Japan

Oh noes! SOMEBODY pushed the red button! Fasten your seatbelts! And prepare for blast-off. Rocket boosters ignite. Super jet-pack take-off! Orbiting the planet. Reaching for the moon. Sploosh down! I pushed the red button! Sorreez. I pushed the red button! Sorreez. I pushed the red button! Sorreez. 1. An Inspired Perspective. Image courtesy of Flickr, Melly. 2. Reach for the sky, little ginger cat. Image courtesy of Flickr, Rachel Bowles. 3. Levitating kitty. Image courtesy of Flickr, Alienlebarge. 4. Snapped in Japan, a wonderful setting. Image courtesy of Flickr, Akimasa Harada. 5. Cat plays catch. Image courtesy of Flickr, Manuel Castro. 6. Derpycats 7. It’s Beans! gif by Josh Norem Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Caturday, Kittens

As if locusts weren't tasty enough already, the Café & Bar Ristorante Absente in Tokyo now serves them on spaghetti. Rocket News 24 reports:In their press release, restaurant owner Pasta Dio would like to remind everyone that locusts are an excellent source of calcium, protein, and vitamin A and were used in Japan during times of war to fight malnutrition and save lives. They even claim that once you get past the initial heebie-jeebies, locusts actually have an addictive texture that makes you come back for more.Link(Photo: @Press)

Nissan is conducting a major worldwide recall of 841,000 Micra and Cube subcompact models built from 2002 through 2006 for a loose steering wheel bolt. The cars affected were sold in the markets of Japan, Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. No cars sold in the U.S. are affected by the recall. [...]

Gap (NYSE:GPS) recently reported its first quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Seamless Inventory Initiative John Morris – BMO: Congratulations, everybody on a great start to the year. I guess and maybe Glenn you talked, really effectively you and your team, when we had the Investor Day about the seamless inventory initiative, which you touched on this morning in your prepared remarks. It sounds like its rolling foreword maybe a little bit faster and into place than some of us might expect, which is great. Wondering, if you can talk a little bit more about the performance contribution potential you might see coming from that? I know it’s hard to predict, but maybe it’s helpful to think about it relative to some of the global competitors who have some of those initiatives already in place that you would probably know about? NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Glenn K. Murphy – Chairman and CEO: John I’d say there was really two parts that we talked about in April. So, I will just from a terminology perspective, the seamless inventory and the idea behind that – that’s going to take a little bit longer. That’s more of a midterm opportunity for the Company. The idea behind seamless inventory is right now as a Company and this is true of almost every single apparel company with likely the exception of Inditex. That we have inventory, that is either in a country and then what is inside of a country like Japan than its inside of a distribution center that’s online, inside of a distribution center that could be for stores and that’s inside of our 150 stores in Japan. So the idea behind this is how do we – and with the systems we are putting in place now and some changes in process, how do we make sure that our inventory becomes seamless when it leaves a factory for the vendor that a 100,000 unit PO that was agreed to weeks before that, just before it leaves and goes to the most appropriate country where it makes the most sense. Where we can maximize our sales and maximize our gross margin dollars because its matching supply with demand and then when it gets inside of the country, again how do we make it seamless between – and that’s assuming it’s at a single distribution center and that would make a big difference for us. Then when I guess inside of that distribution center how do we make sure it’s seamless between the online channel and the stores. So that’s a project that we have already done some work on. We are building the phase and I think that’s going to be more of a 2014 and beyond opportunity. The other part that could be, I guess be viewed as seamless inventory is what we are calling a more responsive supply chain. That is really, us as a business. This is something that in hindsight I probably should’ve pushed a little more aggressively inside the Company but we have told people in the past that our supply chain needs – in order to become more responsive it needs to be built on having much work fabric platformed inside of all of our mill relationships. Once you have fabric platform, then you could be a lot quicker on basic inventory, seasonal basic inventory to get a read and respond, and we’ve done some of this and there’s some of that going on the Company today, but I guess, if I was to characterize it, if we consider to be world class we are probably in the second inning – from a standing start we’re probably in the second inning right now of actually getting to a more responsive supply chain. Some of that will happen in 2013, a little bit, but again, most of the benefit from changing how we operate – changing the brand’s operating model to be much more in a responsive supply chain will happen in 2014. John Morris – BMO: Glenn, are those potentially contributive in

