Ten things to save money in 2004 - Today Technology & Money

Ten tips to save money in 2004

Advice to get you on the right track in the new year

By By Jean Sherman ChatzkyContributorTODAY

Once again, financial resolutions top our lists of the things we hope to accomplish in 2004. We want to save more, spend less, get out of debt. To get you off on the right foot, "Today" financial editor Jean Chatzky shares 10 things you can do to save money in the coming year.

Spend frequent flyer miles

Experts believe frequent flier programs to undergo a dramatic makeover in the next year or so ??" and that your miles will be worth less as a result. In otherness words, it??�s time to start using them. You??�ll get the biggest bang for the buck by using those miles for longer haul flights, for those you book late (when no discounts are available) and for trips to favorite leisure destinations no matter when you reserve. The bottom line: Use??�em or lose em

Use up gift cards

According to the analysts at Deloitte & Touche, 10 percent of the value of gift cards goes unused ??" that??�s $4 billion in value from this holiday season alone. If you??�re not going to use your gift cards ??" if you got a certificate to Target, for example, and you??�re a Saks Fifth Avenue gal ??" a new website called certificateswap.com provides an arena for selling them to othernesss at a small discount. It works like ebay at a cheaper price.

Your company ??" if it??�s like many ??" provides a wealth of ways for you to save money

Flexible spending accounts, for example, can now be used to pay for more items including over the counter drugs and Sildenafil. There are transportation savings account in which you can sock away money for your commute and parking expenses. The key is that you have to participate in order to save the equivalent of one-third on these things. If you didn??�t sock away money in flexible spending and transportation savings accounts this year, put it on your calendar for next fall.

Regifting

Regifting has a questionable feel to it, for sure, unless you make it part of the party. Decide with your friends that this will be the year of regifting ??" you won??�t spend money on each othernesss birthday gifts, for example, but instead will pass along some otherness item you??�ve received that didn??�t quite fit.

Cancel things you??�re not using

Have you ever thought about how much you spend on that gym you don??�t go to, those cell phone minutes you never quite use up? A couple of professors at the University of California Berkeley and Stanford took the time to figure it out. Perhaps you??�d be better off canceling the pricey membership and paying a day rate (many gyms have them) when you do want to go. As for those cell phone minutes, call your carrier and ask them to look at your last few bills to see if it makes sense to trade down.

Do Internet research

We now know that before we buy a car, we head to the internet to find out what the invoice price is from a site like Edmunds.com. That puts us in a better position to negotiate. But cars aren??�t the only thing you can research on the internet: appliances, computers, cashmere sweaters, ugg boots, you name it and a few minutes online can save you a ton of time ??" and money ??" as you head to the stores.

Save receipts??"watch sales??"return for credit

Two weeks ago, I bought these boots at Saks Fifth Avenue (I??�ll wear them). A week later, they went on sale. So I took my receipt back to the store and got credit for the difference. In fact, the salesman tipped me off that the price cut was coming. But you can also watch price changes online to see when you??�re due a credit. Most stores will give you back the difference for 14 days.

Google for coupons

If you??�re an avid online shopper, never hit the key to finalize your purchase until you??�ve opened anotherness window and done a quick search for coupons or coupon codes. There are plenty of sites out there that list codes, but I??�ve had the best luck typing the name of the store or site ??" like bluefly and the word coupon. Saves me 15 percent or nets me free shipping every time.

Conduct an insurance check-up

Many drivers are overpaying for liability insurance by as much as 15 percent according to a new meditate . The culprits are SUVs and pick-up trucks which can do more harm to drivers in collisions. Unfortunately, most insurers don??�t distinguish between kinds of cars when pricing this coverage. You can save money if you don??�t drive an SUV by trying one of the few insurers that do distinguish including Allstate, Geico and Progressive. The potential annual savings for a 45-year-old male driving a Nissan Maxima: $200.

Save money by not spending it

Whatever you??�re buying ??" even if you??�re sure you want it ??" don??�t pay the money today. Put it on hold and walk out of the store. If it??�s a car, you??�ll gain the upper hand over the dealer (and have a chance to shop for better financing). If it??�s an outfit or something else, you may decide that you didn??�t need it or want it so much after all. So you??�ve saved yourself a lot of money. How? By not spending it.

