Hey guys, Jill here today to offer a woman’s opinion.  If you’ve ever read any legal court documents, or you are familiar with legal litigation (suing) terminology, you may have come across the term “loss of consortium” before. I remember the first time I came across it was reading about a case when I was going to school in my twenties, and saw this term.

I couldn’t figure out what it meant, but by the gist of the article, I could tell it had something to do with companionship. And that’s what it is actually. This is a legal term for when someone sues for the death or otherwise lesser availability of a previous loved one’s comfort and companionship.

It basically means you are suing someone or something (maybe a corporation) for your emotional turmoil resulting from the loss of companionship.  It’s really equivalent to pain and suffering damages, but it is specific in its terminology because it is often used in the specific cases that involve married couples.

And yes, it does embody the loss of sexual intercourse and other intimacies that you may have previously enjoyed with your spouse or loved one.  It also embodies your loss of conversations, physical comforting, and general companionship and emotional security that you found in that other person.

All this talk of loss of consortium is making me glad I still have my husband!  Basically, there are quite a few cases out there that involve this, and they often revolve around married couples. For example, a husband may sue a company that was negligent in his wife’s death, and part of his claim against the company would involve this terminology since he’s lost someone he deeply cares about.

Other times, it may even be a husband or wife suing eachother. Some of the more bizarre cases involve husbands and wives suing one another over not giving them sex or comfort more often. One man tried (unsuccessfully) to sue his wife for withholding sex from him for more than five days.

Now, that’s a bit extreme! But you get the picture…

Well, I’m a woman, so take my opinion as that when I say this, but Rick Perry, the swaggering Texas governor who has thrown his hat into the race for the white house run for president, is quite the object of speculation now.

He actually sounds startlingly close to our former heckled President Bush, who was also a guy from Texas, so I’m wondering if that fact is going to hurt him, given Mr. Bush’s impopularity during the latter part of his first term and the entire second term he served.

However, some may like him because he is precisely that – an all American guy that comes from the West who talks with an accent and has an awe shucks sort of attitude along with an unapologetic way of saying things in that way.

He is pretty much the antithesis of the guy we have in the White House now, and maybe that appeals to some people. Then we have Bachmann, who may be getting the woman’s vote (like me) because she is a strong player and because she remained unswayed when she was questioned to death by the more liberal MSNBC.

Who you vote for in this next Presidential election has a lot to do with your political views, sure, but studies have shown that it also depends heavily on how “likeable” you deem the candidate to be. If you like the way they look, the way they speak and the way they carry themselves, that could almost influence you more than any stances on issues.

This is especially true for people who don’t hold fast to any one political party (like myself). I consider myself to be in the middle. I have very conservative opinions when it comes to taxes and money issues, but when it comes to social issues I’m pretty darn liberal.

So, who you gonna vote for in the coming election?

Hey, just wanted to give a quick shout out to all the dads out there HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

Celebrate the father figure in your life today by calling him up, taking him out to dinner, brunch or lunch, or just hanging out with the old man.  He deserves it. Think of all the years he put up with you!

It’s kind of scary to consider that thousands of people, quite literally, believe that tomorrow, May 21, 2011, will be the beginning of what is called the Rapture in biblical references time and time again. The prophecy goes that the rapture, which is the beginning of the end of the world and of hell on earth for those that truly have not taken Jesus and God into their heart and beliefs.

The story goes that first, wars and earthquakes will ravage the earth, and plague, disease, famine, war and all sorts of other hell on earth sort of stuff will make like on earth a living hell for those of us who are not taken up to heaven tomorrow, May 21st, when the Rapture first begins to show signs of starting.

The belief that the Rapture will take place has been an ongoing theme in religious beliefs for centuries. Nostradamus, the astonomer and philosopher has even predicted that the end of the world would occur, except his predictions were not correct either.

So, is the end of the world going to happen or not? Are these predictions all just really a way to keep humanity in order and make us good Christians, God fearing people who don’t partake in crimes or excesses?  I don’t know to be honest. I’m a self proclaimed agnostic, but I am spiritual, and I do believe that we must live our lives in a well intentioned, kind manner in order to recieve the beauty and gifts that life has to offer.

I’ve never subscribed to the belief that we must think a certain way and follow a certain deity in order to be accepted into whatever afterlife there may be.  I’m also too scientific to believe that all religions can be right, or that there is one alll knowing, all seeing god. 

So, what do you believe? Do you believe that the Rapture will occur, or start to occur tomorrow, or are you waiting to see with baited breath, whether this prediction, like so many others before it fizzles out and makes the believers wonder what happened?

I must admit, I’d be curious to talk to people who really do believe and prepare for the end of the world, and see if they want to begin living again when they realize that it’s all really unpredictable. Such is life….let’s live it to the fullest while we can, no matter what.

Hye guys, Jill here to report on something that I think is a real concern not only for women, but also for men who are sexually active and cannot necessarily afford the necessities for birth control and sexual health.

With the current state of our economy constantly in flux, and most Americans not feeling too stable about the outlook of things to come, it’s no wonder that so many federally funded programs are being cut, or at least are on the chopping block to be cut.

This has many people worried, since there are some really important programs that the government either entirely funds, or has a good part in funding. One of those such programs is a heavily government funded one that is in need at all times : Family Planning.

