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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.


Saturday, April 26, 2014

The Daily Drift

Be sure to always take the correct path ...!
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 197 countries around the world daily.   

Dried Herbs ... !
Today is - National Herb Day


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

Some of our reader today have been in:
The Americas
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Europe
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Kharkiv and Kiev, Ukraine
Rome, Ravenna, Treviso and Vicenza, Italy
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Bushey and London, England
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Athens, Greece
Kista and Stockholm, Sweden
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Africa 
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The Pacific
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Today in History

757 Stephen II ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1478 Pazzi conspirators attack Lorenzo and kill Giuliano de'Medici.
1514 Copernicus makes his first observations of Saturn.
1564 William Shakespeare is baptized.
1607 The British establish a colony at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1865 Joseph E. Johnston surrenders the Army of Tennessee to Sherman.
1915 Second Lieutenant Rhodes-Moorhouse becomes the first airman to win the Victoria Cross after conducting a successful bombing raid.
1929 The first non-stop flight from England to India is completed.
1931 New York Yankee Lou Gehrig hits a home run but is called out for passing a runner, the mistake ultimately costs him the home run record.
1937 The ancient Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain is bombed by German planes.
1941 The first organ is played at a baseball stadium in Chicago.
1968 Students seize the administration building at Ohio State University.
1983 The Dow Jones Industrial Average breaks 1,200 for first time.
1986 The world's worst nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Union.
1994 Nelson Mandela wins the presidency in South Africa's first multiracial elections.

Non Sequitur

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How airlines treat the one-percenters

 
Qantas A380's fully flat Skybed in business class In the April 21 edition of The New Yorker, David Owen describes the luxuries of premium-class seating and visits the firms that design jet interiors.
Seven years ago, I flew business class on Qantas from Australia to California, a thirteen-hour trip. I hadn’t had much experience outside economy, but I didn’t want to look like a front-of-the-plane rookie, so I stowed my “amenity kit” without ripping it open, declined the first cocktail a flight attendant offered me, and tried to appear engrossed in a book while the passenger nearest me bounced around like a four-year-old at a birthday party. I didn’t begin to play with my own seat until after dinner, when I lowered it into its fully extended position, and stretched out -- not to sleep, which is something I hardly ever manage on airplanes, but to see how the thing worked. The concave back of the seat shell formed a domed enclosure over my head, like a demi-cocoon. Suddenly, I heard people speaking in loud voices and banging things around. I sat up, indignant -- and realized that the noise was the sound of breakfast being served. I’d slept for eight hours straight, something I never do even at home. In a little while, we began our descent into Los Angeles.

9 Incredibly Useful Russian Words With No English Equivalent

by Christina Sterbenz
toska Russian tattoo 
In many languages, a single word describes a concept that might require an entire phrase in English. 
Like Japanese, Russian uses a  different alphabet (Cyrillic) than English and has lots of words that just don't translate.
Here are some words for which we wish there were an English equivalent:

Тоска (tas-'ka)

While this Russian word roughly translates as emotional pain or melancholy, native speakers continue to claim Americans can't possibly understand its depth. Vladimir Nabokov, the famous Russian-American author of "Lolita," put it best:
No single word in English renders all the shades of "toska." At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.

пошлость ('poshe-list)

In Anton Chekhov’s short story “A Lady With a Dog,” the heroine cries out after sex that she has become a "poshlost" woman.
"This one word encompasses triviality, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, and a lack of spirituality," Harvard professor Svetlana Boym explains in "Common Places: Everyday Life in Russia."
From 1860 to 1960, Boym also notes, Soviet Russia embarked on a battle against this particular form of banal obscenity.

бытие ('bwi-tee-ye)

Post by themedved on /r/doesnottranslate, this Russian noun hints at hyper-consciousness or an objective and analytical mindset. Russian-to-English dictionaries might translate it as "being." While the word does stem from the Russian verb for "to be," the exact meaning contains a metaphysical property English can't relay.
Proz.com, a forum for translations, also defines the word as "enrichment of one's life."

переподвыподверт ('per-e-pod-'voy-pod-'vert)

Reddit user deffun on /r/doesnottranslate defined this noun as "to do something in a complex, incomprehensible way."
The word kind of embodies itself, as it has four prefixes including one that repeats itself twice.

беспредел (bes-pre-'del)

Posted by Reddit user Izgoy on /r/doesnottranslate, "bespredel" literally means "without limits or boundaries," as New York University Slavic professor Eliot Borenstein defined in his book, "Overkill: Sex and Violence In Contemporary Russian Popular Culture."
The word also conjures images of chaotic violence, and Google translate says it means "lawlessness." When this state is in place, an ordinary person is at the mercy of somebody behaving without regard to law or structures.

