Against Korea's "Dog Meat Hygiene Management Policy”

On March 24th this year Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a “Dog Meat Hygiene Management Policy”, it lists dogs as “livestock”. It is also expected that, that after Korea’s parliamentary elections end in April, and after holding a related hearing in May, a proposal will be made immediately to the Central Government to amend the “Livestock Products Processing Act”, officially legislating that dog meat be listed as a livestock product.

Let's write to the President of Korea and the Mayor of Seoul to show our concern.

More details and photos: http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!43knCKmRHxuKd3ANTv_DYaFluXrcIqI-/article?mid=69

陶 傑 短 評 ： 柴 灣 十 惡 要 嚴 刑

柴 灣 十 惡 青 童 ， 殘 酷 虐 殺 雌 性 小 貓 ， 木 棒 追 窮 巷 ， 活 活 打 得 骨 折 慘 死 。 其 中 一 名 惡 犯 ， 是 年 僅 十 三 歲 的 女 童 。

英 國 殖 民 地 文 明 管 治 一 百 五 十 年 ， 一 直 灌 輸 西 方 敬 愛 動 物 的 價 值 觀 ， 但 因 為 改 造 育 年 期 未 夠 長 ， 致 使 亞 洲 農 村 殘 暴 野 蠻 基 因 ， 撤 出 後 全 復 發 。 連 非 洲 部 落 ， 英 國 人 撤 出 後 也 種 族 殘 殺 ， 特 區 之 董 曾 時 代 虐 畜 案 暴 增 ， 也 不 意 外 。 英 方 留 下 的 殖 民 地 雷 ， 就 是 防 虐 畜 的 刑 罰 太 輕 ， 一 經 定 罪 ， 草 草 罰 款 五 百 ， 暴 民 可 向 法 官 的 臉 上 豪 擲 一 千 ， 走 出 法 庭 ， 馬 上 再 虐 殺 一 隻 ， 豈 能 不 失 控 ？

香 港 想 做 「 紐 倫 港 」 國 際 城 市 ， 反 而 要 恢 復 秦 始 皇 朱 元 璋 的 中 國 傳 統 刑 法 。 例 如 活 捉 柴 灣 這 十 惡 後 ， 不 分 年 齡 性 別 ， 叫 他 們 站 成 一 排 ， 各 自 擲 一 枚 一 元 大 銀 ： 擲 得 「 公 」 者 ， 活 剝 皮 ， 擲 得 「 字 」 者 ， 則 凌 遲 碎 割 ， 執 行 地 點 選 在 柴 灣 屋 公 園 空 地 ， 劊 子 手 可 由 湖 南 貧 困 山 區 招 聘 ， 執 行 十 人 ， 至 多 花 費 二 萬 ， 成 本 屆 時 由 本 欄 第 一 個 募 捐 。

然 後 把 十 惡 的 屍 骸 血 淋 淋 吊 在 興 華 對 開 的 天 橋 示 眾 ， 每 人 的 嘴 巴 ， 塞 一 隻 死 老 鼠 。 中 國 儒 家 信 條 ： 「 養 不 ， 父 之 過 」 ， 十 惡 的 父 母 ， 也 應 該 綑 成 一 串 ， 其 裸 體 遊 街 ， 由 柴 灣 到 銅 鑼 灣 走 一 圈 。 這 就 是 最 有 效 的 「 去 殖 民 地 化 」 兼 「 國 情 育 」 。 現 在 由 港 英 餘 孽 主 政 ， 治 國 英 制 ， 連 十 惡 的 半 身 照 和 名 字 也 不 敢 公 佈 ， 有 個 屁 用 ？

Leave the Kangaroos alone!!!

When will you people have enough experiments or testing on the animals??? Now even on their FARTS??? Is there anything better to do???

To stop global warming, the best way is to do it from yourself!! Drive less, don't use air-con, give back more spaces to other residence in the world - trees and animals, and even stop those experiments would also help! Anything would be fine BUT to stop cattle and sheep from farting 'harmful' gas!!

Eco-friendly kangaroo farts could help global warming: scientists

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen percent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep," said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland state government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 percent," he told AFP.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 percent more energy out of the feed they are eating," said Klieve.

