As IF Times

link NYC Asks Food Manufacturers To Cut Salt Content – wcbstv.com

It’s getting tougher and tougher to keep on the right side of the modern politically correct, nanny culture that we’ve all embraced. It was bad enough that scientists have disparaged all manner and type of enjoyment, confection and amusement because of perceived detrimental effects. I guess you could argue that to demonize smokers was a good thing, since the idea of inhaling fumes that had just been in someone else’s lungs is pretty icky. Not to mention that smokers in general tend to be a slovenly lot, casting their spent butt ends all over the place. Is there anything more disgusting than looking at cigarette butts crushed into the remnants of a dish at the end of a meal?

But over the years, if you’ve avoided all the things that the authorities have claimed are bad for you, it’s possible you would not be alive, having died of malnutrition. Over the past few decades, the list of tsk tsk items have included:

eggs, coffee, milk, white bread, red meats, cheese, fish, shellfish, butter, ice cream, potato chips, cookies, candy, donuts, fried chicken, french fries and “fast food” in general. Hmm this looks like my weekly shopping list.

Oddly, many modern diets have espoused the virtues of eggs and red meats for their high protein benefits and coffee has seen a resurgence as a beneficial food as well as fish and of course the fast food at Subway. Just ask Jared. Strangely, margarine at one time was touted as preferable to butter, now we’ve swung back the other way. You seldom see any cooking shows or recipes calling for margarine in their mix.

Where it gets a little dicey are the arcane constituents of foods. For instance, fats per se aren’t bad for you, only certain trans and mono fats whatever those are. Maybe it’s no coincidence that Emeril Lagasse does not have a show on the Food Network anymore. I recall he never met a fat he didn’t like.

So now, the guardians of our well being (at least in NY) are pushing to move SALT from our diets. Apparently, we ingest far too much salt in forms we don’t even realize and this leads us towards the health out of bounds markers. So pressing is this crisis that they will eventually make it illegal for restaurants and food companies to exceed certain salt levels in their products. In other words, save us from ourselves, like it or not.

Boy, this is going to spur some changes in our society. Like smokers, willful salt ingesters will have to huddle in doorways outside of buildings sprinkling salt on their meals. There of course will be new camaraderies as people share shakers like lighters. Of course, people will try to quit, but can’t, therefore salt patches will be available for those who are weak. Naturally, there will be large letter warnings on salt packages and minors will not be able to obtain them.

There may be the emergence of underground restaurants where they freely use salt and other seasonings, like the speakeasies of old where you have to whisper, “Charlie sent me” through a sliding slot in a door to get in. The companies that make shakers will be severely squeezed since now only pepper shakers are acceptable on dining tables. With the passage of time and the acceptance of salt as socially evil, even common speech aphorisms will have to be modified. Someone is now the “oregano of the earth”, or we will consider someones opinions with ” a grain of nutmeg”. I’m sure it’ll sound better in 10 years.

link DailyTech – Reports: Google’s Nexus One Price, ETFs, and Contract Details Leak

As hard as it is to believe, it was over 130 years ago in 1876, that US patent numbers 161,739 and 174,465 were issued to an American inventor that would contribute to arguably the most dynamic industry in history. Alexander Graham Bell, widely given credit for the invention of this device, started the whole ball rolling with the benign statement, at least for its time, “Watson, come here, I want you”. The Watson referred to was no slouch himself going on to later found a small business machine company which grew a bit into a company today known as IBM.

The telephone was invented. Over the next hundred plus years, every manner of contrivance was implemented to squeeze money from a public eager to talk and talk and then talk some more. In fact, some say that the phenomenon of the teenager would have been impossible were it not for the telephone’s invention. Morse coding your squeeze after a hot date wasn’t practical and spelling errors were problematic. “What did he mean by 2 dots? Did he mean 3 dots? or a dash?”

The first phone company, American Telephone and Telegraph had what many had assumed to be a lock on permanent revenue. How that got screwed up is another discussion, but suffice to say, with the evolution from communal phones, to private phones in homes, to public pay phones, there was a penny to made at every step. It wasn’t that long ago that if a long distance call came in, you would first be prompted to accept the charge by an operator and then the whole room went silent as this expensive call was taken. Phones were essential to any modern home in those days and it often occupied a prominent place in the house. The idea of convenience and portability in those days was a 30 foot cord.

Fast forward to our modern lives where cell phones are as common as nipples on a cow. Everyone has one, or two or six. Little kids have them as well as the elderly. Naturally business people require them and of course teenagers have them. In third world countries where there’s no running water or cable TV, the villagers have them. But a phone isn’t just a phone any more; how quaint would that be? Can you imagine kids in 1970 getting excited about getting a phone for Christmas?

No sir. Phones today are mini computers capable of collecting and transmitting not only voice, but also data. Pictures are sent, word files are stored. These devices can not only inform, but embarrass, just ask Tiger. Phones today have exceeded the capability of personal computers of just 10 years ago. Manufacturer Sony Ericsson has a ‘smart phone’ that approaches $900! Google has a product called Android which will compete with Iphone which competes with Blackberry.
Tech blogs wax breathlessly about the release of the new latest gizmo because…well…because…it’s newer and better!

According to a tech research outfit, Wintergreen Research, the worldwide telecommunications market including wireless handsets are set for extraordinary growth, doubling from $123 billion in 2004 to $282 billion in 2010. This piece was done presumably a few years ago, before the invention of the newer, costlier gizmos.

The classic advice for any salesperson is to point out features, but explain benefits. With the new phone devices these days, they’re all features but murky on the marginal benefits to the old phone. In fact, we’re seeing smart phones and dumb people. Is this really an empowerment of man’s innate need to communicate or is it just proof that people will buy anything as long as it’s new?

Who could have possibly imagined the lengths we’d go to just to gab about mainly nothing. The biggest irony is, most phones now are geared to allow people to communicate by TEXT not voice!! These days, when someone texts “Come here Watson, I want you”, it has a whole new meaning…and usually is accompanied by pictures.

So never mind banking bailouts, buy PHONES!