Google is coming out with a car that drives itself!!!

Is there anything the folks over at Google can’t do? They give us the greatest search engine ever and now they want to grace the roads with self-driving cars. Find out more about the Artificial Intelligent ride after the jump.

While Google insiders speculate that the car is at least eight years from actually hitting the road, they say a self-driving car is definitely possible, and are even testing out prototypes now. Researchers say that self-driving cars would actually mean greater safety on the roads, more precise driving and would help to avoid the human error (drinking, texting, falling asleep at the wheel) that can often cause accidents. But don’t think that these machines are completely out of your control. The expectation is that someone will always be behind the wheel, ready to tap a red button to regain control of the car if something unexpected happens.

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Native American Farmers Win $680M in Discrimination Suit!!!

The Obama administration has agreed to pay $680 million to Native American farmers who claimed the government denied them the same low-interest rate loans given to white farmers between 1981 and 2007.

The farmers filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture 11 years ago. Under a settlement announced Tuesday, eligible farmers and ranchers can get up to $250,000 each if they can prove the USDA caused them economic losses, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Wall Street Journal. But most farmers will likely opt for a $50,000 payment that requires less paperwork.

The lawsuit, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, was named for a North Dakota farmer Marilyn Keepseagle, who said the settlement would "help thousands of Native Americans who are still farming and ranching."

"But more important, through this settlement we will leave to our children and grandchildren a farm loan system far more responsive to our community than the system we inherited from our parents," she told The Oklahoman newspaper.

The American Indians' lawsuit has long been overshadowed by similar complaints from black farmers. The Obama administration reached a $1.25 billion settlement with those black farmers last February, but Congress has yet to allocate the money.

The USDA has been subject to several discrimination lawsuits in recent years over allegations of racism in its farm loan programs. The issue flashed into the national spotlight over the summer, when USDA employee Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign after an edited video clip suggested she didn't fully help a white farmer in 1986 because of his race. Sherrod is black.

The Native Americans' settlement includes an additional $80 million of debt forgiveness and $20 million in administrative fees, Bloomberg said. It still has to be approved by a federal district court, and a hearing is set for Oct. 29.

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CEOs lay off thousands, rake in millions!!!

When Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Executive Mark Hurd resigned last month he received something few regular workers see when they quit their jobs under a cloud: A massive payout. Turns out Hurd is far from the only top executive to be rewarded with a rich package despite a management performance that could be considered less than optimal — especially by rank-and-file workers. A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.

The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, found that the 50 layoff leaders received $12 million on average in 2009, compared with an average compensation of $8.5 million for chief executives of companies in Standard & Poor's 500. Each of the 50 companies examined in the report laid off at least 3,000 workers between November 2008 and April 2010.

“Our findings illustrate the great unfairness of the Great Recession,” said Sarah Anderson, lead author of the study, “CEO Pay and the Great Recession,” the latest in a series of annual “Executive Excess” reports published by the institute, a progressive think tank. “CEOs are squeezing workers to boost short-term profits and fatten their own paychecks.”

Those CEOs include HP’s Hurd, who slashed 6,400 jobs in 2009 — a year when his compensation amounted to $24.2 million.

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Cops don't need warrant to plant GPS on cars, Federal court says!!!

A federal judge in California recently ruled that police can place a GPS on a person's car without his or her knowledge without seeking a warrant. CNN reports that Juan Pineda-Moreno's appeal was rejected for the third time in early August by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers nine West Coast states. Pineda-Moreno claimed that Oregon DEA agents had violated his privacy by sneaking onto his property and placing a GPS tracker on his Jeep, due to their suspicions that he was growing marijuana. To support their case against Pineda-Moreno, prosecutors used data culled by the device, such as the latitude and longitude of where the Jeep had been driven and how long it had stayed at those coordinates.

While Pineda-Moreno will continue serving his 51-month sentence, not everybody agrees with the court's ruling. "The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in his dissent of the case. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told CNN that the ruling was "Orwellian."

This comes less than a month after a D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that police should attain a warrant before engaging in GPS tracking. The opposing Ninth Circuit ruling suggests the constitutionality of warrentless GPS tracking will be tested in the Supreme Court. In some ways, using a GPS to track somebody isn't much different than parking down the street and tailing them. The notion of remote monitoring doesn't make this "Orwellian," but the ease with which the system could be abused definitely crosses into dangerous Big Brother territory.

