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    PROTECTING YOUR IDENTITY Here are more tips for protecting your identity from Jonathan Swartz, financial adviser with the Bennett Thrasher accounting firm in Atlanta, and others: ■ Secure smartphones, computers and tablets with passwords, location software and the ability to erase the data if one is lost or stolen. ■ Erase data when upgrading or getting rid of old devices. Or remove hard drives from old computers and scratch the drive surface deeply with a hard tool before disposal. ■ Put your name on do-not-mail lists by visiting 1.usa.gov/QXIAii. Or pay a service such as Trusted ID to clean up your online existence. ■ Restrict your information on social media, and limit the people who can see it by regularly checking and adjusting your privacy settings. ■ Don't give out your ZIP code to retailers. Knowing your ZIP code allows them to easily find your entire address so they can send you unwanted mail, such as credit card applications, which can be stolen. ■ Put a Google A...

  President Barack Obama's budget would raise  Medicare premiums and those of other comfortably retired seniors, adding to a surcharge that already costs some 2 million beneficiaries hundreds of dollars a year each.   IRS rules require people age 70-and-a-half and older to make regular minimum withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement nest eggs like 401(k)s. That could be enough to nudge retiree's over Medicare's line. The consequence is now they will to pay about $500 a year more in Medicare premiums."   Currently only about 1 in 20 Medicare beneficiaries pays the higher income-based premiums, which start at incomes over $85,000 for individuals and $170,000 for couples. As a reference point, the median or midpoint U.S. household income is about $53,000.   "Means testing" of Medicare benefits was introduced in 2007 under President George W. Bush in the form of higher outpatient premiums for the top-earning retirees. Obama's health care law expanded the pol...

  Do not think that poor service air travel is just a North American problem, cousins from NZ have experienced the same thing.   We both agree with your perception of air travel, Peter. As you have probably guessed by now Steph and I are no strangers to long distance flights. The last trip we did, just a 4 hour trip, from Adelaide, Australia to Auckland, NZ was the worst ever. Although Steph had a window seat she ended up suffering claustrophobia!   Our knees were hard against the seats in front, so there was no room for a cabin bag in front of you. If she needed to get out to the aisle each person in the row had to vacate their seats to let her out! It was a flight from hell. The weird thing was our domestic connecting flight to Wellington had far more space between the seats and felt more like an international flight.   We also agree about the over-booking of international flights. We were nearly dropped off a midnight flight from Hawaii to NZ after having booked o...

    It's getting around to that time of year again. The dreaded trip back to North Bay, on April 23rd. Florida vacation will be over. With earlier arrival times, long line security checks, people under stress, screaming kids, coping with tickets ,passports, and baggage, long walking distances to your departure gate.Well you know the drill if you have flown recently. Air travel once something to look forward to is now 2 1/2 hours of discomfort,in our case, once you manage to get on the plane. It's not surprising that passengers are getting grumpier. Of course the older I get the grumpier I get. Carriers keep shrinking the size of seats in order to stuff more people into planes. Empty middle seats that might provide a little more room have vanished. And more people who have bought tickets are being turned away because flights are overbooked. The way airlines have taken 130-seat airplanes and expanded them to 150 seats to squeeze out more revenue, I think, is finally catching up ...

  Demand response started in 2005 to reward industrial and commercial businesses for cutting energy use at peak times to prevent brownouts and blackouts caused by a strain on the power grid, especially during the summer.   The all-time record for energy use in Ontario happened Aug. 1, 2006, when demand for electricity reached 27,005MW, according to the Independent Electricity System Operator which oversees the province's electrical system. Consumption reports are generated by hour, day and month, and the website and mobile app offer suggestions to lower energy use, he said.

  Nothing brings a surge of solar energy in Florida like the mild, sunny days of April. Hundreds of thousands of solar panels in Jacksonville, Gainesville, Orlando, Kennedy Space Center, Lakeland and Arcadia typically produce more watts of energy this month than any other. And every year—though not without setbacks — the state's combined solar output increases. Those Florida utilities most involved in solar will generate enough electricity this April for 15,000 homes. Just five years ago, that was regarded as an enormous amount of alternative energy for Florida ,it may rank as a blip in the record books.   The big knock against solar power in Florida is still its price: approximately double the cost of electricity from power plants that run on natural gas. One motivation is that water constraints and carbon pollution could eventually make their conventional gas and coal power plants obsolete.   Orlando Utilities Commission started up a 5.9-megawatt solar plant in late 201...

  With BC and the USA dragging their feet to offers for a Alberta oil pipeline, the Conservatives have finally come to realize this is the best way to go.   The USA is now receiving Canadian Oil at a huge discount due to over supply. They simply do not want to pay world price for Canadian Oil . Ok but there will come a day when they will gladly pay any price for oil. BC does not think that it would pay long term dividends for piping Alberta Crude for China's use.   TransCanada unveiled plans on Tuesday to build a pipeline to ship oil from Canada's western tar sands to refineries in eastern regions reliant on higher-priced oil imports.   The 4,400-kilometer (2,734-mile) "Eastern Oil Pipeline" would be the first connecting producers in the west who are eager to tap into new markets with consumers in Canada's most-populated cities and industrial heartland in the east.   The conduit would be capable of transporting as many as 850,000 barrels of crude oil per day to ...

The Connecticut deal includes a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six educators dead. There are also new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines. "It doesn't prevent someone from going out of the state to purchase them and then bring them back. There's no way to track when they were purchased "How will they register a magazine?  A new "ammunition eligibility certificate," imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state's assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms. The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures, including gun restrictions for people who've been committed to mental health facili...

The gunman in the Newtown massacre fired 154 bullets from his Bushmaster mil­itary-style rifle in less than five minutes, kill­ing 20 first-graders and six adults. He brought with him 10 large-capacity magazines, each holding up to 30 rounds, which allowed him to reload quickly He also carried two semiau­tomatic handguns, one of which he used to take his own life. Is this supposed to be the price of the Second Amendment? Is this the kind of America we want? I know that realists have concluded there is little chance of getting an assault-weapons ban through Congress. I know that many gun-control advocates believe legislation mandating universal background checks, thought to have a reasonably good chance of being approved, can be even more valuable in preventing future Newtown-style tragedies.  Lanza was outfitted like a commando, with guns and ammo clips engineered to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time. There were other weapons in the family's possessio...