Including Your Credit Card Account Number To A Company Outside The Credit Card Issuer.( Credit Card Companys name is shown)" as is the name of the company that will supply and ship the items ordered.
At this point in our conversation my friend said "What"!!!
While the items depicted in the flyer were reasonably priced and appeared to be of quality, I commented that "I Would Not Touch The Offer "because in buying I would be opening another source to infringe on my privacy and another avenue for identity theft
I further commented that the company that would sell and deliver the items would be in possession of my information Before they informed me of their Privacy Policy, if they had a Privacy policy
IF YOU HAVE TO USE A MAGNIFYING GLASS TO READ THE FINE PRINT. GET ONE OR USE ONE!! Protect Yourself!!!
Tuna Roulette
Published January 28, 2006
A new government study bolsters the conclusions of a recent Tribune investigative series that found mercury contamination in a disturbingly large share of samples of the seafood that Americans love to saute' on the grill and stuff into children's lunchboxes.
The newly released testing on 25 fish varieties by the Food and Drug Administration found high mercury levels in many samples of Chilean sea bass, a menu favorite at gourmet restaurants, and what is commonly referred to asahi tuna, which often is served in sushi.
The survey also found that 6 percent of the samples of canned light tuna that were tested contained mercury levels that the government considers high--albeit still within legal limits.
That is particularly unsettling because health officials tout canned light tuna as a good low mercury seafood choice for fish lovers, especially pregnant women and children.
Fish is a dietary conundrum. It is packed with vitamins, minerals and proteins and is low in saturated fats. Fish also is a good source of oils important to the development of unborn and breast fed babies. The American Heart Association says a diet of two to three fish meals a week can help reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack.
Those benefits must be weighed against the dangerous levels of mercury that can be found in many commonly consumed fish varieties. Too much mercury ingestion can lead to learning disabilities and developmental delays in children and neurological problems in adults.
FDA testing of fish for mercury contamination has been sparse over the years, despite the known dangers.
The newest study involved samples collected between 2001 and 2005. Earlier testing had given rise to government warnings about high mercury levels in albacore and yellowfin tuna, common ingredients of the tuna fish sandwich.
In 2004, women of childbearing age and youngsters were advised not to eat more than 6 ounces of albacore canned tuna a week.
Light canned tuna was supposed to be a good fallback because it was thought to be made with skipjack tuna, which is low in mercury. It's the second most consumed type of seafood after shrimp.
Turns out, however, that the U.S. tuna industry often uses higher mercury yellowfin to make canned light tuna.
The new FDA survey found that 6 percent of the 216 canned light tuna samples had mercury levels exceeding 0.35 parts per million, the threshold for what the government considers high.
The industry and government spin on the findings is that it's no big deal because, on average, canned light tuna samples tested quite low for mercury.
But it seems clear that when it comes to your health, buying tuna at the store is a game of roulette.
Fetal nervous systems are sensitive to toxic metals, and experts don't really know whether pregnant women can harm their babies with a single mercury laced meal.
When you whip up a tuna salad, the can you pull from the pantry could contain low mercury skipjack or higher mercury yellowfin. You have no good way of knowing, and that needs to be fixed.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Highlights added by page author.
* A Message For People With Severely Weakened Immune Systems...cancer... undergoing chemotherapy, undergone organ transplants, with HIV /AIDS or other immune system disorders, some elderly, and infants may be at risk from infections.
Cryptosporidium is a protozoan found in untreated surface waters throughout the United States. Although filtration removes Cryptosporidium, the most commonly used filtration methods cannot
guarantee 100% removal. Ingestion of Cryptosporidium may cause cryptosporidiosis, an abdominal infection. Symptoms of infection include nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps.
Most healthy individuals can overcome the disease within a few weeks. However, people with severely weakened immune systems have a risk of developing life ...threatening illness.
We encourage such people to consult their doctors regarding appropriate precautions to take to avoid infection. Cryptosporidium must be ingested to cause disease, and it is spread through means other than drinking water.
For additional information regarding cryptosporidiosis and how it may impact those with weakened immune systems, contact Customer Service Center at (800) 422-2782 or speak with your personal health care provider.
Important Health Information
Drinking water, inc1uding bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. The presence of these contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk.
More information about contaminants and potential health effects can be
obtained by calling the U.S. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Hotline 800-426-4791.
Some people may be more vulnerable to contaminants in drinking water than the general population.
Immunocompromised persons such as persons with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, persons who have undergone organ transplants, people with HIV /AIDS or other immune system disorders, some elderly, and infants may be particularly at risk from infections.
