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May 26, 2005

Leave the clubs at home

Let's say you live in Papillion, Neb., and owe more in traffic tickets than it's affordable for you to pay. Well, now there's a way to avoid jail: You may be eligible to work off your fines on the golf course . Or at a local park. Papillion is the seat of Sarpy County, which is experimenting with a new program that will credit offenders $60 a day for picking up litter, larger accumulations of trash, and other objectionable debris . The county is owed $300,000 in traffic-related fines and court costs. The pilot program won't be open to felons, however.

Elvis sells, but doesn't always get sent via USPS

By creating people-pleasing postage stamps that customers collect, the US Postal Service can profit from selling them without having to provide deliveries that they pay for. Therefore, a hot design can turn a nice profit, and no stamp can match the $36 million profit generated by the 1993 stamp of Elvis Presley, which accounts for 124 million stamps that were bought but never placed in the mail stream. Collectors consider stamps in mint condition to be better long-term investments than those bearing a postmark. The all-time most collected stamps, the year they were issued,and the extra income, in millions of dollars, they've meant for the post office:

Elvis (1993) 124 $36 million
Wildflowers (1992) 77 $22 million
Rock 'n' Roll (1993) 76 $22 million
Greetings from 71 America (2002) $24 million
Insects and Spiders 61 (1999) $20 million
Legends of Baseball 54 (2000) $18 million
Baseball fields (2001) 49 $17 million
Art of Disney (2004) 48 $18 million
Moon Landing (1994) 47 $14 million
Civil War (1995) 46 $15 million - Associated Press