anything out of the ordinary. She blindly doted on her son Dudley, but shunned Harry throughout his entire childhood because of his "peculiarities".At the heart of Petunia's character was her secret regret at having not been born with magical talents like her sister. As a child, Petunia was both frightened of and envious of her sister's astonishing abilities. When Lily was accepted into Hogwarts, Petunia wrote a letter to Professor Dumbledore begging him to take her as well. He rejected her kindly, but when Lily discovered the exchange, Petunia only said that she "didn't want to go to that 'freak' school anyways".
Petunia frequently referred to witches and wizards as "freaks." However, never did she forget that Harry was her sister's son. She begrudgingly gave him room and board for sixteen years because she knew that her home was the only place that he could be safe from the hands of Lord Voldemort.
Due to having grown up with wizards, Petunia had a somewhat greater familiarity with magic than Vernon. For example, she surprised her family by revealing that she had known about Azkaban from overhearing discussions between her sister and "that awful boy". However, this knowledge is quite limited, since Petunia was unfamiliar with subjects such as Quidditch and Transfiguration. Another example of her crude comprehension of magic was her belief that her deplorable treatment of her nephew could suppress any "abnormality" in his system.
Petunia may have had a good relationship with her parents. However, they favoured Lily because of her special talents and Petunia felt left out (this may have contributed even more to her intense dislike of magic). It is known that they had died by the time Petunia had a son.
Lily Evans was Petunia's only sibling. When Lily's magical abilities began to manifest themselves, Petunia was torn between curiosity and disapproval. Their relationship became even more strained when Lily became friends with Severus Snape, the creepy boy next door.
When Lily was admitted to Hogwarts, Petunia secretly wrote to Professor Dumbledore begging him to let her attend as well. After that, Petunia began calling wizards and witches "weirdos" and denied the existence of her sister as much as possible. She would not admit it, but deep inside her, Petunia still cared for Lily and was in all probability devastated when her sister was murdered. As James didn't have a family, it was Petunia who arranged the funeral for her sister and brother-in-law and had them buried in Godric's Hollow. In truth, Petunia may have wanted to make amends with her only sister, but to her everlasting regret she never got the chance.
Vernon DursleyEdit
Petunia met Vernon Dursley at work, and married him sometime later.[1] She identified with his narrow-minded views and was proud of his position at work. She and Vernon ignored Harry as much as possible and excluded him from most of the family activities.
They were extremely vain and materialistic and preoccupied with status. They gave Dudley everything he wanted, allowing him to rule the house. Conversely, they kept strict control over Harry; he performed the chores, cooked the meals (or at least breakfast), and spent time otherwise locked in the cupboard under the stairs. After Harry re-entered the wizarding world, Petunia and Vernon's control over him diminished.
It is unknown if Vernon knew that his wife wanted to attend Hogwarts herself in the past, about her previously close relationship with Lily, or her childhood with the wizard Severus Snape. Given the fact that Petunia had always wanted to appear 'normal', it is possible that she did not tell him.
Dudley DursleyEdit
- "The best that can be said is that Harry has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you."
- —Professor Dumbledore admonishes Petunia's parenting skills during his second visit to Privet Drive
Dudley was Petunia's first and only child. To say that Dudley was pampered and spoiled is an understatement. Petunia and her husband catered to Dudley's every whim, and lavished affection on him while completely disregarding Harry. They praised Dudley excessively, despite the fact that he rarely worked hard or achieved anything noteworthy (except perhaps his considerable boxing abilities, but even that was essentially an extension of his aggressive, bullying nature). Petunia never acknowledged when her son was in the wrong and overlooked his many flaws. As a result of her indulging Dudley's gluttony, he grew up extremely obese. Petunia, however, was in complete denial about her son's size and said that it was just "baby fat."
Petunia was a poor parent because she cared more about indulging her son than teaching him how to be a good person, and as a consequence, he grew up to be lazy, selfish and with no moral values. This fact came back to haunt Dudley when he encountered the dementor.
Harry PotterEdit
- Harry Potter: "What's this?"
- Petunia Dursley: "Your new school uniform."
- Harry Potter: "Oh, I didn't realise it had to be so wet."
- — Petunia Dursley[src]
She didn't accept Harry as a second son and never gave him the love and affection he needed and craved from her. She kept him entirely ignorant of the wizarding world, and tried to make her family look as normal as possible, as part of her attempts to hide Harry from other people. When Harry left to search for Horcruxes in 1997, Petunia was almost able to bring herself to wish him luck, and admit that her poor treatment of him was born out of jealousy, but backed out at the last moment and left without saying a word[7].
During the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry was privy to many repressed memories of Severus Snape, after the latter's death at the fangs of Nagini, regarding his (Snape's) origins and loyalties. Many of the first memories that Harry had gazed upon depicted his future Aunt Petunia, and unwittingly explained to him the reasons for her hatred of him and magic overall, such as her falling out with his mother as children, Petunia's jealousy of Lily's magical abilities, and her childhood enmity with Snape. However, Harry was more concerned about discovering Snape's loyalties and origins than he was about decrypting Petunia's hatred for him.
Petunia would later become an aunt-in-law to Harry's wife Ginny Weasley, and a great-aunt to Harry and Ginny's three children; James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. Although Harry's relationship with Dudley had mended to the point that they remained on "Christmas card terms" and visited occasionally, it is unknown if Petunia herself ever had contact with Harry again. In spite of everything, Harry cared for her enough to push them to go into hiding for their protection. It is unknown if Petunia remained in contact with Harry again after the war.
Severus SnapeEditPetunia first met Severus Snape during their childhood. She was the sister of Lily Evans, but Petunia was a Muggle, unlike her sister. Snape and Petunia strongly disliked each other, from the first moment they met. Petunia, who was contemptuous of anything out of the ordinary, viewed him with disdain because of his poor economic status, and because he was such an oddball. Snape, on the other hand, regarded her balefully because she was a Muggle and also because she made disparaging comments about his clothes.
Petunia's name is the meaning of flower and the origin of the name is English. Her younger sister, Lily, also bears the name of a flower. This could have been done accidentally or by means of demonstrating Petunia's and Lily's sisterhood. A petunia is also a flower that is a symbol of resentment and anger.
Petunia's maiden name was Evans. Evans is a Welsh or English surname derived from the given name Evan[8]. As a Welsh name, Evan means "young warrior"; it can also be considered a form of the name John, meaning "God is gracious"[9].
Petunia's married surname is Dursley. Dursley is a town in Gloucestershire, England. J. K. Rowling has commented that she visited the place as a child, and hated it, which likely affected her choice of surname for the awful family, remarking "I don't imagine I'm very popular in Dursley".[10][11] The town is known for its Victorian history in coal mining. Rowling chose the name because it sounded "dull and forbidding".