Even farmers who laugh at the idea of environmentally friendly kangaroo farts say that's nothing to joke about, particularly given the devastating drought Australia is suffering.

"In a tight year like a drought situation, 15 percent would be a considerable sum," said farmer Michael Mitton.

But it will take researchers at least three years to isolate the bacteria, before they can even start to develop a way of transferring it to cattle and sheep.

Another group of scientists, meanwhile, has suggested Australians should farm fewer cattle and sheep and just eat more kangaroos.

The idea is controversial, but about 20 percent of health conscious Australians are believed to eat the national symbol already.

"It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal," said Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies.

"It doesn't get drenched, it doesn't get vaccinated, it utilizes food right across the landscape, it moves around to where the food is good, so yes, it's a good food."

It might take a while for kangaroos to become popular barbecue fare, but with concern over global warming growing in the world's driest inhabited continent, Australians could soon be ready to try almost anything to cut emissions.

Some more competitors on the market soon....

Young chimp beats college students

By MALCOLM RITTER AP Science Writer

Article Launched: 12/04/2007 03:47:23 PM PST

NEW YORK—Think you're smarter than a fifth-grader? How about a 5-year-old chimp? Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.

"No one can imagine that chimpanzees—young chimpanzees at the age of 5—have a better performance in a memory task than humans," he said in a statement.

Matsuzawa, a pioneer in studying the mental abilities of chimps, said even he was surprised. He and colleague Sana Inoue report the results in Tuesday's issue of the journal Current Biology.

One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.

They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.

Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.

One chimp, Ayumu, did the best. Researchers included him and nine college students in a second test.

This time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares. The challenge, again, was to touch these squares in the proper sequence.

When the numbers were displayed for about seven-tenths of a second, Ayumu and the college students were both able to do this correctly about 80 percent of the time.

But when the numbers were displayed for just four-tenths or two-tenths of a second, the chimp was the champ. The briefer of those times is too short to allow a look around the screen, and in those tests Ayumu still scored about 80 percent, while humans plunged to 40 percent.

That indicates Ayumu was better at taking in the whole pattern of numbers at a glance, the researchers wrote.

"It's amazing what this chimpanzee is able to do," said Elizabeth Lonsdorf, director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The center studies the mental abilities of apes, but Lonsdorf didn't participate in the new study.

She admired Ayumu's performance when the numbers flashed only briefly on the screen.

"I just watched the video of that and I can tell you right now, there's no way I can do it," she said. "It's unbelievable. I can't even get the first two (squares)."

What's going on here? Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail.

He thinks two factors gave his chimps the edge. For one thing, he believes human ancestors gave up much of this skill over evolutionary time to make room in the brain for gaining language abilities.

The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers. The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age. In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study. (Ayumu's mom did even worse than the college students).

So the next logical step, Lonsdorf said, is to fix up Ayumu with some real competition on these tests: little kids.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_7633661

No more

One hour later, these two logos will become part of the Hong Kong history, and our memories.

Li Ka Shing saves the world

Hong Kong supermarket chain asks shoppers to pay for plastic bags
Nov 20, 2007, 7:57 GMT

Hong Kong - One of Hong Kong's two leading supermarket chains is to introduce a charge for plastic bags starting Wednesday ahead of an anticipated mandatory 'green tax' next year.

More than 200 branches of Park 'n' Shop will for the first time ask customers to pay 20 Hong Kong cents (2 US cents) for each bag, the chain's managing director Philippe Giard announced Tuesday.

However, if they refuse, they will be allowed to take the plastic bags for free, said Mr Giard. He said the scheme aimed to get customers used to taking reuseable bags when they go shopping.

Littering is a major problem in Hong Kong, a notoriously environmentally unfriendly, densely populated city of 6.9 million which has one of the world's largest per capita carbon footprints.

A mandatory 50 Hong Kong cents 'green tax' on plastic bags is to be introduced in all major supermarkets and chain stores by the former British colony's government (what da...?!?!) next year.

Many plastic bag manufacturers with factories in China are based in Hong Kong and they have argued against the tax, saying many of the alternatives to plastic bags are less environmentally friendly.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Fancy and Nasty

Remember I mentioned about the US$25000 haute chocolate last week?
Do you know what happen this week?? Look!

