Facial Recognition Technology Prohibits Smiling on New Jersey Driver’s Licenses

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If you’re headed to the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles, you’d better not put on a happy face.

The Garden State’s DMV has banned smiling during license photos so that their new facial-scanning software can identify drivers more easily.

But the ban, which took effect in January, has many drivers scowling, complaining that they’re entitled to pose how they wish.

‘Your picture means a lot; it’s who you are,’ said Velvet McNeil, 38, of Sicklerville, N.J., to the Philadelphia Daily News.

‘Why should we all look like androids, looking mopey? I know there are some people who don’t have good driver’s licenses, but I actually keep all mine.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Suicide Now Surpasses Car Accidents as Leading Cause of Death as Economy Takes its Toll

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Suicide is the cause of more deaths than car crashes, according to an alarming new study.

The number of people who commit suicide in the U.S. has drastically increased while deaths from car accidents have dropped, making suicide the leading cause of injury death.

Suicides via falls or poisoning have risen significantly and experts fear that there could be many more unaccounted for, particularly in cases of overdose.

‘Suicides are terribly under-counted,’ said Ian Rockett, author of the study, published on Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

‘I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe. We have a situation that has gotten out of hand.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Joan Rivers on Romney & Obama: “Both Idiots” (+video)

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Joan Rivers, who recently penned I Hate Everyone…Starting With Me, doesn’t generally veer into political territory, but made an exception in an interview that aired on Wednesday’s CNN’s Starting Point — affirming that she does, indeed, hate everyone. Asked about her thoughts about the two presidential candidates, Rivers expressed a cynical outlook, deeming both President Obama and Mitt Romney “idiots.”

Responding to Zoraida Sambolin‘s about how she feels about the two, Rivers promptly replied, “Both idiots.” Read more HERE.

Chick-fil-A Claims Homosexual Groups Lying That It Agreed to Stop Funding Pro-family Organizations

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Chick-fil-A has responded to news reports that it has stopped funding some pro-family groups as a concession to gain approval for a restaurant in Chicago, saying that it has made no concessions in its funding philosophy and, in the words of company president Dan Cathy, remains “true to who we are.”

News reports surfaced September 19 that the company had reached an agreement with Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno, who had vowed to block approval of a restaurant site for the company unless it agreed to stop funding “anti-gay” groups. “Chick-fil-A no longer will fund traditional-marriage groups” the Washington Times headlined its story, and USA Today reported that individuals who had supported Chick-fil-A during the recent attack against it by homosexual activists were now upset that the restaurant chain had “caved in” to gay marriage proponents.

But Cathy set the record straight on September 21, issuing a statement, posted on Mike Huckabee’s website, saying: “There [continue] to be erroneous implications in the media that Chick-fil-A changed our practices and priorities in order to obtain permission for a new restaurant in Chicago. That is incorrect. Chick-fil-A made no such concessions, and we remain true to who we are and who we have been.”

One of the main sources of the report appeared to be a press release from a Chicago-based pro-homosexual group, the Civil Rights Agenda, which stated that Alderman Moreno had “finalized his negotiations with Chick-fil-A,” and had confirmed that the company would “no longer give money to anti-gay organizations.” In July Moreno had said he would block construction of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in his First Ward because of Cathy’s statement of support for traditional marriage. “If you are discriminating against a segment of the community, I don’t want you in the First Ward,” Moreno said of Cathy’s stand.

As the erroneous news spread that Chick-fil-A had eased up on its support for traditional marriage and pro-family groups such as Focus on the Family, individuals who had taken part in an early August Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day began posting messages on the company’s Facebook page, expressing their disappointment. “I’m disgusted that your faith is so weak,” Baptist Press News quoted one person as posting. “You sure raked in the bucks on Chick-fil-A day, huh? So when do you start opening on Sunday? ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’”

Read more from this story HERE.

Teenage girls should be offered implants or IUDs as birth control

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Doctors should be recommending IUDs or hormonal implants as birth control to teenage girls, the nation’s leading gynecologists group said Thursday.

Though sexually-active teens may prefer the pill, the patch or even wishful thinking, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that IUDs and implants are more long-lasting and effective alternatives that users don’t have to remember to use every time.

The IUD and implants are safe and nearly 100per cent effective at preventing pregnancy, and should be ‘first-line recommendations’, read the organisation’s updated guidance for teenagers.

Both types of contraception are more invasive than the pill, requiring a doctor to put them in place. That, and cost, are probably why the pill is still the most popular form of contraception in the U.S.

But birth control pills often must be taken at the very same time every day to be most potent. And forgetting to take even one can lead to pregnancy, which is why the pill is sometimes only 91per cent effective.

