sector is expected to take a hit as well, since the suppliers of home builders will need less space as the housing slowdown continues.

The subprime mortgage collapse is having a ripple effect in the Kansas City Area, the Kansas City Business Journal says, reaching beyond residential real estate to commercial real estate. “Many of the people who invested in the subprime mortgage market also financed the lower tiers of commercial mortgage pools,” said a person quoted in the article. “As they started to see losses in their residential holdings, they became more conservative in their commercial investments, as well.”

Readers are you seeing more vacancies at your local strip mall? Is a commercial downturn the inevitable result of the subprime meltdown? –Lydia Serota"This is why you'll never be in charge, Bree. You don't see the whole. The parts are crap, but you put it together you got a Firefly. Thing'll run forever they got a mechanic even half awake... Some people ain't lookin' for flash. She's a good catch."

The boss of a Carrion house, this man used his "scrap shop" in deep space to immobilize vessels, wipe out their crews, and sell the ships whole or part by part. He was an excellent judge of shipbuilding quality and the value of possible targets. The boss had a working relationship with Saffron and she had sent at least one other vessel into the lethal "net" of his carrion house. His subordinate was another scrapper named Bree.

When Saffron was aboard Serenity under