Marc Dion: I'm Selling Out First Chance I Get (Creators Syndicate)
If America veers a little toward the stiff-armed-salute end of things, I'm selling out first chance I get. I'm a 58-year-old white guy with seven years to go until retirement. However, I'd be willing to stay around longer if there was, say, a Ministry of Propaganda that needed professional writers to "explain" the new America and extol the Glorious Leader.
Lenore Skenazy: Hello Again (Creators Syndicate)
Walk into the grocery and there she is. Shop for shoes, she's shopping by your side. Need to cross a lobby? Drive to Mom's house? Drink yourself sick? My God - she's there, too, in the hotel, the car, the seedy bar's bathroom, seeping through the pipes. She's everywhere, always ready to start a conversation: "Hello. It's me." Of course it is. It always is. It's Adele.
The Easter Bunny is a popular legendary anthropomorphic Easter gift-giving character analogous to Santa Claus in American culture. Many Americans follow the tradition of coloring hard-boiled eggs and giving baskets of candy. Since the rabbit is a pest in Australia, the Easter Bilby is available as an alternative. Easter eggs are a widely popular symbol of new life in Poland and other Slavic countries' folk traditions. A batik-like decorating process known as pisanka produces intricate, brilliantly-colored eggs.
Source
Alan J was first and correct with:
The Easter Bilby.
Lois Of The Bunny Trail said:
Australians are a strange lot. They must know the Easter Bunny is really just a fertility symbol, but they don't like rabbits. I get it. However, why for the love of Marlin Perkins did you replace a cute little bunny with the product of an unholy mating between a kangaroo and a cane rat?
Randall wrote:
The Easter Bilby
mj replied:
I'm pretty sure
That would be the bilby. Someone gave a bilby toy to young prince George
when Kate and Wills took him to Australia to show him off. And to keep
it topical, someone should remind Mr. Trump that the rabbit proof fence
wasn't an overwhelming success. It wasn't until the introduction of
myxomatosis that the problem came close to control. Considering how well
people reacted to ebola, I can predict that he possibility of a hand
full of undocumented individuals exposed to a fatal disease making it
into the general population would not make that such a popular idea. And
they never did get the rabbits to pay for construction or upkeep.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Easter Bilby
Deborah said:
The Easter Bilby. They make bilby-shaped chocolates. The animal is endangered. Never even knew there was such a thing as a bilby.
I hope you get some chocolates for Easter. Even if it's just the ears off a chocolate bunny.
Marian replied:
Easter Bilby
Dale of Diamond Springs, Norcali answered:
Happy Pagan Ritual
DJ Useo responded:
My Pals down under have the Easter Bilby, or "EATER BIKKY" as spell check insists. hahaha.
Anyone else "enjoying" the intrusiveness of the modern OS spell checkers?
Happy Easter all!
MAM wrote:
Bilby ~ Shy, nocturnal marsupial, unique to Australia. It has a grey and white silky coat, long, sensitive ears and a pink pointed nose. It has thick claws and strong forelimbs that enable it to dig rapidly in the desert soil.
BttbBob said:
Hell-if-I-know... A Wombat?
~~~~~
'Way Cool News' Moment - I just found out that the former Coast Guard cutter 'Bramble', now privately owned (I knew that), and my first CG billet, plays an important part in Batman vs Superman...The only areas of the ship that I'm not intimately familiar with is the engineering spaces (sorta familiar) and the Captain's cabin (I saw that once, briefly)... The Wardroom in 'Officer's Country', absolutely. Heck, I got to sit at their big table and have a legal 'drink' of Brandy out of one of their fancy china coffee cups. Yep, me and 4 other 'Deckies' offloaded a deck full of buoys and sinkers at night in a Lake Huron fed blizzard. Took us 3 hours to do it, about twice as long as usual. The XO thought that feat deserved a reward, so as the 'Medical Officer' (We had a Corpsman, but the XO was responsible for kept all the 'good stuff' in a safe in his stateroom) he wrote each of us a prescription for a 'Cold Weather Ration' - booze - 1oz of either Bourbon or Brandy from little 'Airline' bottles with a federal stock number on them poured by himself into each cup as we all sat around the table. We had to sit there and drink it under his benevolent gaze... until it was gone... He talked and laughed it up with us the entire time as he enjoyed watching his guys drink their very rare 'ration'... Mr. McBride, here's to ya, Sir...
That 180ft seagoing Buoy/Lighthouse Tender and Icebreaker was (is) my first nautical love and she turned me into a Boatswain's Mate and a mariner...
