Lobster was once synonymous with living large, but thanks to an abundance of the soft-shell version of the crustaceans in recent months, it’s not just a meal for special occasions anymore.

An excess supply in Maine of smaller soft-shell lobsters has driven prices to under $4 a pound, the Associated Press reported this week, making the luscious sea creature cheaper than the per pound price of deli meat in some cases.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE7GbcsS5E8&feature=player_embedded

The actual video of the man threatening to eat the officers and screaming “FOUR” and “Tupac” can be found at the bottom of this site.

Malware is threatening to shut down many computers this coming Monday. Protect your computer with the link below.

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Click here to learn how to protect your computer

“(Reuters) – Five big U.S. retailers filed an antitrust lawsuit against Pfizer Inc and India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd on Thursday, accusing them of conspiring to delay sales of generic versions of Lipitor, the best-selling drug in history.

Walgreen Co, Kroger Co, Safeway Inc, SuperValu Inc and HEB Grocery Co accused the defendants of running an “overarching anticompetitive scheme” to keep generic versions of the cholesterol drug off the market until November 30, 2011, 20 months after the original patent expired.

They said the defendants did this by obtaining a fraudulent patent, engaging in sham litigation, entering a price-fixing agreement to delay cheaper generics, and entering arrangements with pharmacy benefit managers to force retailers to buy more Lipitor, whose chemical name is atorvastatin calcium.”

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Wednesday’s Fourth of July celebrations in New York City were marred by a streak of violence, with NYPD officials confirming that 12 people were shot Wednesday between 5PM and 12AM.

The New York Post reports one victim, a 33-year old man in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn, died from a fatal shooting to his head. Two unrelated shootouts within 15 minutes of each other also injured five.

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“Costco’s (NASDAQ: COST) results for June showed that one of the most successful retailers in the United States stumbled. Costco tends to cater to high-end shoppers, so its same-store sales could indicate that the well-to-do have cut back their consumer spending. Same-stores sales were up only 3%.

The big-box retailer issued its numbers:”

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“China’s central bank on Thursday lowered interest rates for the second time in less than a month, a surprising move that signals alarm by authorities in Beijing at the state of the world’s second-largest economy.

The People’s Bank of China said in a statement it will cut the one-year yuan lending rate by 0.31 percentage point and the one-year deposit rate by 0.25 percentage point.

In addition, lending rates will be allowed to fall to 70% of the benchmark rate, down from 80% currently.”

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Given 75% of the Baltic Index business comes from Asia, they will try to double membership over the next two years.

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This was slightly above expectations and the best sales month since 2008. Retail sales up 8% while fleet sales are up 36%…..

“Intel Corp., (INTC) the world’s largest maker of computer chips, will seek to overturn a record European Union 1.06 billion-euro ($1.34 billion) antitrust fine, arguing regulators withheld evidence and failed to give the company the chance to fully defend itself.

Intel will ask the EU General Court in Luxembourg at a hearing starting today to throw out the European Commission’s ruling that its use of rebates violated EU antitrust rules. Intel said the EU failed to use mitigating evidence or to allow it respond to all of the allegations.”

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Either Paul Krugman is an idiot, or he believes you are an idiot, or perhaps both. Here is another instance of the Krugmaniac receiving an old fashioned internets beat down.

Read the article here.

In a letter to Solomon, Icahn said the company’s long-time CEO had sold more than $500 million worth of Forest stock several years ago “at prices substantially higher than today’s price.”

“Those sales now look to me like a savvy bet against the prospects of a company that was not prepared to meet the calamitous events that would befall it several years in the future when Lexapro went off patent,” Icahn said.

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Thank God law enforcement is there to protect us…

Border Patrol agents in Arizona are blasting their bosses for telling them, along with all other Department of Homeland Security employees, to run and hide if they encounter an “active shooter.”

It’s one thing to tell civilian employees to cower under a desk if a gunman starts spraying fire in a confined area, say members of Tucson Local 2544/National Border Patrol Council, but to give armed law enforcement professionals the same advice is downright insulting. The instructions from DHS come in the form of pamphlets and a mandatory computer tutorial.

