Paul Krugman: Putin's Bubble Bursts (NY Times)
The global plunge in oil prices and the falling ruble have wreaked havoc on the Russian economy. It's been quite a comedown for the strongman.
Tom Danehy: Tom gives gift-giving advice as only Tom can (we're buying the Tucson City Council dolls) (Tucson Weekly)
Dog Collar With Spikes: No, The Ramones aren't making a comeback, because, you know, they're all dead. However, if someone you care about lives in a community where law enforcement personnel still employ the banned chokehold, this gift is perfect. Whether you're selling individual cigarettes on the street or simply Walking While Black, this collar could be a life-saver. And even if they do manage to choke the life out of you, there's a chance that you won't be going alone.
Anita Serwacki: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Getting Punched in the Face (Cracked)
My story is as simple as it is stupid: I was sitting on a park bench when a nicely dressed, chubby boy of about 13 popped in front of me and asked if I had the time. Hey, sure. I'm all for helping out a youngster who strives for punctuality. But as soon as I looked down at my phone, he grabbed for it. I didn't really comprehend what was happening and, because I am a big moron, didn't let go of it right away. So to separate me from this crappy 2-year-old gadget, he promptly punched me square in the face.
Emmett Rensin: "Notes on a Native Daughter: Joan Didion at 80" (LA Review of Books)
EVEN NOW, even in this century, decades past the pictures with Corvettes and cigarettes and sunglasses, even after her manner, with its uneasy admixture of condescension toward the world and delicacy toward the self, became case study for how to be slightly dangerous and stylish and aloof as a writer without the compensatory aid of masculine bravado, there is always murmuring about Joan Didion.
Catherine Thompson: How One Conservative Writer Mistook A Viral Photo For Rolling Stone's 'Jackie' (Talking Points Memo)
Since Rolling Stone's disputed story on rape culture at the University of Virginia began to unravel, conservative writer Charles C. Johnson has made it his mission to doxx "Jackie," the reported victim of a brutal gang rape at a campus fraternity house. Last week, Johnson was widely condemned for publishing an unconfirmed photo and full name of Jackie on his website, GotNews.com.
Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury Doughboy, is an advertising icon and mascot of the Pillsbury Company, appearing in many of their commercials. Many commercials from 1965 until 2004 (returned in 2009 to 2011 and 2013 in a Geico Commercial) conclude with a human finger poking the Doughboy's stomach. The Doughboy responds by rubbing his stomach and giggling (Hoo-Hoo!, or earlier on, a slight giggle "hee hee").
The first Poppin' Fresh commercials aired in October 1965. Since then, Pillsbury has used Poppin' Fresh in more than 600 commercials for more than fifty of its products.
In the 1970s, a Pillsbury Doughboy family was created and sold as dolls individually and in the form of various playsets.
Included in the family are:
Poppie Fresh (a.k.a. Mrs. Poppin' Fresh, Pillsbury Doughgirl).
Popper (boy) and Bun-Bun (baby)
Flapjack (dog) and Biscuit (cat)
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
The Pillsbury Doughboy
Charlie wrote:
The Pillsbury Doughboy.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
Pillsbury Doughboy
Adam answered:
The Pillsbury Doughboy.
In my lifetime, I've never known The Doughboy to have a family. Is he divorced? Did they die in a horrible 'poppin-fresh' accident?
OTOH- current commercials show him being given a pair of pants.
For a lump of sentient dough? When did we become so Victorian?
Marian responded:
Pillsbury Doughboy
Randall replied:
You know what?
I had given up on this earlier...
But on second glance, I wonder if the answer isn't
Poppin Fresh! The Pillsbury Doughboy!
This next one's just 'not right'
...boy, there sure are some weirdoughs on the the innernets, hunh?
Dale of Diamond Springs, RainyNorCali said:
Poppin' Fresh, The Pillsbury Doughboy. Don't feel like a diatribe today. It's Friday befour Xmas. Oh look…there's Alison, Emily and Olivia from Newsroom for you Doughboy!
MAM wrote:
Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury Doughboy. Since his emergence in 1965, he has become one of the most recognized and loved advertising icon of all times.
PS ~ Thank you for "In Memory ~ Wowser Morgan". He was a very special cat.
DJ Useo answered:
Wow! I had no idea "Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy" was so real he had a family.
