MOST people would probably be quite happy to receive an inheritance. They would pay off debt, maybe their mortgage; save for retirement; take a trip or two. It would be blissful, and it would make their lives easier.

Then there are those who have actually received an inheritance, sometimes sizable, and struggled with the accompanying responsibility. How should they manage it? What should they spend it on? Do they even deserve it?

In this group, there is a small subset — call them trust-fund progressives — who want to give all or most of the money away while they’re young. Some may call these people generous; others may call them naïve about what life has in store.

Among Young Inheritors, an Urge to Redistribute

A quote from our own GA Rep. Phil Gingrey

“And in Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”

“And I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”

I am so proud to be a georgian right now :P

GOP congressman: Akin's rape comments were 'partly right'

The researchers found that 57 percent of childhood ADHD patients had at least one psychiatric condition as adults - most commonly alcohol or substance abuse, anxiety and depression - compared to 35 percent of the people in a comparison group who did not have ADHD while growing up.

Childhood ADHD may lead to troubles later on

Birreria, New York City- This retracting-roof bar is an airy escape above the bustle of Mario Batali’s maximalist Italian market complex, Eataly. The draw for beer lovers, however, is the brewing program. Two top Italian brewmasters and Dogfish Head’s iconoclastic Sam Calagione collaborated with on-site brewer Peter Hepp, Jr., to make a series of remarkable cask-conditioned ales, like one brewed with fragrant Italian thyme.

Our German place made the list! :) This place might be worth looking into on our next trip to NYC.

America's best beer gardens

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Obama administration slammed the unusual legal argument now key in the movement against gay marriage: that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need access to marriage.

This is such a discusting excuse for a defense!!

Argument against gay marriage in California hinges on accidental pregnancies

The IDFA (International Dairy Foods Association) and NMPF (National Milk Producers Federation) jointly submitted a citizen petition on March 16, 2009, requesting that FDA amend the standard of identity in part 131 for milk. Specifically, the petition requests that FDA amend to allow the use of “any safe and suitable” sweetener in optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk.

The petition also requests that FDA similarly amend the standards of identity for 17 other milk and cream products. Those standards referred to as the “additional dairy standards” are as follows: Acidified milk, cultured milk, sweetened condensed milk, nonfat dry milk, nonfat dry milk fortified with vitamins A and D, evaporated milk, dry cream, heavy cream, light cream, light whipping cream, sour cream, acidified sour cream, eggnog, half-and-half, yogurt, lowfat yogurt, and nonfat yogurt.

They basically want to be able to put ingredients such as Aspertame in our milk products without listing them on the label to make the products more desirable. Here's what the petition says:

IDFA and NMPF argue that nutrient content claims such as "reduced calorie" are not attractive to children, and maintain that consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims. Further, the petitioners assert that consumers do not recognize milk -- including flavored milk -- as necessarily containing sugar. Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can "more easily identify its overall nutritional value."

I have an adverse reaction to aspertame where I suffer vertigo and severe vomiting therfore I check labels and avoid anything with Aspertame in it....so I have a MAJOR problem with this. This would mean by eating any of these dairy products I would risk days of vertigo and vomiting because they want to make more money. Screw you

Federal Register | Flavored Milk; Petition to Amend the Standard of Identity for Milk and 17 Additional Dairy Products

The next time you stop by the cemetery, you may learn a lot more about your dearly departed than their names and a few ceremonial words.
A few companies are now marketing quick response (QR) codes for gravestones, which will allow visitors to connect their smartphones to a website containing a collection of information on a deceased person, including photos, videos and testimonials from family and friends.

Living Headstone?

When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.
Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.
Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords

In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 32 percent of respondents said they objected to the full-body scans, although 50 percent were opposed to the pat-downs offered as an alternative. That means opponents of the new measures will have to shift their efforts from the airports to the courts.

Although the Supreme Court hasn't evaluated airport screening technology, lower courts have emphasized, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in 2007, that "a particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it 'is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.' "

In a 2006 opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, then-Judge Samuel Alito stressed that screening procedures must be both "minimally intrusive" and "effective" - in other words, they must be "well-tailored to protect personal privacy," and they must deliver on their promise of discovering serious threats.

As currently used in U.S. airports, the new full-body scanners fail all of Alito's tests. First, as European regulators have recognized, they could be much less intrusive without sacrificing effectiveness. For example, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport use scanners which employ radio waves with far lower frequencies than those used in common hand-held devices. If the software detects contraband or suspicious material under a passenger's clothing, it projects an outline of that area of the body onto a gender-neutral, blob-like human image, instead of generating a virtually naked image of the passenger. The passenger can then be taken aside for secondary screening.

In the Netherlands, there's another crucial privacy protection: Images captured by the body scanners are neither stored nor transmitted. Unfortunately, the TSA required that the machines deployed in U.S. airports be capable of recording, storing and transmitting images when in "test" mode. The agency promised, after this capability was revealed by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, that the test mode isn't being used in airports. But other agencies have abused the storage capability of the machines. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted in August that it had saved more than 35,000 images from body scanners at the Orlando federal courthouse.

In January, the European Commission's information commissioner criticized the scanners' "privacy-invasive potential" and their unproven effectiveness. And tests have shown that the machines are not good at detecting low-density powder explosives: therefore they wouldn't have stopped the bomber who concealed chemical powder in his underwear last Christmas.

I am not comfortable subjecting myself to either of these search methods and I sure as hell wouldn't allow either of my preteen nieces to be subjected to it. Hopefully the public will insist on change. Time will tell.

Why the TSA pat-downs and body scans are unconstitutional

A TSA employee is accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman in his Hogansville home. The alleged victim was abducted from the Lakewood MARTA station's parking lot in southwest Atlanta and driven 50 miles south to Randall Scott King’s home.

A TSA representative said King worked at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport since January of 2005 as a master transportation security officer/behavior detection officer.

Investigators said the victim was released after the sexual assault with a suicide note from King and specific instructions for where it should be delivered.

The Union City Police Department contacted Hogansville police early Thursday after the alleged victim went there with King’s suicide note. They contacted Hogansville police to search King's home. He was found inside bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. King was airlifted to Columbus Medical Center for treatment.

So I love the fact that for the past 4 years this dude is the one that got to decide if I was stable enough to get on a plane.

TSA Employee Accused Of Kidnapping, Sexual Assault