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It's Barbie In A Burkha: World-Famous Doll Gets A Makeover To Go Under The Hammer For 50th Anniversary [Pics in URL] DAILY MAIL REPORTER 21st November 2009 One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover - wearing a burkha. Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby's for Save The Children. More than 500 Barbies went on show yesterday at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy.

Maria Sanchez Lake is almost downtown St. Augustine, a residential area with older homes. The lake is a bird magnet and there are often some nice flowers in yards around the lake. If you don't see any birds near the water look up in the Oak trees. This Great Egret and the White Ibis were waiting for the tide to start in. This flower is a Lycoris, it was almost hidden by someone's garbage can.

Not just great height, but the total distance of each of the two flights is huge…Video Link

It's a lot cooler now but we still have some flowers hanging on. I spent about an hour at the county arboretum, it's a great place to just sit. I saw the first flock of pelicans coming in today, a few singles have been around, but the migration is really rolling now. There will be ducks coming in any time. Since I retired my schedule has revolved around the tides and seasons, don't count on me to show up on time for anything else!

'Passionate response' at meeting leads to closure of park site Planned deer hunts in two Fairfax County public parks are riling animal-rights advocates and residents who say the county's new bow-and-arrow deer-culling program is inhumane and dangerous. Starting before dawn Monday, a handful of archers from Suburban Whitetail Deer Management of Northern Virginia, a nonprofit volunteer deer hunting group, went to the Colvin Run Stream Valley and Colvin Run Mill parks and hunted deer from 20- to 30-foot-high deer stands. It was unclear how many were killed, said Eric Huppert, a founder and president of the deer hunting group, but...

Meet Obama's Trainer. Pay is probably low, but the guy in the white house is a fast learner.

It's Saturday night at the Alwiyah Club, and 21-year-old Sarah al-Kimackchy is doing the hip thing — playing bingo. The streets outside may still not be as safe as they once were, and the occasional deadly bombing still rips through Baghdad, but al-Kimackchy is here with her family and entirely fixated on her game, wondering if tonight will finally be her night. "Since I was a young girl I've played bingo and even till today, I've never won!" she says. After years of bombings and killings, Baghdad's 85-year-old elite social club is making a comeback — and there's no better...

This is my first attempt at a post so everyone be nice:) Earlier this week I was interviewed for a segment on the CBS Early Show. It will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 16th) at about 7:40am Eastern time. They invited me to do it because of my deal, coupon, frugal living blog, www.mylitter.com. I teach classes and help people learn how to coupon and save money in all areas of their lives. Kelly Wallace, the reporter, asked some questions about the economy and I tried to mention FreeRepublic! It will be interesting to see how it was edited, what...

Activision and Infinity Ward's new multi-platform video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, forces players to be complicit in acts of terrorism to advance the storyline. If the player makes any attempt to stop the terrorists from slaughtering hundreds of innocent airline victims, the story resets from the beginning.

Animated bullfrog singing the second verse and chorus of the hymn, Pass Me Not Oh Gentle Savior! Song sung by Revski-o7jimmy!

Rare early 60s tv commercial for Mattel's Tommy Burst submachine gun detective set. Load in some fresh caps, pull the bolt back, and it made a God-awful noise as it produced a small cloud of smoke around the barrel tip. It was fantastic!! Guaranteed to take your friends & relatives down, one at a time.

Calling him the oldest tagging suspect they have ever captured, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrested a 74-year-old Los Angeles man for allegedly putting "slap tags" on the inside of Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses. For the last seven months, deputies assigned to the Special Problems unit of the Sheriff's Transit Bureau have been trying to determine the identity of an "older" vandal who had been placing orange and black "Who Is John Scott?" stickers on buses in Baldwin Hills and other areas concentrated on the Westside of Los Angeles. Deputies involved in a saturation patrol this morning at the downtown...

The one that didn't get away     Nibble ... Sean and his massive catch GEOFF ROBINSON         By RICHARD MORIARTY Published: 12 Nov 2009     AN angler has netted a giant catch — a huge catfish weighing more than new heavyweight world boxing champion David Haye. Sean Kinnear, 27, was amazed when he felt a fierce tug on his fishing line and pulled in the 9ft monster, which weighs a whopping 17 STONE. He waged a 15-minute battle to land the beast, which hits the scales at an incredible 233lb 6oz — more than...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida made land fall in Alabama went quickly degraded moving slowly northeast up through and Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia causing considerable flooding along its path. There are many Freeper gardeners this event may have affected. I know the two Freepers, Gardengirl and Gabz who started the original Gardening thread, live in the coastal areas of N.C. and Va. and I hope y’all are safe and well. The indexing/archiving of this past year’s posts is still on going. Please let me know if there was a particular post that you found...