Shoot, as a woman, I remember when I was in college and couldn’t afford anyting to eat but ramen noodles. I had to go to family planning so that I could afford birth control as I was sexually active, and it really saved my life at that time. 

Some are claiming that this decision is an all out war on women, since women are whom these clinics benefit the most, since they are the ones that take on the brunt of child rearing responsibility if they get pregnant.

Unplanned pregnancies are a major problem in teens, who often use these family planning agencies, as well as women in low income households. They are the most at risk for having unplanned pregnancies, and therefore they are the ones who need these services the most and who would be most impacted by a disastrous decision such as this one.

Having been a broke women going through college, I really advocate the need for family planning clinics, and am strongly opposed to their closing the doors to these desperately needed facilities.

Well, I can tell you, I have not gone out on St. Patty’s day in quite a long time. Which seems like a joke since I’m half Irish on my mom’s side.  I really like to go out and celebrate with a few drinks once in a while too, and what better day to make the excuse of wasting half the day drinking and eating bad and fattening foods than the ultimate drinking holiday? 

We went and met friends at a local bar that happens to make great drinks and also happens to have some of the most excellent bar/pub food I’ve ever tasted.

Even though we tried really hard to make sure that we weren’t getting too drunk, and that we were eating enough food as we were drinking so that we wouldn’t feel hung over, the intensity of the moment just took over, and we ended up drinking way too much and feeling it the next morning.

My wife was pretty bad too. Sometimes when you drink a lot the night before, it’s really hard to get a good night’s sleep.

Although it seems counterintuitive, drinking a lot actually interferes more with sleep during the night. You may think that because it makes you tired and makes you pass out pretty quickly that you’d sleep soundly all night, and actually it does more harm than good to your quality of sleep and your length of sleep time.

So, next St. Patrick’s day, we may just be boring and stay home.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, time to break out the team jersey, bust out the great appetizers and some beers or other alcoholic beverage of choice (pick your poison so to speak). It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and all diet and drinking rules officially go out the window for most men today – and a good portion of women too.

Now matter if you’re rooting for the Packers of the Steelers, it should be a good game. Most people are predicting a pretty close game, and I’m following in that assumption.  Although I’m not a fan of either team, some of the people I know are big fans of the Steelers, and the Steelers fans are out in full force, and so is all the Steelers garb in the stores.

Big Ben may be the most hated sports figure right now, but he must be doing something right. We’ll see who comes out ahead today.

Everyone have fun today, get your grub on, drink a few beers, and hopefully you took tomorrow off if you’re planning on doing it right!

Well, there may be some truth that a lot of drama and crying turn certain men off. Hell though, there are some men I know that are downright turned on by women who are drama queens, so who knows, maybe those types of guys are actually the anomaly here.

New research shows that men’s testosterone levels are actually lowered when they come within a certain range of the tears that women cry, and they actually isolated a certain chemical in these tears that does the lowering of testosterone.

The one catch though, is that the tears must be the emotional kind, not the kind that happen when you just get dust or some other allergen in your eye.  Interestingly, the emotional types of tears are the only kind that have the chemical in them with affects a man’s testosterone levels.

It makes sense if you think about it. I mean, who wants to get into mating mode when their partner is crying? Usually there is some unhappy circumstance which is surrounding the reason for the tears, and neither partner should really feel particularly amorous when there are emotions running through the air.

The research though, did not carry out the same tests on men’s tears, because they only had women’s tears to test in the lab as to how they affected men’s testosterone levels.  Men’s tears may very well produce the exact same chemical as women’s do, as these chemicals were not particularly singled out as being female-specific.

I’m trying to figure out why they even did this study in the first place. Aren’t there more important things that should be studied and funded, like um, cancer research for example!?

Feliz Navidad my fellow male readers and contributors!  Just wanted to wish everyone an awesome, happy and fulfilling Christmas time, chock full of family, friends, spirits (if you’re into that sort of thing), and generally good times.

Don’t forget to visit us often in the new year as we have some fun things planned.

MERRRRY CHRISTMAS DEAR READERS!!!

It’s been known the combining highly caffeinated drinks with alcohol is a bad idea, period, for a while now. The reason is that, not only can you get extremely drunk and not know how drunk and how impaired you are, because the caffeine still makes you feel alert, but you can also get much drunker and be more prone to alcohol toxicity. Why? Because your body’s natural stopper to drinking is to start to feel drowsy and a little fatigued, like you’ve had enough.

And without the bodily signal to stop, because it’s all jacked up on caffeine or some other stimulant, your body thinks it’s fine, and it continues to imbibe alcohol. Still building up alcohol in the blood stream, and possibly sending dangerous amounts of alcohol to the organs, which can only process so much of the stuff at a time.

Apparently there is a very serious alcoholic drink called Four Loco that is causing these types of problems on some college campuses. It has even been so far as to be banned on one college campus, because of incidents involving out of control behavior and alcohol poisoning of some of the students that were using it.

The drink is very highly caffeinated, having more caffeine in it than a Red Bull, and also has a lot of alcohol in it, making it a lethal combination not only for getting drunk and impaired very fast, but also for building up to dangerous levels in one’s system.  We’ll see how long this product stays on the market. I bet it will be pulled, it sounds like it’s causing too many problems so far….