- What has Kazakhstan been lacking....other than a name most
Americans can spell or pronounce correctly? If you said a new transit railway
linking China to Europe, you’re correct. Thankfully, that problem has met its
solution now that this new railway is operational. Kazakhstan's Transport
Ministry launched the service in an effort to beat rival routes for journey
time in the competition to handle a growing flow of goods along the ancient
Silk Road trade route. "Kazakhstan is a virtual bridge linking the East
and the West," said Yerkin Meirbekov, deputy railway department chief at
Kazakhstan's Transport Ministry. "You can actually say this is the revival
of the Silk Road." Back when the Silk Road was the original Silk Road, a
journey along the route from China to Europe would have taken caravans of
camels and horses months. The perilous trip the sun-scorched steppes and
deserts of Central Asia would have been daunting, even if the admirable goal
was to exchange silk for medicines, perfumes and precious stones. These days,
the same trip takes just 15 days for trains carrying containers with electronic
goods, construction materials and other cargo. The distance remains 6,750 miles
from Chongqing in southwest China to Duisburg in Germany's industrial Ruhr
region and Kazakhstan added a vital link in the chain late last year when it completed
construction of a 183-mile stretch from Zhetygen to Korgas at the Chinese
border. The completed section of track is looped t in to the existing national
railway network and Kazakhstan now has two China-Europe links across its
territory. According to Meirbekov, the annual volume of freight turnover along
the new route, guaranteed by China, was set to total 2 million metric tons this
year and would rise eventually to 15 million metric tons. said that "The
Chinese side, as well as the Kazakh side and European partners -- everyone is
ready (to handle these volumes) already tomorrow," Meirbekov said.
Kazakhstan needs all of the economic boosts it can get, what with being the
world's ninth-largest nation by area but with a population of only 17 million………
- For anyone who feels like the robotic Roomba vacuum cleaner isn’t
quite enough to meet their life’s artificial intelligence needs, the creators
of the creepy floor-cleaning device has teamed up with Cisco to develop an
entirely different robot, one that could be the next step in the concept of
video conferencing in order to avoid lengthy business trips. Bedford,
Mass.-based iRobot will unveil the Ava 500 video collaboration robot at the
InfoComm conference in Orlando, Fla., this week and in the process, take its
first step from the world of home cleaning into a professional setting. “Our
goal is to give executives a compelling alternative to going to meetings in
person,” said CEO Colin Angle. “They’re not giving up the opportunity to sit
down at a table, see people’s expressions or follow them out to the hallway to
have follow-up conversations.” The Ava 500 app works with a tablet computer to
allow a user to decide where they want to “go” — an office, a factory or any
other facility equipped with the robot — and with whom they wish to meet. The
robot, which would be based at the location where the interviewee was located, stands
about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds. It functions by
mapping its surroundings so that it can find its way around offices,
manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects.
It works in both “private” mode, where the 21.5-inch Cisco HD screen on the
robot’s “head” appears blank, or in “public” mode, where the person
video-conferencing in has his or her face is displayed on the screen. Ava 500
can also be used to stop and spontaneously chat with anyone is passes on the
way to its meeting. When it’s not in use, the robot heads back to its docking
station to recharge. Ava 500 is scheduled to be available early next year and Cisco
expects the estimated, one-time cost will be under $70,000, or companies could
lease one for $2,000-$2,500 a month……..
- Soccer is irrelevant for most Americans, but denying its
financial impact and gravity on the global sports scene is impossible. Look no
further than the new list of professional
sports teams that pay their players, on average, the most annually for proof.
According to a new global salary survey released Tuesday, defending English
Premier League champion Manchester City has planted its flag atop the list with
an average annual player salary of $8.1 million. That was enough to dethrone
the reigning kings of overpaying talent, Spanish soccer power FC Barcelona. A
surprising second place result in the survey belonged to the free-spending Los
Angeles Dodgers, whose spending splurge at the end of last season and into the
offseason raised their average salary to $7.47 million per player and boosted
them from 69th last year. A pair of Spanish soccer titans were close behind as Real
Madrid, at $7.26 million per, dropped from second to third and Barcelona fell
to fourth with $7.21 million per player after two years at the top of the list.