Behind the scenesEdit
- The role of Petunia is played by Fiona Shaw.
- Her appearance in the films is somewhat different than the books, where she is described as being "blonde and horse-toothed." In the films, however, she has brown hair and normal teeth.
- In a deleted scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Petunia is seen looking very solemn, standing in the middle of the empty living room at Privet Drive. Harry walks down the stairs and stops when he sees her. She says that she has lived in this house for twenty years, and now she's expected to leave in one night. Harry explains how they will torture her, and stop at nothing. Petunia replies that she knows what they are capable of, that night at Godric's Hollow, Harry didn't just lose a mother, Petunia lost a sister. After which, she hurries out the door. This is very likely what Petunia was going to say in the book, but chose not to.
- Ariella Paradise portrays the young Petunia Evans in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
- Petunia was the first female character to be introduced in the series, though in the films it is Minerva McGonagall.
- Since Petunia's sister, Lily, was a Muggle-born witch, both girls must have a wizarding ancestory, however distantly. This means that Petunia was still related to wizards, even if she pretended she did not have a sister.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game) (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game) (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game) (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Appears in flashback(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
- Pottermore (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter Trading Card Game
Notes and referencesEdit
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Pottermore backstory of Vernon and Petunia Dursley
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 In a deleted scene on disc two of the Blu-ray edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Petunia tells Harry, "I have lived in this house for twenty years", indicating she settled at 4 Privet Drive in 1977, since the scene is set in 1997. Since the Pottermore backstory for Petunia mentions Lily was still in her final year at Hogwarts during Vernon and Petunia's engagement, and Lily's final year was 1977-1978, the engagement must have thus occurred on or after 1 September, 1977 and the wedding and moving in together by 31 December, 1977.
- ↑ Deathly Hallows, Chapter 11
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Dumbledore was referencing the last letter he wrote Petunia explaining the familiar protection Harry had in Petunia's care.
- ↑ J. K. Rowling Talks Marriage, Writing and More at Open Book Tour Stop in New York City
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- ↑ J.K. Rowling and the Live Chat, Bloomsbury.com, 30 July, 2007
- ↑ Behind the Name: Evans
- ↑ Behind the Name: Evan
- ↑ Wikipedia:Dursley
- ↑ 2001 BBC Online Chat


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This is a beginner hip hop combo where we will put together basic grooves into a routine. We will travel through the space, and practice moves on both sides of the body.
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text:
Living with herpes: an interview with Tom
Tom, 38, is a school teacher from a Boston-area suburb who was diagnosed with herpes in 1992 and later became active in the local HELP support group sponsored by the American Social Health Association (ASHA).
Q. What were your initial symptoms?
. I had a full-blown primary outbreak -- fever, aches,
pains, tiredness, congestion, back pain and, last but not least,
lesions on my genitals.
Q. Did you have any idea what it was?
A . I did but for the wrong reasons. At the time, I knew next to nothing about herpes. I thought I might have contracted it from a former girlfriend who thought she might have had herpes. I later learned that you couldn't get an outbreak years later. If you get a primary outbreak it's because your body has no defense to the herpes virus which is completely inconsistent with it being dormant for years. I discovered that the woman I was involved with for several years before the outbreak had herpes long before she met me but didn't know it because she mostly shed (had lesions) on her buttocks. I didn't get it right away because she didn't shed from her genitals. She'd gone to her doctor but he didn't diagnose it as herpes.
Q. So you can have herpes and not know it?
A . It happens all the time. It's usually men who have it and get symptoms at very low levels; the lesions can be so small that you can't see them with the naked eye but you're still shedding. So a lot of men don't know they have it until they infect their partners. And then they can be real jerks about it.
Q. What treatment did you get?
A. I was living in Costa Rica at the time and the doctor there thought it was another venereal disease and gave me tetracycline. After a few weeks it just got better on its own. When I travelled to the U.S. a few months later, I had a blood test because I wasn't having symptoms. [A fingerprint test was recently developed since some blood tests will only test for the presence of one herpes antibody.]
Q. How did you feel when you found out?
A. I was pretty upset. I was pretty sure I had herpes from the symptoms but had that little bit of hope that it wasn't a permanent disease. I was tested for HIV at the same time and the first thing they said to me was "you're negative" and they meant HIV not herpes, which gave me some perspective.
Q. Where did you get health care?
A . I went to a health center specializing in STDs. The woman I dealt with there was very professional and could answer my questions. It was a positive experience. I got a prescription for Acyclovir [the standard herpes medication] which I didn't need until I had another outbreak six months later. However, as a volunteer for a support group, I hear horror stories about how people are treated by their doctors. They are belittled and misdiagnosed because doctors don't know much about this disease. From the medical standpoint, it's not going to kill you. The general course of the disease is that you have a primary outbreak that's pretty bad, and you have a few years when you're having regular outbreaks, but they diminish over time. It's devastating when you're diagnosed, but herpes manifests very differently in different people.
Q. How did the diagnosis affect your life?
A . I had to tell people I had herpes before I slept with them; you've got to have that conversation. Of course you have to be much more serious about having protected sex. The first times I had to talk with someone were really hard and I came pretty close to not doing it. It gets easier every time. I didn't have any bad experiences, but people do. More often than not, the person doesn't leave. I've heard that only one-third of partners walk away. There's also a big part of your life you can't talk about. Unlike other illnesses, when you're having an outbreak and have pain and itching in your genitals and are feeling like crap, you can't tell people at work about it. People don't want to hear it, just like you wouldn't tell them about gonorrhea. It's hard having a health issue that you can only tell a few people about.
Q. Who did you turn to for support?
A . Family and a few close friends. Everyone's been very supportive.
Q.What was your most difficult moment?
A . My wife contracted herpes and had these random symptoms we'd only heard about happening in a few other people. She had nerve damage and pain and it lasted for almost two years. It got better over time but the first year was really rough. We were careful but one outbreak snuck up on me. The outbreaks are usually related to stress and lack of sleep. It was the end of the summer I was getting ready for school, and not expecting an outbreak.
Q. What about your best moment?
A. The fact that we were able to have a safe, vaginal delivery of our healthy daughter in spite of the increased risks with herpes. We were able to manage the disease so that we could approach the pregnancy with confidence and have it turn it out well.
Q. What resource have you found particularly helpful?
A. Definitely the ASHA HELP group. My wife and I ended up providing more support than we were receiving. We're managing the disease well enough in our lives so it's nice to give back. We've met surprisingly few couples where one infected the other. We were sort of unique. Most of the people you see are unattached and really up against the whole issue of talking about it with partners. You have people who don't go out, and people who break up with partners before they have to tell them. A lot of times we felt that we offered a more positive vision: that you can work out a relationship even if you infect your partner. We experienced the worst case scenario and it worked out. A lot of people wanted to hear my story and how I told my wife. We told that story a lot. When I was diagnosed, I wasn't that freaked out about having herpes. My feeling was it's not the end of the world, I can take that on.
