Old WolfEagle1499 account Still Transfe...'s blog: "Good Information"

How to claim $2.2 billion in old tax refunds The 1.8 million Americans who didn't file a 2003 return may be due some money. You could still get a check from the IRS . . . if you hurry. By Bankrate.com Forget about your 2006 tax return for a minute. If you didn't file one for 2003, you might be missing out on some money from back then. But you've got only a few more weeks to claim it. Apparently, three years ago 1.8 million individuals decided they had better things to do than file their 2003 tax returns, even though they were due refunds. In total, more than $2.2 billion from that tax year is still sitting in the Internal Revenue Service account. Taxpayers can still get their old refund checks, which the IRS says could be more than $700 for some folks. But the claim, via a 2003 Form 1040, must be made by April 17. After that, the federally allowed three-year window of opportunity from the original filing deadline, which was April 2004, closes forever, and Uncle Sam gets to keep the cash. * Click here to find out where your state ranks in unclaimed refunds. The IRS estimates that the median refund -- meaning half of the checks will be larger and half smaller -- is $611. Some of the money is likely owed to taxpayers in every state and the District of Columbia, as well as to residents of U.S. territories and military filers who didn't file returns that year. California is home to the most taxpayers -- around 200,000 -- who didn't send in returns three years ago, accounting for more than $236 million of the total unclaimed pot. But New Hampshire residents and members of the military are likely owed the largest checks. The Granite State's median unclaimed refund is $709; the median for service members is $785. Not an uncommon oversight Despite the staggering amount, the IRS says that unclaimed refund money isn't that unusual. Each year, some people don't file a return because they don't owe taxes. But without the documentation, these folks won't get any refunds they're due. The IRS doesn't send refunds unless it gets a Form 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ that details just how big the government's check should be. Other taxpayers had income tax withheld but didn't have to file a return because they had earned too little. But the only way they can get the withheld money back is to file a return. Then there are individuals who were eligible for but didn't take the earned-income tax credit. This is a tax break for workers who don't earn much. It can actually rebate cash to qualified filers -- even those who owe nothing. In 2003, individuals qualified for the earned-income credit if they made less than $11,230 and were childless, earned less than $29,666 and had one child, or earned no more than $33,692 and had two or more kids at home. No penalty . . . and no return There is no penalty for late filing when the taxpayer is due a refund. However, if you subsequently ran up an IRS bill that you didn't pay or you owe another debt of concern to the government, such as child support or a student loan, you may not get all of your 2003 refund. In these cases, once the nonfiler finally gets a return to the IRS, the tax cash will be applied to outstanding charges before any remainder is refunded. If you think some of the refund stash is yours, you can download a 2003 Form 1040 from the IRS Web site. If you need an old 1040A or 1040EZ instead, you can find them at the agency's index of past-year forms. Be sure to check out the 2004 and 2005 documents if you didn't file a return for those years either. The IRS won't send you your 2003 cash unless you filed in subsequent years. Taxpayers who prefer the phone to the personal computer can call 1-800-829-3676 to request an old form. You probably should ring up the IRS as soon as possible to allow ample time for processing and to make sure the forms get to you in time to meet the April deadline. Once the forms are in hand, taxpayers who need help completing prior year returns or in gathering past income records may call the IRS help line at 1-800-829-1040. But whatever tax-filing moves you have to make to claim your cash, make them soon. After April 17, it stays in Uncle Sam's pocket. This article was reported and written by Kay Bell for Bankrate.com. Published March 17, 2007