In total, the survey included 278 teams in 14 leagues and seven sports across
10 countries. The 8,093 athletes on the list earned a total of $15.75 billion
and the highest-spending team in terms of total dollars was the New York
Yankees with a team payroll of $228.8 million. However, the Dodgers and Spain’s
two best soccer teams may have little trouble running down Manchester City for
first place next year because under UEFA financial fair play regulations, teams
can no longer spend more than they earn. In other words, no more of billionaire
owners pouring loads of their own money into their teams to buy a championship.
Owner Sheikh Mansour can no longer throw any amount of money he desires at the
best players in the world and forget about how much he’s overpaying. Not
surprisingly, the biggest drop in the rankings went to the fire-sale-loving Miami
Marlins, who s unloaded enough players to fall to 185th from 29th last year (a
74 percent drop in average salary per player). With that kind of intentional
roster gutting, it’s no surprise that Major League Baseball is the top U.S.
league in the disparity between the top-paying team for average annual player
salary and the lowest……..
- Michigan Congressman
Dan Kildee is going voluntarily poor – for a whole week. That’s right, the Democrat
from Michigan’s 5th congressional district has announced that he will be living
on an average food stamp budget for one week to raise awareness about billions
of dollars in cuts House Republicans have proposed in programs for low-income
families and children. How poor will he pretend to be for those seven days?
Kildee will live on about $31.50 per week -- or $4.50 each day. "With
these deep cuts to nutrition programs being proposed, it's important for
elected officials to recognize the hardship millions of Americans face every
day as they attempt to feed their families," he said. "By living off
such a limited budget, I hope to gain a better understanding of how difficult
it is for many of my constituents to avoid hunger and try to meet nutritional
needs." Of course, if he really wanted to live like his impoverished constituents,
he would also vacate his home for the week and find living arrangements
commiserate with his new tax bracket, but one would suspect that is not in the
plans. Kildee’s week of being fake poor will start on Sunday and extend through
the following Saturday, June 22. All of the food he buys and eats during the
week will be included in the total spending. The cuts Kildee is protesting are part
of a broader farm bill in which Republicans have proposed $20.5 billion in cuts
to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in addition to changes
that would make it harder for people to qualify for food aid. Those changes would
affect 47.5 million Americans, nearly half of whom are children. Of those who
use the SNAP program, 83 percent are children, seniors or disabled adults. "I
strongly oppose billions of dollars in cuts to nutrition programs for families
and children," Kildee said. Should the bill pass in its current form, they
would be on top of cuts to SNAP that are set to take place in November 2013,
when temporary increases approved in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
expire…….
- Score another point for anyone who retroactively ranks
Queen as one of the most overrated rock bands of all-time. If Freddie Mercury
were still alive today, here’s hoping he would have the kahones to walk over
and punch Queen
guitarist Brian May squarely in the face for (allegedly) meeting with Korean
pop hack Psy to discuss the possibility of working together. While in London
for a performance at Sunday's Capital FM Summertime Ball, Psy revealed that he
has a meeting scheduled with May. "You remember that I was and I am a
really huge fan of rock band Queen? It seems like I'm going to have a brunch
with Brian May tomorrow," he said. When he was asked if that meeting meant
he was working on a collaboration with May, Psy cryptically replied, "Seems
like it. I don't know, I'm just going to eat tomorrow, but I'm super excited.
The band was an inspiration to me since I was 14 or 15 until now." Hearing
that Psy had idolized Queen is nearly enough to induce widespread burning of
every Queen album in every form solely on the grounds that if their music can
inspire Psy’s brand of K-Pop garbage, it must not have been very good to begin
with. Maybe May was bo busy with his work in recent months lobbying against the
British government's plans to control the badger population in the United
Kingdom that he confused a request for a meeting with Psy with a request to
meet with someone who wasn’t a complete and total hack. May’s collaboration with
fellow guitar icon Slash on a song titled “Badger Swagger” is the polar
opposite of any potential song with Psy in that it features two people with
discernable musical talent. Even the axe man for Queen doesn’t have enough
musical credibility to survive a song with the creator of Gangnam Style…….
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