Monday, June 04, 2018

headlines below the fold

For later reading: An article about China's political prisoners, from Global voices.
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BBC article on the healthiest places to live: rural areas are best if you are rich, but not if you are poor:
In other cases, rural pollution poses a major threat. In India, air pollution contributed to the deaths of 1.1 million citizens in 2015 – with rural residents rather than urban ones accounting for 75% of the victims. This is primarily because countryside dwellers are at greater risk of breathing air that is polluted by burning of agricultural fields, wood or cow dung (used for cooking fuel and heat).

yeah. I started giving my maid money to buy LPG gas to cook with because I got tired of giving her money to treat her son's asthma from the fumes of cooking over wood.

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for later reading: Axios: how robots will change our lives.

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where to put all that trash if China won't accept it?

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The Canada steel/aluminum problem is from China sneaking their products into the US under Nafta. CBC article ridicules, but if you read the last paragraph of the article you find that Canadians were worried about it too:

Freeland was also told that, "on aluminum, like in the United States, the Canadian industry has also raised concerns about misclassification of exports from China and we would be happy to work with U.S. Customs on this type of issue as well."
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For later reading: related item: China dumping steel in Mexico and South America.
a long article about China's economic ties with Mexico from Wharton School of business, and notes how NAFTA lets them get around the rules.

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Freakonomics on lawns.

maybe growncovers might be an alternative.

they mention growing food as an alternative.

You know, I am old enough to remember the "victory gardens": in the early 1950s we still grew veggies not only in out tiny yard, but had a plot in the grass surrounding a local cemetary, between the wall and the street, until the city decided to stop people from growing stuff there.

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and the Art news headline of the week:

Fire at London’s Hayward Gallery as Rotting Fish Artwork Explodes

Majestic Splendor is composed of sequin-covered rotting fish. When it was shown in 1997 at New York’s MoMA, it had to be removed as the smell made visitors feel sick. For the Hayward show, the fish were placed in potassium permanganate. Although it is not flammable, the chemical does increase the flammability of other combustible materials. On receiving advice, the gallery decided to withdraw the artwork, but it spontaneously combusted mid-removal. 

headsup DaveBarry.

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