The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:
There is certainly no crime in tooting your own horn from time to time -- after all, if you've done something to be proud of, you have every right to publicize your accomplishments.
Plus, patting yourself on the back just feels good.
But it also never hurts to take a strategic approach to your self-promotion.
Making your announcements right around bonus time, for example, will get you more dramatic results than a daily 'guess what I did today' email.

Some of our readers today have been in:

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Albury, New South Wales, Australia

Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Kiev, Kyyiv, Ukraine

Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Hyvinkaa, Southern Finland, Finland

Manila, Manila, Philippines

London, England, United Kingdom

Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan. Malaysia

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

Newbury, England, United Kingdom

Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom

Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

Paris, Ile-De-France, France

Berne, Bern, Switzerland

as well as Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Austria, Norway, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Kuwait, Serbia, Bangladesh, Latvia, Greece, Scotland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Wales, Iran, Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Sweden, Afghanistan, Belgium, Tibet, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Paraguay, Sudan, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Qatar, Brazil, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, China, Iraq, Ecuador, Nigeria, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paupa New Guinea, Moldova, Venezuela, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Norway, Finland

and in cities across the United States such as Abilene, Minong, Mililani, Elk Grove and more.

Today is:

Today is Wednesday, August 10, the 222nd day of 2011.

There are 143 days left in the year.

Today's unusual holidays or celebrations are:

Smithsonian Day
and
S'mores Day.

It is also the Perigean Spring Tides

  

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Riots engulf British cities

Wave of violence spreads across Britain

Police struggle to keep pace as the country's worst unrest since the 1980s engulfs four major cities.

How it began 

Also: 

• Fires blaze in London
• Images of the violence
• U.K. leader pledges action

Story behind London riots

The story behind London's riots

The police killing of a 29-year-old man sparked the unrest that now grips much of the city.  

 Iconic image of mayhem 

Also: 

• London triples police
• Stakes high for Cameron
• Rioters' tech usage

Non Sequitur

UAE pledges $1M to tornado ravaged Missouri

The United Arab Emirates has pledged to give up to $1 million to help equip high school students in the tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., with laptop computers for the coming school year.

Full Story

Classy move UAE. Now if the wingnut morons in Missouri ...

Poll predicts big 2012 change

Poll predicts 2012 wave of change in D.C.

The highest number of Americans in decades believe most politicians don't deserve re-election.

Not a single one with and 'r' by their name should be going back to fuck up this nation any further.

  Impact on Obama 

Also: 

• Obama: Inherited problems
• August is darkest month
• Perry changes the rules

Bachmann Crazy?

Question: Did Newsweek choose Michele Bachmann cover photo to make her ‘look crazy’?
Of course they did. Good move, Newsweek.
But they needn't have she is batshit crazy and has no trouble looking so on her own- as people who know her will attest the picture on the cover is her 'normal' look - a look the says 'I am insane' to any that see it.

We really don't need another insane extreme wingnut in this country much less another one running it.

The folks over at Crooks and Liars had this to say:

The Weird Things Michele Bachmann Believes

Don't say you weren't warned. I said then and I say now - Michele Bachmann is no laughing matter. Her surge in Iowa may not be a flash in the pan and every time I hear her say, "...When I am elected President" - I reach for the Pepto. Still, the fact remains she's captivating Iowa right now. If you thought Sarah Palin was bad, just wait for Bachmann.

***

While she is no laughing matter - she is a joke ... a sick, perverted one but a joke nonetheless.

Cheap Labor

Farmers oppose repugicans strict immigration policies.
They want cheap labor and immigrants (legal or no) are more willing to do farm work than are most Americans.
But they keep voting for repugicans which is always against they self interest or anybody's for that matter.

Did you know ...

... that most firms pay no income taxes?!

S&P faces rating backlash

S&P faces backlash over downgrade

Analysts question the rating agency's credibility after the market seems to back U.S. bonds.

'$2 trillion error' 

Also: 

• Attacks called 'nonsense'
• Fear returns to banks
• Waiting on Fed's actions

Where other nations' economies stand

Where other nations' economies stand

Only 15 countries are part of the world's most elite debt rating after the U.S. got booted.

China, Greece rankings 

Also: 

• When will misery end?
• Where to invest now
• 2nd recession outlook

The 2011 crisis vs. 2008 turmoil

Why this financial crisis isn't like 2008's

There are big differences between today's money mess and the last one.

  Two possible ways out 

Also: 

• Banks need propping up
• Protect your retirement
• Make your money last

Fixing the financial mess

First step to fixing the financial mess

The key players who helped create the crisis now need to offer some solutions.

Columnist: What Obama should do 

Also: 

• 2011 crisis unlike 2008
• Paulson: It's about Europe
• Housing recovery delayed

Fed sees rough times ahead

Federal Reserve sees rough times ahead

The Fed is keeping rates low because it expects a fragile economy for 24 months. 

Will it help create jobs? 

