"Flexible work arrangements have been part of office culture for years, but companies such as Deloitte are increasingly seeing them as an affordable way to attract and hang on to valuable employees, both during the depths of a downturn and as jobs begin to open up. During the recession, more firms added, rather than cut back, flexible work options — allowing employees to perform duties from home, work weekends and evenings, or reduce their hours — according to a survey of 1,100 employers nationwide done by the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group in New York." See article.

I know that some friends of mine have been given the opportunity to essentially set their own work schedule. Currently I am one of those. Are you one? Does it help you?

President Obama is winning praise for his latest move to the political center -- a pledge to review government regulations and jettison or alter those that cost the nation jobs.

Kudos have come from key House Republicans: Speaker John Boehner of Ohio; Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They actually went further -- and claimed credit for having the idea first. See article.

"U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson last month backed the argument by Virginia's attorney general that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to start buying health insurance in 2014 or face a fine.

The Justice Department, as expected, filed a notice with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that it was appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond.

The appeal comes days before Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives plan to pass legislation that would repeal the healthcare reform law. However, the measure has no chance of passing the Senate and Obama would veto it.

Judge Hudson ruled on December 13 that the individual mandate invited an "unbridled exercise of federal police powers." "

See article.

"The high court declined to hear an appeal filed on behalf of opponents of a March 2010 law that made the District of Columbia the sixth jurisdiction in the United States authorizing gay and lesbian couples to marry. The justices did not comment on the action. Their refusal to take up the case leaves in place an appeals-court decision upholding an earlier rejection of the planned referendum. The court ruled that the city was justified in rejecting the referendum because it sought to authorize a form of discrimination barred by the city’s Human Rights Act." See article.

So don't worry about this. Basically, they are saying that the state already has further rules regarding discrimination and the right call was made and as such, it has no rights to make the call.

In Portugal, drug usage had spiraled out of control. See Article. When the government tried a radical thing. They made the drugs legal and then focused on helping those who were addicted. At first, everyone waited for it to get worse. But what happened was things got better less and less people used drugs.

Would this work here? I believe it would. Think about the prohibition and now.

"College undergraduates show close to no improvement in learning during their first two years of college, according to a study published into a book." See article.

My thought process is this... I may not have been learning tons in school.. although I studied and I believe I learned during that time. But I know that I learned how to manage my life and time and commitments on my own. I learned how to meet new people and more.

Do you think the first two years of college should be skipped?

If you owed somebody a lot of money, let's say for the sake of argument nearly $900 billion, you probably wouldn't want to make this creditor angry, right? See article. Well guess what that's where we are with China. Now my question to you is, is this alot in the world of nations or is this minor. What does this mean for the world being linked...do other countries really call and ask for their money back or is it more like what we do with friends... We borrow and ignore if they forget to pay..

Yes, they are rising again. I have heard so many reasons for why they are so high and I'm not sure that I really believe any of them. Anyone feel that they actually know whats going on?

It seems like every few days facebook is changing their privacy settings.  Another one is recently deciding how to handle phone numbers. I personally feel that all the sharing options should start as off and you should have to go through a startup thing that describes each one and allows people to pick and choose. I hate knowing that they could change or add settings and I don't know whats going on. After all it is my job at stake.

Check out the article. OH BOY. This is wrong in so many ways. There's a reason that the credit laws do not allow one to post about people's credit history. I'm sure this going to come out as an invasion of people's privacy. What do you think?