These people should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers.
USEPA/CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines on appropriate means to lessen the risk of infection by Cryptosporidium and other microbial contaminants are available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline 800-462-4791
* Copied from Illinois-American Water Company flyer
| 98,000 PEOPLE DIED AS RESULT OF " HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED INFECTIONS A Must Visit Page |
|---|
| Hospitals "Must" Solve These Problems, If Not, You or your loved ones Will Be A Statistic!!! Doctors, Nurses, Hospital Personnel Make Them Wash Their Hands !! Click To Read ...Four years after this page was launched, The Chicago Tribune's (7/21/2002) three (3) part Expose' ON " INVESTIGATION: UNHEALTHY HOSPITALS " says they are still killing us and our children with Dirty Hands and Unsafe Sanitation. ...September 9, 2002 issue of Chicago Tribune contains article on Hospital Drug Errors, which relates to the " Institute Of Medicine's " report that Medical Errors contribute to more than one million (1,000,000 ) Injuries and Ninety Eight thousand ( 98,000 ) deaths annually !!!
Health care workers trained for the new study were sent on-site and recorded errors during 81 days of observation. Potentially harmful errors included overdoses and instances when nurses failed to give patients prescribed medication..(For verification of summery on Hospital Drug Errors, visit the Chicago Tribune's Archives )...Type "Hospital Drug Errors" in search box...There may be a cost for a copy.
Read The Reader's Digest, February Issue (2003)on Fatal Hospital Mistakes..."Death Beds"...Dirty Hospitals kill 75,00 patients a year."Unnecessarily". You must purchase the magazine |
How To Share The Road With Tractor Trailers
Motorists can feel better about driving in the vicinity of giant tractor-trailers by following, when possible, these defensive driving guidelines, adapted from the American Trucking Associations:
• "Never "cut in front of a truck. At 55 mph, fully loaded trucks take the length of a football field to stop-(*)fifty
percent (50%) farther than a car. Be sure you're at least four car lengths' in front of the truck,
• Don't linger alongside.
There are large blind spots around trucks where cars
disappear from the drivers view.Check the drivers side mirrors: If you can't see the drivers face, the driver can't see you.
To get out of left and right blind spots, pass quickly or slow down.
• Pass on the left. The blind spot on the right runs the length of the trailer and extends out three lanes.
• It's safer to pass on the left.
• Keep a safe distance.
• To avoid blind spots when behind a truck, stay back
20-25 car lengths, if possible.
Copied from PARADE Magazine... OCTOBER 30, 2005 issue
Layout of article by page author.
Should You Retire Early?...Also see "Five Questions Before You Retire" article below
It can be up to 15 years before a later retirement pays off
By Tom Margenau: Director of Social Security's Public Affair Bureau,1333 Front St...San Diego, CA 92101. E-mail: Thomas.margenau@ssa.gov
Q: I plan to retire at age 60 and I am trying to decide if I should take Social Security at 62 or wait until my full retirement age,
which is 66.
In a book, I read that it takes 16 years to make up the money I lose by not taking early retirement. But a financial planner told me it's only about 10 years. How do you do that calculation?
A: The time it takes to recover benefits lost by not taking early retirement is usually in the 10 to 15 year range. The reason for the fiveyear "wiggle room" has to do with variances in benefit rates. Also, some people like to figure in interest that could be earned assuming they invest their reduced Social Security benefits. Others try to factor in inflation factors such as cost of living adjustments.
But to keep the math simple, just take the total benefits you would get between age 62 and age 66 and divide that by the difference between your age 62 benefit and your age 66 benefit".
For example, let's say your full retirement age benefit is $1,000. If you took that benefit at 62, it would be $750. So you would get 47 checks (we usually don't pay a benefit for the month you turn 62) at $750 each or $35,250 between age 62 and 66. But your benefit will stay at $750 forever - with cost of living increases, of course.
Had you waited until age 66, you would have lost the $35,250 in early
retirement benefits. But you'd be getting the higher $1,000 per month benefit forever. That is $250 more per month. So it would take you about 141 months (or just shy of 12 years) to make up the money you would have lost by not taking early retirement.
Five Questions Before You Retire
By JONATHAN CLEMENTS... April 15, 2007...©Wall Street Journal insert in Daily Herald
You had (*)forty (40) years to prepare. But are you really ready?
Make no mistake: Retiring is hard work. You have to figure out where you will live, whether your nest egg is big enough and what you will do with all that free time.About to call it quits? Before you hand in your notice, ponder these five questions.
1 Do you have enough saved?
Add up your sources of income. You will have Social Security. Maybe you will have a pension.
