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New York Central's 20th Century Limited  (photo: Wikipedia) More at Reaganite Republican...

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon formally endorsed a radical streamlining of United Nations operations Monday, delivering a report to the General Assembly that urges the elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy. The sprawling U.N. system contains 16 specialized agencies, 14 funds and programs, and 17 departments and offices, leading to costly duplication and competition for resources. A high-level panel recommended a series of reforms in November including the consolidation of different programs — as many two dozen separate operations in some countries — into one U.N. operation per country, with one budget, one leader and one common office if possible. Ban...

Process for Reserve, Guard to enter regular Army has been streamlined By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, June 25, 2005 Brig. Gen. Sean Byrne, the Army’s director of personnel management, right, swears in Sgt. Maj. Terry Grezlik, the first soldier to make the reserve-to-active switch under the Army’s new policy. ARLINGTON, Va. — Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers who have been mobilized for the war on terror can use a new streamlined entry process into the regular Army. On June 17, Army officials announced that they are eliminating the long-standing practice of having mobilized reserves...

[Problems are resulting from Kansas' entry into Streamlined Sales Tax Project agreement. Is your state next?] A new sales tax law that goes into effect July 1 has some area business owners scratching their heads and shaking their fists. The legislation requires that businesses begin collecting sales tax for delivered items based on the rate applicable to the location the items are shipped to. "The retailers that we've been hearing from are confused, concerned and worried that they only have a short time to change to what are perceived as some complicated tax-collection procedures," said Dan Koenig, president of the...

Net Taxes: Add to Cart? A new bill in Congress would ban Internet taxes outright. But state governors have a slightly different plan in mind. John Goff, CFO.com May 22, 2003 Item #1: States budgets are under severe pressure. Item #2: Online retail purchases totaled $76 billion in 2002. Item #3: Web transactions are not generally subject to sales tax. You don't need a Ph.d in astro-physics to figure out Item #4. As Amazon.com CFO Tom Szkutak noted in a speech this month, the collecting of sales and use taxes on Internet purchases is "inevitable." Szkutak stopped short of saying...