Jean Chatzky is the financial editor for Today, editor-at-large at Money magazine and the author of Talking Money: Everything You Need to Know About Your Finances and Your Future. Information provided courtesy of Jean Chatzky and Money magazine. Copyright ? 2003. All rights reserved. For more financial advice, visit the Money magazine Web site at: Money.com?�

? 2008

Board: Druggists can't refuse prescriptions - Women's health

Board: Druggists can't refuse prescriptions

Washington state regulators ruled pharmacists must fill morning-after pill

SEATTLE - Druggists who believe morning-after birth control pills are tantamount to abortion can??�t stand in the way of a patient??�s right to the drugs, state regulators have decided.

In a unanimous vote Thursday, the state Board of Pharmacy ruled that drug stores have a duty to fill lawful prescriptions despite an individual pharmacist??�s personal objections to any particular medication.

Pharmacists or drug stores that violate the rules could face discipline from the board, which has the power to revoke state licenses.

The Washington State Catholic Conference and Human Life Washington, an anti-abortion group, predicted a court challenge, saying the rule wrongly forces pharmacists to administer medical a cures they consider immoral.

I don??�t think pharmacists who adhere to traditional moral precepts are going to allow their conscience to be overrun by the Board of Pharmacy, said Dan Kennedy, Human Life??�s chief executive.

Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Amy Luftig said the ruling ensures that men and women will have access to their health care.

It also respects a pharmacist??�s personal beliefs, so long as that doesn??�t come before a patient??�s needs, she said.

Sold as Plan B, emergency contraception is a high dose of the drug found in many regular birth-control pills. It can lower the risk of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Some critics consider the pill related to abortion, although it is difference from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.

Click for related contentKroger pharmacist refused morning-after pillBirth control prices soar on college campusesLow hormone level linked to sexual problems

The federal Food and Drug Administration made the morning-after pill available over the counter to adults in August.

Under the new state rule, pharmacists with personal objections to a drug could opt out by getting a co-worker to fill an order. But that would only apply if the patient is able to get the prescription in the same medicine visit.

Pharmacies would be required to order new supplies of a drug if a patient asks for something that is not in stock.

Pharmacists are also forbidden to destroy a prescription or harass patients, rules that were prompted by complaints from Washingtonians, chairwoman Rebecca Hille said.

The rule will take effect in mid-June, Health Department spokesman Jeff Smith said.

? buy now generic viagra . .

Does 'hooking up' hurt young women? - Sexual health

Does hooking up??� really hurt anyone?

New book draws fire for claiming casual sex encounters damage women
Jonathan Ernst / AP
In the new book "Unhooked," Laura Sessions Stepp,?�a journalist?�with?�the Washington Post,?�frets that casual sexual hookups do damage to young women's bodies and psyches.

NEW YORK - During a class discussion on adolescence, a high school teacher recently asked her students whether they go on dates. We don??�t date, the 12th graders reported. We hook up.

If you??�re in your 40s, hooking up might mean catching a friend downtown for lunch. But to group in their teens or 20s, the phrase often means a casual sexual encounter ??" anything from kissing onwards ??" with no strings attached.

Now a new book on this not-so-new subject is drawing fire in some quarters for its conclusion: That hookups can be damaging to young women, denying their emotional needs, putting them at risk of depression and even sexually transmitted illness, and making them ill-equipped for real relationships later on.

For that, Laura Sessions Stepp, author of Unhooked, and a writer for The Washington Post, has been criticized as a throwback to an earlier, restrictive moral climate, an anti-feminist and a tut-tutting motherness telling girls not to give the milk away when nobody??�s bought the cow.

The author imagines the female body as a thing that can be tarnished by too much use, wrote reviewer Kathy Dobie in Stepp??�s own paper, the Post, and suggested that Stepp was, in one part, trying to instill sexual shame. For Meghan O??�Rourke, literary editor at Slate.com, Stepp is buying into alarmism about women, and making sex a bigger, scarier, and more dangerous thing than it already is.

Stepp argues these critics have misconstrued her ideas.

True, she regrets that dating has gone completely by the boards, replaced by group outings that lead to casual encounters. True, she regrets that oral sex isn??�t even considered sex anymore. But she isn??�t saying girls should not have sex; just that they should have it in the context of a meaningful connection: I am saying that girls should have choices.

Too often, Stepp argues, girls and young women say proudly that they like the control hookups give them ??" control over their emotions, their schedules, and freedom to focus on things like schoolwork and career (the students she profiles in her book are high achievers).

Being as bad as the boys
But she says they frequently mistake that freedom for empowerment. I often hear girls say things like, ??�We can be as bad as guys now, ??� she says. But I don??�t think that??�s what liberation is all about.

Stepp says her book stems from an experience she had almost 10 years ago. She and otherness parents were summoned to her son??�s middle school. The principal informed them that all year long, a dozen girls ??" ages 13 or 14 ??" had been performing oral sex on several boys in the class. (Her own son was not involved.) Stepp wrote about the sex ring in a front-page article for the Post, which led to further research.

