For those of us who aren’t independently wealthy, that puts unrelenting pressure on the family pocketbook. The financial demands of raising a child require that money you otherwise might use to prepare for retirement, or to save for a nicer house, a sportier car or a swankier vacation, must, out of necessity, be earmarked for Lego sets and pediatrician visits and school uniforms and Christmas toys and a college savings account and a minivan and a trip to Disneyland … and lots of, well, chicken nuggets.

I’m not saying this to disparage kids. I have two of my own, and money is nothing in comparison to the happiness they bring me and my wife. Yet happiness does not negate the fact that the moment a child arrives — and, actually, months before the arrival — your role as an adult changes in dramatic, profound ways.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: The 15 Money Rules Kids Should Learn – WSJ.com.

So far this year, legislators have voted to raise cigarette taxes by $1 per pack in Utah and 75 cents a pack in New Mexico. At least a half dozen other states have been considering increases, including tobacco-growing South Carolina and Georgia. In 2009, 14 states and the District of Columbia raised cigarette taxes.

So much action is unusual: This is only the 10th time since 1950 that so many states have raised cigarette taxes at once, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The main motivation at the moment for most legislators is revenue,” says Pete Fisher of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-smoking group. “The budget situation has certainly increased the number of states considering them.”

The average state cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack. That’s on top of the federal tax, raised last year to $1.01 per pack. Rhode Island has the highest state tax at $3.46 per pack; South Carolina’s is lowest at 7 cents. About 46 million Americans smoke.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS STORY, CLICK THIS LINK TO USA TODAY

Cigarette taxes are gold rush for states – USATODAY.com.

Emanuel, the provocative and profane White House chief of staff, slammed his hand down on the table and shook his head with seething exasperation. He did not yell, according to others in the meeting, but his thoughts were obvious. How had this happened? What the bleep was going on? He ordered calls made to Massachusetts and the Senate Democratic campaign committee to assess the situation. “We’ve got to get up there and take it over,” Emanuel told colleagues. As the election got closer, Emanuel and David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, arranged for President Obama to rush up to Massachusetts for a last-minute campaign trip.

It made no difference. The Republican, Scott Brown, who campaigned by driving a pickup truck around the state, was riding a tide of popular anger that would dramatically end the opening chapter of the Obama presidency. By the time Election Day arrived on Jan. 19, Emanuel tried to prepare the White House senior staff, during its 8:30 a.m. meeting in the Roosevelt Room, for the storm of second-guessing that was about to hit. “I’ve been in a White House before when we lost both the House and the Senate in ’94,” he said, according to notes taken separately by two people in the room. “In about 12 hours, we’re all going to be stupid. Like Axe says, you’re never as smart as they say you are when you win, and you’re not as stupid as they say you are when you lose. We were smart before. Now we’ll be stupid.”

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Magazine Preview – The Limits of Rahmism – NYTimes.com.

“Proven ways” refers to generalised results suggested by these studies and until you try each one out for yourself, it remains unproven for you as an individual.

So why not try a few and see for yourself which really lead to a happy life?
1. Believe in something

Some studies suggest that religious people are more than twice as likely as the secular to say they were “very happy”. While this in itself is not a reason to hastily adopt a religion, we may do well to believe in something. Have you ever met a happy skeptic?

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK TO JOYFUL DAYS:

Seven Proven Ways to Live A Happy Life | Joyful Days.

Bigelow is the first woman in the 82-year history of the Oscars to earn Hollywood’s top prize for filmmakers.

“There’s no other way to describe it. It’s the moment of a lifetime,” Bigelow said. “It’s so extraordinary to be in the company of my fellow nominees, such powerful filmmakers, who have inspired me and I have admired, some of them for decades.”

Among those Bigelow and “The Hurt Locker” beat are ex-husband James Cameron and his sci-fi spectacle “Avatar.” Bigelow and Cameron were married from 1989-91.

Cameron was seated right behind Bigelow at the Oscars and joined a standing ovation for her, clapping vigorously and saying, “Yes, yes” after she won.

First-time winners took all four acting prizes: Sandra Bullock as best actress for “The Blind Side”; Jeff Bridges as best actor for “Crazy Heart”; Mo’Nique as supporting actress for “Precious”; and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for “Inglourious Basterds.”