Fancy and Nasty: Serendipity 3 Shut Down

Serendipity 3, the high-end Manhattan eatery, has been shut down by health officials because of disgusting conditions. As the AP reports, the restaurant was closed Wednesday night after failing inspection: more than 100 live roaches, live mice, mice feces and flies were found on site after inspections were carried out on two separate dates this month.

Customers have complained about two-hour lines, rude hosts and mediocre service before, but there was never any question about the sanitation of the establishment until now. The swanky reputation of the restaurant comes from its being host to major movies such as One Fine Day and Trust The Man, as well as the hoity-toity $1,000 Golden Opulence Sunday, only available with a 48-hour reservation. And only recently they had unveiled an absurdly expensive $25,000 ice cream dish, the most expensive dessert ever sold. Overall it should be stressed that while the irony of the restaurant’s name at this time is amusing, excessive explanation of the joke is an act of triteness.

quoted from NY Press

the 911 TRUTH?

Almost 2 years ago, I wrote an short article in Chinese about 911 after I read some arguments which question about the fact that 911 tragedy was not a terrorist attack. Evidences shown that those "attacks" could actually be planned in fact by the US government. Today I happened to encounter another video clip showing more evidence on this theory.

I am not sure about who's story is the truth. But I've heard so many stories about how the US gov't treats its citizen (and the whole world) like idiots already. If 911 was really done by them to just give them excuses to start the war... *sigh

I'm not going to give anymore comments now.
You can go and check the websites and video clips out:
1. Loose Change (video with chinese subtitle) - the original english version is not working
2. 911 in Plane
3. 911 analysis by The Power Hour
4. The Flight 93 Fraud- Smoking Gun Evidence
5. Flight 93 - "No let's roll" just 1 big hole!

The World's Top 200 Universities 2007

The Times Higher-QS World University Rankings 2007
Published 9 Nov 2007 (source)

