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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Daily Drift

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Today in History

37 
The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
1692
William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.
1863
Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1865
The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
1874
Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
1881
Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.
1911
Theodore Roosevelt opens the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the United States to date.
1913
Greek King George I is killed by an assassin. Constantine I is to succeed.
1916
On the Eastern Front, the Russians counter the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lose 100,000 men and the Germans lose 20,000.
1917
The Germans sink the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.
1922
Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India.
1939
Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.
1942
The third military draft begins in the United States.
1943
Adolf Hitler calls off the offensive in the Caucasus.
1943
American forces take Gafsa in Tunisia.
1944
The Russians reach the Rumanian border.
1950
Nationalist troops land on the mainland of China and capture Communist-held Sungmen.
1953
The Braves baseball team announces that they are moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
1965
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to spacewalk when he exits his Voskhod 2 space capsule while in orbit around the Earth.
1969
President Richard M. Nixon authorizes Operation Menue, the'secret' bombing of Cambodia.
1970
The U.S. Postal Service is paralyzed by the first postal strike.
1971
U.S. helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
1975
South Vietnam abandons most of the Central Highlands to North Vietnamese forces.
1981
The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.
1986
Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson

McCrory’s blind spots on ethics

Pat McCrory failed to disclose trips paid for by others. 
Gov. Pat McCrory failed to disclose trips paid for by others.In his first run for governor in 2008, Pat McCrory fixed on a theme that would prove successful in his second try in 2012. He ran against what he considered the cloaked and unethical conduct of Democrats too long in power.
“People are fed up with the culture of state government, a culture of inaccessibility, a culture of the leaders being invisible, (a) culture of secrecy, and sadly a culture of corruption,” McCrory said at a campaign event in Brunswick County in September 2008.
Now, in the third year of his first term, the words and theme of candidate McCrory have an odd resonance. There’s no evidence that Gov. McCrory has abused his powers, but there is also no evidence that he’s doing much to prevent abuses or dispel the appearance of potential abuses. This “reform” governor is strangely cavalier when it comes to situations that raise ethical questions.
Last week, McCrory stumbled for a third time over proper disclosure on state ethics forms. In response to a complaint from the liberal advocacy group, Progress N.C. Action, McCrory had to amend his forms to show seven previously unreported trips in 2013 valued at about $13,000.
The trips involved McCrory’s attendance at meetings of the National Governors Association, the Republican Governors Association and the Southern Governors Association. Those may sound like part of a governor’s official travels, and McCrory and his legal advisers apparently thought they didn’t need to be reported even though others covered the governor’s expenses. But some of these meetings can be lavish affairs with special interests lining up make their pitches to a state’s chief executive.
The New York Times has reported that corporations gave undisclosed donations of $250,000 each to the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee in return for access. The Democratic Governors Association collects similar donations. It doesn’t sound right, but it’s legal. Perhaps it’s too much to ask that McCrory avoid such gatherings, but he should at least report the value of his covered expenses when he goes.
Exposing the unreported trips was Progress N.C. Action’s second hit against the governor. Earlier, it filed a complaint with the N.C. Ethics Commission over McCrory’s failure to report stock holdings in Duke Energy, his role in a company owned by his brother and delayed income he received from serving on the board of Tree.com, the corporate parent of the online lender, Lending Tree. McCrory says he severed ties with Tree.com before becoming governor, but the company, which is subject to state banking regulators appointed by the governor, paid McCrory $185,509 after his inauguration in January of 2013. The Ethics Commission is considering the complaints. McCrory could ask that the review process be open, but he hasn’t.
McCrory says he’s getting tripped up because he has been in business rather than being exclusively a public servant. But it hardly seems a case of good-government sticklers picking on private-sector Pat. Rather, McCrory has made a living by mingling his public and private roles and now seems oblivious as to where one ends and the other begins. During his years as Charlotte’s mayor, he was also an employee of Duke Power, now Duke Energy. Afterward, although not a lawyer, he worked for Moore & Van Allen, a Charlotte law firm that is often engaged in lobbying. Representatives of Moore & Van Allen delivered most of $235,000 in campaign contributions given to McCrory, the state Republican Party and lawmakers of both parties by an Oklahoma sweepstakes software provider, Chase Burns. Burns, who was pushing for North Carolina to legalize Internet sweepstakes, was later indicted in Florida and Oklahoma on charges of racketeering involving illegal gambling and pleaded no contest to two felonies.
In the sweepstakes case, serious ethical questions remain. McCrory, like some of the legislative recipients, gave the tainted contributions to charity after questions were raised. After a complaint about the contributions was filed with the State Board of Elections, McCrory used his appointment authority to replace the entire, five-member board, including its Republican members. The governor was entitled to make the appointments, but he was insensitive to the timing. Now, two years after the complaint was filed, the Board of Elections says the matter is still under investigation.
Finally, the governor has participated in fundraisers hosted by the Renew NC Foundation, a group formed by his associates to promote his agenda. The independent tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group is not obligated to release the names of donors and doesn’t. If he were truly committed to transparency, the governor wouldn’t abide such a slush fund, or at a minimum would ask that the corporations and individuals who give to it be disclosed.
McCrory has moved from attacking a culture of corruption to fending off ethics questions. In an interview with WRAL after the Tree.com reporting issue, he said, “If I don’t fight against it, that very powerful media machine, with all due respect, with (its) misinformation, I’m gonna be in – people are going to start believing it.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/ned-barnett/article14384000.html?utm_content=bufferf75c3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#storylink=cpy