Q. What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the time?
A . I've become much better informed. There are so many subtleties with this disease and so many potential ways to transmit it. For instance, if you contract Herpes Type II (the genital type) by performing oral sex on someone with an outbreak, you'll get one outbreak and that's it. Herpes Type II prefers the genitals and Type I (cold sores) the neck. In a support group, when you first show up you get this exhaustive amount of information about herpes. It was great to get all that information and build on it as a group facilitator. It would be great if there was more information available.
Q. What is the most important thing people can learn from your story?
A . Having herpes is not the end of the world by a longshot. It basically comes down to being an inconvenience. Every so often you can't have sex for two weeks. You're not a leper, your sex life and your life in general is not ruined at all by this. You can lead a perfectly normal life with herpes.


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Rays -9:45 PM: Tonight's game has been postponed and will be played at noon on Sunday. What happened tonight will be erased from the books. But here it is:
Red Sox -
Bartlett (csbbbf) line drive single to left. Crawford (bcb) ground ball single into center, Bartlett to second. Longorias (cbcbfbff) fly out to Ellsbury in left-center. Zobrist (cb) dribbler down third base line for a single, Lowell had no play, bases loaded. Burrell (b - TARP7:29 PM: Rain delay after only 13 minutes of play. Very smart to begin this one. Tampa has the bases loaded with one out -- Bartlett single to left, Crawford single to center, Longoria F8, Zobrist infield single to third -- and a 1-0 count on Pat Burrell. Lester has thrown 24 pitches.
Many thanks to Ish for his hosting of threads in my absence.
So with 23 games to play:
BP has the odds of the Yankees winning the East at 99.66%. They will forever own the biggest choke in playoff history -- why not tack on some regular season ignominy, too?AL East
9 GB, MFY Magic #: 14
Wild Card
2 GA, Red Sox Magic #: 22
Starting .... now!
Orioles/Yankees at 7 and Mariners/Rangers at 8.
1907 - White Sox Doc White's AL record of 65.1 innings pitched without issuing a walk ends.
1912 - Eddie Collins steals six bases as Philadelphia A's beat the Tigers 9-7. Collins will steal six bases again on September 22.
1918 - The Red Sox beat the Cubs 2-1 at Fenway park, winning the World Series in six games.
1964 - Angels reliever Bob Lee fractures his right hand punching a heckling sailor in Boston.
1974 - The Mets lose to the Cardinals 4-3 in 25 innings at Shea Stadium. The Mets' 103 plate appearances is the only time a team has ever topped 100 PA in one game (the Cards had 99). The game ends at 3:13 AM.
1995 - The Yankees record no assists in a 4-0 win in Cleveland. It's the third no-assist game in AL history, and the fourth overall.
2001 - Former minor league players Marty Boryczewski (Cantor Fitzgerald/WTC 1) and Brent Woodall (Keefe, Bruyette & Woods/WTC 2) are killed in the terrorist attacks.
I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described. ... The [NORAD air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public ... [A]t some level of the government ... there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher, states: "Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version [is] almost entirely untrue ..."
However, it is also important to realize that there is no "official story" of what happened eight years ago. For example, NORAD has given at least seven different versions of the military's response before and during the hijackings.
Any actual investigation of 9/11 would be the first, but most people -- despite the "Never Forget!" bumper stickers -- no longer care (or never cared in the first place), considering how stories like this are published with some frequency and immediately ignored.
Please spend some time with the Complete 9/11 Timeline at the amazing History Commons website.


text:
NASA could stand to tighten up the security of its data, according to a report filed with the US House of Representatives Wednesday. Virtually none of the agency's portable devices are encrypted, and 48 of them were lost or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011. One of those was an unencrypted notebook containing algorithms to command and control the International Space Station.
The report notes that while around 54 percent of devices used government-wide are encrypted, only 1 percent of NASA's devices are encrypted as of February 2012. Even worse for the agency's information security, its security experts aren't even certain how much sensitive data has been lost, as their reports rely on those who lost the devices to self-report what was lost, rather than requiring a check of backed up files.
Lost hardware is not the least of NASA's problems, either: the report also addresses cyber attacks often launched against the agency, called advanced persistent threats. When the agency itself checked for security vulnerabilities, it found several security holes in support systems for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Through those holes, an attacker can gain control of the system or "render it unavailable."
A November 2011 attack on the Jet Propulsion Lab by Chinese-based IP addresses gave unauthorized users "full functional control" over the networks, including the ability to modify, copy, or delete sensitive files and add, modify, or delete user accounts for "mission-critical" JPL systems. That incident is still under investigation.
Overall, NASA reported 5,408 security incidents involving malware or unauthorized access to its system, costing the agency an estimated $7 million.


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Willing Hearts (Sep 2018)
11 Jln Ubi Blk 6 #01-51 Kembangan - Chai Chee Community Hub
Willing Hearts
Willing Hearts has a simple philosophy when it comes to volunteering - Just come with a warm smile, two helping hands, an open and willing heart, and one simple question "How can I be of help today?" That is all it takes to volunteer at Willing Hearts Details about volunteering at Willing Hearts can be found here * Please Select a Date and click Register to view all time slots at 5.00am, 6.30am, 8.30am, and 12.00pm ** The confirmation and reminder will indicate 5.30am. This is a default time as the kitchen opens at 5.00am. Please log in to your account for confirmation of your registration. Thank you! *** This registration system allows volunteers know the capacity we are at on any given day. Days which appear as SOLD OUT means that we are likely to be at full capacity. For individuals who would still consider dropping by and wouldnt mind the chaos and tight squeeze, we welcome you with open arms. We seek for patience and understanding should you decide to join us :)


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Irregular Expressions
I've been a big fan of UNIX and, now, of Linux. There is a certain logic to how things go together that made sense to me from the first time I saw it. That's why I'm glad to see more and more embedded systems go to some flavor of Linux.
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However, I've also noticed a dark side to the wider acceptance of Linux in general. Some of the underlying philosophy has been lost or, if not lost, then at least diluted. Part of this is just due to the nature of GUI systems. Part of it is probably ideas leaking over as people transition from other operating systems.
What kind of philosophy am I talking about? It seems to me that Linux has been moving away from the idea of small modular tools that can be tied together easily. There is also a trend towards more opaque configuration in some newer software. Granted, there are things like dbus that try to fill those gaps, but they don't seem to be as widely used or understood as the classic mechanisms of pipes and text configuration files.
If you think about it, classic UNIX (and systems like Linux) had several key tenets: Everything looks like a file; programs operate on their standard input and outputs; there is a reasonably standard syntax for things like options, globbing, and regular expressions.
