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15,000 Sharks Swarm Florida Beaches At The Height Of Spring Break

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Sharks

Tons of South Florida beaches were temporarily closed on Thursday when tens of thousands of sharks were seen swarming near the shores. 

It's not unusual to spot sharks in Florida's waters, but the stunning event comes during the height of Spring Break, when more people than usual, including college students, flock to the state's sandy beaches.  

Fortunately this is just a once-a-year occurrence, when the sharks migrate north, triggered by a change in the water's temperature.

The annual migration typically begins much earlier, in January or February, before peak beach season, shark researcher Steve Kajirua told TCPalm.com.  

Florida researchers say about 15,000 sharks were seen less than 600 feet from shore, ABC News reports

It's not all just one species either. Researcher Derek Burkholder tells Discovery News that the cluster "consists primarily of blacktip and spinner sharks, with hammerhead, bull, lemon and tiger sharks also in the mix." 

Both blacktip and spinner sharks are typically less than 10 feet in length and are not considered dangerous to humans. Blacktips are responsible for about 16 percent of unprovoked attacks in Florida and spinners have been responsible for 13 unprovoked attacks worldwide, according to the International Shark Attack Profile.

Sharks don't actually like the taste of human flesh, so they aren't built to attack people, but they can bite which is why beaches were shut down as a precaution. 

The timing of the migration coincides with a new study that found 100 million sharks are killed each year, mostly due to overfishing. So we shouldn't get the idea that the shark population is suddenly booming — we've just gotten better at taking aerial pictures, Mahmood Shivji, director of Save Our Seas Shark Center USA, tells Discovery.  

The AP captured incredible video of the migration. Watch below:

SEE ALSO: This Is What The Inside Of A Great White Shark Looks Like

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How Government Could Make Public Universitites Free

Editors Spend A Staggering Amount To Attend Paris Fashion Week

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Anna Wintour

Paris Fashion Week is one of the biggest events in the industry. 

Magazine and website editors come out in throngs to review collections and identify trends. 

Lauren Sherman at Fashionista released a staggering estimate of how much it would cost to spend a week at the event. 

The total? $19,560. 

That's almost enough to pay an entry-level editorial employee. 

Sherman factored in the cost of staying in a top Parisian hotel (nearly $1,000 per night), beauty treatments ($400 total), and fancy meals ($2500 for the week). 

There's recently been a backlash against Fashion Week. Many designers have begun boycotting to avoid the cost and frenzy. 

Even celebrities who sit in the front row aren't making as much as they once were. 

It seems likely that before too long, cash-strapped magazines will begin to ponder whether this expense is really worth it. 

SEE ALSO: 11 Crazy National Enquirer Stories That Turned Out To Be True >

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Nine Men Who Took Their Wife's Last Name

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Why don't men change their names when they get married?

This provocative question was posed in a popular article by Jill Filipovoic at The Guardian. The focus of her article, however, is on how women should stop changing their names.

"Your name is your identity," Filipovic writes, and "the cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage ... cannot be without consequence."

But we wanted to know if there are actually men out there who have taken their wife's name. It turns out there are.

  • Mike Salinger took his wife Donna's last name. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought it would have caused as much of a stir as it did," he told USA Today.
  • Barry Chalfin Lenair made his "maiden" name his middle name, and took his wife's surname. "I realized that it was an important thing to do for me...and for the people who used to call me Mr. Lenair anyway," he told TODAY. "I don't regret it for a second."
  • Lazaro Dinh was accused of fraud when he took his wife Hanh's last name. “The suspension has been lifted,” Kristen Olsen-Doolan, spokeswoman for the Florida Department Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, told ABC news. “We’re doing training so everyone realizes [the name change] works both ways.”
  • Mark Tyler took his wife Carol's name. “Shortly before the wedding I decided to make the change," he told GalTime. "She (Carol) was stunned. Actually, she asked me to reconsider, that it was cool with her for me not to change. But I told her it was too late, and then she said great!”
  • After a lot of discussion, writer Aryon Hopkins took his wife Olivia's name. Blogging for The Frisky, Aryon said: "Hopkins, my wife’s last name, referenced a lineage of doctors from her father to her grandfather. The choice for me was simple: Honor a family tradition with meaning in our lives."
  • Mark Kemp was married for years with two children before he changed his last name to his wife's. He wrote on Role Reboot:

"I got in a minor traffic accident, and the two boys were in the back of the car. The police officer dealt with the accident situation in a few minutes and then asked me about the kids. I told him that they were mine, but he didn't accept it— I was a man driving around in the middle of the day with two little boys who had different last names than me. It took about 30 minutes (which included calls to their school and preschool and multiple calls to my wife) before he followed me home and verified that the boys and I lived there. That night, when my wife got home, I said, 'That's it. Case closed. I'm taking your last name.' She agreed."

