About 460 children were taken from the ranch, which is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamist sect linked to the jailed "prophet" Warren Steed Jeffs.

Parents have denied the claims of abuse and have been fighting to get their children back.

But how does life's dickering play out in the brain? And is it a trustworthy tool for getting what we want? Psychologists have been studying cognitive bartering for some time, and several basics are well established. For example, an opening "bid" of any sort is usually perceived as a mental anchor, a starting point for the psychological jockeying to follow. If we perceive an opening bid as fundamentally inaccurate or unfair, we reject it by countering with something in another ballpark altogether. But what about less dramatic counter offers? What makes us settle on a response?

University of Florida marketing professors Chris Janiszewski and Dan Uy suspected that something fundamental might be going on, that some characteristic of the opening bid itself might influence the way the brain thinks about value and shapes bidding behavior. In particular, they wanted to see if the degree of precision of the opening bid might be important to how the brain acts at an auction. Or, to put it in more familiar terms: Are we really fooled when storekeepers price something at $19.95 instead of a round 20 bucks?

Janiszewski and Uy ran a series of tests to explore this idea. The experiments used hypothetical scenarios, in which participants were required to make a variety of "educated guesses." For example, they had subjects think about a scenario in which they were buying a high-definition plasma TV and asked them to guesstimate the wholesale cost. The participants were told the retail price, plus the fact that the retailer had a reputation for pricing TVs competitively.

There were three scenarios involving different retail prices: one group of buyers was given a price of $5,000, another was given a price of $4,988, and the third was told $5,012. When all the buyers were asked to estimate the wholesale price, those with the $5,000 price tag in their head guessed much lower than those contemplating the more precise retail prices. That is, they moved farther away from the mental anchor. What is more, those who started with the round number as their mental anchor were much more likely to guess a wholesale price that was also in round numbers. The scientists ran this experiment again and again with different scenarios and always got the same result.

Why would this happen? As Janiszewski and Uy explain in the February issue of Psychological Science, people appear to create mental measuring sticks that run in increments away from any opening bid, and the size of the increments depends on the opening bid. That is, if we see a $20 toaster, we might wonder whether it is worth $19 or $18 or $21; we are thinking in round numbers. But if the starting point is $19.95, the mental measuring stick would look different. We might still think it is wrongly priced, but in our minds we are thinking about nickels and dimes instead of dollars, so a fair comeback might be $19.75 or $19.50.

The psychologists decided to check these lab findings in the real world. They looked at five years of real estate sales in Alachua County, Florida, comparing list prices and actual sale prices of homes. They found that sellers who listed their homes more precisely--say $494,500 as opposed to $500,000--consistently got closer to their asking price. Put another way, buyers were less likely to negotiate the price down as far when they encountered a precise asking price. Furthermore, houses listed in round numbers lost more value if they sat on the market for a couple of months. So, bottom line: one way to deal with a buyer's market may be to pick an exact list price to begin with.

This isn't all about money, however. Medical information, Janiszew­ski and Uy note, can also be offered in either precise or general terms: a physician might say that your chance of responding to a medication is "good" or that your chance of responding is 80 percent. The percentage is more precise, but many studies have shown that patients prefer vague generalities like "good," so doctors tend to use them. But remember that life is an auction. In his mind, the patient is dickering with the doctor, so why not negotiate "good" up to "excellent"? When treatment choices are on the line, the auction house can indeed be a perilous place.

The most reliable statistics from the Pacific Institute put America's love affair with water bottles at 31.2 billion liters of water in 2006. Due to negative press on the possible health effects of the use, most people are aware water bottles are sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. In order to manufacture these bottles over 900,000 tons of plastic is needed. The mainstream manufacturing process that produces PET bottles requires a combination of natural gas and petroleum. The petroleum requirement is where the statistics show that America's obsession could be hurting their wallets at the gas pump.

Bottom line, the production of 31.2 billion liters of water for the U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil. The calculation is explained in more detail at the Pacific Institute's information page under the energy requirements for plastic bottles. The simple break down is 3.4 megajoules of energy to produce a water bottle, cap and packaging with a barrel of oil producing about 6 thousand megajoules. Taking those numbers into account you arrive at 17.6 million barrels of oil, enough oil to run 1.5 million cars on U.S. roadways for an entire year.

Americans are not alone in their addiction to bottled water. Although America is the number one consumer, other large consumers are Mexico, China, Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, Indonesia, Spain and India. The graph shows the difference of consumption from 1999 to 2004. A more clear version of the graph can be found here. In 2004 the previously mentioned countries consumed the following amount of liters in the billions: United States 25.8, Mexico 17.7, China 11.9, Brazil 11.6, Italy 10.7, Germany 10.3, France 8.5, Indonesia 7.4, Spain 5.5, India 5.1 and all other countries 39.9. This brings a total consumption in the billions of liters in 2004 to 154.3. Just for worldwide consumption of bottled water in 2004 alone it took roughly 87.4 million barrels of oil. You can imagine that with statistics for 2008, we have arrived at a figure in the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil being used just to produce bottled water. At 87.4 million barrels of oil, that's enough to run 7.5 million cars on U.S. roadways for an entire year.

America and the world's addiction to plastic doesn't end there. Plastic bags have become commonplace all over the world for their ease of production, cheapness compared to paper bags at 2 cents a plastic bag and 4 to 6 cents for paper bags. The plastic bags are also light weight for transporting. Plastic bags take oil, just like plastic bottles to produce. Currently the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags in a year and worldwide consumption is estimated to be from 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year. That is roughly 1 million plastic bags a minute being consumed and less than 1% is recycled. The oil cost? With the 100 billion bags consumed in America it takes 12 million barrels of oil a year. Taking that figure and applying it to worldwide consumption you come up with a figure around 60 million - 120 million barrels of oil a year to produce plastic bags.

While it will not greatly impact the current problems we are having with oil, we can help save the environment by turning to recycling for all of the plastic products that we use. An interesting graph was provided by the Container Recycling organization showing the difference between the United States and Sweden in recycling PET bottles. In 2004 you can see that the U.S. was down to about 20% of all bottles consumed sending the rest to the landfill where they will sit for around 1,000 years.

Recycling plastic bags have not been much of a success either. In fact in the U.S. where 100 billion plastic bags are consumed it is estimated that only 1 percent to 3 percent of the bags are recycled. This leaves the rest of the bags in our landfills and other unsightly places like that plastic bag you saw blowing down the street last week.

In January of 2008 The Daily Green announced that China had made the decision to place a nationwide ban on plastic bags. The Chinese State Council set a date of June 1st, 2008 for all stores, small and large, to stop using plastic bags in the country. China was previously the largest user of plastic bags in the world using around 37 million barrels of oil for their bags. As mentioned by The Daily Green China is not alone with other large countries like Ireland and Uganda banning plastic bags. The United States is seeing similar measures in city and county government to place bans on the use of plastic bags.

The solutions are tough to swallow sometimes, especially when it could mean completely removing common and convenient plastic products out of our lives. However, even major retail outlets are trying to make it easier. During Earth Day Week this year Wal-Mart made prominent spots for their reusable $1.00 bags. Grabbing 5 - 10 of these bags can drastically change your impact on the environment by remembering to use a reusable and washable bag when shopping. The water bottle market is a little harder to deal with, especially in countries like Mexico where the public drinking water truly isn't safe in some parts of the country. Home purification and refrigerator filtering systems can make sure people in America get better quality water. Looking at recently released reports, purifying your own water is probably more beneficial than the bottled water industry's water anyway. Some reports claim that bottled water is sometimes nothing more than glorified city tap water. 

