'Red Skies'

The Fixx

'Two Girls Two Cups'

Two Girls Two Cups @ Yahoo! Video

Nikkei Is Flat On Monday

As the markets resume on Monday, investors will be watching reports from retailers.

Now that we might have a new health care bill, which insurance companies stand to make out the best. In other words, which companies will investors flock to, just as they did with Haliburton during the Bush years.

Reuters: Nikkei flat after U.S. jobs data, tech shares slip

...as the market digested U.S. jobs data that had both negative and positive aspects for equities...

...job losses for August and September were revised to show 91,000 fewer jobs were lost than previously reported.

'Condemned'

1929

4 stars **** - Sande

Norman Soloman On The Health Care Bill

Before we get all fuzzy about the potential for health care reform, we might want to understand what the bill actually does.

Norman Soloman has put together a scathing critique of the bill and it merits reading.

The Bush administration funneled billions into the hands of private security to work Iraq. Investors in Halliburton made out like bandits. The era of the privatized military went ballistic.

The health care bill will allow the government to funnel billions into the hands of private health insurance companies to provide "public" health care.

Common Dreams: The Next Phase of Healthcare Apartheid

The most "affordable" policies will be the ones with the highest deductibles and the worst coverage.

...the Obama administration was aiming for a public option that could provide coverage to one out of every four Americans. Now the figure is around one out of every fifty.

...all the "public option" proposals now provide a massive funnel from the U.S. Treasury to the insurance conglomerates. The individual mandate is a monumental giveaway to private insurance firms.

Rep. King Falsely Claims The Bill Encourages Suicide

Its one thing to oppose a measure, but its quite another to lie.

Here Rep. King claims that the health care reform bill will encourage suicide.

Nothing like a good dose of fear mongering if it helps your position.

Reuters News Clips

Health Care Reform Bill Passes Congress

Congress passed a health care reform bill late Saturday night.

Now its onto the Senate where modifications to the bill will take place in order to gain its passage with 60, mostly Democratic, Senators.

At this point, one can say that Obama and Democrats in general emerge in better political standing. Politics is completely intertwined with this bill, right at its most fundamental point of origination.

Reuters: House approves bill to overhaul healthcare

...a 220-215 vote, including the support of one Republican...

The bill would set up exchanges where people could choose to purchase private plans or a government-run insurance option bitterly opposed by the insurance industry, and it would offer subsidies to help low-income Americans buy insurance.

Reuters has laid out a simple list of losers and winners in this reform bill. On the surface there is some appeal here, but the details are what will bite us.

Reuters: FACTBOX: Health company winners, losers in U.S. House bill

LOSERS

HEALTH INSURERS
The bill also eliminates the exemption health insurers had from antitrust laws, explicitly barring them from price fixing, bid-rigging or dividing up markets.

DRUGMAKERS

...WINNERS

DEVICEMAKERS

BIOLOGIC DRUGMAKERS

Pakistan Violence 11-8-09

Gulf News: Suicide bomb in Pakistan market kills 12

'I Fought The Law'

The Clash

Scrappy

American Violence - Simple Observations

Ugly week in the USA for mass murderers -

Police Find 11th Body at Rapist's House

Investigators Probe Fort Hood Shooting

In my opinion the mass murderer is completely deranged. I mean we can attempt to nuance that observation, and professionals and criminal lawyers have parsed these things into subtle details. I am speaking in general terms.

Just making some simple observations here -

The rapist is committing murder and violent acts against women. The Fort Hood murderer is allegedly frustrated, wanted out of the military, didn't want to go to Afghanistan, and felt persecuted as a Muslim in the military. So, he lashes out and kills indiscriminately.

The rapist went about his murdering under cover and secretively, the Fort Hood psychiatrist was open and public, not concealing a thing. Its important to mention that the rapist is an alleged murderer, he has not had his day in court.

The rapist hid his victim's bodies as if they were being formally buried. The Fort Hood psychiatrist left his victims in a state that one imagines in war, as if he were conducting a miniature war or incursion. The victims are left for the world to take care of, for someone else to take care of.

The rapist had an eye to the future, in that he would hide his murder victim and then carefully repeat the process. Here I am guessing and assuming that he did not kill everyone at once. His murdering was based on an ongoing process. One might suspect that he would have chosen or wanted to go on till his end days if possible. The Fort Hood psychiatrist had no eye to the future. He was not embarking on his rampage thinking that after the killings he would go home and start fresh the next day. One gets the sense that he would have been quite happy to kill everyone.

