Laugh & Get Rich Day, Kite Flying Day, February 8th

Oh, Absent is going to be political today. Kind of interesting for Laugh and Get Rich Day and Kite Flying Day. Yes, this means that someone put a bug in my ear, or a tack on my chair, or starch in my collar...

Laugh and Get Rich Day

It seems that according to this holiday, laughter will help us be wealthy. I think that if you count your wealth in health and wisdom than we might be on to something here.

Laughter will improve the cardiovascular system. When we laugh, our heart rate and blood pressure go way up, then they drop, which is good if you want to reduce high blood pressure. Four-year-olds laugh on average of three hundred times a day, while the average adult laughs only fifteen times a day. Maybe that is why adults have heart disease. If we would laugh as frequently as a four-year-old, we might have the heart rate and blood pressure of a four-year old.

When we laugh our internal organs get massaged. Massages are always good. And our blood becomes highly oxygenated from the increased air that we breath during a laugh. The air that is expelled during laughing has been clocked at seventy miles per hour, so we know our respiratory system is also getting a workout.

Laughter is believed to be one of the things that helps our brain to produce hormones called beta endorphins, which reduce pain in our bodies. It also helps the adrenal glands to manufacture cortisol, which is a natural anti-inflammatory.

Yes, the world needs more laughter in it, and less focus on things. This is what I offer as proof.

Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933 by Martin Crutsinger

Americans' personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing.

The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before -in 1932 and 1933 -two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs...

...A negative savings rate means that Americans spent all their disposable income, the amount left over after paying taxes, and dipped into their past savings to finance their purchases...

"Americans spent all their disposable income." Wow.

Kite Flying Day

After that cheerful article, here is a nice one about global warming. Apparently, January was the warmest in the U.S. history since 1953. With that and our record hurricane season, I am a bit worried about next year.

But, if we are having record-setting high temperatures, it will make for better kite flying.

January Was America's Warmest on Record by Randolph E. Schmid

January was a fair-weather friend. Recording the warmest January on record allowed Americans to save on their heating. But like all good things, last month's mildness seems to have been too good to last.

The country's average temperature for the month was 39.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 8.5 degrees above average for January, the National Climatic Data Center said Tuesday. The old record for January warmth was 37.3 degrees set in 1953...

All this negativity can only mean that Absent had to deal with a lot of government rhetoric, and is looking forward to more. I think that I am going to go live in Iceland. At least they won't be going to war over oil.