Regular expressions, of course, are not specific to UNIX. However, UNIX always embraced them with tools like grep and awk. Because the support is built into the standard library, I've written a lot of code that uses regular expressions that runs under UNIX or Linux. Today, there are plenty of similar libraries for other platforms as well.
If you aren't familiar with regular expressions, they are simple text strings that define patterns that can be matched in other strings. They can range from something simple like:
which would match the string
xyz or
xz, to something very complex like this date validation expression from RegExpLib.com:
You might be thinking: Regular expressions for an embedded system? Why not? One system I was especially fond of used regular expressions to parse through input data from an external device sent via a USB serial port. Instead of hard coding the particular types of input records, a regular expression matched the record and extracted the data from the fields. If the input formats changed (and they did), it was a simple matter to edit the file that contained the regular expressions and alter the system behavior without so much as a recompile.
This leads to another problem with wider Linux adoption, though. If you've been doing UNIX for the last 25 years, you are probably a regular expression wizard. If you are just using Linux for the last week trying to get a Raspberry Pi or a Beagle Board to do something, you might not be ready to tackle some of the very hairy regular expressions you might need to create (like the date validation expression above).
One thing I've learned is that sometimes the most effective tools are ones you personally wouldn't use. A friend of mine called me last week wanting help crafting a regular expression and I realized that while I'm used to the terse nature of regular expressions, that it was probably the main obstacle to getting them right for people who haven't used them much. Yet those same people can handle a much more complicated programming language. So why can't regular expressions be more like a programming language?
I fired up emacs and started writing some pretty straightforward code (you can download it here). The idea is very similar to my universal cross assembler. The tool provides some simple functions that can be used to build regular expressions using a more verbose programming language-like syntax.
For example, this input:
start + space + zero_or_more + any_of("ABC") + literal(":") + group(digit + one_or_more)
Results in this regular expression:
Like the universal cross assembler, all the real work is being done by the C compiler (well, in this case the C++ compiler, g++). The input gets inserted into a C++ program, compiled, and the output of the program is the regular expression. You can then take the expression and use it anywhere you need it.
The whole compile and run process is handled by a shell script (recompile), which is actually more complicated than the C++ program. The preprocessor (which everyone seems to hate these days) allows you to write things like
start and have it turn into a function call.
You can skim through recomp.h to see all the syntax available. Keep in mind that there are a few flavors of regular expressions, so your mileage might vary on some items. You might also need to change the
escape and
classescape functions to suit your target environment. Long term, I probably should add command-line options to handle the different regular expression target environments, but for what I needed, this did the job.
Although this tool might be useful in or out of embedded systems development, I think it really highlights the vastly underused technique of using tools like the C or C++ compiler to do work for you. This is another part of the UNIX philosophy of stringing together tools to get a desired result. Hopefully, as Linux continues to grow in embedded systems, we won't lose sight of that original ideology.


text:
Bank of America reported a 63% drop in net income for the fourth quarter of 2012 of $732 million, or $0.03 per share, compared with $1.991 billion, or $0.15 per share, in the year-ago period. This tops equity analysts' estimates by $0.01 per share.
Revenue for the quarter, net of interest expense, on a fully taxable-equivalent (FTE) basis was $18.9 billion vs. $25.2 billion a year ago. Fourth-quarter 2012 revenue, net of interest expense and excluding $0.7 billion of debit valuation and fair value option adjustments, was $19.6 billion. Subtracting $3 billion of provisions for representations and warranties and obligations tied to mortgage-insurance issues, arising from settlement agreements with Fannie Mae, revenue (net of interest expense) was $22.6 billion. Analysts had forecast sales of $21 billion.
"We addressed significant legacy issues in 2012, and our strengths are coming through," said Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson, in a press release. "Capital and liquidity remain strong and credit continues to improve. Our primary focus this year is to grow revenue, manage expenses and drive core earnings growth."
The unit, which includes Merrill Lynch, saw its net income more than double to $578 million for the fourth quarter from $272 million a year ago. Quarterly revenue increased 6% year over year and close to 3% from the prior quarter to nearly $4.2 billion, "driven by higher asset-management fees due to higher market levels and long-term [assets under management] flows, as well as higher brokerage transactional revenue," according to the company
For the full year, net income jumped almost 30% to $2.2 billion from $1.7 billion in 2011. Sales in the wealth-management operations were up $22 million to roughly $16.52 billion in 2012.
Merrill Lynch boosted quarterly sales by nearly 3% from the third quarter and by almost 9% from the year-ago period to almost $3.53 billion. The full wealth-management unit's pretax margin was 21% for both the fourth quarter of 2012 and full-year 2012, up from 11% in the year-ago quarter and 16% for the full-year 2011.
As for the movement of assets, some $11.7 billion moved into the unit during the quarter, up from $3.9 billion in the previous quarter and $5.8 billion in the year-ago period. The company says the long-term asset flows in Q4 were $9.1 billion (up from $5.8 billion in Q3'12 and $4.8 billion in Q4'11) were the 14th consecutive period of positive momentum in this area for the wealth-management unit and the 15th consecutive quarter of positive long-term client assets under management flows for Merrill Lynch.
The number of advisors is down to 16,413 from 16,784 in September and 16,457 a year ago, mainly due to the attrition of underperforming employees in Practice Management Development, according to BofA. Including the Merrill Edge advisors, who are part of BofA's Consumer Business & Banking unit, there are 20,408 client-facing professionals in the organization, down from 20,832 in Q3 and 20,841 in Q4'11. U.S. Trust operations include 2,077 reps.
The level of productivity, or average annual fees and commissions for Merrill Lynch advisors—excluding Merrill Edge reps—improved in the fourth quarter to $935,000 vs. $903,000 in the prior quarter and $872,000 a year ago—increases of 3.5% and 7.6% respectively.
Productivity was $1.3 million for Merrill advisors, excluding those in the Practice Management Development group, in Q4, the company points out. Still, for the full year, FA productivity—including the PMD reps—dropped to $909,000 from $938,000 in 2011.
Client balances rose 7% from the year-ago period to $2.17 trillion "driven by higher market levels and net inflows, driven by client activity in long-term AUM, deposits and loans," says BofA. Assets under management ticked up $62.5 billion from the fourth quarter of 2011 to $698.1 billion, "driven by higher market levels and long-term AUM flows."
Morgan Stanley
The head of Morgan Stanley, which reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat market expectations, said the firm has reached a critical juncture in its turnaround. "After a year of significant challenges, Morgan Stanley has reached a pivot point," said CEO James Gorman in a press release, pointing at the results of its wealth management operations, which had pretax margins of 17% in Q4.
