NYC Kicks Off MulchFest To Recycle Christmas Trees

Where Philadelphians go to recycle their Christmas trees
Marking the end of his Holiday Season, Jerry Hoggard of Northeast Philadelphia put his family's Christmas Tree in the back of his pickup truck and hauled it away. Hoggard, who in the past set his natural Christmas Tree curbside on rubbish-collection day, took an Environmentally Friendly approach this week, Recycling his blue spruce at a Philadelphia Streets Department Sanitation Convenience Center at Domino Lane and Umbria Street in the Shawmont section. "This is the first time I brought a ...

Old Christmas trees get new life as fish habitats
It just needs a little love.Photo: Kyle PetersonThere are the Christmas Trees you buy, and those you consider buying, and then there are the ones you walk right by because, well, forget getting hit with the ugly stick -- they're a COLLECTION of ugly sticks. (Maybe they just grew there on accident and aren't part of Happy's Tree Farm at all?!) But don't feel too bad. An Oakland, Calif. fisheries program is giving unwanted trees a spring in their step. Pete Alexander of the East Bay Regional Park ...

David Sedaris: A Writer's Fairy Tale Life
Like this Story? Share it: Author David Sedaris, right, with CBS' Serena Altshul. (CBS) (CBS) Author David Sedaris is a writer whose success story is one of the most unlikely you could imagine. CBS' Serena Altschul reports: David Sedaris, playing to a standing room only crowd at New York's fabled Apollo Theater, is not a rock star, but don't tell that to his fans. He's a writer who still can't quite believe his good fortune, despite nine million book sales that say: "Believe it." "At last ni...

How Canada's MPs are spending their holiday break
She’ll spend two days a week in Ottawa for ministerial duties and three in her riding. That’s when she’s not zipping across Canada for meetings. “I’ve got a number of economic roundtables around the country and the ministers of labour are meeting in Winnipeg,” she said. “Then I’m going to Iqaluit for the third meeting about Mental Health in the workplace.” She’ll also meet with mayors and the chambers of commerce in her riding to plan f...

The Pentagon is the one that had the merriest of Christmases
It is always interesting to learn how others see us, despite the fact that we have enough self-criticism for decades to come. This particular view is from geopolitical writer Manlio Dinucci, who also contributes to Voltairenet.org, an independent news network which publishes in French, but whose articles can be translated into several other languages. His article is complemented by a stunning photo of President Barack Obama with his wife standing by the White House Christmas Tree. The Rhetoric h...

Pope baptizes newborns in Sistine Chapel
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI baptized 21 newborns in an intimate ceremony in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday that marked the end of the Christmas season. Standing under Michelangelo's magnificent "Last Judgment" fresco, The Pope poured water on the foreheads of 13 baby boys and eight baby girls. Some babies screamed, other squirmed, some slept through it. He said that, in an ever-changing society without firm cultural references, it has become more difficult to educate Children in the fai...

Egypt Says NY Neglecting Monument Gift
(NewsCore) - An Egyptian government official has penned a stinging letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which he accuses the city of neglecting "Cleopatra's Needle," the New York Post reported Saturday. Egypt gave the city the ancient obelisk over 100 years ago -- and is now threatening to take it back if it is not properly cared for and preserved. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General for the Supreme Council of Antiquities, claims it is his job to monitor the country's antiquities, whether i...

Egypt To NYC: Conserve Cleopatras Needle or Were Taking it Back
Zahi Hawass, Secretary General for the Supreme Council of Antiquities, claims it is his job to monitor the country’s antiquities, whether in Egypt or on a knoll in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He claims the 3,500-year-old obelisk is in shoddy shape. “It has recently been brought to my attention that this incredibly valuable monument has been severely weathered over the past century and that no efforts have been made to conserve it,” Hawass wrote. He said ...

A Closer Look at the Mostly Unsung Father of Greater New York
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times -Assistant curator, Thomas Lannon poses for a portrait Thursday, January 6, 2011 in the reading room at the library with some of the papers of Andrew Green bought by the New York public library recently. Andrew H. Green was 15-years-old, traveling alone from his family’s home in Worcester, Mass., when he got his first taste of the city that he would come to so profoundly define. In Connecticut, he wrote his father in 1835, “we changed stages and found in our ...

Obviously
That would explain everything. *jumps into Christmas Tree* That would explain everything. *jumps into Christmas Tree* Blogger Templates created by Deluxe Templates. WordPress by K2...

Ankeny Christmas tree pickup to begin Monday
Ankeny, Ia. — Ankeny will begin its annual Christmas Tree pickup on Monday. Residents must place their trees in the street right-of-way for pickup. People on private streets should also place trees in the city right-of-way. ...

A Roman holiday for Giffords and her husband
Arizona state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema had spoken with Gabrielle Giffords three days before Christmas. Giffords and her husband, the Astronaut Mark Kelly, were sitting with Sinema at the Interior Department, to watch President Barack Obama sign the Repeal of the Military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that Congress had passed days earlier. All were ecstatic. In their eyes, the Repeal was an exclamation point on a successful lame-duck session. The couple told Sinema a...

The War on Catholics
The annual War on Christmas is over, until next Christmas season.  The War on Christians, chiefly but not exclusively focused on Catholics, continues unabated. In many Islamic countries, badmouthing Mohammed can result in a fatwā, Imprisonment, Torture, and decapitation, or all of the above.   And Mohammed was just a prophet.  Imagine the reaction if someone demeaned Allah. ...