  • Kris Myddelton took wife Jo's last name simply because he liked it. "My surname was rubbish and hers wasn't," he told The Independent.
  • Robert Everhart fought the state of Mississippi in order to take his wife's name. "I know most people think I rolled over and took my wife's name," he told AP in a telephone interview. "But she's the only surviving kid with her parents, and everybody said my name wrong. It was a dual reason. Now all I have to do is worry about people misspelling it."
  • Josiah Neufeld took his wife Mona's last name much to the chagrin of his relatives. He wrote in The Globe and Mail: "So far the name change hasn't cost me more than a few hours of paperwork, some explanations to public officials and a few strained conversations with brittle relatives who think I've joined a matrilineal cult. I still feel like myself. My identity remains intact."

DON'T MISS: 30 Things You Didn't Know About Marriage And Love

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Mankind Has Already Passed The Singularity And Is Soaring Into The Future

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As Cosma Shalizi says: "The singularity is in our past."

Look at the bleeding edge of urban North Atlantic or East Asian civilization, and you see a world fundamentally unlike any human past.

Hunting, gathering, farming, herding, spinning and weaving, cleaning, digging, smelting metal and shaping wood, assembling structures--all of the “in the sweate of thy face shalt thou eate bread” things that typical humans have typically done since we became jumped-up monkeys on the East African veldt--are now the occupations of a small and dwindling proportion of humans.

And where we do have farmers, herdsmen, manufacturing workers, construction workers, and miners, they are overwhelmingly controllers of machines and increasingly programmers of robots. They are no longer people who make or shape things--facture--with their hands--manu.

At the bleeding edge of the urban North Atlantic and East Asia today, few focus on making more of necessities. There are enough calories that it is not necessary that anybody need be hungry. There is enough shelter that it is not necessary that anybody need be wet. There is enough clothing that it is not necessary that anybody need be cold. And enough stuff to aid daily life that nobody need feel under the pressure of lack of something necessary. We are not in the realm of necessity.

What do modern people do? Increasingly, they push forward the corpus of technological and scientific knowledge. They educate each other. They doctor each other. They nurse each other. They care for the young and the old. They entertain each other. They provide other services for each other to take advantage of the benefits of specialization. And they engage in complicated symbolic interactions that have the emergent effect of distributing status and power and coordinating the seven-billion person division of labor of today’s economy. We have crossed a great divide between what we used to do in all previous human history and what we do now. Since we are not in the realm of necessity, we ought to be in the realm of freedom.

But although we have largely set these post-agrarian post-industrial patterns for the next stage of human history, the human world of this next stage is only half-made. The future is already here--it is just not evenly distributed. Of the 7.2 billion people alive in the world today, at least 25% billion still live lives that are hard to distinguish from the lives of our pre-industrial ancestors. Only 5% of today’s world population lives in countries where income per capita is greater than $40,000 per year; only 10% lives in countries where income per capita is greater than $20,000 per year.

The bulk of the world’s population is on the stairway to modernity. The patterns are set. The top of the stairway is visible--although it is not clear which top we shall reach: many possible tops are immanent in the patterns. Nevertheless, the climb will be hard. And that is what much of the history of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries is likely to be about.

So how did this great transformation happen? And how did the way it happened shape who we are now and who we will be in the future?

The traditional tools, practices, patterns, and molds of history are not as much help in telling this story as one might hope. The history of how the world was greatly transformed is primarily economic and technological, and secondarily political and social. But historians are not used to placing the economic and technological in first place. In the study of any period back before 1800, there is no way that economic history can be seen as even one of the principal axes. Before 1800, most history at even the century-level--let alone the decade-level or the year-level--could not be economic history. History is change. And before 1800 economic factors changed only slowly. The structure and functioning of the economy at the end of any given century was pretty close to what it had been at the beginning.

The economy was then was much more the background against which the action of a play takes place than like a dynamic foreground character. Changes in humanity's economy--how people made, distributed, and consumed the material necessities and conveniences of their lives--required long exposures to become visible. Economic history could be--indeed, had to be--a specialized “long duration” history. It required a scope of perhaps 500 years, if not more, to be properly placed in the foreground of any historical canvas. And even then the story told was of recurrent patterns and cycles rather than development and change.

But since 1750 or so things have been different. The pace of economic change has been so great as to shake the rest of history to its foundation. For perhaps the first time, the making and using the necessities and conveniences of daily life--and how production, distribution, and consumption changed--has been the driving force behind a single century’s history. Even in the most long-established of professions, the pattern and rhythm of work life today is so very different from that of our ancestors as to be almost unrecognizable. It is these changes in production and also in home life and consumption, and the reactions to them, that make up the center ring action of the history that has made us who we are.

This post-1750 history takes place in two stages. The first stage is the nineteenth century: the century of the British Industrial Revolution. Call it 1750-1870. It opens up the possibilities. The second stage is the twentieth century. Call it 1870-2010. It sets the patterns into which the human world is likely to grow in the future.

kitchen

SEE ALSO: Cosma Shalizi (2010): The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone (November 28) http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/699.html

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This Island Is A Toxic Bomb In The Center Of Paradise

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Thilafushi

Thilafushi, located just a few miles west of the Maldivian capital of Malé, is a far cry from the white beaches and turquoise waters that surround it.  

