NPR: Credit Crunch Hits Students Seeking Loans

SOURCE:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88226057&ft=1&f=3

Credit Crunch Hits Students Seeking Loans
by Cheryl Corley

Listen Now [3 min 48 sec]
Morning Edition, March 14, 2008 ·
The credit crunch is making it tougher for some students to obtain private loans.
As students at trade schools and for-profit colleges feel the pinch, the institutions themselves are becoming lenders.

Zoho Launches Web-Based HR Freeware

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58792

Zoho Launches Web-Based HR Freeware
Running your small business just got a little easier. Zoho, which already offers a host of free software-as-a-service applications, has launched a beta of Zoho People, a human-resources management tool.
Aimed at small and midsize businesses, Zoho People offers a range of HR functions that include everything from defining organizational structure to recruiting new workers. It's designed for companies with more than 30 employees -- the size at which keeping tabs on employees in ad hoc ways (such as Excel spreadsheets) becomes unmanageable, according to a blog on the Zoho site...

Courage Under Fire: Facing Up to the School Bully

SOURCE:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pickthebrain/LYVv/~3/250011542/

"Ten minutes into lunch recess I saw David, the class bully sauntering towards me. He walked with a cocky swagger, his lips pursed like Elvis Presley.
It was typical of an undefeated bully in those days. Up to that point, he had literally beaten up everyone else in the whole school, except for me.
Not that I was tough or anything but he left me alone for some reason."...MORE

Warfare and Healthcare//Missiles and Medicine

SOURCE:  http://www.fair.org/

A recent New York Times story was authoritative as it plied the conventional media wisdom. The lead sentence declared that an "immediate challenge that will confront the next administration" is the matter of "how to tame the soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid." And the news article pointedly noted that current federal spending for those health-related programs adds up to $627 billion.

I’ve been waiting for a New York Times news story to declare that an immediate challenge for the next administration will be the matter of how to tame the soaring costs of the Pentagon. After all, the government’s annual military spending -- when you factor in the supplemental bills for warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is well above the $627 billion for Medicare and Medicaid that can cause such alarm in the upper reaches of the nation’s media establishment...MORE

Are you "Possessed"?

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/03/possessed_.html

Compulsive hoarding is often linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder, where affected people experience intrusive thoughts or urges to complete certain actions (most commonly 'washing' or 'checking') even though they know how seriously these intrusions are affecting their lives...MORE

Link to Martin Hampton's documentary Possessed (via MeFi).

Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships - New York Times

SOURCE:  http://www.nytimes.com/
March 10, 2008
THE SCHOLARSHIP DIVIDE
Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships

By BILL PENNINGTON
Excluding the glamour sports of football and basketball, the average N.C.A.A. athletic scholarship is nowhere near a full ride, amounting to $8,707. In sports like baseball or track and field, the number is routinely as low as $2,000. Even when football and basketball are included, the average is $10,409. Tuition and room and board for N.C.A.A. institutions often cost between $20,000 and $50,000 a year...MORE