Headlines below the fold

Tick....tick....tick....Human to human spread of bird flu in China reported in the Lancet...
The good news: 100 of their contacts did not develop the flu...

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Tick....tick...tick....goodby Cane Toads?
While waiting for scientists to develop a lethal virus to get rid of the pests, one Aussie suggests a "Toad's Day Off", when everyone just kills every toad they see. Whether it will work is another question...LINK.

Out west, we do this with rattlesnakes, but the animal rights people tend to get upset...
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Two feet of snow in my old neighborhood in Minnesota...
which is why I moved here, where it is 80 degrees and sunny....

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Rice shortage here in the Philippines...it started a couple weeks ago with the increase in rice prices, and many merchants repackaging government subsidized rice for the poor as normal rice. The gov't may distribute the rice via the churches to get around the pilfering... importation restrictions lifted yesterday, today the Manila Bulletin has a photo of 160,000 sacks of rice ordered by the government offloaded from ships today...

but up here, we are at the end of the "second harvest", and by importing cheap grain from Viet Nam, it means prices will go down along with our profits.
Of course, we grow organic brown rice, but if someone re-labels the cheaper imported rice as "organic", there goes our profit...

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Laughing decreases stress hormones...even anticipating you may laugh cuts down on stress hormones.
So go here and lower your cortisol level...