Welcome to ...

The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Don't be misled by these food label tricks

Don't be misled by these food label tricks

Learn how to identify sneaky marketing tactics before your next trip to the store.

A rude surprise after foreclosure

A rude surprise after foreclosure

Even after giving up their homes, many discover that they're still on the hook with the bank.

Negotiate a lower price on almost anything

Negotiate a lower price on almost anything

Learn how to pay less for appliances, clothes, and more with these seven price-reducing tips.

Art auction smashes world record

Art auction smashes world record

A life-size bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti is the most expensive work of art sold at auction.

Tax tricks you might not know

Tax tricks you might not know

It's risky to rely only on your tax return from the previous year, one expert says.

Places where incomes and jobs are up

Places where incomes and jobs are up

Ambitious professionals might do better in these five locations than Wall Street or Silicon Valley.

Space rock triggers legal tug of war

Space rock triggers legal tug of war

When a meteorite struck their office, two doctors sent it to the Smithsonian right away.

Flower that's a shocking food fad

Flower that's a shocking food fad

Restaurants are using a mouth-numbing plant to add snap to sauces and fizz to drinks.

The Pentagon's biggest budget buster

The Pentagon's biggest budget buster

Building the superadvanced F-35 fighter jet was supposed to be affordable and drama-free.

Webcam saves man who was lost on ice

Webcam saves man who was lost on ice

A woman admiring the sunset on her computer helps police rescue a stranded tourist hundreds of miles away.

Story
Also:

Careers you can start at any age

5 careers you can start at any age

These booming job fields offer great pay, and you can train for them without leaving home.

Baby in robbery getaway car

From the "Moms who really care" Department:

Federal officials said that a woman robbed a Dallas bank with her 4-month-old premature baby in the getaway car.

Man's castle won't be his home

A man's home is his castle a ' but not if British authorities say it has to be destroyed.

ROBERT Fidler, of Salfords, Surrey, England must demolish his home.


Full Story

Man's secret castle ordered destroyed

A British court says that a farmer's clandestine castle has to come down.

Meet Po the Snake: He's Addicted to Cigarettes

From Treehugger:

cigarette smoking snake photo Photo via Metro

With habitat loss and climate change threatening ecosystems across the world, animals have enough to worry about, but now it seems some are picking up on our unhealthier habits as well. Sure, we've seen alcoholic monkeys tipping back a few on St. Kitts, and that's bad enough--but they do have hands, after all. That can't be said for Po the snake, who's picked up a nasty habit of his own. Po can't start off his day without his morning cigarette--that is, according to his owner, who smokes a pack a day herself. Does this count as animal cruelty?

Po's owner, Sho Lau of Taiwan, said the 3-year-old snake discovered the habit on his own with no coercion--perhaps thinking that it would make him seem 'cool'.

He is very tame and one day when I threw a cigarette butt away he went for it and seemed to enjoy having it in his mouth. One thing led to another and before long he was having one cigarette in the morning and another at night.

According to the report from Metro, Po is grumpy if he doesn't have the chance to light up at least a couple of times a day. Lau added that the snake "gets very agitated if I don't have [a cigarette] to spare."

If not animal cruelty, it's at least a pretty clear case of enabling--and we should hope that Po's owner doesn't have any other nasty addictions to pass on to the reptile. Because if there's one thing the world could do without, it would be junkie snakes.

Then again, there's the possibility that Sho Lau may be playing a bit of a prank on the media, and that Po may actually be a non-smoker. This should be our hope, since after all, everybody knows that yellow fangs are quite unflattering on a snake.

Science News

From BBC-Science:
Giant salamander
BBC News has a rare "up close and personal" look at one of the planet's oldest and oddest creatures, the giant salamander.

Astronomers have used a new ground-based technique to study the atmospheres of planets outside our Solar System.

The US space agency (Nasa) has extended the Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn once again.

Liars and Fools

Liars and Fools today are:

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (retard-Minnesota) suggests that critics of health care reform will be put on a "list" and denied treatment.
Only you Michele, only you.

Syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro is "not suggesting Obama is a Nazi," but he "embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader".
True, he's not 'suggesting' anything, he's outright saying it.

Cop News

Movie Gallery Files for Bankruptcy Court Protection for the Second Time

Movie Gallery Inc., the second- largest North American video-rental chain, filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2007.

The owner of the Hollywood Video chain exited its first bankruptcy in 2008 as Netflix Inc., which rents movies by mail, and Coinstar Inc., operator of Redbox movie-rental kiosks, continued to lure customers away from traditional stores.

Movie Gallery, based in Wilsonville, Oregon, first sought protection in October 2007 following two years of losses in the face of increased competition from Blockbuster Inc., the world’s biggest movie-rental chain, and Netflix.

Movie Gallery listed assets of $892 million and debt of $1.4 billion in its 2007 Chapter 11 petition. In April 2008, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Douglas Tice Jr. in Richmond, Virginia, approved a recovery plan that gave holders of its senior notes 22.1 percent of their claims. The new filing was also in Virginia.

During the previous reorganization process, the company cut 1,000 stores, mostly through lease rejection and saving more than $130 million in rent. The chain also amended agreements with major film studios and cut its debt, giving the company more liquidity when it previously exited bankruptcy.

Under the confirmed plan, $325 million of 11 percent senior notes, including about $174 million held by Sopris Capital Advisors LLC, and $72 million in second-lien debt was converted into equity in the reorganized company.

Unsecured creditors of Movie Gallery were to receive 6 percent of their claims, while unsecured creditors and holders of senior subordinated notes of the company’s Hollywood Entertainment unit were to get a 12.5 percent recovery.

The new case is In re Movie Gallery Inc., 10-30696, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

It's Time to Impeach Some U.S. Supreme Court Justices

The legal reality is that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both nominated by the shrub, also both testified on tape and under oath, saying that the role of the Supreme Court is a limited role.

They both had agreed, (still under oath), that the court has to do what it does, while being equally careful about not stepping over its boundaries´ and by not invading the authority of the US Congress.

By not following their own rules of not over turning their own precedents and by invading the authority of elected officials in the US Congress, these justices have now lied while under oath.

Based on their own rules, all of the majority that voted for this decision are "legally eligible to be impeached and removed from their lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land".

Full Story

Three arrested in Chinese crackdown on melamine-tainted milk products

Three people have been arrested in China in a fresh crackdown on melamine-tainted milk products, police said Wednesday.

Three arrested in China

Live long and prosper

Scientist in India claim to have created a super tomato that will stay fresh a month after normal ones would have rotted away.

Scientists Create Super Long-Life Tomatoes

Scientists are on the verge of developing a 'long life' super pill which could help people live past 100, according to experts.

New Pill 'Will Help People Live Past 100'

Ready for a Renaissance?

From Treehugger:

diyarbakir turkey courtyard house photo
The Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı House in Diyarbakır, Turkey, is an example of a traditional courtyard-style home. Photo via Diyarbakır Association.

Recycled denim insulation and programmable thermostats are all well and good (really good), but people 4,500 years ago managed to keep their homes appropriately warm and cool without high technology -- and without wasting energy. How did they do it?

'Living beach ball' is giant single cell

A single-celled giant of the seabed, the monstrous Syringammina forms a massive, complex network of tubes that may enslave bacteria.

Zoologger

Wolverine numbers 'melting away'

From BBC-Science:
Wolverine
A significant decline in predatory wolverines across North America is linked to melting snowpacks, say researchers.

The Lorax

The Lorax
(There's a lesson in there somewhere)

New clue to cause of infant deaths

New clue to cause of infant deaths

Researchers find babies who die from SIDS make low amounts of a key brain chemical.

To the wingnuts ...

My Karma just ran over your dogma.

Why the bad guy always loses

First on the draw loses (Image: TVE/Canal+ Espana/The Kobal Collection) In Hollywood westerns, the bad guy always draws first, but gets shot. Niels Bohr had a theory to explain why, and it's now been tested

Reactions Faster than Actions, Study Finds People move faster when reacting than when initiating the same movement.