"We demonstrated meaningful progress in our wealth management joint venture [with Smith Barney], reaching the highest pretax margin since the inception of the JV. We charted a path to acquire the remainder of the JV…. Our firm is now poised to reach the returns of which it is capable on behalf of our shareholders."
In the fourth quarter, income from continuing operations was $573 million, or $0.28 per share, including a net tax benefit of about $155 million, or $0.08 per share, compared with a loss of $222 million, or $0.13 per share, for the year-ago quarter.
Excluding its debt valuation adjustment, or DVA, net revenues for the current quarter were $7.5 billion compared with $5.5 billion a year ago, and income from continuing operations was $894 million, or $0.45 per share, compared with a loss of $349 million, or $0.20 loss per share, last year. Equity analysts had expected the company to earn $0.27 per share in the most-recent quarter.
The company said it had revenues of $7 billion for the fourth quarter vs. $5.7 billion a year ago and $5.3 billion in the previous quarter.
Compensation expenses of about $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter declined 8% from $3.9 billion in the prior quarter and 4% from $3.8 billion a year ago. Morgan Stanley had 57,061 employees at the end of the fourth quarter, down 1% from the previous quarter and 7% from a year ago, when it had 61,546 employees.
Earlier in January, Morgan Stanley said it would cut 1,600 jobs, mainly in its investment banking and other institutional-services operations in the United States and overseas. Speaking with Bloomberg TV, though, Gorman said that he didn't expect further layoffs: "We are very comfortable with the headcount we have right now…. We are down 6,000 people from 12 1/2 months ago. It is pretty incredible. That's now built into our run rate of expenses. We feel very comfortable with where we are now."
In addition, it was reported that Morgan Stanley employees who make more than $350,000 a year, like traders and investment bankers, and who were set to receive cash bonuses of $50,000 and up, will have these payments deferred and paid out with both cash and stock through 2015.
Morgan Stanley's Global Wealth Management Group reported pretax income from continuing operations of $581 million, up 144% compared with $238 million in the fourth quarter of last year and up 143% from $239 million in the third quarter of 2012.
Net revenues for the current quarter were $3.5 billion, compared with $3.2 billion a year ago and $3.3 billion in the third quarter. Pretax income after the non-controlling interest allocation to Citigroup was $474 million.
(In the third quarter, Morgan Stanley completed the purchase of an additional 14% stake in the Smith Barney joint venture from Citi, increasing the firm's interest from 51% to 65%.)
Asset management fee revenues of nearly $1.9 billion increased 16% from last year's fourth quarter and 4% from the third quarter. Fees and commissions were down 8% year over year, but up 11% sequentially, to $579 million.
Compensation expense for the current quarter was $2 billion compared with $2.1 billion a year ago. Non-compensation expenses were $901 million compared with $922 million a year ago.
Total client assets were $1.8 trillion at quarter end, with client assets in fee-based accounts accounting for $573 billion, or 32% of total client assets. Global fee-based asset flows for the quarter were $3.7 billion vs. $7.5 billion in the third quarter and $4.8 billion in the year–ago quarter.
The number of financial advisors, 16,780, was down 29 from the prior quarter and off 4% from last year's tally of 17,512. Average annualized revenue per global representative was $824,000 in the fourth quarter, an improvement of 4% from the prior quarter and 13% from last year. Total client assets per Morgan Stanley advisor were $106 million in Q4, an increase 1% from last quarter and 14% from last year.
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo posted fourth-quarter 2012 earnings and sales that beat expectations, though its net interest margin—or how much it profits on loans—fell to 3.56% from 3.89% a year ago.
In the fourth quarter, net income was $5.1 billion, or $0.91 per share, compared with $4.1 billion, or $0.73 per share, in the same period of 2011. This represents a jump of 24% in net income and a 25% improvement in EPS. Sales for the period grew 7% to $21.9 billion.
The bank's full-year diluted EPS ticked up 19% to $3.36 in 2012, up 19% from $2.82 in 2011, and net income was $18.9 billion compared with $15.9 billion. Sales were $86.1 billion, up 6% from 2011.
Earnings per share for the fourth quarter, excluding certain one-time items and other adjustments, were $0.89 a share, topping analysts' estimates of $0.88 for EPS (and $21.3 billion for sales).
"From growing revenue, making strategic acquisitions and achieving efficiency improvements, I am extremely pleased with our 2012 performance," said Chairman and CEO John Stumpf, in a press release.
The Wealth, Brokerage and Retirement unit reported net income of $351 million, up 13% from the fourth quarter of 2011. Revenue was $3.1 billion, up 2% from the year-ago period.
Excluding a gain on the sale of H.D. Vest and $46 million in lower gains on deferred-compensation plan investments (offset in compensation expense), revenue was up 9%, mainly due to higher asset-based fees and brokerage transaction revenue, according to the wirehouse.
Client assets for the retail brokerage were $1.2 trillion, up 8% from the prior year. Managed-account assets increased $50 billion, or 20%, from a year ago due to strong net flows and market performance, and deposit improved 9%.
Wells Fargo said it launched an iPad application in December so clients of Wells Fargo Advisors could monitor accounts, get real-time quotes and execute trades. Also, trading capability was added for mobile brokerage clients via a mobile app and online.
In the Wealth Management segment, client assets were $204 billion, up 3% from the prior year. Institutional retirement plan assets grew 13% to $266 billion, with IRA assets improving 11% to $297 billion.
Wells Fargo Advisors, led by Danny Ludeman, said its headcount was 18,662 as of Dec. 31, up from 18,277 in the previous quarter. The number of traditional, nonbank employee advisors as of Dec. 31 was 10,945 vs. 10,857 on Sept. 30.
In mid-November, Wells Fargo said it recruited 24 advisors with $2.2 billion in assets in recent months for its traditional Private Client Group channel. Its independent-advisor channel, FiNet, noted that it added seven advisors with about $1.3 billion in assets in November. WFA should report its December advisor data late on Friday.
"We are very pleased with the company's outstanding performance despite the challenges our industry faced during this past year, including continued low interest rates and elevated unemployment," said Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan, in a statement. "Our balanced business model helped us deliver strong results throughout these challenging times and should provide us the opportunity to continue to deliver value to our shareholders in the coming year."
UBS reported a fourth-quarter net loss (after taxes) of 1.89 billion Swiss francs (about $2.08 billion), or 0.50 Swiss francs per share, vs. a gain of 323 million Swiss francs, or 0.08 Swiss francs, a year ago, and a loss of 2.14 billion Swiss francs, or -0.57 Swiss francs, in the third quarter. Equity analysts polled by Reuters had expected the loss to be 2.08 billion Swiss francs, while those tracked by Bloomberg had anticipated the loss reaching 2.16 billion Swiss francs.