St. Patrick Revealed The man behind the green beer and myth. By David Plotz Posted Friday, March 16, 2007, at 7:12 AM ET Statue of St. Patrick On March 17, revelers will drink green beer (and eat corned beef) in celebration of the man who, according to David Plotz, "didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish." In a 2000 piece reproduced below, Plotz stripped the myth away from St. Patrick, evaluating the many different popular incarnations that have arisen in the years since his birth. Today we raise a glass of warm green beer to a fine fellow, the Irishman who didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish. St. Patrick, who died 1,507, 1,539, or 1,540 years ago today—depending on which unreliable source you want to believe—has been adorned with centuries of Irish blarney. Innumerable folk tales recount how he faced down kings, negotiated with God, tricked and slaughtered Ireland's reptiles. The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession and the indignant Letter to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: "We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more," he recalls in the Confession. He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland. He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18th-century fabrication.) According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Paddy's influence extended far beyond his adopted land. Cahill's book, which could just as well be titled How St. Patrick Saved Civilization, contends that Patrick's conversion of Ireland allowed Western learning to survive the Dark Ages. Ireland pacified and churchified as the rest of Europe crumbled. Patrick's monasteries copied and preserved classical texts. Later, Irish monks returned this knowledge to Europe by establishing monasteries in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy. The Irish have celebrated their patron saint with a quiet religious holiday for centuries, perhaps more than 1,000 years. It took the United States to turn St. Patrick's Day into a boozy spectacle. Irish immigrants first celebrated it in Boston in 1737 and first paraded in New York in 1762. By the late 19th century, the St. Patrick's Day parade had become a way for Irish-Americans to flaunt their numerical and political might. It retains this role today. The scarcity of facts about St. Patrick's life has made him a dress-up doll: Anyone can create his own St. Patrick. Ireland's Catholics and Protestants, who have long feuded over him, each have built a St. Patrick in their own image. Catholics cherish Paddy as the father of Catholic Ireland. They say that Patrick was consecrated as a bishop and that the pope himself sent him to convert the heathen Irish. (Evidence is sketchy about both the bishop and pope claims.) One of the most popular Irish Catholic stories holds that Patrick bargained with God and got the Big Fella to promise that Ireland would remain Catholic and free. Ireland's Protestant minority, by contrast, denies that Patrick was a bishop or that he was sent by Rome. They depict him as anti-Roman Catholic and credit him with inventing a distinctly Celtic church, with its own homegrown symbols and practices. He is an Irish hero, not a Catholic one. Outside Ireland, too, Patrick has been freely reinterpreted. Evangelical Protestants claim him as one of their own. After all, he read his Bible, and his faith came to him in visions. Biblical inspiration and personal revelation are Protestant hallmarks. Utah newspapers emphasize that Patrick was a missionary sent overseas to convert the ungodly, an image that resonates in Mormon country. New Age Christians revere Patrick as a virtual patron saint. Patrick co-opted Druid symbols in order to undermine the rival religion, fusing nature and magic with Christian practice. The Irish placed a sun at the center of their cross. "St. Patrick's Breastplate," Patrick's famous prayer (which he certainly did not write) invokes the power of the sun, moon, rocks, and wind, as well as God. (This is what is called "Erin go hoo-ha.") Patrick has even been enlisted in the gay rights cause. For a decade, gay and lesbian Irish-Americans have sought permission to march in New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and for a decade they have lost in court. Cahill, among others, has allied Patrick with gays and lesbians. Cahill's Patrick is a muscular progressive. He was a proto-feminist who valued women in an age when the church ignored them. He always sided with the downtrodden and the excluded, whether they were slaves or the pagan Irish. If Patrick were around today, Cahill says, he would join the gay marchers. Now television has invented yet another Patrick. Last night, Fox Family Channel aired its made-for-TV movie St. Patrick. Fox's Patrick is mostly drawn from the historical record, but the producers added one new storyline. The English parent church demands that Patrick collect its church taxes in Ireland. Patrick rebels and risks excommunication by the British bishop. The fearless colonist leads a tax revolt against the villainous English. We Americans, like everyone else, think St. Patrick is one of us.

Viacom sues YouTube for $1 billion

The lawsuit, the first big attack on the Google-owned video-sharing site, may just be a negotiating ploy. But it could be the first volley in a war between Google and its old-media rivals.


By Elizabeth Strott

Just days after Google (GOOG, news, msgs) CEO Eric Schmidt said that media companies will have no choice but to work with online sites such as YouTube, the first of the big media companies has responded -- with a $1 billion lawsuit.

Media giant Viacom (VIA, news, msgs) is charging that the video-sharing site, now owned by Google, has shown 160,000 of its videos without permission.

"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws," Viacom said.

Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in a statement that the company has "not received the lawsuit but (is) confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree." Reyes said the suit would not "become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube." Corporate arrogance? One intellectual-property expert said he was "not surprised" by the suit.

