Marc Dion: Good Enough for Long Enough (Creators Syndicate)
People think of newspaper reporters as forever unraveling the twisted threads of political corruption or, depending on your political orientation, they think of us as concealing political corruption in return for pats on the head from America-hating Muslim-coddling socialists. As a reporter on a midsized daily newspaper that prints arrests and obituaries, I can tell you that I spend a lot of time at charitable events. I'm at the Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless, and I'm there when your organization gives $1,000 to a hospital. I'm interviewing the sick kid who gets to ride in a police car because he wished it from a cancer ward.
Ted Rall: "Lost Opportunities For Women: Sexism Sucks, but Blame Capitalism More" (Creators Syndicate)
Certainly more women should be in charge. But we need to look beyond sexism to understand the meta root cause behind unjustly (and foolishly) squandering countless human potential. Whether that waste is directly attributable to discrimination based upon race, gender, or some other factor, it will continue as long as we live in a society whose foundation relies upon the disgusting assumption that only those who can afford it have the right to be everything that they can be.
Prevent Alzheimer's Disease with 4 Brain-Boosting Habits (Blue Zones)
If you ask the very old in the Blue Zones region of Ikaria how they live to be 100, they might say it's the leisurely pace of island life, the ocean breeze, the wine consumed with friends, wild herbal tea, or perhaps, as one Ikarian woman put it, "We just forget to die." Their extreme longevity is a combination of many lifestyle habits, leading them to experience a life virtually free from age-related diseases, including dementia, which affects more than 5 million people in the United States.
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigmas and styles, called threads, are collected and dried to be used mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in food. Saffron, long among the world's most costly spices by weight, was probably first cultivated in or near Greece.
Saffron's taste and iodoform or hay-like fragrance result from the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal. It also contains a carotenoid pigment, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Its recorded history is attested in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical treatise compiled under Ashurbanipal, and it has been traded and used for over four millennia. Iran now accounts for approximately 90% of the world production of saffron.
Source
Randall was first, and correct, with:
IRAN
Alan J answered:
Iran.
Mark. wrote:
Iran.
Deborah wrote:
Iran is the answer, I believe.
Woke up marginally better. Looks like my husband is coming down with it now. Between us and our son, we'll cobble together some kind of holiday.
Stephen F replied:
Iran
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Iran now accounts for approximately 93% of the world production of saffron
DJ Useo replied:
The answer is Iran. I wasn't sure, so I called "Saffron", a local Indian Restaurant. They're smart, & great cooks.
It's a casual Indian storefront for a fusion menu of curries & paneer, plus chow mein & lunch-tray combos.
Austin, TX
Saffron Indian|Nepalese Restaurant
BttbBob responded:
Oh, I dunno... India? Persia? The Spice Islands? Maybe this guy knows...
I'm cynical enough to cast a wry look at purportedly progressive Hollywood over how much they rely on guns and violence to sell their product, no matter the screen size... and that's the name of that tune.
~~~~~
'Adventure Man!' Episode 1 - Next week he shall venture into the woods along the shoreline and marshes of Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron, in search for spectacular avian visitors from the far north that have arrived in rather larger numbers than usual this winter... the phenomenon is called an 'irruption'!
Snowy owl invasion a phenomenon of nature - The Blade
I've seen them numerous times during winters here in Michigan over the years... heck, in a '77 snow storm I went for a stroll to experience it (the Man Against Nature thing) and one flew down to land on me as I stood still for a few moments, obviously mistaking me for a post or small tree. It scared the bejabbers outta both of us. It passed but 5 feet over my head and then - whoosh! It was gone... So... 'Adventure Man!' sallies forth in search of yet another close encounter with Bubo scandiacus...
(I frequently use the two hands approach now because the stroke has impaired my gripping ability in the left hand--when I forget and go to lift a glass with my left hand, I usually now reinforce the grip by adding my right hand to the glass, but I don't scrunch my two hands together in the weird way Baby Hands does--for heaven's sake! One hand on one side & the other hand on the other side--not two tiny hands grasping each other for the lift--it's a glass of water not a 350 pound barbell.)
For some idiotic reason, the NYTimes has decided they need to compromise their real reporting by running fluff pieces to flatter Predator's ego. Because that's an odious task, they're now asking readers to identify anything nice about Predator. Janet shared the link to the initial responses:
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Watched the newly colorized 'I Love Lucy' & Dick Van Dyke on CBS Friday night.