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Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia. Part 2!!!

Irum Saeed, 30, poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burned on her face, back and shoulders twelve years ago when a boy whom she rejected for marriage threw acid on her in the middle of the street. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Shameem was raped by three boys who then threw acid on her three years ago. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.

Najaf Sultana, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. At the age of five Najaf was burned by her father while she was sleeping, apparently because he didn’t want to have another girl in the family. As a result of the burning Najaf became blind and after being abandoned by both her parents she now lives with relatives. She has undergone plastic surgery around 15 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shehnaz Usman, 36, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Shehnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute five years ago. Shehnaz has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shahnaz Bibi, 35, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Ten years ago Shahnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute. She has never undergone plastic surgery.

Kanwal Kayum, 26, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Kanwal was burned with acid one year ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has never undergone plastic surgery.

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World's Oldest Sex Toy Found???

Long before the advent of the Rabbit, women were finding ways to get off when their hot-blooded Homo sapiens were out hunting.

And it seems that a recently discovered 6,000–8,000-year-old bone phallus, unearthed on the banks of the Göta Canal near Motala in Sweden's Östergötland province, may have been the world's first dildo.

The phallus is just over 4 inches tall and under an inch in diameter, and the Swedish archaeologists who discovered it are still unsure what the Mesolithic artifact is, but have speculated it may have been used as a sex toy.

Other excavations in the area have uncovered bone and wood objects used for harpooning, and as Swedish archaeologist Dr. Martin Rundkvist points out, "Measuring 12-by-2 centimeters, its size is perhaps not very impressive, and there are many non-dildoish uses for which it may have been intended. But without doubt anyone alive at the time of its making would have seen the penile similarities just as easily as we do today."

There is another contender for world's oldest sex toy: a stone phallus discovered in Ulm, Germany, in 2005, believed to date back 28,000 years.

We're just grateful we live in a time where the Pleasure Chest exists. Neither bone nor stone sounds too appealing.

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Sarah Palin, Obama Condoms aren't protected under the First Amendement!!!

Well, that’s sort of an unpatriotic bummer. Find out why these rubbers aren’t protected under the Constitution after the jump.

Manhattan Criminal Court judge Michael Gerstein has ruled that the Palin and Obama condoms that two street vendors in New York were selling for the company Practice Safe Policy are not protected under the Constitution. Judge Mike said:

“The fact that the clever marketing of these products is tied to current events does not, by itself, entitle them to full constitutional protection.”

“[Practice Safe Policy] is also now advertising Oil Spill Condoms, ‘Drill Without the Spill.’ Such activity seems more clearly focused on marketing a brand rather than engaging in fully protected speech.”

What a shame. These were actually some of the more creative latex friends on the market. The Palin version featured the tagline “When Abortion is Not an Option,” while the Obama version boasted an “Ultimate Stimulus Package” message. Guess we’ll just have to order these babies online if we want to tap that ass with some political correctness.

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Women More Attracted When Men Wear Red: Study Shows!!!

A new study says that men who wear red are more likely to attract the ladies. I guess that means your wardrobe is about to change.

Researchers found that women are more drawn to males wearing the color.

"We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder," lead author Andrew Elliot, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a university news release. "And it's this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction."

He and his colleagues asked 288 female and 25 males undergraduates to look at photos of a man in which his shirt was digitally colored either red or another color. Women said the red shirt made the man appear more powerful, attractive and sexually desirable. However, it didn't make him seem more likeable, kind or sociable.

The women had the same responses when looking at a man's photo that was framed by a border of either red or white.

The study included undergraduates in the United States, England, Germany and China, and the effect in women was consistent across cultures. But the women were unaware of the reaction.

The color of the photo border or the man's shirt had no effect on males.

In many societies worldwide, red has long been associated with the rich and powerful, as evidenced by rolling out the "red carpet" at high-profile events, Elliot noted in the release. And in non-human primates, such as mandrills and gelada baboons, red is an indicator of male dominance and is expressed more intensely in alpha males. Females of these species are more likely to mate with alpha males.

"When women see red it triggers something deep and probably biologically engrained," Elliot said. "We say in our culture that men act like animals in the sexual realm. It looks like women may be acting like animals as well in the same sort of way."

