Venezuelan President Chavez is "Hugo" on nepotism

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been busy lately. He has already served 8 years in his office and is attempting to extend his term even further with a constitutional referendum. it is not the only thing that has kept him busy while in office. Among other things he has had to spend a lot of time handing out jobs in the government to his many family members. In one instance even creating a government position that never existed before.
First off his father, Hugo De los Reyes Chavez. Currently Governor of the state of Barinas which is a state in Venezuela. Then you have his brother Anibal. Currently Mayor of Sabaneta, which is a rural villiage near Barinas. His brother Narciso ran a failed campaign to become mayor of Bolivar. He was then appointed to important posts at the Venezuelan embassies in both Canada and Cuba. Brother Adelis is a senior banker at Banco Sofitasa. This bank surprisingly enough does a large amount of government business with the state. Brother Argenis is the secretary of State in Barinas. This was the position that was created that had never existed before. And lastly his brother Adan. In addition to being the education minister of Venezuela he is also ambassador to Cuba and the private Secretary of the President himself. His Mother Alena, who runs a state Childrens foundation, can often be seen wearing her designer clothes and being escorted about in her motorcades consisting of new Black S.U.V.'s. The locals have taken to sarcasm and often refer to the Chavez clan as "The Royal family of Barinas".

Obesity: The dark side of western Affluence is rising in China

When a country develops economically its wealth and prosperity rises to levels it had never known before. It's standard of living increases and so to usually does it's collective waistline. The nation of China is in the middle of experiencing this downside to success right now and it only seems to be getting worse.
With a population of almost 1.5 billion people it is currently estimated that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million people who are now classified as either overweight or obese. That is the same size as the entire population of the United States. This figure includes the more than 10 million children who fit this categorization. This represents an eight fold increase since 1992.
The culprits are all the usual suspects. The more the economy expands in China the more people work. The more they work the less time they have to eat right and the more likely they are to just duck into a local fast food place and quickly and cheaply load up on unhealthy choices to eat that are fast and convienient. The rapid modernization that is occuring there is also leading to fewer opportunities for the average Chinese to get any kind of exercise. As their wealth increases they choose to live in more modern apartment buildings with elevators and parking garages for their new cars and larger rooms in their apartments into which they can fit new couches that can be located nicely in front of the new wide screen tv's that are flying off the shelves of the electronic stores in all their major modern cities.
The government is aware of the growing problem and in an attempt to stem the tide it is limiting the number of fast food places in the country. Franchises like McDonalds and K.F.C. currently have about 1000 and 700 locations in China respectively. The government is attempting to limit the number of new places that it allows to open but it does not want to hurt economic expansion too much so it is finding itself in a position of having to make a choice between the health of its citizens and the well being of its economy.
Another factor adding to the problem is the policy in China, due to the fact that the country is overpopulated, of only allowing a couple to have one child. That one child tends to get spoiled by parents who are old enough to remember the bad old days when food was not as plentiful and so they tend to provide more for their children then they had when they were young. Many chinese feel that it is a good sign of prosperity to be overweight. There are movements in China both cultural and governmental that are attempting to dispell this growing belief and replace it with the social stigma that exists in the west about being overweight in an attempt to turn the tide.

Stock in Monsanto has soared in last five months

Here is another company that is in the food business sort of. Monsanto (MON) is into bioengineering crops. They help farmers grow more and bigger crops by applying biotechnology techniques. The results are larger harvests that resist bugs. The company also produces the worlds #1 herbicide that goes by the brand name Roundup. Monsanto has aquired two new companies in the last few years, Delta and Pineland. A little bit of proof that it is moving more towards becoming a bigger boitech company and less focused on agrochemicals.
By the end of 2002 the stock was at $10 a share. By the beginning of 05 it was at around $30. By early 06 it was at $50. In the last five months of 07 it has gone from about $60 to about $100 a share. It seems to be growing as fast as its bioengineered crops.

Effects of global warming coming on sooner than expected

It may in fact be the most pressing issue that is facing mankind in the near future. How to deal with the issue of global warming and the threat that it may well wipe out life on this planet if it is not soon addressed. Many scientists are warning that the effects of global warming are coming on at a rate that is faster than initially predicted.
The way global warming occurs is subtle at first. The Earth gets its heat from the sun. The sun is the only heat source in our galaxy. It is believed that the suface temperature of the sun is about 11,000 degrees. When those rays hit the Earth they cause the temperature on the planet to increase. This heat in the past would normally bounce off of the surface of the earth and then escape back out into space. This is how it worked for the first few millions of years that the earth has existed. But lately somethings have changed. In the last 200 years or so there has been an industrial revolution on the earth. Mankind has built many machines that never existed before like cars and planes and factories that make all kinds of things that consumers in a modern economy demand. These factories and machines all spew out pollutants into the atmosphere when they are being used. This pollution or smog makes the atmosphere thicker and it prevents the suns heat from escaping out into space and causes the temperture on the planet to rise over time. If the planets temperature rises enough it may melt the polar ice caps in the north and south poles. If those ice caps melt the water levels in the oceans will rise greatly and the flooding that would result would be biblical in terms of the level of devastation.
In 2006 satelite images of the north pole were taken and they were compared to images of the pole taken in 1979. The images indicate that the ice caps at the north pole have shrunk by about 25% in that time. If this rate of loss in maintained or increased it is predicted that the earth may begin to suffer serious climate changes as early as 2030.
Right now The United States is the world's lagest pollutor of the atmosphere. It is estimated that in about three years China, With its economy growing at a rate of over 10% a year, will overtake the U.S. and become the worlds newest and greatest pollution emitter in the world. With a population that is almost 5 times larger than that of the U.S. it is likely that China will not only surpass America's pollution emissions but exponentially increase the levels of corbons in the earths atmosphere and do so in record time.

