Marc Dion: Waiting for the Leader (Creators Syndicate)
The middle and working classes in America are falling behind. Well, the middle class is falling behind. The working class tore up the card in the union they once belonged to and left the world. And we're mad. We focus our rage on black people who receive welfare. In America, today, we talk about welfare recipients the way Hitler talked about Jews.
Snakes and Ladders is an ancient Indian board game regarded today as a worldwide classic.] It is played between two or more players on a gameboard having numbered, gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes" are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate one's game piece, according todie rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes respectively.
The game is a simple race contest based on sheer luck, and is popular with young children. The historic version had root in morality lessons, where a player's progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes).
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
India.
mj wrote:
Guessing again
Since so much of our lives go back there, I'm thinking Egypt.
Deborah replied:
I was surprised to learn that what I played as Chutes and Ladders had its humble beginnings in India.
Hot here, and going to get hotter. Worse, the wind direction changed, and the smoke from over 100K acres of fire pollutes our lovely valley. Ugh.
Deborah Gallagher Realtor, SFR
Marian said:
India
Dale of Hot Diamond Springs, Norcali answered:
India
DJ Useo replied:
I remember this from when I was a kid. It's India! Not China. We used to argue about things like that while playing.
& then my older brother would be a sore loser, & knock the entire game off the table. What a grouch!
MAM wrote:
India
I played this game with my kids. They didn't like it very well; I think because one seemed to spend more time going down chutes than going up ladders. Hard to win if you move backwards so much.
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 RERUN'CSI: One Too Many'.
NBC opens the night with a RERUN'Hollywood Game Night', followed by the FRESH'Ed Sheeran - Live At Wembley Stadium', then 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 FRESH'Save My Life: Boston Trauma'.
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'Family Guy', followed by another RERUN'Family Guy', then the FRESH'Teen Choice 2015'.
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', another 'Intervention', followed by a FRESH'Intervention', then another FRESH'Intervention'.
AMC offers 'The Walking Dead', another 'The Walking Dead', followed by a FRESH'HUMANS'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] President Obama Meets David Attenborough
[7:00AM] Planet Earth: Human Planet-Ep 8 - Cities - Surviving the Urban Jungle
[8:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 1 - Spring
[9:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 2 - Summer
[10:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 3 - Winter1
[1:00AM] Battlestar Galactica - Miniseries-Night
[11:00PM] Battlestar Galactica - Miniseries-Night 2
[3:00PM] Clash of the Titans (1981)
[5:30PM] Highlander
[8:00PM] Kingdom of Heaven
[11:00PM] Kingdom of Heaven
[2:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 1 - Spring
[3:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 2 - Summer
[4:00AM] Wild Alaska-Ep 3 - Winter
[5:00AM] President Obama Meets David Attenborough (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Married To Medicine', followed by a FRESH'Bravo First Looks', then a FRESH'Married To Medicine', followed by a FRESH'Don't Be Tardy ... ', then a FRESH'Manzo'd With Children', followed by a FRESH'Watch What Happens Live'.
FX has the movie 'White House Down', followed by a FRESH'The Strain'.
History has 'Ice Road Truckers', another 'Ice Road Truckers', followed by a FRESH'Ice Road Truckers', and 'American Pickers'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] COMEDY BANG! BANG!-ALISON BRIE
[6:15AM] UNDERCOVER BROTHER
[8:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-REESE COOKS
[8:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-TUTORING REESE
[9:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-BOWLING
[9:45AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-MALCOLM VS. REESE
[10:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-MINI-BIKE
[10:45AM] PORTLANDIA-SEA WORLD
[11:15AM] PORTLANDIA-4TH OF JULY
[11:45AM] PORTLANDIA-FASHION
[12:15PM] PORTLANDIA-DOUG BECOMES A FEMINIST
[12:45PM] PORTLANDIA-THE CELERY INCIDENT
[1:00PM] UNDERCOVER BROTHER
[3:00PM] PAUL
[5:15PM] AMERICAN BEAUTY
[8:00PM] FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
[10:00PM] FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
[12:00AM] PAUL
[2:15AM] THE BLUES BROTHERS
[5:15AM] MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE-CHAD'S SLEEPOVER
[5:45AM] THE BIRTHDAY BOYS-FIRST LOOK AT SEASON TWO (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[8:45AM] Billy Elliot
[11:00AM] Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter-Episode 3
[12:00PM] The Namesake
[2:30PM] Field of Dreams
[5:00PM] National Lampoon's Vacation
[7:00PM] National Lampoon's European Vacation
[9:00PM] Vegas Vacation
[11:00PM] Proof of Life
[2:00AM] American Psycho
[4:15AM] Rectify-Episode 6
[5:15AM] The Approval Matrix-America's Hall Monitors (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Dragonball Evolution', followed by the movie 'Doom'.
