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Topic: A merry and bright Christmas –
and as joyfully eccentric as ever |
A merry and bright Christmas –
and as joyfully eccentric as ever
Telegraph [UK], by Judith Woods
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Original Article
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Posted By:Attercliffe, 12/15/2012 8:59:28 AM
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| My halls are decked, the mantelpiece is crammed with dinky seasonal knick-knacks and the air is heavy with the scent of pine and cherry brandy..[Snip] But behold, as I joyfully dust down the biscuit tin that plays a tune when opened so I can monitor the children’s lebkuchen consumption! Stand back as I scramble to reach the front door at the dread sound of the dog’s jaws clamping round newly arrived packages before they’ve even thumped on to the mat! Our tree is by the sitting-room window and, even if I say so myself, is a showstopper that
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Comments:
Judging from the decorations I´ve seen in people´s carts, neon non-traditional Christmas colors are the chosen style this year. Maybe it´s so that the tree can stand out better in the dim, jaundiced light put out by economically low-wattage bulbs. Give me red, green and gold any time. And my eccentric Christmas choice? Two very old cassette tapes with Christmas songs entertainingly performed by a Caribbean band. "White Christmas" in reggae style (and accent) cuts the schmaltz a bit and revs up the warmth of the celebration. You have to smile.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
secondtimelucky, 12/15/2012 9:27:01 AM (No. 9067092)
One of my aunties had an aluminum tree with the color wheel. I have to admit, when I was 10 I found it totally avant garde. (if I had only known at the time what that meant) but everyone else was traditional.
And now, we also enjoy the annual unwrapping and discovery. ´´do you remember´´ and ´´oh, look at this´´. I love it...
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Reply 2 - Posted by:
GoodGrief, 12/15/2012 9:50:10 AM (No. 9067162)
I must go find some "Chocolate Money," my wonderful great aunt always had two or three, valuable, pieces for each of the kids.
It was a high point of Christmas for me.
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
AltaD, 12/15/2012 10:12:55 AM (No. 9067220)
Like her children, decorating the tree was my favorite part of Christmas when I was a child. Our church´s Christmas bizarre always had a booth that sold personalized ornaments so each year we´d get an ornament with our name on it. And each year you could judge how tall each child was based on where their ornaments were placed on the tree.
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Below, you will find ...
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Most Recent Articles posted by "Attercliffe"
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Daily Mail [UK], by Staff
Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 7:41:16 PM
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A heroin addict father smokes the deadly drug contentedly as his two innocent children sit watching him adoringly. The oblivious man is part of a growing epidemic in the war-torn country of Afghanistan, which has seen the number of opium and heroin addicts tripling to 150,000, according to latest United Nations Figures, while 225,000 used the drug in 2012. In a country with a population 35million, there are now more than 1m addicts of one drug or another. It represents a major problem for the country, which produces 90 percent of all opiates in the world. Until recently
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´I never knew people could love an
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Daily Mail [UK], by Staff
Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 7:18:36 PM
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A 91-year-old WWII veteran fighting to prevent his daughter from evicting him from his Ohio home has raised more than $138,000 from online donors to buy back his home, easily surpassing his goal. John Potter says he´s ´amazed´ by the more than 5,000 people who have donated toward his original $125,000 goal while telling his granddaughter, Jaclyn Fraley, ´I never knew people could love an old man so much.´ After Mr Potter´s daughter sent him an eviction notice earlier this year, Ms Fraley organized the desperate fundraiser for him in April while sharing with the public his dire situation.