The Oscar marks a career peak for Bridges, a beloved Hollywood veteran who had been nominated four times in the previous 38 years without winning. Bridges, who played a boozy country singer trying to clean up his act, held his Oscar aloft and thanked his late parents, actor Lloyd Bridges and poet Dorothy Bridges.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK FOR YAHOO! MOVIES:

‘The Hurt Locker’ earns best-picture Academy Award (AP) – The 82nd Annual Academy Awards® – Yahoo! Movies.

You probably didn’t have time to watch the seven hours of debate, but we did.  So we thought we’d put together a quick guide to the moments that mattered in today’s historic bipartisan health care summit.

1. Tons of personal stories: Throughout the day, Democrats tried to emphasize the human cost of our current system with lots and lots of personal anecdotes. President Obama recounted his worries as a parent and witnessing his mother’s wrangle with insurance industry bureaucrats as she was dying of cancer. Sen. Harry Reid told the story of a constituent named Jesus whose child couldn’t get health insurance because of a cleft palate.

But no story was more jolting than the one shared by Rep. Louise Slaughter.

“I have a constituent that you won’t believe and I know you won’t, but her sister died,” said Slaughter. “This poor woman had no dentures. She wore her dead sister’s teeth, which of course were uncomfortable and did not fit. Do you believe that in America that’s where we would be?”

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK YAHOO! WATCH: The moments that mattered in today’s health care summit – Yahoo! News.

Challenges of historic import threaten America’s future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

There are many causes for the dysfunction: strident partisanship, unyielding ideology, a corrosive system of campaign financing, gerrymandering of House districts, endless filibusters, holds on executive appointees in the Senate, dwindling social interaction between senators of opposing parties and a caucus system that promotes party unity at the expense of bipartisan consensus.

Many good people serve in Congress. They are patriotic, hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it, but the institutional and cultural impediments to change frustrate the intentions of these well-meaning people as rarely before. It was not always thus.

While romanticizing the Senate of yore would be a mistake, it was certainly better in my father’s time. My father, Birch Bayh, represented Indiana in the Senate from 1963 to 1981. A progressive, he nonetheless enjoyed many friendships with moderate Republicans and Southern Democrats.

FOR CONTINUATIN OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES: Op-Ed Contributor – Why I’m Leaving the Senate – NYTimes.com.

Mr. Haig was a rare American breed: a political general. His bids for the presidency quickly came undone. But his ambition to be president was thinly veiled, and that was his undoing. He knew, Reagan’s aide Lyn Nofziger once said, that “the third paragraph of his obit” would detail his conduct in the hours after President Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.

That day, Secretary of State Haig wrongly declared himself the acting president. “The helm is right here,” he told members of the Reagan cabinet in the White House Situation Room, “and that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here.” His words were taped by Richard V. Allen, then the national security adviser.

His colleagues knew better. “There were three others ahead of Mr. Haig in the constitutional succession,” Mr. Allen wrote in 2001. “But Mr. Haig’s demeanor signaled that he might be ready for a quarrel, and there was no point in provoking one.”

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES: Alexander M. Haig Jr. Dies at 85, Commanding White House Aide – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com.

That was the prayer of Bill Clinton fans everywhere when the ex-President checked into New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia – leaving it momentarily unclear when and whether Elvis would leave the building.

He did, of course, the next morning, with all his usual rock-star swagger and a couple of new stents in his famously large, cheeseburger-loving heart.

Beyond the expressions of goodwill that streamed in was another reality.

Clinton wasn’t the only person who had to suddenly face mortality – so did a generation of baby-boomers for whom Clinton is like a living mirror.

For those born in the two decades or so after World War II – Clinton came along in August 1946, almost exactly a year after America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan to end the war – Clinton inhabits a unique place.

He’s not just another President. He is one of them.

Bubba boom: Former president Bill Clinton offers a lesson in mortality for baby-boomer generation.

Jeff Ondash, who sought the squeezes under the costumed alter ego Teddy McHuggin, broke the record Saturday night outside the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Ondash says he hoped to become the world’s hugging champion to raise money for the American Heart Association during American Heart month. Ondash says the cause is important to him because his brother and father both died because of heart problems.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR SALON: All Salon – Salon.com.