The Real World News - Breaking Texas Insurance news, US news and more

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

Lift up a rock and another snake comes slithering out from the ongoing University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) scandal, now riding as Climategate.

Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”.

In the Battle of the Health Bills, the Senate wins out, bulk-wise – weighing in at 2,074 pages.

“Read the bill!” was a rallying cry of some health reform opponents over the summer. And if Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) gets his way, senators will get a chance to hear every word of it. He’s threatening to the read the legislation from start to finish, which by some estimates could take as long as 48 hours...

With the increasingly discredited notion of man-made global warming crashing and burning on a daily basis, climate alarmists are being forced to accelerate their fearmongering to unprecedented levels. With the evidence failing to match up to the doomsday proclamations, Al Gore has turned to photoshop in order to make a CO2-choked earth look scary enough to sell his cap and trade scam…

If you recall, AIG's failure meant that the companies on the other side of all of its contracts (counterparties) were going to be left holding the bag. Under normal cases of bankruptcy, the court would impose haircuts to the amount of money due to counterparties, but because AIG didn't actually declare bankruptcy, the counterparties claimed that they were owed 100 cents of every dollar. The only bank that even considered taking a haircut was UBS - the Swiss, for goodness sakes - hard to imagine that a Swiss bank could make US banks look bad, but here's a case in point.

National Lloyds, an insurance company, says it will no longer provide wind coverage for Texas Homeowners in coastal counties.

It adds Lloyd's to a growing list of companies pulling out of the windstorm insurance business and leaving the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association as one of the only choices left...

Not sure what to give Uncle Sam this Christmas? How about a nice, fat check to help whittle away at the $7.6 trillion national debt?

The U.S. Treasury Department accepts gifts, payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt. Just mail them to the attention of Department G, Post Office Box 2188, Parkersburg, West Virginia, 26106-2188. Make a note in the memo section that it is a gift to reduce the debt held by the public...

A young woman in France has been diagnosed with the crippling illness Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) after a swine flu shot, following reports yesterday about a Virginia teen who was similarly struck down by the disease hours after receiving the H1N1 vaccine.

The woman, identified only as a health worker, was diagnosed with GBS six days after she received the swine flu shot, according to the French health ministry...

Combat fat! Your allies in battling bulge? Foods that do the work for you. These edibles have proven lipid-melting powers that help you slim. That’s a win...

CNN's Lou Dobbs, a lightning rod for criticism following his transition from a business journalist to an opinionated anchor on such issues as illegal immigration, told viewers on Wednesday that he was quitting his nightly show to pursue new opportunities.

"This will be my last broadcast," Dobbs said after giving the day's headlines. Dobbs, who hosts a daily radio show unrelated to CNN, said the network had allowed him to be released early from his contract…

Hundreds of supporters from all over the Southeast turned out Monday night, Nov. 9, to hear Ron Paul give a lecture at the Carolina Coliseum. The conservative Texas congressman, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2008, spoke for nearly an hour. The event was sponsored by USC’s Honors College and the Carolina Debate Union, among other groups...

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization…

The deal struck between the pharmaceutical lobby, the White House and Senate Democrats has drastically improved Big Pharma's expected profits, a private industry report finds.

IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation -- combined with a projected upswing in the economy -- will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years. The new assessment was contained in document obtained by the Huffington Post...

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News...

(BBC News) A bear killed two Muslim fighters after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir...

In a new development that is potentially devastating to the agenda to introduce a global carbon tax and a cap and trade system, Al Gore admits that the majority of global warming that occurred until 2001 was not primarily caused by CO2.

“Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions,” reports worldbbnews.