1 Harvard University (US)
2 University of Cambridge (UK)
2 University of Oxford (UK)
2 Yale University (US)
5 Imperial College London (UK)
6 Princeton University (US)
7 California Institute of Technology (US)
7 University of Chicago (US)
9 University College London (UK)
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
11 Columbia University (US)
12 McGill University (Canada)
13 Duke University (US)
14 University of Pennsylvania (US)
15 Johns Hopkins University (US)
16 Australian National University (Australia)
17 University of Tokyo (Japan)
18 University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
19 Stanford University (US)
20 Carnegie Mellon University (US)
20 Cornell University (US)
22 University of California, Berkeley (US)
23 University of Edinburgh (UK)
24 King's College London (UK)
25 Kyoto University (Japan)
26 Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris (France)
27 University of Melbourne (Australia)
28 Ecole Polytechnique (France)
29 Northwestern University (US)
30 University of Manchester (UK)
31 University of Sydney (Australia)
32 Brown University (US)
33 University of British Columbia (Canada)
33 University of Queensland (Australia)
33 National University of Singapore (Singapore)
36 Peking University (China)
37 University of Bristol (UK)
38 Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
38 University of Michigan (US)
40 Tsinghua University (China)
41 University of California, Los Angeles (US)
42 ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
43 Monash University (Australia)
44 University of New South Wales (Australia)
45 University of Toronto (Canada)
46 Osaka University (Japan)
47 Boston University (US)
48 University of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
49 New York University (US)
50 University of Auckland (New Zealand)
51 Seoul National University (South Korea)
51 University of Texas at Austin (US)
53 Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (Hong Kong)
53 Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
55 University of Washington (US)
55 University of Wisconsin-Madison (US)
57 University of Warwick (UK)
58 University of California, San Diego (US)
59 London School of Economics (UK)
60 Heidelberg University (Germany)
61 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
62 University of Adelaide (Australia)
63 Delft University of Technology (Netherlands)
64 University of Western Australia (Australia)
65 University of Birmingham (UK)
65 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany)
67 Technische Universität München (Germany)
68 University of Sheffield (UK)
69 Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
70 University of Nottingham (UK)
71 Dartmouth College (US)
71 Uppsala University (Sweden)
73 University of Illinois (US)
74 Emory University (US)
74 University of York (UK)
76 University of St Andrews (UK)
77 University of Pittsburgh (US)
77 Purdue University (US)
79 University of Maryland (US)
80 University of Leeds (UK)
80 University of Southampton (UK)
82 Vanderbilt University (US)
83 University of Glasgow (UK)
84 Leiden University (Netherlands)
85 Case Western Reserve University (US)
85 Fudan University (China)
85 University of Vienna (Austria)
88 Queen's University (Canada)
89 Utrecht University (Netherlands)
90 Pennsylvania State University (US)
90 Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan)
92 Rice University (US)
93 University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
93 University of Montreal (Canada)
95 University of Rochester (US)
96 University of California, Davis (US)
97 University of Alberta (Canada)
97 Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
99 Cardiff University (UK)
100 University of Helsinki (Finland)
101 University of Liverpool (UK)
102 Georgetown University (US)
102 National Taiwan University (Taiwan)
102 Tohoku University (Japan)
105 University of Geneva (Switzerland)
106 Lund University (Sweden)
107 University of Colorado (US)
108 McMaster University (Canada)
109 Durham University (UK)
110 University of Virginia (US)
111 Maastricht University (Netherlands)
112 Nagoya University (Japan)
112 University of Waterloo (Canada)
114 University of Aarhus (Denmark)
114 University of Basel (Switzerland)
114 University of Otago (New Zealand)
117 University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
117 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (Switzerland)
119 University of Southern California (US)
120 Ohio State University (US)
121 University of Sussex (UK)
122 Texas A&M University (US)
123 Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium)
124 University of Ghent (Belgium)
125 Nanjing University (China)
126 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany)
126 University of Western Ontario (Canada)
128 Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)
129 Newcastle University (UK)
130 Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
130 Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands)
132 Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technol (South Korea)
132 Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI (France)
134 University of Arizona (US)
135 University of Florida (US)
136 Kyushu University (Japan)
137 University of Aberdeen (UK)
137 Indiana University Bloomington (US)
139 Simon Fraser University (Canada)
140 University of California, Irvine (US)
140 University of Zurich (Switzerland)
142 University of Minnesota (US)
142 Universität Tübingen (Germany)
144 Universität Freiburg (Germany)
145 University of Bath (UK)
146 Freie Universität Berlin (Germany)
147 University of Lancaster (UK)
148 Wageningen University (Netherlands)
149 City University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
149 Queen Mary, University of London (UK)
151 Hokkaido University (Japan)
151 University of North Carolina (US)
151 Tel Aviv University (Israel)
154 Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)
155 University of Science and Technology of China (China)
155 University of Notre Dame (US)
157 Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (France)
158 Cranfield University (UK)
159 Michigan State University (US)
159 Tufts University (US)
161 Keio University (Japan)
161 Washington University in St Louis (US)
163 Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands)
163 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)
165 Universität Stuttgart (Gemany)
166 University of Calgary (Canada)
166 Vienna University of Technology (Austria)
168 Universität Göttingen (Germany)
168 Macquarie University (Australia)
170 Helsinki University of Technology (Finland)
171 University of Dundee (UK)
171 Universität Karlsruhe (Germany)
173 University of Bologna (Italy)
173 University of Groningen (Netherlands)
175 University of Massachusetts, Amherst (US)
175 University of São Paulo (Brazil)
177 University of Campinas (Brazil)
177 University College Dublin (Ireland)
177 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
180 University of Reading (UK)
180 Waseda University (Japan)
182 Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (Germany)
183 Università Degli Studi Di Roma, La Sapienza (Italy)
184 Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg I (France)
185 University of Leicester (UK)
185 University of Twente (Netherlands)
187 University of Antwerp (Belgium)
188 University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
188 University of Oslo (Norway)
190 University of Surrey (UK)
191 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (US)
192 KTH, Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)
192 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico)
194 University of Barcelona (Spain)
195 Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (Netherlands)
195 Queensland University of Technology (Australia)
197 Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden)
197 Kobe University (Japan)
199 University of Wollongong (Australia)
200 University of Cape Town (South Africa)
200 RMIT University (Australia)

Why do I put this here? I don't know.. I guess just because I don't want to write my essay.. haha.. I don't really care about these ranking usually.

