This article seems funny to me.  I don't know anyone personally who sold their stocks.
I think that only an organized group of investors could artificially deflate the value of stocks like it  happened in the last few months.
What happened took a lot of large sell orders to be placed across the board, and if it wasn't you or me, then who?

From: http://www.thealmostmillionaire.com/why-did-the-stock-market-drop-today/
The following are the top 5 reasons I believe that the market dropped today:

1.  People are scared!  Today's sell off in the stock market was not just mom and pop investor scared about losing their retirement savings, there were huge institutional trades today that seem to be driven by fear.

2.  People are confused!   The world financial markets are so much more complex than the news anchors on CNBC make it appear to be.  Generally, when I'm having trouble understanding something, I run from it.  I believe folks all over the world did the same thing today.  Many folks are realizing that the stock market is not a game to play.

3.  People are irrational!  There are sectors of our ecomony that are having huge struggles.  In the middle of the struggles, there are companies that have made good decisions, and are doing extremely well because of those good choices.  Unfortunatly, on days like this, people don't care about fundamental business metrics, they just want to get dollars away from the stock market.

4.  People are fed up!  If you are the average American, you get 99% of your market information from the media.  This makes it difficult to navigate past the personal opinions and biases of those bringing you the news.  With a presidential election on the horizon, the media seems to have gone extremely negative on the US economy.  I believe that lots of hard working folks are simply tired of the daily dose of bad news there have having to digest.  The natural way to combat that is to get your investments into cash, and turn off the tube.

5.  People are funny!  We really are funny.  We are all experts in our own right.  "We sure would do things differently if we were in charge."  "I got out before the fall."  "I wouldn't have made that mistake."  Etc.  I think that many people feel like if they get out now, their personal story is stronger.  We humans HATE to be wrong!

Imagine, having a new liver grown from a cell from a embyro destined for the trash can..
Imagine some one else saying nope, you can't do that, God says its wrong.
Mr. Bush limited the use of taxpayer money to only the 21 stem cell lines that had been produced before his decision.
He argued he was defending human life because days-old embryos - although typically from fertility clinics and already destined for destruction - are destroyed to create the stem cell lines.
It's nice to have a logical president.
It gives me hope. Taking pills is a lot of fun, but, if it were possible to have an organ replacement for what you're taking the pills for, I think I'd rather NOT take the pills.

My brother and I like to sit around, and state our observations of what has been happenning in our worlds.
If you think about anything long enough, you can piece together something that is close to the truth.
The Gas Prices
Ain't it obvious? The refineries got together and decided to cut back on the supply when demand was high. This caused the prices to almost double for gas. This took $100's from every driver in the world each month. We got ripped off.
If supply and demand were working, they refineries would have met the demand with the supply.
The refineries got together and timed this.
This had to have happened.

The Stock Market
Ain't it obvious? Extremely wealthy have sold their stocks, putting their money in their mattress, artificially bringing down the prices of stocks. This has cut our 401ks and our chances for retirement down to almost nothing. The hope is, we will lose our hope, sell our remainings stocks (along with our dreams of a simple 10% return), to drive the stock prices down even lower. When that happens, the extremely wealthy people are going to pull their money our of their mattresses and buy the stocks back at bargain prices.
Here is my sinceriaro
I bought 250 shares of Boyd stock at $40 for $10,000. It was valued at $50.
Now, the wealthy sell their 1,000,000 stocks, and stuff their mattresses with $40,000,0000
The stock goes down to $4 a share.
Having lost faith, and having fear that Boyd will go out of business, I sell my 250 shares of stock a $4 for a $1,000. I've lost $9,000.
When the time comes, the wealthy will pull their $40,0000,000 back out of their mattresses, and buy back the stock at $1 a share, giving them 40,000,000 shares of stock.
The stock will go back to what it was worth ($40 a share). This will make their $40,000,000 now be worth $160,000,000.
The stock is still worth undervalued at $40 a share, but the wealthy will have gained a 400% profit by playing this game.
They've taken my retirement money from me, and caused me extreme depression and despair. 
A group of wealthy people got together and timed this. 
This had to have happened.