почемучка ('pa-che-'mooch-ka)

This refers to a person, normally a child, who asks a lot of questions.
While English-speakers might use "busybody," "pochemuchka" doesn't have the same negative connotation. In fact, parents or grandparents often us it as a term of endearment because of its relation to a children's book called "Что я ви́дел," or "What I Saw."

сушняк ('soosh-nyak)

Like English, Russian has a slew of words to convey states of drunkenness: various levels, hangovers, and more.
According to a post by DragonFilet, it means "that really dry feeling you get in your throat when you wake up after a night of drinking."
It can also interpreted idiomatically as "the cat pooped in my mouth," as noted by The Arioch.

Недоперепил ('ne-do-per-ee-'pel)

Another drinking-related word, posted by Pavswede, this means "under-over-drunk," as defined on Proz.com. In other words, someone drank more than he or she should have, but less than he or she could have (or wanted to).

белоручка ('bel-a-'rooch-ka)

This word describes someone who doesn't want to do any dirty work. The first part of the word, "belo," is a variant of "white" in Russian. As noted by the Moscow Times, Russian includes tons of black-and-white meaning good-and-evil references.
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Judge tells 'insensitive' father in custody dispute not to type emails to his children in capital letters

An "insensitive" father banned by the courts from seeing his children has been warned by a judge not to type his emails to them in capital letters - because it looks like he is shouting. The Israeli father was fighting in the High Court in London  for direct contact with the boy and girl, aged 13 and nine, after a collapse in their family relationship.

His marriage to their mother had broken down and a protracted legal battle has seen them moved back and forth between England and Israel. Mrs Justice Pauffley said attempts at contact in the UK had proved "nothing short of disastrous", with the girl distraught throughout one session.
And the police had become involved when the father tried to take the children outside during a supervised meet-up at a rabbi's home. The children also felt that their father's emails to them - written sometimes exclusively in capitals and others in large fonts - were "equivalent to him shouting".

The judge said the emails were an example of the father's "insensitivity" and that a family assistance officer should help him write more "suitable" communications. "He needs help to make his messages appropriate and child friendly," said the judge. "There's nothing worse than an email suggestive that the sender is shouting at you." She said the family now needed to try to restore a relationship between the children and their father "at a distance".

Gangs Story

The Photographs Of Yan Morvan
Outlaw motorcycle clubs have been riding free and freaking out the norms since World War II, when a bunch of servicemen back from the war decided to take a ride on the dark side of life.
French photographer Yan Morvan has always been fascinated by bikers, and gang members in general, so it’s no surprise that he made these free-wheeling folks the focus of his photographic vision, documenting biker gangs from all over for a book called Gangs Story, which was actually banned by French court.
Yan is a bit of a badass, with a rebellious streak in him as wide as the open road, and a few years ago he gave VICE a fascinating, and eyebrow raising, interview about his exploits which you can read here.

Why People Still Join the Ku Klux Klan

The Internet has played a major role in keeping extreme groups like the Klan alive.

Radical press demands copyright takedown of Marx-Engels Collected Works

Lawrence and Wishart, a radical press founded in 1936 and formerly associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain, has asserted a copyright over "Marx-Engels Collected Works," a series of $25-50-ish hardcovers, and demanded that they be removed from the Marxist Internet Archive. As Scott McLemee notes, the editions in question were "prepared largely if not entirely with the support of old-fashioned, Soviet-era Moscow gold" and consist, in large part, of arguments about the moral bankruptcy and corrupting influence of claims of private property.
Marx-Engels Collected Works will be removed from Marxists.org on May Day. Here's a torrent of the full set. 
If Lawrence & Wishart still considers itself a socialist institution, its treatment of the Archive is uncomradely at best, and arguably much worse; while if the press is now purely a capitalist enterprise, its behavior is merely stupid. I hope some of you will get in touch with the press to say that, or something else appropriate. Here’s the contact information:
Lawrence & Wishart
99a Wallis Road
London E9 5LN
subs and orders:
T: 01621 741607
editorial:
T: 020 8533 2506
F: 020 8533 736
Managing Editor: Sally Davison. sally@lwbooks.co.uk
Finance Director: Avis Greenaway. avis@lwbooks.co.uk
Permissions: permissions@lwbooks.co.uk
Website: Becky Luff office@lwbooks.co.uk
Promotions: Katharine Harris Katharine@lwbooks.co.uk

It’s Not Nice to Mock Dear Leader

Seeking an suitable image to promote a special offer, a hairdressers in west London attracted more than just extra customers when it used a large poster of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in its window.
When M&M Hair Academy in south Ealing put up the 1-metre-by-1.2-metre poster featuring Kim's distinctive short back and sides with longer centre parting and the words "Bad hair day?", they received a visit from disgruntled North Korean officials. Unbeknown to the salon's owner, Mo Nabbach, 51, the North Korean embassy is just 10-minute stroll away, inside a modest semi-detached house in Gunnersbury.

