Experience: I first met my mother at a party (The Guardian)
My mum was a teenager when she fell pregnant with me. She was in love with a man 10 years older, and after I was born it was decided that my father's relatives would raise me just outside Manchester.
Scott Burns: The High Cost of Low Returns and Yields (AssetBuilder)
Retirement isn't what it used to be. No one knew it at the time, but the 1980s were the Golden Age of Retirement. Pensions were generous back then. Whether you invested in stocks or bonds, the proverbial wind was at your back. Both provided handsome annual returns.
"Sing a Song of Sixpence" is a well-known English nursery rhyme, perhaps originating in the 18th century. It is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as number 13191.
A common modern version is:
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
Source
Sara in upstate NY was first, and correct, with:
I believe there are 'four and twenty'.
Deborah responded:
Four and twenty blackbirds were baked into a pie. When the pie was opened the birds began to sing/Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the King?
A poor job of baking, as I see it.
Happy weekend!
Jim from CA, retired to ID, wrote:
Four and twenty blackbirds.
Lois Of Oregon said:
OMG it's 24 again! I got nothin'. Leaving for Corvallis now to help my son move AGAIN. Pray for me.
DanD answered:
Two and Twenty?
Did this also have anything to do with people who had to eat crow?
John I from Hawai'i says,
"24."
mj replied:
My guess is they added a less than savory bit to the sauce
There were Four and Twenty black birds baked in that pie.
Marian responded:
4 and 20 = 24
Harry said:
Four and Twenty
MAM wrote:
24 ~ Sing a song of sixpence, / A pocket full of rye, / Four and twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie.
Joe S answered:
Oh boy, more math. Well I just happen to know the answer, it's four and twenty. But wait! It's not all math, here's some history.
Way back when, did you know that they would actually put birds in a pie as a great joke or form of entertainment? How in the world did they do this? In medieval times the way they made pie crusts was a little different than in present time. The crust was thick, and could be baked first, and would rise forming a pot, hence the term "pot pie." The lid would be removed from the pie, and the birds would then be set inside, the lid put back on, and then this wildly entertaining dish placed before the host of the party. So these birds were not actually cooked in the pie.
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'Big Brother', then a RERUN'Madam Secretary', followed by a FRESH'CSI: The Last One'.
NBC opens the night with a RERUN'Hollywood Game Night', followed by a FRESH'Welcome To Sweden', then another FRESH'Welcome To Sweden', followed by a RERUN'American Ninja Warrior'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a FRESH'Bachelor In Paradise', then a RERUN'Castle'.
The CW offers a RERUN'Monopoly Millionaires' Club', followed by an old 'Friends', then another old 'Friends', followed by 2½ hours of what passes for local news and other fluffery.
Faux has a RERUN'Bob's Burgers', followed by another RERUN'Bob's Burgers', then a RERUN'The Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Brooklyn Nine-Nine', then a RERUN'Family Guy', followed by a RERUN'Last Man On Earth'.
MY has an old 'How I Met Your Mother', followed by another old 'How I Met Your Mother', 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'Intervention', then another FRESH'Intervention', followed by still another FRESH'Intervention'.
AMC offers 'The Walking Dead', another 'The Walking Dead', followed by a FRESH'HUMANS', then a FRESH'Halt & Catch Fire'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 1 - Oceans - Into the Blue
[7:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 2 - Deserts - Life in the Furnace
[8:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 3 - Arctic - Life in the Deep Freeze
[9:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 4 - Jungles - People of the Trees
[10:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 5 - Mountains - Life in Thin Air
[11:00AM] The Matrix
[2:00PM] The Matrix Reloaded
[5:00PM] The Matrix Revolutions
[8:00PM] The Matrix
[11:00PM] The Matrix Reloaded
[2:00AM] The Matrix Revolutions
[5:00AM] Top Gear - Season 18 - Episode 7 (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Married To Medicine', followed by a FRESH'Bravo's First Looks', then a FRESH'Married To Medicine', followed by a FRESH'Mother Funders'.
Comedy Central has the movie '50 First Dates', followed by a FRESH'Daily Show With Jon Stewart' (runs 1hr 6min), and then it repeats.
FX has the movie 'Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol', followed by a FRESH'The Strain'.