The world is going crazy

In the world news today, we can see how people in this world have lost their mind..
In Tokyo, somebody modified the DNA of a mouse so that he has no fear of cats.
In Finland, a student shot 8 people in his school and killed himself. He even uploaded video on youtube before he went to kill people. The video was viewed 200 thousands times, but no one was alerted.
In New York, a restaurant is selling a cup of haute chocolate for US$25000. And there ARE people actually buying it.
Back in Tokyo, husbands yell "I love you" on the street to their wives, saying that they are too SHY to say it directly to them.

What are we doing in this world??
Are people really happy living in this world?
Am I the only one who think these are all weird things?
I seriously think that I neve belong to this world.

Earthquake

There was a 8.4 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia last night. I don't have TV in my room and I was busy with my study last night so I didn't know about this until this morning.

How did I know? I was woken up by an aftershock this morning at around 8am.

I woke up and found that my bed was swining.. since I didn't know there was an earthquake last night and I think there is no earthquake in Singapore, the first thing up to my mind is.. am I sick?

But the swinging was quite obvious and I suddenly noticed the blinds in my rooms were swinging heavily also. So I realised it was an earthquake.

I was a bit freakin' out that time as I really dunno what I should do. It seems not that serious that I should run away from the building. But I did worry about what will happen next. I'm staying on the 6th floor and I'm quite sure that unlike the buildings in Japan, the buildings here are not built in a way that they can stand for strong earthquake. But I also not sure what is "strong" or "not strong".. so I didn't run at last..

I did have similar experience in Hong Kong many years ago. However the swing that time was so slightly that if you were not a sensitive person like me, you won't feel that. That why I didn't worry at all even I was staying on the 24th floor.

After about 3 to 4 min of shaking, everything seems became normal again. Then I checked on the Internet and found out about the earthquake news. Pretty sad that seems it was another earthquake that's going to make serious damage to Indonesia. Hope the people there will be fine.

Although I'm not very worried about where I am now, I start feeling sick ever since that swing.
Just feel like having a seasick.. and it have been already 5 hours and I'm still very sick about that.. I don't even have this kind of feelings when I travel on boats or planes..

What should I do now?

world lost

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti dead at 71

McDonald's: Sales in Europe are ahead of those in the US

Gonna talk about this, but I've already taken some pills, need to go to bed now..will write another entry tomorrow when I have time.. come back again later if you are interested.

For McDonald's, a European redesign starts to pay off
By Julia Werdigier August 17, 2007
International Herald Tribune

LONDON: Taking a respite from an afternoon of shopping, Ita Clift sipped a cappuccino at a McDonald's on Edgeware Road, in northwest London. Though she said she rarely set foot in one of the many branches of the fast-food chain in London, Clift said she dropped in to this one for a quick boost of energy because the restaurant "looked so nice and sophisticated."
Sophisticated? McDonald's?

The Golden Arches are going upscale in Europe - and if you haven't seen a refurbished McDonald's yet, chances are you will see one by the end of this year. Aiming to create a more relaxed, restaurantlike experience in a sophisticated atmosphere, McDonald's is replacing bolted-down, plastic, yellow and white "furniture" with lime-green designer chairs and dark leather upholstery. It is the restaurant chain's biggest revamp in more than 20 years, and, together with its franchisees, it plans to spend more than €600 million, or $806.6 million, remodeling 1,280 of its European restaurants by the end of this year.

McDonald's is also introducing more healthful foods and items that cater to regional tastes, like café lattes. Hoping to attract young adults and professionals, in addition to its core customer base of moms and kids, the chain is also adding amenities like Internet access and rental iPods.

So far, the changes appear to be paying off. Sales in Europe are ahead of those in the United States. In the first half of this year, combined sales at Europe's 6,400 restaurants rose 15 percent to $4.1 billion, compared to a 6 percent increase in America, where McDonald's has 13,800 restaurants and sales were $3.9 billion. The strength of European currencies helped, but even without the lagging U.S. dollar, European revenue is rising faster in real terms than revenue in the United States.

"McDonald's is doing a great job in Europe, which has become an enormously important market for them," said Larry Miller, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

The chain now serves over 10 million customers a day in Europe, which contributes 36 percent to the company's operating income, making it the chain's second most profitable region after the United States.

