... could buy items tax-free. The thinking behind this was that if more good were being purchased, prices could come down, and therefore more goods would be purchases once the taxes were applied again. However, the problem with this system is that consumers, hungry to go shopping again, could easily run up a considerable amount of debt, having the opposite effect on the economy than that which is ... desired. The holiday season may be over, but our collective money troubles are, by all ... accounts, far from seeing a horizon. Although there are things the government can do to help bolster ...

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... for and commitment to each other in the same public way heterosexual couples have always enjoyed. On the other side are those who state that, by their very nature, homosexual relationships are promiscuous, and so allowing same-sex marriages would increase the divorce rate. Further, opponents of gay marriage say that it would taint the long-standing tradition of the institution of marriage - that is, marriage between one man ... "legal union" as opposed to "legal marriage". Allowing the definition of marriage to include two men or two women, they say, would open the door to all kinds of ...

• Word Count: 559
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... candidate team who earns the most electoral votes will be named the next President and Vice President of the United States, even if the popular vote swings in the opposite direction of the Electoral College vote. The 538 people given electoral votes are those elected to the Senate and as Representatives of the state in Congress. In this aspect, the people retain the power of the vote due to the fact that they elect the representatives to speak for ... their needs in the political setting. Each state has the same number of ... ...

• Word Count: 439
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Argentine President Cristina Kirchner was recently in America this week for the UN General Assembly being held in New York City. The problem with this is, that puts her right in the fire, so to speak. She and her country have defaulted on billions in debt owed to U.S. creditors. President Kirchner has repeatedly ignored the U.S. federal court system and supposedly removed any of her country's assets to outside the U.S. and away from collectors. With her being in New York this week for the UN talks, U.S. bondholders' have become more upset due this obvious slap in the face to the U.S. Justice s...

• Word Count: 212
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• Grade Level: High School

... our air. While that is good news for plants since they breathe in carbon dioxide, it's bad news for our children who are being deprived of oxygen. Plants, especially the weedier plants, are thriving and producing pollen out of proportion to their growth. Our children's respiratory systems, already struggling to take in oxygen are being forced to filter pollen heavy air as well ... . Perhaps it's no wonder that 250,000 asthma related deaths are reported to the World Health Organization each year. Urbanization is another culprit of the pollen flood. The baking effect of the concrete used i...

• Word Count: 391
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The Occupy movement that began months ago in New York and has since grasped hold of the rest of the country turned violent for the first time on November 2nd in Oakland when a small group of protestors smashed the windows of a Wells Fargo bank branch during a protest of wealth inequalities. The Occupy Oakland movement scheduled a noon rally in front of City Hall and then a free lunch afterward. The day's events were planned to wrap up with a "general strike mass convergence, rally, and labor cookout." Each of these were intended to be peaceful protests, but a small faction began passing out fl...

• Word Count: 804
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of the 1950s or the 1980s. When we hear the term "Nehru Jacket" we think of the 60s. The term "Bell Bottoms" conjures up memories of the 1970s. Izod, polo, leg warmers, Ug boots, parachute pants, and short shorts make us think of the 1980s. Flannel shirts, worn out loose fitting jeans induce memories of the 1990s. Low rise jeans, and layered camisoles have been popular over most of the first decade of the ... new millennium, but unlike decades gone by, for the first time in the history of ... modern fashion, all worlds have collided to create the hodgepodge that is fashion in ... ...

• Word Count: 394
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• Grade Level: High School

... a necessity. Wind power is not reliable enough to provide all your electric needs. Still, adding $10 to $30 thousand dollars to the price of building a home is cost prohibitive for most of us. If you know a little bit about electricity, are good at building simple structures, and can follow simple instructions, there are sites ... not going to be as high as a professionally built and installed system, it is possible to have solar power for about a tenth of the cost of a professionally installed solar system. Even one cell can reduce your electric bill considerably. If building your own s...