The bank said it had 6.22 billion Swiss francs in operating income in the fourth quarter of 2012 vs. 5.86 billion Swiss francs last year and 6.29 billion Swiss francs in the prior quarter. Due to the LIBOR troubles and related issues, the investment bank reported operating loss before taxes was 1.82 billion Swiss francs vs. a gain of 481 million Swiss francs a year ago and a loss of 2.53 billion Swiss francs in prior quarter.
"We made decisive progress in executing our strategy last year and started 2013 in a strong position," said Group CEO Sergio Ermotti, in a press release. "Our financial strength, our attractive and unique business mix and our enviable global client franchise give us a competitive advantage."
UBS Americas says its wealth-management operations had invested assets of $843 billion, up 1% from $832 billion in the prior quarter and up 12% from $756 billion in the year-ago period. Revenue for the unit grew 7% sequentially and 16% year over year to $1.75 billion vs. $1.63 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively. The group's pretax profit was $216 million, however, down 7% from $232 million in 3Q '12 but up 36% from $159 million in 4Q '11.
Its advisor headcount stood at 7,059 on Dec. 31, up 27 from 7,032 in 3Q '12 and an increase of 92 from 6,967 in 4Q '11. Net new money in the fourth quarter was $8.8 billion, a jump of 84% from $4.8 billion in 3Q '12 and an increase of 312% from $2.1 billion in 4Q '11. Including dividends and interest, net new assets were $16.7 billion, up 70% from $9.8 billion in 3Q '12 and an improvement of 93% from $8.6 billion in 4Q '11.
Yearly average revenue—or fees and commissions—per advisor was $1,001,000, up 8% from $927,000 in 3Q '12 and an uptick of 15% from $869,000 in 4Q '11. "Our revenue per advisor puts us ahead of our peers on this metric for yet another quarter and demonstrates our achievement of our goal of million-dollar-producing advisors," the company said in a statement.
Invested assets per advisor were $119 million, an increase of 1% from $118 million in 3Q'12 and up 10% from $108 million in 4Q'11.


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It was his turn to weep out when he shot his load. He pumped as much goo into her back as he might and after that, he lay back to capture his breath. Sweet, nevertheless, was not in the state of mind for resting and she rapidly presumed the 69 positions taking his leaking rod into her mouth.
Candice thought about and shrugged. And she might see Jed was feeling the very same method, from the unique bulge in his trousers.
Sage declared the factor she chose to leave him was his continuous needs for kinky sex, something Candice discovered hard to believe about her very courteous and peaceful brother-in-law. The entire circumstance troubled her a lot that she chose to face him and hear his side of the story.
After numerous minutes of extreme cock-ramming, he offered a primeval holler and his goo exuded into her. She kept her brother-in-law as tight as she might and whispered, "I enjoy you Jed, I enjoy you."
His manly upper body took the breath out of her for an immediate, however, she handled to cross her legs as he had a hard time to require his throbbing dick into her. His effective hands quickly treasured them apart and he drove his rod inside her well-oiled vaginal area with substantial force. She attempted to press him off however he got her wrists, pinned them behind her head and after that fucked her with revenge.
Jed took some fragrant oil and rubbed it all over her body. When they were finished their slippery job, he asked her to combat him off when he attempted to fuck her.
Candice might feel his tough knob digging into her ass which finger poking around in a location of her vaginal area that offered her a little bit of an adventure.
Candice Johansson enjoyed her sibling Sage however, when she abandoned her spouse Jed, she was not delighted. She 'd constantly liked her sis's other half. He 'd constantly been there for the remainder of the household, whether they remained in monetary requirement or they desired the restroom door repairing.
Candice slipped her arms down and got onto that huge throbbing dick with one hand and his balls with the other. When she began to move her long fingers sensually around his groin, he started to get extremely tense.
" My sis states you were constantly requiring kinky sex," she blurted out over coffee.
Candice Johansson liked her sis Sage, however when she strolled out on her hubby Jed, she was not delighted. Jed's face lit up like a Christmas tree and he rapidly took her hand and led her to the bedroom. It was a bit of a shock to Jed however he took it like a male and his face was quickly ingrained in between her thighs, his tongue moving up and down her scrumptious damp fracture. Jed took some fragrant oil and rubbed it all over her body. Jed jumped up after her and brought her down in a take on however when more she slipped away and fell onto the sheepskin carpet next to the bed.
Unexpectedly without warning, he returned, got his sister-in-law by the hips and turned her over. Candice raised herself onto her knees so that her rear end was up in the air, and he simply rammed his penis directly her ass. It seemed like somebody had actually sodomized her with a baseball bat.
" You see, I stick my cock up her rectum and I move a vibrator into her twat," he described, letting her go and going back. "Then often we 'd sixty-nine, while I pushed the vibrator up her rear end. I can't see anything incorrect because-- can you?"
After a couple of thrusts, he reached under the pillow and produced a vibrator. It was rather a battle to push it up her cunt as he drove his penis deep into her ass however determination brought success. Jed's own level of enjoyment increased drastically, the more she called out.
" You inform me," she stated.
" Well I could reveal you," he mumbled, "I imply as we both have all our clothing on it can't be thought about precisely intimate can it?"
He began by trying to get her around the waist however she slid out of his grasp and got on the bed, screeching as she did so. As soon as more she slipped away and fell onto the sheepskin carpet next to the bed, Jed jumped up after her and brought her down in a deal with however. The tickly wool on her skin triggered to her to lose concentration for a moment, which enabled him to dive on the top of her.
It was the start of a long and kinky relationship. Candice relocated with Jed and later on, Sage, who was rather delighted with a guy who just did the missionary position with the lights off, wound up relocating with Candy's partner.
Blowing and drawing, they battled each other till sweating sparkled on their skin. It just took a couple of seconds for them both to orgasm however, caught up in a virtual sexual craze, they kept the action going up until they were both totally invested. Gasping for breath, he withdrew his tongue from her slit however Candice was taking pleasure in numerous cummy aftershocks and requested he leave the vibrator in for a while.
Jed's face illuminated like a Christmas tree and he rapidly took her hand and led her to the bed room. He had his clothing off in no time flat and she was considerably impressed by the length and the width of his penis. It made her partner's appear like a stick of licorice.
She thought twice for a minute, however then requiring to get to the truth of the matter, she concurred. Jed asked her to flex over a chair and after that continued to push tough versus her bottom, with one arm circled her and a finger carefully rubbing the front of her skirt.
" Look," she stated, with a huge sigh, "I'm the last one to cheat on my "spouse" however if you feel the requirement to alleviate some stress, I'm ready to do a few of this things with you-- however simply this when-- simply to get my mind directly regarding whether Sage was validated in her choice."
It was a little bit of a shock to Jed however he took it like a male and his face was quickly ingrained in between her thighs, his tongue moving up and down her tasty damp fracture. As they excitedly drew each other's tender areas, he again grabbed the vibrator and stuck it up her ass. When it began to carefully pulsate she freaked out and started to fluctuate on his dick like a mad female.