Sun Life can brighten an investors portfolio over time.

Do you know the nice safe feeling you get when you know you have insurance and you know your covered? Sun Life Inc. (SLF) is a company that provides that feeling for millions worldwide. It is a company that offers life insurance and wealth management services in North America, Europe and Asia. In the U.S. it is known as Sun Life Financial Corp. The U.S. market accounts for about half of its sales.
In January of 2003 the stock was going for about $20 a share. One year later $25. One year after that $35. In the spring of 06 $45. In november of 07 it reached almost $60 a share. Lately it had lost a bit and it is down to about $52. From $20 a share less than 5 years ago to over $50 now is still good growth. During this period it has not suffered any serious dips either with the exception of this last month really. Sooner or later all of the stocks in the market should start rising again and Sun Life will likely go up with them.

Columbine Massacre Revisited

It is hard to believe that in about 5 months it will be 9 years since the Columbine Massacre took place. It is equally difficult to believe that two teenage students attending a High school could actually become so enraged with their peers that they would be willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to "settle a score" about the way they felt they were being mistreated. The shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been planning the attack for over a year before they set it into motion.
It took place on the morning of April 20th 1999. Im Not sure if its a coincidence or not but April 20th also happens to be the birthday of Adolf Hitler. The whole massacre occured within the space of less than an hour between the hours of 11:30 am and 12:30 pm. The shooters showed up to school wearing black trenchcoats. Underneath his coat Eric Harris wore a t-shirt with the words "natural selection" written across it. Dylan Klebold had a shirt that simply had the word "wrath" written on it. The first two victims were shot just outside the front entrance of the school. As they made their way inside they shot more students as they encountered them. The sounds of gunfire soon caused a panic among the students who heard them and some members of the teaching staff soon called for help. By this point about 5 students had been shot. Some were wounded and some had died. A local police officer who had responsibility for patroling the school arrives and Harris and Klebold get into a shootout with this officer who returns fire from the front of the school while they are shooting at him through a window. The officer fails to hit either of the shooters and they pull back from the window and retreat into the school. This is the time when Harris and Klebold do the bulk of their killing. The shootout with the cop causes a complete panic among the students in the high school and everyone is just running for cover and to get away. The shooters are chasing students at this point through the halls and shooting anyone they come across. It is during this time that they shoot the only teacher that was killed. Running through the halls they end up at the library where there were over 50 students hiding behind desks and tables in fear. It is at the library that the majority of their victims would be claimed. A total of 12 students dead, 1 teacher, and 23 wounded.
Eric Harris's reasons for doing it may be a little easier to grasp than those of Dylan Klebold. Before the incident Harris made video tapes and also kept a journal into which he would write and record comments. In one of these entries he was writing about the kids at school and he wrote, "...I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things... " So it can be summized that at least in part one of his reasons was that he felt left out. It is also known that Harris had a fondness for the movie "Natural Born Killers" and he referred to the event in the days and months before they did it as N.B.K. day. He also had an emotional problem called Obsessive compulsive disorder for which he was taking a medication called Zoloft. The medication was making his condition worse and about 6 weeks before the massacre he was reporting to his doctor that he was having homicidal and suicidal thoughts. Instead of taking him off the medication it was simply switched to another brand called Luvox. During his autopsy large amounts of this medication were found in his bloodstream.
Dylan Klebold had no emotional conditions for which he was being treated at the time. He did however share Harris's feelings of being an outsider. They both felt like as far as their social standing at school went that they were both at the bottom of the pile. In the period leading up to the massacre Klebold was thinking about what N.B.K. day was going to do for his reputation. He figured it was going to make him an unforgettable figure and something of a folk hero. He said "...I know we are gonna have followers because we are so God like...".
After they had shot several of the students in the library they began to wander around the rest of the school aimlessly. Finding the hallways empty they turned around and wandered all the way back to the library. They get into one last shootout with the police surrounding the school by opening fire on them from one of the windows. The cops would find both their dead bodies about 3 hours later after they had done a room by room search of the school in an attempt to find and engage them. They both had self inflicted gunshot wounds to their heads and were lying in the same room next to most of their victims.

Another stock on the long term rise

Have you ever heard of Tesco? (TSCDY) Most people in the United States have not. They are the Number one retailer in Britain. They run over 2000 supermarkets and supercenters in the U.K. and over 1000 other similiar centers in other parts of Europe and Asia. The founders name is Sir Jack Cohen. He likes to stock his stores with a lot of inventory and then sell it as inexpensively as possible to move as much of it as he can. This is how he made his fortune.
In the fall of 2002 one share of tesco was trading for about $8 a share. By the fall of 2004 it was at around $18. By late in 2006 it was at around $24. Now in late November of 2007 it is at around $30 a share. That means that for every $8 you would have invested in this company 5 years ago you would now be holding $30 in its place. That is almost 4x more. That is some good steady growth in a relatively short period of time i would say. The company is planning an expansion into the United States. They have just opened their first store in Los Angeles. Early signs are it is going good.

