spaniard feminism

lorentzenastrid04

BlackBerry P9981 Porsche Design How fitting that RIM and Porsche Design has chosen one of the world?s most famous luxury department stores, Harrods in London, as the exclusive seller of its luxury BlackBerry P?9981 phone.

Announced at the tail end of October but with no firm release date attached, the flashy device has now gone on sale there, where it?s priced at a mere ?1,275, or a touch under $2,000.

That?s SIM-free of course, but admittedly the price would probably only be considered ?mere? by regular Harrods patrons, as it?s considerably more than the standard Bold 9900 on which it?s based.

Like its cheaper cousin, the P?9981 has a 1.2Ghz processor, 768MB RAM, a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 resolution touchscreen and a 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. It?s separated by that eye-catching design, the brushed metal fascia and the hand-wrapped, all-leather rear panel.

BlackBerry OS 7 has been treated to a Porsche Design makeover too, as it uses a custom UI and has the popular augmented reality app, Wikitude World Browser, pre-installed.

Available with either English or Arabic as the standard language, anyone keen to get their hands on this genuinely exclusive BlackBerry will have to make the journey to Harrods ? or at least their flunky will anyway ? as it?s only available in-store and not online. However, we?re willing to bet they would send one out with your weekly order of Dom Perignon if you asked nicely.

Phonearena.com spoke to a Harrods representative, who described the P?9981 as ?in very high demand and selling fast.?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

Pied de page

Source: http://twitter.com/TrendsLondon/statuses/151032341681278976

michael myers power outage snow storm snow storm reggie bush ufc 137 boston news

lorentzenastrid04

LONDON ? The loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals' accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor's confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

"Not so private and secret anymore?" the group taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Anonymous said the client list it posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them ? an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that "for obvious reasons" the Air Force doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them.

"The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take appropriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information," he said in an email.

Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about a security breach involving the police department.

It soon became clear that proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor's newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, and that the main threat was posed to individual employees.

Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor's client list, Anonymous tweeted a link to encrypted files online with the names, addresses and account details.

"Not as many as you expected? Worry not, fellow pirates and robin hoods. These are just the "A"s," read a message posted online that encouraged readers to download a file of the hacked information.

It also linked to images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole.

"Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency," read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee's information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.

One receipt ? to the American Red Cross ? had Allen Barr's name on it.

Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of $700 had been spent from his account. Barr, who has spent more than a decade dealing with cybercrime at banks, said five transactions were made in total.

"It was all charities, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children. So when the credit card company called my wife she wasn't sure whether I was just donating," said Barr, who wasn't aware until a reporter with the AP called that his information had been compromised when Stratfor's computers were hacked.

"It made me feel terrible. It made my wife feel terrible. We had to close the account."

Stratfor said in an email to members that it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked.

"We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites," said the email, passed on to The Associated Press by subscribers. "We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained."

The email, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman, said the company is "working closely with law enforcement to identify who is behind the breach."

"Stratfor's relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me," Friedman wrote.

Repeated calls to Stratfor went unanswered Sunday and an answering machine thanked callers for contacting the "No. 1 source for global intelligence." Stratfor's website was down, with a banner saying "site is currently undergoing maintenance."

Wishing everyone a "Merry LulzXMas" ? a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security ? Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee.

The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted.

"They took money I did not have," he told the AP in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. "I think 'Why me?' I am not rich."

One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists ? "corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox" news ? had been hacked and used to "steal a million dollars" and make donations.

It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al-Jazeera English appeared in the file.

Anonymous warned it has "enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week."

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

____________

Associated Press writers Jennifer Kway in Miami, Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Texas and Daniel Wagner in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.

_____________

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111225/ap_on_hi_te/eu_hacker_christmas

demi moore johnny jolly johnny jolly demi moore and ashton kutcher demi moore and ashton kutcher tebow meteor shower

lorentzenastrid04

ABUJA (Reuters) ? Islamist militants set off bombs across in Nigeria on Christmas Day - three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27 people - raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches. Security forces also blamed the sect for two other blasts in the north.

St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madala, a satellite town about 40 km (25 miles) from the center of the capital Abuja, was packed when the bomb exploded just outside.

"We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I just ran out," Timothy Onyekwere told Reuters. "Now I don't even know where my children or my wife are. I don't know how many were killed but there were many dead."

Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of Gadaka. Residents said many were wounded in Gadaka, but there were no immediate further details.

A suicide bomber killed four security officials at the State Security Service in one of the other bombs, which struck the northeastern town of Damaturu, police said. Residents heard two loud explosions and gunfire in the town.

A Reuters reporter at the church near Abuja saw the front roof had been destroyed, as had several houses nearby. Five burnt out cars were still smoldering. There were scenes of chaos, as shocked residents stared at the wreckage in disbelief.

"Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud sound: 'Gbam!' Cars were in flames and bodies littered everywhere," Nnana Nwachukwu told Reuters.

Father Christopher Barde, Assistant priest of the church, said: "The officials who counted told me they have picked up 27 bodies so far."

"I happen to also live close by the church. Help was very slow in coming to the injured," he said.

Police cordoned off the area around the church. Thousands of furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway from Abuja leading to Nigeria's largely Muslim north.

Police and the military tried to disperse them by firing live rounds into the air with tear gas.

"We are so angry," shouted Kingsley Ukpabi, as a queue of hooting vehicles lined up behind his flaming barrage.

ATTACKS INCREASE

Boko Haram - which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means "Western education is sinful" - is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

It has emerged as the biggest security threat in Nigeria, a country of 160 million split evenly between Christians and Muslims, who for the most part live side by side in peace.

Boko Haram's low level insurgency used to be largely confined to northeastern Nigeria, but it has struck several parts of the north, center and the capital Abuja this year.

Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast.

The sophistication of the explosives it uses and the number of attacks it carries out have increased this year.

The sect was blamed for dozens of bombings and shootings in the north, and has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Abuja this year, including Nigeria's first suicide bombing, which killed at least 23 people at the U.N. headquarters.

Rights groups say more than 250 people have been killed by Boko Haram since July 2010.

At the church near Abuja, a wounded man whose legs were almost shattered to pieces by the blast was loaded onto a stretcher near an ambulance by security services.

"I'll survive," he said in a hushed voice.

The blast in Jos, a tinderbox of ethnic and sectarian tensions that sometimes sees deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians, was accompanied by a shooting spree by militants, who exchanged fire with local police, said Charles Ezeocha, special taskforce spokesman for Jos.

"We lost one policeman and we have made four arrests. I think we can use them to get more information and work on that," he said. Police found four other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated, he added.

President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south who is struggling to contain the threat of Islamist militancy, called the incidents "unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for ever. It will end one day."

The White House condemned "this senseless violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day." A statement said: "We have been in contact with Nigerian officials about what initially appear to be terrorist acts and pledge to assist them in bringing those responsible to justice."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Vatican hoped "this senseless violence does not weaken the will of the Nigerian people to live peacefully and promote dialogue."

The attacks were condemned by a number of other countries, including Britain, France and Italy.

Gun battles between the security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people Thursday and Friday in northern Nigeria, authorities and hospital sources said Saturday.

Boko Haram became active in about 2003 and is concentrated mainly in the northern Nigerian states of Yobe, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and Kaduna.

The group considers all who do not follow its strict ideology as infidels, whether they are Christian or Muslim. It demands the adoption of sharia, Islamic law, in all of Nigeria.

(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi and Buhari Bello in Jos, Mike Oboh in Kano and a correspondent in Maiduguri; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111225/wl_nm/us_nigeria_blast

heisman cp3 lakers news rachel crow rachel crow steelers browns albert pujols

lorentzenastrid04

LOUISVILLE, Ky.?? A 9-year-old autistic boy who misbehaved at school was stuffed into a duffel bag and the drawstring pulled tight, according to his mother, who said she found him wiggling inside as a teacher's aide stood by.

Only on msnbc.com
1. Small businesses see D.C. as big threat
2. Despite ?Don?t Ask? repeal, some gays still don?t tell
3. The quirkiest animal moments of 2011
4. Was Shroud created in a flash? Claims rise again
5. Prostitution, raw milk could give Ron Paul problems
6. A contagion of conflict in China?
7. Tax fraud claimed in Huguette Clark estate

The mother of fourth-grader Christopher Baker said her son called out to her when she walked up to him in the bag Dec. 14. The case has spurred an online petition calling for the firing of school employees responsible.

"He was treated like trash and thrown in the hallway," Chris' mother, Sandra Baker, said Thursday. She did not know how exactly how long he had been in the bag, but probably not more than 20 minutes.

Mercer County schools Interim Superintendent Dennis Davis said confidentiality laws forbid him from commenting.

"The employees of the Mercer County Public Schools are qualified professionals who treat students with respect and dignity while providing a safe and nurturing learning environment," Davis said in a statement.

State education officials said they were investigating.

Story: Autism 5 times more common among low birth weight babies

Chris is a student at Mercer County Intermediate School in Harrodsburg in central Kentucky. The day had barely begun when his family was called to the school because Chris was acting up. He is enrolled in a program for students with special needs.

Walking toward his classroom, Baker's mother saw the gym bag. There was a small hole at the top, she said, and she heard a familiar voice.

"Momma, is that you?" Chris said, according to his mother.

A teacher's aide was there, and Baker demanded that her son be released. At first, the aide struggled to undo the drawstring, but the boy was pulled out of the bag, which had some small balls inside and resembled a green Army duffel bag, Baker said.

"When I got him out of the bag, his poor little eyes were as big as half dollars and he was sweating," Baker said. "I tried to talk to him and get his side of the reason they put him in there, and he said it was because he wouldn't do his work."

Baker said when school officials called the family to pick him up, they were told he was "jumping off the walls." Days later, at a meeting with school officials, Baker said she was told the boy had smirked at the teacher when he was told to put down a basketball, then threw it across the room.

Story: Autism can be an 'advantage,' says researcher

At a meeting with school district officials, the bag was described as a "therapy bag," Baker said, though she wasn't clear exactly what that meant. She said her son would sometimes be asked to roll over a bag filled with balls as a form of therapy, but she didn't know her son was being placed in the bag. She said school officials told her it was not the first time they had put him in the bag.

So far, almost 700 people have signed a petition on the website change.org. Lydia Brown, an autistic 18-year-old Georgetown University freshman from Boston, said she started it after reading a story about Chris.

"That would not be wrong just for an autistic student. That would be wrong to do to anyone," Brown said.

Advocates for the autistic were outraged.

Landon Bryce of San Jose, Calif., a former teacher who blogs about issues related to autism, said the school's treatment of Chris was "careless and disrespectful."

"A lot of the damage that we do to students with all kinds of disabilities is by treating them as though they deserve to be treated in a way that's different from other people," Bryce said.

Baker said she heard different accounts about her son's behavior that day.

Baker stopped short of calling for the dismissal of school employees, but she said they should be suspended. They also need more training, she said.

In Kentucky, there are no laws on using restraint or seclusion in public schools, according to documents on the state Department of Education's website.

A July letter from the state agency to special education directors said the state had investigated two informal complaints this year.

In one, "a student (was) nearly asphyxiated while being restrained," and in the other, a student vomited from panic attacks after spending most of an academic year "confined to a closet, with no ventilation or outside source of light," according to the letter.