" Depends on what you call kinky," he responded, looking a little ashamed.


text:
My Big Company Code Interview
It's always exciting to get an email like this from an iconic tech giant:
Hi Mark,
I recently found your profile in our database, and your background is impressive. The (redacted big company) Media Division will be flying several candidates in for interviews at our (redacted big city) headquarters in April and considering you.
I'm not actively seeking a new job, so normally I'd just file this away in my emergency just-laid-off folder, but this email had a twist that got my attention:
If interested in exploring Development opportunities with us, the first step will be to complete our coding challenge ideally within the next 3 to 5 days.
Who doesn't love a coding challenge?
The Code Interview
It's been years since I gave up on chat interviews. It just seems like these don't work so well — we all feel like we are insightful judges of candidate quality, but somehow the people we hire just don't always turn out as well as we hope.
So now when my name shows up on the list of people interviewing a candidate, I forgo the usual get-to-know-you experience in exchange for one or two simple programming exercises. Watching someone think on their feet under modest pressure seems more enlightening than anything I can get through conversation.
Apparently the big company contacting me has decided on a similar approach. The link included with the email sent me to a site called Interview Zen, which promised an interactive experience:
In this interview you will be shown a number of questions and asked to answer each one in turn. ... Your interviewer will be able to see your answer unfold as if they were sitting at the keyboard next to you.
This sounded pretty cool, but the actual implementation fell quite short of what I had hoped to see.
First, the promise of seeing me solve the problem interactively was just not met. I was asked a single, fairly complex question by Interview Zen, and given a choice from a dropdown of maybe 25 different languages to use for my solution. Interview Zen doesn't provide any sort of IDE; it specifically asked me to develop my answer elsewhere and post it when complete.
After posting my solution to the site, it was reformatted using some sort of pretty printer, and then...nothing. No message indicating I was done, no next step, just a page with my solution. So much for interaction.
And any interviewer watching the process would see my screen sit there completely blank for almost an hour, then a deus ex machina as somewhere around a hundred lines appear on the screen.
I expect that if you want to use Interview Zen properly, you need to create a staged series of questions so you can actually see this happen, and my big company didn't bother to do this.
But still, they get what they are looking for, which is a completed code sample of a reasonable size — big enough to actually demonstrate some work, small enough to evaluate quickly.
On To the Challenge
What's more interesting is the challenge itself. I'll lay out the assignment for you, show you my solution, and then you can decide whether I am worth hiring based on my work.
The challenge question is to write a function that produces a list of products based on what your friends are buying. I am given two functions:
getFriendsListForUser(): This function returns a list of users who are friends of a given user.
getPurchasesForUser(): This function returns a list of products that have been purchased by a given user.
The function I am asked to write will create a list of all the products purchased by a given user's friends, ranked by frequency — the most frequently purchased products should appear first. The list should exclude any products that the user has already purchased.
I'm going to present the code I created step by step, excluding comments and verbiage that belong in the finished file. You can see the whole thing by downloading getRecommendations.cpp.
The Interface
To kick things off I need to define the types I'm using, the functions provided in the problem definition, and the function I'm writing.
No big surprises here. About the only thing of interest to note is that I'm using a typedef for the customer and product IDs. It would be easy enough to just leave these as type
std::string, but adding a little type safety is a nicety — and it actually surfaced a mistake made during development.
typedef std::string CustomerId; typedef std::string ProductId; std::vector<CustomerId> getFriendListForUser(const CustomerId &user ); std::vector<ProductId> getPurchasesForUser(const CustomerId &user ); std::vector<ProductId> getRecommendations(const CustomerId &user) {


text:
Davy Jones
I've never really gone public with this. But I am a tremendous Monkees geek. It must have started early because that's me at age six or seven with a genuine Monkees guitar -- which would be worth a fortune now if I still had it. Alas I do not.
But I do have all of The Monkees' albums, most of them in the Super Deluxe versions Rhino Records has been issuing for the past few years. The Monkees were a huge influence on me when I was making the Dimentia 13 records.
Long before it was available on home video, I went and saw a screening of The Monkees movie HEAD up in Cleveland. I was dumbstruck by the film's theme song, "The Porpoise Song" and annoyed that the record was, in those days, utterly impossible to find. So I went home and attempted to rewrite the song for myself from memory just so I'd have it to listen to.
About a year later I finally managed to track down a record with "The Porpoise Song" on it. I discovered that my song, "I Am a Whale" was similar in style to The Monkees but was different enough that I used it as the last track on the first Dimentia 13 record. A video I made of the song is at the bottom of this page. You can click on the words "The Porpoise Song" in the paragraph above if you want to compare it to The Monkees' tune.
So I was pretty sad to hear yesterday that Davy Jones had died. Davy wasn't my favorite Monkee. He always seemed to sing crummy syrupy ballads like The Day We Fall in Love or Dream World. But he also sang lead on some of their best songs, like Valerie and Cuddly Toy. He also had the good taste to feature Neil Young as the lead guitarist on his tune You And I from The Monkees' late period album Instant Replay.
It's odd the way celebrity deaths affect you. I never met Davy Jones, though I saw The Monkees in concert a few times in the eighties. But he was important in my life nonetheless.
Just a day before Davy died there was a horrendous shooting at Chardon High School, just a few miles north of where I live. A maniac with a gun killed three of his fellow students and wounded two others. It's a tragic story that happens far too often. It makes me sad and angry. I was one of those kids who hated everybody in my school too. But I never shot anyone. These things make no sense. Nor does the number of handguns in America. But don't get me started on that one.
I feel like it's probably more worthy to write a tribute to those kids in Chardon. But I didn't know them. And in some ways I kinda sorta knew Davy Jones even if he didn't know me. Besides that, the news outlets here in NE Ohio seem to be doing tributes to those kids 24/7. Some of which are incredibly awful.
At times like these people who are supposed to be spiritual teachers like to put some sort of spin on the news that ties it in with their beliefs. I hate it when people do that. So I'm not gonna launch into a sermon about impermanence or any such schlock.
I'm just sad that Davy Jones is dead. And those kids. And even that conservative blogger dude I never heard of until he died.


text:
The Sox got all the runs they needed in the first inning, when Varitek hit a bases-loaded triple off Hudson and scored on Hinske's single. Pedroia doubled and scored on Ortiz's force in the second. Yook hit a solo home run around the Pesky Pole in the fifth.
Andruw Jones struck out swinging five times (including ending the game as the potential tying run against Papelbot).
Three other East teams lost this afternoon: Baltimore (now 10.5 GB), Toronto (11 GB) and Tampa Bay (12 GB). ... The Yankees (11 GB) play the Mets tonight.
