The evolution of the blog is moving in on marketing.  A site called PayPerPost is offering up money for blog posts containing specific content on products or services.  Bloggers can get paid as much as $5 or more per post of which the topic can range from which search engine you prefer to reviewing a hair drug testing kit that parents can use on their kids.
BusinessWeek had a recent article on this very subject.  After reading it, I have to wonder if this is the new blogging fad, much like pay-per-click has been for the last few years.  To some extent, this …

No matter how great you think your 4th of July demonstration will be tonight, you won’t be able to beat NASA.
Today, NASA sent Space Shuttle Discovery back into space to meet up with the International Space Station for the first time in over a year, marking the first ever launch on the 4th of July.

God Speed STS-121, and happy Independence Day!
 NASA STS-121 Launch Blog
Watch the lanuch below…
 

A couple days ago I wrote about possibly taking a short position in Valero Energy (VLO: chart) for a couple point scalp trade.  With the open of the market this morning, it appeared that the energy sector was not ready to give up the momentum quite yet, so I held off taking up the short position.

The NYMEX futures markets are closed today, so energy stocks couldn’t rely on futures trading to stimulate direction.

Valero closed up $0.38 in a shortened trading …

According to an AP news story, a record 40 million people will be traveling this 4th of July weekend, and of those, 34 million will travel by car.

Evidently the high prices at the pump are not high enough to curtail many travel plans, which leads me to believe that the recently softened demand for unleaded gasoline will make a u-turn during peak driving season.

This doesn’t bode well for my plans to short Valero Energy (VLO: chart) for a quick couple points, however it will remain to be seen …

One challenge facing rehabbers of older houses is whether or not to keep the old plaster and lathe or replace it all with drywall.

It really depends on what kind of feel your shooting for, and whether or not you want to keep some of the charm of the old house in place.

In the case of my first rehab project, the entire house had plaster walls, most of which was overlaid with wallpaper and painted several times. Older techniques used to wallpaper over plaster leaves two sheets of wallpaper overlapping each other, producing a visible seam.

Since this house was destined to be a rental …