CAROLINA NATURALLY

Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Daily Drift

Think about it ...

Carolina Naturally is read in 194 countries around the world daily.
 
Our Canadian readers know what we mean  ... !
Today is - Boxing Day
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Britannia, Pikangikum, Blainville, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, North York, Winnipeg, Oshawa, Toronto, Ottawa, Byward Market and Vancouver, Canada
Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay
The Bottom, Sint Eustatius and Saba
Conchas, Brazil
Cancun, Mexico
Kingston, Jamaica
Buenos Aires, Argentina
San Jose, Costa Rica
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Cali, Colombia
Georgetown, Guyana
Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Santiago, Chile
La Feria, West Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Jose, Boca Raton, San Antonio, Amarillo, Los Angeles and Albuquerque, United States
Europe 
Sofia, Varna, Bulgaria
Balotesti, Romania
Sisli and Ankara, Turkey
Sarajevo, Mostar and Hadzici, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dublin, Ireland
Chelyabinsk and Vladivostok, Russia
Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
Lisbon, Portugal
Roubaix, Rouen, Lyon and Laval, France
Sondrio, Ivrea, Ravenna, Rome and Padova, Italy
London, Manchester and Slough, England
Madrid, Cadiz and L'Olleria, Spain
Gistrup, Denmark
Athens, Greece
Zhovti Vody and Kiev, Ukraine
Zabki and Warsaw, Poland
Koper and Ljubljana, Slovenia
Nicosia, Cyprus
Lucenec, Slovakia
Zagreb, Croatia
Hurth, Rothe Erde and Sulzbach, Germany
Bergen, Norway
Nokia, Finland
Hoyvik, Faroe islands
Asia
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Bangalore, Chetput, Pune, Gurgaon, Pondicherry, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Delhi and Kolkata, India
Jakarta, Depok, Surabaya and Medan, Indonesia
Shanghai, Jiang'an, Guangzhou and Beijing, China
Port Louis and Plaines Wilhems, Mauritius
Hanoi, Vietnam
Rangoon, Burma
Kuala Lumpur, Kulim, Petaling Jaya, Seremban and Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Bangkok, Thailand
Tehran and Mashhad, Iran
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Tokyo, Japan
Doha, Qatar
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Riyadh and Al Khubar, Saudi Arabia
Petah Tikva, Israel
Kuwait, Kuwait
Africa 
Lagos, Nigeria
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Khartoum, Sudan
Rabat, Morocco
Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa
Al Jizah, Egypt
Pacific
Artarmon, Homebush, Sydney and Brisbane, Australia
Greymouth, New Zealand
Manila, Philippines
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Today in History

1776 After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington leads an attack on Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and takes 900 men prisoner.
1786 Daniel Shay leads a rebellion in Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of debt.
1806 Napoleon's army is checked by the Russians at the Battle of Pultusk.
1862 38 Santee Sioux are hanged in Mankato, Minnesota for their part in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Little Crow has fled the state.
1866 Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, head of the Department of the Platte, receives word of the Fetterman Fight in Powder River County in the Dakota territory.
1917 As a wartime measure, President Woodrow Wilson places railroads under government control, with Secretary of War William McAdoo as director general.
1925 Six U.S. destroyers are ordered from Manila to China to protect interests in the civil war that is being waged there.
1932 Over 70,000 people are killed in a massive earthquake in China.
1941 General Douglas MacArthur declares Manila an open city in the face of the onrushing Japanese Army.
1943 The German battleship Scharnhorst is sunk by British ships in an Arctic fight.
1944 Advancing Soviet troops complete their encirclement of Budapest in Hungary.
1945 The United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain, end a 10-day meeting, seeking an atomic rule by the UN Council.
1953 The United States announces the withdrawal of two divisions from Korea.
1962 Eight East Berliners escape to West Berlin, crashing through gates in an armor-plated bus.
1966 Dr. Maulana Karenga celebrates the first Kwanza, a seven-day African-American celebration of family and heritage.
1979 The Soviet Union flies 5,000 troops to intervene in the Afghanistan conflict.
1982 Time magazine chooses a personal computer as it "Man of the Year," the first non-human ever to receive th honor.
1991 The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union formally dissolves the Soviet Union.
1996 JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty queen, is found beaten and strangled to death in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, one of the most high-profile crimes of the late 20th century in the US.
1996 Workers in South Korea's automotive and shipbuilding industries begin the largest labor strike in that country's history, protesting a new law that made firing employees easier and would curtail the rights of labor groups to organize.
1999 Lothar, a violent, 36-hour windstorm begins; it kills 137 and causes $1.3 billion (US dollars) damage in Central Europe.
2004 A tsunami caused by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake kills more than 230,000 along the rim of the Indian Ocean.
2006 Former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford dies at age 93. Ford was the only unelected president in America's history.
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Non Sequitur

http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/nq131225.gif
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Crane Operator Captures Stunning Aerial Images Of Shanghai