Tim Hudson (1.77, 225 ERA+) / Kason Gabbard (2007 debut)
It's Connecticut Day at Fenway Park and (once again) intermittent light rain is in the forecast.Crisp, CF
Youkilis, 3B
Ortiz, DH
Ramirez, LF
Drew, RF
Varitek, C
Hinske, 1B
Cora, SS
Pedroia, 2B
Lefty Gabbard made his major-league debut last July 22 in Seattle (5.1-8-3-2-2-3) (Ortiz played first base that day.). He posted a 3.51 ERA in seven appearances. In eight starts for Pawtucket this year, his ERA is 2.75.
(Tonight, the Mets go for a sweep of the Yankees, who will be sending out their 11th starting pitcher (and 7th rookie) this year. Boston used 14 starters last season.)


text:
Can he go any lower?
In his latest quarterly letter to shareholders (does 4,000 words still qualify as a letter?), GMO's chief market pessimist Jeremy Grantham (left) reviews new data related to "likely lower GDP growth," the investment implications that might come with "lower GDP growth," and reaction to his letter from last quarter, specifically about his outlook for "lower GDP growth."
It's hard to believe he actually considers it to be a positive outlook. He begins with validation of his previous predictions.
"Some information came out after the 4Q 2012 letter or was missed by us and is worth mentioning," Grantham notes. "First, the Congressional Budget Office slashed its estimate of the U.S. long-term growth trend from 3.0% to 1.9%! Given the source and the magnitude of the adjustment, I think it is fair to say that their number is 'close enough for government work' to our 1.5%."
But will lower GDP growth necessarily lower stock returns? Surprisingly, Grantham "break[s] ranks" with other pessimists because he believes "theory and practice strongly indicate that lower GDP growth does not directly affect stock returns or corporate profitability."
What about lower real rates? Will they lead to lower stock returns?
"Economic theory can't get everything completely wrong," he writes in typical Grantham fashion. "[P]erhaps one thing economists have gotten partly right is that the risk-free rate has some relationship to the growth rate of the economy. If that rate approaches zero, there is clearly less demand for new capital; in fact, given accurate depreciation accounting, there would be zero net new capital required. It is also easy to see the risk-free rate settling at something around nil. The risk premium, however, might be little affected. The demand for risk capital … would still require that the investor expect an adequate return. If it looked likely to be less than that, he would of course withhold his capital until inevitable shortages pushed up profits enough for the corporation to get a satisfactory return, as we have often discussed.
"However, and I bring up this complicated issue with trepidation," he concedes, "it does seem possible that in a world with both lower growth and a lower risk-free rate that the risk premium might also drop a little."
Noting that last quarter's low growth estimate caused a stir, Grantham defends it by saying it was only produced as "a necessary backdrop to show the potential significance of our two new points: the large deduction for a cost squeeze from resources (0.5%) and a very slight but increasing squeeze from climate damage (0.1% rising to 0.4% after 2030), which latter deduction is considered almost ludicrously conservative by that handful of economists that study the costs of climate change."
"Where on earth did GMO get its pessimistic population data?" read one complaint from a shareholder. The U.S. Census Bureau, Grantham answers dryly.
Grantham wouldn't be Grantham without going after Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve, and he doesn't disappoint.
"The Fed's negative real rates regime, designed to badger us into riskier investments in order to push up equity prices and grab a short-term wealth effect (that must be given back one day when least comfortable and least expected), has gone on for a long and, for me, boring time."
So what are some of these effects, he rhetorically asks?
- The artificially low T-Bill rates first work their way slowly up the curve.
- Next, the most obviously competitive type of equities—high-yield stocks—begin to be bid up ahead of the rest of the market, as has happened. "I've just got to squeeze out some higher rates somewhere, anywhere," is the pension fund plea.
- Then, this low-rate competition begins to filter into other securities, historically sought after for their higher yields: higher-grade real estate, where the "cap rates" slowly fall; and, unfortunately, also forestry and farmland, mainly of the larger and more standard varieties that appeal to institutions, which show declines in their required yields, i.e., their prices rise. The longer the engineered rates stay below true market rates, the higher asset prices become until, yes, you've got it, corporate assets begin to sell way over replacement cost.
- Then, if the heart of capitalism is still beating at all, a long period of overinvestment begins and returns are bid down and everything moves into balance, often helped along if asset prices get too high, as in 2000 and 2007, by a good, healthy market crunch.
As for the investment implications of all he has to say, he concludes that "courtesy of the above Fed policy, all global assets are once again becoming overpriced," which reminds him of the idea sometimes attributed to Einstein that a workable definition of madness is constantly repeating the same actions but expecting a different outcome.
"But, as always, asset prices are not uniformly overpriced: emerging markets and, we believe, Japan are only moderately overpriced," he writes. "European stocks are also only a little expensive, but in today's world are substantially more risky than normal. The great global franchise companies also seem only moderately overpriced. Forestry and farmland, which is not super-prime Midwestern, is also only moderately overpriced but comes with our nook and cranny sticker attached. But much of everything else is once again brutally overpriced."
He points specifically to U.S. stocks (ex "quality") in this regard, which now sell at a negative seven-year imputed return on GMO's numbers and most global growth stocks are close to zero expected return.
"As for fixed income—fugetaboutit!" he concludes. "Most of it has negative estimated returns on our data, and longer debt, as always, carries that risk that may be slight in any period, but is horrific if it occurs—accelerating inflation."


text:
I have just visited the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website for the first time since it's relaunch on 19 January.
I must say that I am really impressed both with the look and feel of the site. It has certainly been brought 'up to date' with a much more modern style.
All the same information is there but is presented more clearly and I found it easier to navigate around the pages.
If you haven't been on yet go and have a look. What do you think about it?


text: Anyways, I'm still looking forward to this show in three weeks. Wish I could be there, but hey, maybe this summer I'll be able to afford another trip down. I honestly can't wait to see how brutal Steen and Cage go, cause I mean, Steen kills and Cage is a fuckin' machine (to quote Excalibur). Can EVERYONE at least agree on that? :D


text:
Description:10 x Dell EqualLogic 450GB 15K RPM 3.5-inch Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)Hot-Plug Hard Drive in Dell EqualLogicPS4000 / PS5000 / PS6000 series3.5-inch Hot-Plug Hard Drive Tray (as pictured)Genuine Dell EqualLogic serial number and firmwareGenuine Dell EqualLogic Certified Hard DriveCompatible Storage Arrays:Dell EqualLogic PS4000 PS4000XVDell EqualLogic PS5000 PS5000XVDell EqualLogic PS6000 PS6000XVDell EqualLogic PS6010 PS6010XV Part Number(s)
Dell Part# 9CL066-080
Seagate Part# ST3450856SS-EQL
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