It wasn't fear this time. It was planned. It was organized.
Who are these people?
They are the people who actually have been running the world for a long time.
They would have to be wealthy people from all over the world, to coordinate this intentional disruption of the laws of Supply and Demand.
Competition wasn't working like it should have been.
For example, if one oil refinery was under producing, then another should have been over producing, so they're refinery could make more profit.
But if all the oil refineries all decide to invent reasons to under produce, then Supply is not going to meet demand. Competition has failed to work.
All of the refineries ended up selling less product for more money.
What basic Economics has always overlooked is the power of monopolies.
This is when the government has to step in and make regulations, so the cost of electricity is fairly priced.
But now, there is a world economy. The large businesses control it. No single government can.
Somewhere out there, there MUST EXIST a group of wealth people from all over the world,
that are planning ways to take individual wealth of the middle class, and redestribute it to the upper class.
I hope their grandchildren are happy with my 401k, and all of that money I spent on gas last summer.
I suffered. All of the middle class people I know suffered.
What we aren't reading about in the news, is something else that must be happenning. People are killing themselves. People are dying for the lack of income that they needed from their dividends, or from the money they had to spend driving to the grocery store. A lot of people are just barely surviving.
What we seeing is the new type of WAR 
This is a century where the world could actually blow itself up. But that's not going to happen.
This war is quietly killing people. Its quietly destroying the process of supply and demand. The weapons they are using today is money.
They aren't using guns to do it. There are no bombs. Without money, we will die just as surely as if someone put a bullet in our head.
They are using numbers. Simple numbers.
They are creating coordinated attacks on our incomes.
It will have a death count associated with it, but, has anyone figured out how many people died because they didn't have enough money to survive while these gas prices were rising and the stock market was falling? I doubt you will ever hear a number that will reflect the casualties of this war.
We've been misdirected. It's simple magic.
One eye is watching the stock market, wondering how this trick is being done. Our money is dissapearing right in front of our eyes.
Wait a couple of years, and we'll see our money reappear in some elses pocket.
There is no such thing as magic. Magic is a series of planned events that make something seem to disappear and reappear.
Like the dove, in the magicians pocket, it didn't dissappear. It only seemed to. It still existed.
Like the money from the stock market, it didn't dissappear. I don't know know where that money is, but I do know it still exists.
Here is my theory of what is happening, and it is very ugly.
Suppose you knew this planet could support 10 billion people.
If you had power, what you might consider doing is waiting until the population hit 10 billion people, letting the people build their buildings, their bridges, their dams, their infrastructures. However, you and your think tanks would know, this planet could only support 10 billion people. So what do you do when the population starts to hit 11 billion.You might quietly cause the deaths of say, half the population.
You and your friends might cause a water shortage next time, instead of gasolene.
Wouldn't that be wonderful for the survivors? What a wonderful world it could be if I could have an ample supply of buildings, power, food, air, water.
All I'd have to do is mess up the laws of Supply and Demand for a year or so.
And with the worlds knowledge being shared, what you really need really need those 5 billion people for.
Ask yourself "What would have happened if gas prices went up to $50 a gallon"
Hopefully, in your mind, you'll see what I see...a world at war, not in any particular country, but in every neighborhood on this planet. People would be fitting for survival, siphoning gas, robbing gas stations, they'd be willing to kill for gas.
I see that it might possible for something terrible to happen around the year 2012.
I see it, not because of a prophet's predictions, not because of the planets lining up....that cracks me up laughing.
NO, I see it because of the evidence I witness all around me every day.
We know we are destroying this planet. Look at the sky. Look at the lake levels. Look at a garbage dump sometime.
The packaging on a box of cereal cost more than its contents. Where do you think our sewage goes?
People don't care about the animals and plants of this planet. They care about the future of their kids, at any cost.
We know people must die to sustain a decent quality of life for the survivors.
We know at sometime, all of those welfare babies are going to have to starve to death.
We know that the elderly, receiving $10,000 a month in public health care, will have to die.
The time is coming. It has too. Something terrible happens every century.
A group of people, people from probably every country in the world, are letting us know what is coming.
They have been decent enough to give us fair warning.
Hopefully, they'll be decent enough to kill the population of the world without too much discression as to race, creed or color.
I'm pretty sure, it'll be a war between the haves and the have nots.
Wall Street is dead. It hasn't moved to Main Street. I don't where it went.
BTW - Did you see how the magic trick actually worked, or was it just me?
That money in the stock market didn't just disappear, and the oil was always there. 
I'm sure the house loans were easy money, given to us, so we'd lose our homes.
These magic tricks keep happening.
Drive around, look at all the bank repos. Remember the prices of gas going up to $4 a gallon. Remember the Dow when it was at 13,000.
What's going to happen next?
Well, it won't be good, I can promise you that. Most people have already lost their retirements and homes.
Maybe what will happen next, will kill most of the human population, but save the planet.
Maybe it seems awful, but if it is a necessary evil, then it is going to have to happen. If the planet can't support10 billion people, then we have to die sooner than expected.
If that is the case, then I'm willing to die for that cause.
That cause, of course, would be the survival of life on this planet.
I'm old anyway, and the youth will hopefully bee wise enough to use the knowledge acquired in the past century, to build a much better colony of our species.
At any rate, the American Dream for me has died.
I made A's in college, but I couldn't afford to go any further. I had to work. Nobody seemed to care that I made straight A's. 
And the companies with their retirement plans went away, giving up jobs to the poor people working in factories in China.
And I'll lose my house. I'll lose everything I've worked so hard for and saved for most of my life.
And I'll die from some easily fixed health problem, because I won't even be able to afford that blood pressure test that cost me $80, because I can't afford insurance.
So, good bye Mr and Mrs Cleaver. Beaver will grow up and kill himself some day, and it won't really be his fault.