"I think this is a problem for Google," said Justin Hughes, director of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law's Intellectual Property Law Program. "Google has had a series of situations where it looks like corporate arrogance regarding intellectual property."

In buying YouTube, Google bought a business model largely based on infringement, Hughes said. Google's Book Search Library Project also suggests a corporate disregard for intellectual property, he added.

Partners or rivals? Schmidt's earlier comments may have been a way to put pressure on Viacom and other media conglomerates as the one-time video upstart tries to negotiate terms for licensing deals.

Last month, after talks about a licensing deal failed, YouTube said it would remove 100,000 Viacom clips, including a number from Comedy Central shows.

"The growth of YouTube, the growth of online, is so fundamental that these companies are going to be forced to work with and in the Internet," Schmidt said last week in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Conversations with Judy Woodruff."

The lawsuit "is an initial attempt to move negotiations along," Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck wrote in a note to clients today. "Both sides would be better served with an agreement."

But not everyone agrees. "Viacom's Web traffic is increasing nicely since it pulled content from 'GooTube,' " Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, told Reuters. "There is certainly an opportunity for YouTube to do a deal with Viacom, but Viacom does not have to have a YouTube deal." Policing the site The problem with YouTube, Viacom and the other big media players say, is that it will pull copyright clips only after its been asked to do so, putting the burden of policing content on the copyright holders and allowing users to re-post illegal copies as soon as they are removed.

Google and YouTube are relying on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, which criminalizes technology whose primary purpose is to circumvent measures that control access to copyright works -- even when there is no actual infringement.

If a site removes content "expeditiously" when it receives notice from the copyright holder, then the site has a so-called safe harbor from lawsuits.

The problem, Hughes said, was that the act, written during an earlier, pre-Napster Internet era, was not designed for infringement-based business models. While the act is unlikely to be rewritten, Hughes said it is open to judicial interpretation -- and added that a judge could come down hard on Google. More lawsuits to come? Meanwhile, media companies have been investing in their own Web video capabilities in an attempt to drive video traffic to their own sites.

Although Viacom, the owner of MTV Networks, Comedy Central and several other cable channels, as well as Paramount Pictures, is the first of the big media conglomerates to sue YouTube, it may not be the last.

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News Corp. (NWS, news, msgs), General Electric's (GE, news, msgs) NBC Universal and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have also criticized YouTube. News Corp. and Cuban have both gone to court to force the company to identify people who illegally uploaded copyright material.

Bob Tur, a freelance helicopter reporter who shot video during the Los Angeles riots in 1991 and who has sued YouTube over the publication of his videos, told CNBC that YouTube's business model is like that of TV's Sopranos: They "don't pay for anything, get your content for nothing and sell it to the highest advertiser. It's a wonderful business model, except it's illegal."

Dollar Coins Missing 'In God We Trust'
Wednesday March 7, 12:51 pm ET By Joann Loviglio, Associated Press Writer

U.S. Mint Says Unknown Number of New One Dollar Coins Missing 'In God We Trust' Inscription

In this undated photo released by Professional Coin Grading Service, a George Washington dollar coin missing the edge inscription is shown.


PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and made it past inspectors and into circulation, the U.S. Mint said Wednesday. The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of George Washington, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint mark. They went into circulation Feb. 15. The mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter. About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver. So far the mint has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia, mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey said. Bailey said it was unknown how many coins didn't have the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation. "The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll probably settle in the $50 range." Production of the presidential dollar entails a "new, complex, high-volume manufacturing system" that the mint will adjust to eliminate any future defects, the mint said in a statement. "We take this matter seriously. We also consider quality control a high priority. The agency is looking into the matter to determine a possible cause in the manufacturing process," the statement said. The coin's design has already spurred e-mail conspiracy theories claiming that the religious motto was purposely omitted from the Washington dollars. That rumor may have started because the edge lettering cannot be seen in head-on photographs of the coins. The Washington dollars are the first in a series of presidential coins slated to run until 2016. After Washington, the presidents to be honored on dollar coins this year will be John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Bailey said the striking of the Adams coin, expected to roll out in mid-May, will proceed as planned. "We are adjusting the manufacturing process to try to eliminate the problems," she said. U.S. Mint: http://www.usmint.gov Professional Coin Grading Service: http://www.pcgs.com