The remodeling is also catching on in America, where McDonald's renovated about 6,000 of its restaurants. For now, the revamp is not spreading to Asia, where business is growing fast - sales are up 11 percent in the second quarter - but revenues are still a fraction of those in Europe and America ($852 million for the quarter that ended June 30).

In some ways the changes are moderate; in others, dramatic. McDonald's kept its trademark golden arches logo in Europe but got rid of the red accompanying it. Instead, restaurants feature a warm burgundy color. The pointy roofs are being phased out and replaced by simple olive green facades, and the bright neon lights in the restaurants were dimmed. French fries and cheeseburgers remain the best-selling items.

The original impetus for the makeover was a European sales slump in the late 1990s, brought on by concerns about obesity and European annoyance at unappealing décor and grumpy McDonald's staff. But the ideas for how to change came from Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald's Europe, the first non-American in that role.

As head of McDonald's restaurants in his native France in the late 1990s, Hennequin had searched for ways to make fast food more appealing to a nation that preferred slow-simmered cassoulets and likes to savor a meal.

"To make McDonald's and a Big Mac work in the country of slow food, we felt we had to pay more attention to space and showcasing," he said, seated in front of zebra print wallpaper in one of the remodeled London restaurants.

He was right. After refurbishment, on average, sales increased 4.5 percent at the upgraded restaurants in France. The new outlets were so successful that two years ago Hennequin was asked to do the same for the rest of Europe.

Some analysts say the new design works better in Europe than in the United States, where a majority of McDonald's customers prefer to eat in their cars or take their food home. "And they won't change their habits," said David Kolpak, an investment manager at Victory Capital Management in Cleveland, Ohio, who owns McDonald's shares in his portfolio.

But now the success of Hennequin's Europewide makeover comes with challenges of its own: How much can you upgrade its image before McDonald's isn't McDonald's?

"If you stretch the brand too much, it can snap," said Dean Crutchfield, director of marketing at Wolff Olins, a brand consultancy in New York.

Hennequin said he did not have a choice. "Re-imaging is essential in the competitive world of retail," he said. "We need to avoid aging faster than our customers." To do that he instructed the design studio he had set up in Paris to come up with nine different formats. Franchised restaurants, which account for about 64 percent of all European outlets, can then choose the design most appropriate for their location and clientele. The designs range from "purely simple," with minimalist decors in neutral colors, to "Qualité," featuring large pictures of lettuce and tomatoes and gleaming stainless steel kitchen utensils like meat grinders.

"The new ones are much more comfortable, less crammed and we love those chairs," said Shane Bogela, 16, referring to the redesigned stores and the "egg" chairs, designed by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, at a McDonald's in London.

A separate food factory in Munich is trying to come up with new menus for the different tastes in the 41 European countries, including Russia, in which McDonald's operates - a continuation of a process started in the 1980s, when the company started to offer beer in its German restaurants. In England, McDonald's has started to serve porridge for breakfast; in Portugal it offers soup; and in France, "cheese saga" - burgers with French cheeses.

Paying attention to local tastes has also helped McDonald's overcome some of the cultural hurdles it faced in Europe as a large American fast-food chain. "The problem in Europe," said Kolpak, of Victory Capital, "was the perception that any large U.S. brand has, which is bringing the American way of eating and marketing and invading the local culture."

While head of France, Hennequin experienced opposition to American corporations firsthand in 1999 when Jose Bové, the outspoken leader of a French farmer's union, organized a bulldozing of a McDonald's restaurant to protest the spread of American "hegemony." Hennequin reacted with a large advertising campaign promoting the American chain's use of local produce and its creation of local jobs.

While palates differ from country to country, design is more universal, Hennequin said. He admires strong brands that reinvent themselves to become more fashionable and appealing, like the Mini Cooper. In France he hired the same advertising agency as Apple.

"We would like to stay true to our roots," Hennequin said, "while moving forward."

Now, the Clicking Is to Watch the Ads, Not Skip Them

Now, the Clicking Is to Watch the Ads, Not Skip Them
By STUART ELLIOTT
The New York Times 17 August 2007

FOR generations, advertising interrupted the entertainment that Americans wanted to read, hear or watch. Now, in a turnabout, advertising is increasingly being presented as entertainment -- and surprisingly, the idea of all ads, all the time, is gaining some favor.

