Neither a borrower nor lender be...

From CIA: The World Fact Book

This entry records a country's net trade in goods and services, plus net earnings from rents, interest, profits, and dividends, and net transfer payments (such as pension funds and worker remittances) to and from the rest of the world during the period specified. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.

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Rank country Current account balance Date of Information

1	China	$ 368,200,000,000	2008 est.

2	Germany	$ 267,100,000,000	2008 est.

3	Japan	$ 187,800,000,000	2008 est.

4	Saudi Arabia	$ 151,000,000,000	2008 est.

5	Russia	$ 97,600,000,000	2008 est.

. . .

187

France

$ -58,000,000,000

2008 est.

188	Italy	$ -68,820,000,000	2008 est.

189	United Kingdom	$ -72,540,000,000	2008 est.

190	Spain	$ -152,500,000,000	2008 est.

191	United States	$ -568,800,000,000	2008 est.

Psssst, hey buddy, there is no 192...just in case you were wondering.

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DEFINITION: Net trade in goods is the difference between exports and imports of goods. The category includes goods previously included in services: goods received or sent for processing and their subsequent export or import in the form of processed goods, repairs on goods, and goods procured in ports by carriers. Trade in services is not included. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
--

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Economy Statistics > Debt > External (most recent) by country

Rank Countries Amount Date
# 1 United States: $12,250,000,000,000.00 2007
# 2 United Kingdom: $10,450,000,000,000.00 2007
# 3 Germany: $4,489,000,000,000.00 2007
# 4 France: $4,396,000,000,000.00 2007
# 5 Italy: $2,345,000,000,000.00 2007
# 6 Netherlands: $2,277,000,000,000.00 2007
# 7 Ireland: $1,841,000,000,000.00 2007
# 8 Japan: $1,492,000,000,000.00 2007

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DEFINITION: Total public and private debt owed to non-residents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services.

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Don't be silly!

[Hat tip to Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By]

. . .

It might be Friday...

News: Fake egg in Myanmar

Published on August 1st, 2009

Warning from the Ministry of Health

On 31 July, Myanmar official news papers report about fake eggs entering Myanmar through border from neighbouring countries. According to official announcement from Ministry of Health, fake eggs made by chemical means are appearing in markets along the border areas as well as some markets inside Myanmar. These eggs are similar to ordinary eggs and cannot be distinguished easily.

Made with chemical powders

According to the announcement, the white of the fake egg is made of benzoic acid, jelly, unknown chemical substance, chemicals used in the production of starch gravy and baking powder. The yolk of the fake egg is made of unknown yellow substance, mixed with unknown fluid and calcium chloride. This fluid is known as “magic water“.

These two parts (fake yolk and fake white) are poured into the plastic mould to make fake egg. Magic water prevents the two parts from mixing together, by forming a thin layer of film. The egg shell is made of a mixture of paraffin containing wax and an unknown white substance. This mixture is poured onto the formed yolk and white, let to dry for a few minutes. The result is a fake egg, indistinguishable to the real egg.

[More]

It is right that he too...

It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories,
his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the
worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one
day like any other day, only shorter.
-- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies"

Global Voices Online » China: Pros more trustworthy than government officials

Global Voices Online » China: Pros more trustworthy than government officials: "A startling result of an online survey of more than 3,376 people published by Insight China magazine reveals that China's prostitutes are considered by some to be more trustworthy than its politicians, teachers and scientists!

The survey found that 7.9% of the respondents considered sex workers trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers. A post on China Daily website says a result like this is surprising and embarrassing at the same time. The article analyzes the social background and reasons which lie behind the sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honor and concludes that it reflects the government's indifference to, if not disregard of, citizens."

Say it isn't so!

Really?

That's just in China, you think?

Hmmm...

I am a conscientious man

I am a conscientious man, when I throw
rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned.

-- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"

The shirt is good but the reviews are outstanding...

13,215 of 13,339 people found the following review helpful:

Dual Function Design, November 10, 2008

By	B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Govern" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women.

---

Ya just gotta read on... it is just hi-larry-us! [ Continue ]

Must see: High Speed Robotic Hands

. . .
[GerbilGod7]

[Hat tip to /Ambivalence ]

A New Technology: Starting from scratch ....

...

Chris Harrison, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University whose human-computer interaction work we've written about previously, will demonstrate his new scratch input technology. The system turns any surface into an instant input device by sensing the unique sound produced when a fingernail is dragged across it.

-- Technology Review

Gotta be trippin'

[ Source ]

Not right!

From I'll Make Lemonade

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere

“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants « Here There and Everywhere: "“Whip Me if You Dare” Sudan Woman Wears Pants

This woman doesn’t have to take the whipping – she was a UN employee, and could claim diplomatic immunity. She wears a headscarf, she wears modest clothing. She could have quietly escaped. But like Rosa Parks, the black woman in segregated America, who refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus, Lubna Hussein has chosen to take a stand, even take a whipping, rather than back down.

Do you think it is un-Islamic for women to wear pants?

‘Whip me if you dare’ says Lubna Hussein, Sudan’s defiant trouser woman
Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman who is daring Islamic judges to have her whipped for the “crime” of wearing trousers, has given a defiant interview to the Telegraph.

...

The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.

Instead she turned the tables on them – and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women’s rights in one of Africa’s most conservative nations.

She has become an overnight heroine for thousands of women in Africa and the Middle East, who are flooding her inbox with supportive emails. To the men who feel threatened by her she is an enemy of public morals, to be denounced in the letters pages of newspapers and in mosques.
As she recounted her ordeal in Khartoum yesterday Mrs Hussein, a widow in her late thirties who works as a journalist and United Nations’ press officer, managed cheerfully to crack jokes – despite the real prospect that in a couple of days she will be flogged with a camel-hair whip in a public courtyard where anyone who chooses may watch the spectacle.

Her interview with The Sunday Telegraph was her first with a Western newspaper.

“Flogging is a terrible thing – very painful and a humiliation for the victim,” she said. “But I am not afraid of being flogged. I will not back down.

“I want to stand up for the rights of women, and now the eyes of the world are on this case I have a chance to draw attention to the plight of women in Sudan.”

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested

Faces of the Iranians killed and Arrested:

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

The Poetry of Heroism

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to war,
and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy.

-- Celine

Oh no, I've a spoot on my tie...

Spoot

[a jaunty tip of the hat to Bro. James who doesn't blog, yet!]