Helsinki Prostitution

Usually when news reporters write about illegal or dubious activity, the information on how to exactly repeat the act is omitted. This time, however, YLE provided all the needed details on how to find prostitutes in Helsinki in their report.

In the interest of concise posting, I'll give the major details first:

• Go to Eerikinkatu, near Mannerheimintie
• Looks for Eastern European and / or Nigerian girls
• Be prepared to pay 60 - 150 Euros
• Your girl(s) will know an hourly hotel or an empty apartment in the area
• Aleksis Kiven Katu and Vaasankatu were the hotspots previously, but not so much anymore

Hopefully this is an effort at providing complete coverage with background from reporter Jarno Virtanen. I just happened to pick up on this because usually topics such as this have a little less detail. Perhaps this is common enough knowledge or not criminal enough for YLE to have no problem with it?

Oh, and as for the picture, I checked out the area in Google streetview (Eerikinkatu) and was surprised how the advertising system was clever enough to offer me "Naughty Women and Fun" via SMS contact. Either I browse for too much porn or Google is also aware of this place.

What Did You Expect?

So, picking up on news about the Koreas, did anyone really expect North Korea to do anything but deny any accusations of sinking the corvette? The only "problem" with this is that the NK denial is very good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100529/wl_asia_afp/skoreankoreamilitarydenial

According to AP (at Seoul, not Pyongyang mind you) they said that A) They have no such submarine as a 130 tonne Salmon class and B) The torpedo parts found make no sense. Yeah, it doesn't sound like much, but look more closely before jumping to support South Korea.

For part A, the proof of burden is strictly on South Korea and their Western allies. They have no proof of such a submarine class or they are not willing to show the evidence. This is a problem, but just an accusation is not enough in a matter like this. If they come back with a photo of the submarine you can ignore this, but they likely won't. North Korea gets a lot of bad press, often for a good reason, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily behind the incident.

For part B, South Korea has claimed that they have previous torpedo parts of a NK torpedo found in their seabed plus design specifications off of a prospective weapons buyer. These two match the debris found at the site, the story goes. This made no sense to me before NK said in their press release it makes no sense. How come?

First, a torpedo is a metal tube with an engine, acoustics and control electronics but the rest is filled with propellant and explosives. It doesn't leave a lot of debris when it explodes hard enough to sink a warship. And even if it did, it would be very, very difficult to find any little pieces, especially if it's mixed with debris from a sunken ship.

I know the conditions and especially depth of the ocean are different, but the French couldn't find an airplane black box from the bottom of the sea, which actively tries to be found, while SK claims they found a torpedo piece among debris no problem. This is very dubious. Then they claim they have previous fragments. They expect us to believe the SK seabed is practically littered with torpedo parts, so littered that fishermen pull them up.

Additionally, they claim to have specifications of NK torpedoes. To this the NK National Defense Commission Major General Pak Rim Su replies better than I can: "Who in the the world would hand over torpedo designs while selling torpedoes?"

And how does SK know these torpedoes were from their Northern neighbor? Because they say the pieces have Korean writing on them. Hand written, assumedly by a foreign hand. Too bad NK replied they don't scribble anything by hand on their torpedoes, and if they mark them they are machine engraved.

Think about this. We are being taken for idiots. The South Korean accusations rely on magnificent coincidences, improbable events and lacks evidence.

Now, I'm not saying who did it or why did the corvette sink. An accident, a mine at sea or an act of aggression are all possible, but I did want to point out how poor the evidence against North Korea is here. Also bear in mind, the media has completely backed up South Korea so far.

Gotcha, Chinese Drywall

When Chinese products reach the headline bar, you know they are faulty. Actually, even if a piece of China news fails to report a casualty number in the headline you know it's still bad news. Chinese products have long been the target of bad quality news.

I wouldn't normally pick up on this, but if this piece is true imported Chinese drywalls are ridiculously bad.

How bad? Try a chemical reaction which smells terrible and gets worse with heat and humidity. This is followed up by difficulty breathing, coughing and nosebleeds. Oh, and it will damage electrical wiring.

This material has been popular in Louisiana and Florida, used in rebuilding the devastation hurricane Katarina left behind. There are over 1300 complaints now. Those people sure get kicked hard when they try to get back up.

Just to make sure the people stay down when they are knocked down, some insurance companies have started dropping policies for customers whose houses have Chinese drywall installed.

Selling the house is not an option while it's defective and even if you remove the drywall and install a non-toxic one you still have to disclose that this has been done to the prospective buyers.

So what about suing someone? Well, the Chinese sell the drywall to a company in Germany who then sells to US. It's an international issue that will have to be solved in The International Court in The Hague. Good luck getting money from there.

Yes, there is a way to get a compensation in US, but this requires proving your house is contaminated and then following correct court approved procedure to fix the problem. The problem here is no such procedure has been approved in Florida or Louisiana.

Here's the original AP article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_re_as/as_china_us_drywall

Baltimore Sun writes of the insurance policies being dropped here:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/real-estate/bal-re.drywall25oct25,0,1232906.story

St. Tammany News has the info on the court problems:
http://www.thesttammanynews.com/articles/2009/10/26/news/doc4ae1b724be03e750019321.txt

Gotcha, Kenyan Farmer Style

Now, if I was a farmer, I would be extremely dubious if someone claimed I should replace my usual crop with a weed in a time of drought. I would be more dubious if the someone was claiming this weed made more fuel than other biofuel plants and would require less tending and less water to grow than other plants. The cure all plant is called Jatropha.

Too bad this someone was the government and the farmers believed. They were promised the seeds from the plants would be in growing demand and fetch about $13 per kilo. Then the farmers were promised advice with the new crop. Just to keep the list going they also said each plant would make a kilo of seed each - you can hear the cash registers going ka-ching right in the farmers' heads.

To cash in on this the farmers were sold "certified seeds" at extra cost.

They weren't told was that the information was mostly off of the Internet.

Can I get a "Those are regular seeds and the plant isn't anything like promised!" No shit the farmers got burnt.

Now the farmers know there is no proven way to make Jatropha grow in any large quantity. Sometimes one plant grows successfully somewhere. When it does grow it will make about 200g of seed instead of 1000kg since it requires so much water. Yes, when a real study came in it said Jatropha requires more water per liter of fuel than most others.

The farmers also know the plant if very fragile when young, not suited for arid conditions like they were told.

Then when they did get seed nobody wanted to buy them.

Someone got the farmers good. I assume that someone wears a monocle and twirls his mustache with a maniacal laugh. Classic evil genius.

Here's the TIME original:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1927538,00.html