The study is published in the Aug. 2 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Wow, way to say that women are social climbers, but anyway at least this gives dudes some direction next time they’re looking to pick out some new threads.

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America Drinking is at its Highest since 1985!!!

Well if this doesn’t make you feel proud to be an American, I don’t have any clue what will. Find out just what percent of your fellow countrymen (and women) are hitting the bottle after the jump.

That would be a whopping 67 percent, the highest total since 1985! Another notch on beer-lovers belts: Beer is the alcoholic libation of choice for most Americans. The study, conducted by the good folks at Gallup, also concluded that the more money people make the more likely they are to drink, as are college-educated people and those who would rather be day-drinking than listening to a homily on Sundays.

Now let’s all be honest here, is this study really breaking new ground? I mean most people learn the thrill of keg stands and beer pong in college, holy rollers aren’t into debauchery and more money means shunning the High Life in favor of some exotic booze. Who needs science? All we needed was a little common sense and a whole lot of personal experience in the drinking department.

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Scientists are developing a car that can go 1,000 mph!!!

British scientists think they’ve developed a car that can travel in excess of 1,000 mph. I’m sure you’re in good hands with Allstate, but I bet you buy a car like this and they wring their hands of your auto coverage.

After three years of aerodynamic research, construction is about to begin on the Bloodhound Supersonic Car which will be powered by a jet engine and a rocket with the record attempt slated for 2012 in South Africa.

I’m always a bit skeptical when dealing with automobiles with jet engines strapped to them, but maybe that’s just me.

Powered by a combination of a Typhoon fighter’s jet engine and a Falcon rocket, the car unveiled at the Farnborough International Air Show will develop 135,000 horse power or 180 times the power of a Formula 1 car.

This is the team’s last attempt in 1997 with the Thrust SSC that topped out at a mere 763 mph.

Oh, you meant a “for real” jet engine. So they have designed a pencil shaped car that has a fighter jet engine strapped to it that has to be “driven” by a pilot in the Royal Airforce? Impractical? Probably. Where do need to drive a car that could drive 1,000 mph outside of the flat and desolate highways of Texas? Why aren’t these scientists developing monster trucks that can jump 50 buses at a time? Let’s get our priorities straight British scientists!




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Bigger the Brain, Longer the Life, Study Finds!!!

New research links having a larger brain to living a longer life.

Researchers from the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications in Barcelona studied nearly 500 species of mammals in order to better understand the connection between brain size, body size and longevity.

Results showed the mammals with large brains in relationship to their body tended to have longer reproductive cycles and lifespans, though their brain development took longer as well.

The team was interested in the Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis, which proposes that larger brains help certain mammals adapt to changes in surroundings and make learning easier for them, which in turn allows them to survive and live longer lives.

The study, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, reports that though larger mammals are known to live longer lives, the researches found that the size of the brain affects lifespan regardless of mammal's body size. For example, they note that though hyenas are smaller than giraffes, they have a larger brain in proportion to their body size and do live longer.

Large brains use much more energy than smaller brains because they take longer to reach full functional and sexual development, but the researchers found nature favored these large brains as the mammals' longevity also provides them with more chances to reproduce.

Other factors that could have contributed to long lifespans, such as metabolism, diet and habitats, were taken into account, but the study authors report no change in the results. The only variable that did alter data was whether or not a mammal lived in captivity or in the wild, with captive animals more likely to live longer.

As for the human brain, Thomas says that, in general, the male brain is larger than the female brain, with the exception of certain regions such as the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. He adds that these size variations don't seem to tell us much about our lives to come.

Researchers emphasize however that though their findings are significant, a large brain and longevity isn't necessarily a cause and effect relationship.

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The Red Dots Says it all; The Male Virginity Test!!!

If living Steve Carrell-style, a la the 40-year-old virgin, you might want to reconsider how much experience you tack on when talking to the ladies. Now all they have to do is check out your ears to find the answer.

HANOI, Vietnam — An acupuncturist who claims she can detect a man's virginity based on a small dot on the ear has become a minor celebrity in Vietnam, where she is credited with helping to free three convicted rapists from prison.

Traditional medicine practitioner Pham Thi Hong started lobbying for the men's release, pleading their case all the way to the president, because she believes all three men are virgins and therefore could not be guilty of rape.