One reason is the proliferation of broadband Internet connections, which make it easier for computer users to watch or download video clips. That is enabling media companies, agencies and advertisers to create Web sites devoted to commercials and other forms of advertising for amusement, rather than hard-core huckstering.

Oddly, the trend runs counter to another powerful impulse among consumers: the growing desire to avoid advertising. TV viewers, for instance, are spending billions of dollars a year for TiVo and other digital video recorders that help them zip through or zap commercials, and click-through rates for banner Web ads are declining.

The difference between ''watching a commercial on a Web site and in your living room,'' said Michael Jacobs, executive vice president and executive creative director at MRM Worldwide in New York, is that online is ''an opt-in audience; you're choosing to be there.''

''It's the nature of the Web to offer a destination you know you can go to and know what you're going to see,'' said Mr. Jacobs, whose agency is part of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

''There's certainly an audience for entertainment as part of the offering,'' he added. ''The numbers seem to support it.''

For example, veryfunnyads.com, a broadband Web site operated by the TBS cable network, has delivered more than 63 million video clip views since its introduction last August.

''It's a very straightforward premise: You're going to have a funny experience, and you're going to have it every 30 seconds,'' said Ken Schwab, senior vice president for programming at the TBS and TNT networks, parts of the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner.

The funny-ad Web site is part of a rebranding campaign for the TBS network, which carries the theme ''Very funny.'' The goal is to cultivate an identity for TBS as a home for sitcoms and humorous movies.

''A lot of people talk about zipping through commercials because the average break doesn't hold the promise of being entertaining,'' Mr. Schwab said. By contrast, he said, ''we have a very clear consumer proposition, on the site and in our shows.''

The concept of veryfunnyads.com has been expanded onto TBS, Mr. Schwab said, as the network will ''call out'' some commercials as ''very funny ads'' in hopes of keeping viewers from changing channels.

''I'm in the industry, and I'll fast-forward through the ads most of the time,'' said David Droga, creative chairman at the Droga5 agency in New York. ''But I'll stop for the good ones.''

''You put choice on the table, you change the whole game,'' Mr. Droga said, adding: ''Everything is about control. If an ad is interesting to you, you'll have the conversation with the brand. If it's not, it's a waste of time.''

In about a month, Mr. Droga plans to test his theory with the trial introduction by Droga5 and its partner, the Publicis Groupe, of a Web site named honeyshed.com.

Mr. Droga described the concept as ''MTV meets QVC,'' offering consumers in the intended audience of ages 18 to 30 product information in the form of entertaining video clips rather than traditional commercials. The clips are to run two to three minutes apiece, he added, and be presented by hosts considered authorities in categories like cars, clothing or computers.

''The only reason we have any chance of being successful is transparency,'' Mr. Droga said -- that is, ''if people know they're being sold to, you can celebrate the sell.''

The USA Network unit of NBC Universal, part of General Electric, also intends to climb aboard the pitch wagon celebrating advertising as entertainment with an online effort centered on brand-centric content.

Plans call for a Web site next year that would include commercials and movie trailers as well as features like social networking and tools that would let visitors make ads of their own. The site is tentatively named didja.com, as in ''Didja see that?''

''It's all about relevance,'' said Chris McCumber, senior vice president for marketing and brand strategy at USA Network. ''Consumers want to be entertained on their own time, on their own terms.''

''If a spot is not relevant, you're going to want to tune it out,'' he added. ''This will be a platform for consumers to experience their favorite commercials or find out more information about a product.''

The proliferation of portals dedicated to advertising as entertainment could mean the trend is already peaking, just as cover articles in magazines about a stock market boom are often followed by plunging indexes.

''I don't think it is so much about putting entertaining commercials on the Web as it is about brands providing immersive experiences for consumers of which entertainment is a component,'' said Mr. Jacobs of MRM, whose agency recently won praise for musical Webisodes for Intel, directed by the humorist Christopher Guest, which are appearing on Web sites like youtube.com and itgetseasier.com.

The responses to a survey this week on the Adweek Web site (adweek.com) suggest that advertising as entertainment is still a work in progress.

As of yesterday afternoon, 13 percent of respondents agreed the portals were ''great fits for the current pop culture,'' while 43 percent called them ''too limited and doomed to fail.'' The remaining respondents, 44 percent, agreed with a statement that they are ''complete wild cards; let's wait and see.''