• Word Count: 752
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . Initially designed to give low and middle class taxpayers a little relief in light of real estate downturns, rising inflation and high gas and food prices, the act has been further expanded since that time and offers a variety of incentives for both businesses and individuals. The overall goal of the Act is to "jumpstart the economy." Individuals and couples filing Federal Income Tax Returns for 2007, even up ... above. In addition, after lobbying by groups supporting senior citizens, social security payments were added to the "eligible" income, so most seniors on fixed incomes who fil...

• Word Count: 443
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... -risk population, such as men who have sex with men and injection drug users. The recommendations sent out by the CDC, for the first time, come with guidelines for managing chronically infected patients of hepatitis B. "Chronic hepatitis B affects the lives of more than one million Americans, many of whom do not even know they are infected. These new recommendations are critical to identifying people who are living ... with the disease without the benefits of medical attention," said John W. Ward, M.D., director of CDC's Division of Viral Hepatitis. "Testing is the first step to identify...

• Word Count: 375
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• Grade Level: High School

... crisis with high fuel prices and banking woes, there is something positive that may come out of it. As many have realized, food prices at grocery stores across the country are increasing out of control. This is due to increased shipping costs from the higher fuel prices. Because of this, many have returned to buying certain things locally. Food grown in a person's home town doesn ... 't have the added shipping fees, and 'produce' is one of the main commodities benefiting in the economy. Local farmers have always struggled due ... not confined to one area, so they incur large shipping fe...

• Word Count: 492
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... well as on cable news channels. Gerri Willis from the Fox Business Network personal shredded her own Bank of America debit card on air, claiming, "Right here, right now, I'm going to show Bank of America what I think of their fees. The $5 fee may not seem like a lot, but it's the principle of the thing - more and more coming out of my pocket" (Halzack). Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for ... the U.S. Public Interest Research Group also announced his disgust with the bank's decision to cut into consumers' wallets. "The proliferation of a la carte fees has inundated the economy...

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... I would also like to express my respect and esteem for my colleague and friend, Agustin Carstens," she said (Rooney). The global financial institution desperately needed a new leader because of their involvement with the European Union and the European Central Bank to provide financial support to Greece and other troubled European economies who need immediate help (Rooney). Lagarde is already ... will make it my overriding goal that our institution continues to serve its entire membership with the same focus and the same spirit," said Lagarde (Rooney). The fund was originally established...

• Word Count: 519
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for June 12, 2009. While certainly 6.5 million households that now receive signal via antennae rather than from satellite or cable will turn on their sets on the day of the switch to see snow, the fact is that those folks represent about 2% of the American populous, and tend to be people who don't consider television to be a priority or who may find greater productivity as ... the result of the death of their television signal. While some might argue that the switchover unfairly affects the poor, people who cannot afford neither new televisions, nor the converter boxes that make recepti...

• Word Count: 337
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... is in a perpetual nightmare, constantly dreaming of a man, who died in front of him. He uses the metaphor on line 14 "as under a green sea, I saw him drowning." This idea of drowning under a green sea, is interesting, as it shows how an individual can be lost in a group, losing his individuality and ultimately his life. The idea of this dream as the opposite of what one might imagine or dream ... of when they think of war and patriotism is just as important to note, as is the idea of sleeping and losing oneself by retreating ... from rational, lucid thought. The narrator in lines 5 and...

• Word Count: 633
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• Grade Level: High School

... in Somalia, according to some reports. Groups like Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. had designated a terrorist organization, are on the receiving end of some of these funds. According to Roger Middleton, author of a key report on the situation, "at the moment it's a five-six problem [on a scale of one to ten] with the potential to be a seven or eight You're lookin at nine, ten, if it starts to be ... co-opted by international terror organizations." The Gulf of Aden, which serves as the southern passageway to the Suez Canal, sees about 16, 000 ships pass each year, making it one of the world's...

• Word Count: 419
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• Grade Level: High School

... would never vote for him, simply because he is black. The 'fear factor' has been bandied about on the Sunday morning talk shows since Obama announced he was running for president. The host never questions the validity of the fear. In fact, the host and guests alike treat the subject as though it were fact. They automatically assume the fear is race based. There are no questions about it ... . Needless to say, the commentators and hosts are simply not doing their job. Why delve deeper or question the source of the fear when fear of a black president suits the party so well? The 'race ... ...