Chinese crane operator Wei Gensheng saw many incredible photo ops while working on a crane over 2000 feet above the city of Shanghai, and there he found the perfect subject for his photography- the city itself.
These soaring sky high shots are quite literally breathtaking, especially when you consider the perspective of the photographer, and it’s safe to say nobody has ever seen the city of Shanghai captured photographically in this way before.
Shanghai Tower is now the second tallest building in the world, making Wei one of the bravest photographers in the world for even attempting to take some of these amazing shots!
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The repugicans Are Making Sure That the Economic Recovery Only Benefits the Rich

If Americans have learned only one thing about the economic recovery, it is that repugicans will make sure the only beneficiaries of good economic reports are Wall Street…
EconRecov
There is an English idiom, “don’t judge a book by its cover” that is a metaphorical phrase which means “you shouldn’t prejudge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone.” There has been good news about America’s economy over the past couple of months, and according to the third and final estimate of third quarter GDP by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), it appears the economy is finally starting to find solid footing to make some serious progress. However, Americans should not celebrate just yet because although the third quarter numbers are certainly encouraging, there is plenty of reason to skeptical, and concerned, that the apparent good news on the economy may be an aberration; at least for the majority of Americans.
According to the BEA, third quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an annualized rate of 4.1% in the third quarter that is significantly better than the 3.6% growth economists predicted in the second estimate published earlier this month. The promising numbers are the fastest growth pace in two years, and some economists believe that it is a sign the recovery is starting to build going into the new year. One of the drivers of the good report was consumer spending that grew at a higher rate (2%) than previously estimated (1.4%) this summer. The data seemed to suggest that Americans were shopping and buying despite Washington’s budget dysfunction, but the increased spending was partially fueled by higher-income Americans spending more on recreational pursuits. The bulk of the increase in consumer spending was for health care before the Affordable Care Act went into effect in October and gasoline; necessities that deprive middle income households of discretionary income to spend on other goods and services. In states that embraced the ACA, healthcare costs declined significantly and that will certainly give them more disposable income during the 4th quarter, but that is not the case in repugican states. The high gas prices are solely attributable to the oil industry selling America’s glut of fuel on the export market that contributed to higher GDP and profits for the oil industry while high fuel prices prevented consumers from spending on durable goods and services.
The lion’s share of positive growth was from companies spending to build up third-quarter inventories which accounted for about 40% of overall third-quarter growth. Companies stockpiled $115.7 billion worth of goods on warehouse shelves, but economists warned GDP will likely fall sharply in the final months of 2013 if companies are unable to sell all the goods they stockpiled. MaketWatch surveyed economists who forecast GDP will drop to 2.1% in the fourth quarter that is directly in line with predictions based on food stamp cuts, the repugican shutdown, and the sequester cuts. Real damage will hit the economy in 2014 because Congress left for their winter break without funding food stamps or extending unemployment benefits that will drive 1.3 million Americans into poverty and restrict their spending ability.
What economists are wondering is whether or not the economy is genuinely taking off, or is the momentum bound to evaporate as it has repeatedly throughout the recovery. The chief economist at Regions Financial Corp, Richard Moody, said “every time we have thought we were finally starting to take off, we get dragged back down,” but he hopes this time might be different. However, most economists say any future gains in consumer spending will hinge on whether Americans’ incomes rise more quickly and, like a panel of three dozen economic experts last week, complained that income growth has been stagnant or declining throughout the recovery. The Sterne Agee Chief Economist, Lindsey Piegza said, “We are just not seeing the momentum behind incomes and that’s really what we need to see driving the consumer sector. We are not seeing quality, high-wage jobs being created.”
It is likely economists, and the American people, are not going to see many high-wage jobs being created, or minimum wage workers getting a raise anytime soon; if ever. repugicans left Washington without extending unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans who will struggle to buy food or pay rent let alone have income to buy durable goods, and the encouraging economic news will be the impetus for repugicans to reject calls to extend benefits in the new year; particularly since they convinced Democrats to pass a budget without addressing the issue when they had the opportunity. President Obama called for raising the minimum wage a year ago during the State of the Union, and despite an overwhelming majority of Americans supporting hiking the wage $3 per hour, repugicans have rejected the idea as unnecessary on earlier promising economic news.
The question economists have not asked, and are unlikely to answer, is who profited from the good economic news. It certainly has not been the majority of the population who were not in the income class the report cited were able to afford increased spending on recreation. At the beginning of the year, 47.7 million Americans were living below the poverty line and the latest estimates are that it ballooned to 50 million. More Americans require food, healthcare, and housing assistance, and although there has been a steady monthly increase in the number of jobs created, the majority have been minimum wage jobs that prevent a family from affording adequate housing or sufficient food. The sequester is predicted to kill an estimated one million jobs over the course of 2014, and yet it will stay in place for nine more years with only 4 tenths of one-percent reduction for two years as negotiated in the Ryan-Murray budget agreement.
One hopes the third quarter economic report is a sign that the economy is on a solid trajectory for sustained growth to benefit all Americans, but there is little reason to think that is the case. The repugicans have no inclination, or incentive, to create jobs, raise the minimum wage, extend benefits for the unemployed, or fund infrastructure improvements that are crucial to a sustained recovery. The only thing Americans can be certain of is that repugicans will use the good economic report as a reason to reject the Presidents’ calls to address the ever-widening income gap and obstruct  Democrats’ attempts to do anything that might help struggling Americans or prevent the total and complete demise of the middle class.  If Americans have learned only one thing about the economic recovery, it is that repugicans will make sure the only beneficiaries of good economic reports are Wall Street and corporations and this time will be no different.
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Racist tea partiers Claim African Americans Take Advantage of Slavery

The anniversary of the end of slavery was remembered by a tea party leader by admonishing African Americans to stop complaining their ancestors were indentured servants. …
racism-builtit
Human beings like to commemorate or celebrate a past important event that occurred on the same date of the year as the initial event to either remind themselves of something they never want to repeat, or fondly recall a better time in their lives. This past week an anniversary came and went that should be a reminder of a shameful practice that lingered in America 89 years after Founding Father Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” and the day should have celebrated that slavery finally came to an official end. The 13th Amendment ended slavery in America in 1865, and the day was remembered by a teabag leader who admonished African Americans to stop complaining their ancestors were indentured servants.
Americans are typically not welcoming to immigrants to this country, and many different groups who came seeking a better life were discriminated against whether they were Italians, Asians, Russians, Hispanics, Germans, or Irish, but they were never bought and sold, kept as property, or treated like Africans who did not come to this country of their own accord or to seek a better life. Despite historical records documenting the horrid treatment of Africans captured in their native lands, shipped to America, and sold to Americans who literally treated them worse than draft animals, there has always been a segment of the population attempting to delegitimize the horrors of slavery. Indeed, there are still racists in America who regard African Americans as inferior, and they celebrate and mourn their loss in the Civil War the Confederacy fought to preserve their right to keep other human beings to buy, sell, and toil to increase the wealth of white people.
Last Wednesday, on the anniversary of the official end of slavery in America, a teabag leader from New Mexico sparked a minor controversy when she suggested that African Americans take advantage of the horrid legacy of slavery to garner some kind of benefits from the rest of America, probably the government as if it is owed to them. The teabagger, Glynis Racine of the Lincoln County tea party patriots took to social media outlet Twitter to send a message via an image suggesting that African Americans “bitch and moan about how the world owes them a living” because their ancestors were slaves. She also had the temerity to state Irish immigrants’ experience in America was worse than African slaves. The Tweet read, “American history month. Forgotten facts,” and was accompanied with an image that read, “White Irish slaves were treated worse than any other race in the U.S.,” and then “When is the last time you heard an Irishman bitching and moaning about how the world owes them a living?”
Racine deleted the Tweet fairly soon after posting it, but the damage was already done and exposed her as a racist. The implication that African Americans, all African Americans, “bitch and moan” about the world owing them a living is as outrageous as it is racist and infuriating. To make matters worse, Racine responded to her detractors and reiterated that Irish immigrants were treated worse than African slaves and said, “It’s time to move on.” Sadly, her sentiment is not isolated to racist teabaggers and is the kind of fear-mongering and race-baiting Faux News and every repugican candidate for president parroted throughout the primary season in 2012.
Some respondents to the Tweet remarked it is no surprise teabaggers are having difficulty attracting people of color to their racist political tent, but it extends to repugicans as well who have made it their raison d’ĂȘtre to demean President Obama as “the other,” “not one of us,” or that he should “learn to be an American” which is code for “he’s not white.” The sentiment that African Americans believe anyone owes them something was Willard Romney’s message throughout his campaign for the White House and he took great pride in telling the NAACP that “if they wanted more free stuff, vote for the other guy.”
The majority of Americans are sick to death of the racial animus repugicans, former Confederate states, and particularly teabaggers are polluting this nation with. Many Americans believed, errantly, that the election of the first African American as President was a major turning point in this country’s long history of racism, particularly towards African Americans, but the only turning point was bringing the lingering hatred toward African Americans back to life. Whether it is Faux News and Lush Dimbulb stoking racist hatred toward the people’s choice for President, or the rise of hate groups, white supremacists, secession-minded former Confederate states, or calls for assassinating the President, this vile racism must be addressed and reported by corporate-controlled wingnut media outlets.
Main-stream media is just as culpable as racists at Faux News’ promoting racial animus for not reporting the blatant racism permeating repugican and teabagger ranks; particularly in the former Confederate states. The repugicans in Congress, particularly the leadership, are just as guilty as any white supremacist because their obstruction, even of their own ideas, is based on little else than opposing, at any cost, the  African American sitting in the Oval Office. Indeed, the repugicans have assailed this President as an “imperial president,” “dictator,” and “tyrant” for having the temerity to issue executive orders they never complained about when white presidents, even Democratic white presidents, issued them and at a higher frequency than President Obama.
Racine said “it’s time to move on” and she is right. It is time for teabagger racists, repugican white supremacists, and ignorant Confederates to move on and get over their hatred of people of color whether they are Hispanics, Asians, or African Americans, because the only people “bitching and moaning that the world owes them anything” are racists in the wingnut movement who think the world owes them a racially pure, and white, America.


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Things really do grow bigger in Texas - especially the nuts!