Tom Cotton Seems Confused About The Basic Geography Of Iran

Jeb Bush sold patronage and favors to his top political donors

The AP analysis of Bush's 275,000 FOIA'ed emails show that "donations" to his campaign were really more like "purchases."
Of course, this is what everyone suspects -- indeed, is certain of -- in the case of politicians. But it's one thing to see the money come in and the appointments flow out, and another to read the elected officials corresponding with their staffers saying, basically, "Hey, this guy gave me a lot of money, let's give him this plum appointment."
By the way, I'd be pretty fucking surprised if H Clinton's complete email trove was any less damning.
Take William ‘Bill’ Becker, a Florida citrus grower and longtime Republican donor. “He was among the circle of loyalists invited to huddle with Bush in December to hear about his presidential ambitions,” the AP wrote, citing Becker’s years of concurrent political donations to Bush and lobbying him on matters ranging from state citrus marketing funds, appointments to a citrus marketing board and hospital association, and college donations.
Speaking of a candidate to the Florida Citrus Commission, who Bush did appoint, Becker wrote, “She and her family have been loyal supporters… You met her at the Governor's Mansion on one occasion and I believe you may have met her at the Florida House event at our home. I believe she is immensely well qualified to serve on the Florida Citrus Commission.”
Nine days later, after she got the post, Becker wrote, “Many thanks for an expedited and wonderful appointment.”
The AP’s example of Becker’s interactions with Bush is not unique. The issues may not be as riveting as whether Bush tried to prevent a hospital from turning off the life support system for Terri Schaivo—a major issue for some conservative Christians, or fight federal government efforts to send Elian Gonzales, a Cuban child, back to that country in a custody dispute. But they are what the daily life of a governor often consists of. If anything, the New Yorker's recent profile of Bush's efforts to privatize public education and how that made him and a handful of business colleagues wealthy, is a much more troubling picture of political corruption.

Arizona Republic Promotes Koch-Backed Effort To Privatize Department Of Veterans Affairs