Once a pristine lagoon, the artificial island now serves as a dumping ground for one of the most exclusive tourist destinations in the world.

Hundreds of tons of solid waste and toxic material from Malé and luxury hotels on nearby islands are unloaded on Thilafushi every day.

The amount of waste continues to grow as more and more tourists flock to the islands. 

Maldivian native Hani Amir captured shocking images of Thilafushi, taken last year, that reveal the ugly side of paradise.  

The island of Thilafushi is just a short boat ride from Malé, the capital of the Maldives.



It was originally a lagoon called "Thilafalhu."



In 1992, the area was reclaimed and transformed into an artificial landfill in order to solve Malé's trash crisis.



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Breaking Up In The Backseat Of A Bangkok Taxi

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Bangkok taxi

I REALIZED this would most likely be the last decision we’d ever make together.

“What do you say?” he asked, shifting his backpack and turning towards me. “We take a taxi to my hotel to kill time until your friend gets back to her house?” I felt stuck. It was only three in the afternoon, two hours before my friend would get home, and I was standing at the northern Bangkok bus terminal on the brink of a downpour with my now ex-boyfriend, who I was thoroughly fed up with.

Had we been closer to the city center and not in the face of an imminent rainstorm, I would have preferred lugging my bag around the city’s congested streets to anymore intimate, coldly silent, time with him. Unfortunately, splitting a taxi made the most sense.

“Fine, that’s probably the best idea,” I agreed, and we hightailed it toward the taxi queue. Minutes later, the first rain drops hit the roof of the cab as we began to slosh through the quickly flooding roads, riding south to Sukhumvit.

* * *

It had taken six months of dating, and well over 14 more of talking back and forth as I sat with too much time to myself as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar while he meandered around the United States by bike, and later India as a tour guide, to get us to this moment. More importantly, it took a phone conversation where I suggested we meet in Europe.

“Why Europe?” he asked. “What about Asia?”

She had been crying as she said it, mourning the death of her own failed attempt at a long-distance relationship.

I had chosen Europe arbitrarily; mostly I just craved the sensation of feeling like “a real person” that comes with setting foot in a developed, post-industrial city, as opposed to the piss-scented grittiness and overt poverty prevalent in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.

We had wanted our relationship to work despite the distance, and seeing each other before the end of my two-year service felt crucial. Destination didn’t matter. “Well, there are direct flights from Madagascar to Bangkok. What do you think of Thailand?”

“Let’s do it.”

Months later, I exited the Bangkok metro system, jetlag and backpack weighing on my shoulders, into a September sunrise. After the cold of a Madagascar winter — waking up to frost on the ground, exercising simply because I was cold and had no central heating — the sticky, humid air felt rejuvenating on my skin. It made me optimistic.

When he finally showed up at the hostel off the 11am flight from New Delhi, I was stunned. Seeing him standing there, the same tall, lanky Indian man but with a new haircut and a shave, carried a mixed sense of familiarity and strangeness. As I stood on my toes to kiss him hello, the words of a hipster hairdresser I’d crossed paths with in Portland soon after I’d last seen him rang in my ears. She had been crying as she said it, mourning the death of her own failed attempt at a long-distance relationship that led her to flee Boulder, Colorado to the Northwest.

She had been crying as she said it, mourning the death of her own failed attempt at a long-distance relationship that led her to flee Boulder, Colorado to the Northwest.

After so much time, you’ll have to fall in love all over again.

 

* * *

From the backseat of the taxi, where I sat alone with the bags, I stared out into the water-logged, car-clogged streets. At certain points, the rain turned the roads into a muddy river rising above the tires. Under overpasses, Thais clutched umbrellas as they crowded onto a traffic island, waiting out the rain. Men on mopeds stopped to lean against the inside of a tunnel. Children excitedly splashed in the filthy puddles and sewage runoff.

Inside the taxi, everything was still; I was detached from these scenes outside the window. Air-conditioning kept us from feeling the heavy air outside, while the pelting rain muted the sounds of pedestrians shouting, cars running, and any life beyond the storm. After 20 minutes stuck in gradually slowing traffic, I couldn’t stand the isolation, stillness, and loneliness of it all.

The cab driver must have felt bored, too. Shattering the silence, he switched on a Thai talk radio show to fill the car with conversation. I filled my head with thoughts.

 

* * *

 

The first few days in Bangkok were a blur of exhilaration. He and I giggled as we tried to order our first meal of street food, not knowing a lick of Thai but both fluent in the internationality of pointing and scribbling numbers on paper. We embraced open-container laws and drank on the streets with a couple of new friends. He slipped his hand on my knee under the table as we waited for food. We hid out in a mall during a rainstorm, geeking out on all the things we’d been missing in Madagascar and India but that Bangkok had in abundance (Starbucks, McFlurries, technology). He gave me a forgotten and rediscovered letter he’d written but never mailed me. We kissed, we laughed.

