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Showing posts from January, 2010

China’s Round-The-Clock Auto Factories Still Cannot Meet Demand

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co. ’s factory in central China is making cars almost 24 hours a day, yet Pan Xiaowei still waited three months for her new Tiida compact to arrive at the dealership. “It wasn’t like this a couple of years ago,” said Pan, 34, whose husband runs a property development company in Shandong province. “We used to buy and get a car straight away, and now you have to pre-order and wait.” China overtook the U.S. last year as the world’s largest automobile market with sales surging 46 percent to 13.6 million, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers . Nissan, Ford Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are running their Chinese factories at full capacity, with overtime and weekend shifts, and still can’t deliver enough cars. “Based on our current growth rate and planning assumptions, the capacity of our two facilities will not be able to accommodate the expected future demand for our products,” Nigel Harris, general manager of Fo

Another Brick in the Wall

The British Band, Pink Floyd's song, "Another Brick in the Wall" has been banned in South Africa, ignored by some radio stations in the United States, and attacked by schoolteachers all over the globe. Yet the song has become the world's most popular rock record of 1980. "Another Brick in the Wall," sung as an eerie chant by a children's chorus that backs up the band, is the centerpiece of a gloomy concept album, "The Wall," in which Pink Floyd lyricist Roger Waters charges that Western society uses its schools and other public institutions to build an impenetrable wall of destructive social conditioning around the individual. While the song is not the first example of the antieducation theme in popular music, it comes at a time when increasing numbers of students are questioning the value of their education. Thus, young people are responding to the song with uncommon — and unsettling — enthusiasm. In May [1980], the South African gove

Are the new FSC fire-safe cigarettes making smokers sicker than ever?

After lighting up are you experiencing more headaches, stomach cramps or a coppery taste in your mouth? Does your new FSC (fire-safe cigarette) taste bad, cause dry mouth and are you coughing more? New York State was one of the first states to require that cigarettes be made with the new fire-safe paper. This paper is constructed by gluing two or three thin bands of less-porous paper together with an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer emulsion based adhesive (carpet glue). These papers have bands (see image) that act as speed bumps, so if the cigarette is left unattended it will self-extinguish. The coalitions that passed these laws believe that these cigarettes would limit the number of cigarette fire deaths. Though this law was passed in 2004, the number of deaths caused by fires from cigarettes hasn’t been greatly reduced, but complaints from smokers all over the U.S have multiplied. Symptoms include: Nausea, sores in mouth and throat, dry throat, constant headaches, extreme co