A Mynah bird feeds its young in Sydney, Australia on December 18, 2014. By Guillaume Gros/GG. Update from a reader:
I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you, but those do not look like Mynah birds. They look to be swallows, but I don’t know what species they would be in Australia.
Another adds, “They are probably Welcome Swallows, Hirundo neoxena.”
Osvaldo Hernadez, Miguel Saavedra and Carlos Munoz Fontanillehas (L-R) react to the news, outside the Little Havana restaurant Versailles in Miami, that Alan Gross was released from a Cuban prison on December 17, 2014. Gross, an American contractor, had spent five years in Cuban jail and reports indicate he is on his way back to the United States. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images.
An injured Pakistani student lies in bed at a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. Taliban insurgents killed at least 130 people, most of them children, after storming an army-run school in Pakistan December 16 in one of the country’s bloodiest attacks in recent years. By A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images.
One of the hostages runs towards police from a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014. By Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images.
Shi’ite people gather at Imam Hussein square during the Arba’een ceremony in Tehran, Iran on December 13, 2014. Hundreds of Shiite worshippers attend religious ceremonies in Tehran on the anniversary of the 40th day after the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammad who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 681 AD. By Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.
Lori Dorn captions:
Artist Phil Ferguson aka Chili Philly has combined his love for food, particularly for burgers and breakfast, with his incredible talent for crocheting and translated it into amusing and amazing headwear. Chili Philly describes himself as “Boy, living in Melbourne, making burgers and crocheting”. The full line of Chili Philly’s hats can be found via his Instagram and Facebook pages.
Demonstrators take part in a mass “face-sitting protest” outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on December 12, 2014, as they protest against changes to pornography regulations. By Leon Neal /AFP/Getty Images. Dish alum Katie Zavadski has more:
Oh, and they’ll also be singing “Sit on My Face” from Monty Python. The restrictive legislation on the production of XXX videos was implemented last week, and effectively axed most kinds of BDSM porn production by prohibiting everything from spanking to water sports to [consensual] verbal abuse. But it also banned face-sitting, and, for some odd reason, footage of female ejaculation — because porn-consuming adults should be shielded from seeing naturally occurring physiological responses.
Previous Dish on the UK’s anti-porn insanity here.
A dog named Ted runs along the beach in Blackpool, United Kingdom on December 10, 2014. High winds and large waves hit the North West Coast of the UK and Northern Ireland today. By Nigel Roddis/Getty Images.
A Muslim Shiite pilgrim carries a religious flag displaying Imam Hussein in Baghdad, on December 8, 2014, as they walk to Karbala for the Arbaeen religious festival. Arbaeen marks the 40th day after Ashura and commemorate the seventh century killing of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Imam Hussein. By Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images.
David Rosenberg captions:
Sage Sohier’s series “At Home With Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America,” was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Today, apart from a few dated fashion choices, the photos of gay couples in domestic settings don’t seem that shocking. But when Sohier began shooting the series in 1986, AIDS and sexual promiscuity seemed to be the only headlines about gay people.
“My ambition was to make pictures that challenged and moved people and that were interesting both visually and psychologically,” Sohier wrote via email about the project. “In the 1980s, many same-sex relationships were still discreet, or a bit hidden. It was a time when many gay men were dying of AIDS, which made a particularly poignant backdrop for the project.”
(Photo: Stephanie and Monica, Boston, Massachusetts, 1987, by Sage Sohier. Buy Sohier’s book here.)
The Dish 