History has 2 hours of old 'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'Ice Road Truckers', then a FRESH'Alone: An Inside Look'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
[8:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-TRAFFIC JAM
[8:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-HALLOWEEN APPROXIMATELY
[9:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-LOIS' BIRTHDAY
[9:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-DINNER OUT
[10:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-CASINO
[10:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-CONVENTION
[11:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-ROBBERY
[11:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-THERAPY
[12:15PM] ME, MYSELF & IRENE
[3:00PM] SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
[5:15PM] TRAINING DAY
[8:00PM] TRANSPORTER 2
[10:00PM] TRANSPORTER 3
[12:15AM] TRAINING DAY
[3:00AM] FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
[5:30AM] COMEDY BANG! BANG!-CARLY RAE JEPSEN WEARS A CHUNKY NECKLACE AND BLACK ANKLE BOOTS (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] Nowhere Boy
[8:00AM] The Manchurian Candidate
[11:00AM] Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter-Episode 1
[12:00PM] True Crime
[2:30PM] The Devil's Advocate
[5:30PM] Two for the Money
[8:00PM] Saturday Night Fever
[10:30PM] Saturday Night Fever
[1:00AM] The Doors
[4:00AM] Nowhere Boy (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Straw Dogs', followed by the movie 'Seven'.
Norman Lear, the subject of an "American Masters" documentary that will air on PBS in 2016, poses for a portrait during the 2015 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
A hitchhiking robot that captured the hearts of fans worldwide met its demise in the U.S.
The Canadian researchers who created hitchBOT as a social experiment told The Associated Press that someone in Philadelphia damaged the robot beyond repair early Saturday, ending its first American tour after about two weeks.
The kid-size robot set out to travel cross-country after successfully hitchhiking across Canada in 26 days last year and parts of Europe. It's immobile on its own, relying on the kindness of strangers. Those who picked it up often passed it to other travelers or left it where others might notice it.
It started in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on July 17 with its thumb raised skyward, a grin on its digital face and tape wrapped around its cylindrical head that read "San Francisco or bust."
The creators were sent an image of the vandalized robot Saturday but couldn't track its location because the battery is dead. They said they don't know who destroyed it or why.
US actress and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie (C-L) and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (C-R) leave after visiting a small garment factory in the HlaingTharYar township, Yangon, Myanmar, 01 August 2015. Angelina Jolie is on a six days visit to Myanmar as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.
Photo by Nyein Chan Naing
Former President Jimmy Carter believes the United States' campaign finance system is so broken that the country is no longer a functional democracy. Appearing on the Thom Hartmann show this week, Carter said that "unlimited political bribery" is "the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president." He said the same problems are present in elections for "U.S. senators and congress members."
Carter's comments mirror the conclusions of a Princeton University study released last year. Author Martin Gilens found that "ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States." Meanwhile, "economic elites and interest groups, especially those representing business, have a substantial degree of influence."
Giles study, which he conducted with Northwestern's Benjamin I. Page, found the United States was more of a system of "Economic Elite Domination " than a majoritarian democracy.
Leslie Jordan took a big stand against three men who were yelling anti-gay slurs at him on Wednesday in a West Hollywood Starbucks, reports CBS Los Angeles.
The character actor best known for his appearances on "Will & Grace" where he played up his distinctive southern accent and slight build, reportedly followed the men outside the Santa Monica Boulevard coffee shop and bravely told them off. Witnesses say that when one of the men lunged at Jordan, who is gay, threw his iced tea at the man.
"Leslie Jordan ran out to tell them, 'Get out of our house. Get out of here," witness Joseph Daniels told CBS2/KCAL9's. "I just think he's a Southern belle that snapped."
Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene shortly after and questioned and arrested the three men, who were later released, according to the station. A sheriff's official said deputies documented the disturbance as a "hate incident," although no charges were filed.
Executive producer/actors Bill Hader, from left, Seth Meyers, and Fred Armisen speak onstage during the "Documentary Now!" panel at the IFC 2015 Summer TCA Tour held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Friday, July 31, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Photo by Richard Shotwell
A century after the teenage Louis Armstrong's first pro gig at a honky-tonk, an exhibit about the jazz singer and trumpeter's complicated relationship with his hometown is opening in a state museum in New Orleans' French Quarter.
They include photographs of notebook pages in which Armstrong tells of a racist radio announcer who refused to introduce him in 1931, during his first trip back to New Orleans since he left for Chicago's music world in 1922.
Armstrong wrote that when his manager told him about the refusal, he told the band, "Give me a big chord." That got the crowd into their seats, he wrote, and when he stepped from the bandstand onto the floor, he got a 10-minute ovation.
The radio announcer was flabbergasted, Armstrong wrote, adding, "Of course he was fired the minute the show was over."