But by the time we boarded the overnight train to Chiang Mai, the initial thrill of seeing each other again and experiencing this place began to wear off. He seemed wary of holding my hand. Making conversation took more effort than I remembered.

It all came crumbling down on our third beer, in the food car with the windows open. The night air flooded in as we drank. A heavy-set British couple dined in silence to our right, while a single Thai man solemnly stared into space sipping whisky from a half-empty bottle. At another table, a group of young Thais laughed and chatted happily. Like them, I had to shout to be heard over the rumble of train against tracks, cheesy country music, and clamor of dishes in the back of the car.

“I think we should just travel as friends,” he shouted. It felt like we were broadcasting our personal problems to the beat of clattering metal.

I grew immediately (and irrationally) angry at the comment. I demanded explanation, and we sorted through an onslaught of sticky emotions. I had always doubted I’d ever end up with him. He had trouble committing and didn’t see himself with anyone. I thought he was selfish.

“Fine, so we’ll travel as friends,” I begrudgingly said. “But can we at least still make out?”

It was the last plea of a Peace Corps volunteer who had absolutely no love life or opportunity for a love life in rural Africa; the last plea of an ex-girlfriend who didn’t know how to “just be friends” and felt uncomfortable at the prospect.

He looked at me and his mouth began to move: The sum of his response was “no.” I was livid, drunk, sexually frustrated, tired. I had nothing left to do but fight back angry tears.

 

* * *

 

“Oh my god, I HAVE TO PEE!” I finally said, adding my own soundtrack to that of the radio. He gave a half-hearted laugh. “Me too. Like, really badly.”

I paused for a moment and pulled out my water bottle. “Want some water?” I asked, swishing it in front of his face, purposely aiming to annoy.

“Jessi-eee! Stop!” he said teasingly. “I really have to go! Oh my god, when are we going to get there? The meter is already at 85 baht!”

“Want to bet on how high it gets? Loser has to pay the fare?” I suggested.

“Sure, I say no more than 115 baht.”

“I say 120 baht.”

“Deal. There’s no way it’s going to get that high,” he insisted.

As soon as this taxi ride was over we’d be free of each other.
As soon as this taxi ride was over we’d be free of each other.

I laughed. For the first time since the train ride to Chiang Mai ten days before, I felt totally at ease talking to him. I had no desire to be mean anymore, no energy left to hold a grudge. The prospect of making out with anyone had dissolved into a hopeless pipe dream, and I was over it. Our only concerns were the fullness of our bladders and the boredom of getting caught in stop-and-go traffic. The situation instilled an unexpected giddiness between us, forced on us the friendship we had been trying for.

Something about knowing as soon as this taxi ride was over we’d be free of each other took us back to where it all began: the meaningless bar banter of two people with nothing to gain or lose from each other, the careless conversation of finding yourself bored and waiting in line next to an attractive stranger.

“I wonder how much farther it is,” he said, turning to the driver and attempting to get his question across, bastardizing Thai phrases from the back of a Lonely Planet while both the driver and I broke into uncontrollable laughter that threatened to make me pee my pants.

Half an hour after our bet, we both groaned when we realized we’d only driven a block and the meter was pushing 200 baht.

“I think that’s a BTS station up there, should we just get out? I bet your friend is home by now,” he suggested.

The rain had slowed to a trickle, and the seedy overpasses and traffic tunnels had given way to a row of kebab shops and stores whose names were written in the wistful loops of Arabic script rather than bubbly, geometric-looking Thai. Across the street stood a mosque, and Muslim men in full garb loitered the streets in anticipation of the Friday prayer.

“Yeah, I’m tired of sitting in traffic,” I agreed.

We handed our driver the money and bailed, walking about a block together to the main road where he would have to turn right, me left.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” one of us dumbly said when we reached the corner amidst the throngs of cars and pedestrians pushing their way home through rush hour and bad weather. The remark was followed by a brief pause where I felt a hug should have been, something, anything more intimate than awkwardly staring at the person with whom I’d shared so much.

“Yeah, I should get going,” the other replied. I turned my back on him to walk the slippery sidewalk to the train station — finally alone.

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Researchers Think Stonehenge Started As A Giant Graveyard

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StonehengeLONDON (AP) — British researchers have proposed a new theory for the origins of Stonehenge: It may have started as a giant burial ground for elite families around 3,000 B.C.

New studies of cremated human remains excavated from the site suggest that about 500 years before the Stonehenge we know today was built, a larger stone circle was erected at the same site as a community graveyard, researchers said Saturday.

"These were men, women, children, so presumably family groups," University College London professor Mike Parker Pearson, who led the team, said. "We'd thought that maybe it was a place where a dynasty of kings was buried, but this seemed to be much more of a community, a different kind of power structure."

Parker Pearson said archaeologists studied the cremated bones of 63 individuals, and believed that they were buried around 3,000 B.C. The location of many of the cremated bodies was originally marked by bluestones, he said. That earlier circular enclosure, which measured around 300 feet (91 meters) across, could have been the burial ground for about 200 more people, Parker Pearson said.