The rapist calculated - we have to imagine that he was careful in not being observed. How else could you do that. The psychiatrist seemed to snap fast and hard. He was perfectly willing to allow anyone to see him commit his murder.

I am going to stretch here but one suspects that the rapist felt guilt and so he worked to be invisible. The psychiatrist seems to believe he is justified and correct as if he is showing off his determination and beliefs.

Any thoughts?

In Prison

The U.S.A. is slowly closing in on having 1 in every 100 people in prison. At present the rate of incarceration in the U.S.A. is 714 per 100,000, and that is not up to date.

National Institute Of Corrections: World Prison Population List. Sixth ed.

The number of prisoners held in 211 countries is reported. Over 9 million people are incarcerated, with almost 50% held in the U.S., Russia, and China. The U.S. has the highest prison population rate of 714 per 100,000 of its national population, well above Russia with a rate of 532 per 100,000. Rates of 150 per 100,000 or below are experienced by 58% of the countries reviewed.

So the question that dawns on me is simply this, why is there so much more crime in the USA than in the rest of the world. This is serious. Think about the last week alone.

I would suspect that the people who make it their business to know the answers to this question are out there. The information is available, no doubt. Perusing the internet one gets lots of subjective answers to why there is so much violence ranging from - not believing in the lord, to people working too much and not giving enough time to their kids, to too many illegal immigrants, to not enough guns and too many restrictions on gun use.

Crime In Dubai

The population of Dubai is 1,420,000.

It is regarded as a relatively safe city, yet it is one of the most dangerous in terms of road accidents.

The data represents crime committed in the third quarter.

Gulf News: Big decline in robberies in Dubai

* Impersonating a public official: 3
* Stealing the plate number of vehicles: 12
* Snatch and grab: 22
* Stealing: 19
* Severe assault: 25
* Murder: 4
* Stealing by breaking in: 46
* Stealing vehicles: 31
* Other forms of stealing: 101
* Stealing from vehicles: 80
* Stealing from residences: 68
* Premeditated fire: 4

CNN - Soldier Prefers Kiss

Sell Your Body

Think, act, and be the dollar...

Reuters: Man makes living by selling the shirt on his back

...an American man who is making about $85,000 a year by selling advertising space on his torso.

Your Weekly Address

Coming Up On Wall Street

God I love Saturdays. You can relax and laze without concern, if you want to that is. Why not take advantage of the absence of cultural keep busy pressure and lay in bed all morning. I have to get a haircut at 9, so that's my excuse for moving my legs, and I'm walking to the shop. I'm getting my exercise and haircut in one shot.

Look its like this, there are lots of signs that a recovery is in place. A lot of that is from the government, AKA taxpayer money to be collected in 2020 and beyond, propping up the entire economic highway.

The problem is that now we have 10.2% official unemployment and that's a lot of people out of work. They say that the market is a leading indicator of the economy and that employment trails behind. This period would certainly seem to uphold that tradition. One thing I read yesterday that caught my attention was that temp jobs are on the rise. Allegedly this fact, an increase in temp jobs, precedes the period when full time jobs start appearing.

On the other hand, companies are doing well by using the threat of lay offs to get people to work harder and in more pressured situations. We are also entering a period of increasing anxiety and more ulcers.

Wall street will return to one of its favorite themes next week. That would be how well you, the consumer, are spending your fistfuls of dollars, how well you, you ingrate, are throwing your money around. Because as much as the government, AKA taxpayer money to be collected in 2020 and beyond, throws your money around, it is the materialistically driven obsessed American shopper who is in the center of the spotlight.

Reuters: Stocks eye retailers as jobless ranks swell

...anxious investors will look to earnings reports from major retailers for signs of life...

Friday the 13th is the day to note, when the U.S. international trade deficit for September will be released, along with October's import and export prices. The first reading for November on consumer sentiment will also be given that day by the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

CNN: Five more banks fail - 120 for the year

...United Commercial Bank of San Francisco, which had 63 U.S. branches as well as operations in Hong Kong and Shanghai...

United Security Bank of Sparta, Ga....

Home Federal Savings Bank of Detroit...

Prosperan Bank of Oakdale, Minn...

Gateway Bank of St. Louis, Mo...

'One Things Leads To Another'

The Fixx