CAROLINA NATURALLY

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The reality of Black Friday 'doorbusters'

Shoppers might be disappointed to know the truth behind those enticing bargains.

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Angry Ireland urges World Cup replay after handball controversy

Angry Ireland called on FIFA Thursday to allow its World Cup playoff with France to be replayed, as a dispute over Thierry Henry's blatant handball threatened to become a diplomatic row.

Angry Ireland urges World Cup replay after handball controversy

Some people are crazy

A man arrested in Oslo, Norway, for driving without a license defended himself by declaring that he is the son of God and does not have to abide by the country's motor vehicle laws.

Some people

Moonshine Festival Takes Over

Moonshine was once an illegal liquor in the United States.
One legal distiller of moonshine in North Carolina helped to put on the event for all to experience the once forbidden drink.

Moonshine Festival Takes Over Madison Streets

Forty-six years ago today

The Day Camelot Faded Into the Mists

Unusual Holidays and Celebrations

None today, thank you.

Daily Almanac

Today is Sunday, Nov. 22, the 326th day of 2009.

There are 39 days left in the year.

Today In History November 22

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland
Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt
Rijeka, Primorsko-Goranska, Croatioa
Apeldoorn, Gelderland, Netherlands
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Bursa, Bursa, Turkey
Vilnius, Vilniaus Aspritis, Lithuania
Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden

as well as Colombia, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

Don't expect your schedule to stick to any sort of itinerary.
Your daily routine will keep you quite busy, no doubt about that, but you'll also be dealing with pleasant and unexpected last-minute situations.
Instead of getting flustered and letting it ruin your day, enjoy the break in your routine.
You'll end up meeting someone wonderful, someone you would have never met otherwise.

Kewl

Saturday, November 21, 2009

A time bomb awaits

The border between The Republic of the Congo and Rwanda has had a lot of nasty things happen over the years.
Well, it seems it will continue into the future, too.
There's this lake, called Lake Kivu, part of the freshwater lake system bordering Rwanda and The Republic of Congo.
This lake has a 'problem', in that it appears it could actually explode.

According to Science Daily:

Scientists can't say for sure if the volatile mixture at the bottom of the lake will remain still for another 1,000 years or someday explode without warning. In a region prone to volcanic and seismic activity, the fragility of Lake Kivu is a serious matter. Compounding the precarious situation is the presence of approximately 2 million people, many of them refugees, living along the north end of the lake.

Vodacek likens the contained pressure in the lake to a bottle of carbonated soda or champagne. "In the lake, you have the carbon dioxide on the bottom and 300 meters of water on top of that, which is the cap," he says. "That's the pressure that holds it. The gas is dissolved in water."

When the cap is removed, bubbles form and rise to the surface. More bubbles form and create a column that drags the water and the gas up to the surface in a chain reaction

The question is, and what's really unknown, is how explosive is that?", Vodacek says.

Man gets life sentence for woman's fatal scare

A man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty in what prosecutors said was a case of scaring a 79-year-old North Carolina grandmother to death.

Man gets life sentence for woman's fatal scare

Crazier by the minute

It's time for the majority of Americans to wake up and be concerned about the way this loon thinks.

A billboard showing President Barack Obama wearing a turban has sparked a lot of attention at the suburban Denver used car dealership that put it up.

The sign, completed Friday by artist David Lee, shows a grinning, cartoonish Obama and bears the words "PRESIDENT or JIHAD?"

Underneath the president's image is a big yellow square with the phrase, "BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PROVE IT!"

Again, I ask when are we going to put these traitors in jail where they belong?!

Big Bang machine surprises scientists

Despite sustaining major damage last year, the particle collider is ready for high-speed action.

The experiment

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Monarch butterflies face new danger

Yet another problem is imperiling the butterflies' winter colonies in Mexico.

Trees being devoured

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Insider secrets to getting hired

9 insider secrets to getting hired

To get noticed, be sure your resumé answers this one crucial question.

Also, what your body language says

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Unusual method to boost productivity

An MIT scholar suggests a different way to get more done in less time.

Simple but not at all easy

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Seven housing markets on the upswing

While the national scene is still gloomy, these metro areas appear to be recovering.

Top city's 3.2 percent gain

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Shocking facts about movie popcorn

A revealing new study says movie popcorn is even worse for us than previously thought.

12 pats of butter

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Is torn money still worth something?

If a $50 bill is ripped in half, there are certain ways you can get new cash.

Read people's answers

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The single best day to buy a car

Shoppers have one shot to capitalize on the biggest deals of the year, analysts say.

Average discount of 7.5 percent

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Follow the 'Brazilian plan' for weight loss

Learn how to shed pounds by adopting the eating habits and cuisine of Brazil.

What to fill up on before meals

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Would you wrap your turkey in bacon?

Just when you thought the Thanksgiving meal couldn't get more decadent, check out the "bacon bird."

1.5 lbs of bacon

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Witch bottle from the 18th century

Images Front Picture Library Uk Dir 9 Fortean Times 4786 5

Above is an 18th century "witch bottle," used to fend off evil spirits.

Discovered at a construction site in the London borough of Greenwich, this example is particularly rare because it's still corked. Retired chemistry professor Dr. Alan Massey analyzed the bottle and its curious contents.

From Fortean Times:

(The bottle) contained 12 bent iron nails (one of which pierced a small leather heart), eight brass pins, 10 adult fingernail pairings (sic) (not from a manual worker, but a person "of some social standing"), a quantity of hair and urine with traces of nicotine, indicating it had come from a smoker. There were also traces of sulphur, then known as brimstone, and what is thought to be navel fluff. The brimstone recalled the passage in Revelation where the beast and the false prophet were "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone".

"Discovery of witch bottle used to drive away evil spells"

Health Care passes Senate Roll Call

Voting yes were 58 Democrats, 2 independents.

Voting no were 0 Democrats and 39 Republicans.

Are we surprised?

Really Rare Rhinos Found by Dung-Sniffing Dogs

We all know dogs like to smell just about everything, including other animals' poo. Now scientists have figured out how to put the canines' odd pastimes to work to help sniff out the dung of endangered rhinos in Vietnam.

The collected dung will help scientists to figure out how many Javan rhinos, also called Rhinoceros sondaicus, remain in the wild. The rhinos were considered extinct on mainland Southeast Asia until hunters in Vietnam killed one in 1988. Now two remaining populations exist, with an estimated 10 individuals in the forests of Vietnam and between 28 and 56 such rhinos on the island of Java, Indonesia.

Full Story

Life requested for US suspect in Italy murder case

Prosecutors requested life sentences Saturday for an American student and her former Italian boyfriend accused of killing a young British woman in Italy.

U.S. murder suspect Amanda Knox

Do blind people hallucinate on LSD?

From Mind Hacks:

I’ve just found a remarkable 1963 study from the Archives of Ophthalmology in which 24 blind participants took LSD to see if they could experience visual hallucinations.

It turns out, they can, although this seems largely to be the case in blind people who had several years of sight to begin with, but who later lost their vision.

Those blind from a very early age (younger than two years-old) did not report visual hallucinations, probably because they never had enough visual experience to shape a fully-functioning visual system when their brain was still developing.

Do blind people hallucinate on LSD?