Baker's case was first reported by WLEX and WKYT.

___

Associated Press writer Janet Cappiello contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45770432/ns/us_news-life/

billy graham scion fr s elf on a shelf elf on a shelf carrier iq carrier iq linda perry

lorentzenastrid04

WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich failed to qualify for Virginia's Super Tuesday primary ballot, the latest setback for a candidate whose standing in polls has been slipping. Gingrich's campaign said he would pursue an aggressive write-in campaign, though state law prohibits write-ins on primary ballots.

The state party said early Saturday that Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the March 6 ballot.

Failing to get on the ballot in Virginia, where Gingrich lives, underscores the difficulty first-time national candidates have in preparing for the long haul of a presidential campaign.

And it illustrates the advantage held by Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who has essentially been running for president for five years. Romney's team, larger than those of most of his opponents, has paid close attention to filing requirements in each state. He will appear on the Virginia ballot along with Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who also has run a national campaign before.

Ironically, Gingrich had a slight lead over Romney in a Quinnipiac poll of Virginia Republicans released earlier in the week.

The former House speaker surged in popularity in early December and tried to use that momentum to make up for a stalled campaign organization. But his standing in polls has slipped in recent days amid a barrage of negative ads in Iowa, where the Jan. 3 caucuses begin the contest for the Republican presidential nomination.

Three other candidates ? Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman ? did not submit signatures before Virginia's deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday.

Gingrich's campaign attacked Virginia's primary system on Saturday, saying that "only a failed system" would disqualify Gingrich and other candidates and vowing to run a write-in campaign.

"Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said in a statement. "We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice."

However, according to state law, "No write-in shall be permitted on ballots in primary elections."

"Virginia code prohibits write-ins in primaries. He can't do it," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond.

Tobias said Gingrich may have had trouble meeting a requirement that he must submit 400 signatures from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts.

Gingrich's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gingrich had been concerned enough to deliver his signatures personally. Rushing Wednesday from New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Jan. 10, he had supporters sign petitions before entering a rally in Arlington, Va.

Virginia GOP spokesman Garren Shipley said in a statement that volunteers spent Friday validating signatures on petitions that Romney, Paul, Perry and Gingrich had submitted. "After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the party announced early Saturday on its Twitter feed. Shipley did not respond to telephone calls Saturday seeking comment.

Forty-six delegates will be at stake in Virginia's Super Tuesday primary. That's a small fraction of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination. But they could prove pivotal in a close race, especially for a candidate like Gingrich, who expects to do well in Southern contests.

Gingrich already missed the deadline to appear on the ballot in Missouri's Feb. 7 primary, though he insists it doesn't matter because the state awards delegates based not on the primary but on a Republican caucus held in March.

Meanwhile, Virginia's Democrats said President Barack Obama's re-election campaign gathered enough signatures to get him on the state's primary ballot though he was the only candidate who qualified.

___

Associated Press writers Will Lester and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111225/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_ballot

loretta lynn extract extract bobby jindal bobby jindal talladega pumpkin carving

lorentzenastrid04

In the past two decades, criticism of Supreme Court confirmation hearings has intensified considerably. According to the prevailing wisdom, today?s nominees are more reluctant to answer questions during their Senate testimony, and the hearings have suffered as a result. Recent proceedings have been described as ?a vapid and hollow charade,? an ?exercise in obfuscation,?and even a carefully choreographed ?kabuki? dance. In short, the message from critics is clear: Nominees now say ?nothing of value? during their testimony, and the hearings are no longer what they used to be.

This trend toward nominee evasiveness allegedly began after Robert Bork?s 1987 confirmation hearings. According to that well-known account, Bork?s lengthy and candid answers doomed his nomination, and subsequent nominees, seeking to avoid a similar fate, have become much more cagey and unresponsive in their testimony. Along these lines, the approach taken by Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her 1993 confirmation proceedings is now generally regarded as paradigmatic. By declining to discuss any issue that might come before the Court, Ginsburg is thought to have charted a new course for post-Bork nominees. Indeed, the so-called ?Ginsburg Rule? ? according to which nominees invoke their right not to answer questions about potentially unsettled legal debates ? has become shorthand for the idea that contemporary nominees duck and dodge difficult questions in a way that their predecessors did not.

But how accurate is this widely accepted version of events? Have nominees really become less forthcoming in recent years? Previous studies of Supreme Court confirmation hearings have focused on changes in the topics of the questions that senators ask.? But to date, there has been no systematic analysis of how nominees respond to those questions. Therefore, while it is possible that things have gone rapidly downhill since Bork, as the conventional wisdom suggests, the evidence supporting this view has been largely anecdotal.

In our article, ?No Hints, No Forecasts, No Previews?: An Empirical Analysis of Supreme Court Nominee Candor from Harlan to Kagan, we seek to overcome this gap in our understanding of the Supreme Court confirmation process. To that end, we present the results of a content analysis of every Supreme Court confirmation hearing transcript since 1955, the year that the proceedings became a regular part of the confirmation process. For each hearing, we coded all of the exchanges between a senator and the nominee, recording things such as the type of question asked, the degree to which the answer was forthcoming, and the reasons nominees gave for not answering more fully. Using this original dataset ? nearly 11,000 exchanges in total ? we then tested a series of hypotheses about nominee responsiveness in the face of Senate questioning.