Father chops up daughter in Uttar Pradesh

Father chops up daughter in Uttar Pradesh By Reuters
Tuesday August 14, 01:13 PM

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A man who yearned for a son killed his 11-year-old daughter, cut her into pieces and threw parts of her body into a fire, police said on Monday.

The killing last week took place in Pihani town in Uttar Pradesh, around 110 km west of Lucknow.

"It is one of the most gruesome incidents that I have come across," senior police official Brij Lal said.

The 50-year-old government employee was unhappy about having four daughters and wanted a son.

Police said the man was influenced by a tantric who led him to kill his daughter and use her body parts as "offerings" in a "havan" or sacred Hindu purifying ritual that involves a fire ceremony.
Dayal and the tantric have been arrested.

Many Indians prefer sons over daughters with boys seen as future breadwinners who will look after their parents in old age, while girls are seen as a liability for whom parents will have to pay out a huge dowry to get married.

A study in the British medical journal, the Lancet, has said about 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India over the last 20 years, a figure that the country's child and women development minister agrees with.

How many times are we going to see this again? =( If they hate their daugthers so much, how about their mothers? And if they think paying out dowry for their daughters is such a thing that they don't wanna do anymore, then change it, don't aviod it by killing your own daughters! Please...

Starbucks finally moves out from Forbidden City

Ever since Starbucks has its store opened at the Beijing Forbidden City in 2000, there have been complains and protests against the store of bringing foreign pop culture to the chinese traditional culture.

Starbucks had already tried lowering its profile by removing its exterior design but it didn't help. As an anchor for China Central TV's English Channel Rui Chenggang wrote earlier in his blog, Starbucks' presence "undermined the Forbidden City's solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture."

The store was already closed last Friday.

Details: Forbes

Bad memory? Forget about it

Humans do possess the ability to suppress bad memories, a US study has said, potentially proving a century-old theory by Sigmund Freud.

"We think we now have a grasp of the neural mechanisms at work, and hope the new findings and future research will lead to new therapeutic and pharmacological approaches to treating a variety of emotional disorders."

Details: inthenews.co.uk

Hope it won't hurt Chinese businese & force them to produce better goods

Health food maker promotes "China-Free" products

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It's bound to go down the wrong way in Beijing: A U.S. health food company will label its products "China-Free" to ease concerns about contamination.

see more from Reuters

Baby Girl Buried Alive in India Survives After Farmer Sees Hand Sticking Out of Ground

HYDERABAD, India — A newborn baby girl was buried alive by her family in southern India on Thursday but was rescued when a farmer saw the baby's hand sticking out of the ground, officials said.

The two-day old baby, who had apparently never been fed, was recovering in a hospital in the Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, said Charu Sinha, district superintendent of police.

Indian society has long favored boys, who do not require the enormous dowry payments that bankrupt many poor families when their daughters marry.

The baby was buried by her maternal grandfather, Abdul Raheem, and his brother, Abdul Rasheed, with the consent of the baby's mother, Mehrunnisa, near Otkur village, about 150 kilometers south of the state capital of Hyderabad, Sinha said.

The police arrested the two men and will charge them with attempted murder, Sinha added. Mehrunnisa, who only goes by one name, will be charged as an accomplice. Her husband, Abdul Ghani, had gone to the neighboring state of Maharashtra in search of work.

Raheem has seven daughters and "he feared that he will not be able to bear the burden of the eight females in the family," said Sinha.

The baby was rescued when a farmer, Ram Kumar, saw her hand while he was driving to his fields on a tractor. Kumar and other villagers rushed the baby to a nearby hospital. The unnamed baby weighs only 1.7 kilograms and is expected to be taken to Hyderabad on Friday.

source: FOXNews

A pill to forget?

Do you have a particular part of your memories that you want to forget about? Do you want to have a "delete" button to your brain so that you can select what you want to forget?


In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet decided to undergo a process to have their memories of each other erased. In reality, it's much simpler, we can do it by just one pill.

Scientists have found that a drug called propranolol, a medication commonly used for high blood pressure can be used to erase/weaker horrible memories and retain the good ones.

If I have one of those pills.. would I take it?

Details: CBS News