The team, which included academics from more than a dozen British universities, also put forth some theories about the purpose of the second Stonehenge — the monument still standing in the countryside in southern England today.

Various theories have been proposed about Stonehenge, including that it was a place for Druid worship, an observatory for astronomical studies, or a place of healing, built by early inhabitants of Britain who roamed around with their herds.

Parker Pearson said the latest study suggested that Stonehenge should be seen less a temple of worship than a kind of building project that served to unite people from across Britain.

Analysis of the remains of a Neolithic settlement near the monument indicated that thousands of people traveled from as far as Scotland to the site, bringing their livestock and families for huge feasts and celebrations during the winter and summer solstices.

The team studied the teeth of pigs and cattle found at the "builders' camp," and deduced that the animals were mostly slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring births. That meant they were likely eaten in feasts during the midwinter and midsummer, Parker Pearson said.

"We don't think (the builders) were living there all the time. We could tell that by when they were killing the pigs — they were there for the solstices," he said.

The researchers believe that the builders converged seasonally to build Stonehenge, but not for very long — likely over a period of a decade or so.

The mass monument building is thought to end around the time when the "Beaker people," so called because of their distinctive pottery, arrived from continental Europe, Parker Pearson said.

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The Best Entries From Smithsonian's Photo Contest Finalists

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Smithsonian photo contest travel bacson valley vietnam hai thinhThe Smithsonian just released the finalists from its 10th annual photo contest. This year's front runners are absolutely stunning.

The contest received over 37,600 photo submissions this year from photographers hailing from 112 countries. The pictures are broken down into five categories, including The Natural World, Travel, People, Americana, and Altered Images.

Each category was narrowed down to 10 photographs for a total of 50 finalists. Voting for the Reader's Choice Award is now open to the public until March 29 at 2 p.m. EST.

All of the submissions are outstanding, but 15 in particular caught our eye.

An Indonesia woman and her family harvest salt after a long drought spell.

Source: Smithsonian.com



A Bangladesh day worker piles 33-pound chemical drums in Dhaka.

Source: Smithsonian.com



An onlooker watches the annual solar eclipse in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Source: Smithsonian.com



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The U.S. Is Only The 19th Best Place In The World For Retirees

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Older Woman Cold Grandma

For retirees hoping to live long and prosper in their golden years, the U.S. is only the 19th best place to be, according to a new index by the NGAM Durable Portfolio Research Center. 

The humbling report, called the Natixis Global Retirement Index, places Western European countries far ahead of the U.S. in areas like health, finances, quality of life and material well-being.

“The message is clear: You will be called on to finance more of your retirement,” John Hailer, NGAM’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

 “Citizens of other industrialized nations can rely on strong social safety nets in old age, at least for now. In the U.S., we encourage workers to plan, save and invest, and promote policies that help them meet their future needs.”

Norway ranked the best out of 150 nations studied, followed by Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden and Austria. 

The U.S. was also overshadowed by its neighbor to the North, Canada (No. 13), Japan (No. 15), and came in just one spot ahead of the United Kingdom (No. 20). 

Here's where the U.S. falls behind: 

A costly health care system. Although the U.S. spends more on health care per capita than any other country in the world, consumers are still left to cover a big portion of those costs on their own. For retirees, those costs only increase with age.  On average, a 65-year-old couple will shell out more than $250,000 for out-of-pocket health care spending needs, according to U.S. News and World Report. Nearly all the high-ranking countries in the NGAM index have universal health care systems in place. 

Aging boomers. Americans are living longer than ever, but federally-sponsored social programs that so many older consumers rely on today may not be able to sustain future retirees. According to NGAM,  the number of people aged 65 or older is on track to triple by 2050. There's no telling how long Social Security will last as a viable income option, and as it stands, more than half of married couples and 74% of unmarried persons receive 50% or more of their income from Social Security. It's more vital than ever for consumers to re-estimate how much they'll need to support themselves in retirement. 

Retirement savings deficit. It should come as no surprise that more consumers are relying on social programs to supplement their income in old age. The Great Recession played its roll in pummeling nest eggs for millions of workers, but U.S. workers aren't exactly known for their savvy savings strategy to begin with. More than 53% of American workers 30 and older are on a path that will leave them unprepared for retirement, according to a recent U.S. Senate Report. And as it stands, only one-third of eligible workers bother to take advantage of retirement savings plans through their employer.

SEE ALSO: Family of four manages to live on $14,000 per year >

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27 Expensive Products That Wound Up Being Complete Wastes Of Money

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turntables dj deejay

Whether it was a post-breakup shopping spree or a $2,000 "It" gadget that was rendered useless within a week, everyone has a few regretful purchase skeletons rattling around their hall closets. 

In a popular Reddit thread, hundreds of users shared the most expensive things they've ever bought that were a complete waste of money. 

We've rounded up 27 of our favorites. 

"I spent over $400 on a giant spear gun, like the kind you hunt tuna and shark with while scuba diving. I don't live near any water and I have never been scuba diving. I did shoot it at a float in a pool once."