Our results show that the conventional wisdom about Supreme Court confirmation hearings needs to be rethought. First, we discovered that there has not been a dramatic decline in nominee responsiveness since the 1980s. Recent nominees, such as Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan, were just as forthcoming as many earlier nominees, and even more forthcoming than others. Second, the overall rate of responsiveness for all nominees, including those who came after Bork, is much better than generally assumed. Nominees generally answer between sixty and seventy percent of their questions in a fully forthcoming manner. By contrast, only about twenty percent of the questions get a qualified response, and outright refusal to answer rarely tops ten percent. Therefore, whether we are talking about hearings from the 1960s or the 1990s, the notion that nominees evade more questions than they answer is unfounded. Lastly, we find that there have been subtle but important changes in the types of questions that are being asked, the topics of those questions, and in the ways in which nominees answer them, and that these shifts have helped to fuel the perception that responsiveness has declined where in fact it has not.

Taken together, these findings suggest to us that Supreme Court confirmation hearings have been largely misunderstood and mischaracterized in recent years, and that whatever one may want to say about recent nominees, one should also say about many of their predecessors as well. To be sure, the hearings have changed over the past few decades: they are longer, there are more questions, and they are more partisan and ideological. But on balance, they are neither more ?vapid? nor more ?hollow? than they have always been ? a finding that we hope will generate a lively debate about the role that these hearings play in the confirmation process.

Dion Farganis is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Elon University; Justin Wedeking is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky.

Posted in Academic Round-up, Featured

Recommended Citation: Dion Farganis, Legal scholarship highlight: Analyzing the candor of Supreme Court nominees, SCOTUSblog (Dec. 23, 2011, 2:16 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/12/legal-scholarship-highlight-analyzing-the-candor-of-supreme-court-nominees/

Source: http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/12/legal-scholarship-highlight-analyzing-the-candor-of-supreme-court-nominees/

artie lange baby lisa irwin baby lisa irwin pearl jam 20 martha marcy may marlene lacuna lacuna

lorentzenastrid04

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio walks of the floor of the House chamber on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011, in Washington. The House rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., walks of the floor of the House chamber on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011 in Washington. The House rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., walks of the floor of the House chamber Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011, in Washington. The Tuesday rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Stuck in a stalemate, President Barack Obama and his Republican rivals are slugging it out in Washington rather than reaching for a holiday season accord to prevent payroll taxes from going up on 160 million workers.

The tax increases, as well as cuts to Medicare doctors' fees and a lapse in jobless benefits, are due Jan. 1. They are looming even though Democrats and Republicans agree that they shouldn't happen. Instead of stopping them, the factions have painted themselves into a corner.

House Republicans are demanding that the Senate join negotiations to produce an agreement within days; Senate Democrats insist no talks will take place before the House approves a stopgap measure to buy more time.

A House vote Tuesday scuttled a bipartisan Senate deal for a two-month extension of all three policies: the payroll tax cuts, jobless benefits and Medicare fees.

After the House killed the Senate measure on a 229-193 vote, Obama signaled he'll use his presidential megaphone to try to force Republicans controlling the House into submission.

"Now let's be clear," Obama said at the White House. "The bipartisan compromise that was reached on Saturday is the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on Jan. 1. The only one."

The Obama campaign promptly took to Twitter and Facebook to fight it out. With their candidate's poll numbers rising, Democratic operatives seemed almost giddy at the prospect of a prolonged battle.

Republican lawmakers relished the battle as well, though some of them are too inexperienced to know that presidents ? regardless of party ? usually win such high-profile fights, like President Bill Clinton did over a 1995-96 government shutdown or President George W. Bush did in skirmishes on anti-terror policies.

House Republicans instead rallied around a plan passed last week that would have extended the payroll tax cut for one year. But that version also contained spending cuts opposed by Democrats and tighter rules for jobless benefits.

If legislation isn't passed by New Year's Day, payroll taxes will go up by almost $20 a week for a worker making a $50,000 salary. Almost 2 million people could lose unemployment benefits as well, and doctors would bear big cuts in Medicare payments.

Whatever the stakes, there was little indication that Republicans would get their wish for negotiations with the Senate any time soon. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he would be happy to resume talks on a yearlong measure ? "but not before" the House ratifies the two-month bill and sends it to Obama for his signature.

Given Obama's remarks and Reid's refusal to negotiate, it was unclear what leverage Republicans had in the year-end standoff. It appeared likely the partisan disagreement could easily persist past Christmas and into the final week of the year.

A little-noticed element of the brawl was that the House-Senate parliamentary situation, which can be a critical factor, is all messed up. The Senate adjourned Saturday until Jan. 23 except for so-called pro forma sessions in which legislative business ? like responding to the House moves ? is basically impossible unless all 100 senators agree. That's never a sure thing.

The standoff was sowing confusion among business executives, who were running out of time to adapt to any new payroll tax regimen. Even the Senate's proposed two-month extension was creating headaches because it contained a two-tiered system geared to ensuring that higher-income earners paid a higher rate on some of their wages, according to a trade group.

"There's not time enough to do that in an orderly fashion," said Pete A. Isberg, president of the National Payroll Reporting Consortium trade group. "We're two weeks away from 2012." He wrote a letter to congressional leaders this week warning that the Senate bill "could create substantial problems, confusion and costs."

Meanwhile, Medicare announced Tuesday that, as it has in the past when doctors' reimbursements have been cut through congressional inaction, it would withhold physicians' payments for two weeks in January to avoid passing on a 27 percent cut in Medicare fees. The hope is that the problem gets fixed by then.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-21-Congress-Payroll%20Tax/id-2de5923a5459422fa0a605b33334859b

nathan hale kohls coupons joe kapp joe kapp macys best buy kohls

lorentzenastrid04

Technology stocks fell Wednesday, dragged down by a weak earnings report from business software maker Oracle Corp. Broad market indexes were flat. The Dow Jones industrial average eked out a gain of 4 points after having been down 104 points at midday. Technology stocks were the issue, with IBM the biggest decliner of the Dow's 30 stocks. IBM fell 3.1 percent, and Oracle fell 11.7 percent.

