YUGOSLAVIA, a country where various ethnic groups and religions did not BEAR with each other for long. I show you WWF maximum cards / maxicards / dorincards with The BROWN BEAR (Ursus arctos)

"The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from 300 to 780 kilograms (660 to 1,700 lb) and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family^[2]and as the largest land-based predator.^[3]

There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species. In North America, two types are generally recognized, the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly, and the two types could broadly define all brown bear subspecies. Grizzlies weigh as little as 350 lb (159 kg) in Yukon, while a brown bear, living on a steady, nutritious diet of spawning salmon, from coastal Alaska and Russia can weigh 1,500 lb (682 kg). The exact number of overall brown subspecies remains in debate.

While the brown bear's range has shrunk, and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN, with a total population of approximately 200,000. Its principal range countries are Russia, the United States (mostly in Alaska), Canada, the Carpathian region (especially Romania, but also Ukraine, Slovakia, and so on), the Balkans, Sweden and Finland, where it is the national animal. The brown bear is the most widely distributed of all bears."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bear

"Yugoslavia (Macedonian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovene: Jugoslavija; Cyrillic: Југославија) refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans, during most of the 20th century."

Legacy

Main article: Former Yugoslavia

State and entities on the former territory of Yugoslavia, 2008.

New states

Countries created from the former Yugoslavia:

Name	Capital	Flag
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo
Croatia	Zagreb
Macedonia	Skopje
Montenegro	Podgorica
Serbia Kosovo[a]	Belgrade Priština
Slovenia	Ljubljana

See also

• History of the Balkans
• Yugoslav wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia

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Happy Sunday Stamps meme!

Please visit: http://viridianpostcard.blogspot.com/

This is NOT a NIGERIAN SCAM. I show you WWF maxicards from NIGERIA with The SIDE-STRIPED JACKAL (Canis adustus)

"The side-striped jackal (Canis adustus) is a species of jackal, native to central and southern Africa.^[1][2] Unlike its cousin, the smaller black-backed jackal, which dwells in open plains, the side-striped jackal primarily dwells in woodland and scrub areas."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-striped_jackal

Federal Republic of Nigeria Jamhuriyar Taraiyar Nijeriya (Hausa) Ȯha nke Ohaneze Naíjíríà (Igbo) Àpapọ̀ Olómìnira ilẹ̀ Nàìjíríà (Yoruba)
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress"
Anthem: "Arise, O Compatriots"
Location of  Nigeria  (dark blue) – in Africa  (light blue & dark grey) – in the African Union  (light blue)  —  [Legend

"The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. 
This name was coined by Flora Shaw, the future wife of Baron Lugard, a British colonial administrator, in the late 19th century.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, the seventh most populous country in the world, and the most populous country in the world in which the majority of the population is black. 

It is listed among the "Next Eleven" economies, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 

The economy of Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in the world, with the International Monetary Fund projecting a growth of 9% in 2008 and 8.3% in 2009.^[7][8][9] The IMF further projects a 8% growth in the Nigerian economy in 2011."

"Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organized crime, active especially in drug trafficking. Nigerian criminal groups are heavily involved in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. .^[112] The various Nigerian Confraternities or "campus cults" are active in both organized crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members.^[113] On lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organized gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialize in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. According to official statistics, gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.^[114]

Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a crime dubbed 419, a type of advance fee fraud (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practiced by individuals and criminal syndicates.^[115] In 2003, the NigerianEconomic and Financial Crimes Commission (or EFCC) was created to combat this and other forms of organized financial crime.^[116]

There is also some Piracy in Nigeria, with attacks mainly directed at smaller ships shuttling employees and materials belonging to the oil companies with any involvement in oil exploration in the Niger Delta. From January 1, 2007 to October 29, 2007, twenty-six pirate attacks were recorded."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria

Since there are country names like Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Republic of Niger,

WHY is the word NIGGER such a bad word/name?

WHY is it considered offensive, unless it is used by a fellow black man, in which case it's just a cool term of endearment, or something?

"Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people (generally people of Sub-Saharan African descent), and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning the color "black""

"The denotations of nigger also comprehend non-white and racially disadvantaged people; the US politician Ron Dellums said, “... it's time for somebody to lead all of America’s niggers”.^[24] Jerry Farber's 1967 protest, The Student as Nigger invoked the word as a metaphor for the victims of an authoritarian society. In 1969, in the UK, in the course of being interviewed by a Nova magazine reporter, artist Yoko Ono said, “... woman is the nigger of the world”; three years later, her husband, John Lennon, published the song “Woman is the Nigger of the World” (1972) — about the virtually universal exploitation of woman — proved socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities."

Homophones

Niger occurs in Latinate scientific nomenclature and is the root word for some homophones of nigger; sellers of niger seed (used as bird feed), sometimes use the name Nyjer seed. The classical Latin pronunciation /ˈniɡeɾ/ sounds like the English /ˈnɪɡər/, occurring in biologic and anatomic names, such as Hyoscamus niger (black henbane), and even for animals that are not in fact black, such as Sciurus niger (fox squirrel).

Nigra is the Latin feminine form of niger (black), used in biologic and anatomic names such as substantia nigra (black substance).

The word niggardly (miserly) is etymologically unrelated to nigger, derived from the Old Norse word nig (stingy) and the Middle English word nigon. In the US, this word has been misheard or misread to mean nigger, therefore being taken as offensive. In January 1999, David Howard, a white Washington, D.C. city employee, was compelled to resign after using niggardly — in a financial context — while speaking with black colleagues, who took umbrage. After reviewing the misunderstanding, Mayor Anthony Williams offered to reinstate Mr Howard, who refused reinstatement for another job elsewhere in the mayor's government.^[78]

The portmanteau word wigger (white + nigger) denotes an adolescent white boy emulating "street black behavior", hoping acceptance to thehip hop, thug, and gangsta sub-cultures."

"Black hearers often react differently to the term when it is used by white speakers and by black speakers. In the former case, it is regularly understood as an insult; in the latter, it may carry notes of in-group disparagement, or even be understood as neutral or affectionate, a possible instance of reappropriation."

"Among the black community, the slur nigger is almost always rendered as nigga, a pronunciation emphasizing the unique intra-racial dialect of black people. A self-referential pronoun in African American Vernacular English usage popularized by the rap and hip-hop music cultures. In these situations, it is used as in-group lexicon and speech, wherein it is not necessarily derogatory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

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Play ping-pong, but not pink-tongue!
See the PINK tongue in the upper-left maxicard?

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Happy Pink Saturday! (still open on Sunday!)

^{Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here:}

^{http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/}

Philately - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philately - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia