| Archives for: February 2008
Eric Turkington (D-Cape and Islands) recently wrote state Attorney General Martha Coakley urging her to join other states' attorneys general in supporting a class action lawsuit protesting tax discrimination against out-of-state property owners in Florida.The lawsuit, Lanning et al v. Pilcher et al., questions the constitutionality of a "Save Our Homes Amendment" (SOHA) to the Florida constitution passed by voters in 1992, according to a recent press release from Mr. Turkington's office. The SOHA caps the annual assessment on a property owned by a Florida resident at either 3 percent of the assessment for the prior year or the percent increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). As the law stands, someone who buys a second home in Florida has to pay property taxes as much as three times higher than a Florida resident who qualifies for the tax cap, according to a Jan.
Traveling Workers Told to Trim Expenses
Faced with a weakening economy, more companies are targeting travel and entertainment expenses. "Everyone's starting to think about what's going to happen if there's an economic downturn," says Adam Weissenberg, who heads Deloitte's travel industry consulting division. .
THE MOSSBERG SOLUTION
It's fair to say that cellphones can induce laziness. They enable effortless directory assistance, mobile Web access and the ever-important luxury of calling someone in the next room so you don't need to get up. But this laziness can be reversed in an instant: Just misplace your cellphone at home, hear it ring and note how quickly you move -- running, climbing stairs or flipping couch cushions -- to find the phone before a caller hangs up. VTech Communications wants to put an end to this mad phone dash with its new $150 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth, the LS5145. This device synchronizes with your cellphone and redirects incoming cell calls to ring wherever the VTech phones are placed in the house. It works with your landline and up to two Bluetooth-linked cellphones, and can be expanded using additional handsets that cost $80 each.
Delta flight attendants seeking to form union
Some Delta Air Lines flight attendants are seeking to unionize as the nation's No. 3 carrier considers combining with Northwest Airlines or United Airlines. A past effort by Atlanta-based Delta's flight attendants to unionize failed. Delta's pilots are currently the only major work group at the company to be part of a union. .
The Murky Toll of the Iraq War
The city sits at 2200ft; every morning the homeless would go about kicking boxes to see who had frozen to death in hopes of scoring a free box. The ethics you use are the ethics you can afford, and with 5 % of its population controlling 90% of its wealth, ethics had left that country. In this country, before the Reagan tax cuts, the richest 10% of the country owned 50% of its wealth, a figure that most capitalist democracies in the world maintain to this day through progressive taxation. But in America, the richest 10% now own 72% of its wealth. The richest 1% owns more than the poorest 90%, and the poorest 40% own nothing. Such monopolistic control of the nation's wealth is dangerous for democracy. These figures do not reflect the Bush tax cuts: the top 10% may end up owning 90% of this nation's wealth.
State of the union
Last week, the hot pop topic was regional differences in music taste. But what of the separate national musical identities of Britain? We asked English musicians to name the songs that they feel define Englishness
Tim Wheeler on what defines Northern Ireland
Isobel Campbell on Scotland
Nicky Wire on Wales
Interviews by Paul Lester
Friday February 15, 2008
The Guardian
Frayed union ... The Sex Pistols. Photograph: Reuters
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In Jubilee Park, $6M gift is reason for hope
The billionaire oilman's donation last week will pay for a new community building. It will build a resource center with space for police and other government services. It will provide cash to buy and clear dilapidated property. It is the latest, and perhaps most uplifting, move for a long-troubled area of South Dallas – one showing signs of reversing a deadening spiral of drugs, violence, crime and blight. Work begun by a Dallas church 10 years ago keeps gaining ground. Unofficially covering 62 blocks between Fair Park, Interstate 30 and East Grand Avenue, the Jubilee Park area was home to more than 1,600 mostly low-income residents in 2000. That year, 60 percent of the residents were Hispanic and 35 percent African-American.
Curt Cavin: IRL & Formula One Q&A
It's one of the few web sites I check every day. Well done, indeed! Thanks! (Alan, Raleigh, N.C.)
Answer: Simple advice: Rent a motor home for the weekend. Its a long event (no kidding, right?) and its usually cold at night. Get there early enough to get a spot with any kind of a view, then sit the lawn chairs on top of the motor home and enjoy. Have a cookout and bring friends. And make sure to watch the action from 8 p.m. to midnight. It is incredible at night. .
Bush in Arkansas -- UPDATE
Just blow a kiss to your favorite Monkey Boy. It's an unfunded mandate. Bush is no stranger to unfunded mandates. NCLB is another unfunded mandate. If we can raise $12 billion per month to fight for Eron, EXXON, Mobil, Haliburton, etc in Iraq, the balance of funding needed for SCHIPS will not be difficult. .
First Advantage to Provide Consumer Leads on DealerTrack's Leads ...
First Advantage to Provide Consumer Leads on DealerTrack's Leads Network LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DealerTrack, Inc., a subsidiary of DealerTrack Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRAK) , a leading provider of on-demand software and data solutions for the U.S. automotive retail industry, today announced that the Dealer Services segment of First Advantage Corporation (NASDAQ: FADV) has agreed to offer high-quality purchase request, subprime and bankruptcy consumer leads through the DealerTrack Leads Network(TM). The DealerTrack Leads Network enables dealers to take greater control of the leads purchasing process by only buying the leads they need. "We are pleased to have First Advantage, one of the industry's largest leads providers, offer quality leads to our mutual dealer customers through the DealerTrack Leads Network," said Mark O'Neil, chairman and chief executive officer of DealerTrack.
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