There are at least eight people killed as a result the accident. Some confusion remains to how many people boarded the last stop before the crash, as several passengers were said to have been picked up, but the actual number hasn't been able to be confirmed yet.

Crash investigators are still searching to see if there was another passenger on board that hasn't been accounted for yet.

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Many people misunderstand the willingness by Warren Buffett to take risks. He's more than willing to, it's just that he knows how to take the right type of risk; not risk just for the thrill of partaking in risk.

Reinsurance is one example. He's willing to reinsure anything if the customer is willing to pay the type of premium required to manage the risk.

The one risk he refuses to take, is partaking in something that could permanently destroy a company. That's part of his risk-managment strategy.

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The caveat is you do have to dine-in to get the discounted dessert. Customers get one cheesecake slice each.

It does seem obvious, but these types of promotions are almost always successful for customers, and are definitely needed during these types of economic times where people are counting their pennies.

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Even with the filing, those businesses that are franchised out will continue operating, as only corporate-owned locations will be shuttered. Bennigan's has 150 franchisees that will continue operations at this time.

Steak & Ale will be completely shut down, as all 58 restaurants were company owned.

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The strategy to enhance the Dualstar brand has started to pay off after several years, as in a number of categories it has become the No. 1  selling brand in America. It has also spread out to include at least fifteen other countries in its marketing sights.

In the tween girl category, Dualstar is now the leading fashion and lifestyle brand, and as a video franchise marketing girls, it's the top in all of American history.
 
Considering it usually takes between five to ten years to build a solid brand, Dualstar is successfully traversing the rapids in this vital demographic, and is making headway in older demographics as well.

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Another big change the young ladies went through was the willingness to be more selective in their merchandising. Rather than a scattered approach, where they almost tried anything and were loathe to drop a product, they completely changed that around.

What made them finally realize the need to do this was they were having trouble maintaining the core identity of their brand. So with the help of their new CEO Diane Reichenberger, they went through their products and in some cases got rid of entire categories they had included in their lines.

If it didn't fit with their corporate image and purpose, they started to drop a variety of items.

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When the Olsens took over the company, they were right at another transitional stage they had to deal with in the past, when they went from tween to teen. Now they've been working on moving some from teen to young women.

As far as the change from tween to teen, they had to work on ways to remain relevant to young girls up to about 12-years-old, while reaching out to a teen market that is completely different.

One simple and interesting thing they did, was to keep their name in the front of the tween demographic, by allowing their images to remain connected to their clothing line. What they did was put it above the clothing racks where it could be seen, reminding their tween audience it was them they were dealing with.

This is something tweens relate to completely.

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Pausch become wildly popular from his story of the battle he went through - and lessons learned, not only through out the process, but throughout his life he lived fully.

In the video that was viewed by millions, he talked about the importance of childhood dreams and how he achieved his, and helped others to achieve theirs. The video, and his book by the same name, also goes on to encourage others on how they can do the same.

Randy Pausch was married, and survive by his wife Jai; three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe; and his mother and sister.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Either way, a woman in China discovered that her hair band was unraveling, and when she took it off an looked at it, she cut the thread off and found some recycled condoms inside. Evidently there was no "shrinkage" involved, as they were found to be unused. I guess.

Now the obvious question: How can a condom be recycled if it isn't used?

Another question is why were they recycled. My friend over at Pan Asian Biz suggests maybe quality is one of the reasons the Chinese have so many people.

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It's projected that the final increase will have an impact on over 5 million workers, as the hourly rate will surpass some of the existing states which have higher standards in place.

Already a number of small businesses are having to increase prices and pass the artifical price hikes to their customers, effectively increasing inflation. Profits are slim for a lot of small businesses, and the harmful miniumum wage laws make it more difficult to compete.

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What's been amazing about it, is capitalism has been blamed as the culprit by many, when in fact it is the socialist failure of government-backed financial systems that has brought us to this place.

As one writer said concerning getting to the core of the issue:

"We are now getting down to the heart of the matter, which turns out not to be rampant capitalism but out of control back-door socialism."

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Today Wachovia, the nation's fourth-largest bank, announced it has suffered a $8.86 billion loss, and responded by cutting its dividend and saying it'll eliminate 10,750 jobs.

This burst the bubble on Wall Street some had, who for whatever reason thought the problems were already on the way to being fixed. The banks are far from it.

"Our reported results today are clearly a disappointing performance for which we take responsibility," said Wachovia's Chief Executive Bob Steel on a conference call with analysts. "We are serious about getting on top of these issues quickly and we believe we have a good grasp of the challenges facing the economy, the industry and Wachovia."

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Today, after the New York Post stirred up the ongoing concerns about the health of Steve Jobs, it put the company on the defensive as it got ready to report its quarterly numbers.

When asked about the condition of Steve Jobs on the conference call, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer responded, "He has no plan to leave Apple. Steve's health is a private matter."

Oppenheimer is totally wrong with that answer. With no succession plans in place, and the refusal of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to publicly divulge his condition, it puts investors in a difficult place that a public company has no right to put them.

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It's especially telling when he talks about how in one swoop the government more than doubled the national debt by adding $5 trillion to it, by bailing out Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM). He also mentions it took us well over 200 years to get to the first approximate $5 trillion.

The always-interesting Ilana Mercer adds on her blog how she particularly liked how Rogers told the CNBC (NYSE: GE) anchor "that if she doesn’t understand that taxpayers must not be defrauded to prop-up these fraudsters in perpetuity—she should get another job. Let these fascistic entities fail."

What is your take on this? How do you feel about the stakes connected to the issue?

Jim Rogers Raising Hell

Li Jinyuan sees a lot of potential in Africa, but lists several things it needs to correct in order to make it easier, safer and more productive to do business there.

“First of all there needs to be improvements in security. Visa applications and work permits also need to be made easier so that more Chinese people can come here to invest," he said.

“We need to have a win-win situation between China and Africa. Efficiency is a challenge in the 21st century. When we go to other countries [outside Africa], we have good levels of efficiency, but in African countries we meet a lot of delays.”

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