April 1945 - Turning point month in world history

One of the most important months in the history of World War 2 easily was April 1945. It was not the end of the conflict yet. The war would not formally end until september of that year with the Japanese surrender. What did happen that month was that three of the biggest world leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, And Benito Mussolini all died within days of each other.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882. An only child, his father James was a cousin of the 26th president Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909). F.D.R.'s political career began when he was elected to the new york state senate in 1910. He supported Woodrow Wilsons run for the presidency and after Wilson won he was rewarded with the post of assistant secretary of the navy in his administration. In 1920 he ran for vice president with a Mr. James Cox but they lost to Warren Harding.
In 1921 he was stricken with Polio. The result of the illness was that he lost the use of his legs and would never walk again. He spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair.
Encouraged by his wife Elenor he continued in politics and went on in 1928 to be elected Governor of the state of new york. As the depression deepened he ran for president in 1932. He won his first of Four terms in office as he swept Herbert Hoover out of the white house. During the depression he put Americans to work with public projects like building roads, bridges and the Hoover dam.
By 1940 war had broken out in Europe. F.D.R. wanted to join the fight but the mood in the country and the Congress was that we stay out of the conflicts going on there. When Pearl Harbor occured that mood was evaporated overnight and the country was eager to engage the enemies.
The war did not go well at first. The U.S. suffered great defeats both at the hands of the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific. By 1943 the tide was turning and it began to become somewhat clear that victory would not only be possible but probable all be it at great cost and effort. F.D.R. lead the fight for most of the way but he would not live to see the end of it. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage (better known as a stroke) on April 12, 1945 at the home of Lucy Mercer, A woman who was rumored to be his companion.
Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883. He became the founder and leader of the Italian fascism movement. He started off as a school teacher and later became the editor of a socialist party newspaper called "Avanti" which means Forward or Let's go in Italian. He was after a while removed from this position because of his opposition to party policies. He reacted to this by forming his own paper called "il Popolo D'italia" which translates into the people of Italy. He would use this paper to spread his propaganda all over.
In 1919 he formed an even more interesting group called "Fasci di Combatimento" (Fascists of Combat). This group was armed and they fought with all who opposed their views. When Musolini threatened to march on the capitol of Rome with this group in 1923 they were instead invited to join the government in a coalition. Once they were let in they wasted little time taking over and silencing all opposition.
Mussolini spent the 1920's and 30's looking for wars to fight in places like Ethiopia in Africa and in 1940 he joined Hitler in fighting the British in Europe. After a number of military disasters it became clear that the italian army was in over its head and Mussolini was removed from power in 1943 and the Italians sued for peace with the allies. Towards the end of the war Mussolini tried to secretly leave Italy and escape to Switzerland with his mistress. During this flight he was caught by some Italian partisans. He was shot to death on April 28th 1945 at a place called Giulino Di Mezzegra just 16 days after F.D.R. Died from his stroke.
Adolf Hitler was not born a German. He was born in Austria on April 20th, 1889. He was a High School Dropout before he tried his hand at being a painter. Not really having a great deal of talent but still managed to sell some works and make some money at it but not much. In 1918 he decides to join the Bavarian army. In 1919 he joins the National Socialist German Workers Party. You know it better as the Nazi Party. By 1921 he rose to become chairman.
During the Great depression Hitler promised the German people relief from their economic nightmare with the promise of jobs if they would vote the Nazis into power. They did and once he became Chancellor in 1933 he ruled out all other rival political parties and took over as Dictator. With his secret police (Gestapo) he made sure all opposition was broken down. He created Jobs for Germans by building weapons in preparation for war. He needed those weapons to not only create jobs for the German people but to also be more than ready for when he wanted to start World War 2. Once the war started he had some early success. He quickly took over France in 1940 and had England on it's knees. If It had not been for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 which forced the U. S. Into the war the British may very well have been overcome. The crazy thing about the attack on Pearl Harbor from a military point of view is the timing. They did this while they were busy fighting the Russians on the other side of Europe. So attacking the Americans at that moment meant that the Germans were going to have to fight two different wars at the same time on opposite sides of their country. The Russians on the eastern front and the Americans on the western front. This military blunder would prove to be too much for the German war machine to handle at the same time. He basically bit off more than he could chew. The truth for any army is that fighting two seperate wars at the same time on two seperate fronts is at least one too many.
As the war progresses over the next few years both the Americans and the Russians succeed in wearing down the German defences and by April of 1945 the Russians are at the door of the German republic looking for their revenge. Hitler senses this impending defeat. With his country being overrun by U.S. forces on one side and Russians on the other he decides to, in his under ground bunker, to poison his German Shepard dog, have his new wife Eva Braun, whom he married only the day before, take poison as well and then shoots himself to death in the head with a revolver. He left orders to have his body burned in order that it not fall into the hands of the coming Russians who got to Berlin ahead of the Americans. The date was April 30, 1945. Two days after Mussolini was caught and killed and a little more than two weeks after F.D.R. died.