I found this in a Bulletin & I had to blog it. If for no other reason, so I can come back & reread it. -------------------------------------------------- Never underestimate the power of the perfect kiss. Get it right, and the rest will fall into place. It has been theorized that a woman decided within five minutes of meeting a man whether or not she will have sex with him. Possibly true, but there is one catch. Most women I know, myself included, may initially decide we'll have sex with a guy, but when we find out he's a bad or a mediocre kisser, we change our minds entirely. We decide we will never have sex with this guy. He won't even get asked for a nightcap, much less for breakfast the next morning. As our lips part while we stand on the doorstep, we will announce that we have an early-morning meeting or (if you were really awful) that we're actually already married to someone else. What we will never, ever say is, "God, you're a lousy kisser. I was going to have sex with you until just this moment." This is one of the ways in which men and women differ. If a man is very attracted to a woman but discovers she's a bad or mediocre kisser, he'll probably have sex with her anyway if presented with the opportunity. A woman can't get past a bad kiss. (Unless, of course, she's a horrible kisser herself, but we're not talking about those women here.) Experience has shown most women that a bad kiss only spells trouble down the road, so to speak. After all, if he hasn't mastered kissing and fails to see its sensual possibilities, what hope is there for, ahem, anything else? The disappointment of a bad kiss is a recurring topic of discussion among a group of single women I run with in the park several times a week. "It tuens into a fabric softener thing," says Nora, a blond from Dallas, when describing the previous night's date. "You know, where the guy kisses you and it's so bad but you've got to finish it up so your mind wanders and you start wondering if you have enough fabric softener to do two loads of laundry the next day?" She laughs. "So I'm thinking about that, and the guy says, "Wow! You're very passionate." Oh, the egos we would crush if men could hear the post-mortems. If any guys happen to be running with us, they immediately demand to know what exactly constitutes a bad or good kisser. So we tell them about the all-purpose litmus test: A bad kisser, reguardless of whether he likes to secrete a gallon of drool or waggle his head like a dog menacing a bone, seems to be simultaneously thinking: " When can we get to step two? And three and four? Is she aroused yet? can I put my hand on her breast now?" He sees kissing as the next step on a carnal quest. The good kisser, however, sees the kiss as the destination itself. He kisses as if he will never do anything else with this woman, as if he never wants to do anything else with this woman. He kisses as if this is what he's been dying to do for years and he wants to savor every moment. I guarentee you that this is when the woman decides there will be other activities on the agenda. The first thing to remember: When in Doubt, Go Slowly. make that first kiss slow and gentle and easy. While you may want to demonstrate that you're a cauldron of seething desire, save that for later, when you're both sufficiently warmed up. In the meantime, resist the urge to mash your face against hers so hard your teeth collide and she ends up with brush burns from your stubble. One woman in our running group actually passed out during a particularly bad kiss of this sort, when the man pressed his face to hers so tightly he blocked off her nose with his cheek, mistook her thrshing for passion, and suddenly felt her body go limp. "i was out for maybe thrity seconds," she says. "Fortunately, he had me in a bear hug, so I didn't hit the group. Of course, he thought I passed out because the kiss was so good." This is what's known as the Harrison Ford School of Making Out. Watch him in the movies,a nd watch his costar's face get twisted out of shape from the sheer force. this is also why they're panting afterward. It's not from desire, it's oxygen deprivation. So the second thing to remember while kissing is to make sure she can still breathe through her nose. There are other movie stars who perpetuate bad kissing styles. There's the Tom Cruise Method (as seen in Top Gun), whereby his tongue is already slithering out before he's met her lips. This is also referred to as the Lizard-King Style, and once lip-locked, it may also feature the rather grotesque tongue-insterted-rapidly-in-and-out. Most women do not cherish the idea of kissing a large anaconda, which is what this must be similar to. Equally unappealing is when the guy's tongue seems to be on a thorough search for any food trapped between the woman's molars. This is her tongue's job, not yours. The only response possible is for the woman to open her mouth wide and remain motionless while he finishes his routing, a posture that calls to mind trips to the dentist. Like good sex and great dancing, any tongue action should involve a give-and-take, with both parties allowed the opportunity for interaction in a saliva-laden minuet. Get into a groove with this, and every now and then you may want to stop for a short time while still joined at thelips. Like being on a dance floor and suddenly holding your partner motionless, it can have the galvanizing effect of heightening the sensation. this is ideally practiced in places like a dark booth in a dive bar with a great jukebox. Just make sure your sleeve doesn't catch fire from the candle on the table. So although no one wants a tongue completely jammed down her throat, neither do we want its exact opposite, as favored by Woody Allen, one of the screen's all-time-worst kissers. Check out the last scene in Hannah and Her Sisters, and you'll see him pecking away at Dianne Wiest. This Road-runner-eats-birdseed style of dry, repeated kisses accompanied by inordinately loud smacky sounds is not what any woman fantasizes about--even if she's weird enough to fantasize about kissing Woody Allen. The occasional smacky sound is inevitable and can exciting, but go easy on the moaning and groaning. Its sounds fake at best and, at worst, like an unconscious habit, like tuneless whistling. Daniel Day-Lewis belongs in the kissing hall of fame for Best Use of Hands. He gently caresses his costar's face and touches her hair, a model of how hands can increase the erotic pleasure of the moment. Bear in mind the hands should not be used to prevent the woman from going anywhere or to clamp her head into one uncomfortable position. Remember most women like men to toy gently with their hair. After decades of bad press about sticky hairsprays and helmet hair, most of us have been using products to enhance "touchability" and are favoring hairstyles that look good a bit tousled. So go ahead and touch hair. And quit using all that sticky hairspray and goo so we can go back to touching yours. Finally, I offer this suggestion: Try opening your eyes. I once cautiously opened my eyes while kissing and saw a pair of brown eyes staring back at me, which made the kiss even better because it became more intimate. Some people find this to be an impossible task (like sneezing with your eyes open), but while the prevailing belief is that we must try to block out all other sensations, you may find that kissing with your eyes open is the sensual equivalent of making love with the lights on. And if you're going to be kissing for several hours in a make-out bar, it's a good idea to peek periodically at the where-abouts of your drinks, her purse, and your wallet.