Chic Featuring US musician Nile Rodgers (C) performs during the Way Out West rock festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, 15 August 2015. The festival runs from 13 to 15 August.
Photo by Adam Ihse
Dueling relatives of guitar legend Jimi Hendrix have reached a settlement after going to court over the rights to T-shirts and other merchandise bearing his image.
The Seattle-born Hendrix, a pioneering player of the electric guitar, died at age 27 in 1970 with no will, leaving his father to take charge of his estate.
The father, Al Hendrix, died in 2002 after transferring rights to the estate to his adopted daughter Janie Hendrix.
The sister, who runs the companies Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix, filed a lawsuit in 2009 against Hendrix Licensing, which was run by Nevada entrepreneur Andrew Pitsicalis with the guitarist's brother, Leon.
Before the case could go to trial, the two sides reached a settlement, a court document showed.
British actress Maggie Smith arrives at The Ivy, as the cast of Downton Abbey attend a wrap party to celebrate the sixth and final season of the programme, in London, Saturday Aug. 15, 2015.
Photo by John Stillwell
A new digital map of the composition of the seafloor reveals "microfossil" graveyards off the coast of Australia, as well as other complex deep-ocean geology.
Published Aug. 9 in the journal Geology, the interactive map is available online. It's the first digital map of global seafloor composition, and the first attempt at such a map anyone has made in 40 years. The last version of the map was hand drawn in the 1970s, according to the University of Sydney.
"The old map suggests much of the Southern Ocean around Australia is mainly covered by clay blown off the continent, whereas our map shows this area is actually a complex patchwork of microfossil remains," study author Adriana Dutkiewicz, a sedimentologist at the University of Sydney, said in a statement. "Life in the Southern Ocean is much richer than previously thought."
The microfossils belong to diatoms, a type of phytoplankton that takes in carbon dioxide and expels oxygen. These organisms make about 20 percent of the oxygen in the air that humans breathe. When diatoms die, they sink to the ocean floor, carrying their carbon with them. This makes them an important "carbon sink" that keeps carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere, where it can warm the planet.
A real-estate agent and storm chaser captured a snapshot of a lifetime on Aug. 9, when he photographed a rare duo - an eerie flash of lightning framed by a glorious rainbow - in Tucson, Arizona.
The electrifying image took social media by storm: As of Aug. 14, Greg McCown's photo had garnered more than 1,000 Facebook likes and more than 3,600 retweets.
There's a reason why it went viral: Those types of sightings are incredibly rare. Although 100 lighting bolts strike the Earth every second, the chances of them flashing near a rainbow are slim, said Randall Cerveny, a professor of meteorology at Arizona State University in Tucson.
Lightning bolts illuminate a pathway from the ground to the sky when negatively charged cloud bottoms connect with positive charges on Earth's surface. "When you get a buildup of negative charge in the bottom of a cloud," which occurs when raindrops pull charges down, "opposites attract," Cerveny told Live Science.
The viral photo is especially rare because McCown had to be standing in between the sun and the storm at the exact moment when the angle of the sun hit the raindrops to form a rainbow, and the positive ground charges and negative cloud charges clashed in a flash of lightning.
US singer Patti Smith performs during the Way Out West rock festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, 15 August 2015. The festival runs from 13 to 15 August.
Photo by Adam Ihse
Sculptures by a renowned Soviet artist on show in central Moscow were smashed after being denounced by Orthodox activists as "blasphemous."
"Delusional people came to the exhibition who broke several works belonging to the Manege collection, by Vadim Sidur," said a spokeswoman for the Manege art centre by the Kremlin walls, Yelena Karneyeva, referring to the activists.
A well-known Orthodox activist Dmitry Tsorionov, known by the nickname Dmitry Enteo, earlier said he was at the Manege exhibition centre.
Enteo, quoted by Interfax news agency, had said the exhibition included an "indecent" depiction of Jesus Christ and was "dirty, harsh mockery of Jesus Christ and the saints."
The head of the nationalist God's Will group is a prominent conservative activist. He cites Orthodox values while picketing and heckling at arts events and protests, sometimes with a television camera crew in tow. This year he attempted to stop a gay pride rally in Moscow.
Telecommunications powerhouse AT&T Inc has provided extensive assistance to the U.S. National Security Agency as the spy agency conducts surveillance on huge volumes of Internet traffic passing through the United States, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing newly disclosed NSA documents.
The newspaper reported that the company gave technical assistance to the NSA in carrying out a secret court order allowing wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations, an AT&T customer.
The documents date from 2003 to 2013 and were provided by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the Times reported.
The documents describe how the NSA's working relationship with AT&T has been particularly important, enabling the agency to conduct surveillance, under various legal rules, of international and foreign-to-foreign Internet communications that passed through network hubs in the United States.