I just read Harvard (Harvard?) has found trans fat, less than that found in a large order of McDonalds fries, increases your chances of a heart attack by 25%.  Read the article in the Courier Journal.
They say it causes more than 200,000 deaths a year.
New York is going to illegalize it.
Ever wonder exactly how they do these wonderful studies?
What do they do, take a bunch of people who died of old age that have died from heart attacks, find out what they ate, then say they died from eating McDonalds french fries?
Groucho Marx smoked cigars until he died at 87 years old.
He should have died at 70.
It should be obvious by now, that the medical guys are terrible at predicting the life spans of people.
The average live span in the United States is still 76 years old.
It will stay that way until the medical profession discovers how to cure old age.
The blame game always irritates me.

Someone mentioned the other day that he had been killed, so I looked it up.
According to Time Magazine, on 11/23/2006 the CIA Director said NOPE. Iraq's intelligience says NOPE. It was guessed he died in November 2001, from lung complications.
He's been reported as dead quite a few times over the last 5 years.
Most think he died in December 2001.
Check out: What Really Happened.com.
It looks like this site tries to decifer the truth from the news.
Good luck with that! lol

(CBS) Not so long ago, Adam Gadahn was a Jewish-American boy, growing up on a goat farm in Orange County, California. Now he's been charged with treason against the United States -- "perhaps the most serious offense for which any person can be tried under our Constitution," according to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.
Gadahn, aka Azzam al-Amriki or "Azzam the American," 28, is accused of deliberately making the choice to leave his country and join al Qaeda, providing "aid and comfort" to the country's most determined enemy.
In the videos, Gadahn gloated over attacks he threatened would be coming, promising "the streets of America shall run red with blood." He praised the 9/11 attacks as "the blessed raids on New York and Washington."
But Justice officials said a tape released on September 2nd of this year, in which Gadahn was actually introduced by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was "the last straw."
He sounds like a silly/confused Californian goat farmer's boy to me!
This makes me wonder now, about my treatment at the airports coming back from Erie.
At the airports coming back from Erie, PA, I was targeted for inspection, just me, not my brother.
Did I say something or (maybe) browse something on the internet that flagged me as a terrorist.
Security was supposedly looking for bottles of liquids in my luggage.
I asked "Is toothpaste allowed in my suitcase."
The security guard said, "Yes".
I said "Couldn't plastic explosives be disguised in a tube of toothpaste."
He told me "Not to say anything else, or he'd have to call the FBI, and they'd send me to jail".
Is freedom of speech not part of the Constitution now?
I must have missed that Amendment.
I was traveling with my brother, and security asked me which suitcases were mine so they could search them.
I pointed out a suitcase and a box. I made some comments about how silly the inspection rules were.
And, somehow, my new camera got smashed.
I'm as American as anyone can get.
I grew up in the USA. I know its history, and admire the constitution and love Justice, Freedom, and the American way of life
I think Freedom of speech should be a cherished part of the constitution. We must have lost that after the 9/11 attacks.
I'd just hate to see the day when the citizens of the United States become targets of their government for what they say.
I want to chant ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER FOR PRESIDENT!!!
This is what I'd rather be read in the papers (about terrorist and other evil people).
A British man pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to bomb high-profile targets in the United States.
including the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange.
By JILL LAWLESS LONDON Oct 12, 2006 (AP)
"I plead guilty," Dhiran Barot, 32, said in a clear voice at Woolwich Crown Court in south London.
Other alleged targets in the plot, which was foiled by Barot's arrest in 2004, included the World Bank headquarters in Washington, the Citigroup building in New York and the Prudential building in Newark, N.J.
Prosecutor Edward Lawson said Barot planned "to carry out explosions at those premises with no warning. They were plainly designed to kill as may people as possible."

