PoochyB’s Wordstock

But when Ben Bernake gave his twice-yearly monetary testimony to Congress this week he had little to offer but unvarnished and uncomfortable truths.

un·var·nished
adj.  

1. Not coated with varnish: unvarnished floors.
2. Stated or otherwise presented without any effort to soften or disguise; plain: the unvarnished truth.

Even as Western financial firms have fallen into disrepute, banks in emerging markets are treated as paragons of probity.

pro·bi·ty
n.   Complete and confirmed integrity; uprightness: “He was a gentlemanly Georgian, a person of early American probity” (Mary McGrory).

The incipient atrophy stems from the looming expiry of the Kyoto protocol, the United Nations’ treaty on global warming, at the end of 2012.

in·cip·i·ent 
adj.   Beginning to exist or appear: detecting incipient tumors; an incipient personnel problem.

Places such as New York and Portland have pockets of abstemiousness - just 9% of Manhattanites drive to work alone, compared with 75% of Angelenos.

ab·ste·mi·ous
adj.  

1. Eating and drinking in moderation.
2. Characterized by abstinence or moderation: The hermit led an abstemious way of life.

Profits are going to ugly oil-fed regimes, not Western exchequers.

ex·cheq·uer
n.  

1. Exchequer The British governmental department charged with the collection and management of the national revenue.
2. Exchequer In Great Britain, the Court of Exchequer.
3. A treasury, as of a nation or an organization.
4. Financial resources; funds.

Harrison Ford maybe 65, but he still wields a prehensile bullship with aplomb and his punches sound as though they might fell an elephant.

pre·hen·sile
adj.  

1. Adapted for seizing, grasping, or holding, especially by wrapping around an object: a monkey’s prehensile tail.
2. Having keen intellect; insightful.
3. Greedy; grasping.

After an initial burst of cuts last year focused mainly on America’s benighted mortgage industry, the pace of firing has slowed early this year.

be·night·ed
adj.  

1. Overtaken by night or darkness.
2. Being in a state of moral or intellectual darkness; unenlightened.

UBS unveiled yet another set of embarrassing quarterly results on May 6th and also announced 5,500 job losses, many of them at its investment banking unit. The cull comes soon after similar carnage at Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which also announced thousands of cuts last month.

cull
tr.v.   culled, cull·ing, culls

1. To pick out from others; select.
2. To gather; collect.
3. To remove rejected members or parts from (a herd, for example).

n.   Something picked out from others, especially something rejected because of inferior quality.

The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women – the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year – but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.

Charitable impulse of the Taiwanese is often channelled into Buddhist philanthropy, which troubles receiving countries less than the proselytizing zeal that comes attached to some brands of Christian charity.

pros·e·ly·tize
v.   pros·e·ly·tized, pros·e·ly·tiz·ing, pros·e·ly·tiz·es

v.   intr.

1. To induce someone to convert to one’s own religious faith.
2. To induce someone to join one’s own political party or to espouse one’s doctrine.

v.   tr.
To convert (a person) from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.

pros’e·ly·ti·za’tion (-tĭ-zā’shən) n., pros’e·ly·tiz’er n.

In 2004 Chinese football fans went on the rampage after their team was beaten by Japan. Now, China wanst to tamp such nationalism down.

tamp
tr.v.   tamped, tamp·ing, tamps

1. To pack down tightly by a succession of blows or taps.
2. To pack clay, sand, or dirt into (a drill hole) above an explosive.