Let's see now. Consumers are more pessimistic this month than last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average loses 100 points on the news. Unemployment is better in one month, worse in another. The DJIA goes up on the good news, down on the bad. Home Depot has a good quarter, raises its dividend, and forecasts a better year for 2010. The stock goes up 50 cents on a day when the market is down 100 points. Other stocks are light on revenues. They go down 10% or more.

The market always sends mixed messages. There has never been a time when all the news is good. That's impossible. If all the news is all good, it means the economy is really thriving. Then investors worry about things being too strong, afraid that inflation will come back, so they sell stocks. When things seem totally awful (see 2008 and 2009 as examples), some investors see nothing but upside potential (see Warren Buffett and General Electric (GE) purchases), and they buy stocks. Most of the time, however, the news is good and bad. There is never a straight upward or downward line for the DJIA or for any stock for a long period of time unless the stock goes out of business, then the line is flat.

The magazine reports that countries in the tobacco industry's crucial profit center of the Pacific rim are beginning to take steps to halt their plague of addiction. Thailand is widening its bans on public smoking, while China has mandated that larger and more striking warnings, including skulls and diseased lungs, appear on packs of cigarettes.

At the same time, the industry worries about China's plans to flood the international cut-rate tobacco market with its exports. Making money selling tobacco while warning its people about the product's dangers: A little hypocrisy with your smokes?

In a special briefing, the Economist muses on the U.S. economy of the past 20 years, and why market fluctuations have moderated nicely. Among its conclusions was that the very debt instruments that seem to be exacerbating the current housing situation were in part responsible for evening out of the market, by making credit more readily available by spreading out the risk. Very interesting reading.

In the Science and Technology section is a report on a new technique to quickly and inexpensively identify species of animals and insects, by using "barcoding." Barcoding identifies a snippet of DNA unique to the species, which can be then be used to properly label those encountered in nature. One possible early application; identifying malarial mosquitoes to better target amelioration efforts.

The conservative British weekly is taking President Bush and his cronies around the world to task in an ongoing series of articles examining the diminishment of freedom that has accompanied the war on terrorism.