First-day sales of Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" broke records, raking in an estimated $310 million in North America and the United Kingdom alone. The video game went on sale all over the world on Tuesday, but Activision provided figures Thursday only for North America and Britain. The company estimates that it sold about 4.7 million copies of the game in the first 24 hours in those markets, making it the biggest-selling launch in the history of entertainment. The latest installment in the "Call of Duty" action franchise was expected to at least match last year's...

This animated red shoulder hawk sing it song and is very inquisitive!

Magical Exhibit Features More Than a Mountain of Toy Trains YORBA LINDA, Calif., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A playful special exhibit at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will take visitors on a magical journey through the world of miniature trains when it rolls into town November 16 through January 10. One of the largest such collections ever assembled, A Holiday Festival of Trains features a breathtaking landscape of toy trains, many whistling through tiny snow-covered turn of the century villages, a 1890 Bavarian castle, and forested mountain passes with over 5,000 miniature trees. Additional highlights include: A "Mountain...

The hotly-anticipated video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was launched in Britain on Tuesday amid a political row over its levels of violence. Its launch saw tanks and soldiers descend on London's Leicester Square, the first game launch in the square normally home to red-carpet film premieres, as shops opened at midnight to sell the first-person shooter game. Set in Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Brazil, the conflict also spread to the British parliament as lawmakers battled over the game's content. Keith Vaz, a former Europe minister, urged the government to ensure children did not get their hands on...

Animated tropical puffer fish with a Christmas Greeting accompanied with Christmas music, Joy To The World. Greeting given by grandson !

LOVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An Ohio man landed a 95-pound blue catfish in Lake Isabella, a park district record and only one pound less than the state record holder, park officials said. Lake Isabella Harbor Manager Harry Scott said the massive catfish, which he weighed twice for accuracy, dwarfs the previous largest catch in Hamilton County Park District's history, a 50-pound blue catfish, and weighs in at only one pound under the 96-pound state record, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Wednesday. "I've never seen anything this big in my whole life, and I've seen lots of fish," Scott said....

Do you have a problem with dropping 14.95 on your kid's virtual pet? Can't stand the bin full of plushes in the closet and all over the floor? Better than Disney, Webkinz Insider (the number 1 site for Webkinz info) is saluting our Veterans. It makes me feel better about the $$$$$$ I've spent on those things. (My daughter is Bubblelover there)

I've been cooped up since last Tuesday, finally got out today. The weather is gray and dark, rain coming later from hurricane Ida. She is giving Ray Nagin ulcers now! The grackle girls saw me coming way down the beach, I had 15 or 20 on and around the car in a short time. I don't know if they recognize the car, or recognize me. I try not to attract them inside, they aren't housebroke, LOL! The gull with spots is a young Ring billed gull, the gray bird is a Laughing gull. It's common for them to flock together.

Animated bullfrog singing the chorus of the hymn, Pass Me Not Oh Gentle Savior y! Song sung by Revski-o7jimmy!

They make it look so easy!

HARRISBURG, Pa. – An appeals court has ruled Pennsylvania State Police botched a prostitution investigation in which troopers gave an informant money to pay for sex four times at a massage parlor, along with a total of $180 for the man's trouble. The Superior Court opinion issued Thursday upheld a Lehigh County judge's ruling that threw out prostitution charges against Sun Cha Chon in suburban Allentown on the grounds that the government had acted outrageously.....

This is the Happiness Hat. It detects whether or not you're smiling. If you aren't, it jabs you in the back of the head with a metal spike. Nothing makes people happier than sharp skull pain! The whole thing is a project by interactive artist and designer Lauren McCarthy, designed to train you towards "Improved Social Interacting." On the one hand, it seems like something out of a dystopian nightmare. On the other, you have such a pretty mouth when you smile! Why not show it off?