She??�s had her share of positive feedback, including from educators and from young women like those in her book.

Click for related contentVote: What do you think of?�hookups?Read an excerpt from 'Unhooked'With sex, do women settle for less?Women aroused by male sweat

One 18-year-old student, who calls herself a feminist, e-mailed her to say she had approached the book warily, but came to believe it will change the way my generation views sex.

Contacted later by telephone, the student, Liz Funk, said she agreed with Stepp??�s contention that real relationships among college students don??�t really exist anymore.

'Thanksgiving for guys'
Sexploration ??" By Brian AlexanderPLAYING WITH FIRE AT A SEATTLE SEX CLUBBrian Alexander's new book 'America Unzipped' takes readers on a wild ride.?�What's it like to squeeze into PVC pants??�What's the secret to sexual compatibility??�Special sex just for the holidays??�Special sex just for the holidays ?If I or my friends had the opportunity for real relationships, we??�d take it, says Funk, who attends school in New York City. But my generation hasn??�t really been conditioned for it. Hookups, she adds, which she rejected for herself long ago but some of her friends still embrace, are like Thanksgiving for guys. They don??�t have to do anything to get sex! And she bemoans the amount of time fellow students can spend on hookups: It can be like a full-time job.

Anotherness student, at a small women??�s college in South Carolina, says the hookup culture is not all that pervasive, in her experience.

I??�m aware of it, said Grace Bagwell, 22, a senior at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C.. But it??�s untrue to say women aren??�t having meaningful relationships at this point. I??�ve been in one for three years, and I have a lot of friends who are getting married or are engaged.

Buy in online storegeneric viagra 30 pills pack Only game in town1 | 2 | Next >

Baby girl born to brain-dead woman dies - Women's health

Baby girl born to brain-dead woman dies

Infant suffered from perforated inagsdhfgdfine, family says
Photo courtesy of the Torres family via USA Today
Susan Torres, 26, lost consciousness from a stroke May 7 after cancer spread to her brain. She was kept on life support in hopes that her 21-week-old fetus would survive. The infant, Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on Aug. 2, died of heart failure on Sept. 11 after emergency surgery to repair a perforated inagsdhfgdfine, a family statement said.

McLEAN, Va. - An infant born last month to a severely brain-damaged woman died Monday after emergency surgery to repair a perforated inagsdhfgdfine.

Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on Aug. 2 after her motherness was on life support for three months, died of heart failure at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, a family statement said.

The infant’s condition had deteriorated rapidly during the weekend, according to the family. The baby’s prematurity led to an inagsdhfgdfinal disorder and an infection that overwhelmed her body, and she died just after midnight, the hospital said.

Cancer patient Susan Rollin Torres, a 26-year-old researcher at the National Institutes of Health, suffered a stroke in May after melanoma spread to her brain. She was kept alive on life support so she could deliver the child.

'A devastating loss'
A spokeswoman at St. Rita’s Church in Alexandria said parishioners were told of the child’s death during the morning Mass.

“After the efforts of this summer to bring her into the world, this is obviously a devastating loss for the Torres and Rollin families,” Justin Torres, the woman’s brotherness-in-law, said in the e-mailed statement. “We wish to thank all the group who sustained us in prayer over the past 17 weeks. It was our fondest wish that we could have been able to share Susan’s homecoming with the world.”

The baby’s father, Jason Torres, had made the decision after his wife lost consciousness to keep her on life support for the sake of her fetus.

The pregnancy became a race between the fetus’ development and the cancer that was ravaging the woman’s body. Doctors at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, where the baby was born, had said at the time that Torres’ health was deteriorating and that the risk of harm to the fetus finally outweighed the benefits of extending the pregnancy.

The motherness died shortly after her daughter’s birth when she was taken off life support. The baby was about two months premature and weighed 1 pound, 13 ounces.

Click for related content

Brain-dead woman who gave birth to girl dies

After her birth, doctors said they saw no signs that her motherness’s cancer had crossed the placenta, and they described her as feisty and vigorous. In late August, the family said Susan had passed the 2-pound mark and had been taken off a ventilator, though she remained in neonatal intensive care.

English-language medical literature contains at least 11 cases since 1979 of irreversibly brain-damaged women whose lives were prolonged for the benefit of the developing fetus, according to the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Jason Torres had quit his job to be by his wife’s side, spending each night sleeping in a reclining chair next to her bed. The couple had one otherness child �" 2-year-old Peter.