"They all had small red spots on the back of their ears," said Hong, 54. "The spots should have disappeared if they had had sex. My many years of experience told me that these men did not have sex before."

Her claims are unusual even for a country where acupuncture and traditional medicine are still common remedies, but Hong's determination to have the case reopened – even threatening to light herself on fire – led to prosecutors re-examining the case. The convictions eventually were suspended due to flaws by initial investigators.

"Thanks to her efforts, investigators revisited the case which otherwise could have been buried," said Nong Thi Hong Ha, a lawyer for one of the freed men.

Hong says she discovered the spot on Nguyen Dinh Kien's ear the first time he visited her for treatment four years ago. He was brought to the hospital from prison, where he was serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted of gang raping a 20-year-old woman in 2000.

After seeing the spot on Kien's ear, Hong believed his insistence that he was innocent. She later examined his two alleged accomplices and began a campaign for their release. Eventually, President Nguyen Minh Triet ordered that the case be re-examined.

Investigators who revisited the case discovered flaws, including the fact that testimonies of witnesses indicating their innocence were not included in the case's files, according to the local Pioneer newspaper. The three men, having served 10 years in jail, were released in January.

Vietnamese newspapers have dedicated profiles to Hong and her virginity test, crediting her with helping to free the men while not expressing any skepticism of her ability. Earlier this week, she went on an online chat on Pioneer newspaper where readers expressed their "great admiration" for her efforts.

Well I guess this means droves and droves of 15 year-old boys are going to start buying foundation and concealer to hide those suckers when trying to court the older ladies. Sephora is about to make bank.

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What Facebook Can Do for You!!!

With 500 million users and counting, Facebook has become a necessary tool for entrepreneurs who want to reach a targeted audience. But where do you begin?

Q: I don't really get how I can use Facebook in my small business. I doubt anyone would become a "fan" of it, so then what? What am I missing?

-- Lisa

A: While it is true that keeping up with the latest and greatest technological change can sometimes seem overwhelming, the fact is, we are indeed living in an era of great change for business. So one of your jobs as a small-business owner is to keep up with the times.

And so the truth is, Facebook and other social media sites are near the forefront of those new things that you must master. Facebook is a great place to advertise online, and tapping into its social media power can yield equally impressive results.
Here's but one example:

Chris Meyer is a photographer -- specifically, a wedding photographer. Wanting to try something new to grow his business, Chris decided that he would start small and try a Facebook ad campaign. Like many others before and after him, Chris found that one of the best things about advertising on Facebook is that you can very specifically target who will see your ad. That means that you only (generally) pay for highly qualified leads, and that means that you save money while getting better prospects. When only people looking for what you sell see and click on your ads, your budget goes a long way.

So Chris created an ad for his wedding photography business and chose to have it be seen by women in his area, aged 24 to 30, whose Facebook "relationship status" was "engaged."

Chris spent $600 on the initial ad buy. And how much did he make? How does $40,000 over the course of a year sound? Obviously, he didn't stop there. Today, Chris says, "I have found [Facebook Ads] SO effective. My business wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today if it weren't for Facebook, and the ads campaign."

Creating a Facebook ad campaign of your own is really very easy:

* First, check out the Facebook advertising center.
* Next, use the point-and-click design tools to create your ad.
* After that, Facebook will ask you to target your exact audience, like Chris Meyer did. Your audience can be as large or small as you like, but the greater the reach, the more you will pay. You can choose to either pay per click (CPC) or pay per impression (CPM) -- that is, pay for the number of people who see your ad as opposed to how many click on it.
* After that, you will be asked to create a budget, review your ad, and get started.


One thing you should really like about a Facebook ad campaign is that you will be able to track your results in real time, see who is clicking and change your ad if necessary.

That last point is very important. It is unwise to simply create an ad, check out, and come back a month later to see what happened. I once did a Google ad campaign, seeking people looking for "small business speakers." I ended up paying a lot of money for clicks from people looking for "Bose speakers," and not someone to keynote their next event.

So I say, yes, check out new opportunities like Facebook -- you will be glad you did.

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Scientiists say they are closing in on HIV Vaccine!!!

Scientists say there's new hope in the quest to prevent HIV.

A team from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and other organizations recently discovered two human antibodies that may stop more than 90 percent of known HIV strains from infecting human cells, according to a news release from the National Institutes of Health.