Muslims in Egypt serve as "human shields" to protect Christians
The Coptic calendar is used by the Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian church in Egypt which, according to tradition, is the Church of Alexandria established in the middle of the first century by St. Mark, a disciple of Jesus.  Copts account for 10% of Egypt's 80-million population. The Coptic calendar's years and months coincide with those of the Ethiopian calendar but with different numbers and names.  It has 13 months, 12 with 30 days each, and one month which is...

NYC: A dangerous place for the unborn
Grim news from the City of Death: 41% of all NYC pregnancies end in Abortion. Read Ed Morrissey for some qualifications on the numbers and watch the brief embedded video, in which we learn that Planned Parenthood is “not happy” about the numbers (really?), wants more “education,” and claims “Abstinence by itself is proven to be ineffective.” (Really?) Archbishop Dolan cuts through the blather: My Lord, what have we done the last thirty years? There’s c...

Va Eastern Shore NASA site to host robotics team
Students from the Eastern Shore will gather this weekend at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility for the start of a national robotics competition. Students interested in robotics will meet Saturday morning at the facility to get details of the first challenge in the 2011 FIRST Robotics season, which kicks off this weekend. NASA said a live event will be held in Manchester, N.H., and will be televised at numerous locations nationally, including at Wallops. The mission will be a game created by FIRST Ro...

Egypt Demands Return of Cleopatras Needle.
Dr. Zahi Hawass is none too happy with New York Mayor Bloomberg. The Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council on Antiquities has sent the Mayor a letter demanding the City preserve a 3500 year old obelisk known as “Cleopatra’s Needle”  or send it back. Since 1881, the red granite monument has stood in Central Park near the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is nearly 68 feet high. According to Hawass, he has made several trips to New York to ...

Egypt threatens to take back New York obelisk
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Egyptian government official charged with protecting his country's ancient monuments is threatening to take back an iconic obelisk in Central Park unless New York City takes steps to restore it. The stone obelisk "has been severely weathered over the past century" with no effort made to conserve it, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, wrote in a letter this week to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The obelisk, which commemorates K...

Will New Hampshire Put Gay Marriage Front and Center in 2012?
The new Republican majority in New Hampshire's legislature wasted little time upon assuming power before changing things around, voting on the opening day of the legislative session to allow Firearms on the House floor. The GOP's gains in the Granite State could also mean a new initiative to ban Gay Marriage there, just two years after the Democratic legislature voted in 2009 to allow it. The Concord Monitor reported earlier this week that a push to ban Gay Marriage looms—despite the ...

Oven rack guards recalled
Published: Jan. 7, 2011 at 12:26 PM Nantucket Distributing Co. oven rack guards, courtesy of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. WASHINGTON, N.Y., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- A distributing company from Union, N.J., is recalling 430 oven rack guards due to a Fire Hazard, U.S. consumer watchdogs said. The oven rack guards imported from China by Nantucket Distributing Co. Inc. cannot withstand the temperatures stated as safe on the packaging, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The gua...

Product recalls: Sump pumps, oven rack guards
—About 21,000 sump pumps and effluent pumps from ITT Water Technology Inc., of Seneca Falls, N.Y., because those installed without ground fault circuit interrupter protection can pose an Electric Shock or electrocution hazard. No injuries have been reported. The recall involves Goulds, Red Jacket and Bell & Gossett Pumps used in residences to pump wastewater and sewage. They were installed in new construction or as replacement pumps between December 2009 and July 2010. Details: by phon...

Pedophilia Chic; Criminal Parenting?
Joe Carter wrote earlier this week, about how Vogue has sexualized little girls to the extreme-and served up a platterful of fantasy for Pedophiles-while intoning “innocence” and “playing dress up.” And in this picture, I can actually buy it: I’m not easily shocked, but now Deacon Greg links to a batch of these appalling pictures, and yes, color me shocked: Look, I know the world is full of dark, evil places , none darker easily conformed to evil than...

David Chiu swaps career for brief political peace
Politics is a tricky, ruthless business. You need a sharp mind, an eye for strategy and an ability to make the tough choices quickly. But Board of Supervisors President David Chiu is making it look way too hard. Chiu's a bright fellow with a lofty education (law degree and master's from Harvard). He knows the city, listens to all sides of an issue, and will even sit down for a drink with reporters. I like the guy. His rise to prominence in the city - from elected supervisor, to being elected ...

Why is Obama Talking More on His Christian Faith?
President Barack Obama has spoken more in public about his Christian faith in the past few months. The day after Christmas, the president, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia attended a church service at St. Michael's Chapel in Hawaii -- something the family has rarely done since becoming president. Obama also referenced his Christian beliefs during the recent lighting ceremony of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C. In fact, a study of the president's stateme...

'They Don't Say Pete Sessions is Bright'
The new Republican era in Washington has only just gotten underway and already there's been a big screw-up: two GOP House members didn't show up for the swearing in ceremony, but went ahead and voted anyway. Guess what? You're not allowed to do that. Now, everything the House accomplished yesterday is in jeopardy. It will not shock Veteran observers of Washington to learn that one of the offending members was Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. Because, you see, Sessions is...well, there's just no way...