rabbit as a verb:  to hunt rabbits, to flee.  rabbit on:  to continue talking about something that is not interesting to the person you are talking to, talk incessantly, babble, blather.

Bab·bitt as a noun:  a narrow-minded, self-satisfied person with an unthinking attachment to middle-class values and materialism.  Named after George F. Babbitt, the main character in the 1922 novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.  a bearing or lining of Babbitt metal.  Babbit as a verb:  to line, face, or furnish with Babbitt metal.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Babbit

President-elect Donald Trump will enter office with an astonishing array of business projects, loans and business deals around the globe.  Trump acknowledged that he recently encouraged British politician Nigel Farage to oppose offshore wind farms that might affect the view from one of his Scottish golf courses--but Trump shrugged off any potential problems.  “The law’s totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest,” he said.  Is this the case?  The law doesn’t say the president can’t have a conflict of interest.  But Congress, under Title 18 Section 208 of the U.S. code, did exempt the president and vice president from conflict-of-interest laws on the theory that the presidency has so much power that any possible executive action might pose a potential conflict.  “As a general rule, public officials in the executive branch are subject to criminal penalties if they personally and substantially participate in matters in which they (or their immediate families, business partners or associated organizations) hold financial interests,” the Congressional Research Service said in an October report.  “However, because of concerns regarding interference with the exercise of constitutional duties, Congress has not applied these restrictions to the President.  Consequently, there is no current legal requirement that would compel the President to relinquish financial interests because of a conflict of interest.”  This principle was outlined in a 1974 letter from the Justice Department, issued at a time when Nelson Rockefeller was under consideration to be confirmed as vice president after Richard Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford became president.  Rockefeller, then governor of New York, was heir to a fortune and consented to congressional hearings in which his business interests were closely examined.  “The uniqueness of the President’s situation is also illustrated by the fact that disqualification of the President from policy decisions because of personal conflicting interests is inconceivable,” the letter noted.  The 1978 Ethics of Government Act and the 1989 Ethics Reform Act later codified this principle.  In other words, Congress assumed that the president could be trusted to do the right thing.  Most recent presidents--Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton--have placed their personal assets in a blind trust, even if they did not have a legal obligation to do so.  President Obama did not, but his assets were only in mutual funds and Treasury bonds.  Trump is unique because so much of wealth is tied in with the value of his “Trump” brand.  Already, foreign diplomats have been flocking to his recently opened hotel in downtown Washington--and Trump noted to the Times that his brand is suddenly “hotter.”  Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/11/23/trumps-claim-that-the-president-cant-have-a-conflict-of-interest/

Ethics in Government  29 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 315 1991-1992  Section 102 of Title II of the Ethics Reform Act enumerates the contents of the required financial reports.  The requirements are the same for all three branches.  Section 102 of Title II of the Ethics Reform Act enumerates the contents of the required financial reports.  The requirements are the same for all three branches.  A significant part of the financial disclosure sections of the Reform Act is devoted to defining the major exception to the reporting requirements.  This exception, known as a qualified blind trust, allows a reporting individual to withhold disclosure of assets by placing them beyond his control and knowledge.  A qualified blind trust operates as an arrangement in which the trustee is independent of and beyond the control and influence of any interested party; has not been a partner or employee of any interested party; and is not related to an interested party.  Furthermore, the trustee must not communicate with an interested party regarding the control of the trust assets, and must not disclose the yearly tax return on trust assets to any interested party.  Read much more at https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3626-bryce-g-thomas-j-daryn-r-ethics-in-government-1991

Make Room! Make Room! is a 1966 science fiction novel written by Harry Harrison exploring the consequences of unchecked population growth on society.  It was originally serialized in Impulse magazine.  Set in then-future August 1999, the novel explores trends in the proportion of world resources used by the United States and other countries compared to population growth, depicting a world where the global population is seven billion, subject to overcrowding, resource shortages, and a crumbling infrastructure.  The plot jumps from character to character, recounting the lives of people in various walks of life in New York City (population around 35 million).  The novel was the basis of the 1973 science fiction movie Soylent Green, although the movie changed much of the plot and theme and introduced cannibalism as a solution to feeding people.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room!  Author Harrison made up the word soylent as a combination of soybeans and lentils.  He felt that the movie script was terrible, and he went on the set of Soylent Green and handed out his original book to everyone from grips to actors.  Harrison said wryly that Soylent Green "at times bore a faint resemblance to the book".  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/15/harry-harrison  

Harry Max Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey 1925–2012) was an American science fiction author, known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966).  The latter was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973).  Harrison was (with Brian Aldiss) the co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.  Before becoming an editor and writer, Harrison started in the science fiction field as an illustrator, notably with EC Comics' two science fiction comic book series, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science.  In these and other comic book stories, he most often worked with Wally Wood.  Harrison used house pen names such as Wade Kaempfert and Philip St. John to edit magazines and published other fiction under the pen names Felix Boyd and Hank Dempsey.  Harrison ghostwrote Vendetta for the Saint, one of the long-running series of novels featuring Leslie Charteris' character, The Saint.  Harrison also wrote for syndicated comic strips, writing several stories for the character Rick Random.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harrison_(writer) 

Run.  Hide.  Fight.  Those three words were delivered in a startling text message to students at Ohio State University on November 28, 2016, warning them of an active threat to safety on campus.  Eleven students and faculty members were injured by either a car or butcher knife wielded by Ohio State student Abdul Razak Ali Artan.  Artan, 18, was killed by Ohio State Police Officer Alan Horujko before the alert went out to students, and all the victims survived.   “Run Hide Fight” has become this generation's “Stop Drop and Roll.”  It stems from a public-awareness campaign used by the Department of Homeland Security.  The message is meant to be abrupt.  It's meant to limit carnage in a mass shooting.  Ohio State uses the phrase in a video on its website that instructs students about how to survive an active shooting.  The message is meant to get people to go through a series of steps to ensure survival:  Run if they can, hide in a secure place if they can't and, as last resort, fight for their lives.  A video, produced by the city of Houston and released in 2012 just days after dozens of people were killed and injured in a shooting at a Colorado movie theater, has been viewed on YouTube nearly 5.5 million times.  Ohio State President Michael V. Drake said the alert was carefully worded because university employees have rehearsed what to do if they get such a message.  “The active shooter protocol was going to be put in place, which is to do as much as possible to protect people,” Drake said.  Lucas Sullivan & Mike Wagner  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2016/osu-attack/ohio-state-puts-run-hide-fight-safety-protocol-into-action.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1557  November 30, 2016  On this date in 1874, Lucy Maud Montgomery, English-Canadian author and poet, was born.  On this date in 1982, Michael Jackson's second solo album, Thriller was released worldwide.  It became the best-selling record album in history.  Word of the Day:  saltire  noun  1.  (heraldry)  An ordinary (geometric design) in the shape of an X.  It usually occupies the entire field in which it is placed.  2.  The Saint Andrew's cross, the flag of Scotland.