“We are now taught in an ‘Active Shooter’ course that if we encounter a shooter in a public place we are to ‘run away’ and ‘hide’” union leader Brandon Judd wrote on the website of 3,300-member union local. “If we are cornered by such a shooter we are to (only as a last resort) become ‘aggressive’ and ‘throw things’ at him or her. We are then advised to ‘call law enforcement’ and wait for their arrival (presumably, while more innocent victims are slaughtered).”

The FEMA-administered computer course, entitled “IS-907- Active Shooter: What You Can Do,” is a 45-minute tutorial that provides guidance to all employees on how to recognize indicators of possible workplace violence and what to do should their office be invaded by gunmen and focuses around three main options; either evacuate, hide out, or in dire circumstances, take action.

Main Points of the “Active Shooter” training course

Evacuate: If there is an accessible escape path, attempt to evacuate the premises.
Hide out: If evacuation is not possible, find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find
you.
Take action: As a last resort, and only when your life is in imminent danger, attempt to disrupt and/or
incapacitate the active shooter.

Once the course is completed, employees are urged to download additional materials including a summary booklet and pocket-sized card outlining protocol, which was also handed out to employees two months ago.

One DHS employee told FoxNews.com the instruction cards were handed out to employees six weeks ago. At the time, he assumed they were only for civilian employees, not armed law enforcement officers within the department, which oversees the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“Requiring BP agents to follow the same steps is egregious,” he said.

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WASHINGTON – Utility crews untangled downed power lines and tree limbs Sunday, working to get the electricity turned back on for millions of people facing a second day of 100-degree temperatures without modern conveniences like air conditioning and refrigeration.

On Saturday, many people flocked to places like malls and movie theaters in the hope the lights would be on again when they returned home. Utilities were slowly making progress, but more than 3 million people still had no electricity and could only watch their thermostats climb. It could be several days before all the power outages are restored.

Strong winds from the storms late Friday toppled massive trees onto cars and blocked roads, and officials asked residents not to drive until they could clear debris from the streets. When a hurricane is lumbering their way, state officials have time to get extra personnel in place so they can immediately start on cleanup. That wasn’t the case with this storm, known as a derecho — a straight-line wind storm that sweeps over a large area at high speed.

“Unlike a polite hurricane that gives you three days of warning, this storm gave us all the impact of a hurricane without any of the warning of a hurricane,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said.

With the power out, authorities also warned people to be careful when using generators and candles to help light darkened homes.

The bulk of the storm damage was in West Virginia, Washington and the capital’s Virginia and Maryland suburbs. At least six of the dead were killed in Virginia, including a 90-year-old woman asleep in her bed when a tree slammed into her home. Two young cousins in New Jersey were killed when a tree fell on their tent while camping. Two were killed in Maryland, one in Ohio, one in Kentucky and one in Washington.

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via AccuWeather.com

A dangerous situation is unfolding from Indiana to the mid-Atlantic where millions remain without power and temperatures are once again soaring.

A violent thunderstorm complex, known as a super derecho, left a trail of power outages and destruction from Indiana to southern New Jersey, Virginia and northern North Carolina Friday afternoon and night.

Eleven lives were lost, all due to falling trees…

Indiana: 112,760
Kentucky: 140,461
Ohio: 363,500
West Virginia: 500,000
Virginia: 2.5 million
Maryland: More than 1.3 million
New Jersey: 168,000

READ FULL STORY HERE 

“TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd delayed the make-or-break launch of its next-generation BlackBerry phones until next year, in a devastating setback to the once-dominant technology company whose sales are crumbling.

Shares in the company, which also announced a steeper-than-expected quarterly operating loss, plunged 18 percent after it said it would release its revamped BlackBerry 10 devices early in 2013, instead of late this year, because the development had “proven to be more time consuming than anticipated.”

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Rumors lit the market on fire, late in the day, regarding financial support for both Italy and Spain. Apparently, the summit is going well.

Developing…