Long story short. I am looking to get a new cordless phone that is bluetooth enabled. This way I can link my cordless phone and my cell phone (i.e. when at home, and without having to do call forward, I can get the cell phone calls on my home phone). I know the Vtech DS6321 is the newest model that I know of that does this, but has one drawback, or is missing one feature that I need. Call Blocking on the phone. My current cordless phone has call blocking on it (Panasonic KX-TGA740), but none of the other features...

Hi all, I've been interested in dog training for quite some time now, and am wondering what the industry standard is (if there is one)....such as - which books to read, training methodology, etc. I'm also wondering if that it's a profession where you get licensed? Any info would help - thanks in advance. Scott

Good morning to all of you gardeners. I hope all of you are doing well this first week in November. This past week has been beautiful here in Miss. Highs in the mid 70’s, clear and dry. Great weather to clean up the yard and add to my compost pile but I just could not get motivated to do it. The indexing/archiving of this past year’s posts is still on going. Please let me know if there was a particular post that you found helpful or just interested you.

Is there a thread yet??? Couldn't find it... Top of the second, still scoreless...

My daughter a HS Junior is doing really well in school. I am planning to buy her a new laptop for school. She currently has a Dell 13" XPS that has been ok, but the battery has been replaced twice, the CD/DVD will currently only play CDs and it is getting slower to start up. So I start looking and I know she wants a Mac because they are cool, I however am not a Mac fan. Not that there is anything wrong with Mac, I have a slowly dying PowerMac G5 Dual that has a nice monitor I use...

"Managing unauthorized access to firearms, particularly KIDS. Just some basic tips about securing firearms so that only YOU have access to them. Not a comprehensive safety video" A few easy to apply common sense tips to secure your firearms from little ones and ideas on dealing with their curiosity about guns.

Sunshine today! The Royal Terns are coming in in large flocks, ahead of cold weather. The Grackles were pleased to see me, as usual. The males are getting over their fear of me. Grackles may be pests in urban areas, but around here they stay in the marshes and on the beach.

(CBS) No other object is shaped quite like it. Unique yet ubiquitous, it was the tool upon which all other tools were made for centuries. It is the common anvil. "How do you feel when you're surrounded by anvils?" CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman asked anvil enthusiast Gay Wilkerson. "I'm happy," Wilkerson said. Although Wilkerson's garage in Farmington, Mo., is lined with anvils, this story is about a lot more than just a collection. "Can we call it an obsession?" Hartman asked. "I think so," Wilkerson said. "I think it is. I think it is, yeah." About 20 years ago,...

BUTCHER Pan Xueping must have the world's strangest hobby. He collects hairballs from the stomachs of slaughtered pigs - just for fun. Pan, of Xiyangpan, eastern China, said: "They are very rare - I probably only find about one every three months when I'm cleaning the animals intestines. "I then wash them carefully to remove all the dirt and then I dry them with a hairdryer to make them nice and fluffy." The 42-year-old, who works in an abattoir, has amassed hundreds of furry balls over the nine years since starting his job, as reported in the Austrian Times. He...

My neice watches this crappy television show. Its just disgusting. Teen prostitutes?? Her only concern is that they might be raped or kidnapped?? Preview for tomorrows show?? 8 months old and working as a prostitute. Gawd.... kids are watching this stuff. Kids are getting the message that this is normal. Thats what they learn from TV, movies and music. crap. That is what TV is, just crap.

Mr. Toth's First-Class Obsession Recreates Defunct Airline's Cabin (Spiral Stairs, Too) Fliers nostalgic for the golden era of air travel might want to book a trip to Anthony Toth's garage. Mr. Toth has built a precise replica of a first-class cabin from a Pan Am World Airways 747 in the garage of his two-bedroom condo in Redondo Beach, Calif. The setup includes almost everything fliers in the late 1970s and 1980s would have found onboard: pairs of red-and-blue reclining seats, original overhead luggage bins and a curved, red-carpeted staircase. Once comfortably ensconced, Mr. Toth's visitors can sip beverages from the...

Wondering if anyone has recommendations for a handgun for a petite woman (me...5'2", 110lbs). Have used a small semi-automatic years ago, not sure of caliber. FIL worries that I might lack strength for semi-auto; I worry that loading bullets under pressure vs. loading ammo clip would waste precious time. Just curious what the ladies here are using? Going to gun range tonight and I think I will have the opportunity to handle a few different guns. Would like input to maybe weed out some choices that would be inappropriate for my size/needs. Another question: we currently have no handguns in...

