The Get-Your-Man-to-Marry-You Plan: Buying the Cow in the Age of Free MilkBy Lori Uscher-PinesSt. Martin's Press; 196 pp. The Gist:Ladies, dying to get engaged, but your would-be groom is dragging his feet Look no further than this how-to guide to snagging your very own diamond. Culled from her own personal experience, Uscher-Pines, a PhD from Johns Hopkins, tackles the dos and don'ts of getting even the most reticent man down on one knee. There's no excuse he can give ...

Professor Michael Wesch should be flattered. A cultural anthropologist at Kansas State University, over the past few years he's received a hundred-plus requests from people around the world eager to enroll in the school's graduate program for "digital ethnography," a subject that he's known for. One problem: no such program exists. Wesch teaches anthropology to undergrads and heads up a working group on digital ethnography. The demand for his non-existent grad program is perhaps indicative, though, ...

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is denying accusations that a record fine levied against the country's largest media conglomerate, Dogan Holding, was politically motivated. "I believe it is not right to mistake the routine works of the state agencies with freedom of press," Erdogan said, according to Turkey's state news agency, Anatolian. The leader was speaking Monday at a dinner in the Turkish capital attended by European ambassadors. "I have no right or authority to exert political ...

Al Qaeda's second-in-command has accused President Obama of supporting a Palestinian state that would do the bidding of Israel. "Obama wants a Palestinian state that works as a branch for the Israeli government," Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a nearly 90-minute video called, "The Realities of Jihad and the Fallacies of Hypocrisy." The latest in a series of such videos was posted Monday on radical Islamist Web sites by al Qaeda's production company, As-Sahab Media. "Israel is a crime that needs ...

The Bush years were a good time for relations between the world's two biggest democracies. After years of suspicion and tensions, India and the U.S. finally began to explore common ground, a shift that culminated in a breakthrough deal that opens the way for India to import civilian nuclear technology despite the facts that it refuses to sign the nuclear-nonproliferation treaty and it has twice tested nuclear weapons. The Obama Administration seems intent on keeping that atmosphere of ...

Google's netbook-friendly Chrome OS takes direct aim at Microsoft, whose eight-year-old Windows XP leads the netbook market. But the odds are stacked against Google. In competing with Windows, Google Chrome OS will have to deal with many of the same challenges Linux has: compatibility, usability, and unfamiliarity. The record isn't good: In the past year, Linux-based netbooks have rapidly lost market share to Microsoft, as people find that Linux doesn't work as expected, may not support the applications or peripherals ...

The boy writhes uncontrollably on the floor, but the church members remain calm, if increasingly loud. They're trying to drive a "demon" out of him. "You homosexual demon, get up on outta here!" they say. "You demon, loose yourself!" "You sex demon ... you snake!" The shouts, the convulsions, the references to homosexual spirits -- they are all captured on a video posted on YouTube by the Manifested Glory Ministries. The video has sparked anger among gay youth advocacy groups ...

Americans are spending less; no surprise there. Figures out this week from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis show that in April overall consumer spending was down 0.1% from the month before. People are now saving 5.7% of their disposable income, the most since 1995 and a cosmic increase from the zero-savings days of just a few years ago. Yet those numbers are far from the whole story. People aren't cutting back equally in all ...

For "Star Trek" fans, it may feel like deja vu all over again. Well, sort of. The new film, directed by J.J. Abrams, takes "Trek" back to the early days of the USS Enterprise with a young Capt. James T. Kirk and his crew. The movie introduces a slew of movie newcomers in what are now iconic roles: Chris Pine takes on the role of the passionate Kirk; Zachary Quinto is the logical Spock; Zoe Saldana plays the beautiful Lt. ...

No one can truly know what goes on inside a marriage except the two people involved, but researchers are getting increasingly good glimpses at what makes couples tick, how relationships are stressed and what factors can keep the spark alive. (CNN) -- No one can truly know what goes on inside a marriage except the two people involved, but researchers are getting increasingly good glimpses at what makes couples tick, how relationships are stressed and what factors can keep the ...