by Daniel Angster
The Arizona Republic recently published an editorial promoting Concerned Veterans for America's efforts to privatize much of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). While the group is presented by the Republic as an impartial veterans organization, it is actually a right-wing group backed by Charles and David Koch and headed by a Fox News contributor.  In a March 12 editorial, the Republic editorial board highlighted President Obama's visit to the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital, during which he reportedly plans to hold a round table to discuss reforming the VA. The editorial board lamented that the president has allegedly failed to invite any "real reformers" to the meeting, holding up Concerned Veterans for America as an example:
If there is to be any genuine, lasting and positive reform coming from this failure to care for American veterans, the real reformers need to gain the president's ear. The president needs to hear from more than those who advocate more of the same, albeit with a lot more money.
But they don't appear to have been invited to the president's round table Friday.
Concerned Veterans for America has produced the most significant reform proposal for the VA hospital system, advocating that the enormous government division turn over much of its operations to the private sector while emphasizing care of maladies unique to the military.
No CVA representative was invited to the president's table at the Phoenix VA, although the Washington-based group expressed its eagerness to participate.
In expressing support for the Concerned Veterans of America (CVA), the Republic failed to provide the important context that the group is heavily backed by the Koch brothers. In 2014, The Washington Post identified CVA as an "organization that is part of the of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers' political network." The paper also listed CVA as part of a "coalition of allied conservative groups" that were "backed by a donor network organized by the industrialists Charles and David Koch" that raised more than $400 million during the 2012 election cycle. The group was also active in the 2014 midterm elections, conducting a "10-city 'Defend Freedom Summer Tour,'" and airing misleading ads targeting Democratic congressional candidates.
The Sunlight Foundation reported that during the 2014 campaign cycle, Freedom Partners, another Koch-affiliated group, transferred "valuable" local television ad contracts to CVA, which the organization argued "illustrates just how tightly some organizations connected to the Koch brothers operate."
CVA's CEO, Pete Hegseth, is a Fox News contributor who ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in Minnesota in 2012 and was appointed the Minnesota Republican Party finance chair in 2014.
The group's partisanship on VA issues caused Stars and Stripes columnist Tom Philpott to write that "in my 37 years covering veterans' issues, I have never seen veteran issues used more cynically or politicized more thoroughly than during the past several years." Philpott lambasted CVA for "posing as a vet advocacy group and being rewarded for it":
In the thick of this is Concerned Veterans for America, posing as a vet advocacy group and being rewarded for it.  CVA press releases usually are partisan attacks.  Its spokesman, Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war vet and Republican who ran for a U.S. Senate in 2012, is quoted often by major news outlets without mention of press reports associating CVA with the Koch brothers, libertarian billionaires who create public interest groups to oppose big government.  That's fine.  That's protected speech.  A CVA spokesman told me last year it won't reveal donor information.
What should upset vets is the use of select facts about VA and its programs to reinforce fears rather than give reliable information.  Last week a CVA press release hit a new low in purporting to document "lies" Shinseki told in congressional testimony, dropping any veil of respect for a decorated, combat-disabled soldier with a long and stellar career,

