Time to panic, then, or at least dust off those doom-laden predictions of a double-dip recession?

ECONOMIST: Still on amber

The instrumental, desert-swept narrative sounds hauntingly evocative, but it's the thick, foreboding tone of a rusty Telecaster that links Earth's doom-laden discography.

NPR: Earth: The Sound of Desert-Swept Doom

This explains Microsoft's strangest response to Linux: its doom-laden warnings that Linux and other open-source software will destroy the commercial industry entirely.

ECONOMIST: Software

Both their books exude the doom-laden mood that has now lifted from the country, though it will very likely descend once more soon enough.

ECONOMIST: Two writers unpick Lebanon��s complexities

The doom-laden lectures from the Americans and others in Washington last week did achieve something: Europe's policymakers now recognise that more must be done.

ECONOMIST: The world economy

Even Ken Clarke, who bowed to no-one in his doom-laden warnings about indecisive election results, is happy to admit that he got it wrong.

BBC: Why did the Tories not win the 2010 general election?

Mr Klesch has, for example, become a thorn in the side of Eurotunnel, which operates the Channel tunnel between Britain and France, making doom-laden pronouncements about the company's prospects and criticising the financial restructuring agreed on by its 200-plus banks.

ECONOMIST: Dealing in duds

There is another reason to wear black over the holidays: for those of us who look upon the approach of the festive season with the same level of doom-laden reserve that we would normally muster for a root canal, black seems entirely appropriate.

WSJ: Tina Gaudoin on Style: Back to Black