Also: 

• Public ignores downgrade
• Mortgage rate outlook
• Lowest car-loan rates

Higher and Soaring

U.S. stock market opens higher

The major indices rebounded by about 1%, following Monday's nosedive.  

Fed statement could cause reversal 

Also: 

• Global markets head up
• $1 trillion losses Monday
• Time to buy stocks?

Stocks soar in a day of wild swings

The Dow rises 429 points following news that the Fed plans to keep interest rates low.

A real stomach churner 

Also: 

• Treasury rates sink
• When will misery end?
• Why buy stocks now

Man, too poor to pay fishing fine, sent to jail

A story about a modern debtors' prison in Michigan.

Kyle Dewitt spent three days in jail because he was too poor to pay a fishing fine. Last spring, Dewitt was ticketed and fined $215 for fishing smallmouth bass out of season (Dewitt disputes the charge). But Dewitt, 19 years old with a fiancée and a nine-month-old son, lost his job at a grocery store in 2010 and has been out of work ever since. He couldn’t afford the $215 fine. Instead he offered to pay $100 up front, and repay the rest in a month. But Judge Raymond Voet of Ionia, Mich., refused. The judge sentenced Dewitt to three days in jail.
The American Civil Liberties Union paid to break Dewitt out. Now the group is suing on behalf of Dewitt and four others in Michigan who were jailed because they were too poor to pay misdemeanor fines.
“Long thought to be a relic of the 19th century, debtors’ prisons are still alive and well in Michigan,” Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan ACLU, said in a press release. “Jailing our clients because they are poor is not only unconstitutional, it’s unconscionable and a shameful waste of resources.”

Man Jailed For Not Paying Fishing Fine

The US Two-Dollar Bill

Did you know there are Americans that don't believe there is a two-dollar bill. The two-dollar bill is a unit of United States currency best known for its rarity. It is infrequently printed, infrequently distributed, infrequently used and, therefore, infrequently seen. The bill was discontinued in 1966, but was reintroduced 10 years later as part of the United States Bicentennial celebrations.

Today, however, the two-dollar bill is rarely seen in circulation, and as a result the production of the note is the lowest of U.S. paper money. This comparative scarcity in circulation, coupled with a lack of public awareness that the bill is still in circulation, has also inspired urban legends and, on a few occasions, created problems for people trying to use the bill to make purchases.

Awesome Pictures

Companies consider penalties for smokers

Is it fair to ask employees who smoke to pay more for health insurance? That's a question more and more business leaders are wrestling with as two-tier health premiums gain traction in corporate boardrooms.

About Bloody Time they do - we non smokers have had to do their jobs for them for too damned long as it is ... we don't get a 'smoke break' every fifteen minutes which lasts at a minimum of  twenty minutes each - which if you do the math means smokers do absolutely no work in an eight hour day yet they're paid as if they did.

Companies consider penalties for smokers

Can some one please explain to me ...

... the inexplicable war on lemonade stands local authorities across the country are waging.

Worst foods for your teeth

The seven worst foods for your teeth

Everyone knows sugar hurts those pearly whites, but so can fruit and vinegar.

Stopping the damage 

Also: 

• Best dental tools
• Secrets to white teeth
• Premature aging signs

Good Question

A you a rude customer?

Odds are if you've never worked behind a counter, whether it be a restaurant or retail store, you're probably a bad customer.

See if you fit into any of these personalities, and let the enlightenment ensue.

1. Cell Phone Addicts: If you want good service, get off of your cell phone and treat the staff of whatever establishment you're in like a real human being. We are here to serve you, not waste time waiting for you to end your conversation, or worse, try to compete with the person on the other end of you convo. Newsflash - It's rude to expect an employee's full attention when you are not giving them yours. We will be more than happy to accommodate you once you hang up.

2. Holier Than Thou Patrons: Sure, you've got a lot of money. Supposedly, you've 'got a lot of pull in this town'. Whatever. Just because you get special treatment every where you go doesn't mean that is going to happen at my work. A sense of entitlement makes me want to help you less.

3. Manager's Pets: Please don't assume I am able to bend the rules because a manager lets you get away with returning something without a receipt. Oh, you want me to call him/her on their day off? No, sorry. You wouldn't want someone from your job calling YOU about something trivial on your day off, would you? If a manager is not in, I'm not calling them unless there is an emergency. You wanting a discount greater than I am able to give is not an emergency. Case in point - if the manager or associate you normally deal with is not there to let you get away with something I'm not allowed do, ask when he/she will return to work next, and bother them then.

4. Customers who ignore employees until they need something: We greet you when you enter, only to get ignored. That's just rude. You don't have to engage in b.s. conversations with us for hours, in fact, we'd prefer if you didn't. But a simple nod or 'hello' - SOMETHING to acknowledge us when you walk in would be appreciated.