Sorry Righties, Seattle Restaurant Closures Are NOT Due To $15 Minimum Wage

The city of Seattle, Washington, embarked on a bold experiment when the city council voted to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage. In recent weeks there has been a rash of restaurant closings in the city, and of course, the right is very happy to blame the new minimum wage for those closures. Would it surprise you to learn that they’re not telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?American Thinker, a site where the writers seem to do anything but, proclaims in a March 14 headline, “Seattle restaurants going dark as $15 an hour minimum wage goes into effect.”
The libertarian site, Reason, proclaims, “Seattle’s Looming $15 Minimum Wage Seems to Be Costing Restaurant Lives.”
Of course, the always full of it, Hot Air, weighs in, saying, “Seattle eateries closing as $15 minimum wage approaches.”
As usual, the truth is more complicated, and not quite what those sites would have you believe.
Seattle’s minimum wage does not jump to $15 an hour in April.
Right-wing sites want everyone to believe that, come April 1, the minimum wage in Seattle will jump from the current level to $15 an hour. That’s not what’s happening at all. The new minimum wage will be phased in over several years. How quickly a business reaches the $15 an hour level depends on the size of the business, and whether or not the business offers employees health care benefits, as explained on Seattle mayor Ed Murray’s web page.
The current minimum wage in Washington state is $9.32 an hour. That wage goes to $11 an hour on April 1 for businesses with more than 500 employees. For businesses such as restaurants, with fewer than 500 employees, who receive “minimum compensation,” that wage can be made up of a combination of wages, tips, and employer contributions to an employee health care plan, as long as the total of all the compensation equals at least $11 an hour. The full $15 an hour minimum wage does not take effect for restaurants until 2019.
The right-wing sites mentioned above all latched onto a story in Seattle Magazine, that says that the impending wage increase is one of the reasons for the restaurant closures. However, Sara Jones, author of the story, acknowledges that not a single restaurateur she spoke to gave the wage increase as a reason for his or her restaurant being closed.
Why are Seattle restaurants closing?
It is true that Seattle is seeing a large number of restaurants closing their doors. So, what exactly is going on, if it’s not the new minimum wage? It’s a variety of things. According to Seattle Magazine, Anthony Anton, the head of the Washington Restaurant Association, says that each year, about 17 percent of Washington restaurants go out of business, or change owners. That amounts to about 400 restaurants “in a good year,” he says.
Seattle Met highlights some of the closings, and the reasons for them. Renee Erickson is closing her Boat Street Cafe so that she can concentrate on two other restaurants, both of which she is opening this summer. Wait. She’s closing one, and opening two, and we’re supposed to believe that the one that is closing is due to a higher minimum wage?
Little Uncle is closing their restaurant because they have decided that bigger is not necessarily better. The owners say that the larger location doesn’t fit their personal and professional goals. After closing the larger venue, Little Uncle continues to do business out of their original, smaller, take-out location.
Grub, an upscale restaurant highlighted in the right-wing coverage of restaurant closings, closed simply because the owner has decided to move on. Sharon Fillingim explains on the restaurant’s Facebook page that she believes it is sometimes best for an entrepreneur to “leave at the top of [her] game.” She makes no mention of the minimum wage increase having any influence in her decision. In fact, contrary to what right wing sites would have you believe, the space occupied by Grub will not be left vacant. Fillingim introduces the new restaurant, Bounty Kitchen, that will take over from Grub, and its owner, in the same Facebook post.
As usual, the right manages to take something, and spin it into something completely different than what it is. While there may be some Seattle restaurateurs who are concerned about the phasing in of the minimum wage increase, none who have been interviewed by media have indicated that as a primary concern, or for that matter, as a concern at all. But, facts be damned, the conservative war on working people continues, unabated.

An Indiana jury says Purvi Patel should go to prison for what she says was a miscarriage

