Sunday, March 30, 2008

happy cows and world's most expensive sandwich!

At one of the greatest departmental stores of all time - the Selfridges in London, you will find the world's most expensive sandwich. A whopping 85 GBP or 170 USD. Isn't that a treat. What makes this sandwich so expensive is that it has one of the most expensive meats in the world - the Wagyu beef.

Wagyu beef also known as Kobe-style beef comes from several breeds of cattle genetically predisposed to intense marbling and to producing a high percentage of oleaginous unsaturated fat. Translating to layman terms. it is the best tasting meat due to naturally enhanced flavor and is extremely tender and juicy meat. Also, it is the beef with the highest nutrition value, up to 5 times the nutrition to that found in your local food store.

The link to happy cows comes from the fact that the Wagyu cows are raised on a climate based diet with beer and sake in the summer. The summer makes the cows loose appetite and premium quality beer and sake are fed to the cows till they gain back their normal appetite. They have masseuse that massages the cows to relax them after a day of sitting and eating the best diet a cow can possibly have. The masseuse uses rice wine and sake to massage the cows which helps in tenderizing the flesh. Massaging the cow also helps in redistribution of the fat considering these cows are not very active. The cows are monitored 24/7 to ensure proper health. Prompt attention is paid to keep the cows happy with basically what we humans would call 24/7 paid concierge service.

So on your next trip to London, make sure Selfridges is in your stop list.

does Wal-Mart really need it?

I am sure by now all of us have heard the Deborah Shank story. For those who have not followed the news lately, here is the story in a nut shell. Deborah Shank a former Wal Mart employee suffered devastating injuries in a traffic accident about 7 years ago. At that time Wal-Mart paid $470,000 of Shank's initial medical bills. And of course looked like the good American company.

About 4 years ago Shank's husband sued the Truck company that had hit Shank's minivan and left her in a nursing home with total loss of short term memory. The court ruled in favor of the Shank family. The total settlement of $417,477 was placed in a special-needs trust fund for Shank's future health care expenses. With virtually being not able to remember anything due to wipe out of short term memory, she can not be left without the attention of someone. Thus she needs to be at a nursing home. Deborah Shank lost her son in Iraq and is traumatised by the news every time she hears it as she has not short term memory.

After Wal-Mart found out that Shank's had settled with the truck company, they came right back and sued the shanks to repay the initial expenses paid by Wal-Mart. Yes, even I thought why a company as big as Wal-Mart that had reported 90 Billion dollars in revenue in the last quarter of 2007 would ask a virtually disabled former employee to pay back. The answer is because it is legally possible to do so. While signing with Wal-Mart as an employee, the Shank's did not read the fine print. It read that if for some reason an employee get the money from a settlement, Wal-Mart reserves the right to collect the initial expenses covered by the company.

So now the giant is asking the Shank's for $400,000 by filing a law-suit. Shank's husband has no idea what he can do and he is already working two jobs to keep up with his wives medical bills. The question is does Wal-Mart really need that $400,000? They have the Wal-Mart employee trust and the Walton Family trust that could take care of this as a charity. It is legal but is it moral to collect the $400,000 from the Shank's?

With only about $250,000 left in the Shank's bank account, lawyers from Wal-Mart have already won the law-suit and have sent a notice to the Shank's to send that remaining money to add to the first quarter revenues of $50 billion.

If you feel you want to do something to help the Shank's, you can sign a petition on Facebook to stop Wal-Mart from collecting the money from them. Almost a million Americans have swore not to shop at Wal-Mart again, you could join them as well.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

the Obama propaganda

Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign have a new propaganda now. The want fighters to quit. It's a race stupid. Hillary has every right and reason to fight till the end. If only New York giants had quit because it seemed almost impossible to score a touchdown in the last 1:15 minutes and with third down and five-yards to go from their own 44 yard line, we would have not seen one of the greatest upsets in the Super Bowl history.

The road for Hillary is steep but not impossible. Of course, Sen. Obama has tried to ensure that it becomes impossible by not allowing Michigan and Florida re vote and playing the 'we abide by party rules' card. But i thought I heard him say in his speeches over and over again that he does not believe in decisions that party bosses make?

So Sen. Obama, if you think you can become the president of the United Stated of America without hearing the vice of two of the largest states - Think Again.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

the first one!

This being the first post, let me start with the current and hot topic of Clinton Vs Obama. This is my question to the Obama folks and everyone who says that the so called super delegates should not overturn the will of the people of their state.

Interesting argument. So what did Bill Richardson (Gov. of New Mexico), John Kerry(Senator from Massachusetts), Ted Kennedy (Senator from Massachusetts) and a host of other hypocrites mean when they overturned the will of their states people by endorsing Barack Obama. Hillary won in both New Mexico and Massachusetts. Atleast, Hillary is open about it and says that super delegates should be allowed to choose whoever they want.

Isn't this double standards at the highest level? Or is it the pinnacle of hypocrisy?