Increasingly employees are asked to make voluntary or mandatory contributions to pension and other benefit plans. This is particularly true for 401(k) savings plans. These plans allow you to deduct from your paycheck a portion of pretax income every year, invest it and pay no taxes on those contributions until the money is withdrawn at retirement. An anti-fraud campaign by the Department of Labor uncovered a small fraction of employers who abused employee contributions by either using the money for corporate purposes or holding on to the money too long. See Ten Warning Signs That Your 401(k) Contributions Are Being Misused: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/10warningsigns.html

The National Marine Fisheries Service allowed the states of Oregon and Washington to kill up to 85 sea lions a year at the Bonneville Dam. But the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held November 23 that the agency violated administrative procedures in reaching its decision. Although the Marine Mammal Protection Act does allow NMFS to take action against predators to protect Endangered Species Act-listed salmon populations, the appeals court held that it did not follow the correct procedures under the Administrative Procedures Act. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Raymond Fisher said the agency "has not satisfactorily explained the basis of its decision." The court remanded the case back to NMFS, which will have a second chance to justify the need for the program. NMFS took action after the Army Corps of Engineers reported that the number of sea lions present had increased. The Army Corps also estimated that the number of salmon the sea lions were eating had also increased. As part of its analysis, the service calculated that 86 sea lions would eat nearly 17,500 salmon a year. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/24/24greenwire-appeals-court-halts-us-sanctioned-killing-of-s-64262.html

Decem means ten in Latin: c.1000, from O.Fr. decembre, from L. December, from decem "ten" (see ten); tenth month of the old Roman calendar, which began with March. The -ber in four L. month names is probably from -bris, an adjectival suffix. Tucker thinks that the first five months were named for their positions in the agricultural cycle, and "after the gathering in of the crops, the months were merely numbered." http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=December

Definitions of Decembrist on the Web: The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising (Восста́ние декабри́стов) took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December (26 December New Style), 1825. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist
The Decembrists is a planned novel by Leo Tolstoy, who finished three chapters. Its hero was to have been a participant in the abortive Decembrist Uprising of 1825, released from Siberian exile after 1856. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decembrists
one of those who conspired to overthrow Russian Czar Nicholas I in December of 1825. Also Dekebrist.
www.electionalize.com/info-glossary.asp http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Decembrist&sa=X&ei=hb3mTM3XFYfSnAeylqSdDQ&ved=0CBMQkAE

The Decemberists is a pop/folk/rock band formed in 2000 in Portland, Oregon with Colin Patrick Henry Meloy as the lead singer and songwriter. In addition to guitars and drum, they use harmonica, accordion and mandolin. Sometimes they use Hammond or Wurlitzer organs. http://www.musiclogy.net/en/artist/The+Decemberists

RUSA-MARS has released their Twelfth Annual Best Free Reference Web Sites. This is an annual series initiated under the auspices of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web. These sites include:
American Time Use Survey, http://www.bls.gov/tus/ The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) provides statistics and graphical data on the amount of time people in the U.S. spend on various activities: watching TV, eating, working in the yard.
GovTrack.us: Tracking the U.S. Congress, http://www.govtrack.us GovTrack, a non-governmental resource, is a tool for tracking the current activities and researching the United States Congress.
Hulu, http://www.hulu.com A site with free television episodes, full-length movies, and video clips.
Muckety – Exploring the paths of power and influence, http://news.muckety.com Muckety is a news site with a difference; taking the news, it charts relationships among players and other persons and events. Search on a celebrity name to see connections on an interactive graph. http://blog.fairfield.edu/The_DNL_Report/?p=1759 You will find the entire list here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestfreewebsites/marsbestfree2010.cfm
Each time I tried to go to the "horse's mouth" (www.rusq.org or www.rusq.org/2010/.../best-free-reference-websites-twelfth-annual-list) and get the original article, I got a message that "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage."

Q: Has anyone done research into using kudzu for biofuel? A: Most efforts are aimed at trying to kill kudzu, an invasive vine-like weed that has cost billions of dollars in lost crops. However, it has potential as an ingredient for biofuels. A 2008 study concluded that, under certain conditions, kudzu could produce about 400 liters of ethanol per acre, on par with corn. The study was by the University of Toronto and the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agriculture Research Service. The next step is a large-scale project that could prove using kudzu to make ethanol is economically feasible, University of Toronto Professor Rowan Sage said. That has yet to occur. One reason could be that investment in many areas of alternative energy virtually dried up as the recession took hold and gas prices fell. AgroGas, based in Cleveland, Tenn., is raising capital to prove commercial production of ethanol using kudzu is possible. It already has operated test vehicles using limited quantities. "It's quite a usable fuel and we're making it out of something nobody wants here in the South," AgroGas co-founder Doug Mizell said. -- Sandy Shore, AP, Denver. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Nov/JU/ar_JU_112910.asp?d=112910,2010,Nov,29&c=c_13