by Amy Gastelum
There’s a lot that’s still confusing about the case of Purvi Patel. But one thing is clear: The 33-year-old from South Bend, Indiana, is facing up to 70 years in prison as the first pregnant woman to be convicted under Indiana’s “feticide” law. It’s a case that cheers some anti-abortion advocates but has reproductive rights groups and doctors worried about how laws originally passed to protect pregnant women are now being used against them in court.
Patel comes from a family of Hindu immigrants from India. In the mostly Irish-Catholic town of South Bend, they kept to themselves. Patel worked to support her family and also lived with her ailing parents and grandparents, says Sue Ellen Braunlin, co-president of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice. Patel and her family are not talking with the media, but Patel is in frequent touch with Braunlin.
Braunlin says Patel came home from work early on July 13, 2013. She stayed in bed several hours, Braunlin says, thinking the pain she felt was related to sciatica. Then she went into the bathroom and “it just all fell out, is how she describes it ... gushing blood on the floor,” Braunlin says.
According to Braunlin, Patel saw there was a fetus amidst the blood, but the fetus was not alive. After being unable to move for a while, Patel realized she had to get to a hospital. She showed up at the emergency room of St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, Indiana, at 9:45 p.m. On the way, she left the fetus, wrapped in paper towels and in layers of plastic bags, in a Dumpster behind a shopping center.
Consider the research yourself. Look at the legal wording of the 38 state homicide laws that recognize unborn fetuses, and a legal survey by Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law that considers their controversial application. At first, Patel did not tell doctors that she had been pregnant. The doctor who first examined Patel declined to be interviewed for this story. But her colleague, Dr. Kelly McGuire, says after examining Patel, he knew something was seriously wrong. Patel still had a placenta inside her womb attached to a severed umbilical cord. “That looked like it was from a baby that was fairly far along,” McGuire says.
Like all physicians, McGuire is a “mandated reporter” of child abuse, meaning that if he suspects any form of abuse, he’s required to notify authorities. He determined Patel’s address and called police, who went to her home to look for a newborn baby.
When McGuire told Patel that police were headed to her home, she confessed to leaving the fetus. The doctor updated the police, and then did something no mandated reporter is required to do: He joined them. From the hospital windows, he could see police cars converging on the shopping center, which was not far off.
“It was actually a very surreal moment,” he recalls. “I decided there was nothing more for me to do at the hospital, so I would actually go over to the Target store myself as well. Maybe I could help in some way.”
Police cars
Police investigate the scene. 
McGuire arrived still in his medical scrubs. Police were searching dumpsters, and soon they found the fetus. The doctor declared it dead on the scene.
Back at the hospital, Patel was undergoing surgery to remove her placenta.  But now she was a criminal suspect. When she woke up at 3 a.m., an officer was there to interrogate her. Emma Selm of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice later watched a recording of the hospital interrogation that was shown at Patel’s trial, this past January.
“[The officer] asked about, ‘So who’s the father of this baby?’” Selm says. “[Patel] acted kind of embarrassed, like she didn’t want to talk about it. And he said, ‘Was it a one night stand or something? Oh, and was he Indian too?’ He kept going on about ‘was he Indian and where is he?’”
Prosecutors later charged her with “child neglect resulting in the death of a dependent.”
Patel’s defense team says she became pregnant by a married co-worker and didn’t want her strict Hindu parents to know. Her lawyer also argued that she didn’t know exactly how long she'd been pregnant.
By the time of her trial, Patel faced two felony charges: child neglect and feticide. Feticide is usually used against illegal abortion providers or people who harm pregnant women. It’s on the books in many states, but only a few states have used these laws against pregnant women.
Feticide map of USA
Prosecutors based the feticide charge on text messages police found on Patel’s phone. They say the messages show she talked to a friend about buying abortion drugs online. But the toxicologist didn’t find any trace of those drugs in her body or in the fetus’ body. And police found no evidence that she actually purchased the drugs.
Meanwhile, the prosecution still pursued the original charge of child neglect, which would mean the fetus had been born alive. Prosecutors tried to prove that the fetus took a breath after birth. They hired a local pathologist who tried to test this by placing the fetal lungs in water to see if they floated. Patel’s defense attorney argued this kind of test is scientifically bogus, and the fetus was too young to survive on its own.
The judge in Patel’s case, Elizabeth Hurley, was appointed by Indiana’s conservative Republican governor Mike Pence. She rejected defense arguments that Patel could not be charged with both neglecting a live baby and aborting her own fetus. The jury convicted Patel on both counts.
Patel’s case is the first time a woman in Indiana has been found guilty of feticide of her own fetus. But it’s not the first time a woman in Indiana has been charged this way. Between 2010 and 2013, prosecutors in Indianapolis unsuccessfully pursued a case against Chinese immigrant Bei Bei Shuai, who tried to poison herself while pregnant in 2010. Her newborn baby died a few days after delivery.
Shuai was charged with feticide but eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
The two cases have local immigrants concerned. “Why is the focus on the international woman? Why doesn’t she have the same rights?” asks Ngaatendwe Mantiziba, president of the International Student Organization at Indiana University’s South Bend campus.
Meanwhile, some Indiana doctors also worry that pregnant women, especially from marginalized communities, may stop trusting the medical system altogether, and that could have huge implications for public health.
“Any time a pregnant woman does something that can harm a fetus, now she has to worry, ‘Am I going to be charged with attempted feticide?’” says Dr. David Orentlicher, a former state representative in Indiana. “If you discourage pregnant women from getting prenatal care, you’re not helping fetuses, you’re harming fetuses.”