Texas repugican's newest plan: Secede first, decide whether to kill the gays afterwards 


Larry Kilgore has made god, gays and guns an important part of his campaign for governor, but his No. 1 issue is secession.
Kilgore is so committed to the idea of having Texas leave the union that he legally changed his name - Larry SECEDE Kilgore. That's the way he'll appear on the ballot next March in the Texas repugican primary, where he is challenging front runner Greg Abbott for the repugican cabal nomination.
[...]
Apparently Larry SECEDE's big contribution to repugicanism is that he wants gay Americans to vote for him too so that, at long last, Texas can SECEDE. Once that's out of the way, we'll worry about the pesky details of who in the new Texas utopia will be able to kill who, and why.

Kilgore believes the bible offers a good guide for government. As such, he suggests that in accordance with the biblical injunction against homosexuality, gay people should be put to death. But Kilgore says he's willing to temporarily set aside his opposition to homosexuals in the interest of winning. [...]
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FBI agent tries to copyright super-secret torture manual, inadvertently makes it public

The ACLU has spent years in court trying to get a look at a top-secret FBI interrogation manual that referred to the CIA's notorious KUBARK torture manual. The FBI released a heavily redacted version at one point -- so redacted as to be useless for determining whether its recommendations were constitutional.
However, it turns out that the FBI agent who wrote the manual sent a copy to the Library of Congress in order to register a copyright in it -- in his name! (Government documents are not copyrightable, but even if they were, the copyright would vest with the agent's employer, not the agent himself). A Mother Jones reporter discovered the unredacted manual at the Library of Congress last week, and tipped off the ACLU about it.
Anyone can inspect the manual on request. Go see for yourself!
The 70-plus-page manual ended up in the Library of Congress, thanks to its author, an FBI official who made an unexplainable mistake. This FBI supervisory special agent, who once worked as a unit chief in the FBI's counterterrorism division, registered a copyright for the manual in 2010 and deposited a copy with the US Copyright Office, where members of the public can inspect it upon request. What's particularly strange about this episode is that government documents cannot be copyrighted.
"A document that has not been released does not even need a copyright," says Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. "Who is going to plagiarize from it? Even if you wanted to, you couldn't violate the copyright because you don't have the document. It isn't available."
"The whole thing is a comedy of errors," he adds. "It sounds like gross incompetence and ignorance."
Julian Sanchez, a fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute who has studied copyright policy, was harsher: "Do they not cover this in orientation? [Sensitive] documents should not be placed in public repositories—and, by the way, aren't copyrightable. How do you even get a clearance without knowing this stuff?"
You'll Never Guess Where This FBI Agent Left a Secret Interrogation Manual


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NSF study shows more than 90% of US businesses view copyright, patent and trademark as "not important"

In March 2012, the National Science Foundation released the results of its "Business Research and Development and Innovation Survey" study, a rigorous, careful, wide-ranging longitudinal study on the use of trademark, copyright, and patents in American business. The study concluded that, overall, most businesses don't rate these protections as a significant factor in their success (in 2010, 87.2% said trademarks were "not important"; 90.1% said the same of copyright, and 96.2% said the same of patents).
What's striking about the survey is that even fields that are traditionally viewed as valuing these protections were surprisingly indifferent to them -- for example, only 51.4% of software businesses rated copyright as "very important."
In a very good post, GWU Political Science PhD candidate Gabriel J. Michael contrasts the obscurity of this landmark study with the incredible prominence enjoyed by a farcical USPTO study released last year that purported to show that "the entire U.S. economy relies on some form of IP" and that "IP-intensive industries" created 40 million American jobs in 2010. The study's methodology was a so sloppy as to be unsalvageable -- for example, the study claimed that anyone who worked at a grocery store was a beneficiary of "strong IP protection."
The NSF study doesn't merely totally refute the USPTO's findings, it does so using a well-documented, statistically valid, neutral methodology that was calculated to find the truth, rather than scoring political points for the copyright lobby. It's a study in contrasts between evidence-based policy production and policy-based evidence production.
61.7% of businesses manufacturing computer and electronic products report that patents are “not important” to them.
96.3% of businesses with less than 500 employees report that patents are “not important” to them.
45.6% of businesses with 25,000 or more employees report that patents are “not important” to them.
53.6% of businesses classified in the information sector (NAICS code 51 – i.e., a sector we’d expect to rely heavily on copyright) report that copyrights are “not important” to them.
Overall, businesses report that trade secrets are the most important form of intellectual property protection, with 13.2% of businesses calling trade secrets “very important” or “somewhat important.” Trademarks are a close second, with copyrights and patents significantly farther behind.
Trailing in last place is sui generis protection for semiconductor mask works, although that is no surprise.
When asked, vast majority of businesses say IP is not important

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Random Photos

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Elf lobby delays road project in Iceland