They sure have come a long way with colorization.
Way back when I was at the Disney Channel, they proudly touted a colorized "The Absent-Minded Professor", and, boy, did it blow chunks.
There's a basketball game in the movie and both teams were wearing the same color uniforms.
They neglected to colorize inside the actors' mouths, so everyone had black & white teeth and tongues.
And, the colorizing took longer than anticipated - reel #1 was on the air, reel #2 was loaded on the tape machine, and we were hoping reel #3 would be delivered in time (it was, but barely - and the colorizing wasn't quite completed).
FWIW, both Lucy & Dick rerun tonight on CBS.
Tonight, Sunday:
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by the RERUN'I Love Lucy Christmas Special', then the RERUN'The Dick Van Dyke Show - Now In Living Color', followed by a RERUN'Blue Bloods'.
NBC opens the night with 'Trolls Holiday Special', followed by 'How Murray Saved Christmas', then the movie 'It's A Wonderful Life'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by the movie 'Beauty & The Beast'.
The CW here fills the night with 'The KTLA Yule Log'.
Faux has a RERUN'The Simpsons', followed by 'Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas', then a RERUN'Family Guy', followed by a RERUN'Bob's Burgers'.
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 the movie 'The Rock', followed by the movie 'Armageddon'.
AMC offers the movie 'Ernest Saves Christmas', followed by the movie 'A Christmas Carol', then the movie 'Scrooged'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 8 - EPISODE 10-In the Forest of the Night
[7:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 8 - EPISODE 11-Dark Water
[8:05AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 8 - EPISODE 12-Death in Heaven
[9:20AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 1-The Magician's Apprentice-Part 1.
[10:25AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 2-The Witch's Familiar-Part 2.
[11:30AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 3-Under The Lake-Part 1.
[12:30PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 4-Before The Flood-Part 2.
[1:30PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 5-The Girl Who Died-Part 1.
[2:35PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 6-The Woman Who Lived-Part 2.
[3:40PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 7-The Zygon Invasion-Part 1.
[4:45PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 8-The Zygon Inversion-Part 2.
[5:50PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 9-Sleep No More
[6:55PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 10-Face The Raven
[8:00PM] DOCTOR WHO: LAST CHRISTMAS
[9:20PM] DOCTOR WHO: THE HUSBANDS OF RIVER SONG
[10:40PM] DOCTOR WHO: TWICE UPON A TIME - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1
[12:05AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 11-Heaven Sent-Part 1.
[1:10AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 12-Hell Bent-Part 2.
[2:30AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 5-The Girl Who Died-Part 1.
[3:30AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9 - EPISODE 6-The Woman Who Lived-Part 2.
[4:30AM] DOCTOR WHO: TWICE UPON A TIME - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1 (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by a FRESH'Atlanta Social', then the movie 'Little Fockers'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Blended', followed by the movie 'Talladega Nights: The Legend Of Ricky Bobby'.
FX has the movie 'The Santa Clause 2', followed by the movie 'The Santa Clause 2', again.
IFC -
[6:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-The Best Christmas Ever
[6:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Hyde's Christmas Rager
[7:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-An Eric Forman Christmas
[7:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Christmas
[8:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Winter
[8:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-It's a Wonderful Life
[9:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-The Best Christmas Ever
[9:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Hyde's Christmas Rager
[10:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-An Eric Forman Christmas
[10:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Christmas
[11:00AM] THAT '70S SHOW-Winter
[11:30AM] THAT '70S SHOW-It's a Wonderful Life
[12:00PM] BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
[2:00PM] UNCLE BUCK
[4:15PM] TRADING PLACES
[6:45PM] UNCLE BUCK
[9:00PM] BEETLEJUICE
[11:00PM] TRADING PLACES
[1:30AM] BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
[3:45AM] BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] An Officer and a Gentleman
[9:00AM] Working Girl
[11:30AM] Overboard
[2:00PM] The Princess Bride
[4:00PM] The Princess Bride
[6:00PM] The Princess Bride
[8:00PM] The Princess Bride
[10:00PM] The Princess Bride
[12:00AM] The Princess Bride
[2:00AM] Working Girl
[4:30AM] The Andy Griffith Show-The Big House
[5:00AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Opie the Birdman
[5:30AM] The Andy Griffith Show-The Haunted House (ALL TIMES EST)
MSNBC is parting ways with longtime liberal contributor Joan Walsh, the network announced in a statement Saturday.
