http://417136159.qzone.qq.com Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:34:11 GMT Qzone zh-cn Copyright (C), 2005-2008, Tencent Tech. Co., Ltd. Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:26:08 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259342768 At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting this past weekend, Warren Buffett indicated he is going on the offensive in his core insurance businesses, and possibly even beyond that. Investors may get a clue to just how aggressive when Berkshire reports first-quarter earnings after the close Friday.

A close look at the conglomerate's top line may show whether Mr. Buffett is trying to amass capital, specifically whether Berkshire is collecting more premiums from its vast insurance operations.

In last year's first quarter, Berkshire pulled in $22.3 billion in revenue, including $6.2 billion from insurance premiums. Premiums for all of 2008 were down 20% from 2007 as the company pulled in its horns amid the market turmoil. By turning up the risk dial, Mr. Buffett can take market share from competitors less willing or able to do so. Berkshire's cash stockpile has dwindled to about $20 billion from $38 billion at the end of 2007. Mr. Buffett has long said he wouldn't let Berkshire's cash cushion slip below $10 billion.

Writing more insurance policies to raise cash would be 'very consistent with his past behavior,' says Morningstar analyst Bill Bergman. 'He's bending against the wind . . . and making money over time.' ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259342768#comment 134218240 Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:26:08 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259342768 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259286732 It's 2009 -- several decades after health officials began urging Americans to cut down on salt.

Do you know how much you're consuming?

If you're a typical American, it's about 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day. That's well beyond the 2,300 mg recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. And it's 15 times as much as the human body requires.

Average sodium intake has increased about 50% since the 1970s, largely because we're eating more convenience foods. And as makers of processed food have cut down on fat and sugar, they've often added more salt.

But all this sodium can be bad for your health.

Excess salt has been linked to osteoporosis, kidney damage and stomach cancer. Worse, it raises blood pressure, a key factor in heart attacks and strokes, which kill about 850,000 Americans a year.

'After smoking, high blood pressure is the leading cause of preventable illness and death,' says New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, who is urging makers of packaged foods and restaurants nationwide to gradually reduce their sodium content by 50% over the next 10 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that such a reduction could save 150,000 lives and $10 billion in health-care expenditures a year.

Some 50 million Americans have hypertension (that is, blood pressure readings consistently at or above 140/90 mm/Hg). Another 20 million are prehypertensive (with blood pressure from 120/80 to 139/ 89 mm/Hg). Hypertension is more common among African-Americans than whites, and nearly 90% of Americans eventually develop it as they age.

With that in mind, the CDC is urging anyone who has hypertension, is African-American or over age 40 -- nearly 70% of the U.S. population -- to follow a stricter guideline of just 1,500 mgs a day.

About 80% of Americans' salt intake comes from processed foods and restaurant meals; only 20% comes from salt used in home cooking and added at the table. But cutting salt from processed food isn't easy. Besides enhancing taste, salt helps provide texture to many foods and acts as a preservative. And Americans have become accustomed to the taste.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents food makers, says many of its members have cut sodium in their products and introduced lower-salt items in recent years. But it believes that any government effort needs to include consumer education and scientific research as well.

A few critics don't think a broad reduction in sodium is warranted. Michael Alderman, a professor of medicine and public health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., says it hasn't been conclusively shown that cutting salt intake across the population would save lives, and it could have unintended consequences. Lowering salt can cause kidney problems and contribute to insulin resistance in some cases, says Dr. Alderman, who is an unpaid consultant to the Salt Institute, an industry group.

Darwin Labarthe, director of the CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, counters that there's a very broad consensus that reducing salt would cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and there is little evidence of harmful effects. The American Heart Association, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization all urge lower salt consumption.

What can you do about your own salt intake? It's impossible to know for sure how much you're consuming. Even raw chicken in the grocery store is sometimes 'enhanced' with salt water to make it plumper (and heavier, and thus more costly). But you can get some idea by checking the Nutrition Facts labels on products you buy and keeping a running tally.

Some bakery goods and breakfast cereals have far more sodium than you'd expect. There's often a wide range of sodium among brands of the same product. Be sure to check the serving size indicated on the label. A bag of chips that looks individual may be listed as multiple servings.

When you cook at home, experts counsel to use only half the salt the recipe calls for; experiment with herbs and spices, or go with the natural flavor. Kids who grow up with less salt may never develop a 'salt tooth.'

It may take a while to get accustomed to less salt, but once your tastes adjust, you may not want to go back. Commissioner Frieden likens reducing salt to switching from whole milk to skim milk. 'If you go back, whole milk tastes like heavy cream,' he says
]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259286732#comment 134218241 Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:52:12 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259286732 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259261471 The daily program, “Economic 30 Minutes,” looked at Web sites that offer franchising opportunities that include everything from chain stores to fast-food restaurants. The companies offering the franchises pay for the online space. People who are interested in becoming franchisees can get in touch with companies by calling the phone numbers on the sites.

