A Letter To The Editor: "STOP FUNDS For Inhumane Society Of Wicomico County"

WICOMICO COUNTY ANIMAL LOVERS...ACT NOW if you want the Humane Society of Wicomico County to be changed. YOU have to make it happen!!! Rick Pollitt has proposed giving them $54,000 more revenue ($294,436) than last year's ($240,000) on a 32-year-old contract dated August 4th, 1981 which allows the Board of Directors to set policies & procedures with NO ACCOUNTABILITY to Wicomico County Government or citizens. Their 2011 Income tax form showed $771,908 ASSETS --- a Non-Profit organization??? They need to be audited since they do their accounting in-house. This private family run club needs to answer monthly to the County about expenses & animal statistics. HSWC only pay $1 a YEAR to rent the facilities on Citation Drive. That 32-year-old contract requires Wicomico County to pay 3/5ths of operating expenses & NO ACCOUNTABILITY on taxpayer money. No ACCOUNTABILITY for pet care --- life or death. They got over $60,000 from the City of Salisbury, $20,000 from the Town of Delmar, & money from Dorchester County. We need an OUTPOURING of compassionate people to CUT ALL FUNDS til they answer to the County Government & Citizens. Easy SOLUTION for the animal's sake...no new contract---no money. To get this changed write & call Mr. Pollitt's & Mr. Strausburg's office (410) 548-4801, ALL the County Council members & Mr. Baker, County Attorney (410) 548-3792.

Cost Of Living Change

A proposal to alter cost-of-living adjustments in the president's 2014 budget request is causing heartburn with federal employees. President Barack Obama is proposing switching to the chained consumer price index or "chained CPI" to calculate COLAs to federal civilian and military retirement annuities, as well as Social Security, veterans' and disability insurance benefits. These benefits are currently determined by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers or CPI-W. The National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees says by using the chained CPI instead of the CPI-W, COLAs would be reduced by about 0.3 percent per year. Over time, that would mean benefits would be 3 percent lower after 10 years. NARFE offers a calculator to estimate how the proposal would reduce an earned federal annuity. The House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security takes up the issue Thursday.

HOW TO MAKE SYMBOLS WITH KEYBOARD: UPDATE*

HOW TO MAKE SYMBOLS WITH KEYBOARD
Alt + 0153..... ™... trademark symbol
Alt + 0169.... ©.... copyright symbol
Alt + 0174..... ®....registered ­ trademark symbol
Alt + 0176 ...°......degree symbol
Alt + 0177 ...±....plus-or ­-minus sign
Alt + 0182 ...¶.....paragraph mark
Alt + 0190 ...¾....fraction, three-fourths
Alt + 0215 ....×.....multiplication sign
Alt + 0162...¢....the ­ cent sign
Alt + 0161.....¡..... ­.upside down exclamation point
Alt + 0191.....¿..... ­upside down question mark
Alt + 1.......☺....smiley face
Alt + 2 ......☻.....black smiley face
Alt + 15.....☼.....sun
Alt + 12......♀.....female sign
Alt + 11.....♂......male sign
Alt + 6.......♠.....spade
Alt + 5.......♣...... ­Club
Alt + 3.......♥...... ­Heart
Alt + 4.......♦...... ­Diamond
Alt + 13......♪.....eighth note
Alt + 14......♫...... ­beamed eighth note
Alt + 8721.... ∑.... N-ary summation (auto sum)
Alt + 251.....√.....square root check mark
Alt + 8236.....∞..... ­infinity
Alt + 24.......↑..... ­up arrow
Alt + 25......↓...... ­down arrow
Alt + 26.....→.....right arrow
Alt + 27......←.....left arrow
Alt + 18.....↕......u ­p/down arrow
Alt + 29......↔...left right arrow

*We have added this to our list of links at the bottom left hand side of our advertisers for future reference.   

Police Have A Suspect

Police have a suspect in the case of a poisoned letter mailed to the Senate. The letter, coated in ricin, was intercepted at a post office in Prince George's County, Md. It was addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). His colleague, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), says the suspect is a frequent correspondent. The FBI and Capitol Police are investigating. But they wouldn't name the suspect.

