The 2,100 citizens of North Pole, Alaska take Christmas very seriously. Since 1954, they've volunteered for Operation Santa, a program of the US Postal Service which answers letters to Santa Claus. The program has volunteers all over the country, and many letters are routed through Alaska to get the special North Pole postmark. However, the USPS is discontinuing the practice of sending letters to the town of North Pole.

Anchorage-based agency spokeswoman Pamela Moody said dealing with the tighter restrictions is not feasible in Alaska.

"It's always been a good program, but we're in different times and concerned for the privacy of the information," she said.

Moody stressed that kids around the world can still send letters to Santa Claus. The Postal Service still runs the giant Operation Santa Program in which children around the world can have their letters to Santa answered, and the restrictions do not affect private organizations running their own letter efforts.

But what will change are the generically addressed letters to "Santa Claus, North Pole" that for years have been forwarded to volunteers in the Alaska town. That program will stop, unless changes are made before Christmas.

North Pole residents are upset over the changes, and also unhappy that North Pole cancellations will now be stamped in Anchorage instead of Fairbanks, which is only 15 miles from North Pole. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCHNHQco9s98ruRro8qyPD2vwB_AD9C2K4TG3 -via Consumerist

(image credit: AP/Sam Harrel)

This recipe for turkey stuffing calls for "18 White Castle hamburgers (no pickles), chopped into 1-inch pieces," (or you can substitute bread, but it won't be the same). I suppose if you live in the southern part of the US, you could substitute Krystals. Both brands are commonly called sliders. The recipe is a part of Thanksgiving for Chicago chefs Chris and Jill Barron, who share their Thanksgiving cooking schedule. Link to story. Link to recipe. -via Boing Boing

(image credit: Flickr user DaddyPlus5)

College students Leslie Pope and John Wagner and four of their friends went to the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The bill came to $73, which they paid, but they refused to pay the mandatory $16.35 tip, because they said the service was lousy. So they were arrested.

They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10.

The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.

The menu clearly states, "18 percent gratuity added to check of parties of 6 of more," and a similar message is printed on receipts, a pub employee said this morning.

The students will be in court over the matter next month. What do you think? A mandatory tip for groups of six or more is common in the US restaurant industry in order to keep waiters from being stiffed when they can't serve enough other tables to make up for it. However in this case, the policy seems to be a license to give poor service. Link -via reddit

(image credit: Flickr user me and the sysop)

NASA needs lots of help sorting through the hundreds of thousands of images they've collected from the surface of Mars. What do do? Make it into a game! Be A Martian combines the work of analyzing those images online with the competition of gaming. In this way, NASA hopes to enlist citizens to help with the huge project.

Nasa hopes the mix of real data and fun will also inspire the planetary scientists of tomorrow.

"We really need the next generation of explorers," says Michelle Viotti, from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees Mars missions.

"And we're also accomplishing something important for Nasa. There's so much data coming back from Mars. Having a wider crowd look at the data, classify it and help understand its meaning is very important."

Link to story. Link to game. -via Metafilter

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Mickey Mouse made his public debut in the cartoon Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928 -81 years ago! The character appeared in Plane Crazy a few months earlier, but the Walt Disney Company doesn't count that because it was a silent film. Link

Lion Safari Park in Johannesburg, South Africa allows cars to drive through the lion enclosure so people can see the animals up close. A family in a white Toyota drove through with the doors closed, but apparently failed to lock at least one back door.

Thier glee turned to horror as the 300lb lion firmly took the rear door handle with his teeth and pulled it open in one deft movement.

For several seconds the car remained still while the occupants digested the shock of what had happened before finally hitting the accelerator and driving off.

As they fled, the lion followed in pursuit until it reached the gates of the enclosure. There it was finally held back by a warden who hurled stones to shoo it back.

Richard Holden was in a car behind the Toyota and managed to take pictures of the incident. Link -via Arbroath

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You can debate the wisdom of making an otter into a pet, but you have to agree that Sidney is adorable. -via Buzzfeed

Every once in a while, political parties or local groups will put an animal on the ballot for public office. Every once in a blue moon, that animal will be elected! These eight stories include three critters who actually served (although how well they served is a matter of opinion). Pictured is Clay Henry III, the beer-drinking goat who was once mayor of Lajitas, Texas. Link

The remote Mustang caves of Nepal are yielding treasures and artworks that lead explorers to think it may be the legendary Shangri-La. Expeditions in 2007 and 2008 found 15th-century paintings, religious texts, and skeletons. The expeditions were led by US researcher Broughton Coburn and veteran mountaineer Pete Athans.

The unusual treasures have led Coburn and his team to suggest that the Mustang caves could be linked to "hidden valleys" thought to represent the Buddhist spiritual paradise known as Shambhala.

"Shambhala is also believed by many scholars to have a geographical parallel that may exist in several or many Himalayan valleys," Coburn said.

"These hidden valleys were created at times of strife and when Buddhist practice and principals were threatened," Coburn said. "The valleys contained so-called hidden treasure texts."

Elaine Brook, author of Search for Shambhala, said the hidden valleys of Mustang indeed "have some of the characteristics of the mythical land of Shambhala."

For his 1933 novel, Hilton used the concept of Shambhala as the basis for his "lost" valley of Shangri-La, an isolated mountain community that was a storehouse of cultural wisdom.

PBS will air two specials about the Mustang caves tonight. Link

(image credit: Kris Erickson)

Can you name the most commonly used words in the English language? In this quiz, you'll have twelve minutes to name the 100 words most used. I only guessed 68 before time ran out, but I ran into trouble by having a space in front of some words. Be careful! Link -via J-Walk Blog

(image by Flickr user the|G|™)

Award-winning author Beverly Cleary gave us books about Ramona and the kids from Klickitat Street. In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, find out how much you remember from the books. I scored miserably because I read some of these so long ago, and others weren't written until I was an adult. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40851

The Hamster Hotel is now open in Nantes, France. No, it's not just a clever name. Frederic Tabary and Yann Falquerho converted a room in an old building to a human-sized hamster cage complete with a running wheel and hay to sleep on! Guests will be able to live like a hamster complete with grain offered for meals.

"The hamster in the world of children is that little cuddly animal. Often, the adults who come here have wanted or did have hamsters when they were small," said Mr Falquerho, who was dressed as a hamster.

The price for the room is currently 99 euros for a night, but the price will go up when Wifi and a TV screen are installed. Link -via Arbroath

Social networking on the internet has given us plenty of new words and terms (such as "social networking"), and the New Oxford American Dictionary is paying attention. The publishers announced that "unfriend" is their word of the year for 2009.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Other words considered for the honor included hashtag, sexting, and paywall, all of which are unfamiliar to my spellchecker. Link -via Mashable

This clever candy is packaged to look like our favorite lucky cat, Maneki Neko! But open the cellophane and all you get are two white balls of candy. The cellophane is where the cat is at -in fact there are several wrappers with different cat expressions. http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2009/10/lucky-cat-candy-packet.html -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

David Thorne is at it again. The guy who tried to pay a bill with a picture of a spider and suffered through a surprise apartment inspection now has overdue video rentals. The correspondence between Thorne and Blockbuster Video goes about as you'd expect (if you can't dazzle them with brilliance...), but there is a delicious twist at the end.

Dear Megan,

With the possible exception of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the movies were not worth watching let alone stealing. In Logan's Run, for example, the computer crashed at the end when presented with conflicting facts and blew up destroying the entire city. When my computer crashes I carry on a little bit and have a cigarette while it is rebooting. I don't have to search through rubble for my loved ones. The same programmers probably designed the Blockbuster 'returned or not' database.

Link -via Digg