Three Neanderthal teeth discovered

Poland Neanderthal Teeth

This is one of three Neanderthal teeth discovered in a cave in the southern part of Poland. Szczecin University

A team of Polish scientists said Monday they have discovered three Neanderthal teeth in a cave, a find they hope may shed light on how similar to modern humans our ancestors were.

Neanderthal artifacts have been unearthed in Poland before. But the teeth are the first bodily Neanderthal remains found in the country, according to Mikolaj Urbanowski, an archaeologist with Szczecin University and the project's lead researcher.

Urbanowski said the teeth were unearthed in the Stajnia Cave, north of the Carpathian Mountains, along with flint tools and the bones of the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, both extinct Ice Age species.

The researchers also found a hammer made of reindeer antler and bones of cave bears bearing cut marks, indicating they were eaten by the Neanderthals, Urbanowski said.

"The cave bears were big, dangerous animals and this supports the view the Neanderthals were really efficient hunters," he said.

The findings were reported by the German science journal Naturwissenschaften in an online article last week.

The article focused mainly on one of the teeth, providing evidence for the claim that it is the molar of a Neanderthal who died around age 20.

Urbanowski said that tooth has undergone the most analysis, but the team is nearly certain the other two also belonged to Neanderthals who lived 100,000 to 80,000 years ago.

The placement of the teeth along with flint tools has led the team to hypothesize that the site could have been some kind of primitive burial site, which would point to a belief in the afterlife.

Jeffrey Schwartz, a professor of physical anthropology with the University of Pittsburgh, said the find is significant because it establishes that Neanderthals lived in a region where so far little evidence has been found.

He said, however, there is not enough evidence draw any conclusions about a possible burial site.

Oregon parents found guilty of neglecting ill son

Faith Healing TrialAn Oregon couple was found guilty Tuesday of criminally negligent homicide for praying over their ill son instead of seeking medical help.

Oregon parents found guilty of neglecting ill son

Amazon prices under fire from Murdoch

Greedy asshole!

Amazon prices under fire from Murdoch

The News Corp chief openly criticizes $9.99 e-books and seeks a new pricing deal.

Who's your daddy?

The effort is part of a wider program to check the DNA of hundreds of mummies to determine their identities and family relations.
The program could help determine Tutankhamun's family lineage, which has long been a source of mystery.

King Tut to get DNA scan

Alleged Bomb Threat Was Sarcastic

Authorities in Tennessee said their investigation into an alleged bomb plot appears to support the suspect's claim that he was "being a smart ass."

Alleged Bomb Threat Was Sarcastic

Telling the truth ...

... and of course the repugicans don't like it.

All transferred detainees who returned to terrorism were released by the shrub.
No recidivism for those released by Obama

It's too bad the shrub doesn't love America as much as Barack Obama does.
(You know, I heard the shrub was born in Africa.)

RNC: 'Women sometimes need a little more handholding, or they need their friends to help them make a decision.'

Okay, wow! That flew all over some of the staff here at Carolina Naturally ... you don't want to know the reaction of the female staff (it wasn't a pretty sight or a pleasant experience).

Blog Roll Amnesty Day

Blog Roll Amnesty Day, February 3, is a celebration of small blogs.
Although tradition has one linking to smaller blogs we here at Carolina Naturally would rather link to interesting blogs of any size.

To wit here are four we have found interesting lately:

Today is ...

Today is Wednesday, February 3, the 34th day of 2010.

There are 331 days left in the year.

Today In History February 3

There are no unusual holidays or celebrations today.

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Lelystad, Flevoland, Netherlands
Bandung, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Zagreb, Grad Zagreb, Croatia

as well as Scotland, Brazil, Romania, Australia, and the United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

It's almost time to boogie.
The invitations are already starting to pour in, and today's batch will arrive with one particularly eye-catching offer.
Ready or not, that certain person you've been checking out is about to let you know they're interested in much more than just long, lingering glances across the room.
They'd like to be much closer, for starters.
Don't be afraid to give it a shot.
You just might have something here.

Woo Hoo!