Welcome to the 117th edition of the Cavalcade of Risk, the only blog carnival dedicated to dealing with all the potential dangers in the world that might strike you down at any time!
Dangers like being killed by a meteorite, for instance! Just imagine, if you will, that something like what happened to the frozen Siberian plain of Tunguska were to happen to a place that really deserves it, like say, Los Angeles. What should we do about that?
If you're an unethical scientist seeking funding, you might be inclined to use the fear of that kind of danger to rake in huge government grants to study the problem. Then create more fear of the possibility to get even more funding.
Why, if the danger were great enough, entire industries would spring up for the sake of protecting you and the things you care about from that kind of disastrous outcome by selling you the things you might need to cope with the possibility that you or your family might have to deal with the damage it might do, which ranges from being possibly being physically struck dead or injured by a rock from the sky, assuming you lived, to the tsunamis that might flood your home if one splashed down in a body of water near your home, say close to Los Angeles!
But how much risk is there of that? We found out from a geologist who, after running some very real numbers considering the likelihood of such an event in geologic time, wrote with confidence:
Nobody reading this blog will be killed by a meteorite impact.
Which is why the fine people of Los Angeles are, for the moment, free from the fear of being struck by a meteor impact and are instead hard at work ripping off this idea for their screenplays for a number of movies coming out next summer. Otherwise, they'd all be out buying sump pumps to deal with the tsunami potential (more on sump pumps later....)
As it happens, there are more real risks and dangers for people to consider. Starting with the risk that the individuals who contributed posts to this edition of the Cavalcade of Risk faced when they submitted their posts for consideration for this week's edition.
You see, every so often, the Cavalcade of Risk's hosts have to deal with the problem of people contributing posts that are either totally unrelated spam or that don't have much to do with the concept of risk. Normally, they ignore those kinds of posts, but still have to go to the time and trouble of reading and reviewing them only to find out that they wasted their time because the contributor chose to ignore the guidelines for contributing posts to each edition of the Cavalcade of Risk.
But today, we're not going to ignore them. We're going to mock them until it hurts instead....
| Blog Post Rating System for Blog Carnivals | ||
|---|---|---|
| Topicality [Capital Letter] |
Information Quality [Small Letter] |
Readability [Number] |
| A - Fully On Topic B - Related Topic C - Way Off Topic D - Spam |
a - Makes You Smarter b - Makes You Informed c - Makes You Stupider |
1 - Highly Readable 2 - Average Quality 3 - Potentially Painful |
To do that, we will be using our well-established Cavalcade of Risk rating system. If there are those among you who dare anger the host, you'll find out that there is indeed a risk to contributing anything less than a well-written, on-topic post to the Cavalcade.
The table provides a quick guide for interpreting the ratings we'll presenting for each post contributed to this week's Cavalcade of Risk.
Here, a post with the rating Aa1 is one that is fully on topic, will make you smarter and is highly readable. By contrast, reading a post with the rating Dc3 would be like going through Homer Simpson's ordeal, only worse. And before you say anything, we do know that "c" should say "Makes you more stupid," but we figure that if you have read or have written enough of those kind of posts that your language processing skills are such that you wouldn't notice if we didn't point it out ourselves. After all, we discovered in this edition that at least one of you has difficulty counting all the way to ten....
Let's get on with the pain parade! The 117th edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is ready for your review - feel free to click the column headings to dynamically sort the entries according to the indicated category (If you're accessing the Cavalcade from an RSS news feed, you'll need to click through to our site to get that functionality....)