Elf advocates in Iceland have joined forces with environmentalists to urge authorities to abandon a highway project that they claim will disturb elf habitat, including an elf church. The project has been halted until the supreme court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental impact and the detrimental effect on elf culture of the road project. The group has regularly mobilized hundreds of people to block bulldozers building a direct route from the tip of the Álftanes peninsula, where the president has a property, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer.
Issues about Huldufolk (Icelandic for "hidden folk") have affected planning decisions before, and the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries, which states in part that "issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on". Scandinavian folklore is full of elves, trolls and other mythological characters. Most people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden haven't taken them seriously since the 19th century, but elves are no joke to many in Iceland. A survey conducted by the University of Iceland in 2007 found that 62% of the 1,000 respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist. Ragnhildur Jonsdottir, a self-proclaimed "seer", believes she can communicate with the creatures through telepathy.
"It will be a terrible loss and damaging both for the elf world and for us humans," said Jonsdottir of the road project. Though many of the Friends of Lava are motivated primarily by environmental concerns, they see the elf issue as part of a wider concern for the history and culture of the very unique landscape. Andri Snaer Magnason, a well-known environmentalist, said his major concern was that the road would cut the lava field in two and destroy nesting sites. "Some feel that the elf thing is a bit annoying," said Magnason, adding that he was not sure they existed. However, he said: "I got married in a church with a god just as invisible as the elves, so what might seem irrational is actually quite common [with Icelanders]." Terry Gunnell, a folklore professor at the University of Iceland, said he was not surprised by the wide acceptance of the possibility of elves.
"This is a land where your house can be destroyed by something you can't see (earthquakes), where the wind can knock you off your feet, where the smell of sulfur from your taps tells you there is invisible fire not far below your feet, where the northern lights make the sky the biggest television screen in the world, and where hot springs and glaciers 'talk'," Gunnell said. "In short, everyone is aware that the land is alive, and one can say that the stories of hidden people and the need to work carefully with them reflects an understanding that the land demands respect." Gunnell said similar beliefs are found in western Ireland, but they thrive in Iceland because people remain in close contact with the land. Parents still let their children play out in the wilderness – often late into the night. Vast pristine areas remain, even near the capital, Reykjavik. "If you ask an Icelander about elves, they might say they don't believe," said Jonsdottir. "But we always have stories of them, if not from ourselves then from someone close like a family member. Of course, not everyone believes in the stories, but the stories and the elves are still there and being told."
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Newlyweds transported from wedding in Wienermobile

Newlyweds Erin Lounsberry and Jason Platt were delighted with the carriage that awaited them after their wedding at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa to take them to their reception.
Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile was decked out with a sign on the back saying: “Just Linked,” and pulled a chain of empty ketchup and mustard bottles instead of the traditional tin cans.
Lounsberry has a bit of an obsession with the red and yellow Wienermobile.
Platt said he was aware of the obsession. “I’ve known her 17 years and I’ve seen her obsession,” he said.
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The 30 Smartest People Alive Today

History is peppered with influential geniuses who changed the world. Individuals like Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein all had groundbreaking ideas that have lived on long after their deaths.
Take a look at 30 of the smartest people alive today - including brilliantly accomplished academics, former child prodigies, IQ whizzes, and super sharp young intellectuals with their whole lives ahead of them.
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DARPA Tried To Build Skynet In The 1980s

From 1983 to 1993 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) spent over $1 billion on a program called the Strategic Computing Initiative. The agency's goal was to push the boundaries of computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics to build something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to the dystopian future of the Terminator movies. They wanted to build Skynet.
Skynet is a fictional, self-aware artificial intelligence system. Skynet's operations are almost exclusively performed by war-machines, cyborgs and other computer systems, with a continuing goal being the extinction of the human race.
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Doctor left surgical pliers in mother's womb

A French mother who gave birth to a child at a Normandy hospital in November got a nasty shock this week after learning the pain she had felt was down to a pair of surgical pliers that a surgeon had left in her womb. The implement had lain undiscovered for six weeks.
The woman, had a caesarian operation at a Rouen university hospital on November 5th but when she returned home the pain wouldn’t stop. “I put it down to the caesarian,” she said. But as the torment continued she finally, on the advice of her GP, returned this week to the hospital, where doctors put her in for a scan of her midriff. “There on the screen, I saw a pair of scissors in my body,” the shocked mother said.
After six and half weeks carrying around the implement inside her she was naturally eager to be rid of the pliers as soon as possible and underwent a successful new operation to remove them on Wednesday night. Although the surgeon, who conducted the caesarian retrieved the item he had left behind, the patient is furious about what happened.
“It’s not normal,” she said. “The doctor apologized. He did not have much of an explanation for what happened. He took responsibility.” The Charles Nicolle hospital, part of the Rouen university hospital centre, acknowledged its fault. Officials said the pregnancy was complicated because of the patient’s medical file. The affected woman and her husband reportedly plan to file a formal complaint in the coming days.
There's a news video in French here.
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Woman chose to publicly shame man who beat her

A woman in Florida chose to publicly humiliate the man who beat her instead of sending him to prison. 20-year-old Alisha Hessler was introduced to the man last weekend when friends of hers invited him out clubbing.
At the end of the night, they were in the back seat of a car when the man made unwanted sexual advances towards her. She asked him to stop and then hit him when he refused. "That's when he started beating me repeatedly until I had a broken nose and a concussion," Hessler said.
On Sunday morning, police were called to her house and a police report was filed, and Hessler was taken to the hospital for her injuries. But in a peculiar turn of events, she decided to not press charges.