~~~~~
P.S. Moment - The Bramble is already famous (she's listed in the National Register of Historic Places). She, along with the CG cutters Storis and Spar, were the first vessels ever to transit the Northwest Passage and circumnavigate the North American continent. That voyage was part of the 'International Geophysical Year' celebrated in 1957. Great big bronze plaque on a bulkhead (a wall to you lubbers) afore the Wardroom commemorating that deed... Yeah, the Coast Guard, not the Navy did that. So, there ya go 'Squids', ya bunch of swabbies, you...
Patriot Act NSA Spying Unconstitutional Section 215 National Security Letters Must End
My name is Marc Perkel and I have decided to announce that I will not comply with the so called "Patriot Act" laws requiring me to disclose information about my customers. If I receive a national security letter I will immediately photograph it, post it online everywhere I can, and then make a video of me burning it. I will then await my arrest. If you want to put me in jail then come get me mother fucker.
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a FRESH'Madam Secretary', then a FRESH'The Good Wife', then a FRESH'Elementary'.
NBC opens the night with a RERUN'Little Big Shots', followed by a FRESH'Little Big Show', then a (R) 'The Carmichael Show', followed by a FRESH'The Carmichael Show', then a FRESH'Hollywood Game Night'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a FRESH'Once Upon A Time', then a FRESH'The Family', followed by a FRESH'Quantico'.
The CW offers an old 'Person Of Interest', then an old 'Elementary', followed by 2½ hours of what passes for news and other fluffery.
Faux fills the night with FRESH'Grease: Live'.
MY has an old 'Anger Management', followed by another old 'Anger Management', then an old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by another old 'Big Bang Theory', then still another old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by yet another old 'Big Bang Theory'.
A&E has 'Intervention', followed by a FRESH'Hoarders', then 'Intervention: Codependent', followed by a FRESH'Intervention'.
AMC offers 'The Walking Dead', another 'The Walking Dead', followed by a FRESH'The Walking Dead', then a FRESH'Talking Dead'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE MAKING OF FROZEN PLANET
[7:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1-The Blue Planet
[8:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2-The Deep
[9:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Open Ocean
[10:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Frozen Seas
[11:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Seasonal Seas
[12:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 6-Coral Seas
[1:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 7-Tidal Seas
[2:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 8-Coasts
[3:00PM] RONIN
[5:30PM] RONIN
[8:00PM] CASINO ROYALE (2006)
[11:00PM] CASINO ROYALE (2006)
[2:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Open Ocean
[3:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Frozen Seas
[4:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Seasonal Seas
[5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BLUE PLANET - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 6-Coral Seas (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has a FRESH'Atlanta Social', followed by a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', then a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Potomac', followed by a FRESH'Thicker Than Water', then a FRESH'Watch What Happens Live'.
Comedy Central has the movie '50 First Date', followed by the movie 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall', 'South Park', and another 'South Park'.
FX has the movie 'Thor: The Dark World', followed by the movie 'Man Of Steel'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] KICKBOXER
[8:15AM] JAWS THE REVENGE
[10:15AM] JAWS
[1:00PM] JAWS 2
[3:45PM] JAWS 3-D
[6:00PM] JAWS THE REVENGE
[8:00PM] JAWS
[10:45PM] JAWS 2
[1:30AM] JAWS 3-D
[3:45AM] JAWS THE REVENGE
[5:45AM] COMEDY BANG! BANG!-Eddie George (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[7:15AM] Erin Brockovich
[10:15AM] Love Actually
[1:15PM] The Breakfast Club
[3:30PM] The Lost Boys
[5:30PM] The Goonies
[8:00PM] King Kong
[11:00PM] King Kong
[2:00AM] Hap and Leonard-Savage Season
[3:00AM] Hap and Leonard-The Bottoms
[4:00AM] Hap and Leonard-The Dive
[5:00AM] Hap and Leonard-Trudy (ALL TIMES EDT)
SyFy has the movie 'Superman', followed by the movie 'The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe'.
US singer Janet Jackson performs during the Dubai World Cup 2016 at the Meydan race course in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 26 March 2016. The Dubai World Cup is one of the richest events in the horse racing sporting calendar.
Photo by Ali Haider
The Rolling Stones unleashed two hours of shrieking, thundering rock and roll on an ecstatic crowd of hundreds of thousands of Cubans and foreign visitors Friday night, capping one of the most momentous weeks in modern Cuban history with a massive celebration of music that was once forbidden here.
The week opened with the arrival of President Barack Obama in Air Force One, accompanied by more than 1,000 employees of a government that waged a cold war against Cuba for more than 50 years. This time, U.S. forces were armed with briefing books and press invitations, here to seal the president's 2014 opening to Cuba with a string of expertly crafted public events that saw Obama call for democracy live on state television, then attend a Major League Baseball exhibition game with Cuban President Raul Castro.
