By Kat and John
Weird and Wonderful Edition.
Check the banner. File under "News Less Traveled."
?Great Speculations: Why China Is So Bubble-Friendly by Adam Wolfe
This came today in Roubini's Wednesday Note and I found the source. Nothing I write can add to the craziness.
China can blow bubbles faster and bigger than just about any other country, but the Extraordinary Salt Mania of March 2011 takes the cake for speed, size and bizarreness. The brief, dazed run on salt by investors following the March 11 tsunami demonstrates China�s susceptibility to speculative bubbles and the potential to pass on the effects to international markets.
Shortly after radiation was reported to be leaking from Japan�s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in mid-March, rumors began to spread that China�s sea salt could be contaminated by radiation and that iodized salt could prevent radiation sickness. The apparent demand shock from the rumored salt cure and a perceived supply shock from the polluted seawater caused prices to spike upward of 85% in a matter of days. State media reported that a Mr. Guo bought 6.5 tons of salt in Wuhan on March 17, only to see prices collapse three days later after repeated warnings from government officials that there was no salt shortage and that consuming iodized salt could not assuage radiation sickness, of which there was no threat.
In a matter of days, there was a displacement, an apparent expansion of credit in the underground market, euphoric buying on expectations of ever-higher prices and finally revulsion once reality sank back in. The meteor shower of shooting salt prices over China is not an isolated example of speculation gone awry: The current stockpiling of copper in China�s ports is inflating the global price, which could collapse if regulators put restrictions on the use of the metal as collateral for bank loans. Likewise, Hong Kong�s property bubble is partly a spillover effect from the bubble in some of China�s urban high-end markets. In fact, investors are vulnerable to several factors within the Chinese system that could affect global asset prices.
More at the link if the reader is interested. I find it reassuring that America is not the only place on the planet where assemblies of galactically gullible people are found.
?Want control over your body? Incorporate your uterus
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has a message for women who want complete control over their reproductive health: Incorporate your uterus. To help women who want to do this, the organization launched the website www.IncorporateMyUterus.com on Tuesday, which will issue a declaration of incorporation for women who would like one.
Rachel Maddow covers the story with an interview with Florida Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando).
And earlier this link came up in the Twitter feed.
?8 Outrageous Executive Perks
From Kipplinger, by Kathy Kristof (no relation to Nick Kristof)
- $2 Million Birthday Party Company
Tyco International (NYSE: TYC - News) Perk recipient: Dennis Kozlowski - Post-Mortem Non-Compete
Shaw Group (NYSE: SHAW - News) Perk recipient: James Bernhard ...Shaw will pay Bernhard -- or his heirs -- $15 million (plus interest) when he leaves for his promise not to compete -- even if he can't compete because he's dead. - Housekeeping
Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN - News) Perk recipient: Don Tyson ...clean Mr. Tyson's house and mow his lawn. According to a 2005 SEC settlement, Tyson Foods spent $203,675 having employees clean five different homes owned by Don Tyson, his family or friends. The company, headquartered in Springdale, Ark., also sprang for $84,000 in lawn-maintenance costs for the same five homes. - Flying School Bus
Qwest Communication International (NYSE: Q - News) Perk recipient: Edward Mueller ...the right to use the company jet to commute to and from California, where his daughter was still in high school. The phone company expensed $281,182 that year for Mueller family joy rides on the jet and ended up buying his California home for a $1.8 million premium to its resale price, too. - Tax-Free California
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY - News) Perk recipient: Ray Irani
When Ray Irani moved to California to take Oxy's top job, he was apparently horrified by the Golden State's high income tax rate. So in 1991, Irani struck an employment deal that required Oxy to pay his state income tax bills. ...the problem with paying taxes for someone is that even the tax payment is taxable. There's also tax on the tax on the tax, making this one of the most egregious corporate perks in America. Occidental, long a target of pay critics, responded to shareholder objections by paying Irani a lump sum of $95 million in 1997 to buy out his contract and rescind the company tax subsidy. - Flying Cash Cow
Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) Perk recipient: Steve Jobs ...reimbursing Jobs whenever he used his plane on company business. In 2002, Apple paid $1.1 million in flight-cost reimbursements for his use for the past two years. - Super Security
Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL - News) Perk recipient: Larry Ellison ...security system at his expansive northern California home, and Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, Cal., pays about $1.4 million annually to monitor it. - Box Seats 'Til Death
General Electric (NYSE: GE - News) Perk recipient: Jack Welch ...during a bitter divorce, Welch's ex-wife detailed a multimillion-dollar litany of perks that GE provided -- both before and after Welch retired. Among them: fresh flowers and a wait-staff for his New York City apartment; floor-level seats for Knicks games; a sky box for Red Sox games; and VIP seating at the French Open.
?7 Basic Things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong
#7. Pooping
#6. Bathing
#5. Breathing
#4. Sleeping
#3. Having Babies
#2. Tooth Brushing
#1. Sitting
This item caught my eye for two reasons.
First, i subscribed to Mad Magazine in my younger days and was aware of Cracked, the best of Mad knockoffs. Cracked.com is the successor and appears to be doing very well online.
Second, the first item listed, pooping, reminded me of something I learned as an Army medic years ago, that Western toilets are not only a vain successor to a lazy past, they are also a contributing factor to a number of chronic health issues that don't plague much of what we carelessly call the undeveloped world.
What could be simpler than taking a good crap? Even babies are good at it. You might be surprised, then, to find out that even those of us who can burp without throwing up get this wrong every single day.
Chances are the pooping facility nearest you is a sitting toilet, a relatively recent invention that flushed its way into mankind's heart with the advent of indoor plumbing in the 19th century. Indoor plumbing has turned out pretty well for the most part, but the pooping style that came with it definitely has not. Pooping on a modern sitting toilet is a big part of where hemorrhoids come from, and it can also cause diverticular disease, an age-related condition that pretty much only occurs in parts of the world where sitting toilets are used, and which can lead to a range of pleasantries up to and including colonic obstruction. And things aren't getting better: The last few decades have seen a rise in popularity of "comfort height" toilets that sit two to four inches higher off the ground than older models and that make our pooping predicament even worse.
So how the hell are we meant to do it?
Luckily, there's a relatively simple way to end this poop dilemma. A 2003 study observed 28 people pooping in three positions: sitting on a high toilet, sitting on a lower one and squatting like they were catchers at a baseball game (catcher's mitt optional, but encouraged). After initially being mistaken for a German porn company, the researchers found that pooping took about a minute less when done squatting and that participants rated the experience as "easier" (God, we hope they were getting paid).
In fact, toilets that require you to squat that way have been the standard for most of human history and are still widely used in the non-Western world.
According to proctologists, "We were not meant to sit on toilets, we were meant to squat in the field." When you're in a sitting or standing position, you're forming an angle between the where the poop is and where the poop's gotta come out. There's even a muscle that's purpose is to tighten things up when we're sitting or standing to prevent accidents. Squatting straightens out this angle and removes the chokehold.
If the thought of squatting awkwardly on top of your toilet seat isn't for you, you can produce a similar poop-enhancing angle by resting your feet on a footstool (or anything handy) and leaning the top half of your body forward.
Do take a look at the link because it's well done with lots of illustrations.
And time permitting, check out 6 Socially Conscious Actions That Only Look Like They Help and 5 Important People Who Were Screwed Out of History Books [African-American Ladies Who Made a Stand Before Rosa Parks, The Guys Who (Really) Took Down Al Capone, The Female Paul Revere, The Man Who Invented Half of What's in Your Medicine Cabinet, and The Slave who Tried to take New Orleans]
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