Mastectomy Hospital Bill in Congress I received this in my e-mail from on of my Model Friends. She asked me to pass it on to all my friends & asked them to sign this Petition. So even if you are a MAN, I’m sure there is a woman in your life (even if it is just your mother) that this could effect them. Thanks, David WolfEagle1499

@ CherryTAP --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery. Mastectomy Bill in Congress It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important... please take the time and do it really quick! Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill - Important legislation for all women. Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others you know who will do the same. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number. http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family, and on behalf of all women

Upstate N.Y. residents dig out from heavy snow

Sun breaks through as storms end; snow tops 120 inches in some towns Shoveling snow this week in upstate New York, including this scene Thursday in the town of Pulaski, is no easy task. Lake effect snow has buried the area under as much as three inches of snow an hour. Updated: 1:58 p.m. ET Feb 10, 2007 PARISH, N.Y. - Sunshine greeted residents of this snowbound village on Saturday, giving crews a chance to haul away some of the 8 feet of snow that has fallen during the past week. “The sun’s out, but it isn’t going to last,” Mike Avery said as he took a brief break from loading dump trucks with snow to be taken to a pile outside town. The National Weather Service said the bands of lake-effect snow fed by moisture from Lake Ontario would continue weaving up and down the lake’s eastern shore during the weekend, dropping 2 to 4 more feet of snow with wind of up to 25 mph. “It’s all we need,” Avery said, his tractor dwarfed by the snowbank he was trying to dismantle. “It’s getting monotonous.” Parish — about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse — reached a milestone early Saturday with 100 inches of snow over the past seven days, the National Weather Service said. Unofficial reports pegged totals at 123 inches in Orwell and 122 in Redfield, but the weather service said those numbers include snow from another storm a couple of days before the current weather system arrived last Sunday. All three towns are in Oswego County. ‘Ain’t nothing good about this much snow’ More than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 20 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, New York and Maryland, authorities said. No deaths were reported in Oswego County. It’s been an exhausting week in Oswego County. “This is right up there with the best of them, almost as bad as the Blizzard of ’66. But there ain’t nothing good about this much snow,” Ray DeLong grumbled as his snowblower clogged and stalled on Friday in nearby Mexico. Mexico residents see 5- to 6-foot snowfalls every two or three years, but even hardened locals are amazed at the scenes before them now: parked SUVs noticeable only because their antennas or roof racks stand above the snow’s surface; front doors buried, with footprints leading to second-story windows; 6-foot-thick slabs of snow that have slid off roofs, forming colossal arches as they stretch intact to the ground. Sidewalks look like miniature canyons. ‘All we do is shovel’ Mark Kelcinski’s son spent two hours Friday with a shovel and snowblower in front of the family’s graphics design shop, carving a path through the snowbank to the street. They have done the same thing each day for five days. “That’s all we do is shovel and snowblow all day long,” said Kelcinski. “You go home and then come in and do the same thing again the next day.” The state transportation department said 125 workers from elsewhere in the state had been sent in with snow equipment to help. The region is located along the Tug Hill Plateau, the snowiest region this side of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a 50-mile wedge of land that rises 2,100 feet from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario and catches the snow-laden winter wind blowing off the lake. It usually gets about 300 inches — roughly 25 feet — of snow a year. The hamlet of Hooker, near the boundaries of Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties, holds the state record for snowfall in a year — 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in the winter of 1976-77. It sits right next to the hamlet of Montague, which got 77 inches in a 24-hour period in January 1997. © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Company to Donate T-shirts to Servicemembers
Military.com

