Fish from the Gulf of Mexico are the cause of outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning. This was confirmed today by the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday. The outbreaks of the illness were confirmed in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis.

The biggest threat of tainted fish comes from grouper, snapper, amberjack and barracuda. Why these particular fish? It is because they feed on fish that have eaten toxic marine algae. Though the toxin causes no harm to the fish, the humans that eat them can develop neurological problems that could last for months or even years.

Symptoms of ciguatera poisoning include nausea, vomiting, vertigo and joint pain.

Although it is considered rare for fish in the northern Gulf of Mexico to have the toxin, the FDA did confirm that the tainted fish are from the area around the Flower Garden Banks National Marine in the northwestern Gulf.

Those who think they may have ciguatera poisoning are urged to report their symptoms and what fish they ate to a doctor or local health department.

I’m not one to usually incur speeding tickets. The last ticket I got, in fact, was when I was driving down I-75 from our house to my mother’s and my daughter, who was an infant at the time, was howling and crying. She had me so distracted that it was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road, on other cars, and just drive along the yellow line. Needless to say, I was driving too fast and got pulled over.

My ex husband, on the other hand, is a speed demon. He drives around in his man car with its massive Hemi and eats up the roads. Because his car was registered to the marital home, I was getting all sorts of notices in his name each time he got tickets. And, he got them often, despite his super-duper high-tech radar detector.

He fights his tickets, though. He uses a local attorney that fixes things in the courts for him. There are easier ways to get tickets dismissed, though. Sites like TicketBust tell you how to fight a speeding ticket in California. There are similar services all over the nation and most, like TicketBust, offer money back guarantees. If you are generally a safe driver, there is no need for one ticket to add points to your license or cause your insurance to rise. You can work at getting the ticket reduced, or even dismissed. People do this on a regular basis.

The fact is that Congress has not actually approved the tax rebate plan that weould give people between $600 and $800 back on their taxes.

Nonetheless, scammers are already hard at work trying to use the expected rebate as a way to trick people into giving out their personal information.

The scammers are making phone calls and sending out e-mail offering their services to assist people in getting their rebate check. All they are looking for is your personal information so they can get into your bank account, or worse.

One example of what they scammers will attempt: a company calling itself the Federal Commission Refund Department offers to help you get your refund for a $29 fee that they would deduct from your bank accounts. Or, there are those claiming to be IRS agents and ask for your social security number and other information that would then allow them to get a credit card in your name.

If someone offers to help, hang up. If and when the rebate plan gets approved, the government will supply more than enough information to the public to make sure you get what you have coming to you. In most cases, you won’t have to do a thing except walk to your mailbox.

When it comes down to making my income stretch far enough to pay my bills, I have to say that the key is debt management. I have to be careful about what I allow to be added to my debt and what I do to pay off existing debt as quickly and affordably as possible. The bare truth of the matter is that the best way to stay out of dent is to do anything possible not to add new dent to your plate.

For example, I am not going to take on another car payment while I have my current car payment and my backup car sitting in front of the house. It is need over want in my case. I am focused on paying off the debt I already have, especially in light of the fact that I never really know what will come down the pike in terms of a medical emergency. Plus, I am on my own now and I have to rely on myself to make sure money never becomes more of a problem than I can handle.

I want to keep my daughter in her private, Christian school, but I am also researching the option of getting her into one of the little charter schools in the area. They might not be Christian based, but they will allow me to give Gigi a private school style education for free. Again, I am looking into a way to obtain what I need without adding to my overall debt.

When I got divorced, I left behind a very enjoyable 55-inche HD TV. While I would love to replace that, I have become satisfied with watching my old 19-inch Sony. It does the trick. Once more, need over want.

We are in an era where debt consolidation help is something that a lot of people seek. Some people are looking to actually combine current debt into one account that will generate just one bill a month. My best friend and her husband did that. Others, like myself, are just looking for counseling and tips, or help with working out a budget and a financial plan. I am always on the lookout for articles and advice to help me better understand how to manage my money and avoid future debt.

In any event, it all boils down to what I said before – staying out of debt involved doing what y9ou can to avoid taking on new debt.

I do not enjoy the nanny shows on child management. I suppose I am always wondering if editing is making the situation look worse than it is and I end up feeling sorry for how asinine the parents look. I have my own share of problems getting my almost-five-year-old to obey, but I would not put that on national television.

A local family out in Wesley Chapel decided to other the other route, though. They will actually take their situation out in front of American when they appear tomorrow on an episode of ABC’s “Supernanny,” at 9 p.m.

Nanny Jo Frost steps in the help Brenda and Bill Dostal with their children, Zachary, 5, and Erin, 3. Frost actually visited them this past October.

Brenda Dostal admitted it is embarrassing to air “dirty laundry” on national television, but that in the end it was worth it. She says Frost helped save her marriage.

I do freelance graphic design and web design. I also like to do digital scrap booking and other crafting that involves my skills in graphic design. With that in mind, I have to say that adore fonts. I love fonts. I gaze longingly at some of the more unique and pricey fonts. I am smitten.

If your eye is even a little bit attuned to the subtle differences a font can make in the look of a page or other design, you will understand why I often find that the most time consuming part of a design is the choosing of the right font. I can change the title font on a brochure and the entire feel of the piece changes. I can make a small change to the style of the font in a paragraph and instantly the whole document is easier to read and simpler to mentally digest.

Sometimes it is as subtle as the slope of a serif or the boldness of the cross stroke on the letter A.

While many fonts are free, you will find that the more high quality and versatile fonts are not. Buying each font individually can be expensive, but often you can find package deals and save a bundle by purchasing a set of five or six complementary fonts. FontMarketplace, in fact, has a pack of Valentine’s Day fonts on sale right now for under $10. Not only is it a super deal, the fonts in the pack are versatile enough to use all year around and for an assortment of projects.

Here, I will just paste in the press release so you can get all the groovy info:

FontMarketplace.com introduces Valentine’s Day Fonts
Specially-priced set of fonts with matching Microsoft Word templates for St. Valentine’s Day cards, invitations and other projects

Elk Grove Village, IL – January 29, 2008 – Ascender Corporation, a leading provider of advanced font products, today announced a new collection of Valentine fonts available exclusively from its FontMarketplace.com website. The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains five Valentine-themed fonts matched with five expertly-designed Microsoft Word templates. The software package is available as a convenient digital download with a special price of $9.99 at http://www.fontmarketplace.com/font/ascender-valentines-kit.aspx?ilbcode=679

“Valentine’s Day is an important holiday to express love and friendship, and it’s important to use the right font to project the image or personality that best captures your sentiments.” said Bill Davis, Vice President of Ascender Corp. “The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains a fresh set of distinctive fonts and unique templates that can be used to make attractive Valentine cards, invitations, flyers, scrapbooks and many other projects.”

The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains five TrueType fonts that are well-suited for Valentine’s Day and all year-round. They are matched with an original set of professionally-designed Microsoft Word templates for a variety of Valentine’s Day projects including cards, flyer, postcard and invitation.

The Ascender Valentine’s Kit is priced at $9.99 with a single user license and is available for immediate download from http://www.fontmarketplace.com. The price represents a savings of almost 60% compared to buying all five fonts individually. The Valentine’s Kit is available with an automatic installer for Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, or as a compressed .zip file for Mac OS or other systems.

FontMarketplace.com features affordably-priced professional-quality fonts packaged individually and in sets. The website offers a wide variety of popular type styles from text and display to script fonts, and an assortment of multilingual fonts, all displayed in creative ways to showcase the fonts in use. The FontMarketplace.com website was designed to make it easy for first time font buyers and creative enthusiasts to browse, download and install fonts. All of the fonts are Certified TrueType fonts, developed and tested by the font experts at Ascender Corp.

About Ascender
Ascender Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products. Ascender’s founders are font industry experts and have been involved in developing many of the most important and influential fonts used in computers and mobile devices. Ascender provides multilingual, custom font development for a wide range of customers including creative professionals, enterprises and hardware & software developers. Ascender also provides fonts for download to graphic designers and consumers through its font websites and mobile phone software with ringtones, wallpapers & themes.

Contact:
Bill Davis
Ascender Corporation
25 Northwest Point Blvd, Suite 225, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 USA
Phone: (847) 357 0730
http://www.ascendercorp.com
http://www.fontmarketplace.com