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Stocks are booming,
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Telegraph [UK], by Jeremy Warner
Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 6:55:48 PM
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The return of ´animal spirits’ usually points to better times, but it’s more complicated now. One of the defining characteristics of an asset bubble is that most professional money men know one when they see one, but on the “greater fool theory”--the belief that when making a questionable investment there is always some idiot willing to pay even more--are very reluctant to leave it.[Snip] With equity prices again hitting new, post-credit-crunch highs--the FTSE 100 is nearly back to its turn-of-the-century peak, and the US S&P 500 already is--the old question has arisen anew: are we once again in
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Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 6:46:17 PM
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On May 3 1999, Moore was one of several cities left devastated after 74 tornadoes touched down across Oklahoma and Kansas in just 21 hours. Following a path similar to yesterday´s lethal twister, the storms that struck the city 14 years ago to the month left 46 dead and 800 injured. Due to the high number of mobile homes and less robust housing in this part of the US, more than 8,000 homes were destroyed. It caused almost $1.5 billion in property damage making it the fourth costliest in the world. The National Weather Service also recorded wind speeds
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President Obama Says Tornado
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Associated Press, by Staff
Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 10:54:00 AM
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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he is instructing his disaster response team to get tornado victims in Oklahoma everything they need "right away." Obama calls the devastation that tore through the Oklahoma City suburbs, quote, "one of the most destructive tornados in history," even though he said the extent of the damage is still unknown. Obama spoke Tuesday after an Oval Office briefing on the latest developments from his disaster response team and as Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate was heading to Oklahoma. Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state
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Obama’s Mr. Irrelevant
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Original Article
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Posted By: Attercliffe- 5/21/2013 6:18:21 AM
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Dan Pfeiffer’s job title is “senior advisor to the president for strategy and communications.” And on five television shows Sunday, he all too clearly communicated the White House’s strategy of remaining unclear on pertinent details about scandals now dogging President Barack Obama. “Fox News” host Chris Wallace pressed Mr. Pfeiffer on “one lingering question” about last Sept. 11’s terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya: “What did the president do that night?” After Mr. Pfeiffer tried a few end runs, Mr. Wallace asked: “Was he in the Situation Room?”
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Posted By: Scottyboy- 5/22/2013 6:06:40 AM
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Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose career in public life came to an abrupt end when he sent lewd pictures to a college student on Twitter, jumped back into politics on Wednesday by announcing a bid for mayor of New York City. “Look, I’ve made some big mistakes and I know I’ve let a lot of people down,” the Democrat said in a 2-minute video announcing his bid. “But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it for my entire life.
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Leaks turn to deluge
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New York Post, by John Podhoretz
Original Article
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Posted By: StormCnter- 5/21/2013 4:49:13 AM
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The wheels came off the Obama administration yesterday. We learned of a startling assault on freedom of the press by the Department of Justice, following the revelation last week of the unprecedented information-gathering foray by that department against The Associated Press. Then, a few minutes later, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report declaring that the US attorney in Arizona used the leak of a confidential memo to try to discredit a whistleblower in the notorious “gun-walking” scandal known as Fast and Furious (which got two federal agents killed). The leak was called “egregious.”
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Top IRS official will
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Los Angeles Times, by Richard Simon and Joseph Tanfani
Original Article
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Posted By: Scottyboy- 5/21/2013 3:53:35 PM
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WASHINGTON – A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups. Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday.
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A Crack in the IRS Dam
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Power Line, by John Hinderaker
Original Article
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Posted By: Dreadnought- 5/21/2013 10:50:44 PM
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The dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks an enormous milestone in the IRS investigation. It can now be taken as more or less established that crimes were committed by Obama administration employees. Lerner’s lawyer tried to minimize the significance
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Man questioned in Boston Marathon
bombing shot, killed by FBI
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WCBV-TV [Boston], by Staff
Original Article
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Posted By: earlybird- 5/22/2013 7:21:44 AM
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One of two men allegedly being questioned in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Florida on Tuesday, (Snip)A friend of Ibragim Todashev said he and Todashev were being investigated as part of the Boston bombings. He said Todashev, 27, knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were MMA fighters. The man claims he and Todashev were interviewed by the FBI for nearly three hours on Tuesday. The friend said he left the interview, and when he came back to the apartment he found that there had been a shooting.
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Howard Dean: ‘Benghazi
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National Review Online, by Andrew Johnson
Original Article
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Posted By: KarenJ1- 5/21/2013 11:59:15 AM
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Former Democratic National committee chairman Howard Dean considers the controversy over Benghazi a “joke” and “silly.” “Benghazi is a laughable joke,” Dean proclaimed twice in a discussion with Republican National Committee communications chairman Sean Spicer last week. “With all due respect, governor, when four Americans die serving this country, that’s not a joke, sir,” Spicer responded. “Oh, stop it,” said Dean. The former Democratic presidential candidate also said that there were “no serious questions being asked about Benghazi” and brushed it off as an effort by Republicans to score political points.
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Democratic Senator uses Okla.
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Daily Caller, by Jeff Poor
Original Article
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Posted By: bamapreacher- 5/20/2013 8:20:54 PM
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While many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters. “So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care
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