| Japan stocks fall over 2 pct, erasing week's gains
U.S. crude oil CLc1 jumped to an all-time high above $100 a barrel on Tuesday, with supply constraints helping to drive up the costs of other raw materials, though it had fallen below that level in Asian trade on Wednesday. 'Investors bid up the market earlier this week on expectations that U.S. stocks would do well once Wall Street returned from a holiday, but those hopes were betrayed,' said Yutaka Miura, chief technical analyst at Shinko Securities. 'Taking this along with the high oil prices and worries about the U.S. economy, investors decided it was a good time to lock in profits.' At 0429 GMT the benchmark Nikkei .N225 was down 2.4 percent at 13,430.06, its lowest since Feb 15. The broader TOPIX index was down 2.4 percent at 1,312.84.
Konica Minolta (4902.T: Quote, Profile, Research) plunged 7.3 percent to 1,365 yen after Credit Suisse cut its rating to 'neutral' from 'outperform' citing a weak office equipment market, competition in the LCD film market and the impact of a strong yen.
John Watson: Sand Flat still a small country community
Sand Flat, a small community midway between Cleburne and Grandview, is one of the older communities in Johnson County.According to a letter in the "Johnson County Scrap Book, Volume 3," at the Cleburne Public Library, George N. Logan and his family left Kentucky in a wagon pulled by oxen in 1853. When they arrived in the area that is now Johnson County, they found the land was not what they expected it to be and went back to East Texas, where they lived for five years. While in East Texas four of their eight sons died, one having been killed by Indians. In 1858 they packed up again and returned to Johnson County, where they had friends living. This time they settled in Sand Flat.Two things that held the early communities together were the school and church. This is where things get interesting.
Motorist killed by flying pizzeria rooftop
Forbes: A powerful wind gust blew off a section of a Castlewood, Va., pizzeria rooftop, killing a passing motorist when it slammed into his car. Michael Brandon Hess, 19, was traveling on Route 58 Tuesday evening when the roof and possibly remnants of an air conditioning unit landed on his Ford Mustang, police said. .
Torri's Tipplers and DDD's.
Just thought we should throw out a few tentative dates for the Challenge next year. As we are a bit spread out over the map, this may take some sorting. I am open for the end of June or thereabouts. Anyone else? Aside to Randie: Will we take the same Air Canada flight or British Airways or whatever is cheapest, or should we be like the Royal Family and travel separately? In case one of us crashes, the other will still be available? .
Revolution in the power lines
A QUIET revolution in the way the nation plans for its future electricity needs took place in Holyoke earlier this month, when the operator of the region's power grid held an auction for the cheapest ways to meet demand until 2011. The big winner was conservation. The recent auction by the nonprofit Independent System Operator New England was the first in the country in which bidders could propose ways to cut demand and increase efficiency, instead of just increasing supply. The auction proved that it can be cheaper for a system to arrange, for instance, for big power users to ease off the air-conditioning on the hottest days than for the system to look to other options, such as the construction of new peak-power plants that burn costly natural gas. Looking ahead to 2010 and 2011, the ISO had decided it needed about 1,800 new megawatts of capacity - enough to power about 1.3 million homes.
Health chief Neale Fong blocked search for emails
In an extraordinary move, they were given to the media almost three hours before the Opposition, which had requested them under Freedom of Information. Mr McGinty said he had made everything public to "take away the opportunity for the Opposition to milk the emails for more than they are worth". The Opposition, which was charged $300 for its FOI search, was left fuming. Three weeks ago, Opposition Leader Troy Buswell used an earlier batch of FOI documents to embarrass Mr McGinty by showing he rewrote a media statement for Dr Fong to play down his contact with Mr Burke. One of the emails released yesterday from Colin Xanthis, who was co-ordinating the department's FOI search, asked Dr Fong for approval to search his personal email files "to satisfy the current FOI request". Dr Fong replied 16 minutes later: "No." Another email between two officers, whose names were deleted, showed the lax approach initially taken by the department.
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