• Word Count: 733
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• Grade Level: High School

A landlord of a Philadelphian apartment discovered four mentally handicapped people chained in the basement when he went to investigate a short circuit on October 15th. Turgut Gozleveli discovered dogs locked inside of the boiler room and four adults hiding underneath a blanket. They were hunched together in a space not tall enough for an adult to stand, surrounded in human waste with only a jug of orange juice (Hoye). He unchained them while asking questions about their identity, but he didn't receive any answers. Believing them to be illegal immigrants, Gosleveli called in the police who qui...

• Word Count: 787
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Glen Mulcaire's list, the private investigator hired by The News of the World. The list contained about 4,000 people rumored to be targets of the tabloid's phone scandal (Somaiya). "The last edition of The News of the World made great play of the paper's relationship with the Payne family," said Tom Watson, a parliament member who investigated the phone scandal. "I have nothing but contempt for the people that did this" (Somaiya). Brooks testified that The News of the World did, in ... fact, give Payne a cell phone "for the ... ...

• Word Count: 584
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Most of the angst over the hundreds of billions of dollars being granted to banks in the great bailout of "08 and "09 is the mere fact that we the people are getting tired of making the rich richer while we all get poorer. So in order to grasp why it is that a Federal Bailout of the banking system was required and in order to get okay with the fact that it's going to cost ... us a lot of ... can keep going to private school, you can add that new room for your mother-in-law to use when she visits. It means you can take care of the emergencies when the stuff of life conflicts with the stuff of...

• Word Count: 628
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... a Web posting directed at the new president, the group's leader warns that "a heavy legacy of crime awaits" him. The message, reported to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Obama is criticized for his position on foreign policy and Israel, and is ridiculed for his view on the state of the world. For many people, the election of Barack Obama marked the culmination of the efforts of leaders of the African-American rights movement, such ... as Malcolm X. But according to the speaker in this message, Obama is nothing like those men, who he refers to as "honourable black ... "You were born to a Musl...

• Word Count: 409
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the montage aired, highlighting the large number of protests they received online. The announcer said the "feature was edited" and "not done to upset anyone" (Chavez). The host, Dan Hicks, read the following statement during the coverage: "It was our intent to begin our coverage of this U.S. Open championship with a feature that captured the patriotism of our national championship being here in our nation's capital for the third time. Regrettably, a portion of the Pledge of ... who were offended by it (Busbee). NBC's Universal Sports issued a second apology from Chris McCloskey, the Vic...

• Word Count: 835
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• Grade Level: High School

... in Germany may not be producing a surplus of energy now, but Werner Bussman, the CEO of the German Geothermal Association, believes that in time such power plants could generate enough energy to cover Germany's need for electricity many times over. The availability is another factor that makes this power source so appealing. Unlike solar power or wind as an energy source, geothermal energy is always available ... . In time, it could come to supply enough energy to create a surplus. Geothermal energy sounds like the answer to all energy questions. While the technology will have to catch u...

• Word Count: 432
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... who seek to divide, by economic and social issues, by the demands of democracy itself. Challenges remain, but the US will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation," said Panetta (Shanker). "After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real," he ... continued. "To be sure, the cost was high, in blood and treasure for the United States, and for the Iraqi people. Those lives were not lost in vain. No words, no ceremony ... can provide...

• Word Count: 292
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• Grade Level: High School

... are not equal, therefore any law that states this is just a formality and not a reality and if children fail to conform to their roles there is said to be an abnormality. The Feminist Movement, therefore, has failed thus far. Pollitt highlights how even scientists have sought to demonstrate genetic differences, proving that boys and girls have different preferences for toys and that ... to be anyone other than who they are. Without a change in attitude, this trend will continue, as the parents of today were the first recipients of equal rights and have not changed, because of it. Even i...

• Word Count: 627
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate