Winston Churchill my childhood hero

Just watched PBS TV program of "Winston Churchill", my childhood hero. Looking back at this WWII legend, probably he was just a hard-charging, highly aspiring and probably a clever double-dealing politician. However, his strong determination and numerous passionate speeches still made him stand out among historical figures and probably that was the reason to captivate my childhood cult of heroism.

Sustainable MOOC-based college degree offered by Georgia Tech?

An article in today's NYT claimed that a very prestigious Uni., Georgia Institute of Technology, will offer a MOOC-based online master's degree in computer science for $6,600 - far less than the $45,000 on-campus price. This is the 1st prestigious Uni. to offer degrees by online courses. (Previous records from non-prestigious Uni were miserable; sometimes with zero enrollment in paid credit-award programs.) This is an uncharted wild-west territory and many predict that Georgia Tech will fail since it will cannibalize the campus enrollment and will devalue its credentials. Let's see if it is an epoch-making endeavor or just a flash in the pan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/education/masters-degree-is-new-frontier-of-study-online.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This video of Taipei Zoo appeared in CBS evening news tonight.

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the globe, man would have no more than four years to live"

Recent cover story of TIME magazine, The Plight of the Honeybee, is a sobering cautionary tale. Though the root cause for the soaring dying beehives since 2006 is still unknown, the general belief is "We, human beings, may be the culprit". Neonicotinoids, a pesticide probably unharmed to human beings, may be the slow killer to bees. Industrialized and highly efficient monoculture crops are suffocating bees. Highly profitable corn and soybeans have made farmers less incentivized to join the government's land conservation program. A quote (sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein) is very apocalyptic: "If the bee disappears from the surface of the globe, man would have no more than four years to live". Though this quote may be exaggerated, it does point to an enlightening epiphany: Any disturbance of the balanced ecology may deal a blow to human beings eventually.

1.5% of the medical cost in India compared with U.S.

It only costs $1,555 to have artery-clearing coronary bypass surgery? It did happen in India, which is less than 1.5% of the cost in U.S. ($106,385). Every medical bill in the U.S. is nothing but just opportunistic pricing and its exorbitant pricing never justified its outcome.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-01/indias-walmart-of-heart-surgery-cuts-the-cost-by-98-percent

Africa Mercy - Ship for Disadvantaged People

Tonight CBS "60 Minutes" has an episode of "Africa Mercy" which is a ship dedicated to the medical services (surgery, dental, ophthalmic) for people in Africa. Some of the doctors and nurses on this ship have been on board for more than 10 years and even raised their children on board. It is hard to imagine their totally devoted dedications to the disadvantage people in Africa. Taiwan also has 路竹會 with many respected medical practitioners dedicating their time to the disadvantaged people in the mountainous area.

Africa Mercy                 Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps

Daunting Shadow Market in China by de facto Coin of Realm

NYT on 8/3 has an article to describe how rampant the false or forged receipts everywhere in China. You can buy it online and many employees use them regularly to "rightfully" increase their monthly compensation; executives (as in the recent scandal of British pharmaceutical GlaxoSithKline in China) use them to create slush fund to bribe officials; some companies even ask all employees to submit false receipts half the amount of their pay checks in order to reduce the company tax liability. Since NYT claims that you can buy receipts in 淘寶網 (www.taobao.com), I did try to check if it is true. Interestingly, if you type "购买发票", it will show "根据相关法律法规和政策，无法显示“购买发票”的相关宝贝". But if you type "购买发 票", you will get everything that you want. No wonder people always feel stupefied by the daunting amount of the so-called shadow market in China.

Coin of Realm in China Graft: Phony Receipts