On top of that, there's the income from your savings. You might start retirement with a 4.5% annual portfolio withdrawal rate, meaning you would pull out $18,000 if you have $400,000 saved.
In subsequent years, you would step up your annual withdrawals with the inflation rate. If annual inflation runs at 3%, you would pull out $18,540 in year two, $19,096 in year three and so on. These sums would include any dividends and interest you receive. Keep in mind that part of this money would go toward taxes.
There's a good chance you won't have as much retirement income as you would like. To give yourself some financial breathing room, you might trade down to a smaller home, move to a less expensive part of the country, take cheaper vacations and eat out less. If that doesn't make the numbers work, maybe you need to stick with your job a little longer or work part time in retirement.
2 How will you cover major expenses?
With a little belt tightening, your projected retirement income may cover your monthly costs. But that isn't enough. You also need to budget for major expenses, such as replacing the car, the furnace and the roof.
And then there's the really scary cost, long term care. A majority of seniors will, at some point during their retirement, need help with activities like bathing and dressing. For most folks, the costs involved will be fairly small.
An unlucky minority, however, will get hit with truly horrendous costs.
A study in the winter 2005-2006 issue of Inquiry, authored by academics Peter Kemper and Harriet Komisar and consultant Lisa Alecxih, estimated that (*) sixteen percent (16%) of today's 65-year-olds will incur expenses of over $100,000. This sum represents the amount you would need at age 65 to cover projected long-term-care costs.
How will you cope if you are walloped with expenses like these? You need to head into retirement with some sort of plan.
Maybe you are willing to deplete your assets and then fall back on Medicaid. Maybe you can cover the costs with pension income, Social Security and portfolio withdrawals. Maybe you will tap these income sources -- and supplement them with a long-term-care insurance policy.
3 How will you generate income?
A fat nest egg, a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds and a modest withdrawal rate, like 4.5%, are good starting points.
But you also need a system for extracting cash from your investments. Your goal: To generate an income stream that lasts as long as you do, that rises with inflation and that doesn't get derailed by bad markets.
To that end, you might take your dividends and interest in cash, and then garner extra income each year by selling either stocks or bonds, depending on which has lately performed better.
Alternatively, for extra safety, you might draw your spending money from a cash reserve equal to three or even five years of portfolio withdrawals. To replenish the reserve, you would occasionally sell stocks and bonds.
Meanwhile, for further protection against bad markets, you have Social Security and any pension income. These will provide a base level of income, while also offering a safety net in case you outlive your savings.
If you want additional protection, you might delay Social Security to get a larger benefit. You could also use a slice of your savings to purchase an immediate annuity that pays lifetime income.
4 Is your mortgage paid off?
Call me old fashioned, but I have always thought that paying off the mortgage was a key step on the road to retirement. Yet more and more seniors are quitting the work force with their mortgage still outstanding.
In theory, if you have enough pension, Social Security and investment income to service your mortgage, there's nothing wrong with carrying that debt into retirement.
In practice, making those mortgage payments will likely crimp your retirement lifestyle -- and leave you in a nasty tax trap.
What trap? To pay the mortgage company, you will probably have to make larger retirement account withdrawals, which will be taxable. This extra income could, in turn, trigger taxes on your Social Security benefit.
To be sure, this double tax whammy will be partly offset by the mortgage-interest tax deduction. But if you are near the end of your mortgage, your monthly payment may include relatively little mortgage interest, so the tax benefit will be modest.
In fact, your itemized deductions may be barely above your standard deduction. That standard deduction, of course, is available to all taxpayers -- including your mortgage free neighbors.
5 What will you do?
As you approach retirement, it's enticing to think about waking up a little more slowly and breezing through the rest of the day at a similar pace. But in truth, if your notion of retirement is confined to vague thoughts of relaxing, playing golf and traveling, it is likely to be a disaster.
The reason: Upon retirement, you lose not only the daily structure that a job offers, but also the social, physical and intellectual stimulation that comes with heading to work five days a week. If you don't replace that, both your physical and mental health may rapidly deteriorate.
What to do? You need an exercise schedule. You should make a point of seeing friends regularly. Most important, you need to find a new purpose.
That might mean taking college courses, volunteering or working part time in a job that's always intrigued you. The litmus test: When people ask what you do, your answer shouldn't be, "I'm retired."
• Jonathan Clements also writes the "Getting Going" column that appears Wednesdays in The Wall Street Journal. Write to him at: jonathan.clements@wsj.com.
Highlights,Paragraph breaks &* by page author
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