December 8, 1980 - The worst day in rock and roll history

For music lovers who were alive at the time this cold day in the fall of 1980 is a day that will never lose its ability to bring up a feeling of dread and despair. It is of course the day John Lennon was killed. It has been referred to by some people as the day music really died. On this day all hope for any kind of Beatles reunion, which was something that the world had been longing for ever since the band broke up, was gone forever.
In the eyes of many John Lennon represented the top of the pops. With Paul McCartney as a songwriting and creative partner John was half of the greatest songwriting duo in the history of rock music. With their arrival on the music scene in 1962 rock and roll was set to enjoy its most creative and prolific golden age that lasted through the end of that decade with the Beatles as the eye of that hurricane. Their early "mop top" phase started simply. Songs like "love me do" And "I wanna hold your hand" Were easy and catchy and gave little hint at the sophistication that was just around the corner. In a short period of time these early songs would give way to ones that were more lyrically interesting and musically complex.
The first real and consistant signs of this came in 1965 with songs like John's "Help" Which is about a depressed man crying out for someone to rescue him from his emotional distress And Paul's "Yesterday" which is a lament about the end of a romance. With "In my life" John is looking back on all the people he has known in his life "...some are dead and some are living..." at the ripe old age of 24.
1966 continued the musical progression with songs and albums that were greater still. Paul's "Elenor Rigby" Which is the sad commentary on the life of a lonely spinster is proof of his enormous gifts as a songwriter. With "Rain" John entered an experimental period that would lead to greater future success for the group and George Harrison makes his first great contributions to a Beatles record when he adds "Taxman," "I want to tell you," and the sitar assisted "love you too" to the album "Revolver" which some music critics consider their greatest overall record.
In 1967 they reach the height of their success and their musical creativity with "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band." Released in the summer of that year it became the biggest part of the soundtrack of the summer of love. Some of the songs here have been describes as beyond the range of time and decay. With "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds" John achieves a psychadelic high water mark. Also that year came "Strawberry Fields Forever," "All you need is love" and the momentous "A day in the Life" which is the last song on the "Pepper" album and the most unforgettable.
After that year There began to be some discomfort among the members of the band. The amount of arguing between them became more and more constant as they bickered about what kinds of music they wanted to make and John and Paul's creative differences began to drive a wedge between them musically. Despite this the quality of the music did not suffer. They still achieved great success with hits like Paul's "Hey Jude," "Long and winding Road," and "Get Back" and John's "Revolution" and "Come Together" and George's "Here comes the Sun" and "Something" just to name a few in the remaining years before their eventual breakup in early 1970.
The thing that makes their breakup so tragic is the fact that there was so much more yet to come and the theme of the music about to be released was a dominant one in their work, that being the theme of love. With the release of "Imagine" in 1971 John puts out his signature song. Yoko Ono has said that John intended the song as a love song to the world, "...Imagine all the people living life in peace...". In 1970 Paul releases "Maybe im Amazed" which was a love song to his then new wife Linda whom he had married the year before, "Maybe im amazed at the way you love me all the time, maybe im amazed at the way i love you...". George, In addition to his great "What is Life" also released "My Sweet Lord" which is basically a love song to God, "...I really wanna see you, I really wanna be with you, I really wanna see you Lord but it takes so long my Lord...". These songs among others were all in the Beatles pipeline at the time of the breakup and would have all ended up probably on the next Beatles album together had they not broken up.
In the years after the breakup there were always rumors that they may get back together and record but it never actually happened. As long as all the members of the band were still alive there was at least the possibility if not the probability. What the murderer of Lennon did (who's name i will not mention) was take all that hope away. After that day there was never a possibility that the world would ever hear another note that was fashioned by both John and Paul working together to make it good. When there is no hope there is only despair. Elton John's tribute song to Lennon "Empty Garden" sums it up the best about describing Lennons killer when in the song he sings "...Its funny how one insect can damage so much grace...".

An affordable chinese oil stock to consider?

Do you happen to know anybody who needs oil? You know to either fuel their car or heat their home? We all do and in china the number of people fitting this category is increasing at a pace never before seen by the world. That is what oil companies are for. They fill this need and make money doing it. There is a company in china called China North East Petroleum holdings (CNEH). They are engaged in extraction and production of crude oil in certain provinces in China. The company has an exploration area that is about 20 square kilometers. So far a little more than half of it has proved to be oil bearing.
In mid august of 2007 one share of stock in this company was going for about 50 Cents. Yes thats right just 50 cents. It had been steady at 50 cents for a while. Suddenly by october of 07 it had risen to about $4.50 a share. That is an 800% increase in two months. The stock has however dropped to around $2.35 by Thankgiving.
If your interested in getting involved in investing in oil stocks there are some things to consider. Chinese oil companies are mostly owned by the chinese government. Usually they own around 75% of it and the rest of it is investors. The chinese government is also involved in the extraction of oil from north Africa. Places like nigeria and Sudan. Sudan is the country where a genocide is currently taking place in a region known as darfur. There is a belief among some circles in the international community that the government of Sudan takes the money that it gets from the chinese oil revenue and uses it to buy arms in order to continue the genocide going on in its country. The government of Sudan denies this and the Chinese government is not really interested in looking into it to try and stop it because it does not want to jeopardize its access to all that oil that it needs to feed its ever growing economy. It basically considers the matter a Sudanese internal affair.

Military vets too often see suicide as a solution

People who have never served in the military can only imagine the emotional toll that the stress of combat can take on those who have. The experience of war can have long lasting emotional effects and lead to deep long lasting depression. For some who have served in war and then return home suicide seems to be an option that they are increasingly taking.
To give you an idea about it in 2005 among the civilian population suicide occured at a rate of about 9 per 100,000 people. Among veterans the number is at about 20 per 100,000. That year there were over 6000 suicides committed by veterans which tranlastes into over 100 a week. One particular age group seems to be more prone to this than others. Among vets who are between the ages of 20-24 the suicide rate rises to about 25 per 100,000 while the civilian suicide rate in this age group remains at about 9 per 100,000.
The depression that soldiers feel after returning home from war has had many names over the years. Currently it is called Post combat related stress. In world war two it was called battle fatigue or shell shock. During the civil war it was called a soldiers heart. It is the emotional distress and depression that can occur during and after a combat experience for a soldier. Suicides are not counted by the military as combat casualties. This can be factored in as another hidden cost of war.

How Hurricane Katrina worsened global warming

We are all familiar with the images of death and destruction that were brought to all of our television screens in the late summer of 2005. We all have a vivid idea of the unspeakable pain that the victims of that disaster lived through and the after effects that they continue to struggle with as they attempt to repair their lives. As far as hurricanes go Katrina was an unprecedented disaster as far as scope and size. The winds from the hurricane were well over 150 mph which is more than enough to blow the roof off a house. The strength of Katrina was enough to breach the levees of New Orleans and add an additional layer of death and destruction with the massive flooding that occured. The poulation of the city before katrina stood at over 400,000. Today estimates are that the population there is at about a little over 200,000. It will likely take a generation for the city to recover.
One of the lesser known effects of katrina was in the negative way it impacted global warming. In addition to the thousands of people who were either killed, injured and or left homeless it is estimated that the hurricane was responsible for destroying somewhere around 320 million trees in and around New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The way this badly effects global warming has to do with the way trees work. Trees of course are living things and living things need to breathe. When human beings breathe they take in oxygen and then expell a by product into the atmosphere called carbon dioxide. When trees breathe the opposite is true. They take in carbon dioxide and expell oxygen. Now if you get enough trees doing this it can actually have a very positive effect on the atmosphere in terms of reducing the amount of carbon in the air and thereby reducing the effects of global warming. Trees replace carbon dioxide with oxygen which is good for both the planet and the humans who live on it. The trees that were lost are going to over time be repalced as new ones are planted. It will however take time for the new trees to grow to the same size as the ones that were lost. The negative effects of katrina will linger on for years in more ways than most people initially suspected.

Why we will likely never again elect a bald president - sorry rudy

In the history of the United States there have been 43 occupants of the oval office. They have been of various shapes and sizes. Some presidents have been very thin like Jefferson, Lincoln and carter. Others a bit larger like Taft and cleveland and Maybe Lyndon Johnson to a degree. Some have been very tall like Washington and some a little shorter like Truman. One thing most of them have had in common is that to some degree or another they had some hair.
The last bald president that the U.S. elected was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. I'm not counting Gerald Ford because he was never elected. Before Ike can you remember a bald president? By bald i mean BALD. I am not talking about presidents who had less than a full head of hair. For most of them this was the case. Im talking about bald like a cue ball bald. Not thinning hair or nearly bald for that seems to be o.k. to the public but totally not one hair left bald. The last one before ike that i can remember off the top of my head is John Quincy Adams. The 6th president of the united states for those of you who cant remember that far back. Now why is this? It may very well be that among all the other qualities that the voting public insists on of their president that more and more so he also has to be pretty to some significant degree. I mean after all look at what it did for John Kennedy. If there is anyone out there who believes that Kennedy's handsome and well kept physical appearance was not the difference in his election win in 1960 over Richard Nixon well than you were not paying close attention. They did a rather famous poll during that campaign where they polled people who watched the debate on television. Most of them thought that Kennedy won the debate. Then they polled people who only heard the debate on radio. Most of these people thought Nixon won it. Kennedy's appearance was in fact so compelling to the public that it actually helped him overcome the reservations that most voters had about his religion. If he had been bald he would never have been president. If you insist on counting Gerald Ford than the last five presidents in a row have all had their hair. If you dont count Ford it goes back even farther than that. If you think im exaggerating the importance of this issue well than maybe you should ask democratic presidential nominee John Edwards what he thinks about it after he has his next $400 haircut. I would expect this trend of well groomed presidents to continue. History would indicate its a pretty safe bet.

Shares in Apple more than double in just one year

Well everyone on the planet practically has heard of Apple. (AAPL) It has been quite an impressive company both in terms of its technical achievements with the innovative products that it has been putting out and the company has always been great to its investors with the major returns that its stock brings. Computers still are a big part of this company and it will always be but they like to go other places too. When they rolled out their i-pod for music it was a great success Their i-tunes store is doing well and of course the latest and greatest item so far is the i-phone which is a maga success and there is probably much more to come in the near future.
Their stock in the last few years has done tremendous. Currently the stock is trading at a little north of $163 a share. Less than a year ago it was at around $90. In july of 2006 it was at about $50. In november 0f 2004 it was at about $35 a share. The stock has had a steady climb and has gone from $35 to $163 in just three years. This basically means that for every $1 you would have invested in Apple back then you would now be holding more than $4. The stock has suffered losses in the last month or so as has every stock in the market these days. It was up around $190 recently. Over time though this stock is probably going to go up and up again. You might think of this recent dip as an oppourtunity to get in on it. Despite the recent talk of a looming recession in the economy this stock will almost certainly soar past $200 a share next year and probably go well beyond it.

