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My wife called me up, and asked me to come up with a list of events during this time period that would be considered historic or landmark events to be placed in a school yearbook. She asked me way to fast, and I've now drawn a blank. This is a Christian school, and the only thing I have now is The Passion. Freepers are masters of the news, and events so I thought I'd ask here, and get some perspective from Freepers.

Not only did John Kerry improperly classify a gain on the sale of a painting as a regular capital gain rather than a gain on a collectable which is subject to the higher [28%] tax rate[ see Kerry Files Amended Tax Return]; this error was caught by a Texas CPA [Texas CPA Claims Kerry Owes Extra $12,000 in Capital Gains Tax], but he also failed to pay any estimated income taxes for the entire year of 2003 [see Kerry 2003 tax return]. He sold the painting on March 23, 2003 which means he should have paid quarterly estimated taxes on...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - The California Legislature passed a record number of pro-environment laws in 2003, making important breakthroughs in the areas of clean air and e-waste, in spite of a continuing partisan split, according to a report released Thursday by an environmental group.</p>

Reflections on 2003 and Some Thoughts on the Opportunities and Challenges of the Coming Five to Ten Years* EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In 2003, I traveled to China five times. Without a doubt, I would have made more trips if there was no SARS. During my five trips, I traveled with the executives of 11 US companies in total, met with hundreds of Chinese businessmen and government officials, visited over 100 companies primarily in the manufacturing sectors. As I have observed in the last 12 months, the changes in China and the urgency of US companies to respond to the ever-changing world,...

China issues 2003 US human rights record www.chinaview.cn 2004-03-01 10:07:07 BEIJING, March 1 (Xinhuanet) -- China issued the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003 Monday in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003 issued by the U.S. on Feb. 25. Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show that serious violations of human rights exist on the homeland of the United States. "As in any previous year, the United States once again acted as'the world human rights police' by distorting and censuring...

PARIS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - France, the world's top tourist destination, suffered a drop in visitors and tourism revenues in 2003 as concerns over the war in Iraq and a weak dollar kept away U.S. visitors, official figures showed on Wednesday. Foreign tourists dropped by 2.6 percent to 75 million last year from 77 million in 2002 in what was a poor year for global tourism, junior minister for tourism Leon Bertrand said. U.S. visitors fell 18.3 percent to 2.4 million in 2003, when the dollar fell and relations between Paris and Washington soured over France's opposition to the U.S.-led...

Here it is, the SpinMeister Award of the Year. Why it isn't a picture of Saddam's statue being pulled down can be explained only by those who bestow the "honor." "World Press Photo of the year 2003 by French photographer Jean-Marc Bouju of the Associated Press shows a detained Iraqi man comforting his 4-year-old-son at a regroupment center for POW's near Najaf, Iraq. Picture was taken on 31 March, 2003. Jean-Marc Bouju/Associated Press REUTERS/Jean-Marc Bouju. "

Look closely at the photos - just below Colin Powell, and to the right of Al Sharpton, you will see one of the hundreds of "anti-war" rally posters that had been plastered to lightboxes throughout the city. The photo had been taken after the DC Chapter's stealth "Truth in Advertising Team" had made their rounds one evening. The team of four, led by a former military PsyOp expert, made several late-night missions onto the mean streets of DC to place the stickers. We would go out one night and hit all the boxes around Union Station, the Capitol, Supreme Court,...

  Rumsfeld: 2003 a Busy Year for NATO Countries By Kathleen T. RhemAmerican Forces Press ServiceMUNICH, Germany, Feb. 8, 2004 -- In the past year, "NATO has undergone probably more positive change than in most 10-year periods in its history," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said here Feb. 7. Rumsfeld was in Munich to attend the 40th Munich Conference on Security Policy. Defense ministers, elected and other government officials, and academicians from throughout the world gathered to discuss military and security issues at the annual event. During an address to the full body, Rumsfeld recounted some NATO's successes since last...

Washington, D.C. — Citizens Against Government Waste announced today the final results of its online poll for Porker of the Year for 2003. Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) finished first with a whopping 51 percent of the vote, outdistancing his “porky” competitors by a 2 to 1 margin. The other finalists, in order of votes received, were: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) (25 percent), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (14 percent), Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) (6 percent), and Rep. Terry Everett (R-Ala.) (4 percent). The five finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among the 11 Porker of the Month winners throughout 2003,...