Finding these disease-fighting proteins may help scientists design better HIV vaccines to treat and prevent the infection, and the method they used to find these antibodies could also be applied to other diseases.

"The discovery of these exceptionally broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV and the structural analysis that explains how they work are exciting advances that will accelerate our efforts to find a preventive HIV vaccine for global use," Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, said in a statement. "In addition, the technique the teams used to find the new antibodies represents a novel strategy that could be applied to vaccine design for many other infectious diseases."

The scientists found these two naturally-occurring antibodies, called VRC01 and VRC02, in the blood of one individual infected with HIV using a molecular device made of HIV proteins. The device pinpoints the specific cells that make antibodies to fight off HIV, and scientists modified it to react only with antibodies specific to where HIV binds to the cells that it infects.

The authors of the study, published in the online edition of the journal Science, found the VRC01 and VRC02 deactivated more HIV strains with more power than other known antibodies.

They also discovered the atomic structure of VRC01 when it attached to HIV, which allowed the team to determine how the antibody worked and locate where it attached to the virus. From this, they have started to design a vaccine that could teach the immune system to make antibodies similar to VRC01 and prevent infection from the majority of HIV strains.

Finding a way to counteract HIV strains has been difficult for scientists in the past. Not only do the the strains continuously change to avoid recognition by the bodies' immune system, but there are also countless variations of HIV strains that exist worldwide.

But there are a few areas on HIV's surface that remain virtually consistent. One of these areas is called the CD4 binding site, where HIV attaches to immune system cells and infects them. VRC01 and VRC02 attach to this CD4 site and block the HIV infection from latching onto immune cells.

"The antibodies attach to a virtually unchanging part of the virus, and this explains why they can neutralize such an extraordinary range of HIV strains," Dr. John R. Mascola, the deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the NAID and one of the study authors, said in a statement.

By examining VRC01's structure, the scientists determined that the immune system could most likely produce VRC01 precursors. They also confirmed that VRC01 does not bind to human cells, which is promising because the immune system would typically eliminate the antibody in order to prevent autoimmune disease.

To complete the antibody development process, B cells, which produce antibodies, are used to recognize specific parts of a virus and either mutate or mature so that the antibody can bind to the pathogen more firmly. This is where the problem with the new vaccine may lie.

VRC01 precursors do not bind tightly to HIV and instead mature into more forcefully neutralizing forms. Dr. Peter D. Kwong, a study author and chief of the structural biology section at the Vaccine Research Center, explained that the scientists are addressing this issue by designing vaccine components (which they are currently studying) that would guide the immune system through this maturation and generate a VRC01-like antibody from its precursors.

"The discoveries we have made may overcome the limitations that have long stymied antibody-based HIV vaccine design," Kwong said in a statement.

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When Will You Hit Menopause? Blood Test May Tell You!!!

Researchers may have found a way to predict the inevitable time when childbearing years have ended and hot flashes become a daily occurrence.

Using a simple blood test, Dr. Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani and her colleagues have developed a way to determine when a woman will reach menopause -- important information for those who plan to start a family.

To find these results, the researchers took blood samples of 266 women ages 20-49. With these samples, they measured concentrations of the hormone produced by the cells in a woman's ovaries known as anti-Mullerian hormone or AMH, which controls the development of follicles in the ovaries where eggs grow.

The researchers also took blood samples at three yearly intervals and gathered information on the women's socioeconomic status and reproductive history. The women also had physical exams every three years.

From a single measurement of AMH, Tehrani and the other researchers estimated the average age of menopause for women in the study to be about 52, and they identified a model for AMH levels that predicts if a woman is likely to experience early menopause (before the age of 45).

"The results from our study could enable us to make a more realistic assessment of women's reproductive status many years before they reach menopause," Tehrani, president of the Reproductive Endocrinology Department of the Endocrine Research Center, said in a statement. "For example, if a 20-year-old woman has a concentration of serum AMH of 2.8 ng/ml [nanograms per milliliter], we estimate that she will become menopausal between 35-38 years old."

The average difference between the predicted age and the actual age women in the study reached menopause was one-third of a year, with the maximum error being between three and four years.

This is the first study to determine this age prediction using a population-based study.

"Our findings indicate that AMH is capable of specifying a woman's reproductive status more realistically than chronological age per se," Tehrani said, which is important knowledge for doctors in helping women with family planning.