If you decide to take a step on your own to cut down on plastic water bottle usage, you could always get a reusable water bottle made by companies like Sigg. As of right now there are over 100 available on eBay that you can have shipped to your doorstep and start making a difference next week!

America and the world's dirty little oil secret seems to be that while we are unhappy with the rise in oil prices, we really can make a difference if we all take action. It's hard to change the comforts that the modern world has brought us, but you can do it in smalls steps and still have conveniences you're use to with a little change. In just America alone, we are using 29.6 million barrels of oil a year to have the convenience of plastic bags and plastic water bottles. This could literally provide enough oil to fuel 2 - 3 million cars in the U.S. every single year. If you look at world figures we are using 147.4 - 207.4 million barrels of oil to use plastic bags and plastic bottles worldwide. That alone is more than OPEC pumps in a day at 32.22 million. The U.S. imports around 13.15 million barrels of oil a day according the CIA factbook. By seeing these number hopefully you will realize that you can make a difference in our oil costs, the environment and live a greener life all around. Please let us know your thoughts here by leaving a comment.

Lighting Science Group's new LED lightbulbs.

(Credit: Lighting Science Group)

LED bulbs for household use have already been around for some time, but their success has been limited. The main obstacles have been that they cost more than incandescent lightbulbs and emit a sometimes unnerving color of light.

Lighting Science Group this week plans to introduce a portfolio of LED replacement white lightbulbs that it hopes will attract more consumer interest. The product line uses the same sockets as Edison bulbs.

According to Gibler, the bulbs perform well on a warmth and color rendering index--blue looks blue, yellow looks yellow, etc.--they have a long life cycle, and consume 80 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs.

Gibler believes 2008 could be "the year of LED" for residential use and lighting in general. The market potential is big, particularly considering that legislation will outlaw the sale of incandescent bulbs by 2012, he said. He compared the adoption of LED lights in homes to another lighting product, the flashlight.

"Three years ago you could hardly find an LED-based flashlight; today it's hard to find one that is not LED light," he said.

Lighting Science Group sells its products through wholesale stores and on its own Web site, but it expects to announce soon distribution deals with one or two retail chains to make the new LED bulbs more available.

At $40 to $110 apiece, the LED "in-screw" bulbs may still seem too pricey for a lot of consumers. But Lighting Science Group's pitch is that a 50 cent Edison bulb will last for 750 to 3,000 hours, while an LED has to be replaced only every 50,000 hours (or 10 to 30 years). The company says the cost savings is almost $740 over a lifetime due to much lower energy consumption.

Vrinda Bhandarkar, a research analyst at Mountain View, Calif.-based Strategies Unlimited, said she is impressed if the "bulky looking lamps" actually perform as well as the company says. But the price has to come down a lot before consumers--and not just businesses--start buying them, she said. For a proper light in the kitchen it would take at least four big bulbs, which would cost about $440.

"They will be used for retail display, hotel lobbies, for paintings that hang up high, and places where you need a high ladder to change lamps," she said.

Gibler, who has a lengthy career in the lighting industry and took on responsibility for business development at Lighting Science Group last year, believes the price for LED lights will come down as chips get cheaper.

"They will be half the cost in another two years," he said.

For Hillary, the shift is a potential lifesaver as she struggles to keep her head above water; without it, she would, metaphorically, drown.

Until now, she, her husband, and her campaign aides have been trying, with little success, to make the case that Obama has potentially fatal flaws. For the first time, reporters working for magazines, newspapers and web sites have abruptly decided that she might well be right, and the results for Obama have been brutal:

The first hard punch was thrown by my friend and colleague John Judis in a widely distributed piece on The New Republic web site, filed sometime around 3AM Wednesday, seven hours after polls closed in Pennsylvania. In the article titled, "The Next McGovern," Judis wrote:

"[I]f you look at Obama's vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the '70s and '80s, led by college students and minorities....Its ideology is very liberal. Whereas in the first primaries and caucuses, Obama benefited from being seen as middle-of-the-road or even conservative, he is now receiving his strongest support from voters who see themselves as 'very liberal.'...[H]e is going to have trouble in Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, where he will once again be faced by a large white working class vote. He can still win the nomination and lose these primaries. Pennsylvania was the last big delegate prize. But if Obama doesn't find a way now to speak to these voters, he is going to have trouble winning that large swath of states from Pennsylvania through Missouri in which a Democrat must do well to gain the presidency."