"Most of us know, now, that Rousseau was wrong: that man, when you knock his chains off, sets up death camps. Soon we shall know everything the 18th century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us." — novelist and poet Randall Jarrell. If not apocryphal, the quote of 2003 came from an unlikely Spec. 4, only 19, standing over a surrendering Saddam Hussein: "President Bush sends his regards." Iraq was so much the year's dominating story that everything else came in close to last. President Bush led the way, with key congressional...

2003: The Year in ImmigrationBy Steve Brown and Chris CoonFrontPageMagazine.com | January 23, 2004 Even before President Bush’s amnesty proposal for illegal workers already working in the US was released this month, the issue had emerged as one of the hot topics in the US last year. Concerns about homeland security, the economy and other issues stemming from the rising tide of illegals flooding our shores brought the issue to the forefront of America's consciousness. Official government estimates of the number of illegals in the US at the beginning of last year ranged from 8-10 million, swelling to about...

So here we are again, with another calendar year checked off — and the year's winning quotations from the media (mostly television) rated by the Media Research Council (www. mediaresearch.org). It's full of doozies. The MRC collects quotations certifyng generally the idiocy of many in the mainline media, specificially the idiot leftism — even of "personalities" who seemingly will go to their graves protesting the very suggestion they are anything but even-handed caring centrist moderates. With that, here are samples from the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2003" (Disclaimer: I have judged such collections as an MRC panelist in the...

The number of unemployed construction workers increased 1.3% last year, with an average of 810,000 workers in the industry looking for work each month. This was 58% more than the monthly average in 2000. Construction’s unemployment rate in 2003 averaged 9.3%, up from 9.2% in 2002 and a low of 6.2% in the peak boom year of 2000.

Customs Seized Millions in Cash in '03 Wednesday January 14, 2004 10:46 PM By JEANNINE AVERSA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal authorities seized millions of dollars last year that people were trying to take out of the United States and millions of pounds of illegal drugs smugglers were trying to bring in, the nation's border chief said Wednesday Robert Bonner, chief of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, said his agency seized $51.7 million in currency in the 2003 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. ``A lot of this was outbound - that people were trying to...

The secret is finally out. In 2003, the world finally discovered the Iranian women, something that the Iranian men had discovered thousands of years ago! The purpose of this article is to discuss the progress of Iranian women in 2003 and its local and global consequences in the hope of saving the beautiful planet earth from a catastrophe that’s in the making! In September 2003, Shirin Ebadi was announced as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize. The Iranian women welcomed the news with great enthusiasm. The Iranian men had no choice but to follow suit! Over 10,000 women poured into...

Fifty years from now schoolchildren may learn that 2003 was the year President George W. Bush liberated Iraq, creating a prosperous powerhouse of democratic capitalism in the Middle East. We don't know how it will turn out yet, of course. But we know one thing: The first draft of history out of our national media came from the angry left, furious at the exercise of U.S. power and solicitous of the dictator now in the dock. The worst media eruptions of 2003 now are available in the Media Research Center's annual greatest-misses collection known as the Best of Notable Quotables....

Grant chief 1 of 4 in area killed on job during the last year Grant Police Chief Verlon Lemaster was among 148 police officers who died in the line of duty across the nation in 2003, the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund said Monday. Just four and a half months later, two other North Alabama officers, police Sgt. Larry Russell, 42, and Tony Mims, 40, were shot death when they answered a call Friday from a home in Athens. Farron Barksdale, 28, was charged with counts of capital murder in their deaths. He is being held in the Limestone County...

The Iraq war helped make 2003 a dangerous year for journalists, with 91 killed, most of them covering conflict or corruption, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said here. The number of fatalities was 23 percent higher than the previous year and took place in more than 25 countries, the federation said in a statement from its Australian-based president, Christopher Warren. Citing an IFJ report entitled Media Casualties in the Field of Journalism and Newsgathering, Warren said many of the deaths were due to war, although assassinations and simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time were to...

U.S. Retailers Fare Better Than Expected 22 minutes ago Add Business - AP to My Yahoo! By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer NEW YORK - Consumers who kept retailers in suspense for weeks gave many storeowners a better-than-expected holiday season after all, coming through at the last minute with a big spending spree. Even struggling department stores ended the season with solid results. December results issued Thursday by the nation's biggest retailers showed that late shoppers helped companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc., and Target Corp. offset a slow start to the season. Still, the end-of-the-season sales...