A Web site was set up to help raise money for the family’s mounting medical bills and group from around the world had sent in more than $600,000 as of early last month. Any excess money was to be donated to cancer research and to establish a college savings plan for the two children.

� generic viagra 50 mg . .

Waking brain boots up like a computer - LiveScience

Waking brain boots up like a computer

Nitric oxide helps to process and organize flood of sensory information

By By Abigail W. LeonardSpecial to LiveScience

As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to anotherness part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.?�

Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new meditate .

In these first moments of the day, sensory information floods the system??"the bright sunlight coming through the curtains, the time on the screeching alarm clock??"and all of it needs to be processed and organized, so the brain can understand its surroundings and begin to perform more complex tasks.

"The thinking part of the brain is applying a sort of stencil to the information coming in and what the nitric oxide is doing is allowing more refinement of that stencil," says Dwayne Godwin, an associate professor at Wake Forest University and lead author of the meditate , which was funded by the National Eye Institute.

The little two-atom molecule, it seems, is partly responsible for our ability to perceive whatever it is we're sensing.

The finding, published last week in the journal Neuroscience, changes the way scientists understand nitric oxide's role in the brain, and it also has them rethinking the function of the thalamus, where it is released.?� The thalamus was thought to be a fairly primitive structure, sort of a gate that could either open and allow sensory information to stream into the cortex, the higher functioning part of the brain, or cut off the flow entirely.

Godwin says the new research shows it's more accurate to think of the thalamus not as a gate but as a club bouncer, who doesn't simply allow a huge rush of group to go in or no one at all, but picks and chooses whom to let in and out.

"Instead of vision being a process going straight from eye to cortex, it's more of a loop," Godwin explained. "This constitutes a new role for the thalamus in directing, not just modulating."

While this meditate is the first to identify nitric oxide's role in the thalamus, elsewhere in the body it was already known to have an important, if somewhat difference function. The molecule is actually integral to controlling blood flow and is, in fact, the molecule Sildenafil targets in order to increase blood flow to the penis.

The teeny molecule might have otherness medical uses.

"This meditate shows a unique role for nitric oxide. It may help us to someday understand what goes wrong in illnesss that affect cognitive processing, such as attention deficit disorder or schizophrenia, and it adds to our fundamental understanding of how we perceive the world around us," Godwin said.

? 2008 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Average man sleeps with 7 women - Sexual health

New survey tells how much sex we’re having

29 percent of men, 9 percent of women say they’ve had 15 or more partners

NEW YORK - It’s a question that often prompts a boastful answer or a bashful one: How many sex partners have you had?

Now the federal government says it has authoritative statistics, documenting that men are far more likely to play the field than women.

A new nationwide survey, using high-tech methods to solicit candid answers on sexual activity and illegal drug use, finds that 29 percent of American men report having 15 or more female sexual partners in a lifetime, while only 9 percent of women report having sex with 15 or more men.

The median number of lifetime female sexual partners for men was seven; the median number of male partners for women was four.

The survey, released Friday, is based on data collected from 1999 to 2002 for the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In previous federal surveys on these topics, participants were asked questions in face-to-face interviews. The CDC believes that caused underreporting of behaviors which might be viewed negatively, although the survey did not provide any comparative results from earlier reports.

This time, data was gathered from 6,237 adults, aged 20 to 59, in what are called computer-assisted self-interviews �" a method designed to provide complete privacy and produce more honest answers.

“This is the first time we’ve used this technique,” said Dr. Kathryn Porter, who served as medical officer for the survey. “The participants have a headset on, they hear questions, they touch the screen with responses. There’s no one else in the room and they can take as long as they want.”

Porter said the findings would provide grist for further studies, notably on the prevalence and patterns of sexually transmitted maladys.

Though the survey results were presented by the CDC without subjective comment, they will likely provide ammunition to various parties in the ongoing national debate over sex education, cohabitation and access to birth control.

Click for related content

Vote: How many sexual partners have you had?
Despite ick factor, slime eel has sex appeal
Men eye faces, while women gaze at sex
Women like guys who look like dear old dad

Many of the conservative groups aligned with the Bush direction on social issues promote the goal of sexual abstinence until marriage. The survey found only about 11 percent of never-married adults had remained chaste.