I bet he's not really made of flour.
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
AMC offers the movie 'The Sorcerer's Apprenctice', followed by the movie 'The Santa Clause 2', then the movie 'White Christmas'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US - Season 2 - Ep 1 - Handlebar
[7:00AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US - Season 1 - Ep 5 - The Mixing Bowl
[8:00AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US - Season 6 - Ep 1 - La Galleria 33, Part 1
[9:00AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US - Season 6 - Ep 2 - La Galleria 33, Part 2
[10:00AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares US - Season 6 - Ep 9 - Nino's Italian Restaurant
[11:00AM] Top Gear - Season 20 - Episode 3
[12:00PM] Top Gear - Season 14 - Episode 6
[1:30PM] Pitch Black
[4:00PM] The Chronicles of Riddick
[6:30PM] Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
[9:00PM] Atlantis - Season 2 - Ep 6 - The Grey Sisters NEW
[10:00PM] The Graham Norton Show - Season 16 - Episode 11 NEW
[11:00PM] Almost Royal - Season 1 - Ep 5 - Detroit
[11:30PM] Almost Royal - Season 1 - Ep 6 - DC
[12:00AM] Atlantis - Season 2 - Ep 6 - The Grey Sisters
[1:00AM] The Graham Norton Show - Season 16 - Episode 11
[2:00AM] Pitch Black
[4:30AM] Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by the movie 'Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection', then the movie 'Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Hot Tub Time Machine', followed by the movie 'The Hangover', then the movie 'Bachelorette'.
FX has the movie 'Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian', 'Mike & Molly', another 'Mike & Molly', still another 'Mike & Molly', yet another 'Mike & Molly', still another 'Mike & Molly', and yes, yet another 'Mike & Molly'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] COMEDY BANG! BANG!-ERIC ANDRE WEARS A CAT COLLAGE SHIRT & SNEAKERS
[6:30AM] THE BIRTHDAY BOYS-THE U.S. HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
[7:00AM] THE BIRTHDAY BOYS-CERF'S FOLLY
[7:30AM] CLERKS II
[9:45AM] BATMAN-I'LL BE A MUMMY'S UNCLE!
[10:18AM] BATMAN-THE JOKER'S FLYING SAUCER
[10:51AM] BATMAN-THE ENTRANCING DR. CASSANDRA
[11:24AM] BATMAN-MINERVA, MAYHEM & MILLIONAIRES
[11:57AM] BATMAN-HI DIDDLE RIDDLE
[12:30PM] COMEDY BANG! BANG!-THE LONELY ISLAND WEAR HOLIDAY SWEATERS & WHITE PANTS
[1:00PM] THE BIRTHDAY BOYS-SEASON FINALE
[1:30PM] CLERKS II
[3:45PM] BEETLEJUICE
[5:45PM] CADDYSHACK
[8:00PM] A GOOD OLD FASHIONED...
[10:15PM] THE BIG LEBOWSKI
[1:00AM] A GOOD OLD FASHIONED...
[3:15AM] THE BIG LEBOWSKI (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] Love Lust-Love Lust & Heels
[6:15AM] Hysteria
[8:15AM] Chinatown
[11:15AM] The Sting
[2:00PM] Tootsie
[4:30PM] Serial Mom
[6:30PM] We Own the Night
[9:00PM] The Babysitter
[11:00PM] Basic Instinct
[1:45AM] The Babysitter
[3:45AM] Lars and the Real Girl (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Volcano', followed by the movie 'Christmas Icetastrophe'.
Pakistani models present creations by Indian designer Mini Bindra during the second day of Telenor Bridal Couture Week 2014, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. More then twenty designers gathered to showcase their seasonal and latest bridal collections in this three-day event.
Photo by K.M. Chaudary
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has upheld a $2.1 million jury award in a copyright infringement case involving the 1993 hit rap song "Whoomp! (There It Is)."
The song, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts, has been the subject of a copyright dispute spanning more than a decade between Alvertis Isbell, or Bell, the president of now-defunct music company Bellmark, and DM Records, which purchased its assets for $166,000 when it went bankrupt in 1997, according to court documents.
The appeals court on Thursday affirmed a 2012 jury decision that awarded Bell's affiliated designee publisher Alvert Music $2.1 million.
