The earnings season crunch is upon us once again, and among those companies reporting next week are Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE).

In its second quarter report in July, Atria reported earnings per share of $1.15, beating Wall Street's expectations by a couple of pennies. However, Altria has had five-year earnings per share growth of only 1.9 percent, well below the tobacco industry average and the S&P 500. For the third quarter, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect Intel to report EPS of $1.14, about the same as last quarter, and less than the $1.39 actual EPS from the same period last year.

Yet, the handful of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial recommend buying Altria: two rate it a strong buy, six a buy, and four a hold. Altria's share price is up from a 52-week low of $63.13 in July, but well off of its 52-week high of $90.50 in January [before the Kraft Foods spin off]. It closed Friday at $70.06.

For more on Supreme Court decisions, cigarette taxes, and other news that might affect Altria's quarterly report, check out BloggingStocks' Altria coverage.

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.