Week of January 22, 2007

Raising Consciousness America Foundation, Inc. (RCAF) will donate 500,000 specially designed T-shirts to active and wounded military personnel worldwide. The organization commissioned 2TWO, an Atlanta based design company to create and produce "the Heart of America" t-shirts. "We recognized that it's a small but hopefully significant gesture, one that will allow "America" to express its sincere appreciation for what has been sacrificed by these soldiers and their families" said, Towanda Scott, VP of Marketing for Raising Consciousness America Foundation, Inc. Shipments are currently underway; additional support, sponsorships and donations are needed to meet the July 4th, 2007 goal. To view the shirts or find out how you can help, please go to http://www.rconscious.org/ or contact Ms Towanda Scott by email, towandascottasap@yahoo.com or call 404-409-0245. Please pass this one to all your Military Friends

Trying to File Taxes Early? Think Again
Military.com


Last December, President Bush signed the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 (HR 6408) into law. The key provisions of this bill that will help military families are the tuition and higher education tax deductions and the inclusion of combat pay in the earned income credit calculation. However, the late passage of this act has put the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and early filers in a bind. The IRS announced that the new changes forced them to suspend early tax filing for taxpayers who want to use these credits until Feb.3. The new date allows the IRS enough time to update its systems to accommodate the tax law changes without disrupting other operations tied to the tax filing season, according to an IRS press release. Any paper or electronic returns sent before Feb. 3 will be accepted but not processed until after the February deadline. “Based on filings early this year, only about 930,000 tax returns claimed any of the three provisions by Feb.1.” says IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson, in an IRS-issued statement. “This year the IRS expects to receive about 136 million tax returns,” Everson adds. In order to claim any of these deductions, taxpayers must use form 1040 and follow these instructions regarding tuition and higher education deductions: • Taxpayers file Form 1040 to take this deduction for up to $4,000 of tuition and fees paid to a post-secondary institution. It cannot be claimed on Form 1040A. • The deduction for tuition and fees will be claimed on Form 1040, line 35, “Domestic production activities deduction.” Enter “T” on the blank space to the left of that line entry if claiming the tuition and fees deduction, or “B” if claiming both a deduction for domestic production activities and the deduction for tuition and fees. For those entering “B,” tax payers must attach a breakdown showing the amounts claimed for each deduction. The IRS encourages early filers to continue filing taxes online. Filing online will help expedite the tax return process. “We encourage taxpayers who think they may claim these deductions to file electronically,” Everson says. “They will get their refunds faster through e-file.” For more information about filing taxes visit http://www.irs.gov/ or http://www.military.com/finance