The week ended with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts firing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" ''Sympathy for the Devil" and "Satisfaction" into a jubilant crowd from 3-story-tall high-definition television screens and thumping towers of speakers.
The Stones romped through 18 of their classics, picking up force as the crowd in the open-air Ciudad Deportiva, or Sports City, jumped and chanted "Rollings! Rollings!"
The Rolling Stones perform in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 25, 2016. The Stones are performing in a free concert in Havana Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution.
Photo by Enric Marti
More than 22,000 people have signed a petition calling for Americans to be allowed to carry firearms at the Republican National Convention -- because the ban puts lives at risk.
Guns are not allowed inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, where the event -- which could descend into a heated battle for the party presidential ticket -- is taking place in July.
The petition went up on the Change.org website and by Saturday had been signed by 22,633 supporters in just a few days, with numbers rising fast.
"Cleveland, Ohio is consistently ranked one of the top 10 most dangerous cities in America," says the petition, which among others is addressed to the Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump (R-Pinche Pendejo) and his rivals Ted Cruz (R-Goldman Sachs) and John Kasich (R-Gynotician).
"We are all too familiar with the mass carnage that can occur when citizens are denied their basic God-given rights to carry handguns or assault weapons in public," the petition adds.
Circus performers around the world are mobilising in support of a Palestinian clown held by Israel without trial for more than three months on unspecified grounds.
They are showing solidarity with red noses and fluorescent wigs in Europe and with a colourful caravan outside an Israeli prison.
In Brazil, Afro-style Capoeira moves are being performed in Mohammed Abu Sakha's name and songs are sung about him.
The Israeli army does not say why Abu Sakha is held in "administrative detention", the controversial measure under which a person can be jailed without trial for periods of six months, renewable indefinitely.
Amnesty International has said Israel believes him to be a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is considered a militant movement by Israel due to its armed wing.
Japanese cosplayers pose for a photograph at the AnimeJapan 2016 in Tokyo, Japan, 26 March 2016. The animation festival is one of the biggest anime events in Japan, which runs until 27 March, attracting not only fans but also business visitors, with the aim of the development of Japanese animation and anime-related industries.
Photo by Kiyoshi Ota
The U.S. Department of Education is offering debt forgiveness to another wave of students who attended Corinthian Colleges, the now-defunct chain of for-profit schools that had campuses across the country.
After agreeing to erase the debt of more than 7,000 students in December, the department announced on Friday that students from 91 additional campuses in 20 states can now apply for debt relief. Students who attended those schools, which operated as Everest or WyoTech, can apply for relief on the department's website.
Education Secretary John B. King Jr. made the announcement on Friday in Boston, saying that college students who invest their time and energy have a right to expect high-quality degrees.
Corinthian was one of the largest for-profit schools before it sold many of its campuses and closed others last year amid accusations of fraud. Investigators said the schools charged exorbitant fees, lied about job prospects for graduates and sometimes told students to lie about their circumstances to get more federal financial aid.
Britain's press regulator on Saturday censured Rupert Murdoch's (R-Evil Incarnate) The Sun tabloid for a "significantly misleading" story claiming one in five British Muslims sympathise with jihadist fighters.
The ruling on the front-page story from November comes amid heightened community tensions following the Brussels attacks this week claimed by the Islamic State group, which left 31 people dead.
The mass-selling daily claimed an exclusive poll revealed "1 in 5 Brit Muslims' sympathy for jihadis", and published a picture of Mohammed Emwazi, the British IS executioner known as Jihadi John, alongside the shock headline.
The story generated more than 3,000 complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), most of them challenging the coverage on the grounds of accuracy.
IPSO noted that the paper had provided various interpretations of the poll result inside but concluded that "the coverage was significantly misleading".
Syrian dervishes perform in front of visiting French parliamentary delegation at a cafe in the old city of Damascus, Syria, 26 March 2016. The five-member delegation of the French National Association arrived in Damascus a day earlier on a trip they say to 'convey a message of peace to all the Syrian people'.
Photo by Youssef Badawi
Australia on Friday branded Japan's killing of 333 whales "abhorrent", saying there was no scientific justification for the Antarctic hunt.
The Japanese fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in December despite a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand, using a loophole in the ban that allows for lethal research.
Japan was forced to abandon its 2014-15 hunt after the International Court of Justice said the expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.
Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, but the meat still ends up on dinner tables and is served up in school lunches.
Some experts say that Japan's refusal to give up the Antarctic mission despite censure by the international court is largely due to a small group of powerful politicians.
