In a bad mood? Don't worry - according to research, it's good for you. An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly. In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.
The fear of going without health insurance and the frustration of not being able to do anything about it because of a preexisting condition is shared by millions of Americans who have tried unsuccessfully to buy insurance on their own -- or worry about someday having to do so. Read More
A liberal advocacy group is launching Conservative Transparency, a new web site to document the financial and political ties of conservative groups. The site is being run by the Media Matters Action Network and uses Internal Revenue Service filings to track the major financial backers and beneficiaries of conservative activist groups. Read More
CIT Group, one of the largest small-business lenders in the United States, said Sunday it is filing for bankruptcy, with its board approving a "prepackaged" restructuring plan to shed 10 billion dollars in debt.
Adnan Hussain, 14, lost all of his immediate family in the market place explosion in Peshawar, Pakinstan earlier this week. "I lost my mother, father, two aunts, my four sisters and my brother. Sonia was 12, Irum was eight, Sehrish was six, Fariah was five and my younger brother Salman was three years old. They still haven't found five of the bodies. What did my family do? Why would anyone do this to them?"
The panel that approves candidates for knighthood in Antigua and Barbuda has voted to rescind the honor granted to indicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford. Stanford received his knighthood in 2006 from the governor general -- the representative of Queen Elizabeth II in the country -- and allegedly used the title's prestige to help lure investors.
An arrest has been made after four men were killed in a parking lot in Mount Airy, the small North Carolina town that was the inspiration for Mayberry in television's The Andy Griffith Show. Marcos Chavez Gonzalez was charged with four counts of murder in the shooting late Sunday outside a TV store, police said. Mount Airy, population 8,700, is the hometown of Andy Griffith and has built a tourist trade on nostalgia for the 1960s show that continues to thrive in syndication.
Dinesh D'Souza's new book, Life After Death: The Evidence attempts to build a case on "unshakable scientific grounds" for the survival of consciousness beyond death. D'Souza claims that it happens in the multiverse, the infinitely multiplying complex of worlds predicted by some versions of quantum theory. In the multiverse, physical laws can take on different values, and matter itself may have a different form, so "there is nothing in physics to contradict the idea that we can live beyond death in other realms with bodies that are unlike the bodies we now possess." Read More
The USS New York, a warship built with steel salvaged from the World Trade Center, has arrived in New York City. The ship sailed up the Hudson River near Ground Zero and fired a 21-gun salute as the families of 9/11 victims observed the ceremony. "It's a transformation of it from something really twisted and ugly," said Rosaleen Tallon, whose brother was a firefighter killed in the attacks. "I'm proud that our military is using that steel."
"Herewith is a modest list of dos and don'ts for servers at the seafood restaurant I am building," writes restaunteur Bruce Buschel. "Veteran waiters, moonlighting actresses, libertarians and baristas will no doubt protest some or most of what follows. They will claim it homogenizes them or stifles their true nature. And yet, if 100 different actors play Hamlet, hitting all the same marks, reciting all the same lines, cannot each one bring something unique to that role?" Read More
Afghanistan's election commission proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country's tumultuous ballot Monday, canceling a planned runoff and ending a political crisis that began with a fraud-marred first round two and a half months ago.
As early as the 1980s, scientists warned that rising seas could submerge vast portions of Florida's coast. How have local and state governments responded? Build, baby, build. "The thing that is hard to fathom is how are we going to be able to hold back the sea in a massive way in order to keep people at their current locations?" asks regional planner Daniel Trescott.
Eight years ago, President Bush asserted that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would be taken "dead or alive." "I don't care, dead or alive either way," Bush said at the time. This weekend, while attending a conference of business leaders in New Delhi, India, Bush struck a different tone. Asked whether al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden could be alive, Bush said "I guess he is not dead." He, however, noted that Laden is hiding and "not leading victory parades" or "espousing his cause" on TV. He expressed confidence that Laden will be brought to justice which "he deserves to be" and it was a matter of time.
Hope4hope: For those who firmly hold the anti-abortion stance that all life, including early conception, is sacred and must be preserved -- advocating that all Americans have access to affordable health care should be a no brainer. Read More
An angry Los Angeles couple allegedly attacked and tortured two loan-modification agents for failing to help save their home. Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee and three accomplices allegedly lured loan agents Lamond Dean and Gustavo Canez into a Glendale home last week, where they robbed them, held them for hours and beat then with "wooden knuckles," according to police.
Ten million more doses of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine are being made available this week, according to senior White House advisor David Axelrod. I got mine this morning along with my wife and kids. Are you getting vaccinated?