Cecil Glenn and Steven James, known as "Tag Team," wrote and produced the song and entered an exclusive producers agreement with Bellmark, according to court documents. Since then, the legal wrangling has mostly been played out in federal court in Texarkana, Texas.
The Polar Express holiday train ride pulls away from the "North Pole" after making a stop to pick up Santa Claus, Friday, Dec. 19, 2014, in Portland, Maine. Santa greeted children and passengers sang carols while traveling back to the train station aboard the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad. The Polar Express is the largest annual fundraiser for the railroad's museum.
Photo by Robert F. Bukaty
How do you say "damage control" in Japanese? Sony Corp. is sealed within a hermetic cone of silence as executives try to prevent the slow motion train wreck at Sony Pictures from damaging the rest of the sprawling business empire.
Sony's miseries with its television and smartphone businesses were bad enough. Now its American movie division, a trophy asset, is facing tens of millions of dollars in losses from leaks by hackers that attacked the company over a movie that spoofs an assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The studio's reputation is in tatters as embarrassing revelations spill from tens of thousands of leaked emails that could damage its relationships with stars and give other studios an advantage.
For now, Sony's damage control strategy in Japan appears to be waiting out the crisis in silence.
"A rumor only lasts 75 days," goes an old Japanese saying.
A federal judge on Friday threw out an Obama administration decision to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list - a decision that will ban further wolf hunting and trapping in three states.
The order affects wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the combined population is estimated at around 3,700. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped federal protections from those wolves in 2012 and handed over management to the states.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday the removal was "arbitrary and capricious" and violated the federal Endangered Species Act.
Unless overturned, her decision will block the states from scheduling additional hunting and trapping seasons for the predators. All three have had at least one hunting season since protections were lifted, while Minnesota and Wisconsin also have allowed trapping. More than 1,500 Great Lakes wolves have been killed, said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, one of several groups whose lawsuit prompted Howell's ruling.
Grinning widely, Tran Quang Thieu brandishes the day's haul: 10 kilos of rats caught in rice paddies near Hanoi. A menace to Vietnam's rice crop, the vermin are regularly trapped -- and sometimes eaten.
In his village of Van Binh, on the outskirts of Hanoi, Thieu and his team work night and day in the area's rice paddies. They estimate 20 percent of the annual grain crop is lost to hungry rats.
But in 1998, Thieu had a breakthrough -- he invented a new kind of rat trap, more effective than anything farmers had previously tried, that worked without bait and relied on extremely strong springs.
Over the last few years, the rat population has exploded in Vietnam due to a decline in the population of their natural predators -- snakes and cats.
In a disappointment to environmentalists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued rules on Friday labeling coal ash, a byproduct of coal-based power production containing toxic materials such as arsenic and lead, as non-hazardous waste.
The label means that states and environmental groups taking legal action, and not the EPA, will be the primary enforcers of the first-ever federal rules targeting coal ash, which will require the closure of some coal ash holding ponds leaking contaminants into surrounding water but will not cover others.
The agency first proposed rules governing coal ash storage in 2010, in the wake of a massive spill at a ruptured holding pond in Tennessee that has cost more than $1 billion to clean up. The process took on renewed urgency with another large-scale breach at a pond in North Carolina in February.
Environmental groups expressed disappointment with the long-anticipated rules, which do not require the phase-out of all the hundreds of existing holding ponds and do not prohibit new coal ash from being disposed of in them.
The rules do not cover disused holding ponds on sites where no active power plant exists, with the EPA saying it lacks authority over them. It was not immediately clear how many such sites exist.
Saint Peter's Basilica, a Christmas tree and a traditional Crib are lit up after a ceremony in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican December 19, 2014.
Photo by Giampiero Sposito
Details on the identity of a mystery skeleton found in a massive tomb dating from the era of Alexander the Great in Greece are to be revealed next month, the culture ministry said Friday.
"The result of macroscopic study of the bone tissue (identifying) sex, age and height will be announced in January," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the research will be conducted by universities in Thessaloniki and Thrace.
The discovery in November of the skeleton inside the huge fourth century BC structure -- the largest tomb ever unearthed in Greece -- added to the excitement over the excavation which had made global headlines in the summer.