The Dow gained 4.16 points, or 0.03 percent, to close at 12,107.74.

The S&P 500 index gained 2.42 points, or 0.19 percent, to 1,243.72.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 25.76, or 1 percent, to 2,577.97.

For the week:

The Dow is up 241.35, or 2 percent.

The S&P 500 index is up 24.06, or 2 percent.

The Nasdaq is up 22.64, or 0.9 percent.

For the year to date:

The Dow is up 530.23 points, or 4.5 percent.

The S&P is down 13.92, or 1.1 percent.

The Nasdaq is down 74.90, or 2.8 percent.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111221/ap_on_bi_ge/us_wall_street_box

patti labelle the weeknd the weeknd payroll tax payroll tax sugar cookie recipe sugar cookie recipe

lorentzenastrid04

Getty Images

Though it would be fitting for a kid named ?Luck? to play for a team with a horseshoe on its helmet, the Colts are experiencing an unlikely late-season surge that could cost the team that had presumably locked up the first overall pick a clear shot at their franchise quarterback of the future.

Thanks to an unlikely come-from-behind win over the Texans, the Colts have moved to 2-13 on the season.? If the Vikings lose to the Redskins and/or the Rams lose to the Steelers on Saturday, Week 17 would feature not only the resolution of multiple playoff spots and positioning, but also the final resolution of the ?Suck for Luck? sweepstakes.

If the Colts lose to the Jaguars in Jacksonville on January 1, they?ll clinch the pick via the strength of schedule tiebreaker, which is the first measure used to determine draft position among non-playoff teams.? But if the Colts continue their hot streak and beat the mediocre-at-best Jaguars, either the Rams or the Vikings would slide into the top position position, if either or both lose in Week 17.

And so the fate of Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck won?t be decided for at least a week ? unless both the Rams and Vikings win on Saturday.? Even then, the question of whether Luck will make an Elway/Eli-style power play will move to the front burner, and likely stay there for weeks if not months, once it?s known where the first pick will go.

The Colts? presumed stranglehold on the first overall pick evaporated via their ability to stay close to the Texans throughout Thursday night?s NFL Network season finale, even though it appeared the Texans would roll over Indy after a first-snap-from-scrimmage sack-fumble forced by linebacker Brian Cushing.? One play later, running back Arian Foster gave Houston a 7-0 lead (with the extra point, of course).

Hampering the Texans was a pathetic 10-percent conversion rate on third down.? The only time Houston turned a third down into a first down came late in the game, on a bouncing-ball pass that receiver Jacoby Jones snatched out of the air and carried past the sticks, extending deeper into Indy territory a drive that culminated in another Neil Rackers field goal, making the score 16-12.

But the Texans left the Colts with enough time to piece together a 12-play, 78-yard drive fueled by an uncanny ability of Colts quarterback Dan Orlovsky to sense the pressure and step up in the pocket, a 34-yard pass from Orlovsky to receiver Reggie Wayne on third and seven from the Indy 46,?a pair of penalties on Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, a pass interference call at the Houston one, and a one-yard touchdown pass from Orlovsky to Wayne.

The touchdown and the extra point gave the Colts a 19-16 lead, and with only 19 seconds remaining the Texans couldn?t mount a serious threat for a game-tying field goal.

The loss virtually ensures that the Texans will not earn a playoff bye, forcing them to host the No. 6 seed in the wild-card round.? In fact, there?s a chance that the Texans could fall to No. 4 in the AFC, if Houston loses to Tennessee next week and the Broncos win their final two games.? The resulting 10-6 tie wouldn?t be settled by the first four tiebreakers, pushing the issue to strength of victory then strength of schedule then all sorts of crazy stuff based on points scored and allowed, culminating in a 12th-step coin-toss.

Regardless, the suddenly slumping Texans will host a team like the Steelers or the Jets or maybe the Bengals on the weekend of January 7, making the first postseason game in franchise history a very challenging one.? Based on the way the Texans played against the Panthers on Sunday and the Colts on Thursday night, a one-and-out postseason debut seems to be looming in Houston.

But at least they possibly have saved themselves from having to face Andrew Luck for the next 15 years.

UPDATE 12:21 a.m. 12/23/11:? As a reader wisely points out in the comments, the Jaguars could avoid seeing Luck in the division as well by laying down for the Colts next Sunday.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/22/barkley-takes-a-big-risk-by-sticking-around/related/

jersey shore season 5 lea michele michael buble michael buble teddy roosevelt kim richards rita hayworth

lorentzenastrid04

SARASOTA, Fla. -- A small reminder of hurricane season for the Gulf coast residents came early this week. In the early morning hours of Monday, the rain started trickling down. By midmorning, the rain became a small reminder to be prepared for Florida's hurricane season bringing downpour and thunderstorms in the typically dry season.

Unseasonably early, the thunderstorms brought heavy downpour, high winds and plenty of lightening. I watched what used to be our arid lawn turn into water front property. March is typically one of the drier months for Florida. At 8 a.m., I stood in my doorway to video the beginning of the March madness thunderstorms. The flooding was minimal at that point. However, the wind was very apparent. The loud wind gusts of rain took over what is typically a quiet neighborhood.

Power, Internet and cable outages randomly happened during the day and continued well into the night. My husband was out in the rain providing light service for AAA members, while I made the list of hurricane supplies we needed safely in the comfort of our candle-lit home. If this was a preview of what the hurricane season was to be, prepared I will be.

As night fell, the rain continued bringing over two inches of rain and continued outages. The weatherman had said a 30 percent chance of rain, rising into the week because of the northern moisture making its way down south.

While the rain steadily fell, I thought about the 30 percent chance of my garage flooding; the 30 percent chance of my neighbors oak tree falling on my roof; and, my 30 percent chance of my husband getting into an accident because people forget how to drive when there is a drop of moisture in Florida. Let alone a whole days worth.