Numerous Injuries Reported In West Fertilizer Plant Explosion

WACO (April 17, 2013)—Emergency crews from throughout Central Texas responded Wednesday night after a major explosion at a burning fertilizer plant in West north of Waco.

West firefighters were dispatched to the plant earlier in the evening after an earlier fire rekindled.

The explosion was reported at around 7:50 p.m. in a frantic radio call from the scene of the fire at West Fertilizer at 1471 Jerry Mashek Dr. just off Interstate 35.

Numerous injuries were reported and multiple ambulances were requested.

Several buildings were reported destroyed and a nearby nursing home was damaged.More 

Baltimore Suspends Speed Camera Program

Baltimore has temporarily suspended its troubled speed and red- light program following reports of erroneous citations.

Officials blame the suspension on "complications" that arose while switching vendors.

Baltimore's Department of Transportation made the announcement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying that two "clerical mistakes" had been made.
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Thanks But No Thanks

Renegotiate your pay? The National Association of Postal Supervisors told the Postal Service: thanks but no thanks. The Postal Service asked supervisors to re-open pay talks in light of its financial crisis. But the group says postal supervisors can't afford it. They've had three years of pay freezes, paid higher benefits premiums and faced bigger workloads because of understaffing. Meanwhile, lawmakers are debating helping the Postal Service climb out of the red. The House Oversight Committee hears from Postmaster General Pat Donahoe, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro and the heads of the Postal Service's Board of Governors and the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Bond Denied For Eastern Shore Arson Suspect

A judge denied bond today for Tonya S. Bundick, the woman who along with her fiancé, police believe was behind a string of more than 70 arson fires.

Bundick, 40, appeared in Accomack County General District Court this morning for a bond hearing.

Bundick and Charles R. Smith III, 38, also known as Charles Applegate, were arrested earlier this month and each charged with one count of felony arson and one count of felony conspiracy to commit arson in connection with a fire in Melfa.

Police have said they are confident the Parksley couple is behind most of the 77 arson fires set in the county since November. Additional charges are expected, according to police.
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Will They Scale Back?

The United States still pays billions of dollars for overseas military bases. The Senate Armed Services Committee spent a year investigating the cost, burden-sharing and congressional oversight of permanent bases and found the U.S. spends $10 billion overall — 70 percent of that in Germany, Japan and South Korea. The report also identified inherent problems and missteps as U.S. facilities on foreign lands are returned to the host nations. The Pentagon is looking to scale back or close overseas and U.S. domestic bases in order to save money.

Suspects Charged in Recent Counterfeit Money Crime Spree

On April 2, 2013, Ocean City Police began receiving numerous complaints regarding counterfeit
money. OCPD officers took a total of five reports of counterfeit money being passed or attempted to be passed at local businesses over the next 36 hours.

During the investigation OCPD officers and detectives identified two possible suspects and confirmed that police agencies in Worcester and Wicomico Counties, as well as Sussex County Delaware, were also investigating the passing of similar counterfeit currency. On April 5, 2013, a suspect identified as: Derrick Ryan Richardson 25, of Parsonsburg, MD, and a female accomplicewere arrested by the Fruitland Police Department while attempting to pass the counterfeit money at a local business.

As a result of this arrest, accompanied by the recovery of additional evidence and surveillance video, Ocean City investigators positively identified the suspects who passed the counterfeit currency in Ocean City as: Richardson and Justin Michael Scanlon, 26, of Ocean City.

Ocean City detectives have charged Scanlon with:- Theft Under $100
- Knowingly Issuing Counterfeit United States Currency
- Theft Scheme
- Conspiracy


Richardson had been charged with: - Theft Under $100
- Knowingly Issuing Counterfeit United States Currency
- Theft Scheme
- Conspiracy
- Manufacturing Counterfeit United States Currency

Both suspects are still in custody at the time of this release.

BREAKING NEWS Feds Arrest Suspect In Ricin-Positive Letters Sent To Obama, Senator

Federal agents on Wednesday arrested a suspect in the mailing of letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator that initially tested positive for the poison ricin.

The suspect was identified as Kenneth Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., federal officials told NBC News.