Read more from this story HERE.

How a Family of 4 Lives in a 320 Sq. Ft. Home (Pretty Happily)

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While many of us commit to the three decades it takes to pay off a mortgage, Hari and Karl Berzins come at home ownership from a completely different viewpoint.

They live in a tiny 8-by-21-foot home they built with salvaged materials in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Counting the loft space with its three feet of headroom, that’s 320 sq. ft., or about the size of most people’s master bedrooms.

It might be a tiny house, but it’s paid for. “We wanted to really cut back our overhead as far as we possibly could and own what we live in outright so we have the choice to do what makes us happy,” says Hari, who works part time for a non-profit while husband Karl works as a chef.

Sharing that 320 sq. ft. are the Berzins’ two kids, ages 7 and 9, and a Great Pyrenees, a 3-foot-tall dog weighing in around 90 pounds.

The inspiration to live tiny came to the Berzins after they lost both a business and a 1,500-sq.-ft. home in Florida during the recession. While they didn’t want to go into debt again, they do value home ownership, so Hari and Karl moved into an affordable two-bedroom rental and spent the next year saving $25,000 to buy the 3-acre lot in Virginia where their tiny house now sits.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: Michelle Could be President but “She has too Much Sense” to Run

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Photo credit: WisPolitics.com

[Yesterday afternoon, Obama called into a local DC radio station and claimed that Michelle has little interest in politics but could be president anyway.]

‘She definitely could be the president but she will never run for the presidency because she has too much sense,’ President Obama said.

‘Her focus is on her kids and the work that she’s doing around the country to help make sure kids are eating right and getting exercise.’

Indeed, Mrs Obama has invested her time and energy into her anti-childhood obesity campaign, Let’s Move!, in addition to her work with Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, on efforts to support military families.

‘She’s happy to support me. She thinks the work I’m doing is important but I can guarantee that [politics] is something she’s not gonna be doing,’ President Obama gushed.

His 48-year-old wife, and mother to the couple’s two daughters, had earlier revealed that she did not have any desire to go into politics.

Read more from this story HERE.

Woman Beats, Sends Iranian Cleric to Hospital for Saying She Needed to Cover Herself

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Photo credit: tinou bao

An Iranian cleric said he was beaten by a woman in the northern province of Semnan after giving her a warning for being “badly covered,” the state-run Mehr news agency reported.

Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him.

“I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

Since the 1979 revolution that brought Shiite Muslim religious leaders to power, women in Iran have been required to cover their hair and body curves in public with head-scarves and loose-fitting coats, to protect religious values and “preserve society’s morals and security.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cheerleaders May No Longer Display Bible Verses in Texas School District

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[Publisher’s update: A judge intervened temporarily allowing the display of bible verses. Click HERE for an update to the below story].

A high school football team in Texas will no longer run through paper banners that reference the Bible as they take the field after the school district’s superintendent banned the use of religious messages on the banners. The school had received a complaint from a national atheist organization.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a national atheist organization based in Madison, Wis., wrote a letter to the Kountze Independent School District in Kountze, Texas, telling the district to stop allowing its high school football team to run through the Scripture-based banners.

“It is our information and understanding that Kountze High School cheerleaders regularly display religious banners that the football team runs through before athletic competitions. We understand that each week a different bible verse is displayed for all to observe …You must take immediate action to stop these religious banners from being part of school-sponsored events. It is illegal for a public school to organize, sponsor or lead religious messages at school athletic events,” FFRF Staff Attorney Stephanie A. Schmitt said in her letter to the district.

The letter goes on to claim that allowing such banners is offensive to non-Christians and is unconstitutional, even if the creation and use of the banners is student-led. One case FFRF cites in support of its point is the case of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, in which the Supreme Court decided against allowing student-led prayers to be announced at football games because the games are school-sponsored functions.

The Kountze Independent School District’s superintendent, Kevin Weldon, says he doesn’t like the idea of getting rid of the banners but he feels he has no choice.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mother-Daughter Team Catch Serial Burglar With Pink Pistol (Just Like Mine)

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A mother and daughter duo and their pink pistol proved to be too much for a serial burglar who broke into their house in St Paul, Minnesota.

Rebecca Larson, 56, wrestled the robber who had grabbed a fistful of cash from her purse and her daughter Melissa Hickman, 34, held him at gunpoint until police could arrive.

The suspect, Marty Mark Childs, 52, had just been released from prison in May after serving four and a half years for a string of previous burglaries.

Ms Larson told KMSP-TV she was washing her car in the front of her house when she went inside and found that Childs had slipped in through an unlocked back door.

She caught him red handed — his fist still clenching about $8 he had pulled from her purse.

Read more from this story HERE.