Predicting the front to move out by Wednesday, and followed up by the end of the week with more showers and thunderstorm producing an additional four inches of rain, my 30 percent chance of flooding has become imminent. The streets closer to the bay, like the one I live on, flooded with only 2 inches of rain. Four inches of rain will bring flash flood warnings, and more outages.

Waking up Tuesday, the rainwater subsided; the sky resembled a cool Michigan autumn night; and the weatherman is still saying 30 percent chance for rain for the rest of week. Returning to normal Florida weather by Sunday; hot, humid, and unpredictable.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111222/us_ac/8176061_floridas_gulf_coast_gets_small_reminder_that_hurricane_season_is_close

alot alot are you afraid of the dark are you afraid of the dark dallas news google tv cornel west

lorentzenastrid04

We were unable to forward you to the advertisement you clicked on.

The likely cause for this is that your browser, feed reader, or email application is configured to not accept cookies, or your reader may launch an external browser to view links without sharing cookies.

If you're using Internet Explorer, make sure your privacy setting is at medium or below.
- Select 'Internet Options' from the 'Tools' menu in your browser window
- Click the Privacy tab
- Adjust your privacy setting if necessary
  ?
If you're using a reader that embeds Internet Explorer (examples: Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Feed Demon), you'll also need to select Internet Explorer as your default web browser.
- Open Internet Explorer
- Select 'Internet Options' from the 'Tools' menu in your browser window
- Click the 'Programs' tab and check the box for Internet Explorer to check if it is the default browser and save your change
- Close your browser, re-open it, and when prompted, select Internet Explorer as your default
- You can then click on an ad in your newsletter and visit the site you wish to view

Source: http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=08f40952e637c53ded4ebb942c67a685&p=4

uss arizona memorial uss arizona memorial d day fun. words with friends words with friends roy orbison

lorentzenastrid04

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens died Thursday of pneumonia, a complication of the esophageal cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010. He was 62.

A prolific writer on everything from atheism to politics to the British royal family, Hitchens was known for his unflinching prose and often unpopular opinions which created a great deal of debate amongst his readers in Vanity Fair, where he had been a contributing editor since 1992.

"Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from, dare I say it, God. He died today at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, after a punishing battle with esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father," confirmed Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar. Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."

"To his friends, Christopher will be remembered for his elevated but inclusive humor and for a staggering, almost punishing memory that held up under the most liquid of late-night conditions. And to all of us, his readers, Christopher Hitchens will be remembered for the millions of words he left behind. They are his legacy. And, God love him, it was his will," Carter wrote.

Celebrity obituaries on SheKnows >>

Hitchens kept up his writing duties after his dire diagnosis, refusing to back down from his anti-religion stance even in the face of his own mortality.

"So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion," he wrote in his final column for Vanity Fair, which can be read in the January 2012 issue. "It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don't live up to their apparent billing."

Christopher Hitchens is survived by his wife Carol Blue and three children, Alexander, Sophia and Antonia.

Image courtesy Doug Meszler / WENN

Source: http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/850229/controversial-writer-christopher-hitchens-loses-his-cancer-battle

jets tom brady aaron hernandez aaron hernandez portland news portland news tibetan mastiff

lorentzenastrid04

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Michael Buble held off stiff competition from new releases by the Black Keys and Amy Winehouse, as his holiday album "Christmas" retained the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday for the third consecutive week.

Grammy-winning blues-rock duo Black Keys entered the chart at No. 2 with their seventh studio album "El Camino," which earned solid critical praise from critics, with Rolling Stone's Will Hermes calling it "the Keys' grandest pop gesture yet."

British singer Adele, who made Billboard history after becoming the first female artist to score triple honors with top single, album and artist, dropped to No. 3, while pop singer Justin Bieber dropped one place to No. 4 with his festive album "Under the Mistletoe."

Amy Winehouse's posthumous album "Lioness: Hidden Treasures" debuted at No. 5 on the chart after selling 114,000 copies in the U.S.

The release topped the U.K. album chart last week, and the singer's father Mitch Winehouse posted on Twitter that he was "bursting with pride."

"Glee: The Music, Season 3: Volume 7," the latest compilation album from the cast of Fox's TV series "Glee," entered the chart at No. 9. It was lowest debut sales week for any of the regular "Glee" season releases, reflecting a sharp drop in 18-49 viewers for the TV show this fall.

California nu-metal band Korn sold 55,000 copies of their latest album "The Path of Totality," in the first week to debut at No. 10.

LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" knocked Bruno Mars' "It Will Rain" to No. 4 from the top spot of the Billboard Digital Songs chart, while Rihanna's 'We Found Love" held steady at No. 2 and "We Are Young" by the "Glee" cast debuted at No. 3, with Flo Rida's "Good Feeling" rounding out the top five.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/music_nm/us_michaelbuble_charts

pumpkin patch troy polamalu boo at the zoo when is daylight savings time 2011 when is daylight savings time 2011 renaissance festival melanie iglesias

lorentzenastrid04

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Alcohol use by American teens has dropped to historic lows, but more of them are using marijuana and don't believe it's a dangerous drug, according to an annual national survey conducted by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan.

The nationally representative survey of 47,000 students in grades eight, 10 and 12 at 400 public and private schools found a continuing trend of lower alcohol consumption that stretches back to the 1980s.

Forty percent of 12th graders reported drinking within the previous 30 days in the new survey, compared to 54 percent in 1991. And rates declined from 43 percent to 27 percent among 10th graders, and from 25 percent to 13 percent among eighth graders.