Joe Klein, in his weekly column for Time magazine, noted that Clinton has taken a beating,

"But that was nothing compared with the damage done to Obama, who entered the primary as a fresh breeze and left it stale, battered and embittered - still the mathematical favorite for the nomination but no longer the darling of his party [ Klein could have added, 'no longer the darling of the press.'] In the course of six weeks, the American people learned that he was a member of a church whose pastor gave angry, anti-American sermons, that he was "friendly" with an American terrorist who had bombed buildings during the Vietnam era, and that he seemed to look on the ceremonies of working-class life - bowling, hunting, churchgoing and the fervent consumption of greasy food - as his anthropologist mother might have, with a mixture of cool detachment and utter bemusement."

Politico's Mike Allen describes the changed approach to Obama as a "paradigm shift," specifically citing the "seminal" [Allen is not one to mute his compliments] report of former colleague Chris "The Fix" Cillizza on WashingtonPost.com, the headline of which undoubtedly brought tears of joy to the Clinton campaign: "How Clinton Can Win It."

"A path does exist for Clinton," Cillizza wrote. "The best argument Clinton has at her disposal right now is that Obama cannot win over blue collar, white voters who have been hit hard by the economic slowdown and are looking for a politician to look out for them."

The critical chorus is even resonating across the Atlantic. Under the headline "The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain," London Times columnist Anatole Kaletsky wrote: "the conclusion would be fairly obvious, were it not for the political correctness that makes it almost impossible for American politicians or commentators to express such a view: Mr Obama may by unable to carry large industrial states with socially conservative white working-class populations simply because of his race."

The New York Times, never so declarative in a news story, poses the issues as questions. Adam Nagourney writes, "Why has he (Obama) been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination? ... Is the Democratic Party hesitating about race as it moves to the brink of nominating an African-American to be president?"

While Nagourney raised questions reinforcing doubts about Obama's credibility as a general election candidate, his colleague at the New York Times, Patrick Healy was one of the few reporters to write favorably of the Obama bid in light of recent criticisms. Healy wrote:

"[E]xit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia."

Healy, however, is the exception. While reluctant to speak on the record, Clinton supporters are very pleased with the overall switch in tone of the coverage, particularly the willingness of the media to explore the question of whether Obama could be a loser in November.

The Clinton critique of Obama, and now the critique of much of the press, was further reinforced from another source, Republican strategist Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Obama is befuddled and angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural American are 'bitter' and therefore 'cling' to their guns and their faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness among blue-collar working class voters for a reason."

It was one of 1,500 Welsh-themed plates up for auction by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

Others on sale at the Celtic Manor in Newport include places such as N3 ATH, and names, including MEG 44N and DYL9N.

The WEL 5H buyer, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he bought the plate to celebrate Wales' rugby Grand Slam victory.

The plate will take pride of his place on his new Mercedes CL 500.

Also up for grabs have been C7 MRU and CY51 MRY, or Cymru.

Damian Lawson, who handles the DVLA's personalised plate sales, said one bidder found £1,100 for the place name BAN 9OR, or Bangor.

"The popularity of personalised number plates just keeps increasing," said Mr Lawson.

"While the price of a car can only go down as it depreciates, their number plate can keep its value."

The latest auction of DVLA number plates is expected to have raised an estimated £4.2m for the UK treasury when it closes on Friday, with auctions averaging about £4,000 each.

"I think we are also seeing some people buying these plates as a long-term investment," added Mr Lawson.