 study purporting to show that oil and gas stock holdings have been providing a big boost to public pension funds.
Those would be the same public pension funds that are said to be desperately underfunded because of shortfalls in, among other things, corporate tax payments by the likes of the oil giants. Rather than depending on a bit of indirect capital appreciation, we would be much better off if the petroleum industry paid higher federal and state tax rates, especially when oil prices—and thus profits—are going through the roof.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2011 at 1:13 pm	and is filed under Corporate Profits, Petroleum Industry, Tax avoidance/evasion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Report: Official Knew of Vehicle Licensing System Problems
ST. PAUL (AP) -- An outside investigator has found that the information technology official overseeing Minnesota's troubled vehicle licensing system had been aware of numerous issues but failed to address them.
Law firm Everett & VanderWiel's investigation finds that Paul Meekin didn't fulfill expectations related to pre-launch testing and management responsibilities, such as communication and staffing.
Minnesota IT Services fired Meekin last month as the agency's chief business technology officer.
The $93 million Minnesota Licensing and Registration System launched in July. The system immediately faced problems, including delays in the processing of license and title transactions.
Meekin says he didn't know of the system's code problems prior to its launch. He says making one person solely responsible for the system's problems will only result in more IT issues.<issue_start><issue_comment>Title: [Security] Workflow nodejs.yml is using vulnerable action actions/checkout
username_0: The workflow nodejs.yml is referencing action actions/checkout using references v1. However this reference is missing the commit [a6747255bd19d7a757dbdda8c654a9f84db19839](https://github.com/actions/checkout/commits/a6747255bd19d7a757dbdda8c654a9f84db19839) which may contain fix to the some vulnerability. 
The vulnerability fix that is missing by actions version could be related to: 
(1) CVE fix 
(2) upgrade of vulnerable dependency 
(3) fix to secret leak and others. 
Please consider to update the reference to the action.The Rams go into their last three games of the regular season knowing that only cruel twists of fate can keep them out of the playoffs.
Nobody wants to prevent that from happening more than Cooper Kupp, who has known such a twist.
The last time the Rams were marching toward the playoffs, in 2018, Kupp could only watch, out with a knee injury.
This time, the wide receiver is healthy, leading the team in catches (79) and receiving yards (869), and eager to find out what he missed.
When Kupp returned to the team for 2019 training camp after missing half of the previous regular season and the Rams’ run to the Super Bowl, he talked about appreciating football more because it had been temporarily taken away from him.
That old theme is new again.
“I think I have got great perspective coming into these last few games about being able to finish the season out strong, and the focus and attention to detail that it takes to make sure you’re taking care of your body and taking care of yourself, and being able to get out there on Sundays and put your best foot forward for your guys,” Kupp said.
That starts this Sunday when the Rams (9-4) host the New York Jets (0-13) at SoFi Stadium.
In the likely event that the Rams win, they will officially clinch a spot in the NFC playoffs and go into their Week 16 road game against the Seattle Seahawks (9-4) with a chance to clinch the NFC West title.
For now, the Rams lead the division over Seattle based on a tiebreaker (they won the teams’ first meeting) and are third in the conference seedings. If the playoffs started now, they’d host a first-round game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But anything remains mathematically possible, from finishing 3-0 and grabbing the No. 1 seed and first-round bye to finishing 0-3 and missing the playoffs.
Their chances are better with Kupp teaming with Robert Woods to form the NFL’s top wide receiver duo in terms of catches this season.
“I think it means a lot to him, just to be a part of this team throughout the haul,” said Woods, who has 76 catches for 796 yards. “Especially right now, in December, during this stretch where we need to push to get our (playoff) bid in.
In 2018, not having Kupp on the field after Week 10 was one reason (though only one) the offense sputtered at times, the worst time being in the Super Bowl against New England.
Kupp isn’t looking back. Or too far forward, taking nothing for granted about a game against the winless Jets.
“It’s going to take everything we’ve got to go out and win this game this week. There’s literally no lapse in focus, there’s no lapse in concentration,” Kupp said, insisting there’s a “razor-thin margin” between NFL teams with good and bad records.
Practice squad tight end Kendall Blanton went back on the COVID-19 reserve list, for players who have tested positive or been exposed to an infected person.
Blanton was on the list in November, as were wide receiver J.J. Koski and defensive back Jake Gervase. Linebacker Jachai Polite is also on the list now. All of them are practice squad players.
Nine current Rams are known to have been affected by the virus in some way, including three who tested positive for it before the season (tackle Andrew Whitworth, center Brian Allen and linebacker Terrell Lewis), one other who was on the COVID-19 reserve list in training camp (practice squad defensive tackle Michael Hoecht), and one who opted out of playing this season (tackle Chandler Brewer).
Cornerback Tyrique McGhee is back on the practice squad after serving a two-game league suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. … The kickoff time for the Rams’ game at Seattle on Sunday, Dec. 27, was changed from 1:05 p.m. to 1:25 p.m. … Defensive linemen Sebastian Joseph-Day and Michael Brockers combined to donate $25,000 to St. Margaret’s Center, helping the Inglewood-based charity give gift cards to more than 1,000 children and 500 families.Gaming as it is frequently called is among one of the most preferred activities worldwide. The reason why is that there are so many various kinds of gaming; Las Vegas is just one. However, there are 3 core elements to any game of chance: danger, consideration, as well as a win. Without these three aspects, betting would certainly be taken into consideration a type of luck, and also as a result not worth the moment or effort.
To understand just how to stop gambling, it assists to recognize initial what it is. Betting is basically the same as other kinds of gaming however without the “edge”. Gaming is just the betting on something with an unidentified outcome with the intention of winning something for oneself. So generally, it resembles playing the lotto. In other words, if you had the ability to predict the outcome of a lottery game then why can not you anticipate the end result of your own betting tasks?
One thing that people that are managing wagering addiction tend to neglect is that they remain in fact trying to win cash; as a result, any type of win is really a win. This is why some people specify where they have to ask themselves, “Is my betting addiction worth conserving?” In numerous circumstances, this would certainly be the very best solution you might ever locate. Nevertheless, if you are like the majority of people, your response will certainly probably be, “Not yet.”
There are a variety of different types of addictions associated with gambling. The most usual is probably alcohol or medicine dependency. These sort of addictions are normally treated by rehabilitation facilities, as well as in many cases, can also be cured with specialist assistance. Nonetheless, for the majority of people who suffer from gambling addictions, it does not require such a high level of therapy in order to quit. It is more crucial to recognize that these are uncontrollable actions and also therefore, should be dealt with similar to any other uncontrollable behavior. Expert assistance might be necessary in order to treat addictions to gambling, yet with some research, you must easily have the ability to locate different sources that specialize in treating gambling dependencies.
Uncontrollable gambling condition can be very challenging to treat. Most of the times, the issue is so bad that even specialist aid might not be enough. It is additionally crucial that you comprehend that these dependencies are usually triggered by emotional problems. This means that you require to seek mental help in order to treat your addiction. This must be considered firstly prior to considering medications or alternative therapies for your gaming issue.
As is true with most types of dependencies, the treatment for betting addiction can range anywhere from therapy to medication. The initial step in treating your dependency is, certainly, acknowledging that you have an issue. If you are like most individuals, if you knew you had an issue, you possibly would not play a great deal of the cards at all.