Is there a dictionary in the White House?
After relenting last month in the face of a lawsuit by CREW, the Obama administration finally has begun to release the names of visitors to the White House - as promised during the 2008 presidential campaign. In announcing the release of the first batch of names, a White House blog post is entitled: Transparency like you’ve never seen before Does the author, special counsel to the president for ethics a

Melamine limits for baby formula too high, study finds
A research paper published in the September issue of Pediatric Nephrology reveals that current limits on trace amounts of melamine in baby formula increase the risk of pediatric kidney disease, therefore are too high. Melamine is the industrial chemical that hospitalized thousands of Chinese children in 2008 when it was intentionally added to milk in large amounts. Researchers found that cases of pediatric nephrolithiasis nearly doubled with when infants were exposed to less than 0.2 mg/kg per day of melamine. That is the World Health Organization's recommended "tolerable daily intake" (TDI) for infants. That finding also calls into question the U.S. Food and Drug Adm

President declares H1N1 flu a "national emergency"
Late Friday night, President Obama declared the H1N1 flu (or "swine flu") pandemic a national emergency. “Given that the rapid increase in illness across the Nation may overburden health care resources and that the temporary waiver of certain standard federal requirements may be warranted in order to enable U.S. health care facilities to implement emergency operations plans, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the United States constitutes a national emergency,” Obama wrote in the proclamation. (

I'm from the IRS. I'm here to help.
Really! Yes, small employers, the IRS really does want to help you find your way through the complex web of rules and laws on benefits. You can get started at http://www.retirementplans.irs.gov/ That site will link you to paths to setting up a new plan, vetting an existing plan, and ascertaining whether there are problem issues with an existing plan. The site has lots more useful tools. One nice one lets you pick types of plans you

"A child dies every six seconds of malnutrition"
1 Billion is a very big number. The human population of the world didn't reach the 1 billion milestone until the year 1804. Now, for the first time in human history, we've reached another 1 billion milestone. That's the number of humans going to bed hungry tonight. A record 1 billion people worldwide are hungry and a new report says the number will increase if governments do not spend more on agriculture. According to the U.N. food agency, which issued the report, 30 countries now require emergency aid, including 20 in Africa. "It's actually a wor