I met another photographer on a forum, turns out he lives not far from the swamp. He rode over today and we went shooting. The tide wasn't really right, had to improvise and go looking for models. There is always something just waiting to be a picture!

The economic crisis combined with the election of a potentially anti-gun liberal to the White House acted as a big stimulus for the gunmakers. But it seems that all that happened was that gun demand got pulled forward, because now sales are totally falling off a cliff. A reader sends along some recent numbers from Ruger (RGR).If you look at the bottom line -- firearm sales -- it only looks like there was a slight sequential dip. But ignore that. The number to look at is orders received in 3Q, which were down 80%. Due to their backlog, actual firearms...

Many obsessive riflemen “know” a lot of things about the insides of their barrels. They know they must break-in barrels and that any bore only slightly smudged by the passage of bullets will shoot less accurately compared with a barrel as clean as Aunt Josie’s kitchen floor. First, let’s examine “proper” barrel break-in. According to just about everybody, this is accomplished by firing one shot, cleaning the barrel of all powder and copper fouling, firing another shot, cleaning, etc. Advice on how long to continue this tedious routine varies from 10 to 30 rounds. The procedure supposedly smooths the bore,...

Vilano Beach begins North of St. Augustine Inlet and runs to South Ponte Vedra. There are large deposits of Coquina clam shells, the main ingredient in Coquina rock, the material used for the Spanish forts here. On the white sand areas there are black streaks of Titanium ore. Ponte Vedra was once home to a Titanium mining operation. The "red shell" has been a traditional place to test beach buggies and 4WD vehicles, it is easy to bury your wheels up to the hubs if you get off the hard pack.

Good morning gardeners! Happy Halloween. Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour Sat. night! Since things have slowed down I thought I would revisit this years threads and try to locate and archive some of the great posts, advice and info you Freepers have given out over the past year. My objective would be to then put all the posts in to categories like; Fertilizer, Gardening Methods, Flowers etc. And then post all of this info in one thread at the beginning of next year. What do y’all think? Also I would like your input. Let me know...

LAUDERHILL, Fla. (AP) -- Look, over there. Under that blue tarp in a suburban driveway. That thing that's the size of a Smart car? It's Joel Waul's rubber band ball. Waul has spent the last six years carefully wrapping and linking and stretching rubber bands of various sizes into the ball shape. The Guinness Book of World Records declared it the world's largest rubber band ball in 2008. On Thursday, Waul said goodbye to his creation. A team from Ripley's Believe it or Not came to his house with a crane and hauled the 6-foot, 7-inch tall, 9,032-pound behemoth away...

The Grackles recognize the car now, LOL, I think I've started them on the welfare wagon!

Back when Norman Rockwell ruled Saturday evenings, Adobe wasn't even a gleam in some nerd's eye, but a new book shows that the painter was, nevertheless, a photoshop god. Very few Gizmodo readers were even born when Rockwell painted his last Saturday Evening Post cover, but we all know them. You hear that name and suddenly you can picture those overly detailed, cartoonishly dramatic but ultimately kinda corny depictions of American life. Well, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, written and compiled by Ron Schick, has given me immense newfound respect for the man, for the meticulous photography, the real people...

I need some Freeper help...Usually I'm asking advice about guns or stuff. But I need a different kind of help...a techie solution. A gadget. A CHEAP gadget. I'm setting up a video-conferencing solution for my company. What we'll be able to do is participate in each other's sales meetings, via the web, via webcam and microphone. It's not a static environment, but one where the leader is moving around, from place to place in the room; sometimes at the whiteboard...other times at another place in the room. I've kinda got the camera thing figured out. But what I need is...

This is animated tortoise with humor!

I commented earlier on the value of White Ibis on lawns and in gardens. These guys are working this section of lawn for grubs and mole crickets. They leave a little hole that looks like it was made by a thick pencil, aereating the soil. They aren't messy like geese and ducks, and don't bother vegetation. Click on the link.

My little pond is all dried up, had to go hunting for models. I got a Big Mac and headed for the beach. I was alternating bites of burger and shooting seagulls from the window, looked over and a little femaled Boat Tailed Grackle was sitting in the window watcheng me eat. My camera bag always has a little ziploc full of dry cat food just for these occassions. She ate some from my hand, but I couldn't use a camera that way. I put a handfull on top of my camera bag, and she settled in for lunch. The...