Reading Roundup - Refuting Alan Finder, Language Corner, My Stocks to Watch Lists, NongShim Junk Food, etc.

The New York Times plays its readers for fools about those Wake County test scores

A reader kindly pointed out this article which refutes the NYTimes piece by Alan Finder that I linked to on Monday.

Columbia Journalism Review's Language Corner

Putting to rest lie, lay, lain, and other things that I often screw up.

I've put together a page of Stocks To Watch, which are screenshots of my own Excel sheets showing the stocks I've handpicked to put on my radar ... in future I'll make this an interactive feature with sortable columns etc. Look forward to that happening around 2008.

One good thing that I did while teaching at the Three Sails Middle School was to find out which junk food sells best among Chinese 13-, 14-, and 15-year olds. I surveyed the snack vendors around the school and found the hands-down winner is the stuff produced by NongShim, a Korean company that has a factory in Shenyang.

Their magic is to pre-cook (soak) the wheat/rice cakes in oil (the old Ramen noodle trick) and then toss in plenty of salt, MSG, and artificial flavors. There's probably 30 grams of saturated fat and 1000 mg of salt per bag (you never know because no nutrition information is required on food products sold in China), which guarantees great sales among the kids. Have I mentioned that childhood obesity has exploded here in recent years?

In case you missed it, we'll be on vacation in the US for three weeks in October so I probably won't be blogging much then. I mention it so you can psychologically prepare for my absence. ;-)

Taser Shareholders Feeling Jilted (Jolted?)

I noticed TASR on the new lows list. You may recall my hasta la vista, baby post about TASR back in April -- it has dropped about 39% since then. What a great example of how a one-time favorite of the momentum crowd can destroy those who paid the wrong price (nearly everyone) and held on (a.k.a. the "true believers").

TASR, Weekly Chart