NYC murder rate continues a pattern of decline years in the making.

In the last 15 years something that was thought to be impossible has been occuring in the city of new york. The rate of serious crime has been dropping to near historic lows. Chief among the crimes that have dropped in big ways are murder and rape. To give you some idea about how big a drop has occured we can look at the official crime stats. In 1990 there were 2245 murders recorded in the city of new york. By 1997 the number had dropped to 789. In 1998 the number dropped below 700 for the first time since the 1960's when the number reached 633. By 2002 the number fell below 600 when it hit 587. By 2005 it went lower still with 539 murders for that year. By 2006 the number climbed a ways and almost broke 600 again when it reached 596. 2006 broke a string of consecutive years in which the murder rate fell. That increase does not bode well for the future but still it is a serious improvement over the wild west days of the early 1990's
The numbers for rapes are similarly stunning in terms of their decline but here there has been no recent upturn. In 1997 there were 2158 rapes reported in new york city. The number has continued to decline and so by 2005 it was 1412. In 2006 the number dropped even more sharply when there were a total of 1071 rapes reported. There has been no increase in rapes in the last several years that is akin to the increase in murder that was seen between 2005 and 2006. The good news for 2007 is that the murder rate is on the decline again. This year the city is on pace to have fewer than 500 murders. So for all new yorkers It has not all just been a dream. New york is a safer place to be. At least statistically speaking anyway.

another stock that has been steadily rising the last few years

Do you know anybody that likes to eat? The people at Yum brands inc. do. (YUM) They are the largest food operator in the world. They own over 34,000 outlets that operate in over 100 countries. They are second only to mcdonalds worldwide in sales. Not bad for a company you never heard of huh? You certainly have heard of some of the outlets they own. KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco bell, Long John silvers and some others. Everytime you buy something to eat at one of these places you are not only making your gut a little larger but you are also fattening the profits for Yum brands inc.
The stock is currently trading at a little over $38 a share. Three months ago in august of 07 it was at $31. In november of 05 it was at about $24 a share and 5 years ago it was trading at a little over $12 a share. If you would have invested $1200 just five years ago in this stock that would have bought you 100 shares in this company. Those 100 shares would today be worth $3800. Since it is highly unlikely that people are going to give up eating food anytime soon it would appear that Yum is in a great position to continue to grow.

Did you believe they put a man on the moon

It was 38 years ago last summer that mankind embarked on one of the most difficult and exciting challenges in its long history when the united states completed a landing on the moon. In July of 1969, three men named Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins completed a mission that enthralled the planet full of people back home from which they came. The mission was a success but it came dangerously close to failure. Just months before the landing the commander of the mission Neil Armstrong was nearly Killed in a practice maneuver in preparation for the mission. One of the aircraft that he was piloting began to suffer some mechanical malfunctions and he ejected away to safety literally seconds before it exploded. During the mission itself when Armstrong was piloting the lunar module, he was hovering over the surface of the moon trying to find a spot on which to land that was free of any craters. This took a little bit longer than was anticipated and so when Armstrong finally landed the module on the surface he had only 7 seconds left of fuel. Had he not landed within that 7 second window the spacecraft would have lost power and crashed into the surface of the moon and the mission would have been lost.
There was a lot of controversy in the years prior to the mission itself with regard to the scientists who were building the rockets and preparing the mission. The rocket builders were dominated by scientists who came from germany. Many of them were captured by the american forces in Germany after the fall of the Nazis in the spring and early summer of 1945. Chief among them was a brilliant German Scientist named Werner Von Braun. He was Hitlers best rocket scientist during the war and he is responsible for coming up with a lot of scientific technological achievments. He came up with the V-2 rocket. This was a rocket that the Germans were launching at the City of london during the last year of world war two. It was basically the worlds first missile. It didnt require a pilot, It had wings and fins for stability in flight and it carried a dangerous payload of explosives for maximum destruction upon impact. There were some in the government who felt that such a person should not be involved in americas mission to land a man on the moon and wanted him removed from the project. These people were over ridden by superiors who felt that Von Braun's abilities as a scientist were so signifigant that it trumped his past with the nazis and he stayed on. It was in fact his rocket design that ended up being the vehicle that made it to the moon.

How high is Google stock going to go?

If you have not heard of google yet it is time for you to crawl out from under your rock. This company is one of the most impressive success stories of the last ten years. Google operates the internets leading search engine. They offer search results in over 35 languages and attract an audience of almost 400 million worldwide and its growing. They make their money through ads that are triggered by keywords when you use their search engine. The founders of the company are Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They both own a 30% controlling interest in the company.
In November of 2004 one share of stock in google was trading on the market for about $175 a share. Today in november of 2007 it is trading at about $630 a share. The stock is not immune to drops however. Recently it hit a high of about $730 a share. Despite the recent drop though that is some serious growth in only three years. If you would have bought 5 shares of this company in november of 2004 for a total of $875 your investment would now be worth $3150. Just imagine the kind of money you would have made if you had some real money to invest.There are some predictions that the stock may hit $1000 a share within the next 18 months. Time will tell.

was the Kennedy assassination the result of a government conspiracy?