The problem, the program alleged: The Web site operators don’t bother to check whether the companies have business licenses from the central government. Lacking a business license in China and doing business anyway is a serious no-no there. A person in charge of one Web site was quoted saying that 60% to 70%, if not more, of its corporate advertisers failed to get a license from the Ministry of Commerce. According to the government regulation, a franchiser must register the franchise with the governing registration agency within 15 days.

The program pointed out that three mainland celebrities appeared in advertisements for the sites. Endorsement fees topped one million yuan (roughly $150,000) each, according to the CCTV report.

The program is among the most influential business news shows in China, making it likely that its claims will receive wide play. Web sites mentioned in the CCTV program are still up, and neither the celebrities nor the sites could be reached for comments.

There has long been a debate in China over celebrities appearing in ads that make exaggerated or even false claims. In last year’s Sanlu milk scandal, which killed six and sickened nearly 300,000 children, several celebrities were criticized for having endorsed its products. In February, China’s top legislature passed a new food safety law. The law, which goes into effect on June 1, says that celebrities will share legal responsibility for advertising for food products that are found to be unsafe.

The CCTV program quoted one franchisee saying that she believed the information published on the Web sites partly because of the celebrities that endorsed them.

China now has over 2,600 franchise companies, with over 200,000 retail outlets, according to figures from China Chain Store & Franchise Association, the official representative of the industry. More are supposed to enter self-employment after losing their jobs as a result of China’s slowing economy. The Chinese government encourages self-employment for migrant workers and college graduates. And preferential policies have also been offered by the government, including small business loans and training course.
]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259261471#comment 134218241 Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:51:11 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259261471 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259180922
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Unlike most other developed countries, the US does not have national academic standards outlining what each student must learn to graduate from high school. In fact, it is the opposite, with each of the 50 states setting the bar wherever it wants – and, in many states, that is too low.
When standards in one state are lower than those in another, longstanding inequities are perpetuated every September as new groups of kindergarteners take their first steps into school. With US 15-year-
olds ranked 25th among 30 industrialised nations on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international mathematics exam and 24th in science, the time has come to put aside ideology in favour of the next generation's ability to compete globally.
Unfortunately, President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind act is a big part of the problem. Although it has played a vital role in increasing accountability for student learning, the bill has had unintended consequences. When it was signed into law in 2001, a number of states already had standards for local school districts, but many did not.
To get the bill passed, its sponsors allowed states to come up with their own standards and to develop tests to assess student mastery of those standards. But since NCLB threatened draconian intervention and loss of funding if targets were not met, states had incentives to forgo more rigorous standards in favour of ones districts were more likely to meet. Thus our current dilemma.
What is the country to do? President Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, his secretary of education, are talking to state governors about creating a set of voluntary national standards. We believe that to ensure the global competitiveness of the US workforce, any set of standards must focus on rigorous content knowledge in reading, maths and science, as well as on students' abilities to apply that knowledge to critical thinking and problem solving. One viable option is to adapt the OECD international benchmarks for 15-year-olds to US needs and retrofit them for younger children.
For voluntary standards to take hold, states must have meaningful reasons to embrace them. One way is to make adopting them a prerequisite for accessing investment capital from Mr Duncan's $5bn discretionary fund – part of the $100bn in education spending included in the president's economic stimulus package. The federal Department of Education could also pay for the development and scoring of common assessments, thereby freeing the significant amount of money tied up in the overheads needed to maintain 50 different standards and testing regimes. These state resources could then be redirected toward innovations to help students meet the rigorous new standards, leading to a cycle of improvement.
Mr Obama has set a goal for the US to have the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. Having slipped from first to 16th since 1995, we are a long way from that. Agreeing to stiff national standards for college readiness is one important step towards the goal.
Eight years ago, no one thought building agreement for national standards was possible, which is why they were not a part of the NCLB compromise. Is it possible now? Only if a broad coalition of stakeholders demands them.
Pressure from many quarters could evolve into a movement for change that could force the US's political leaders to break away from the old arguments that historically have distracted us from keeping our national promise of public education as the “great equaliser” of access to unlimited opportunities. The creation and adoption of voluntary national standards will raise the educational sights of our next generation and guarantee America's economic competitiveness for the long term. Stacey Childress and David Thomas are on the faculty of Harvard Business School. This article is adapted from their book with Denis Doyle, ‘Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Montgomery County Public Schools', to be published in July by the Harvard Education Press. ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259180922#comment 142606849 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:28:42 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259180922 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259081674
The 130-minute movie, titled 'Nanking! Nanking!' (also known as 'City of Life and Death' in English), shows the events through the eyes of different people, including a Chinese soldier, a young Japanese soldier and ordinary citizens. The entire film was shot in black and white with handheld cameras, and dozens of Japanese actors participated in the filming.

Director Lu Chuan, who spent four years and over 80 million yuan ($11.7 million) making the film, said the film grossed 70 million yuan ($10 million) in the first five days, a relatively large sum given its subject matter and lack of big-name film stars. (By way of comparison, last year's John Woo-directed, star-studded blockbuster 'Red Cliff: Part One' made $16 million during in its opening weekend).

