A Hottest Contest to the Finish....

And now for the contest of who has the hottest newshoneys in the world: Germany or America. Or France or India. Hard to guess, I guess we'll have to have a beauty contest...

Just so you know, the contest was actually between Annika Kipp of DW News and Kiran Chetry of CNN. But as you can see, at the top, Julie Chen Melissa Theuriau can give them both one helluva run for their money...

Smokin' Housewives

Now this is a smoker: the hottest newswomen in the world. A blog all about them. We have some here, but just hit the title above to link to the site. Melissa Thuriau, Jackie Meretsky, Julie Chen, the list goes on. Oh well....enjoy



By the way, these are the most beautiful newswoman in the world. Hard to disagree....

Tips for Those In A Tough Economy

Look to the Insurance Industry for Job Stability
by Dona DeZubeMonster Finance Careers Expert


In tough times, we all need tips to get, stay or hump ahead. From time to time I hope to bring those who may be seeking work ideas, and that they will share theirs with me. One area that has come to my attention is the insurance industry. Not one everyone thinks about when they go to college, but one so many of us work for when we get out. Here are some tips.

People may not think of insurance as the most glamorous industry in America, but it does offer stability, challenge and growth to those who choose the profession. “You don’t have a lot of college students graduating and saying, ‘I want to work in insurance,’” says Eric Schulting, enterprise recruiting and retention manager for State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Illinois. “But there are a lot of benefits and advantages in insurance that you don’t have in other industries.”

For instance, insurance is fairly recession-proof, because insurance companies tend to be fiscally conservative and Americans need insurance whether the economy is up or down. And since insurance firms are often mutual companies (meaning they answer to policy holders rather than Wall Street), they can launch sophisticated and aggressive information technology strategies, routinely support safety education and tend to have close ties to their local communities, Schulting adds.

The industry is not without challenges. If gas prices rise too high, consumers may decide to own (and insure) fewer cars, and fewer home sales mean fewer homeowners’ policies sold. When unemployment rises, so do theft and arson, and, therefore, hazard insurance claims.

Industry job growth is also limited by corporate downsizing, improved productivity due to new underwriting technology and a trend toward marketing by mail, telephone and Internet. At the same time, the industry is expanding into the sales of other financial-services products, such as securities, retirement plans and mutual funds. That trend is balanced by competition from banks that have entered the insurance market.

Retirement is also driving a strong hiring climate for the young: With so many of their employees rapidly reaching retirement age, insurance companies are on the lookout for all types of employees. “The biggest trend influencing hiring and employment in the insurance industry is the generational shift the talent market is going to experience,” says Sharon Rues Pettid, manager of human resources for a large national insurance company.

But there is hope for the old: Some insurance firms look beyond recent college graduates and also recruit mid-career professionals from the health, financial-services and call-center industries. “We hire doctors and nurses for underwriting,” says Clarissa Gilliam, corporate vice president of talent acquisition for another insurance organization. “We open our search to investment houses for our accounting positions and look for sales and marketing people who want to move over and learn insurance.”

At State Farm, call-center jobs are plentiful since the company does not offshore its customer-service representative (CSR) positions. However, competition for those jobs can be keen, because the pay is decent, the benefits are generous and job security is good, Schulting says. And multilingual CSRs are particularly in demand.

Actuaries and underwriters continue to be very much in demand, according to Pettid. “This unique skill set is challenging to find and provides a unique and defined career path,” she says. “Also niche product line expertise, such as group disability insurance, tends to be very hot and lucrative for candidates.”

The medical service and health insurance segments are the fastest-growing parts of the insurance industry, thanks to aging Baby Boomers buying health and long-term- care insurance, as well as annuities and other pension products. Growth may be slower in the auto insurance segment, where competition has resulted in rate declines in virtually every state, says a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute.

While some areas of insurance are projected to grow more than others, companies in all lines will continue to need support personnel in the years ahead, Gilliam says. “We don’t get to be successful at life insurance without having good accounting, corporate, compliance, public relations, underwriting, risk and tax people,” she says. “Life insurance is our brand and our product, but we’re a major, stable, successful, diverse employee-friendly company.”


Additional Articles on this subject:

Insurance Careers Home
Insider Tips for a Powerful Insurance Sales Resume
Sample Resume for an Insurance Sales Professional
Tips to Prepare for Your Insurance Sales Interview
Get Ready for Your Insurance Industry Interview
Insurance Industry Fueled by Finance, Accounting Professionals
IT Pros Can Find Variety of Jobs in Insurance Industry
Lawyers, Paralegals Work at the Center of Insurance
Job Q&A: Claim Team Manager
Opportunities Knock at State Farm Insurance

American Gangster - The Story of Frank Lucas

The heroin king from Harlem in the 1970s.

Miami Vice - Payback - Season 2 (85-86)

Stylescout Special....

Funcky look, puffy cloud hair. A bit of rasta in our elementwear. Yes, London's got soul ~~Lovely!!

Like WOOOWZ SEXIE

Elizabeth Berkley, from Showgirls' Fame (that NC-17 1995 movie)...



...saw this movie on Underground Cable last night. Bad screenplay but good views. Maybe one only needs a visual euphoriac these days. Hey it beats masterbating and imagining it's her, right? In fact, it even beats the pleasure of the pump itself...

FUCK JESSE HELMS! MAY HE ROT IN HELL!

That's what black people oughta be saying about him. In fact, a lot of whites owe their disdain and guilt to what people like Helms said during his lifetime. While it's respectful, as the accompaying article speaks to, to be silent at best in his mourn, I feel no derision when I say one should crush their enemies sometimes. This I think qualifies.

Anyway, here's a more subtle but equally as infomative view of his death:

Monday, July 7, 2008

Jesse Helms Remembered: "From black community, a respectful silence"

fayobserver.com (North Carolina)
Myron Pitts
Published on Sunday, July 06, 2008

Because we all know our days will eventually come to an end, and because we respect the leveling power of death, we usually idealize the recently died.

We clean up their lives for them, often pretending they were not as messy as normal, human lives tend to be. Death becomes most people. Former Sen. Jesse Helms is no exception.
We will continue to hear many mini-eulogies of the powerful political figure this weekend, but I doubt you will find many black people willing to burnish his checkered legacy.

A respectful silence is all he will get from most of the black community, and all things considered, that’s about as much as could be asked.

Even in the shadow of Helms’ death, I see no need to pussyfoot about: He was hell on black people. Perhaps no single figure in the 20th century could claim more credit for sowing enmity between whites and blacks in North Carolina, and if you know history, you know that the minority group is always the biggest loser when racial strife reigns.

I first fully understood what Helms had wrought in 1990, when Helms’ Senate campaign infected our state’s airwaves with the poisonous “white hands” TV advertisement. The ad showed a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection notice from a prospective employer.
A voiceover says, “You needed that job. And you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is.”

Helms’ opponent, whom he defeated, was black.

Political experts still rate the brutal ad as one of the most effective in playing the race card in Southern politics. I would later study the ad in a college course on advertising.

AN AMERICAN FAMILY - THE NEW CAMELOT

click on the title of this article above to go to our guest blogsite CNSaw and see how the new Camelot compares to the old Camelot...