YouTube link.
Hessler found the man on Facebook, and gave him the following ultimatum. "I can either press charges and have you arrested, or I can have you sit outside at a busy intersection for eight hours holding up a sign that says I beat women," Hessler said. The man, who has not been named, chose the latter option and sat on a stool wearing a dunce's cap holding a sign that read: "I BEAT WOMEN. HONK IF I'M A SCUMBAG."
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Foul-mouthed man banned from swearing in own home

An abusive alcoholic who dialed 999 over 170 times in 16 months has been banned from swearing in his own home.Foul-mouthed Paul Crick, 45, flooded the emergency line with 171 calls between April 2012 and August this year. When police and paramedics arrived at his home in Waltham Abbey, Essex to help he subjected them to a torrent of abuse.
Essex Police said Crick also caused a “significant level of disturbance and distress to his neighbors” by constantly shouting and swearing. Magistrates in Chelmsford, Essex slapped Crick with an ASBO banning him from swearing for the next five years – even when in his own home.
Presiding magistrate Russell Pearson told him: “No shouting, even in your own home if you are heard by all your neighbors.” The other conditions stipulate that he must not to be verbally abusive, shout, swear or use foul or offensive language in any public place to other persons outside or at their home address.
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Burglars broke into store three times in one night

An Illinois business owner says his store was broken into three times in one night. The break-ins were captured by store surveillance cameras. The Tint Shop, an auto accessories store, sits on busy road in Midlothian.
At 10:30pm on Tuesday a minivan backed up to the front door. Two men got out, used bolt cutters to remove a lock, but an alarm scared them off. But a half hour later they came back. Three surveillance cameras recorded multi-angles of the four-minute smash and grab.
George Leiva and his co-workers have watched the video over and over as the thieves stack up radios, cars alarms, stereo speakers. They don't have enough hands to carry it all. Nobody outside noticed the two men loading the mini-van with over 50 boxes of audio gear, worth roughly $20,000.
The burglars then returned for a 2:30am encore. The Tint Shop owners are offering a reward and hoping that someone can identify the faces on tape.
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Police investigate after artichoke exploded

A woman in northern Italy got a shock after an artichoke she had just bought exploded. The woman, from the village of Olginate, in Italy’s Lombardy region, was slicing into the artichoke at home when it is exploded.Rendered speechless by the explosion, she went to her husband and daughter, who decided to phone the police and the local supermarket.
The woman was not injured in the explosion, but noticed afterwards that the artichoke leaves were left damaged and burnt. The explosion could have been caused by a chemical reaction of the fertilizer used on the artichoke,.
Police have since opened an investigation, while the supermarket has taken its crop of artichokes off the shelf. This is not the first incident of an exploding artichoke in Italy, with similar cases recorded in 2003 and 2008.
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Ziggy

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Ancient iron smelters indicate Huns more than just conquering nomads

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of iron-smelting furnaces used by the ancient Huns, a significant find indicating the conquering nomads were advanced enough to make their own iron and not just pillage it.
Ancient iron smelters indicate Huns more than just conquering nomads
Remnants of an iron-smelting furnace discovered in the remains of Khustyn
Bulag in central Mongolia [Credit: Ehime University]
“With the discovery, the image of a nomadic nation has been altered significantly because we now believe that the Huns built a complex society with a sophisticated system of a division of labor in production,” said Tomotaka Sasada, a senior researcher at Ehime University’s Research Center of Ancient East Asian Iron Culture.

Before the discovery by Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists, the Huns, who built a nomadic nation between the third century B.C. and first century in the Mongolian plateau and adjoining regions, were believed to have obtained iron for weapons and other implements by pillaging the territories of the Chinese Qin Dynasty (221 B.C.- 206 B.C.) and Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220).

The joint team of researchers from Ehime University’s Research Center of Ancient East Asian Iron Culture and the Institute of Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Science have excavated five small iron-smelting furnaces since 2011.
Ancient iron smelters indicate Huns more than just conquering nomads
The Khustyn Bulag ruins in central Mongolia
 [Credit: Ehime University]
They were uncovered in the remains of Khustyn Bulag in Tov province, located about 120 kilometers east from Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia.

Sasada said the remains of the furnaces appear to be a workshop dedicated to iron-making, since few everyday items like pottery were discovered at the site.

The archaeologists concluded through carbon dating that the furnaces date to between the first century B.C. and the first century. Details of the discovery were presented at a symposium held at Ehime University in November.
Ancient iron smelters indicate Huns more than just conquering nomads
The remnants of an iron-smelting furnace at the Khustyn
Bulag ruins [Credit: Ehime University]
The furnaces ranged from several tens of centimeters to 2 meters in width. They had holes 30-40 cm deep and narrow tunnels leading underground, which were filled both with charcoal as well as slag separated from iron.

The furnaces are believed to be a type built underground that is often discovered in ancient remains in regions around the Black Sea and Central Asia. Furnaces used during the Qin and Han dynasties were typically large and built above ground.

A large number of iron artifacts have been discovered at Hun grave sites, such as arrowheads, swords and sets of harnesses.

Historians believed that the Huns pillaged iron materials and weapons during their invasions into Chinese territories or forced Han Chinese metal smiths to make iron after capturing them.
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Hyoid bone analysis supports hypothesis of complex language in Neanderthals

High-resolution 3D analyses of a fossilized hyoid bone support the hypothesis that the Neanderthals communicated with the use of complex language. The study was published yesterday in PLoS One.