Source: Reddit



"A diamond ring. I get to claim my money was literally thrown in a toilet and flushed away."

Source: Reddit



"The Wii Fit board. I even got a nice cover for it. Used it I think only once then it was forever forgotten."

Source: Reddit 



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An Ingenious Use Of Google Maps To See Where Rich And Poor People Live

The Rowdiest Bars In The US

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Americans have a reputation around the world for being both rebellious and just a little crazy.

After all, this is the nation that was founded by whiskey-brewing Washington and his ragtag militia of musket-wielding farmers.

So when it comes to partying hard, we're sure to rise to the challenge no matter how ridiculous or impossible it might seem.

After all, we did launch a guy to the moon on a glorified firecracker just to prove to ourselves we were better than those pesky Soviets.

Couple this American exceptionalism with free flowing booze and you've got yourself a recipe for guaranteed craziness.

Whether it's a pitcher of beer or a series of shots, Americans test the limits of their livers with drinking feats that put partying President Buchanan to shame. So pull up a stool and unleash your inner rebel patriot with a tall glass of something strong at some of our favorite rowdy bars in the U.S.

1. Saddle Ranch Chop House
8371 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

If you like your whiskey strong, your beers tall, and your girls in denim and boots riding mechanical bulls, then Saddle Ranch Chop House is the place for you. Smack dab on the Sunset Strip, Saddle Ranch is considered to be the most tourist-friendly booze fest in the city and this Texas-style western joint gets as rowdy as any of the clubs in LA.

The western décor is campy but the main attraction by far is the mechanical bull, which college girls and Midwestern visitors alike are lured onto by the enticing drink prizes. The motto that everything is bigger in Texas is certainly true for the drinks here, which flow in oversized portions that leave people in a stupor before they know what hit them.

Saddle Ranch prides itself on the levels of debauchery that are reached inside. So grab a few drinks and watch as the limo full of newly twenty-one year old UCLA girls get bucked off the bull for your entertainment.

2. Lucky Bar
1221 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

The place to go for cheap drinks, even cheaper food, and wild nights, is most definitely Lucky Bar. With a long happy hour from 3-8pm, you can get down on $3 drinks and 25 cent food specials. If you're a sports fan, this is one of the best bars in DC for you, especially if you like soccer. It can get a little crazy on Friday nights with top 40 DJs and frat kids, but if you're not in the mood for the raucousness, head upstairs for a chiller vibe.

3. Mehanata Bulgarian Bar
113 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002

Mehanata Bulgarian Bar should be a requirement for anyone looking for crazy bars in NYC. Situated on the Lower East Side, the $10 cover is a cheap price to pay for the unapologetic decadence that overtakes the expansive space inside. The infamous sign that states, "Get naked, get a free shot," should be a hint to the vibe, but if you miss that, one step onto the sexually charged dance floor of young hipsters and students moving to the pounding funk music should fill you in.

A second floor balcony is a great place to mingle, rehydrate and people-watch, and for the truly ambitious partier, the ice cage downstairs is a must. Patrons entering this freezing cube of ice that houses dozens of vodkas are given six shots to finish in two minutes. It's like putting the plane on autopilot and worrying about what kind of damage you've done in the morning.

4. Butch McGuire's
20 West Division Street
Chicago, IL 60610

There are tons of bars in Chicago, but Butch McGuire's might be the most fun. C'mon, it's the original "singles bar!" For over 50 years, this saloon has been serving Chicago dwellers good beer, good food, and amazing times. Butch McGuire opened the joint in 1961 with a little seed money from his mother for his younger unattached friends, and it is said that over 5,000 marriages have resulted from bar hookups. It has always been a family run joint, which means the authenticity, integrity, and original hornball intentions have remained intact.

This story was originally published by Party Earth.

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How Mike Lazerow's Life Has Changed Since Buddy Media Was Acquired For $689 Million

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Mike Lazerow Buddy Media

Mike Lazerow has started a number of successful businesses. His latest is Buddy Media, which was acquired last year by Salesforce for about $680 million.

We saw him this morning at South by Southwest and asked, "How has your life changed since the acquisition?"

He replied, "I work harder."

We noted that was unusual. Shouldn't he be relaxing on a beach somewhere? Normally you work hard to sell your company, then you get to relax. Lazerow says that isn't his personality.

Lazerow says he learned his work ethic from his grandfather, who worked until the day he died at age 97. "He was literally washing his car when he died, and we all basically cheered, because we thought, you know, that's a great way to go," he explained.

Lazerow says his grandfather always told him to work hard, so your brain never grows old, to eat healthy, and to exercise. The easiest one of those things to accomplish, Lazerow says, is the work. It's too tempting to veg out. In addition, he says he really admires his new employer, Marc Benioff, and the business he's created, which motivates him to work even more.

That said, there is some beach time ahead for Lazerow. His children's spring break is coming up, and the family will be jetting off to Turks and Caicos.

