Retirement account holders who avoided minimum distributions in 2009 won’t have the same break in 2010. By December 31, anyone born before July 1, 1939 will have to pull money out of their IRAs and other tax-deferred retirement accounts. But there are some ways to make that less painful, tax wise, says Rebecca Pavese, a tax adviser with Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Atlanta. Here are her tips for minimizing the impact of those distributions:
Take even more. If 2010 was a bad year for you — with lower income and lots of deductible expenses or business losses — take more than the minimum out of your tax deferred account. Your tax rate might be higher in 2011. If you make more than $200,000, there’s a chance your tax rate will go up in 2011 as the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire. Wait to see what Congress does in its lame duck session, suggests Pavese. If those tax cuts expire, take more out of your IRA this year.
Take shares, not cash. Most people simply take cash out of their accounts, but there are benefits to taking your distribution in shares of securities like stocks or bonds. That’s because the shares come out of your retirement account valued at their current price. If you hold them for at least a year before you sell them, you’ll pay tax on their gains at the lower capital gains rate instead of the income tax rate. “This can work especially well if you think the security is undervalued and you don’t need the cash,” says Pavese. Of course, if you don’t love the stock, you can simply take cash out of your IRA and invest it in another security for the same benefit. Use tax withholding to your advantage. Since those withdrawals are taxable, savers usually have to pay quarterly estimated taxes to cover the amount of taxes that are due, starting in October of the year the distribution is to be made. But if you instead direct the bank or investment company that holds your IRA to withhold taxes on the distribution, that won’t happen until you take the distribution at the end of the year. http://blogs.reuters.com/deep-pocket/2010/10/21/mandatory-ira-withdrawals-are-back-in-2010/

A murder of crows (originally murther of crowes) is based on the folk tale that crows form tribunals to judge and punish the bad behavior of a member of the flock. If the verdict goes against the defendant, that bird is killed (murdered) by the flock. The basis in fact is probably that occasionally crows will kill a dying crow who doesn’t belong in their territory or much more commonly feed on carcasses of dead crows. Also, both crows and ravens are associated with battlefields, medieval hospitals, execution sites and cemeteries because they scavenged on human remains. In England, a tombstone is sometimes called a ravenstone.

Terms for groups of animals, including murder of crows, business of ferrets, chine of polecats gaze of raccoons, rhumba of rattlesnakes, and unkindness of ravens. Some animals have more than one collective name--for instance there are almost a dozen different names for rabbits. http://www.rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml

Two good examples of collective nouns are "team" and "government," which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people. Both "team" and "government" are count nouns. However, confusion often stems from the fact that plural verb forms can often be used, at least in English as it is used in several countries, with the singular forms of these count nouns (for example: "The team have finished the project"). Conversely, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in "-s" that were once considered plural (for example: "Physics is my favorite academic subject"). This apparent "number mismatch" is actually a quite natural and logical feature of human language, and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift in the thoughts underlying the words. In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals. This is also British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts; for example, "Germany have won the competition," The tradition of using collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals stems from an English Medieval hunting tradition, dating back to at least the fifteenth century. Terms of venery were used by gentlemen to distinguish themselves from yeomen and others and formed part of their education. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun

A new Web site developed by the United States Botanic Garden and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin brings homeowners comprehensive, accessible advice on creating nature-friendly, sustainable landscapes at home, no matter where they live. The new site at Landscape for Life provides a layman's explanation and practical approaches to "greening" gardens and home landscape based on the principles outlined in the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITESTM). This national rating system for sustainable landscapes was developed over four years by technical experts on water, sustainable materials, human health and other topics. The Landscape for Life Web site provides homeowners a scaled-down version of the SITES voluntary guidelines and performance benchmarks that have, until now, been developed for landscape professionals. "Conventional gardens often work against nature," said Holly Shimizu, executive director of the U.S. Botanic Garden. " We hope to enlist the power of all those home gardeners who want to give the benefits of nature a helping hand have a regenerative sustainable garden. What a difference that can make." Conventional home landscapes very often consume large quantities of water and chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. They often use plants ill-adapted to local conditions or plants that are invasive. A sustainable landscape harnesses the power of nature to cleanse pollutants from air and water, to capture and hold rainwater and mitigate the urban heat island effect. A downloadable workbook that covers the Web site content is available online. A colorful, informative overview brochure about the Web site content, "Landscape for LifeTM, Your Guide to Harnessing Nature's Power for a Healthy, Beautiful Garden" (PDF) is also available. http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/10/19/landscape_wildflower/