Rice ball, a different way to enjoy rice this season

Rice and chicken is a must this season, I think Christmas will be complete with it. Rice comes in a variety of ways, jollof rice, fried rice, rice and stew or sauce, but what is not common is rice ball.

Add, this recipe to your list of different ways to prepare rice.

What you need:

1. 1 deric of rice

2. Pepper

3. Tomatoes

4. Onion

5. salt

6. Thyme

7. Canned beef

8. Eggs (2)

9. Groundnut oil for frying.



Method

Boil rice until soft but not mushy.

Saute pepper, tomatoes and onion.

Add the pepper mixture and corned beef to the rice season well

Bind rice mixture with some beaten egg.

shape on a floures board

Coat in beaten egg

Fry in hot oil

Celebrating the light of the world.

Christmas is an annual festival celebrated among billions of people around the world to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas is widely observed on December 25 as a religious and cultural feast. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations,

A depiction of the Nativity of Jesus with a Christmas tree backdrop

Today as always, christians turned out en mass to celebrate the child that was born to be the light of the world, the prince of peace.

Merry Christmas to all. Have a fun filled celebration.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst depicts the nativity of Jesus

An Argentinian town bans beauty contests

Beauty contestants

Beauty contest is one event that attracts poms and pageantry world over, there have been commendation and condemnation of the event, many countries are rising up and trying to make changes in the way it is being organised

However, a town in Argentine, the city of Chivilcoy became the first to ban beauty contests calling them sexist and discriminatory. They say the practice is damaging to women as it forces them to live up to a 'stereotypical' ideal of beauty which can lead to them developing eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

The ruling has caused heated debate in the country where beauty pageants are a common element in regional festivals where a 'queen' is chosen to represent the town for a year.

This decision was supported by the mayor of Chivilcoy and several NGOs, and passed by the local council. Outlining the reasons for its decision the councillors said such contests 'reinforce the idea that women must be valued and rewarded exclusively by their physical appearance, based on stereotypes'.

They added that they are 'a discriminatory and sexist practice', and an 'act of symbolic and institutional violence against women and children.'

Also, the French government banned beauty contests for girls under the age of 16 on grounds that participants are subjected to hyper-sexualisation.

Elton John marries long time lover

^{Elton John and David Furnish               (Instagram)}

Sir Elton John and his long time partner David Furnish have finally tie the knot of marriage to become husband and husband.

Elton John who opened an Instagram account to post invitation and pictures of the event was very happy, the event was made possible as a result of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Britain. According to him, "I'm very proud of Britain and the laws that we've seen come into existence since we've been together,"

They had a civil partnership ceremony in 2005, after 12 years together.

They have two children — Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John and Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John

Today in History, December 21, the invention of the first crossword puzzle

December 21 is the 355th day of the year. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year.

crossword puzzle

Today's Highlight in History.
1913 – Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.

A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white and black shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases.

Arthur Wynne was a British-born inventor, best known for the invention of the crossword puzzle in 1913. He created a page of puzzles for the "Fun" section of the Sunday edition of the New York World. For the December 21, 1913, edition, he introduced a puzzle with a diamond shape and a hollow center, the letters F-U-N already being filled in. He called it a "Word-Cross Puzzle."

Although Wynne's invention was based on earlier puzzle forms, such as the word diamond, he introduced a number of innovations, like the use of horizontal and vertical lines to create boxes for solvers to enter letters. He subsequently pioneered the use of black squares in a symmetrical arrangement to separate words in rows and columns. With the exception of the numbering scheme, the form of Wynne's "Word-Cross" puzzles is used for modern crosswords.

A few weeks after the first "Word-Cross" appeared, the name of the puzzle was changed to "Cross-Word" as a result of a typesetting error.Wynne's puzzles have been known as "crosswords" ever since.