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New Study Says Eating A Juicy Steak Is Good For You, And Can Reduce Your Risk Of A Heart Attack

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steak st. anselm brooklyn

Fancy a juicy steak?

It is good for you, reports the Daily Mail, because the saturated fat in a cut of beef is actually healthy for the heart. The claim is based on a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that showed eating lean beef improved cholesterol levels and therefore reduced the risk of heart disease.

Eating beef as part of a low-fat diet had the effect of reducing risk factors for heart disease, namely levels of the bad cholesterol LDL, as with eating chicken breast. But how can red meat be as healthy as chicken? And eating any meat may seem counter intuitive, especially in a month that's seen the horsemeat scandal and the publication of a paper in BMC Medicine saying that a diet packed with sausages and bacon increases your risk of dying from heart disease by 72%.

But the link between red meat and "good" saturated fatty acids adds just another layer of confusion about our intake of fats. Last month a paper in the BMJ stated that replacing saturated animal fats, which are traditionally thought of as bad, with omega-6 polyunsaturated vegetable fats, found in wholesome margarine, actually increased deaths among people who already had heart disease. So are there any animal fats that are good for us, and if so do we need to get them from steak?

The solution

Saturated fats are generally thought of as bad because they raise cholesterol levels. They get their name from the fact that the chain of carbon atoms that makes up their chemical structure is fully saturated with hydrogen atoms. They usually exist in solid form, in cream, cheese and butter. Sources of unsaturated fats include olive oil and oily fish and these are thought to be cholesterol-lowering. The British Dietetic Association recommends a daily intake of saturated fat of 30g for men and 20g for women.

Stearic acid is a saturated fat that is found in lean red meat and other healthier sources. It is known from previous studies to reduce cholesterol levels perhaps because it is broken down to oleic acid, which is an unsaturated fat. Oleic acid is so healthy it's found in olive oil and thought to be a component of the healthy Mediterranean diet that lowers cholesterol and blood pressure.

This doesn't mean you need to eat steak to get the benefits of healthy fats. Or that you need to eat more fat since most of us eat more than the recommended amount already. It means, as research so often does, that most things in moderation are fine and this includes eating saturated fats in lean red meat.

Find out more

• Mayo clinic:Dietary fats: know which types to choose
• NHS Choices:Fat: the facts
• The Guardian:Cancer risk higher among people who eat more processed meat, study finds
• The Guardian:Ten Mediterranean recipes to help you live longer

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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John Paulson May Move To Puerto Rico To Avoid A Gigantic Tax Bill

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John Paulson, Maneet

Another refugee looking to escape U.S. taxes?

According to Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle, Katherine Burton, and Zachary Mider, hedge fund manager John Paulson is considering leaving New York to go to Puerto Rico, where a tax loophole would let him reduce taxes on the $9.5 billion he has in his own hedge fund.

Ten wealthy Americans have already taken advantage of the year-old Puerto Rican law that lets new residents pay no local or U.S. federal taxes on capital gains, according to Alberto Baco Bague, Secretary of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico. The marginal tax rate for affluent New Yorkers can exceed 50 percent.

Paulson, 57, recently looked at real estate in the exclusive Condado neighborhood of San Juan, where an 8,379- square-foot penthouse, complete with six underground parking spaces, lists for $5 million. The area is home to St. John’s School, a private English-language academy where he and his wife could send their two children, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private.

Paulson, of course, made a huge fortune during the financial crisis, betting on a housing collapse.

Since then his fortunes have turned, having had several bad years in a row.

Last year he announced a huge gift, offering $100 million to Central Park.

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Barclays Banker Named Rich Ricci Has A Show Horse Named Fat Cat In The Hat

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horse

Rich Ricci, the head of Barlcays UK corporate investment bank, is catching fire from politicians, bookies and race fans all over the UK, the Mirror reports.

Ricci, who wears a hat to all the races he attends, has 11 horses entered in this week's Cheltenham Festival. It's an annual racing and hunt competition second only to the Grand National in terms of prize money. Ricci and his wife have 40 horses total and have already won almost $900,000 racing this year.

If Ricci's horse, Fatcatinthehat, wins a hurdle race for which it's favored 12-1, he and his wife will pick up an additional $111,547.50.

From the Mirror:

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, described it as an “insult”.

He added: “It shows how out of touch these bankers are.”

The bookies are also less than happy. Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams moaned: “If Fatcatinthehatwins, we will sink into recession – all the bankers will be shovelling their bonuses on to the horse.

“Mr Ricci has some fancied runners and it’s an odds-on shot he will be celebrating a winner this week.” Fat cat in the hat is 12-1 third favourite to win Wednesday’s Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle, which carries a £75,000 first prize.

The Mirror also points out that Mr. Ricci is known for buying Euro­Millions tickets for the $137,236.40 jackpot last summer. He reportedly bought them with £50 notes.

Now that's some bad press.

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This New Puerto Rican Law Makes Wealthy People Want To Move There To Avoid Taxes

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Navio Beach, Vieques, Puerto Rico

Billionaire hedge funder John Paulson, who famously bet against the subprime housing market, is reportedly weighing a move to Puerto Rico to take advantage of a new tax law there, Bloomberg News reported citing unnamed sources familiar with his plans. 

