Blog Posts by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine

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Which is the best college or university in the country? That all depends on who you ask. There are several well-respected college ranking experts out there, but their number one picks vary wildly. (Photo: Thinkstock)Which is the best college or university in the country? That all depends on who you ask. There are several well-respected college ranking experts out there, but their number one picks vary wildly, from Vassar to West Point to Harvard University to Williams College-and just because they say a particular school is the best doesn't mean that it's the best choice for you.

"If anyone is using the rankings as the sole way to decide, that's the wrong use for the rankings," says Robert Morse, director of data research at U.S. News & World Report, who develops the surveys and procedures that the magazine uses in its famous annual evaluation of colleges. Here's what you need to know to use each of them well when considering college choices.

College ranking systems are best used to get a broad view of what's out there. "They can provide credible guidance on the relative merits of schools, and people can use the data comparatively," Morse points out. But students and parents "shouldn't just rely

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month. And National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery month. And Newborn Screening Awareness month. It's also the month when we're supposed to increase awareness of fruits and vegetable consumption, healthy aging, leukemia and lymphoma, childhood obesity, atrial fibrillation, cholesterol education, sickle cell disease, head lice prevention, ITP, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, whole grain consumption, and yoga.

And those are just the month-long awareness campaigns-there are more than a dozen other official awareness days or weeks to highlight on our September calendars, covering everything from HIV to how to cook with honey.

Who can keep track of it all anymore?

There are more awareness campaigns out there than there are ribbon colors. A snippet of purple officially represents 21 unrelated causes, from lupus research to domestic violence prevention to awareness of eating disorders; a twist of orange on your lapel can indicate that

Photo: Nickelodeon.comYour kids may love a certain squishy character who lives in a pineapple under the sea, but a new study by researchers at the University of Virginia suggests that fast-paced, fantastical TV shows like "SpongeBob SquarePants" could harm preschoolers' thinking skills.

The study has a few loopholes that a cartoon character could squeeze a Mack truck through, though.

"The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children's Executive Function," appears in the October issue of the journal Pediatrics and looks at 60 4-year-olds who had been randomly divided into three groups. One group drew and colored for nine minutes, another watched the gentle, slow-paced PBS cartoon "Caillou" for nine minutes, and the last group spent nine minutes watching a cartoon "about an animated sponge that lives under the sea." Then all of the kids were given a series of tests to measure their executive function-their ability to concentrate, solve problems, and delay gratification.

The results?

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President Barack Obama addresses a Joint Session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol September 8, 2011 in Washington, D.C., to highlight his plan to create jobs for millions of out of work Americans. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque-Pool/Getty Images) Saying "There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation," President Barack Obama presented members of Congress Thursday night with a bill that he said would create jobs and provide relief for small businesses immediately.

"The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we'll meet ours," President Obama said in his speech. "The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy; whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning."

The American Jobs Act proposes $447 billion in job-creating measures including a "returning heroes" tax credit for businesses that hire veterans, deep payroll tax cuts, unemployment insurance reform, and the preservation of teaching, police, construction, and firefighting jobs-all without increasing the nation's debt. Instead, Obama said

There are several celebrities that people love to hate, like Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kim Kardashian, and Snookie. And then there are the politicians that seem to make viewers angry the instant they appear on the TV screen-former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for some, and President Barack Obama, for others. Their points of view inspire ire, perhaps, or maybe their voices just grate on people's nerves. Whatever the reason, when they're introduced on news shows or featured in commercials, peoples' stress levels skyrocket.

Matt Richardson, a video producer for technology magazine Make, likes to keep the TV on in the background while he works but got irritated when certain celebrities came on the air. So he invented "The Enough Already," a device that let him put those bothersome blowhards on mute automatically.

"A while ago it was Charlie Sheen. And then it was Sarah Palin. And then it was Donald Trump," he told CNN.com. "And after a while I realized there's sort of always