Good use of a skateboarding ramp!
Backflip on a trike
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Category Archives: Front Page
Give Me A Break
A woman in labour with twins had to be taken to hospital by fire engine after neither ambulance nor helicopter could reach her in the snow.
For the price of scrambling a sea king once, they could buy themselves a decent four wheel drive truck. I have seen pictures of the snow that is paralyzing that country and it is nothing to write home about.
Losing The Mandate From Heaven?
The worst drought in half a century has parched fields across eight provinces in northern China and left nearly four million people without proper drinking water.
Not a drop of rain has fallen on Beijing for more than 100 days, the longest dry spell for 38 years in a city known for its arid climate.
And from later on in the article….
The drought could hardly have come at a worse time for the leadership, which is already gearing for possible social instability with some 20 million rural migrants now out of work after losing their jobs in coastal factories and in cities. Many have returned to work their farms while they wait for the economic climate to improve but may now find they are unable to grow a harvest with no water for irrigation.
“The duration, scope and impact of the drought are rare,” said Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration.
Among the worst hit provinces is central Henan, the most populous in China and source of the highest number of migrant workers. No rain has fallen in the province for 105 days, state media said today.
If you don’t know what the Mandate From Heaven is read about it here. Drought was one of the tradtional ways in which it became apparent that the Mandate From Heaven was lost. But I will bet that economic depressions help the idea along as well.
If I was a Chinese ruler I would be on my best behavior just in case. It has a better chance of working than their weather control technology.
How Things Change
In the 1930s, he said, the US banking system was about half the GDP. Today, it’s 150 percent of GDP. In Britain, it’s 400 percent of GDP.
What’s more, in the 1930s America was nation that loaned money to the rest of the world. Now it is a nation that borrows from the rest of the world. This is one of many reasons why it is wrong to look to the 1930s for lessons on what to do today even if you buy Keynesian economics.
How to get rich
Pirates have released a Ukrainian arms ship carrying dozens of Soviet-era tanks after reportedly being paid £2.2 million, the largest ever ransom for a vessel hijacked off the Somali coast.
The moral of this story is that it pays better to seize a ship full of arms then a ship full of Saudi oil.
I guess he won't be getting a job anytime soon
General Jim Jones offered Zinni the Baghdad post. But a week later, Zinni was still twisting in the wind. We now know he was passed over in favor of Christopher Hill, leading the New Republic to describe the final exchange thusly:
an Obama appointment gone awry, which concludes with a respected general suggesting the national security advisor perform an anatomically difficult feat.
Not very nice perhaps. But we have to agree with Charlie. That was a good euphemism.
Just so you know
Scientists have found the fossilised bones of a “monster” snake that was more than 40 feet long and weighed more than a ton.
Shock!
Media reports suggest Senate Republicans have become a key focus of stimulus talks, an acknowledgement that they appear to hold the balance of power in that chamber despite having only 41 seats to the Democrats’ 58. The Washington Post reports on the front page that Senate Democratic leaders “conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.” Moderate Republicans are “trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion.”
This is not really a Republican vs Democratic thing. Rather it is an east and west coast against middle American thing. Still, I am surprised that Democrats could not hold together long enough to pass this law.
Edit: If this is true, Obama may just be using the Republicans as a stick to clean up some of the junk he does not like in the bill. (h/t The Common Room)
I don't understand this
At the same time, US sovereign 5 year CDS surged 15 bps yesterday to 86 bps. To put that in perspective…..it’s where Citigroup CDS was trading exactly one year ago. Remarkably, Macro Man could only find two other countries with double-digit CDS ratings: Japan (58), Germany (59), and France (69). Was it really only a decade or so ago that Japan’s loss of a AAA rating amidst massive borrowing made waves? Now markets are essentially saying that the Japanese government (facing a massive demographic challenge) is the best creditor in the world.
CDS = Credit Default Protection.
To be honest, I don’t really understand this. As I understand it, the CDS contracts don’t cover inflation. Do people really believe that the US will default rather then inflate? I suppose it could happen.
Insulin related to memory?
The most common form of dementia may be closely related to another common disease of old-age – type II diabetes, say scientists.
Treating Alzheimer’s with the hormone insulin, or with drugs to boost its effect, may help patients, they claim.
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports insulin could protect against damage to brain cells key to memory.