The shock of falling down the fiscal cliff might reveal that it is finally time to get serious.
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After he got over the shock he got down to work, busily triangulating and cutting deals with the Republican Congress on trade, welfare reform and the budget.
In Italy , Juventus suffered a shock defeat after going down 2-1 at home to Sampdoria.
"I was in shock, I broke down in tears and didn't know what to say, " Daniel Del Regno told Argentine daily La Nacion.
The auditor also expressed shock at how poorly North Down Council handled the purchase of 14 ejection trailers for its new waste transfer station.
In Italy, Lazio spurned the chance to leapfrog AC Milan into third place after they went down to a shock 3-0 defeat at Siena .
For those whose memory of coaches is language bluer than the seven seas, it might come as a shock that schools are cracking down on cursing.
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According to Bruno Sidler, the chief operating officer of CEVA, which manages logistics and freight for companies in 170 countries, European manufacturers are vulnerable to any big supply shock because they have run down their inventories over the past two years to conserve cash.
Once you've come down from the initial shock, HTC's subtle flairs begin to peek out, like the solid colored speaker grill that serves to break the front face's expanse of glass with a shock of vibrancy.
Elsewhere, French eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered a shock defeat by Jerzy Janowicz, going down 6-4 7-6.
"We never sit down and say how can we shock, " Parker told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
These things are said in utter shock and disdain as if God may come down and strike me dead for using Brand X in a cocktail.
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It probably doesn't come as much of a shock to you that plenty of texting goes down midnight-ish tonight, and naturally the carriers are gearing up for just such an onslaught.
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Adams had first pitched the idea for a heat-shock blocker at Millennium in 2003 but got turned down.
Implantable defibrillators, which deliver a shock to the heart to prevent it from shutting down, have been surgically implanted into hundreds of thousands of patients in recent years.
So when Mr Samuelsson abruptly stepped down on November 23rd it came as a shock to nearly everyone.
Potter fans got a shock when fan site Mugglenet claimed it had been shut down by a court after it had broken copyrights against Warner Brothers and JK Rowling.
Enter Laimbeer, who returns to the WNBA after stepping down as coach and GM of the Detroit Shock early in the 2009 season to pursue opportunities in the NBA following a stretch in which they won three championships in six seasons.
Part of the blame for that might lie with the chancellor, but most in the City would put it down to inflation, which also came as a rude shock to the forecasters, not to mention the Bank of England and commentators like me.
What's more, oil's share of the global energy market is down from almost 50% at the time of the oil shock of 1973.
Mr. Kiarostami neither sentimentalizes tradition nor glorifies modernity, but by the conclusion, when a bone floats down a river while goats graze amid flowers, wisdom accompanies the shock of poetry.
"It's getting back into getting up at six in the morning and getting down to the lake and it's going to be a shock to the body having to do it every single day for the next few months, " he added.
For innocent Americans snuggling down to watch Two and a Half Men, it might have been a bit of a shock to find their viewing interrupted by one and a half speeches.
"I look down and I see my bone is 6 inches out of my leg and I go into automatic shock, " he told reporters at a news conference.
The former Cardiff and Sheffield United centre back has since fallen down the pecking order, but a solid start to the season after overcoming injury problems prompted a shock recall.
BBC: SPORT | Football | Internationals | Page calls time on Wales career
Murray had been an overwhelming favorite heading into his quarterfinal tie, but found himself staring at a shock exit when he conceded his first set of the week 6-4 and then went 2-0 down in the second.
"I've been walking down there for months from work, to work, with the baby, so it was a shock now to think that you were taking your life in your own hands every time you came into town, " he said.
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