| Cavalcade of Risk #117 |
|---|
| Date Contributed | Post Title | Blog Name | Rating | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-10-18 | 50 Compelling Quotes from the World's Most Brilliant Business Minds | Best Universities | Db3 | Pity poor Tina Sans. She had no clue what-so-ever that her spam post of 50 quotes, 49 of which have no connection to anything having to do with risk would make the top of our crap list. Here's the one quote that did have something to do with risk, from Michael Eisner: "Well, when you're trying to create things that are new, you have to be prepared to be on the edge of risk." Inspiring? Not really. But then, Tina perhaps now is experiencing the downside of being on the losing side of taking the risk of contributing a post to this week's Cavalcade of Risk, which is why we've scored it as "making you informed".... |
| 2010-10-19 | Is Your Organization at Risk of a Quality Disaster? | The Thriving Small Business | Bb2 | Kathy C takes on corporate cost cutting, considering the undesirable consequences if quality is cut too far in the chase for higher profits. |
| 2010-10-19 | Safety in the Workplace: How to Develop a Safety Program | The Thriving Small Business | Bb2 | Kathy C strikes again! This time, she argues that the goal of a safety program should be to create a system for identifying and mitigating against workplace hazards, above and beyond the minimum needed to cover a company's legal exposure. |
| 2010-10-19 | Empowerment: A Leadership Competency | The Thriving Small Business | Cb2 | Three strikes and you're out, Kathy C! It's not a bad post, but Kathy C's take on empowering employees won't enlighten anyone exploring the environment of risk! |
| 2010-10-20 | That's Gross! Why Home Insurance Won't Pay for Disgusting Problems | Insure.com | Bb2 | The unfortunately named Marvin Grossman looks at the problems homeowners with some really gross situations might have, but that their home insurance might not cover. He also considers exceptions to the rules. |
| 2010-10-21 | Types of Annuities: Annuity Definitions | Oblivious Investor | Cb2 | Mike Piper writes a solidly educational post on the topic of annuities, mainly focusing on the different types that are available for investors. |
| 2010-10-21 | Health Care Reform Measures in Effect Now | Good Financial Cents | Bb2 | Certified Financial Planner Jeff Rose identifies a number of changes already in force from the government's recently passed health care reform law and finds that some of the changes might actually save people money. |
| 2010-10-22 | Top 10 Financial Blogs for College Students | Criminal Justice Degrees Guide | Dc3 | Shame on you, spammer Kyle McNamara! Not only didn't you include Political Calculations in your list of top financial blogs for college students, you actually had to duplicate one (hi Broke Grad |
| 2010-10-22 | How to Prepare Your Home for Floods | Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket | Ab2 | Wenchy extracts wisdom from Popular Mechanics guide to prepping your home for a different kind of bailout. The two words you should take away from the post? "Sump pumps." |
| 2010-10-22 | Balancing Risk Versus Reward Through Asset Allocation with Terry Vaughan Of Hottinger Asset Management Canada | Investing Thesis | Bb2 | Arjun Rudra's interview is oriented toward Canadian investing, but does provide some insight into the kinds of things an investor can do to manage the risks associated with investing. |
| 2010-10-25 | Where to Buy Penny Stocks | Qwoter Stock Tips | Dc3 | Rick must be a saint - he cares a great deal about novice investors in penny stocks, since he went to a great deal of trouble to identify penny stock brokers, guidelines for how to buy penny stocks, how to screen penny stocks, and a special penny stock trading system. Basically, everything a novice penny stock investor would need to know to become permanently separated from their money.... |
| 2010-10-28 | Financial Bondage | Canajun Finances | Ab2 | No, there's no financial S&M going on here, but the Big Cajun Man certainly does weigh in on the things that might unknowingly increase your risks of becoming shackled to a poor investment! |
| 2010-10-28 | LTCi: Another Reason to Buy | InsureBlog | Aa2 | Hank Stern adds one more reason to consider buying Long Term Care insurance: the risk to your loved ones' futures! |
| 2010-10-28 | Incentives for Long-term Care Facilities to Hospitalize Patients | Healthcare Economist | Aa1 | Jason Shafrin reviews a Kaiser Family Foundation report on the incentives that long-term care facilities have for unnecessarily hospitalizing patients in their care. |
| 2010-10-29 | Indiana Supreme Court Holds Construction Defects Can Be an "Occurrence" | Insurance Law Hawaii | Ab2 | Tred R. Eyerly's post is about as inside-insurance-industry-baseball as it gets, as he considers the ramifications of a court decision affecting what can, and cannot, be considered to be an "accident" or an "occurrence" where improper or faulty workmanship are concerned. |
| 2010-10-29 | Should You Hire an Investment Specialist? | The Dough Roller | Cb2 | Is an investment specialist right for you? Michael Pruser ventures far away from the topic of risk in discussing how someone can work out if an investment specialist is right for them. |
| 2010-10-29 | Umbrella Insurance Is Always the Right Answer | Free Money Finance | Ab2 | FMF fronts for Marotta Wealth Management, who guest authored this post regarding how and when someone might need umbrella coverage for their insurance needs. |