Could Neanderthals talk? The latest X-ray analysis conducted at the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste research center (Italy) on the hyoid bone of a Neanderthal Man found in 1989 on the archaeological site of Kebara (Israel), strongly supports this hypothesis. The paper was published in the international journal Plos One, and presents the results of a comparison between the biomechanical properties of the Kebara hyoid and those of the same bone in Homo sapiens. The study was conducted by an international research team with members from Elettra, the University of Chieti and ICTP (Unesco) in Italy, the University of New England and of New South Wales in Australia, and the University of Toronto in Canada.

Scholars dealing with the question of complex language and its evolution, already had focused their attention on the hyoid bone. This is the only bone of the vocal tract and therefore the only part that can fossilize. The hyoid provides support to the larynx and serves as anchor for the tongue and other muscles needed - at least in Homo sapiens - in phonation. It is already known, from the study of external morphology, that the hyoid bones of Homo neanderthalensis and modern man don't differ significantly, as they have a different shape from that of other primates such as chimpanzees. "This observation," says Ruggero D'Anastasio, paleontologist at the University of Chieti, "while being compatible with the use of language by this species of Homo that lived between two hundred and thirty thousand years ago, is in no way sufficient. To be able to say something about the function of the hyoid bone, it was crucial to analyze its internal microstructure, which remodels in response to the mechanical stress to which the bone is subjected."
Hyoid bone analysis supports hypothesis of complex language in Neanderthals
3D reconstruction of hyoid musculature to the level of fiber bundles
[Credit: Ruggero D’Anastasio et al/PLoS ONE]
"At Elettra - explains Lucia Mancini, physicist and expert in X-ray imaging techniques - we have analyzed the hyoid of Kebara and those of numerous Homo sapiens, using microtomography technique, which can provide, in a non-invasive way, a virtual reconstruction in three dimensions, showing the histological characteristics of the bone (trabecular thickness and pattern distribution of the vascular channels) with a resolution not achievable with conventional CAT. From these reconstructions our Australian and Canadian colleagues have also done simulations with the so-called "finite element analysis", originally designed to study materials in the aerospace and nuclear industry, useful to evaluate the biomechanical response of the bone, as a result of external stress."

The results obtained with X-ray microtomography have confirmed that the internal microstructure of the hyoid bone from Kebara is similar to that of the hyoid of modern humans and that, in all the samples, the histological structure is typical of a bone subjected to intense and constant metabolic activity (such as language). Comparisons based on finite element analysis show significant similarities in the micro-biomechanical behavior.

"Although we plan to analyze other hyoids to further increase the significance of the data," says D' Anastasio, "I believe that this work represents a decisive step forward supporting the hypothesis that the Neanderthals were using complex language. Our results confirm in fact that the hyoid bone of the two species had the same type of biomechanical usage. That this also corresponds to the same function—that is speech—it really seems the most reasonable conclusion. Our results, added to other evidence coming from paleontology, archaeology and paleogenetics, goes in the same direction. The use of pigments, the subdivision of residential areas into zones, the use of animal remains (for instance feathers) as personal ornament and other behaviors that can be interpreted as forms of complex comunication, were attributed before only to Homo sapiens, but recently they have been been confirmed also for the Neanderthals. All this adds up to conclude that our ancestors could actually talk."

"Maybe the Neanderthals could also sing and dance to the sound of music," adds Claudio Tuniz, physicist Claudio Tuniz of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste "as suggested by our recent studies on the flute made from the femur of a bear, found in Slovenia on a site that was frequented by Neanderthals 60 millennia ago."
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Ancient Spider Rock Art Sparks Archaeological Mystery

Ancient Spider Rock Art Sparks Archaeological Mystery
The ancients didn't just draw bison and mammoths: they drew spiders in webs, too.
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Liquid Water Beneath Greenland May Swell Sea Levels

Liquid Water Beneath Greenland May Swell Sea Levels
The discovery of an aquifer the size of Ireland is likely to cause major changes in understanding Greenland's role in rising sea levels.
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Starless cloud cores reveal why some stars are bigger than others

Massive stars -- those at least 8 times the mass of our Sun -- present an intriguing mystery: how do they grow so large when the vast majority of stars in the Milky Way are considerably smaller?
Starless cloud cores reveal why some stars are bigger than others
This image from ALMA shows two main cores as imaged by emission from the molecular ion N2D+ (two nitrogen and one deuterium atom). The core on the right is particularly bright and rounded, suggesting it is self-gravitating and poised to form a massive, single star – a very rare occurrence in star formation. The other core appears more distorted and fragmented, potentially leading to the formation of multiple lower-mass stars. This fragmentation is a normal process in star-forming clouds [Credit: Bill Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)]
To find the answer, astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope to survey the cores of some of the darkest, coldest, and densest clouds in our Galaxy to search for the telltale signs of star formation.

These objects, known as Infrared Dark Clouds, were observed approximately 10,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellations of Aquila and Scutum.

Since these cloud cores are so massive and dense, gravity should have already overwhelmed their supporting gas pressure, allowing them to collapse to form new, Sun-mass stars. If a star had not yet begun to shine, that would be a hint that something extra was supporting the cloud.