"Every year we review our paid contributors list across the ideological spectrum. Unfortunately we couldn't renew Joan, but she and her distinct perspective will still be invited on our shows," an MSNBC spokesperson told TheWrap via email. "Joan Walsh has been a key voice on MSNBC for years and she's absolutely still welcome."
When word leaked of Walsh's exit Friday night, her Twitter followers reacted with shock and support. She confirmed her departure, tweeting, "Wow. I'm overwhelmed. I didn't expect this news to break tonight. I'll have something to say in the morning."
And Saturday morning she held to her promise. "So it's true: after 12 years on MSNBC, six on contract, I learned Friday night they are not renewing. I've given my heart and soul to the network, from the George W. Bush years through today. I'm proud of the work I did," she wrote.
"Yes, it's Christmas weekend. I was baking pies with my daughter, who is home for the holidays, when I got the news. It didn't feel too good. But all of your support helps, a lot. I'
For millions of Britons, a traditional Christmas Day includes turkey, brussels sprouts, Christmas pudding - and a special seasonal episode of "Doctor Who."
The global success of the venerable sci-fi series means that fans around the world will also tune in Monday to watch Peter Capaldi's final adventure as the space-hopping Time Lord known as the Doctor. (Americans can see it on BBC America at 9 p.m. Eastern).
The show has had a dozen Doctors over its 54-year history, and this is one of those bittersweet moments when one lead actor hands over to another. At episode's end, viewers will see Capaldi transform - through a Time Lord process known as regeneration - into Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to play the part.
Before that comes a rollicking and poignant adventure that moves from the World War I trenches to the South Pole, features mysterious creatures made of glass and (of course) involves a jaunt in the Tardis, a time-and-space machine shaped like an old-fashioned British police phone box.
The episode loops back into the show's own history, featuring an appearance by the very first Doctor, a white-haired gent who appeared on TV screens in 1963. He was played by William Hartnell, who died in 1975; David Bradley fills the role here.
A huge swath of coastal California ranch lands will become a vast preserve through an acquisition funded by a $165 million gift from a wealthy environmentalist couple, The Nature Conservancy announced Friday.
The purchase of the Cojo-Jalama Ranch covers 24,000 acres (9,713 hectares) at Point Conception, the landmark 150 miles (241 kilometers) west of Los Angeles where the coastline distinctly turns northward.
Considered sacred by the Native American Chumash and long used for cattle ranching, it has escaped the invasion of development that sprawls along much of California's coast and is considered highly important for its biological diversity.
The funds came from Jack and Laura Dangermond, conservationists and co-founders of Esri, a provider of geographic information system software for mapping and spatial analytics. It is the largest single philanthropic gift in The Nature Conservancy's history, the nonprofit said.
Two private cattle ranches currently occupy the land, which had recently received attention when the California Coastal Commission accepted a deal in which the owners gave a mile of shoreline property to the Santa Barbara County parks department as part of a settlement for doing unpermitted work such as grading.
The lucky winners of Spain's Christmas lottery celebrated on Friday as they eagerly awaited receiving their share of the 2.4 billion euro, or $2.8 billion, prize.
The annual lottery, which has been a holiday tradition in the country since 1812, offers the largest pool of total lottery prize money in the world, The Associated Press reports. The top prize, called El Gordo ("the Fat One"), was about $470,000 this year, and smaller amounts will be distributed to other winners.
The lottery system is complex, and prizes are usually shared among a large number of people. Each ticket costs about $237, so families, friends and co-workers tend to invest together. A $24 décimo, which amounts to about one-tenth of a ticket, is particularly popular.
Each ticket comes with a five-digit number. Sellers are assigned specific numbers they can use, and each number can be repeated up to 165 times, The Local reports. That means that it's common for many people from the same town to win all at once ? since they've often bought tickets from the same seller.
About 70 percent of Spaniards between the ages of 18 and 75 play the Christmas lottery. Many queue up in long lines outside their favorite lottery booths, while some travel to different cities to play a specific number.
In a fit of anger during a June cabinet meeting in the Oval Office, President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) said Haitians entering the U.S. "all have AIDS" and that Nigerians would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America, according to The New York Times, which reported the comments in a bombshell article it published Saturday.
The White House denied the former reality TV star made the controversial remarks. "General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims," Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told The New York Times. "It's both sad and telling The New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous 'sources' anyway."