Arthur Wynne became a naturalized US citizen in the 1920s.He died in Clearwater, Florida, on January 14, 1945.
On December 20, 2013, he was honored with an interactive Google Doodle commemorating the "100th anniversary of the first crossword puzzle" with a puzzle by Merl Reagle. Numerous other constructors also created tribute puzzles to Wynne to commemorate the anniversary.
Wikipedia

World Events

1913 – Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
1919 – American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia.
1923 – United Kingdom and Nepal formally signed an agreement of friendship, called the Nepal–Britain Treaty of 1923, which superseded the Sugauli Treaty signed in 1816.
1973 – The Geneva Conference on the Arab–Israeli conflict opens.
1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.
1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 56.
1994 – Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts gases and ash.
1995 – The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
2004 – Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers.
2012 – The world was predicted to end on December 21, 2012 according to some calendars.
2012 – The Walt Disney Company completed its acquisition of Lucasfilm and of the Star Wars franchise.

Today in History December 19 - A Christmas Carol, a story of life transformation

December 19 is the 353rd day of the year. There are 12 days remaining until the end of the year.

Charles Dickens in 1842,
 the year before the publication
of A Christmas Carol

1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scroogeand his transformation after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
A Christmas Carol is a novella written by Charles Dickens. It was first published in London by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The novella was an instant success and a critical acclaim.

A Christmas Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.

First edition cover

Dickens divides the book into five chapters, which he labels "staves", that is, song stanzas or verses, in keeping with the title of the book.

Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.

Dickens' Carol was one of the greatest influences in rejuvenating the old Christmas traditions of England, but, while it brings to the reader images of light, joy, warmth and life, it also brings strong and unforgettable images of darkness, despair, coldness, sadness, and death Scrooge himself is the embodiment of winter, and, just as winter is followed by spring and the renewal of life, so too is Scrooge's cold, pinched heart restored to the innocent goodwill he had known in his childhood and youth.A Christmas Carol remains popular—having never been out of print and has been adapted many times to film, stage, opera, and other media.

Wikipedia

World Events

1907 – Two hundred thirty-nine coal miners die in a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
1983 – The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1986 – Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from exile in Gorky.
1995 – The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indian tribe.
1997 – SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
1998 – President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second President of the United States to be impeached.
2000 – The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, Turkey, killing one person and injuring three.
2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 in Hg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl, Mongolia.
2001 – Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots – Riots erupt in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2012 – Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea

Welcome to Christmas Island

Poon Saan in the evening

Christmas Island is actually the name of a territory in Australia, it is so named because it was discovered on Christmas day by Captain William Mynors of the Royal Mary, an English East India Company vessel, when he sailed past it on Christmas Day, in 1643.

The 2011 Australian census, estimated resident population on Christmas Island to be 2,072,, these population are spread out in three settlement areas, namely Flying Fish Cove (also known as Kampong), Silver City,Poon Saan, and Drumsite.

The majority of the population on Christmas Island is Chinese Australian who made up 70% of the populace followed by European, with 20% and Malay 10%. also, the religion of the people is predominantly Buddhism with about 75%, then Christianity 12%, Islam 10%, and other 3%.

Christmas Island is a non-self-governing territory of Australia, currently administered by the Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. Administration was carried out by the Attorney-General's Department until 14 September 2010, and prior to this by the Department of Transport and Regional Services before 29 November 2007. The legal system is under the authority of the Governor-General of Australia and Australian law. An administrator appointed by the Governor-General represents the monarch and Australia.

A unicameral Shire of Christmas Island with nine seats provides local government services and is elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. Elections are held every two years, with four or five of the members standing for election.

Christmas Island residents who are Australian citizens also vote in federal elections. The residents are represented in the House of Representatives through the Northern Territory Division of Lingiari and in the Senate by Northern Territory senators.

From the late 1980s and early 1990s, boats carrying asylum seekers, mainly departing from Indonesia, began landing on the island. In December 2010, 48 asylum-seekers died just off the coast of the island in what became known as the Christmas Island boat disaster when the boat they were on hit rocks off Flying Fish Cove, and then smashed against nearby cliffs