The assassination of president Kennedy took place on November 22nd 1963 in Dallas Texas. Ever since that day and that famously shocking event there has been a lot of talk in a lot of circles about a plot that was a foot to kill the president. It has been a belief that has lingered on since shortly after his death but is it real? Is it possible that there was such a plot? Most historians argue that it is highly unlikely.
Shortly after the assassination there were polls taken by various news organizations. They basically went right on the street and asked members of the public who just happened to be passing by the question. Do you think the president was killed as a result of a plot by the government to kill him? The results were that just about 2 out of every 3 people asked stated that they did believe in a plot to kill Kennedy.
Ususally the plot goes something like this. That the powers that be were not happy with JFK. People at the pentagon didnt like him, People at the FBI like J. edgar Hoover didnt like him, the CIA, Even vice president Johnson were all in it together to conspire to kill him so they could be rid of him because they were either just greedy for power or they just didnt like Kennedy's wild womanizing ways. Not only was there a plot involving several organizations in the federal government but these organizations were also enlisting the aid of various other foreign groups like the KGB, the cubans and Fidel Castro, and even the mafia in order to commit the deed. You have to ask yourself is having all of these groups involved in a plot like that even possible? These organizations that are mentioned above are all in some way or another natural rivals of each other. Some of them didnt even trust each other. The Cia working with the KGB to kill an american president sounds about as impossible as landing a man on the sun and returning him safely to the earth. We are talking about one of the most popular presidents in the history of presidents here arent we? You mean to tell me that out of all the thousands of people that would have been involved in an extensive plot like that there was not even one person in all of those government organizations whether he be high ranking or low ranking who actually liked Kennedy enough to go to the press before it happened and blow the whistle on the whole plot? There was no Mark felt (A.K.A. deep throat) who would have thought--hey wait a minute, this is a coup and its wrong and it cant be allowed to happen and would run to the press either covertly or openly and blow the lid off the whole thing before it happened? The other thing that bothers me about this theory about a plot is that its simply too complex to be even workable. You are talking about several organizations all working together at the same time to achieve the same goal and your telling me that the whole thing involving so many hundreds or thousands of participants went off without a hitch and the whole operation went like clockwork? You cant plan anything in this world involving more that two people that does not run into problems during your attempt to execute the plan but something as ambitious and complex as that went perfectly? It does not seem likely. That kind of a plot works great in the movies but not in real life.
The truth is plain to see if your willing to look at it. What does seem more possible to me is simply that the president was killed by a lone gunman. President Kennedy was killed by one man and yes there was a plot but it involved only him. Lee harvey Oswald was the killer of John Kennedy. He was a near expert rifle man from his years earlier in the military. They found evidence at his home that he had ordered a rifle thru the mail that was of the same type and style as the rifle found on the 6th floor of the Texas schoolbook depository which was where he worked. After the shooting all of the employees at the depository were accounted for except for Oswald who was missing. He was found about a hour later in a movie theater. When the police attempted to arrest him he tried to pull a gun on them and open fire. Later on at the famous impromptu press conference when Oswald claimed that the police were beating him and he had that famous black eye the reason he had that black eye was because he tried to resist arrest with a handgun and one of the cops at the scene tried to knock him out with a punch to the face to subdue him before he could get off some shots. Oswald's dislike of Kennedy was well known among both his family and friend as for he spoke of it often. He didnt like the way Kennedy was treating the cubans with all that talk about an invasion in the aftermath of the failed pay of pigs invasion in 1961. History afforded him an oppourtunity and he took it. The route that the presidential motorcade was going to take in Dallas was published in the local newspapers in the days before the event. Oswald simply noticed that the motorcade was going to pass in front of the building where he worked and on that day he sneaked a rifle into work. He wrapped the rifle in a plastic covering and went to work with it and said to others at work that they were curtain rods that he was going to install at home for his wife when he got home. When the presidents motorcade passed by the depository he fired three shots. He hit the president twice from a distance of about 250 feet. One shot was a direct hit on the presidents skull severely wounding him. He was sped away to Parkland Hospital where the doctors on duty claimed that he still was breathing and that he still had some faint vital signs and attempts were being made frantically to repair his wounds. He died less than 30 minutes later.