People gather around an Easter fire in the suburbs of Frankfurt with the city skyline in background, in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, March 26, 2016. The traditional Easter fires are inflamed all over Germany.
Photo by Michael Probst
As Congress Bickers A Republican Stonewalls, Flint Suffers
Michigan
It's been two years since problems began with the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, and nearly six months since officials declared a public health emergency there.
Yet a bipartisan congressional effort to aid the predominantly African-American city north of Detroit is idling in the Senate - stalled by the objections of a Republican senator from Utah.
In fact, support for Flint is bipartisan. Michigan's congressional delegation has unanimously pushed for Flint aid, and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Senate bill "immediately" at an otherwise contentious congressional hearing last week.
Michigan Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters reached agreement with key Republicans last month on a $220 million package to fix and replace lead-contaminated pipes in Flint and other cities.
But the bill remains on hold after Republican Sen. Mike Lee (R-Environmental Racist) of Utah objected in late February. Michigan has a budget surplus and does not need federal money to fix the problem, Lee said.
A Sufi devotee dances at the shrine of Madhu Lal Shah Hussain, a poet also regarded as a Sufi saint, during an annual festival to celebrate him, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, March 26, 2016. The annual festival to commemorate Shah Hussain (1538-1599) started on Saturday with thousands of people expected to visit the shrine.
Photo by K.M Chaudary
The New York Police Department said it will review an incident in which four plainclothes officers and a lieutenant handcuffed a postal worker who was out driving his mail truck.
The March 17 confrontation involving postal worker Glenn Grays was captured on cellphone videos that have been widely shared. The videos show the officers telling Grays to stop resisting even though he does not appear to be resisting.
Grays said at a news conference this week he was delivering mail in Brooklyn when an unmarked police car nearly hit his mail truck. He said he shouted at the driver, and the officers backed the police car up and demanded identification.
Grays ended up handcuffed and placed in the back of the unmarked police car. He was then taken to the local precinct, where he was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, which will require him to appear in court.
The police department said only that the incident was under internal review.
A faithful carries a religious figure of Virgin Mary made with flowers inside Santiago Apostol church during a Good Friday procession in Lima, Peru, Saturday, March 26, 2016. Christians around the world are marking the death of Jesus Christ ahead of Easter Sunday, 2016.
Photo by Rodrigo Abd
Only a few months after moving to Smith River, California, in 2009, Cindy Cameron suffered a miscarriage. It was unexpected, as she and her husband, Tim, already had two children. Their Christian faith comforted them, but six months later she had a second miscarriage. Even then, they weren't overly concerned. Until they started noticing a funny smell.
The Camerons, who asked not to be identified by their real names for fear of being shunned by neighbors in the tiny town, population 866, live beside small fields where Easter lilies are cultivated under intense pesticide use. Growers on the slip of rain-drenched coast, where the Smith River meets the Pacific Ocean at the Oregon border, raise nearly all the 11 million Easter lily bulbs sold in North America annually, according to the Easter Lily Research Foundation, a trade association, and a majority of those sold worldwide. Road signs declare Smith River the "Easter Lily Capital of the World." It's a relatively small industry, just $7 million a year, but producing Lilium longiflorum, known for its bright white trumpet and heavy fragrance, requires the use of powerful chemicals-more per acre than anywhere else in California, the state with the nation's largest agricultural industry.
The Camerons both soon developed severe allergies. When Cindy went to a doctor to get a prescription-strength remedy, Tim says, "the doctor mentioned to her, 'Do you live out in Smith River, where all those lily fields are?' " After a talk with the doctor about pesticide exposure, the couple began to worry. They shared their concern with neighbors, who told the Camerons bluntly that the spraying didn't bother them.
Concern about pesticide use in Smith River's lily bulb industry has been building since the 1980s, when water testing first found that chemicals the growers used were badly contaminating residential wells and possibly affecting creeks that feed the last mile of Smith River, a part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System and recognized by biologists as one of the most pristine rivers in North America. For decades, local authorities have failed to act in the face of evidence scientists, advocates, doctors, and residents have brought to them that the concentrated pesticide use may be the source of health problems and may be affecting federally protected populations of fish, including the coho salmon and the tidewater goby, as well as other species in the river. Now, after several rounds of recent state water testing showed the continuing presence of toxins in the water, state officials are developing a permit to more closely scrutinize the lily growers, acknowledging the need to know whether or not the environmental problems and illnesses experienced by people like the Camerons are more than random.
Rammie checks on her eggs on her nest at Bubeck Park at Stoyer's Dam in Schuylkill Haven, Pa., on Wednesday, March 23, 2016. The eggs are expected to hatch around Mother's Day.
Photo by Jacqueline Dormer
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