‘Crisis Pregnancy Center’ Tells Woman Her IUD Was A Baby


Why Fundamentalists Fear Intellectualism

by Mark Sandlin


You are what you believe.At the core of each of us is our belief system. It is around that belief system that a large part of our personal identity is formed. One of the real strengths of fundamentalism is that it provides a stable core belief system. To borrow from 80′s new wave and avant-garde band, Talking Heads, “Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.”
It is much easier to believe you understand who you are and to be stable when your core belief system is stable. For folks like liberals and progressives this is a little more difficult because the walls around our core beliefs are a little less rigid and more willing to flex as new information presents itself. Which means that we, more frequently than fundamentalists, are reshaping our understanding of who we are and how we relate to society, even if in small ways.
This just isn’t true for a fundamentalist Christians. The protective walls around their core beliefs are tall and rigid – and with good reason. We have to keep in mind, these core beliefs are so much more than ideas or ideals, they are identification and identity. Who we understand ourselves to be is formed around them. When you challenge a specific belief you are also, in small part, challenging the person’s understanding of who they are.
For fundamentalist Christians, it is even more complicated than just that. In both direct and subtle ways, they believe their salvation, at least in part, is dependent upon being correct on issues of faith.
Intellectualism invites the constant assessment of the “correctness” of a person’s belief system. That’s dangerous ground for a fundamentalist Christian. When you confront them on a particular belief you are not only confronting them on an idea that they have held to more rigidly for a longer time than most other folks but you are confronting the very core of who they understand themselves to be. For them, it is those core beliefs upon which their salvation hangs in the balance, at least in part. Questioning it doesn’t just question the thought but, for them, it puts into question a lifetime of holding on tightly to that thought.
When you take all of that into consideration, it’s really not surprise that most fundamentalist Christians react negatively to or avoid all together any intellectual questioning of their core belief systems. For that matter, it’s not surprising that fundamentalist of all camps tend to have a less than positive reaction to intellectualism. They just want to be right and the rest of us just hope to sort out some small version of the truth. A subtle difference but an important one.

11 year old suspended for a year for possessing a ‘leaf’ that repeatedly tested negative for pot

Marijuana leaf (Shutterstock)
The vice principal and school resource officer contacted the police, who filed marijuana possession charges against the 11 year old. However, when the prosecutor had the “leaf” tested — on three separate occasions — the tests came back negative for marijuana.

Random Celebrity Photos

Raquel Welch
 Raquel Welch

How Astronauts Travel These Days

NASA astronauts who live and work on the International Space Station get there and back by hitching rides with the Russians. You have to wonder what Kennedy and Khrushchev would think of that. On Thursday morning, cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova, and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore (commander of Expedition 42) came home to Earth in a Soyuz spacecraft, floating down with the aid of an enormous parachute, to land in Kazakhstan. This picture of the golden parachute (which is actually red and white) was captured by NASA photographer Bill Ingalls. See more pictures from the successful landing at National Geographic. Get more technical details about the return at NASA.

Hurts so good

Hurts so good -- How a hot sauce-induced seizure saved a man's life

30 Years Of .com

Thirty years ago, the .com Internet domain was born. In case you're not familiar, the companies and organizations that hand out Internet addresses use top-level domains like .com to organize the addresses. Addresses that end in .com can be registered by anyone, although the suffix stands for commercial.
The first .com domain was registered March 15,1985, to computer manufacturer Symbolics Inc. The site is now run by an investment group in Dallas to offer 'unique and interesting facts pertaining to business and internet history.'

Portland Now Generates Electricity From Turbines Installed In City Water Pipes

by Rafi Schwartz
You’d be forgiven if the phrase “Portland goes green with innovative water pipes” doesn’t immediately call to mind thoughts of civil engineering and hydro-electric power. And yet, that’s exactly what Oregon’s largest city has done by partnering with a company called Lucid Energy to generate clean electricity from the water already flowing under its streets and through its pipes.
Portland has replaced a section of its existing water supply network with Lucid Energy pipes containing four forty-two inch turbines. As water flows through the pipes, the turbines spin and power attached generators, which then feed energy back into the city’s electrical grid. Known as the “Conduit 3 Hydroelectric Project,” Portland’s new clean energy source is scheduled to be up and running at full capacity in March. According to a Lucid Energy FAQ detailing the partnership, this will be the “first project in the U.S. to secure a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for renewable energy produced by in-pipe hydropower in a municipal water pipeline."
A short promotional video describes the technology and benefits involved in harnessing energy from municipal water pipelines:
Lucid Energy Overview with President and CEO Gregg Semler
As the video explains, Lucid Energy’s system isn’t affected by the sort of external conditions (namely: the weather) upon which other renewable energy sources–like solar and wind power– are reliant. Nor does the technology, completely ensconced within a pipe, have adverse effects on a surrounding environmental ecosystem, as an exposed hydroelectric dam might.
Fast Company points out that, in order to be cost and energy effective, Portland’s new power generators must be installed in pipes where water flows downhill, without having to be pumped, as the energy necessary to pump the water would negate the subsequent energy gleaned. However, Fast Company also notes that the system does more than simply provide electricity: It can monitor both the overall condition of a city’s water supply network as well as assess the drinking quality of the water flowing through it.
According to Lucid Energy’s FAQ, the partnership between the company and the city of Portland is currently finishing its “commissioning” phase, in which the system–particularly the aforementioned monitors and sensors–is put through rigorous final-stage testing. Once fully operational, the installation is expected to generate $2,000,000 worth of renewable energy capacity over twenty years, based on “an average of 1,100 megawatt hours of energy per year, enough electricity to power up to 150 homes." The money generated will be split among the project’s investors, as well as will be used to recoup the cost of construction, and ongoing upkeep of the system. After 20 years the Portland Water Bureau will have the right to own the entire project and all subsequent energy and profit generated by it.
Using green tech to generate power and revenue from an existing municipal resource? Now all Portland needs to do is put a bird on it.

