Sarah Palin? I haven't stop laughing YET. I guess she stepped down so she could devote ALL her time to being a media ho ! I found it to be really interesting that the FBI stepped forward to say that she WASN'T under any investigation…what's that all about?

Apparently there were online rumors saying that she stepped down because the FBI was investigating her for public corruption. They, apparently again, wanted to be clear that they weren't investigating her and that the rumors weren't true.

Are these "rumors/allegations" the same ones or new ones? I must confess when I hear her name I usually turn the channel or tune out. I refuse to bolster her numbers by showing any real interest in her existance. I DID hear that during her farewell speech she erroneously qouted Gen. Douglas MacArthur. /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> She is truly a gift that keeps giving.

I have no idea. I don't think she's that interesting. I just happened to see the headline when I checked out CNN. I suppose I'll have to get the scoop and ask Theresa in Anchorage about what the local papers are saying.

Baby born at 9:09 on 9/9/09 weighs 9 lbs., 9 oz.

LA CROSSE, Wis. – No doubt about it, the nines have it. Chuck Berendes of La Crosse said he will never forget the birthday of his third child, born Wednesday on the ninth day of the ninth month in the year 2009.

Nor will Berendes and his wife, Polly, forget Henry Michael's arrival time — at 9:09 a.m. by Cesarean section at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center in La Crosse.

But they got the biggest laugh when the newborn was placed on the delivery room scale following his birth.

Berendes said it was metric scale so the doctor did the math in his head, but to make sure, he had the nurse also do the conversion.

Berendes said they broke into laughter when the nurse told them Henry weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/…..788180/ns/…mily/?gt1=43001

How cool is that?

So wrong.

Children Who Get Spanked Have Lower IQs

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livesc…..nce/200909…kedhaveloweriqs

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

"All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen."

One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited intelligence lower.

But while the results only show an association between spanking and intelligence, Straus says his methodology and the fact that he took into account other factors that could be at play (such as parents' socioeconomic status) make a good case for a causal link.

"You can't say it proves it, but I think it rules out so many other alternatives; I am convinced that spanking does cause a slowdown in a child's development of mental abilities," Straus told LiveScience.

Intelligence quotients

Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids' IQs initially and then four years later.

Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.

The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children's mental abilities.

Straus will present the study results, along with research on the relationship between average national IQ and prevalence of spanking around the world, Friday at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, Calif.

Spanking science

Whether or not spanking equates with dumber kids is not known, and may never be known. That's because the only way to truly show cause and effect would be to follow over time two groups of kids, one randomly assigned to get spanked and another who would not get spanked. Barring that method, which is unfeasible, Straus considers his study the next best thing, as he looked back at a nationally representative set of kids who were followed over time.

Jennifer Lansford of Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy and Social Science Research Institute called the study "interesting," and agrees the method is a strong one. Lansford, who was not involved with the study, said following kids over time as this study did rules out the possibility that children with lower IQs somehow elicit more physical discipline.

However, unlike research showing the link between spanking and a kid's aggressive behavior, in which kids model parents' actions, this link is less clear to her. She added that a question still left unanswered is "what are some of the other mechanisms that could be responsible for this link between physical discipline and lower IQ?"

How spanking harms

If spanking does send IQ scores down, Straus and others offer some explanations for what might be going on.

"Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience," Straus said. "We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely." Also, the trauma could cause kids to have more stressful responses in difficult situations, and so may not perform as well cognitively.

By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. "With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child's attention and to get them to behave in a certain way," said Elizabeth Gershoff who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. "It's not fostering children's independent thinking."

So when a child gets in a bind, he or she might do the right thing to keep from a spanking rather than figuring out the best decision independently, added Gershoff, who was not involved in Straus's current study.

And then there are genes, as some kids are just born smarter than others.

Even though spanking has been shown to cause negative consequences, Gershoff said many parents still fall back on the behavior-shaping tool. As for why, she says it's a quick fix, though its seeming success is short-lived and the negative consequences often outweigh the positives. Parents also might have been spanked themselves and so continue the tradition.

We've never spanked our daughter because I thought it was hypocritical to say something like 'don't hit' and then turn around and spank her. She tried hitting when she was a toddler, but I just firmly held her hand and said 'no' in a voice that told her I wasn't kidding. She didn't like that and soon quit trying to hit. We've never yelled at her either, because I think that's also damaging to a kid and that it gives up some of your parental authority. (Stooping to their level, and all that) Thankfully, she's an easy going kid and we've been able to teach her manners and empathy through talking to her and modeling good behavior. I mean, what kid is going to learn to respect them self and others if their parent doesn't respect them?