For other Labor Day information, visit our Labor Day 2010 page.

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Board Docs - Charles County Commissioners’ Meeting - TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

1.16 [3:30 p.m.] Follow-up Work Session: Bill Number 2010-11 Noise Control (Ms. Amanda Hill, Assistant County Attorney

Bill 2010-11 Noise Ordinance FINAL.pdf

Williams ltr re noise measurement.pdf

Owen.pdf

Ramos.pdf

Redden.pdf

“Life Before NAS Pax” will be the subject when the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum Foundation kicks off its quarterly speaker series on Sunday, Sept. 26, 4-5 p.m. at the museum.

The Patuxent River Naval Air Station is the leading economic engine of Southern Maryland, with more than 20,000 military and civilian employees. Its impact on the area’s growth has been incalculable.

There was a time, however, before the air station even existed, when Southern Maryland was a ru-ral community. Farming, particularly of tobacco, was the leading occupation. It was a time when numerous farm buildings, an auto dealership, two churches, the town of Pearson and a summer colony existed on what is now NAS Patuxent River.

When the housing bubble burst, one of the culprits, economists agreed, was exotic mortgages, including those that required little or no money down.

But on a recent evening, Matthew and Hannah Middlebrooke stood in their new $115,000 three-bedroom ranch house here, which Mr. Middlebrooke bought in June with just $1,000 down.

Because he also received a grant to cover closing costs and insurance, the check he wrote at the closing was for 67 cents.
[...]
Although home foreclosures are again expected to top two million this year, Fannie Mae, the lending giant that required a government takeover, is creeping back into the market for mortgages with no down payment.

As the provisions of the Affordable Care Act begin to be implemented, many small businesses in the United States will be able to take advantage of new tax credits, a new report states.

During the first phase of the act, some businesses employing some 16.6 million workers will be eligible for these tax credits, according to the report released Thursday from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation.

“The new law is likely to have a significant impact on affordability and access to health care coverage for small business owners and employees,” Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis said during a news conference Wednesday.

Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal’s endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.

Various proposals would gas pups in their dens, surgically sterilize adult wolves and allow “conservation” or “research” hunts to drive down the predators’ numbers.

Once poisoned to near-extermination in the lower 48 states, wolves made a remarkable comeback over the last two decades under protection of the Endangered Species Act. But as packs continue to multiply their taste for livestock and big game herds coveted by hunters has stoked a rising backlash.

Vowing to find new ways to stimulate the sputtering economy, President Barack Obama will call for long-term investments in the nation’s roads, railways and airports that would cost at least $50 billion, administration officials said.

The infrastructure investments are one part of a package of targeted proposals the White House is expected to announce in hopes of jump-starting the economy ahead of the November election. Obama will outline the infrastructure proposal Monday at a Labor Day event in Milwaukee.

While the proposal calls for investments over six years, officials said spending would be front-loaded with an initial $50 billion to help create jobs in the near future. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposals ahead of the president’s announcement.

Not so long ago, teenagers in trouble got grounded. They lost their evenings out, maybe the keys to the family car. But lately the art of family discipline has begun to reflect our digital age.

Now parents seize cellphones, shut down Facebook pages, pull the plug on PlayStation.
[...]
As another school year begins, and parents hold their children accountable for what happens in and out of the classroom, the threat of losing digital privileges will be a recurring flashpoint.

“It’s a modern version of grounding,” says Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist and author of “The Parents We Mean to Be.” “It’s like taking away a weekend or a couple of weekends. It’s a deprivation of social connections in the same way.”

Under mounting pressure to intensify his focus on the economy ahead of the midterm elections, President Obama will call for a $100 billion business tax credit this week, using a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday to launch what administration officials said was a new policy push.

The business proposal - what one aide called a key part of a limited economic package - would increase and permanently extend research and development tax credits for businesses, rewarding companies that develop new technologies domestically and preserve American jobs.

It would be paid for by closing other corporate tax loopholes, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the policy has not yet been unveiled.

If you spend any amount of time behind the wheel, the results of a recent national drivers test should scare you, reports Kevin Ransom in a piece for AOL Autos. In late May, GMAC Insurance reported that nearly 1 in 5 drivers—or about 38 million Americans—could not pass a written drivers test if they took it today.

That’s according to the insurer’s annual National Drivers Test survey, which was conducted by polling 5,202 licensed drivers from 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey posed 20 questions that were culled from various state Department of Motor Vehicles exams.

The general upshot of the results is that a shocking number of licensed American drivers continue to demonstrate a woeful lack of knowledge when it comes to the basic rules of the road:

Most of us are familiar with the food pyramid, the government’s guideline for healthful eating. Now imagine a “money pyramid” for healthy finances.

The Treasury Department is working on such a teaching tool right now, and it’s seeking public input this week on what money maxims should be included. The agency wants your opinion on its proposed list of what adults need to know about five key areas of finance — earning, spending, saving, borrowing and protecting against risk.

The goal is to put those concepts in an easy-to-remember format that can be used by financial education programs across the country — and to help us all make more informed decisions. You can e-mail your thoughts to FLECstrategy@do.treas.gov.

Judges enveloped by mountains of paper, clerks pushing carts piled high with files and people traveling to the courthouse just to look at documents — all could become obsolete in Maryland, as the judiciary moves toward an electronic courts system.

“Right now, you go to court and you say, ‘Can I see the file?’ [Soon] there won’t be a file,” said District Court Chief Judge Ben C. Clyburn, who heads the e-court advisory committee. Instead, people will be able to view a virtual file online.

Nationwide, courts are shedding their historic reliance on paper and moving to e-court systems, said James E. McMillan, an e-courts consultant for the National Center for State Courts.

None has completely abandoned paper, and Maryland will fall into line with the nationwide trend. Plans call for keeping records electronically, doing business electronically and using paper only when it’s requested. But lawyers and individuals still will be able to file paper and clerks will digitize the documents.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership - the American worker.  ~ US Department of Labor