I was reading about emission controls systems in cars, specifically, because I still have a problem with my check engine light. While browsing the net, I found out some interesting things about ozone.
High levels of ozone create eye, throat and lung irratiation.
Does that sound familiar? We experienced and talked about that when we came back to Vegas?
My asthma is flairing up again. I went to http://www.accessclarkcounty.com/Air_Quality/full_forecast.htm
to check out Las Vegas's air advisories. On http://www.ccairquality.org/output/chart.html, I noticed that in areas that were highest in carbon monoxide readings, didn't measure the important things, like Ozone (specifically, E Sahara and S Las Vegas Blvd). It basically says everything is fine. I'd have to disagree though.
I don't need their chart to tell me something is in the air this morning.
I can sense it. For one, outside the air is hazy and the mountains aren't visible.
But to read articles from different news sources, it sounds like the air quality here is excellent.
So, I have to wonder what is going on.
Note: I was in the convertible yesterday with the top down for almost 7 hours.

The U.S. Food and Drug and Administration says prescription drugs bought on 10 Canadian pharmacies websites have turned up as fakes. The agency said it tested drugs intercepted on the way to American consumers and they turned up counterfeits of 10 popular medications, including the cholesterol drugs Lipitor and Crestor, and the painkiller Celebrex.  "There are lifesaving drugs out there that people can't afford. So, people are looking for alternative places to go and buy them," said David Certner, AARP.
Quoted from Channel 8 News in Las Vegas
"Caveat Emptor" is latin for "Let the Buyer Beware".
If you buy drugs online, test each site with a small purchase first.
Being without health insurance, I'm forced to buy my pharmaceuticals online.
If I have an infection, those little antibiotics that the doctors love to pass out cost over $16 a pill.
For example:
Without insurance. A a prescription of 7 Cipro costs $18. A doctor visit costs $95.
Totaled thats $113. Divide that by 7 and you get $16 a pill.
I just ordered 50 Cirpros for $35 online from an Indian pharmacy. Thats .70 a pill.
Another example:
I'm an asthmatic and it gets really bad here in Las Vegas.
Albuterol inhalers cost me $10 online.
I once saw an invoice where Medicare was billed $120 for just one inhaler.
The bottom line is
If you need prescription drugs, and even if you have insurance, you should still shop around.
It should be like almost everything else in the United States, free enterprise.
Let the laws of supply and demand work for you.
Don't let the insurance and pharmaceutical companies fix the prices.

Got a calendar? Circle this date: Friday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "before sunrise" and "Meteors!" Attach all of the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won't miss the 2005 Perseid meteor shower. The Perseids come every year, beginning in late July and stretching into August. Sky watchers outdoors at the right time can see colorful fireballs, occasional outbursts and, almost always, long hours of gracefully streaking meteors. Among the many nights of the shower, there is always one night that is best. This year is August 12th through the 19th.
Right: A colorful Perseid streaks over Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Photo credit: Dirk Obudzinski, August 12, 2004. View the gallery
The source of the shower is Comet Swift-Tuttle. Although the comet is nowhere near Earth, the comet's wide tail does intersect Earth's orbit.
We glide through it every year in July and August.
Tiny bits of comet dust hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 132,000 mph.
At that speed, even a tiny smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light--a meteor--when it disintegrates. The shower is most intense when Earth is in the dustiest part of the tail. Perseid meteors fly out of the constellation Perseus, hence their name.
The best time to watch is during the hours before sunrise when Perseus is high in the sky: sky map. Between 2 a.m. and dawn on August 12th, if you get away from city lights, you could see hundreds of meteors.

We are glad you joined us News

A proposal that's in the works may give Mount Charleston a large resort complete with video gaming, a five-story hotel, and even a nightclub.
But many who live on the mountain, don't want it.

Just about everywhere you look on Mount Charleston, you see can why so many people choose to live there. The quiet, peaceful atmosphere is what attracts many, like Ron Clagget and his wife, who said, "We've been coming up here since '85 and looking for something to invest."

Ron has worked to remodel the cabin he bought on Mount Charleston. And the thought of a mega-resort where he now lives in "Old Town" isn't a welcoming idea. "It's not gonna benefit anyone up here or increase land value.
The only people that's gonna benefit are the people building it. The income, it's called greed."

And it's this greed, Clagget says, that will take away from his and others' everyday life. He says, "People downtown might say let's go up to Mount Charleston to gamble. Just gamble down the road, go up to Mount Charleston for what's here -- for the trails, the hiking, the picnics with the family, to stay out of the heat."

And it's a proposal that's bringing a cool reception so far from those already on the mountain, like Clagget, who says, "If it needs approval of the people that live on the mountain, it's not gonna happen."

A Utah company is proposing the resort be built on the slopes of Mount Charleston.
But so far, the developer has not filed applications for zoning changes.