"A starless core would indicate that some force was balancing out the pull of gravity, regulating star formation, and allowing vast amounts of material to accumulate in a scaled-up version of the way our own Sun formed," remarked Jonathan Tan, an astrophysicist at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and lead author of a paper published today in the Astrophysical Journal. "This suggests that massive stars and Sun-like stars follow a universal mechanism for star formation. The only difference is the size of their parent clouds."

Average stars like our Sun begin life as dense, but relatively low-mass concentrations of hydrogen, helium, and other trace elements inside large molecular clouds. After the initial kernel emerges from the surrounding gas, material collapses under gravity into the central region in a relatively ordered fashion via a swirling accretion disk, where eventually planets can form. After enough mass accumulates, nuclear fusion begins at the core and a star is born.

While this model of star formation can account for the vast majority of stars in our Milky Way, something extra is needed to explain the formation of more massive stars. "Some additional force is needed to balance out the normal process of collapse, otherwise our Galaxy would have a fairly uniform stellar population," said Tan. "Alternatively, there has been speculation that two separate models of star formation are needed: one for Sun-like stars and one for these massive stars."

The key to teasing out the answer is to find examples of massive starless cores -- to witness the very beginnings of massive star birth.

The team of astronomers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy used ALMA to look inside these cores for a unique chemical signature involving the isotope deuterium to essentially take the temperatures of these clouds to see if stars had formed. Deuterium is important because it tends to bond with certain molecules in cold conditions. Once stars turn on and heat the surrounding gas, the deuterium is quickly lost and replaced with the more common isotope of hydrogen.

The ALMA observations detected copious amounts of deuterium, suggesting that the cloud is cold and starless. This would indicate that some counter force is forestalling core collapse and buying enough time to form a massive star. The researchers speculate that strong magnetic fields may be propping up the cloud, preventing it from collapsing quickly.

"These new ALMA observations reveal objects that are quite similar to the nurseries of Sun-like stars, but simply scaled-up by tens or a hundred times. This may mean that nature is more important than nurture when it comes to determining a star's size," concludes Tan.

These observations were conducted during ALMA's early science campaign. Future studies with ALMA's full array of 66 antennas will uncover even more details about these star-forming regions.

ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
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Snoozing horse turned into toboggan ending upside down with head trapped between trees

Nike the horse had settled down in his normal spot for a nap after a snowstorm hit Placerville, California. Once asleep, he rolled over and slid down a snowy embankment, hitting trees, then flipped upside down, headfirst, sliding into another group of trees and got his head caught. It would take a chainsaw and two hours to get him free. When Nike’s owner Kathy Carpenter first discovered him she wasn’t sure if he would even survive.
But thanks to some quick thinking, he did. Strangled by two trees, Nike slipped in the snow and was stuck in a dangerous situation. “He had just laid down in his spot to take a little nap, and he turned into a toboggan and slid 63 feet down the hill, hit a group of oak trees, which flung him around and upside down, and he was lodged,” said Carpenter. Carpenter says she couldn’t believe it, even when she saw it for herself. She can only describe it as a freak accident. “You couldn’t have had engineers try and plan it,” she said.
Carpenter says it was immediately clear Nike was in trouble. He was struggling for every breath. “His neck was wedged in a ‘Y.’ It was squeezing so tight and it was cutting off the circulation,” said Carpenter. Some neighbors, Carpenter’s son and Nike’s vet showed up to help. At first they weren’t sure how to get him free. “It’s like ‘oh my gosh, we got to put him down. We got to put him out of his misery.’ There was just no way we could maneuver a big animal out of the tight position he was in,” said Carpenter.
Carpenter says Nike was starting to give up. So they decided to use a chainsaw to cut down the trees. It was a dangerous job that involved sawing right next to Nike’s neck. “(We) had to get it so close, but we still couldn’t break it,” said Carpenter. Eventually they used a handsaw to finish the job. Nike then rolled over and was able to get up on his own. “As soon as he got up, he got to his feet. He whinnied and the others ones whinnied back,” said Carpenter. “It was a Xmas miracle; it really was,” said Carpenter. Nike did suffer some trauma to his spinal cord and does have some muscle tissue damage; but, his owner hopes he will make a full recovery.

There's a news video here.
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Dyed marine animal skeletons

Iori Tomita is a artist/fisherman from Yokohama City who dyes the skeletons of the dead marine animals he finds in the sea and on the beach. He's done over 5,000 so far.
New world Transparent Specimen-Profile
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Red Crab Migration On Christmas Island

Millions upon millions of Red Crabs take to the streets on Christmas Island, Australia as part of their migration for breeding season every October/November each year. The crabs journey from the forest to the sea during the beginning of the wet season when the conditions are moist and suitable for their survival on the road.

Upon reaching the sea, the crabs mate and release their eggs into the sea. After a few weeks, when the eggs have hatched, they make a long return journey back to the forests along with their tiny, new younglings.
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Animal Pictures

10bullets:

Pacific Yellowfin Great Bear cruise (63) by pacificyellowfincharters on Flickr.
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nacktman
Communing with the Gods in the Lake Norman Area or Mars (depending on who you ask)., United States
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