The 2011 Monitoring the Future survey also found evidence of declines in teens' use of illicit drugs such as cocaine, crack cocaine and inhalants, as well as illegal use of the narcotic drug Vicodin, the stimulant drug Adderall, sedatives, tranquilizers, and cough and cold medicines.

But, marijuana use among teens rose in 2011 for the fourth straight year, after a large decline in the preceding decade.

The number of teens in all three grades who said they had used marijuana in the past year increased from 21.4 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2011. Rates of daily or near daily marijuana use have also increased in all three grades and this year were 1.3 percent in grade eight, 3.6 percent in grade 10, and 6.6 percent in grade 12.

"Put another way, one in every 15 high school seniors today is smoking pot on a daily or near daily basis," principal investigator Lloyd Johnston said in a University of Michigan news release. "And that's the highest rate that we have seen over the past 30 years -- since 1981."

The increasing use of marijuana may be due to the fact that fewer teens believe the drug is dangerous, even with regular use, the researchers said. This "perceived risk" among teens has fallen sharply over the past five years and continued to decline this year, the survey found.

In addition, teens' disapproval of marijuana use has declined over the past three or four years, which suggests there is less peer pressure to discourage use of the drug.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse offers marijuana facts for teens.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111215/hl_hsn/alcoholusedownpotuseupamongusteens

atlanta falcons jacksonville jaguars jacksonville jaguars maurice jones drew howard stern howard stern sopa

lorentzenastrid04

This image released Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, by the Dawn spacecraft shows the surface of the massive asteroid Vesta. Since entering orbit around Vesta in July, Dawn has been beaming back images of the asteroid surface. (AP Photo/NASA)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? New views of the massive asteroid Vesta reveal it is more like a planet than an asteroid, scientists said Monday.

Since slipping into orbit around Vesta in July, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has beamed back stunning images of the second largest object residing in the asteroid belt.

Vesta's rugged surface is unique compared to the solar system's much smaller and lightweight asteroids. Impact craters dot Vesta's surface along with grooves, troughs and a variety of minerals.

"Vesta is unlike any other asteroid," said mission co-scientist Vishnu Reddy of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. The new findings were presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Most asteroids resemble potatoes, but Vesta is more like an avocado with its iron core, Reddy said.

Asteroids are remnants from the birth of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago around the same time as the formation of the rocky planets including Earth. Studying asteroids can offer clues about how our planetary system began.

Instead of returning to the moon, NASA has decided to land astronauts on a yet-to-be determined asteroid as a stepping stone to Mars.

David Williams of Arizona State University considers Vesta a "transitional body" between rocky planets and the thousands of asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter.

The mission has yielded a mystery. Before Dawn arrived at Vesta, scientists predicted that the surface would harbor a volcano. There's a hill on Vesta, but researchers said there's no evidence of lava flow or volcanic deposits.

Williams said it's possible the volcanic materials are buried, so the team will keep looking.

Powered by ion propulsion instead of conventional rocket fuel, Dawn will study Vesta for several more months before cruising to an even bigger asteroid, Ceres, where it will arrive in 2015.

___

Online:

Dawn mission: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

___

Follow Alicia Chang at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-05-US-SCI-Asteroid-Mission/id-69a53b2c5c8942c999d09ba6c7a01019

hank baskett beyonce dance for you beyonce dance for you nba lockout over gone with the wind nba lockout news nba lockout news

lorentzenastrid04

Can a discussion of the federal deficit, now in excess of $15 trillion, be separated from a discussion on taxes? Of course not! Therefore, taxes will continue to be an important topic on the federal level because of the dichotomy between raising taxes to address deficit concerns vs. keeping taxes low to help create jobs and improve the economy.

tax file

Which will win out in 2012? Much depends on what happens in the November elections. Until then, however, there are some important trends in taxes worth noting:

1. Taxes will remain a political football.
The wrangling in the Super Committee, which failed to reach a consensus by the November 23, 2011, deadline, demonstrates the ongoing political nature of taxes. As a general rule, Republicans are against raising taxes, while? Democrats want to raise taxes on the so-called wealthy (many of whom are small business owners). This acrimony is not likely to disappear.

Taxes will surely be a key issue in the presidential race. While it?s too early to tell who will be the Republican candidate, each contender has offered his or her own tax solution (www.atr.org/presidential-candidate-tax-plan-comparison-a6588). Here are some key points from a number of the candidates:

Mitt Romney: Supports the Bush-era tax cuts, wants to roll back tax rates by 5 percent, and wants to eliminate the estate tax.
Newt Gingrich: Opposes higher taxes (suggests an optional 15 percent rate, meaning taxpayers could choose the current system or his option), wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, favors tax incentives for R&D, and wants a 12.5 percent corporate rate and a 15 percent rate on small businesses.
Rick Perry: Wants an optional 20 percent tax.
Ron Paul: Favors a 15 percent corporate tax rate and a 35 percent tax on small businesses.
Herman Cain: 9-9-9 plan (9 percent income tax, 9 percent corporate tax and 9 percent national sales tax).
Michelle Bachmann: Supports the Bush-era tax cuts.

2. Tax audits are on the rise.
According to one KPMG survey, tax audits of businesses have increased. Corporate executives who were surveyed reported a 61 percent increase in federal tax disputes; 37 percent reported an increase in state tax audits.

What continues to be a popular audit topic is worker classification to determine whether a company is properly treating a worker as an independent contractor or whether the worker should be treated as an employee. The IRS is not alone in this endeavor; it is getting help from the U.S. Department of Labor?and various states with which there are information-sharing agreements.

3. Uncertainty about health care rules remains.
The fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (?Obamacare?) is uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case?brought by the NFIB and 26 state attorneys general involving the constitutionality of the law. It will hand down a decision by the end of June 2012. In the meantime, businesses must still deal with the law.