"The day after it went up two Asian-looking guys wearing suits turned up. One was taking pictures and the other taking notes," said Nabbach. "I said to my client at the time, 'I think they are North Korean officials.' Then they came in. They asked: 'Who put that picture up?' I said I did. He said the pair told him the poster was disrespectful and must come down. They said: 'That is a country's national leader.' I explained to them we often used pictures of celebrities, Lady Diana, Victoria Beckham.
 
"I told them: 'Listen, this is not North Korea. This is England.' They asked for my name and I told them they would have to get their solicitors for that." Nabbach said he asked them to leave, and later reported the incident to his local police station. The two did not identify themselves as being from the North Korean embassy, he said. But a Metropolitan police spokesman said: "I can confirm that the North Korean embassy have contacted us and that we are in liaison with them. Officers spoke to all parties. No offenses have been disclosed."
More:



Mo Nabbach manages the M&M Hair Academy in London, England. After the story circulated about Kim Jong-un mandating that male North Korean students wear his haircut, Nabbach posted a sign outside his salon featuring a picture of the North Korean leader. The caption said, “Bad hair day? 15 per cent off all gent cuts through the month of April. Tuesday – Thursday." It was all fun and games until two men claiming to be from the North Korean Embassy visited the salon and ordered the sign removed.
Mr Nabbach's son Karim, 26, said: "We put up a poster offering a discount on men's haircuts.

"Then North Korean officials came in and asked for it to be taken down.

"My father told them: 'This is England and not North Korea' and he told them to get their lawyers."

His father removed the poster, but quickly put it back up after some of his clients urged him to demonstrate that Britain is a democracy.

Mr Nabbach said: "The two men were wearing suits and they were very serious. My father said it was very threatening."
Nabbach reported the incident to the police, who cannot do anything until a law is broken. The North Korean Embassy, which is only a few minutes’ walk from the salon, refused to comment on the incident.

KIm Jong Un seems more like a cartoon super-villain as each day passes

KIm Jong Un seems more like a cartoon supervillain as each day passes
A North Korean official has reportedly been executed by flamethrower, as part of an apparent purge against supporters of Kim Jong-un’s uncle.
Jang Song-tank was killed by the regime in December after it accused him of corruption and disloyalty. Since then as many as 11 senior party officials have been killed or sent to prison camps, the UK Telegraph said.
The Telegraph cited a report in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper saying that O Sang-hon, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Security, was “executed by flamethrower.”
Wow! Execution by flamethrower. That’s truly barbaric. Or should that be barbecuic?

Ziggy

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Why Do We All Procrastinate?

If you're watching this video, you might be procrastinating! Why do we procrastinate and should we feel guilty about it? Annie discusses how procrastination evolved in us.

Punishments for scientists who don't make research open access

The National Institutes of Health requires research it funds to be put into the public access PubMed Central database within a year of publication. Now, it's witholding grant money from scientists who fail to comply with that rule. Ditto the Wellcome Trust in the UK.

Why Sports Are Unfair

It seems like there are terrible calls made in nearly every sport! Are the referees biased? Annie discusses how some of the refs might be subconsciously making the wrong call.

Voodoo Dolls Shed Light on Domestic Spats

Having low blood glucose means you are more likely to stick pins in a voodoo doll that represents your spouse.

Here's something you might not have known ...