Both letters carried an identical closing statement, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.
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Best Joke Of 2013 So Far

The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a check.
Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a check.
Finally George Bush gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00.
When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA so cheaply.
The devil smiles and replies, "Since Obama took over , the country has gone to hell, so it's a local call."

Pension System Advisor ‘Very Disappointed’ In Legislative Cut In Contribution

The outside advisor for the Maryland pension system told its Board of Trustees Tuesday that he was “very disappointed” that the legislature reduced the state’s payment into the retirement fund by $100 million in budget action this month.

The money comes from $300 million in added contributions of state employees and teachers passed in 2011. It is being set aside for the possible federal budget cuts from sequestration.

The State Retirement Agency and the Department of Legislative Services were also told to look into the impact of further reducing these payments in the future.

If the legislature continued “tinkering” with the $300 million added contribution, said Brian Murphy of Gabriel Roeder Smith & Co., it would show the absence of “a firm funding policy” and require recalculating the annual contribution. GRS is the system’s actuary.
Read more:

Scooter Store Files For Bankruptcy After Overbilling Medicare At Least $47 Million

If you watch daytime TV or have been stuck watching daytime TV while visiting your parents, surely you’re familiar with The Scooter Store. The power wheelchair vendor has had some trouble lately, including accusations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, a raid by the FBI, and even a lawsuit from the company’s hometown, of New Braunfels, Texas. The company laid off most of its employees, and plans to deal directly with health care providers, rather than blanketing the airwaves and selling directly to consumers.Those investigations came after a scathing investigative piece by CBS News about the company. (Warning: the video at that link plays automatically.) Former salesmen and doctors who prescribed chairs in the past explained the company’s tactics: contact doctors’ offices incessantly to wear them down and convince them to prescribe scooters and power chairs whether the patient really needed one or not, and to depend on bureaucratic incompetence and error to get them approved by Medicare and Medicaid.

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New Data on Border Crossings Could Change Immigration Debate

There's a confrontation coming between the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress over the most basic question of immigration reform: How secure is the U.S. border with Mexico?

Not only does the administration not know -- and perhaps doesn't want to know -- but there are signs the border is less secure than some of the most skeptical Republicans thought.

Last year the Border Patrol began experimenting with a new drone-based surveillance system that had been developed for finding Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Starting in the fall, officials used the radar-based system over a fairly small portion of the Arizona border. The results were striking.
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Legislation Would Prevent IRS From Providing Pre-Filled Tax Returns

In 2002, when the IRS and the tax-prep software industry created Free File, which gives consumers with simple tax returns the ability to file electronically without being charged, the IRS agreed to not provide its own “free, online tax return preparation and filing services to taxpayers.” That arrangement is expiring, so some lawmakers (with a bit of money from tax-prep companies in their pockets) are seeking to make it permanent.
The Free File Program Act of 2013 was introduced in Congress in February by the bipartisan pair of Illinois representative Peter Roskam and Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who each received some of the millions that Intuit and others have been pumping into the coffers of federal lawmakers in recent years.

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Obama Slashed Bombing Prevention Budget In Half

In his defense, sending more money to the Muslim Brotherhood had to come out of someone’s budget. It just had to be DHS which was wasting money trying to stop bombings that could have gone to buying jets for the Brotherhood.

 Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others.

 More 

Obama To Deliver Statement At 5:30pm

White House: Obama to deliver statement on 'commonsense measures to reduce gun violence' at 5:30 pm ET

NASA Wallops Flight Facility

The inaugural Antares launch from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., is scheduled for Wednesday, April 17, at 5 p.m. EDT. NASA Television coverage begins at 4 p.m.
Click HERE to watch live 
UPDATE: Launch has been aborted.

GM & Ford Decide To Be Best Pals In Order To Build New Transmissions Together

Rivalries between car companies run deep, especially when they’re sharing the same American turf. So it’s somewhat surprising, if not sensible, that General Motors and Ford are coming together in order build the best fuel-efficient automatic transmission out there. At least, that’s the goal.

The two companies announced yesterday that they’ve got their engineers working on a team to design nine- and 10-speed transmissions that will go into many new vehicles.

It’s all about making the engines work less, and keeping the shifting smooth so that customers/drivers don’t notice a thing.

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