| 2010-10-30 | 10 Tips to Consider When Buying a Foreclosure | The Central Florida Real Estate Site | Cb2 | We came *this* close to calling this spam rather than simply being way off topic. In the end, the only thing that made this post C-grade is that it argues against buying and flipping foreclosures, which for a site that specializes in Central Florida Real Estate, must have taken a lot of courage. |
| 2010-10-30 | Efficient Market Hypothesis: So Are Markets Efficient? | Digerati Life | Aa2 | Todd Smith describes what the Efficient Market Hypothesis is, in all its flavors, and its use in attempting to reduce the risks of investing. |
| 2010-10-30 | How to Prepare for Downsizing Within Your Company | Free From Broke | Cb2 | Two words: "sump pumps." Believe it or not, that information is probably more useful than anything contributed by guest blogger GoBankingRates.com on what to do if you become a downsizing victim. |
| 2010-10-30 | Margin Calculator | Dead Cat Traders | Dc3 | Since we're in the business of building online calculation tools to help people do the math related to major and minor life decisions, we were excited to see one contributed to the Cavalcade of Risk. But then, it turned out to be this one. Our short review: it's total crap. |
| 2010-10-31 | Work with Bonded Professionals to Protect Your Investments | Cash Money Life | Bb2 | Chris from SuretyBonds.com discusses various kinds of surety bonds (go figure!), which may be used as a way to guarantee the quality of service to be done on your behalf in the future by a variety of different kinds of contractors. |
| 2010-10-31 | Primary Care - Hospital Negotiation Over the Formation of an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) | Disease Management Care Blog | Ab2 | Video alert! Jaan Siderov ventures into new territory, featuring an animated discussion (literally!) of an exchange between a hospital administrator and a primary care physician over the terms of participating in an ACO. Definitely not the sort of thing you see at the DMCB every day! |
| 2010-10-31 | Small Business Owners: 8 Ways to Help Keep Your Battery Charged! | The Thriving Small Business | Dc3 | Mistress of blog carnival spam, Kathy C, returns to torment small business owners who need to keep their battery charged! We wonder if "sump pumps" might also be the solution here…. |
| 2010-10-31 | 10 Ways to Create an Employee Engagement Culture | The Thriving Small Business | Dc3 | Hey look at another Kathy C contribution! Now look back to me. Now back at Kathy C. Now back to me. Sadly, Kathy C isn't me, but if Kathy C stopped spamming and switched to Old Spice, Kathy C could smell like she's me…. |
| 2010-10-31 | Defensive Medicine 101… It Starts Now | The Notwithstanding Blog | Aa2 | When do doctors get their first lesson in defensive medicine? Would you believe it's before they get anywhere close to the cadavers in anatomy class?.... |
| 2010-11-01 | Oregon's 2010 Workers Comp State Premium Rate Ranking | Workers Comp Insider | Ab2 | Want to see how your state compares to others where the taxes that fund workers compensation benefits are concerned? Julie Ferguson maps out the big changes that have taken place since 2008! |
| 2010-11-01 | Funding Health Care Reform | Colorado Health Insurance Insider | Ab2 | Louise Norris reviews an article by Maggie Mahar that argues that only a small tax increase on the richest Americans and getting rid of the popular Medicare Advantage program will be all it takes to save Medicare from insolvency, which will also be more than sufficient to subsidize the health insurance of an additional 32 million Americans. On a related note, we happened to actually build a tool that you can use to see how much Medicare and Medicaid will cost you in the future defined by ObamaCare (just click the appropriate icons you see under the main results screen - we bet you didn't know that you were one of the richest Americans!) |
| 2010-11-01 | IRA Basics | New IRA Rules | Db2 | It has nothing at all really to do with the concept of risk, yet Rosetta's contribution describing what traditional and Roth IRAs are will likely leave you unfulfilled and perhaps a bit bored. |
| 2010-11-01 | Foam Roller Exercises to Reduce the Risk of Iliotibial Band Syndrome | FoamRoller | Db2 | Alexander Peter isn't afraid to admit that he has personally suffered from Iliotibial Band Syndrome. If only there were some kind of foam rolling product one might use while exercising to help loosen and stretch his ITB and help relieve the pain. Or perhaps this is something best handled by those ever-useful "sump pumps." |
| 2010-11-01 | The Benefits of Negotiating Debt Settlements Yourself | Debt Management Program | Dc3 | Jane Sanders is concerned that too many debt settlement offers from various debt relief companies are too good to be true. She announces that, over the course of the next couple weeks, she'll be working on a comprehensive do-it-yourself debt settlement. If only there were some kind of foam rolling product.... |
| 2010-11-01 | Recent Foreclosure Buyers Worried About the Foreclosure Freeze | Billeater | Cb2 | If you've completely missed the problems that led many banks to freeze their home foreclosure activity over the past month, Jessica Bosari's contribution will catch you up to where things stood perhaps a month ago. |
The next edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is scheduled for 17 November 2010 at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. The previous edition appeared at Workers Comp Insider.
On a final note for this edition of the Cavalcade of Risk, Hank Stern is, as always, anxious for volunteers to host - if you're interested in dealing out this kind of abuse or just highlighting the best posts on the topic of risk, contact him as soon as possible to reserve a slot!