A visit to a legal recreational marijuana store

By Maggie
I had kind of expected to find that, following the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, Boulder's head shop business would merge with the newly created legal pot business, to create a sort of Super Head Shop — where one could purchase both Grateful Dead teddy bear T-shirts and the substances necessary to make those shirts seem cool.
I was wrong.
Other than a handful of smoking devices, the Terrapin Care Station did not carry any random pot culture accoutrements. No, not even souvenir post cards. (Which, seriously.) Instead, when my associates and I walked in the door, we found a lobby not unlike the one at my dentist's office — pleather couches, soothing green-painted walls, a long reception desk. It was almost distressingly boring. Except, then, there was the security guard, the long line at the ATM (a necessity for a cash-only business), and the round, red take-a-number dispenser. We got number 420. Yes, that really happened.
The security guard's name was Joseph Compton. He's been working the job for about two and half months and really enjoys it, far more than his usual security gigs. The people are nice and happy, he told me. And, when one provides security for a pot store, one is not expected to maintain a demeanor of absolute seriousness. "It's nice to not have to be such a jerk all the time," he said.
When our number was called (At 4:23 in the afternoon. Again, I am not making this up.) we were escorted through a plain white door and into the showroom. Here, groups of three or fewer customers are paired with a salesperson who shows off the store's wares, answers questions, and makes recommendations about particular products based on your personal needs. Say, for instance, that you are interested in consuming marijuana and then enjoying a pleasant evening chatting with friends. Your salesperson would show you the menu (because there's a menu) and recommend three or four strains that you should choose from, while also indicating which strains you should avoid. It's all very civilized. Like going to the wine store, or the bourbon distillery. (Only without the free samples.)
Then, you're given small containers of the recommended strains to smell and examine as you make your decision. This is all probably old hat to those of you who live in states with medical marijuana laws. For those of us who do not live in those states, it was a very surreal experience.
The marijuana comes in containers with child safety caps and warning labels on the side.
In fact, that was the part of the experience that felt oddest to me — the perfectly normalized commercialization of a product that I had not really previously thought of as a commercial product. Suddenly, there are brands and branding. There are locally grown and organic assurances. There is well-designed packaging, from companies that are clearly just waiting to enter a larger market. Check out the chai-flavored pot mints in the lower right of the next photo.
And, as a natural outgrowth of that, there are even consumer advocates and investigative reports on company practices. Our salesperson gave us a tour of some of the different edibles sold at Terrapin Care Station, including Dixie chocolates and Wana Rolls. The benefit to products like this, she said, is that you can more easily control the dosage. There are 100mg of THC in the Dixie black and white bar. So you can cut that into fourths and know about how much THC you're consuming.
Except, in March, The Denver Post and The Cannabinist ran independent testing of a wide variety of commercial edibles and found that the actual THC concentrations were usually very different from what was advertised on the packaging. Most of the time, the investigation found that folks in Colorado are getting far less THC then they paid for. Sometimes, though, they're getting considerably more, and both outcomes have their downsides.
All of which sort of left me wondering about how the commercialization of pot is going to change pot culture specifically, and how popular culture conceives of pot, in general. For the better part of a century, financial relationships surrounding marijuana have depended largely on personal relationships — and the trust that came with that. If marijuana is just one more product in foil packaging from a faceless corporation, how does that affect the way we think about it? If somebody's mom can run into the pot store on the way home from work, leaving her groceries, dog, and child in the car (which is something we saw) just as if she were running into the convenience store for a gallon of milk ... is pot still cool? I mean, people are still going to use it. Obviously. But while the way I think about pot is pretty similar to the attitudes and ideas my parents' generation has about it, the same is unlikely to be true 20 or 30 years from now, when my daughter is an adult. When weed is no longer illegal, does it cease to be part of the counterculture? When the counterculture becomes mainstream, what is it?
Dude. I don't even know. Welcome to a brave new world. A world where your pot comes with a receipt.

Pot Vending Machine Also Sells Snacks

A pot-selling machine in Colorado lets users discretely take away bud and a little snack.

Viagra Ice Cream Arouses Controversy

The long list of unnatural food combinations just grew a little bigger: Viagra and Champagne ice cream.

Daily Comic Relief

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How we are dying

 
Bloomberg Visual Data reports on the ways people die, and how they have changed over time. The most interesting part of the report is about dementia and Alzheimer's:
The downside to living so long is that it dramatically increases the odds of getting dementia or Alzheimer's. That's why total deaths in the 75+ category has stayed constant despite impressive reductions in the propensity to die of heart disease.
The rise of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia has had a big impact on healthcare costs because these diseases kill the victim slowly.
About 40% of the total increase in Medicare spending since 2011 can be attributed to greater spending on Alzheimer's treatment.

Measles outbreaks have potential to spread farther, and through more people, than we thought

People fully vaccinated against measles could lose some of that protection as they get older. That means teenagers, college students, and adults could, potentially, contract and pass along measles in outbreaks that begin with younger, un-vaccinated children.

Why Do We Get Allergies?

Spring is finally here! And so are allergies. Tara investigates why we have allergies and discusses some ways that might provide you with some relief.

Staph bacteria thank you for using antimicrobial soap

People who tested positive for triclosan were "twice as likely to have the bug Staphylococcus aureus living in their noses... when bacteria are exposed to sublethal levels of antibiotics, they get stressed, and they attach to surfaces and hunker down, in things we call biofilms." -- Scientific American

What good is the NSA after all?


'Blood Moon' Myths

Tonight's "blood moon" has inspired myths, legends, and superstitions.

Weird light photographed on Mars

622x350 A strange light was visible in photos of Mars like the one above taken by the Curiosity rover last week. Is it a beacon from an underground extraterrestrial base as some UFO researchers suggest, or simply sunlight glinting from a shiny rock? NASA claims it's likely the latter, but what do they know.

In space, everyone can drink your pee

Coming soon to space: A urine recycling system that turns pee into both water AND the electricity necessary to power the water purification system.

Coming Tomorrow

Coming Tomorrow
  • Why we miss subtle changes, and why it keeps us sane
  • High school science teacher suspended for teaching science
  • Suspended animation in clinical trails
  • An inject-able oxygen particle that lets you survive without breathing
And more ...
This moth is our Animal Picture, for today