All major banking institutions pay big money to colleges and universities for on-campus recruiting rights, offering students low initial interest rates and/or other sweetheart deals if they accept a credit card. The rest of us get solicitations through our phone or the mails.Seductive sales campaigns focus on high school graduates and for all kinds of items that TV, movies or society has told them they want, need, should have because they deserve it and others have, so why don't they? Car dealers offer "one-time sales events" to first-time wage earners, high-end electronic stores give 90-day-same-as-cash deals and guarantee that no one will be turned down, furniture showrooms offer newlyweds "no payments 'til next year," cell phones, Internet providers, cable companies, satellite dish outfits all make it sound as if you can't have a decent life without their help.All this has given birth to an additional parasite - the debt-consolidation, paycheck-cashing, payday-loan, instant-refinancing-of-your-car (and you get to keep your car - 'til they come to take it away) industry.Public schools teach kids how to drive, play sports, fit a condom, take birth control pills, find an abortionist or fill out a job application at McDonald's.

Consumer, ID Theft Safety Tips

Be very careful about to whom you give out personal identification information.

- Never provide any personal, bank account or credit card information.

- Keep items with personal information in a safe place.

- Destroy all automated teller machine and bank receipts.

- Minimize the number of credit cards and other items with personal information printed.

- Do not use obvious information when creating passwords or personal identification numbers.

- Give out your Social Security number only when necessary.

- Do not leave envelopes containing your checks in your home mailbox.

- Review a copy of your credit report at least once a year.

- To decrease the number of unsolicited credit card applications, call (888) 5OPT-OUT.

Reliving the moments

I'd love to be back there," he said, "but I felt I made the right decision for me personally."

"I go to the weight room. I nod off," Oden said recently in the Daily News of New York. "I miss being around people my age.

In the world of online community, one authoritative man can dictate ...

"Cops'll smell your fingers," says Black Lips drummer Joe Bradley about the difficulty of staying out of trouble while on tour in Mexico. He should know. His volcanic Atlanta band documented a blowout show in Tijuana for its live album, Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo, released earlier this year to rave reviews.

"There's actually a vital scene in Mexico, not that you'd know it," Bradley quips. Black Lips had played previously in Mexicali, but after a "powwow" with their new bosses at Vice Records, Tijuana was chosen for the sweaty setting of Los Valientes.

The Black Lips managed to squeeze in one more album before 2007 ends. Their fourth studio showing in as many years, Good Bad Not Evil may be the best garage record since White Blood Cells. Country, psych, and blues are chewed up and spit out as gritty punk, every song blessed with rickety hooks, a swaggering rhythm section, Cole Alexander's frazzled sing-alongs, and an old-school aroma of smoke and reverb.

How the West has won

Cheers.) The fact is they are unmitigated shite, so much so that I find them offensive. This is what happens when you form a band after only having watched TOTP2 as your sole musical inspiration and input: Three of your band members wear porkpie hats and look like extras from Only Fools and Horses, complete with crap polo shirts. The fourth member (lead guitar) decides he wants to be in the Small Faces and grows an outlandishly terrible mop-like mullet and then hangs his guitar far enough up his chest in the hope of hiding his gut, while in reality meaning his guitar just looks ridiculously high. He then prances around with one foot on the tiny monitor and plays the most obvious guitar solos known to man. Someone describes them as a like "the Libertine's arsehole" and this is probably a fair description.

Clinton's attempts to dislodge Obama from top appear to fall short

I'm a middle-class, hard-working legal secretary, and the low-deceitful attacks she has taken on Obama make me sick. It is the picture of why young people have no inclination to even attempt to be involved in politics. During the last election I boycotted all election ads. If one came on the tv I changed the channel. I didn't care what I changed it to, but I was not going to give my time to those kind of negative attacks. Being President is basically a decision based on popularity. I am embarrassed that our country uses such slime to make one person look better than another. I saw those pictures of Obama a long time ago and I still voted for him because I think he is the better person.

We are near creating an English system of law with two families fighting over territory for HOW MANY YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think about it………and Jeb Bush has yet to run.

2 dead, at least 2 wounded after Riley Dr. shooting

Moss, who was not at the scene, said he was unsure of how many people were shot because initial reports from the scene were sketchy.“It's a madhouse out there, as you can imagine," Moss said.A man who appeared to be in his 20s or 30s was pulled about 8:55 p.m. from a pickup truck about 15 feet from the intersection of Riley with Mecherle Drive. The man was talking to rescue workers as he was loaded in the ambulance.Moss said the man may have been shot in the building and was possibly trying to leave the scene when he was found in the pickup truck. The truck was headed west, away from 333 Riley.Another man was taken about 9 p.m. from the pickup truck scene in handcuffs. His status was unclear late Tuesday night.Police blocked traffic onto Riley at Mecherle and onto Bradley Drive at Rowe Drive.

First Edition Cycling News

Overall ProTour winner and Tour de France runner-up Cadel Evans has cleaned up at the annual Australia Cyclist of the Year Awards, held in Adelaide, South Australia. The Predictor-Lotto rider was faced with stiff competition in every category he was nominated for following a bumper year for Australian riders on the international scene.

Evans also claimed the Scody People's Choice award, which was nominated and voted by the Australian cycling community.

Cape & Islands News

Regardless, Gulf of Mexico estuaries are proportionally less impacted than those in the heavily populated Mid-Atlantic. The Pacific region has very little nutrient load data available, making it difficult to provide an overall assessment. In looking ahead, the report predicts that conditions in 65 percent of the nation's estuaries are likely to worsen in the next decade, while only 20 percent will improve. The remaining 15 percent will remain unchanged. Read the complete NOAA report here.

Wartime bravery award for women pilots

Flying unarmed, and without wireless or instrument training, they were at the mercy of both the weather and the Luftwaffe, and one in ten members of the ATA died for their country.Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, is expected to make an announcement today about the survivors, awarding them a special badge of honour in recognition of their wartime work.Although the women did not play a part in the Battle of Britain, without their expertise in delivering planes to RAF squadrons to clear the skies of German bombers, the battle would never have got off the ground.Freydis Sharland, 87, from Oxfordshire, is one of only 15 women pilots still alive. She told how she took up the government's offer to subsidise her local flying club, giving her the chance to fly. "You were aware of the mortality rate and you were told when your friends were killed," she said.