According to Bloomberg News, the new law makes it so new residents pay no local or U.S. federal taxes on capital gains.

The law firm of Adsuar Muniz Goyco Seda & Perez-Ochoa has a breakdown of the new tax law.   

On January 17, 2012, Puerto Rico enacted Act 22 (a.k.a. "The Act to Promote the Transfer of Investors to Puerto Rico")

According to AMGPR Law, the basic premise of the act is to incentivize people who are not already residents of Puerto Rico to become residents.

To incentivize them, the acts exempts these individuals who become residents from income tax on their interest and dividend income and certain long term capital gains from the sale or exchange of securities, the newsletter states.

The idea behind the acts is that by having these individuals become residents it will help Puerto Rico's economy through real estate investments and consumption of their local products/services. 

In order to qualify, individuals cannot have been residents of Puerto Rico during the last 15 years. They also must become residents before December 31, 2035. Both U.S. and non-U.S. residents apply, the report said. 

So far, about 10 wealthy individuals, including some hedge fund managers, have taken advantage of this new law in Puerto Rico, Bloomberg reported. 

SEE ALSO: John Paulson may move to Puerto Rico

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Here's A First Look At The All-New Range Rover Sport

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With the Geneva Motor Show now in the past (although still open to the public until March 17), it's time to look ahead to the New York Auto Show, kicking off March 27.

Among the new arrivals will be Jaguar Land Rover's Range Rover Sport, the baby brother of the new Range Rover that launched in Paris last September.

The timing — the Range Rover is now in dealerships and the buzz about it has died down — and the location — the New York metropolitan area is one of the biggest Land Rover markets — will work in JLR's favor.

The debut will take place on the eve of the auto show, with a drive through the streets of New York.

Unlike Jeep, which ditched the boxy SUV look and made the new Cherokee more of a crossover (Nissan did the same with the new Pathfinder), Land Rover doesn't change its look very much.

So it's a safe bet (confirmed by the blurry teaser photo below) that the new Sport will be a bit smaller and with more punch than the bigger Range Rover, as with previous generations.

It's also likely to have the same weight savings that made the Range Rover more efficient and easier to handle, along with its new luxury features.

Here's the teaser of the Range Rover Sport:

Land Rover Range Rover Sport 2013 blurry teaser

And the current Range Rover Sport:

Range Rover Sport old model

And the new Range Rover:

2013 range rover los angeles auto show coolest cars

SEE ALSO: A New Generation Of Supercars Was Born At The Geneva Motor Show

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Starbucks Refuses To Follow NYC Sugary Drink Ban — Mayor Bloomberg Dismisses This As 'Ridiculous'

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Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg's large, sugary drink ban will start in NYC tomorrow

But Bloomberg is facing some intense opposition from corporate giant Starbucks. The coffee chain said it would make no immediate changes to its business based on the ban. 

Bloomberg told television show Face The Nation that Starbucks not changing its offerings is "ridiculous." 

When interviewer Bob Schieffer pointed out that Starbucks wasn't changing its offerings because it was confused about which of its products would fall under the ban, Bloomberg retorted that the corporation should know better. 

“Starbucks knows how to market things, knows how to package things,” Bloomberg said. “They can change instantly when it’s in their interest to do so.”

The new mandate limits sugary drinks sold at restaurants, movie theaters, street carts, and more to 16 ounces. But some drinks, such as those made up of 50 percent milk or more, are exempt. 

It will be enforced by city health inspectors during inspections, when restaurants violating the ban will lose points on their sanitation score. It's not clear, however, how significant the penalities will be or whether the city would take stronger action to target as big an offender as Starbucks.

Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills told us that it would not make immediate changes to its menu because of the ban. 

"Our understanding is that any beverage with 50 percent or more milk is exempt from the ruling," Mills said. "Because many of our beverages are made from milk or are customized by the customer, many of our beverages fall outside the ban." 

But Starbucks will still continue to offer beverages like its green iced-tea lemonade in larger sizes too. That drink doesn't contain milk but is high in sugar. 

Starbucks also "recognizes pending litigation" about the ban and "doesn't want to make any knee-jerk reactions," Mills said. 

The American Beverage Association filed to stop the ban until a judge decides on whether to stop it altogether. 

Starbucks competitor Dunkin' Donuts is taking the mandate seriously. 

At Dunkin', customers will have to add their own sugar or flavors to large and extra-large hot beverage and medium and large iced beverages. The company also announced that sweet beverages like hot chocolate will only be available in small and medium sizes.

Bloomberg's ban, which only affects restaurants and places that sell prepared foods, is meant to combat obesity. 

Critics of the ban say it will be difficult to enforce and will make business less efficient. 

For example, instead of a Dunkin' Donuts employee adding sugar to a drink and handing it off, customers will have to line up to add their own sugar. 

SEE ALSO: 40 Horrible Fast Food Fails

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