Danielle Does the "News"

I haven't taken a shot at the news in a bit, so here are some things that caught my eye recently:

- Use up those gift cards! Did you know that when a company files for bankruptcy, they'll suspend the use of gift cards until further notice? As consumer confidence tumbles and luxury item purchases move to the back burner, companies like The Sharper Image lose out. When they file for bankruptcy, that's bad news for consumers who have gift cards. So if you have any gift cards hanging around, you might want to use them (unless they're for Wal*Mart, who in rough economic times is highly unlikely to go bankrupt).

- Watch your mouth in South Pasedena, CA. Starting this year, the first week in March will be "No Cussing Week" there, and while there won't be any fines for playing your cuss-filled music too loud or flipping off that kid who accidentally kicked their ball in the road - there will be plenty of shame filled looks and tongue-clucking if you're caught! For SHAME!!!

- It's not just "women's work" anymore. Men are doing more work around the house then they were 40 years ago, a new study shows. Not only that, but the amount of time that men are spending on childcare has tripled. The payoff - one psychologist suggests more sex. Maybe that's why the amount of time on childcare has tripled...

- For a good time??? A dad who wanted to save money threw his two kids - ages 2 and 3 - in the dryer for a spin. Bitter irony are the fines and what not that he'll have to pay for burning his son. So much for that idea... genius.

- We got Death Star! Scientists observing star WR104 in the constellation Sagittarius have noticed that it's in a supernova stage, and that if/when it blows there's a good chance that Earth will be in the line of fire for some Gamma Ray action. The bad news - some scientists think that this kind of thing is what may have caused the mass extinction 443 million years ago. The good news is that some scientists believe that this could take hundreds of thousands of years to come to fruition... so there's just a *little* while before we need to really worry about space-suits outside.

And just for fun for those who didn't get my "We got Death Star!" reference, a YouTube clip.