Although these results are promising, more research should be conducted involving more women over a longer period of time, Tehrani said.

Tehrani will present this study at the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome, Italy.

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Number of Women Without Children Reaches All Time High!!!

The number of American women without children has risen to an all-time high of 1 in 5, a jump since the 1970s when 1 in 10 women ended their childbearing years without having a baby, according to the Pew Research Center.

About 1.9 million women aged 40-44 -- or 18 percent -- were childless in 2008, an 80 percent increase since 1976, when just 580,000 -- 10 percent of those in that age bracket -- had never given birth, the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey shows.

Childlessness has increased across racial and ethnic groups and most education levels, but has dropped among women with advanced degrees in the past decade, according to the research.

Part of the reason for the rise in the number of childless women is an overall pattern toward delaying marriage and having kids, the research showed. Experts say that a drop in societal pressure to be a parent is also responsible for the trend, along with an increase in career opportunities and an improvement in birth control options and effectiveness.

"People put off getting pregnant," said women's health expert Dr. Laura Corio, a member of AOL Health's Medical Advisory Board. "Even when they're married they're putting off getting pregnant. Then they wake up one day and they're 40 and they want to have a child. It's like, hello?"

Explanations for the trend vary, but for some, the reason behind delaying parenting is a simple joie de vivre.

"They're freer. People are enjoying their lives: they're traveling, shopping, eating out," Corio told AOL Health. "Putting a baby into the situation is going to change everything."

Though the most educated women are still among those most likely to never give birth, there was a 31 percent decline in those aged 40-44 with master's, doctoral or professional degrees who had not had babies between 1994 and 2008, when 24 percent of women in that category were childless.

The data represents combined statistics from 2006 and 2008 (referred to as 2008 in the study) and from 1992 and 1994 (referred to as 1994).

White women remain the most likely not to have had a child, but the childless rates have grown more quickly for blacks, Hispanics and Asians over the past decade, according to the figures.

Never-married women still had the highest incidence of childlessness, though those rates also have declined over the past 10 years. By comparison, the childless rates have increased for those who are married or were at one time -- referred to as the "ever-marrieds."

"A lot of women can't find someone, or they're very picky or very educated," Corio said. "Contraception is also better. A lot of pregnancies in the past may have been accidents where they decided to keep the baby. It's also money -- they think, we're not in the financial situation [to have children]."

Among the women aged 40 to 44 without children, the number of those who didn't want to have children equaled the number of those who did but weren't able to conceive, according to figures from the National Survey of Family Growth.

In 2003, about 6 percent of women in that age group were voluntarily childless, 6 percent were involuntarily childless and 2 percent didn't have children but wanted them in the future.

Along with the population changes have come shifts in attitude, with public opinion showing more acceptance of women without children, Pew Research reported. Most adults -- 59 percent in 2002 -- said they disagree with the statement that people who don't have kids "lead empty lives," compared to only 39 percent who didn't agree with the statement in 1988.

Similarly, a 2007 Pew survey showed that 41 percent of adults believe children are important for a successful marriage, down from 65 percent who expressed the same views in 1990.

About 46 percent of people said the trend has no bearing on society, according to a 2009 Pew survey, but 38 percent said it was bad for society -- up from 29 percent in 2007.

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California is Broke, Wants to Sell Ads on Your License Plate!!!

Good lord California, is this seriously the kinds of ideas you’ve come to now? Selling advertising real estate on license plates as a way to raise cash?

Yes, it seems so. There is new type of technology that is essentially a fully electronic license plate. California wants to use this tech for their own purposes, purposes that are incredibly stupid if you ask me.

The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen.

And this is going to close a $19B deficit how?

Look, I’m not sure how much money you can haul in from stupid license plate commercials, that are too small to even be seen most of the time, but I have to say, wouldn’t the costs of electronic license plates be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the standard metal ones that prisoners bang out currently? So either the state would have to pay extra, or it would be passed on to consumers, for the “privilege” of having their cars be walking advertisements. Idiotic.

California, two words to close that budget gap: LEGALIZE IT.

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12-year-old scares away home intruder!!!

The 12-year-old girl told police that she heard a knock on the front door of her home in Altamonte Springs on Wednesday about 11:30 a.m.