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,123390,00.html Sailor-Playmate Wants Posing Policy Military.com | January 25, 2007 In an exclusive interview with Military.com, former Navy Petty Officer and Playboy playmate Sherry Lynne White recommends that the military develop a policy that specifically provides nude modeling guidelines to servicemembers. “The military needs to make guidelines that say ‘if you want to do this you can’t wear the uniform and you can’t use our name,’” White says. “Right now there’s nothing in black and white. It’s up for interpretation. There’s no set punishment. That’s why no one knows what’s going to happen to {Air Force Staff Sergeant Michelle Manhart} or what was going to happen to anyone before her.” While White is sympathetic to Air Force Staff Sergeant Michelle Manhart’s situation, she makes a distinction between the two of them: “She used the Air Force to start the launch,” she says. “She used her uniform – or pieces of it – to claim that fame.” White is also quick to emphasize that she never wore any part of the uniform in her shoots. "I would never dishonor the the military like that," she says. Listen to “The Editor’s Desk” podcast with Sherry Lynne White White’s controversial journey started when she was an Information Systems Technician working on the Submarine Forces Pacific staff in the late ‘90s and her modeling career started to take off. “I was an E-5 in Hawaii and wasn’t getting paid enough to make ends meet out in town,” she says. “I needed to get a second job. I was also going to school full-time to get my bachelors degree. I needed a quick way to get some money.” White entered a bikini contest and placed fourth out of four. But she turned her embarrassment into motivation. She began to work out and watch her diet. “I lost a lot of weight,” White says. “From there I started doing commercials, and I was doing extra work for Fantasy Island and Baywatch Hawaii. I also became a Miller Beer model.” White’s modeling and acting career was by-in-large sanctioned by her command, in fact, she was able to get many of her co-workers – including officers – on the set of Fantasy Island as extras. What the folks at SUBPAC didn’t know was that along with her acting and Miller Beer duties, White had also posed nude for a freelance photographer who had a loose affiliation with Playboy magazine. Ironically, one of those photos was published in an issue of Playboy that hit newsstands on the same day that Petty Officer White was recognized as SUBPAC’s Sailor of the Year. “Right after they gave me a medal in front of the whole command,” White says, “they took me to an office and gave me a letter of reprimand.” From that point her chain of command attempted to minimize the potential embarrassment to the Navy. White’s superiors told her that if she could somehow get all the pictures back from Playboy and keep them from appearing in future issues then she would avoid punishment. They even offered her the chance to become an officer. But there was no way Playboy was going to return the photos. In fact, the subsequent issue had already been “put to bed” with more nude photos of White. “They were older photos,” White says with a chuckle. “I had red hair in them.” White’s inability to get the photos back was coupled with her aversion to follow-on sea duty. “I’d been to sea more than half my career,” she says. “I wanted to live life for awhile.” She sealed her fate a few months later by doing a six-page high-gloss pictorial that appeared in the September 2000 issue of Playboy. “It was starting to get hot. I knew that I was going to be in the issue and they did mention me being Sailor of the Year. They had a picture of me in uniform doing a Navy commercial with Spike Lee.” She decided to give her command a heads up. The command was less than amused. “The message traffic started flying,” White says. But after a few months of teeth gnashing, she was quietly shown the door with an “RE-4” discharge (“honorable but with misconduct”) just before the September Playboy came out. Her checkout process was another exercise in irony for her. Many of her shipmates signed her checkout sheet and then asked her to sign their copies the earlier issue (February 2000) of Playboy in return. After White left the Navy she toured in support of the September issue and then, along with her new husband – a submariner who was still in the Navy – she went to work for Playboy full time. “I went to the {Playboy} mansion many times,” she says wryly. She describes Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as “very cordial” and says “everybody hung on him for photo opportunities.” When asked about the parties at the mansion she allows that “everybody is walking around naked or half-naked – males and females. Everybody’s having a good time.” White continued to work for Playboy as her husband returned to sea duty and, perhaps predictably, they divorced shortly thereafter. She stopped working for Playboy in 2003 after she “found God” and reassessed her stance toward nude modeling. Shortly thereafter she earned her teaching certificate and began teaching high school. “I love an audience,” she says. “And now I have an audience that has to give me their attention.” But when asked if she’s do it all again, White quickly responds with an unqualified, “Yes.” And what would her advice be to another female servicemember thinking about posing nude? “If that’s what she wants to do with her life and that’s what her belief system is, I’d say ‘go for it.’” Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.