Submitted by Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live blog, In several of my recent missives I have made several references to the wave of deflationary pressures that are currently encircling the globe. In "Japan: A Few Thoughts On The Crash" I stated: "The unintended consequence of such actions, as we are witnessing in the U.S. currently, is the ongoing battle with deflationary pressures. The lower interest rates goes the less economic return that can be generated. An ultra-low interest rate environment, contrary to mainstream thought, has a negative impact on making productive investments and risk begins to outweigh the potential return." Also, in "Bernanke's Link to "Mother Nature" "How many more natural disasters will come to offset the negative economic impact of a zero interest rate environment coupled with a wave of deflationary pressures is unknown." But most importantly in "Why Bonds Aren't Dead & The Dollar Will Get Weaker" I stated: "A wave of 'disinflation' is currently engulfing the globe as the Eurozone economy slips back into recession, China is slowing down and the U.S. is grinding into much slower rates of growth. Even Japan, despite their best efforts through a massive QE program, cannot seem to break the back of the deflationary pressures on their economy. This is a problem that has yet to be recognized by the financial markets. The recent inflation reports (both the Producer and Consumer Price Indexes) show deflationary forces at work. Wages continue to wane, economic production is stalling and price pressures are falling. More importantly, there are downward pressures on the most economically sensitive commodities such as oil, copper and lumber all indicating weaker levels of economic output. The battle against deflationary economic pressures has been what the Federal Reserve has been forced to fight since the financial crisis. The problem has been that, much like 'Humpty-Dumpty', the broken financial transmission system, as represented by the velocity of money, can't be put back together again." The last paragraph above is particularly important. The biggest fear of the Federal Reserve has been the deflationary pressures that have continued to depress the domestic economy. Despite the trillions of dollars of interventions by the Federal Reserve the only real accomplishment has been keeping the economy from slipping back into an outright recession. However, when looking at many of the economic and confidence indicators, there are many that are still at levels normally associated with previous recessionary lows. Despite many claims to the contrary the global economy is far from healed which explains the need for ongoing global central bank interventions. However, even these interventions seem to be having a diminished rate of return in spurring real economic activity despite the inflation of asset prices. Despite the ongoing rhetoric of those fearing inflation due to the Fed's monetary interventions the reality is that such actions have, so far, failed to overcome the deflationary forces of weak global demand. The chart below is the spot price of copper. Copper, often dubbed "Dr. Copper", is very sensitive to economic growth as copper is used in everything from production, to manufacturing, transportation, housing, etc. So goes copper - so goes the economy. Copper is currently confirming the peak in economic growth for the current cycle. However, the question remains, do we have inflation or don’t we? Are we experiencing the 1970’s all over again as inflation kills the economy, or in the words of Ben Bernanke, have we entered an era of low inflation and interest rates that will last for some time as the threat of deflation remains a prevalent enemy to the economic recovery? 3 Components Of Inflation I believe that there are three components required to create a truly inflation environment. Commodity price inflation is certainly one of them as it does immediately impact t

A French soldier on anti-terrorist duties was stabbed in the neck Saturday in an attack that President Francois Hollande said could not "at this stage" be linked to the brutal murder this week of a military man in London. The attacker fled the scene after stabbing the 23-year-old in the…

The worldwide March Against Monsanto took place on Saturday in 250 cities around the world. The protest was planned to draw attention to the controversy surrounding the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) — including wildly popular Round-up Ready soybeans, corn, and cotton which are developed to be resistant to the use of the herbicide which kills common weeds. Some scientists and activists have linked the use of GMOs to collapsing populations of wild butterflies and honeybees. The European Union has taken a particularly strong stand against GMOs, regulating them so strongly that some observers say that there is a de facto ban on the crops. As a result, in 2012 Europe produced less than 400 square miles of GE (genetically engineered) crops, mostly Bt corn, which has been modified to include an insecticide. However, GE crops are one of the most valuable agricultural products in the Americas, with the United States, Brazil, and Argentina leading exporters of GMO crops and animal feeds like corn and soybean. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had pushed for a new law to allow states to require the labeling of GMO foods. However, on Thursday, the US Senate overwhelmingly shot down the measure 71-27. Here are just a few of the images from around the world. From Anonymous: #MONSANTO is NO DIFFERENT THAN PUTTIN A GUN 2UR FACE &PULLIN TRIGGER.March Against them on Sat bit.ly/157kqeY twitter.com/OrganicLiveFoo… — Anonymous(@AnonOpsMob) May 24, 2013 In New York: I like this sign NYC March against Monsanto#MarchAgainstMonsanto twitter.com/KillerParrot/s… — Killer Parrot™ (@KillerParrot) May 25, 2013 In Washington D.C.: The bee’s are “dying in” in front of Monsanto office in DC at the #mamdc march ow.ly/i/2cBHj — Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallSt) May 25, 2013 Paris, France: Protesters in Paris wave signs”#Monsanto plunders farmers, kills planet”#MAM on.rt.com/1hmc5w#OpMonsanto twitter.com/RT_com/status/… — Anonymous (@AnonOpsLegion) May 25, 2013 Here is video from Tokyo, Japan: And another one from Sydney, Australia: We don’t yet have a final count on the number of people who participated, but the March Against Monsanto Facebook page predicted 400 marches in 50 countries with over 200,000 people. [Durban, South Africa of March Against Monsanto protest by Tracy Hinds and Revolution News via Facebook] March Against Monsanto Worldwide Protest Two Days After Food Label Bill Fails Senate is a post from: The Inquisitr

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group vowed to help propel President Bashar Assad to victory in Syria's bloody civil war, warning that the fall of the Damascus regime would give rise to extremists and plunge the Middle East into a "dark period." In a televised address, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah…

With summer fast approaching and people shedding layers to stay cool, every businessman faces a decision of vast importance: what type of undershirt to wear beneath your white button-up. Men, if you’ve never given this any thought before, consider this fair warning: A Nikka Spa! survey of 100 female office…

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, third from right, takes part in a tug-of-war with Myanmar school children at Lat Yat San Friends Elementary School in Yangon, Myanmar, on Saturday.