Huckabee Sanders was referring to Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security is Kirstjen Nielsen.
The Times reported the president made the comments after adviser Stephen Miller gave him a list numbering the immigrants from certain countries who had received visas during the Trump presidency, despite the Republican running on a hard-line anti-immigration platform. New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman tweeted that right before the story written by Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis was set to publish the White House "pushed out cabinet members to deny the details of POTUS remarks." But the Times story notes that two anonymous officials who served as sources for the article deemed the comments so noteworthy at the time that they told others.
Rights groups and a press freedom organization renewed calls on Egyptian authorities Friday to release an Al-Jazeera journalist whose detention passed the one-year mark. Egypt accuses the Qatar-based news network of bias toward Islamist groups including its own outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
The statements from Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Amnesty International mark one year since the arrest of Mahmoud Hussein, believed to have been apprehended while in Egypt on vacation. He is accused of publishing false information and belonging to a banned group.
"Mahmoud Hussein languishing for over a year in pretrial detention demonstrates Egypt's deep-rooted intolerance for free expression," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director. Similarly, RSF and Amnesty International slammed Egypt over his detention for "no apparent reason."
Al-Jazeera also demanded Hussein's release in earlier statements, saying his health deteriorated while in prison.
Authorities have arrested several Al-Jazeera journalists since the military ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who enjoyed Qatar's support, in 2013 following mass protests against his one-year rule which proved divisive. Relations between Egypt and Qatar have been fraught with tension since Morsi's ouster and the Al-Jazeera network, especially its Arabic service, and its staff has been embroiled in the wider political rift between Cairo and Doha.
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Crooked), who last month said he's too busy "reading documents" to watch much television, said he decided to sign the GOP tax reform bill on Friday, ahead of the holidays, after tuning into TV news.
"I was going to wait for a formal signing sometime in early January, but then I watched the news this morning and they were all saying, 'Will he keep his promise? Will he sign it by Christmas?'" Trump said during a small signing event at the White House.
"I called downstairs, I said, 'Get it ready. We have to sign it now,'" Trump added.
The president has repeatedly claimed that his busy schedule and work ethic keeps him away from the tube.
The New York Times reported this month that Trump watches between 4 and 8 hours of television per day - part of what it described as "an hour-by-hour battle for self-preservation." TV serves as the "ammunition" for his outbursts on Twitter, and his habit includes watching Fox News, CNN and hate-watching MSNBC, according to the Times.
For decades, a confessional in a church in Lithuania's capital Vilnius kept a precious secret: a trove of documents offering an unprecedented glimpse into Jewish life in Eastern Europe before and during the Holocaust.
The cache, with documents dating back to the mid-18th century, includes religious texts, Yiddish literature and poetry, testimonies about pogroms as well as autobiographies and photographs.
"The diversity of material is breathtaking," David Fishman, professor of Jewish History at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary, told AFP via telephone, describing the discovery as a "total surprise".
The trove was discovered earlier this year during a cleanout of the church that was used as a book repository during Soviet times.
The documents, together with a larger cache found in Vilnius nearly three decades ago, are "the most significant discovery for Jewish history since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s", Fishman said.
The Thomas Fire has now burned more acres than any previous wildfire on record in California, and there are no signs of a pattern change that would deliver beneficial weather for battling the blaze.
Since starting on Dec. 4, the Thomas Fire killed one firefighter, one civilian and destroyed more than 1,000 structures, including more than 750 homes. The flames forced thousands of evacuations and numerous schools to close.
On Friday evening, CalFire reported that the Thomas Fire has grown to 273,400 acres and was 65 percent contained.
The fire has surpassed the Cedar Fire from 2003, which burned more than 273,246 acres.
Jordan Feldstein, the manager of Maroon 5 and actor Jonah Hill's brother, has died. He was 40 years old.
A spokeswoman for the band confirmed Saturday that Feldstein died unexpectedly Friday. The Feldstein family said in a statement that Jordan Feldstein called 911 after experiencing shortness of breath Friday. He had gone into cardiac arrest by the time paramedics arrived and died a short time later.
Feldstein was the founder and chief executive of Career Artist Management and had managed Maroon 5 since its inception 15 years ago. His company also counts Miguel, The B-52s, Elle King and Rick Springfield among its clients.
Besides Hill, Feldstein is survived by his sister, parents and two children.
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