Now, I know you've probably had an experience with bad service at some point in your life. I have too, but I've also worked with the public for over ten years. When I am trying to bend over backwards (so to speak) to make a customer happy and they are STILL rude to me, I am just baffled, and sad for them. So please, don't think I am lashing out in bitterness against all customers. I love helping people out, and am more likely to go above and beyond my job duties to make you happy if you are civil to me, and treat me like a human being. Kindness is contagious, remember this.

Slash your grocery bill by 40 percent

Slash your grocery bill by 40 percent

Ziggy

New Cologne Lets You Smell Like General Patton

Well, who wouldn’t want to smell like Old Blood and Guts? Here’s your chance. The US Army has licensed a cologne inspired by General George Patton:

It’s advertised as a woodsy blend of lavender, citrus, coconut, cedar, sage, tonka bean, bergamot, lime, and the ad copy says it will “elicit feelings of majestic woodlands and endless horizons.”

The US Air Force has one, too. It’s called “Stealth”. The Marines’ cologne is called “Devil Dog”.

Full Story

Glacier collapse alarms tourists

Glacier collapse jolts Alaska tourists

A cool photo opportunity takes a scary turn when a huge chunk of ice crashes near their boat.

Watch moment of panic 

Also: 

• Sun unleashes solar flare
• Tsunami's link to icebergs
• Intense heat sets records

Cold War symbol rises again

Germany rebuilds parts of Berlin Wall

Some opponents worry about turning national pain into a "Disneyland-like attraction" for tourists

Anniversary 

Also: 

• Photos of the new wall
• Nagasaki remembers bomb
• Resistance hero dies

Boldly going where no man has gone before

Are you ready for a theme park based on Star Trek in Jordan?

Ten Strange Units of Measurement

While some may think that feet and inches are “strange” units of measurement in comparison to the metric system, fear not; some people use even more convoluted systems to determine their measurements. What are some units of measurement that you think don’t work? What are some obscure ones you think should be used more often?

One night, in 1958, a fraternity at MIT charged its pledges with measuring the length of the Harvard Bridge between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. The pledges’ shortest member was Oliver Smoot, at 5′7″. He lay down on the bridge, and they rolled his body to measure the length of the whole thing from beginning to end. It ended up being 364.4 Smoots, give or take the length of an ear. The unbelievability of this unit isn’t that it was made, but that it somehow endured as a niche, but popular, unit of measurement. If you walk the bridge from MIT to Boston today, you can still see many helpful lines painted onto it, showing how many Smoots you’ve gone.

Full Story

Funny Pictures

"The Wire" actress Busted via a Wire Tap

What is that saying about truth being stranger than fiction? An actress who played a killer for a Baltimore drug gang in the HBO series “The Wire” pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to distribute heroin. She was caught on a wiretap in a joint federal-state investigation of a suspected drug gang, The Associated Press reported.

Felicia Pearson, 31, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin, a day before her trial was scheduled to begin. Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill accepted the plea, suspending a seven-year sentence with credit for time served and ordering three years of supervised probation with provisions for out-of-state travel for work. The plea allows Ms. Pearson, known as Snoop, to continue her acting career, her lawyer Benjamin C. Sutley, said outside the courthouse in Baltimore.

“The Wire,” which ran on television from 2002 to 2008, focused on the city’s struggle with poverty, drugs and violence. Ms. Pearson’s character (also nicknamed Snoop) kills several people for the fictitious Stanfield drug gang. Ms. Pearson was previously convicted of second-degree murder in a slaying committed when she was 14. She served five years of an eight-year sentence and was released in 2000. She was arrested on a drug charge in 2008 when police went to her home to pick her up for refusing to cooperate as a witness in a murder trial. She was found not guilty.

A 13 Year Old Girl Arrested in Cartel Raid

We have run several stories highlighting the Los Zetas cartels recruitment of children to perform different functions within their organization.

Full Story

Worries for fate of Amazon tribe

Drug trade imperils 'uncontacted' tribe

Traffickers overwhelm a post defending a preserve for a remote tribe in the Amazon.  

 Arrowhead offers clue 

Also: 

• Deforestation on the rise
• Chile miners attacked
• Venezuela's prison crisis

B.C.

Killer Plant Eats Bird Whole

Venus Fly Traps are famous for eating bugs, but it is apparently a rare occurrence when a carnivorous plant is able to eat an entire bird. Hopefully there aren’t any  “Little Shop of Horrors” plants lurking in the jungle out there that can eat a whole human.

The plant is a pitcher plant from the genus of Nepenthes which are found traditionally in South East Asia. The poor bird, which met an untimely demise, was a blue tit. The plant is located in a garden nursery, under the care of Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, who was making his rounds in the tropical garden when he discovered that the pitcher plant had trapped the bird.

Full Story

Whew, Close One

Utah Hospital Reports High Number of Snake Bites

A northern Utah hospital is reporting an increase in snake sightings and bites this summer.
Full Story

Colorado Legislator Wants Burro Racing as Official Sport

There's a move afoot to make burro racing Colorado's official summer sport.
Full Story

Animal Pictures