The tomb, measuring 500 metres (1,640 feet) in circumference and dug into a 30-metre hill in Amphipolis, northern Greece -- was found to contain sculptures of sphinxes and caryatids, intricate mosaics and coins featuring the face of Alexander the Great.
A visitor walks through the new "Musee des Confluences", a science and anthropology museum in Lyon, central France, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. The museum which originality and specificity are to link science an society, will be inaugurated this Friday and has been designed by Austrian architect Wolf Dieter Prix.
Photo by Laurent Cipriani
When John Jairo, a meticulous night watchman, lost his job for leaving all of his employer's doors open, his family knew they were hit by the "Yarumal curse."
Yarumal, a Colombian village perched in the Andes Mountains, has a high incidence of a genetic mutation that predisposes its population to Alzheimer's -- a bleak heritage that scientists now hope could help lead to a treatment to prevent the disease.
Inherited from the village's European ancestors, the "paisa" genetic mutation -- named for the residents of the Colombian province of Antioquia -- causes a devastating form of early-onset Alzheimer's.
A single parent can hand down the mutation, located on the 14th chromosome.
In some families, parents and children have progressed through the illness together, from memory loss to dementia.
A woman walks next a sculpture in the shape of a purse in front of "Olympic Plaza" business centre in the Russian southern city of Krasnodar, December 19, 2014. Russia's rouble strengthened on Friday after Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed his ministry had sold foreign currency, and on expectations that exporters will increase dollar sales.
Photo by Eduard Korniyenko
Reindeer populations are in trouble around the world, and in China, the iconic animals are on the decline largely because of inbreeding, according to new research.
Some folklorists say Christmas tales of flying reindeer may have originated as a hallucination, with one theory claiming the inspiration for Santa Claus came from shamans who would give out bags of hallucinatory mushrooms in late December in the Siberian and Arctic regions. But, nonflying reindeer are very real and an important part of northern ecosystems.
Reindeer populations currently live in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Mongolia and China, and populations across the board are declining. In the new study, researchers from Renmin University in Beijing focused on the reindeer population in China, which has declined about 28 percent since the 1970s.
Reindeer first migrated to China from Siberia about 2,000 years ago along with the Ewenki tribe, according to the researchers. The Ewenki people are reindeer herders, and they have a similar relationship with reindeer as Native Americans had with buffalo. The Ewenki do not fully domesticate the reindeer, but provide the herd with basics like salt, and use the animals for their meat, hides and milk.
In this Dec. 18, 2014 photo, A man works near seal shaped ice sleds at the Iceworld Sports Land skating park in Beijing, China. Beijing is ramping up its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics with series of international athletic competitions and promotional events, seeking to stir public support and cement its status as the front-runner to hold the games.
Photo by Ng Han Guan
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. (1) One Direction; $4,995,401; $82.12.
2. (New) Fleetwood Mac; $2,351,433; $132.10.
3. (2) Katy Perry; $1,870,870; $101.70.
4. (5) Enrique Iglesias/Pitbull; $1,190,894; $83.03.
5. (4) Luke Bryan; $1,173,493; $51.45.
6. (6) Marc Anthony; $1,170,987; $104.43.
7. (7) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers; $1,142,190; $93.65.
8. (8) Zac Brown Band; $823,440; $48.70.
9. (10) Linkin Park/Thirty Seconds To Mars; $780,321; $55.11.
10. (9) Motley Crue; $753,148; $66.20.
11. (12) Blake Shelton; $742,548; $44.96.
12. (11) Jason Aldean; $723,332; $42.49.
13. (13) Alejandro Fernandez; $683,741; $72.50.
14. (14) Eric Church; $642,683; $50.36.
15. (New) Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $639,271; $53.00.
16. (16) Bob Dylan; $546,716; $100.57.
17. (15) The Black Keys; $523,697; $59.32.
18. (19) James Taylor; $522,677; $79.32.
19. (21) Ed Sheeran; $447,487; $49.39.
20. (20) Brad Paisley; $430,866; $41.03.
Three of the newly born cheetah quadruplets rest at their enclosure in Prague's zoo, Czech Republic, Friday, Dec. 19, 2014. The four cubs we're born on Nov. 21, 2014. Scientists say every cheetah cub is critical to saving the species, which is threatened with extinction in the wild.
Photo by Petr David Josek
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wrote:
took the day off.
returned to semi-retired status.
