This is one that has been making the rounds on the internets. Most people are understandably pissed off about it.

Not sure what to say about this: not really the moment for cultural criticism. Most of what can be said i am sure you have already thought in your minds.
ugh.

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• Manic Spending Puts Bipolar Patients at Risk for Financial Woes
  

  Many bipolar people already live in a boom-or-bust financial cycle, independent of the current economy. Spending sprees, after all, are common during manic periods. However, mania can be triggered by stress, which is naturally higher during an economic crisis like the one Americans are facing now.

• Why do the mentally ill die younger?
  

  One of the most common contributors to early death among mentally ill patients, for instance, is smoking. While about 22% of the general population smokes, more than 75% of people with severe mental illness are tobacco-dependent. According to Glover, a study conducted by NASMHPD after the publication of its mortality study found that 44% of all cigarettes in the United States are consumed by people with psychiatric histories. “I used to run state hospitals, and we’d use cigarettes as reinforcement — ‘You did good; you get a cigarette,’” he says. “When people didn’t do well, we took away their tobacco privileges. We were part of the problem.” The agency is now working to make state mental hospitals smoke-free by 2011.

• Is our happiness preordained
  

  Bates and his Edinburgh colleagues drew their conclusions after looking at survey data of 973 pairs of adult twins. They found that, on average, a pair of identical twins shared more personality traits than a pair of non-identical twins. And when asked how happy they were, the identical twin pairs responded much more similarly than other twins, suggesting that both happiness and personality have a strong genetic component. The study, published in Psychological Science, went one step further: it suggested that personality and happiness do not merely coexist, but that in fact innate personality traits cause happiness. Twins who had similar scores in key traits — extroversion, calmness and conscientiousness, for example — had similar happiness scores; once those traits were accounted for, however, the similarity in twins’ happiness scores disappeared.

• Laugh and the World Laughs with You: Happy’s Contagion
  

  The merriment of one person, the researchers found, can ripple out and cause happiness in people up to three degrees away. So if you’re happy, you increase the chance of joy in your close friend by 25%; a friend of that friend enjoys a 10% increased chance. And that friend’s friend has a 5.6% higher chance

• How Depression Harms Your Heart
  

  the findings suggest that depression contributes to heart disease indirectly — by fostering unhealthy behaviors like smoking — rather than directly. Certain biological factors linked with depression, such as inflammation and the levels of brain chemicals like serotonin, may play some role in heart health, researchers say, but the new study found that the factors that most increased heart disease risk in depressed people were the ones you might expect: lack of exercise and smoking.

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From miscellaneous

I noticed that Boonna 3 cafe has a laminated document on one of their walls with a big red frowning face on it. Looking more closely I see that it’s a food safety document, and apparently, Boonna 3 failed because that’s what the red frowning face means. And they had to hang that up in public for all the people to see. I don’t think that many people noticed it, or really cared. So if you are in the mood for compromising your health and safety at Boonna 3, I recommend the omelette, which is small but quite tasty, with nice morsels of ham, cheese, and peppers. I’ve always liked their sandwiches as well, even though they never seemed to be quite the same as a “real” western sandwich that you might get in Europe or North America.

This is the first time that I have ever seen this kind of food safety document, and now I am curious to see what emoticon is used for the other levels or gradations.

From miscellaneous

As for Fortune Soup, well, tonight was the first night that I’d ever been there, even though they had a Weihai Lu store that has been around since around May of last year. I was at the new one on Huashan Lu near WLMQ Lu, just by Huashan Hospital. I paid 20 rmb for a chicken and mushroom soup, which was quite tasty and I think will be just the right thing for a quick eat or snack as temperatures drop over the next few weeks.

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I thought this picture was somewhat amusing…don’t know if there was any PS in this but then again, having a huge belly that you can puff out more isn’t exactly a rarity among middle-aged men.

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