For small businesses, the key feature of Obamacare was the creation of a tax credit for helping to pay for employee health coverage. The credit was meant to be an incentive for small businesses to continue or increase their payment of health coverage for employees. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concluded?that the credit has been a bust. When the law was passed, it had been expected that 4.4 million businesses would use it; as of mid-October 2011, only 309,000 had done so. The NFIB has suggested?that the current credit be replaced with a new credit that is easier to understand and compute. There may be sentiment in Congress in 2012 to move toward a better small employer credit for health care.

4. Some favorable business tax rules will be extended.
Numerous tax rules are set to expire at the end of 2011. Likely, many will be extended, at least through 2012. However, action on extension may not occur until 2012 (i.e., extension will be retroactive to the start of the year). Some of the key provisions include:

100 percent bonus depreciation and up to $500,000 of first-year expensing (the Section 179 deduction).
100 percent exclusion for gain from the sale of qualified small business stock (stock in certain C corporations held more than five years).
Research credit.
Work opportunity credit for hiring individuals from certain targeted groups (only certain veteran groups are set to apply after 2011).

There is bipartisan support for the extension of various business tax breaks, and the American Growth, Recovery, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship (AGREE) Act of 2011 has been introduced by members from both sides of the aisle in Congress to see that this happens. It is too soon to predict whether the measure will be enacted.

5. State and local governments scrounge for new sources of revenue.
The federal government is not the only government thirsty for more revenue. Many state and local governments are in dire need and are looking for any way to raise revenue. A number of localities are turning to gambling in order to generate more revenue, and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute reports that gambling revenue is on the rise. Many are looking to institute online gaming. A bill to make New Jersey the first state to legalize online gambling was passed in the state legislature, but vetoed by Gov. Christie. The issue may be brought up again in New Jersey and in other states. Other states are expanding? gambling venues (e.g., historic Saratoga Raceway in Saratoga, New York, added slot machines).

6. Unemployment taxes will go up for some employers.
Employers in 20 states will be paying higher federal unemployment (FUTA) taxes. The reason: Their states borrowed from the federal government to pay for unemployment benefits and have not yet repaid the borrowed sums. As a result, employers in these states cannot use the full credit state unemployment taxes when figuring their FUTA liability. In 18 states (Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin, the credit is reduced by 0.3 percent; in Indiana, the credit is reduced by 0.6 percent; and in Michigan, the credit is reduced by 0.9 percent.

7. Estate planning for business owners remains challenging.
The estate tax rules are fixed only through 2012. This means that after 2012, the rules are set to revert to pre-Bush-era rules. Instead of the $5 million exemption that applies for 2011 ($5.12 million in 2012), the exemption will be only $1 million. Many believe that estate tax is particularly harsh for small business owners. If they die with estates (including their business interests) that are valued at more than the exemption amount, their families may be forced to sell off business interests to raise the funds to pay the estate tax. Often this results in the demise of some family-owned businesses.

Expect to see renewed interest in abolishing the estate tax entirely (a platform of some Republican presidential candidates) or at least maintaining the current exemption level. As 2012 draws to a close, the debate likely will grow louder on the question of estate tax.

8. Filings will be almost exclusively online.
Starting with the 2012 tax season, paid tax return preparers are required to e-file?client returns if they expect to file more than 10 forms in the 1040 series and/or 1041 (the income tax form for trusts and estates). Thus, almost all individuals who use paid preparers will have their returns filed electronically.

E-filing isn?t limited to personal income tax returns. Businesses can e-file employment tax returns. They usually must e-file returns related to their retirement plans and excise taxes, as well as for certain other federal tax purposes. This trend will surely continue.

9. Low interest rates will have an impact.
Due to low interest rates used by the IRS, such as for penalties for underpaying estimated taxes, there is less incentive to avoid the penalties. For example, the IRS interest rate charged on underpayments in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 is only 3 percent. Thus, an owner of pass-through entity, such as an S corporation or limited liability company, who pays income tax on his/her share of business profits on the personal return likely will be paying less estimated taxes. Even if this results in an underpayment that is subject to penalty, the amount of the penalty (3 percent) is small compared with the value of retaining the cash that could be needed for cash flow.

Caution: Be sure to have sufficient funds available when it?s time to pay the balance of the taxes due. Failure to pay by the April filing due date triggers both penalties and interest.

10. The U.S. tax system will continue to become more and more complex.
According to one PWC report, America has a very complex tax system for business taxes. The U.S. ranks 69th out of 183 countries in complexity; it was 23 places better as recently as 2009. While other governments continue to reform their tax systems, ours continues to grow more complex as new tax rules are added year after year. The complexity serves as a disincentive for foreign capital to invest in U.S. companies. However, referencing the first trend in this article, politics and the compromises that it demands likely will help to keep the U.S. tax system complex.

Bottom line: Taxes will continue to be an important issue for small businesses in 2012. Hopefully, but not likely, advocacy groups and sanity will prevail to move toward simplification and lower taxes. However, stay alert to specific opportunities that could help you.

Image from NatashaBo/Shutterstock

About the Author

Barbara Weltman is an attorney and author of J.K. Lasser?s Small Business Taxes and The Complete Idiot?s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business. She is also the publisher of Idea of the Day and monthly e-newsletter Big Ideas for Small Business and host of Build Your Business radio.

Connect with Barbara Weltman:

?

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/12/top-10-small-business-tax-trends-2012.html

thomas kinkade the shining stanford stanford when does daylight savings time end world series mvp rocky horror picture show

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Monday, December 26, 2011

Pied de page

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Sunday, December 18, 2011

We were unable to forward you to the advertisement you clicked on.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Celebrity obituaries on SheKnows >>

Image courtesy Doug Meszler / WENN

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

About the Author

Connect with Barbara Weltman: