Very Local News

• There was a story on one of the APR podcasts about giving carbon offsets as stocking suffers. I say print up some fakes and make people think they are offsetting your wallet. I have got to figure out a way to make up a new commodity out of (literally) thin air and make billions trillions of dollars for wining in public.
• The only reason Blagojovich is catching hell is because the news papers in Chicago are going under. They are out of a job and figured "what the hell? Lets pull the pin on the governor." Well, this is my speculation. Apparently he has been under investigation for some time. The media keeps making a big deal out of the fact he was led off in handcuffs.
  
• Brand Loyalty: Biology, Truth and Lies.
  
• While trying to figure out if the warnings work on cigarettes, some scientists figured out that The warnings do more harm than good. The worse the warning the more it worked in the opposite direction. They increase the draw of smoking by making it further from reality. The horrible pictures on foreign cigarette packs just make people crave cigarettes because no other product has that kind of warning. it makes smoking a unique experience.
  
• People today are exposed to an average of two million commercials over our our life time.
• Apple really is a mini-religion. It fires off the same parts of the brain as people worshiping a god they believe in.
• Mini Coopers were modeled to have a 'baby face' and appeal to that market. "Oh, its so cute."
• 12.5% of the American workforce is underemployed. That is not including the unemployed. Underemployed means for example, you are working part time when you want to work full time or you are working a job that does not use your skill set because you cannot find the full job you are qualified for. I think people with English degrees working in a book store should not count as underemployed.
  
• One in ten Americans are behind on their mortgage.