AT&T installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its U.S. Internet hubs, far more than competitor Verizon Communications Inc, the Times reported. AT&T engineers also were the first to use new surveillance technologies invented by the NSA, the Times reported.
A man performs in the Kabuki Spectacle in front of the Bellagio hotel and casino Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, in Las Vegas. Singers and dancers performed the ancient Japanese storytelling art as the Bellagio fountains functioned as a massive watery movie screen behind them, displaying animated scenes.
Photo by John Locher
Five activists from the militant Sea Shepherd conservation group have been ordered to leave the Faroe Islands after they tried to disrupt a traditional whale hunt in the autonomous Danish province, police said Saturday.
Four were expelled on Friday, and a fifth was to leave Saturday, police spokesman Christian Jonsson told AFP, adding that they were barred from the islands for a year.
A Faroe Islands court on Friday found the five guilty of disrupting the region's traditional "grind" pilot whale hunt, one of the activists said.
During the hunt, which many locals defend as a cultural right, the three-to-six metre (10-to-20 foot) sea mammals are driven by a flotilla of small boats into a bay, or the mouth of a fjord, before being killed by hand.
The whale meat and blubber are consumed by locals and considered delicacies on the archipelago situated between Norway, Iceland and Scotland.
A spiritual healer of Nuba tribe performs during a celebration of their cultural heritage on the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in Omdurman August 15, 2015.
Photo by Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Wildlife activists' outrage over the killing of a mother grizzly bear blamed in the death of a Yellowstone National Park hiker mounted on Friday as park officials said they were taking precautions after receiving profanity-laced and threatening telephone calls.
The park on Thursday said the 259-pound (117-kg) female grizzly was euthanized after DNA testing linked her to the fatal mauling one week ago of a hiker whose body was discovered partially eaten.
The grizzly's two orphaned cubs, which were trapped by bear managers last week, are being cared for in a captive facility until their transfer to the Toledo Zoo in the fall, Yellowstone spokeswoman Amy Bartlett said.
The park's announcement last week that the grizzly involved in the death the hiker, 63-year-old Lance Crosby of Billings, Montana, would be killed to ensure public safety drew protests by some wildlife advocates. They argued on the park's Facebook pages and in telephone calls and emails to Yellowstone officials that the mother grizzly should be spared.
Crosby was in his fifth season working as a registered nurse for a company that operates urgent-care clinics in Yellowstone.
A plaque is awarded to a 1964 Ford Fairlane for the "Worst of Show" award at the Concours d'Lemon, part of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Seaside, California, August 15, 2015. When it began 65 years ago, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance was just a one-day affair. Car enthusiasts raced around Pebble Beach's famed 17-Mile Drive and hung around afterwards to admire each other's hardware.
Photo by Robert Galbraith
Japan warned on Saturday that a volcano 50 km (31 miles) from a just-restarted nuclear reactor is showing signs of increased activity, and said nearby residents should prepare to evacuate.
Sakurajima, a mountain on the southern island of Kyushu, is one of Japan's most active volcanoes and erupts almost constantly. But a larger than usual eruption could be in the offing, an official at the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
"There is the danger that stones could rain down on areas near the mountain's base, so we are warning residents of those areas to be ready to evacuate if needed," the official added.
The agency also said it had raised the warning level on the peak, 990 km southwest of Tokyo, to an unprecedented 4, for prepare to evacuate, from 3. Roughly 100 people could be affected.
Japan on Tuesday restarted a reactor at the Sendai nuclear plant, some 50 km from Sakurajima. It is the first reactor to be restarted under new safety standards put in place after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
A Dallas man won a long battle to retrieve a notorious piece of U.S. history, the gravestone of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, which came back to Texas this week from a small-town Illinois museum after a years of legal fights.
David Card had to fight relatives and an Illinois museum to bring back the headstone that spent a few years on the grave of the man who shot President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in Dallas.
"It was ours, and it is the original headstone of the most famous and infamous assassin in the history of Western civilization … maybe of all time," said Card, owner of a prominent Dallas music club, who is limited on what he can say under terms of the settlement deal.
Before turning up in the Historic Automotive Attractions museum in Roscoe, Illinois in 2009, it had been stolen, recovered, hidden away, forgotten and then passed around among Card family relatives.
The original headstone was stolen from the cemetery four years after Kennedy's death as a prank by Oklahoma teenagers. It was found by police and returned to Oswald's mother, Marguerite Oswald, who stashed it away in her Fort Worth home.
A flower of the extra long staple "Giza 88" cotton is seen at a cotton field in Shubra Kheit in El Beheira Governorate, north of Cairo, Egypt, July 29, 2015.
Photo by Shadi Bushra
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wrote:
took the day off.
, has returned to semi-retired status.
A real-estate agent and storm chaser captured a snapshot of a lifetime on Aug. 9, when he photographed a rare duo - an eerie flash of lightning framed by a glorious rainbow - in Tucson, Arizona.