Why the presidency of George W. Bush is a failure

The presidency of George W. Bush is coming to an end. His term will expire in a little more than a year. So it is not too early to begin assessing his position and his place in history in terms of his administration and its successes and failures now that he has entered into the lame duck phase of his presidency and his power diminishes more and more with each passing day it seems. Most historians that i have heard speak on the matter are just about unanimous about the fact that his presidency has been if not a total disaster than a near total disaster and here are some reasons why.
1. the war-It is safe to say at this point that the war in Iraq while initially beginning with some great successes has turned into one of the great and long lasting quagmires in the experience of this country. It is difficult to pin down exact figures about it but most estimates are that the united states has spent somewhere north of 500 billion dollars so far on the effort in Iraq and there seems to be no real end in sight. Currently estimates are that we are spending 8 billion dollars a month which boils down to 2 billion a week. While there have been some successes lately with toning down the violence in Baghdad and some other parts of Iraq for the most part the violence continues there and the population of Iraq lives in great fear and feels little hope for the future of their country. The loss in terms of human life is equally difficult to pin down in terms of exact numbers but estimates range from the low side being somewhere around 40,000 iraqi civillians killed to estimates that go into the hundreds of thousands. Most human rights organizations believe that the higher figure is likely the more accurate one in terms of being closer to the truth. Our war dead are closing in on 4000 and we have suffered in the neighborhood of 25,000 wounded. And all this leading to a situation where the middle east is about as unstable as ever and you are facing the reality that the biggest winner in the thing may very well be Iran. They are poised to basically take over the running of Iraq thru the weak government in Baghdad when the americans pull out. Not to mention the fact that we got rid of their biggest enemy in the region for them when we kicked out Sadam Hussein. If you had to call this a success or a failure i cant really see how you could label this a success in and kind of way. Not only is this a failure but its a disaster. The worst foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam war.
2. - The national debt - The national debt under President Bush has risen at a rate that is roughly twice as fast as the rate at which it rose under the last three presidents before him. The debt under President Bush stood at about 5.6 trillion when he took over in january of 2001 and now stands at 9.1 trillion with about one more year to go in his term. That is the largest increase by far of the national debt under any president in the history of this country. To give you something to compare it to, under president Clinton in his eight years the national debt went from about 4 trillion in january of 1993 to about 5.6 trillion when he left office. Under president Bush's father George Herbert Walker Bush the debt went from about 2.6 trillion to about 4 trillion. Under President Reagan the debt went from about 1 trillion to about 2.6 trillion. Each of the three presidents before Bush each rose the national debt by about 1.5 trillion in their terms in office. The current occupant of the white house has raised it by 3.5 trillion and he still had more than a year to go. I dont see any success here either. This is known in some circles as a fiscal diasaster.
3. - The response to Katrina - What else can be said about the inept response to hurricane Katrina in Louisiana by this administration that has not been already said by millions of other observers the world over. The way the Bush white house handled the whole matter basically made the United states look like it had no idea what it was doing in the eyes of both our allies and our enemies overseas. It took almost a week for the federal government to even begin to get any kind of relief into the city. You had the mayor of New Orleans going on the radio days after the hurricane hit actually begging for the federal and state governments to provide relief while many of his citizens were drowning and dying. Instead of taking charge of the situation the white house basically blamed everybody else and their mother and began finger pointing at everyone and accepting little of the responsibility. If i am not mistaken i believe that President Bush at the time was where he usually is, vacationing on his ranch in Texas and topped it all off by going down there and famously patting FEMA head Michael Brown on the back and uttering one of the most famous quotes of his presidency " Your doing a heck of a job Brownie".
4. - The erosion of civil liberties - It is clear that the president wants to know everything that is going on at all times. In this effort he seems to have no concern over any civil liberties or rights to privacy he violates all in the name of national security. If the government wishes to search your house and your property without a warrant president bush feels it has the right. If it wants to listen in on your private phone conversations, it has that right. If the government wishes to arrest you and detain you indefinately without charge, it has that right. No president in the history of this union has ever rolled back so many of the long standing rights of its citizens as this president has done and has attempted to do. These rights date back in some cases for centuries. They are part and parcel of what it is to be american. Everytime anybody gives him any resistance to these endeavours he simply does what he usually does and brings up the Al queda boogie man and tries to scare the whole country into going along with it to beat down any resistance. What the people on the other side of the argument are simply saying is this: if you suspect someone of being involved in something illegal you have to prove it. You have to prove it in a trial in open court for all to see by bringing forth evidence. I mean the founding fathers of this country came up with this idea. Its part of the DNA of this country. You cant just call someone a terrorist and then just lock them away at gitmo and leave it at that. You cant accuse anybody of anything and just lock them away. It is actually a violation of the constitution. Its a violation of the right of unreasonable search and seizures. If it was good enough for people like Jefferson and Franklin and Adams, who were basically some of the most intelligent and forward thinking people of the 18th and 19th century, then it should be good enough for a c average student from an "ivy league" school with a drinking problem in the 20th century.

a stock tip for those who are interested-and its good for you and the planet you live on

There are over 14,000 stocks listed on the new york stock exchange. Some are winners and some are losers but some of them start out good and only seem to go up thru the passage of time. I have found one such stock. The company is called first solar. (fslr) As you probably guessed by now it is a company that makes solar panels and solar modules. These kinds of companies are good for mother earth and they are good for people too. The solar modules that they make use a semi conductor technology. The modules are coated with a film called cadmium telluride. Cadmium is the same substance that you find in Nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries. Anyway about 54% of the company is owned by the family of the late John Walton ( they started the wal-mart stores) Who died tragically in a plane crash in 2005.
In december of 2006 one share of this company was trading on the stock exchange for about $23 a share. Today, less than one year later it closed north of $185 a share. That is almost a 700% increase in 11 months. It has come down a little bit lately because the market has had some jitters in the last week, it was up over $200 a share but it is going up again. This stock looks like a winner to me. I think it will continue to climb for years like google has. So if your interested in making a little money and at the same time take a step towards helping out your troubled planet by easing the demand for oil you might think about giving this stock a look.