Papers, photos and recordings from the Louis Armstrong House in New York make up most of the exhibit, which fills two rooms in the Old U.S. Mint, across the hall from rooms with other musicians' instruments, including Fats Domino's white Steinway grand piano. The exhibit opened Wednesday as part of the Satchmo Summerfest music festival and runs through January.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the release of any recordings made at meetings of an abortion providers' association by an anti-abortion group that previously revealed secretly recorded videos of a Planned Parenthood leader.
Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order against the Center for Medical Progress hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation.
In his three-page order, Orrick said the federation would likely suffer irreparable injury absent a temporary restraining order "in the form of harassment, intimidation, violence, invasion of privacy, and injury to reputation."
David Daleiden (R-Every Sperm Is Sacred), a leader of the Center for Medical Progress James O'Keefe School of Journalism who is also named in the suit, said in a statement that Planned Parenthood and its allies were trying to silence the group and suppress investigative "journalism".
A masked dancer performs during celebrations honouring the patron saint of Managua Santo Domingo de Guzman in Managua, Nicaragua, August 1, 2015.
Photo by Oswaldo Rivas
Italian police stopped American rapper Snoop Dogg at Lamezia Terme airport on Saturday for trying to board a plane with over $420,000 in undeclared cash.
Police seized half the money and opened an investigation, local media said.
The "Drop it like it's hot" singer had performed two shows in the south of Italy and was on his way to the UK, where he is slated to take to stage at the Kendal Calling Festival, according to the AGI news agency.
During a security check before the rapper boarded his private jet, police saw two bags full of cash, totalling $422,000 (384,000 euros).
The artist cooperated with the authorities and only asked that he could leave as soon as possible for London, local reports said.
The 4 ½-minute speech that has reverberated throughout Japan's modern history since it was delivered by Emperor Hirohito at the end of World War II has come back to life in digital form.
Hirohito's "jewel voice" - muffled and nearly inaudible due to poor sound quality - was broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945, announcing Japan's surrender.
On Saturday, the Imperial Household Agency released the digital version of the original sound ahead of the 70th anniversary of the speech and the war's end. In it, the emperor's voice appears clearer, slightly higher and more intense, but, Japanese today would still have trouble understanding the arcane language used by Hirohito.
"The language was extremely difficult," said Tomie Kondo, 92, who listened to the 1945 broadcast in a monitoring room at public broadcaster NHK, where she worked as a newscaster. "It's well written if you read it, but I'm afraid not many people understood what he said."
A model presents creation by Anita Zmurko-Sieradzka during a fashion event called Fashionable East - Fashion Week in Bialystok, eastern Poland August 1, 2015.
Photo by Marcin Onyfryjuk
Like many of his baby boomer peers with grown children and debts to settle, one-time heartthrob David Cassidy is looking to downsize.
He's taking some last looks around his five-bedroom Florida mansion, worrying over bougainvillea he has tended around the stone pool deck for 13 years and taking stock of the property he says is his favorite out of all the homes he's owned.
But once he hands over the keys, the singer and former star of "The Partridge Family" television series says he's not looking back - not at the house or the last few years that have been overshadowed by personal struggles.
Cassidy, 65 and the father of two, is auctioning the waterfront home and all its furnishings Sept. 9 as part of bankruptcy and divorce proceedings.
Fisher Auction Company, which also handled the 2013 auction of the Miami Beach mansion where fashion designer Gianni Versace lived and died, is requiring potential bidders to deposit $200,000 into escrow and prove they have at least $3 million available for the sale.
Three fish larvae captured from the Missouri River last year have been confirmed as those of the endangered pallid sturgeon, the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday.
The larvae were among hundreds of larval shovelnose sturgeon and paddlefish collected near Bellevue on May 30, 2014, the survey said in a news release. The pallid sturgeon larvae were 1 to 3 days old, survey scientists said, indicating the parents spawned between Gavins Point Dam on the South Dakota and Nebraska border and an area where the Platte River meets the Missouri.
Genetic analyses indicate the three larvae are not siblings from a single spawning female, the survey said.
The fish is considered to be critically endangered, with an estimate of only about 2,000 wild pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River. Efforts to rebuild the population include stocking rivers with pallid sturgeon from government hatcheries and improving spawning habitat.
A girl observes a newly hatched butterfly as it hangs from its chrysalis, at Chester Zoo, northwest England, Thursday, July 30, 2015.
Photo by Mosa'ab Elshamy
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