The film has provoked intense reactions from the audience, and China's Internet forums are packed with discussions about it — the popular social networking site Douban.com already carries over 1,500 audience reviews of the movie. Opinions regarding the movie, however, appear sharply divided. While many applaud it for its 'unique way of story-telling' and showing 'the power of truth,' others criticized it for 'excessive shots of rape scenes' and 'attempting to beautify the Japanese invaders.'

]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259081674#comment 142606849 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:54:34 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259081674 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259040987
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A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below responded, "You must be a manager."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault." ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259040987#comment 142606849 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:36:27 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1259040987 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258953886 In class, he would surely present his lecture in a most interesting way. Like a film director, he often assigned a role for each student to play. At one time, he spoke seriously, and at other time, he might joke. In each ease, students were all fully involved.
After class, he often made fi'lends with his students. A weekend tea strengthened his ties with them: a on-the-way "Hello" warmed students' heart. Indeed he was a most trustworthy friend in his students' eyes.

]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258953886#comment 142606849 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:24:46 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258953886 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258859531
I got my inspiring mottos when I was just a junior student,accidentally from newspaper. I had been endowed with everything I wanted before that time including my beloved parents who treat me as their treasure. My out-going character which made me get along with different people easily and the fact that I was most proud of was that I could always achieve what I desired through diligence. I thought that it was my future, bright and promising until I entered my junior middle school, the so-calledelite class. God probably wants me to know that life is no easy work. There I found myself lost because no matter how hard I tried, I could never squeeze myself into the top 10. I felt helpless, a strange feeling I had never tasted, and then depressed.Since I couldn't change the fact, why should I strive? Thus, I became lazy and my study became worse, until I found this sentence: "Don't be proud when you fulfill your goal and don't lose your will when are in adversity.”In Chinese,it is“得志时莫得意,失意时莫失志”.I Said yes to myself,that was just the advice I needed.collected by
When I first entered that class, I didn't take everything seriously since I thought everything would be mine. But as the saying goes "Failure always follows pride." Being proud will lose one's morale. People tend to be lazy and enjoy the comfortable safe life. Since one has been satisfied about his life, he will stop his steps to chase after higher goals. Instead he will be indulged in the status quo and taste his past exploit. The goal is what set you out, make you succeed. Without it, where will you go? Thecollected by
only way is to stand still and let others pass you. Besides, pride makes you rude towards others since you think all the rest people are inferior to you, which is ridiculous. Li, Zicheng, the famous farmer revolutionist was cited as a negative example by Mao Zedong. The Ming Dynasty, in fact, was taken over by him but he didn't keep his power more than half a year. Why? Because he lost his alertness to others. Instead he hurried to enjoy the luxurious royal life, thus when the Qing Army attacked the capital,he found his army unable to fight.Collected By
The motto is suitable for not only genius but also ordinary people as you and me. Maybe we cannot do things as well as the genius but at least, everyday, we are striding forward, making progress and challenging ourselves.
Since I got the motto, I became diligent again and set up my mind to go beyond myself and up till now, I can get what I want, perhaps not completely, but at least partially.Collected By
When I achieve what I desire, I'll always set higher standards to myself and when I am in adversity, I can clearly hear Mariah Cassay sing to me.
Hold on. There'll be tomorrow. In time, you'll find the way.
collected by ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258859531#comment 142606849 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:12:11 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258859531 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258769356 A police officer sees a man driving around with a pickup truck
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full of penguins. He pulls the guy over and says, "You can't drive around with pe
A police officer sees a man driving around with a pickup truck full of penguins. He pulls the guy over and says, "You can't drive around with penguins in this town! Take them to the zoo immediately."
The guy says okay, and drives away. The next day, the officer sees the guy still driving around with the truck full of penguins -- and they're all wearing sunglasses. He pulls the guy over and demands, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo yesterday?"
The guy replies, "I did. Today I'm taking them to the beach!"
nguins in this town! Take them to the zoo immediately."
The guy says okay, and drives away. The next day, the officer sees the guy still driving around with the truck full of penguins -- and they're all wearing sunglasses. He pulls the guy over and demands, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo yesterday?"
The guy replies, "I did. Today I'm taking them to the beach!" ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258769356#comment 142606849 Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:09:16 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258769356 http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258683615 Why can this "gap" emerge between parent and child? The first possible reason is that being an individual, either parent or child has his own likes and dislikes. The child likes to paint, but the parent wants to make him a finer. Therefore there will surely emerge a conflict of opinions on that point. Another cause may come from mutual misunderstanding between parent and child. As the child grows up he begins to think that he is "grown up", he is "mature", and he should be indepandent --although in fact he has to go on a long way to reach maturity. On the other hand, the parent, on most occasions, still looks on the child as little baby and is immature of his changes, asp. his psychological changes. The last but not the least important reason is that parent in life owing to their different experiences. How could the parent make the child abandon pop songs for Beijing Opera, and vice versa? However, the gap should be filled, or bridged. The child should pay more attentionto the parent's advice because he has more experiences, and in turn the parent should give due consideration to the child's opinion because he is no longer a baby, In short, both parent and child should make efforts for a better understanding between them. ]]> http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258683615#comment 142606849 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:20:15 GMT http://417136159.qzone.qq.com/blog/1258683615