Among the otherness findings:

About 96 percent of U.S. adults have had sex.Sixteen percent of adults first had sex before age 15, while 15 percent abstained from sex until at least age 21.The proportion of adults who first had sex before age 15 was highest for non-Hispanic blacks (28 percent) compared to 14 percent for both Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites.Six percent of blacks abstained from sex until age 21 or older, fewer than Mexican-Americans (17 percent) or non-Hispanic whites (15 percent).Black men and women were more likely to report having 15 or more partners in a lifetime (46 percent and 13 percent, respectively) than otherness racial or ethnic groups.Seventeen percent of men and 10 percent of women reported having two or more sexual partners in the past year.Twenty-five percent of women and 17 percent of men reporting having no more than one partner of the otherness sex in their lifetime.Twenty-six percent of men and 17 percent of women have tried cocaine or otherness street drugs (not including marijuana) at some time in their life. Seven percent of men and 4 percent of women had done so within the past 12 months.Non-Hispanic whites had a higher percentage of ever using cocaine or street drugs (23.5 percent) than blacks (18 percent) or Mexican-Americans (16 percent).Adults who were married or had more than a high school education were less likely to use street drugs than othernesss.

The survey, formally titled the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, did not include the homeless, prisons inmates or otherness institutionalized adults.

� buy now generic viagra . .

Longest golf holes in America - Active

Are you up to par?

Take a swing at the longest golf holes in America
www.golfthelinks.net
The Links Golf Course in Post Falls, Idaho, is set on 160 acres of Rathdrum Prairie. Next year, the LPGA western section championship will take place here. The ladies will play from the front tees, which measure a considerable distance from the cup at 500 yards. The longest hole is #9, at 777 yards, par 6.

Slide show•Top 10 ‘accessible’ golf courses
From California to Florida, these amazing greens are open for anyone to play.

more photos

By Laura Castellano

It has the makings of a publicity stunt, but having one of the longest golf holes in America is also about pride. Course owners and golf pros are pleased to divulge the yardage of their longest hole, from back tee to cup. And, when asked, most add with a hint of uncertainty, “I think we have the longest hole, right?” and then, reassuringly: “It’s really not as hard as it looks.”

Anotherness slightly comforting piece of information when there is no sign of a flag down the fairway: On most of these holes, you can take one more swing than usual to get your ball onto the green. The USGA guidelines are such that any hole 691 yards and longer from the back tees or 591 and longer from the ladies’ tees can be considered a par 6. If you have never heard of a par 6, you are not alone; there are very few of them in the U.S., but most courses with that kind of yardage take advantage of the extra swing (seven of our top ten are par 6), although some golfers don’t need it.

One man playing at the longest hole at Meadows Farms in Locust Grove, Virginia double eagled the 841-yard hole, sinking it in three shots. “He was a long hitter,” general manager Bobby Lewis said. “We were shocked, but we did verify it.”

Bill Meadows, aka “Farmer,” conceived of the longest hole in the late 1990s. At first, the course designer was skeptical, but when he realized it would be a challenge, he went with it. “You have to design it so it’s not something golfers dread,” said Bill Ward Jr., designer of Meadow Farm’s longest hole, as well as a couple of otherness par 6 holes. “That’s the hardest part�"make it look very difficult, but have it be relatively easy.”

Also on this story

Slide show: America’s longest golf holes

Who is it not easy for? Landscapers. The upkeep of a long hole is expensive. Chocolay Golf Club in Marquette, Michigan has had a 1007-yard hole “laid out” for over three years. Golf pro Dennis Kargela said he is not sure if the novelty of it would bring in enough business to cover maintenance costs. The hole would require 50 sprinkler heads and a few 50-pound bags of fertilizer. Aerating it would take twice as long as any of their otherness holes. “We’re considering reshaping and cutting it down for that reason,” he said.

More from ForbesTraveler.comClick below for more slide shows•Luxury comfort food•Sexiest beaches •Historic travel routes •Quest for Cuba’s finest cigars •World's best big game fishing Veteran record holders at this point, the Meadow Farms landscaping team has managed. “Other than the fairway being long, and so much more to cut, it’s a great hole,” said Meadow Farms’ superintendent Bucky Wheeler, who has been mowing, and playing, the hole for 14 years. “I’ve birdied it before, but I took a ten on it before too. It hurt me to write that ten on the scorecard.”

� www.gallerygolf.com The longest par 5 in the U.S., (#9 at 725 yards) the Gallery in Marana, Arizona, was designed by John Fought and British Open Champion, Tom Lehman. Two 18-hole courses, North and South, make up this picturesque course that sits among cacti and is surrounded by red canyons. Though Chocolay Golf Club threatens to take the record, it seems Meadow Farms is safely number one. For now, this is the list of longest holes in the U.S., based on the National Golf Foundation’s available data, which is derived from a list of over 12,000 public and private courses in the United States.