I was in the financial services industry, so if you have questions about this story, please contact me.  Email me at brandonstarr@yahoo.com, or use the tagboard if it's short, or maybe the comments (within a few days of this posting; I rarely check comments more than a week back.)

There are three basic ways to buy insurance:

1)  Direct purchase from a carrer (a carrier is what you think of when you think "insurance company"--it's the company that's taking in people's money and pooling the risk).  Spitzer's allegations would have nothing to do with this sort of insurance purchase.

2)  Purchase from an insurance agent--that's a person licensed to sell insurance.  You buy the insurance through them, and pay a commission.  If they're any good, you're paying the agent for their knowledge and service, but they actually represent the insurance carriers.  If they're not good, you get no service from them and the commissions are basically money down the toilet.  Spitzer's allegations would have nothing to do with this means of insurance purchase either, as I understand the charges so far.  However, though they require different licensing, I believe that it is possible for an agent to also be a broker, below.

3)  Purchase from an insurance broker.  This is the flip side of insurance agent:  you go to an insurance broker, and the broker represents you, rather than the insurance carriers.  You are paying them to go out and get bids for your insurance business.  It is their fiduciary duty* to solicit the best bids they can and lay them out for you, along with information on differences between the carriers and their policies.  THIS IS THE KIND OF INSURANCE PURCHASE SPITZER IS MAKING THE CHARGES ABOUT.

What he's saying is, there are brokers all over (he focused on the largest for this round of charges) which are taking money from the carriers to bump their insurance up the list.  In other words, this is as sleazy as it gets in insurance sales--and it's sadly widespread, he alleges.  You go to a broker; you pay money to get insurance bids--and the bids you get back are at least suspect and at most rigged, because they're making at least as much money from the carriers they DON'T represent as they are from you, whom they DO represent.  Ugly, ugly, ugly.

AIG, a big insurance carrier named in the charges, is down over 5% today (later edit:  now about 10%) on the news.  Some of the companies named, I believe, are private companies.  This will be a real earthquake in the world of insurance, believe me.

* If you knew how serious those words are from a legal perspective in the financial services industry, you'd have a shudder going down your spine even now.

Out of...boredom?  I made up a word, "puppylicious," and Googled it.

Google found it in 36 different places, and asked me if I meant "pupalicious," which had several more!

Apparently someone calls themselves "Puppylicious," which was a big part of it, and then a few times someone looked at puppies and thought, "those are puppylicious!"

These are the same kinds of folks who want to shove their Bible into other peoples' affairs, using the Constitution and the law as their delivery system.

Yikes.

(It hasn't been proven in court, I should add.)

If you're intelligent and articulate, as Kerry is, it's impossible to lose if you have truth on your side.  Bush hasn't told the truth in so long he forgets what it sounds like.

It's remarkable that Bush repeats the same lies in all three debates, and gets shot down by the press every time.  Whenever he lies about Kerry's voting record, he uses the same lies that have already been debunked.  Who is he trying to convince?  Apparently the ill-informed.  But they're already voting for him.

Chalk this up as another genius plan well-executed by the Bush Administration and its handpicked CIA operative Iraqi "leaders."

They do not know what would cause the other 80%--it may also be genetic, or it may be caused during infancy, or it could be cultural.

But here's my point:  if ANY percentage of homosexuality comes from genetics, that takes it out of the realm of "choice" for them.  Thus, at least sometimes, homosexuality is native to the person, and, thus, discrimination should never be allowed against homosexuals, as it is not allowed for other genetic reasons, including sex, race, and many disabilities.*  Q.E.D.

This is being investigated in the U.K.  I don't know why exactly, the voices are clearly American.

It'll give you a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach--don't watch unless you're sure you can handle it.

Found via Dispassionate Lib.

Still think it doesn't matter if Bush gets another four years?

You don't lead by degradation.  You can't lead by torture.

If Bush doesn't get it, it is up to us as an electorate to boot him on November 2nd.

How are we to feel safe if our leaders constantly torture, degrade, and disappear suspects around the globe?  Where are we to get allies from?  How many generations will pass with whole areas of the world hating us because of four years of Bush rule?