She looked out a window and saw what she described as a black man and a Hispanic woman outside, but did not answer the door, reports ClickOrlando.com.

She told police that the man climbed through a bathroom window and entered the home. When the girl saw him in the living room, she yelled at him to leave.

The man responded, "OK, I'm leaving," according to police, and left the house in a black SUV that may have been a Ford Escape.

The homeowner told police that a silver watch and bracelet with dolphin links were missing from the bathroom.

The girl said the man was in his early 20s, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with a slight Mohawk and swirls shaved in the sides of his head.

She described the woman as also in her early 20s, about 5 feet, 5 inches and about 180 pounds with long, dark hair.

Good job, kid.

But, boy, were you ever lucky.

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NASTY:Man Arrested After Rape Victim Girl, 7, Contracts Sexual Disease Gonorrhea!!(video inside)

Police have arrested the 22-year-old live-in boyfriend of a woman whose 7-year-old daughter contracted a sexually transmitted disease, charging him with second-degree rape.

The suspect, a West Baltimore man who is not being identified to protect the privacy of the victim, was arrested Tuesday after giving an account of the incident to detectives in the Police Department's child abuse unit. The girl was taken to University of Maryland Medical Center on May 11 and was found to have gonorrhea.

The case was reported the same day police received a report that an 18-month-old from Cherry Hill had contracted gonorrhea. Police say that case remains under investigation.

Adam Rosenberg, executive director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, said the center saw 868 child abuse victims last year, the majority of whom were abused by someone known to them. He said of those cases, 20 children tested positive for sexually transmitted diseases.

"The outrage meter tends to go a little higher when there's a physical manifestation of a sexually transmitted disease, but the unfortunate side is that this occurs more often than we think," Rosenberg said. "We're seeing more younger kids [test positive], but that may be because the testing has become more reliable and much easier to do."

In the West Baltimore case, the mother said she did not know how the girl contracted the disease, and the girl did not provide any information about what happened, records show. The next day, the mother went to Mercy Medical Center and was tested for the disease.

Detectives followed up at the family home in the 1600 block of Booker Court on May 14. The mother's live-in boyfriend was home "and stated that he wanted to prove he didn't do anything so he stated he was willing to go and get tested," detectives wrote in charging documents.

While the couple were at the hospital that night, the mother was informed that she had tested positive for gonorrhea, and both adults were treated for the disease that night, records show.

The couple came to the police child abuse unit on Tuesday, and the boyfriend agreed to speak with detectives, acknowledging sexual contact with the girl, police wrote in charging documents.

The suspect faces second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, second-degree assault and custodial child abuse charges. He was being held without bail.

His criminal record includes minor drug convictions and convictions for car theft and assault.
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Parents sue college that won't admit daughter -- she's only 13!!!

In some ways, Anastasia Megan is a typical 13-year-old girl. She enjoys riding her horse on her family's rural Sumter County spread. She loves to scuba dive, kayak and listen to rock music.

But she is not a typical teenager. The home-schooled student has almost completed her high-school education, and her parents, both retired engineers, say they have reached their limit in continuing to challenge her academically. They recently applied for their daughter to take dual-enrollment courses at nearby Lake-Sumter Community College in Leesburg, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

But the college gave a firm thumbs down, saying Anastasia — who also goes by Annie — is not ready to sit side by side with older students, most of them adults.

So her parents have filed an age-discrimination complaint against the college with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

"If she meets all the qualifications but for her age, then why not let her in?" asked her mother, Louise Racine.

College President Charles Mojock would not comment specifically on Annie's situation. However, he said Lake-Sumter is an open campus, unlike a gated high school or home-school environment, and that could present safety issues for especially young students.

Annie's parents point out their daughter has traveled the world with them and her siblings — she is one of triplets — and is comfortable in adult settings. Her father, John Megan, offered to accompany Annie to classes. When college officials again said no, her father said he would even enroll in his daughter's classes. College officials still would not bend.

"We were told that parents could not be allowed to do that because it could be disruptive," Megan said.

In recent years, Scott said, Lake-Sumter college has seen an increasing number of young applicants, including some as young as 8 or 9 years old. That led the college's board of trustees in April to enact a minimum-age requirement of 15.

"It's a shame to see the [college] administration taking the go-slow approach to a bright student who wants to continue to learn," Megan said, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

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