Fifteen of the Most Tricked Out Apartments From Around the World


You just won mega millions in the lotto and you're looking for a piece of ridiculously expensive and decadent real estate in which to luxuriate? Try these not-so-humble abodes on for size. Our one-percenter tour starts with the photo above, the $27 million Seati Penthouse in beautiful Miami. This space on the 40th floor of the Seati Tower consists of four bedrooms, six bathrooms and offers spectacular ocean views. The penthouse also includes a private terrace, pool, and hot tub.
The photo below is the tallest residential space in Singapore, a 21,000+ square foot, three-story penthouse with a roof garden. This beauty will only set you back $47 million. The view looks like it's worth a few mil alone.
See photos and descriptions of the remaining 13 pricey penthouses here. 

The Haunting Stories Behind 10 Abandoned Lighthouses

There are plenty of lighthouses left along the earth’s shores, although very few still have a lighthouse keeper. Some are automatic, but many are completely abandoned because of improved communication and navigation. Quite a few of these abandoned lighthouses have scary or even tragic stories in their history. For example, Flannan Island Lighthouse in Scotland saw tragedy only a year after it became operational. The lighthouse had no radio, and on December 15, 1900, there were no lights.
The lighthouse was manned by three people – James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donal Macarthur. A passing ship also reported that there was no light visible, and when it was investigated, the scene was an eerie one.

The table was set for dinner, a meal of meat and potatoes laid out for the men. The beds had clearly been slept in, and the only real clue of something that might have happened was a reference to a severe storm, made in the log for the day before. Another entry stated that the storm was passing, though, and there was no sign of damage to the Flannan Isles lighthouse. There was no sign of a struggle, no blood, and only a single chair had been knocked over. Everything else was eerily, strangely intact.

There were a number of theories about what happened, including the sudden arrival of pirates or the presence of vengeful ghosts from the nearby ruins. The theory given the most credibility is that the men were all killed when they were swept out to sea by fierce waves, but no trace of them has ever been found.
Other lighthouse stories include shipwrecks, murder, prisoners of war, plane crashes, suicide, natural disasters, ghosts, and men driven mad by loneliness. Read them all at Urban Ghosts.

Police seek men who assaulted man because he wouldn't let them try on his top hat

A 54-year-old man waiting at Catford Bridge station in south east London was assaulted by three men because he wouldn't let them try on his top hat.
Police want to trace three men over the incident, which happened just after 10pm on February 28. According to officers, a trio approached the man on the Catford Bridge platform and asked if they could try his hat on.
He refused and boarded a train to Charing Cross, followed by the men. On the train, one of the men approached the victim again before he was assaulted, suffering facial injuries, and had his hat stolen.
Investigating officer Stephen Allen said: "I am keen to speak to the men in the CCTV images as they may hold vital information to my investigation and I urge them to come forward."

Search for man who rode motorcycle through shopping mall

A video has been posted online showing a man on a motorcycle driving through a mall in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. The video was taken on Feb. 20 at around 1:50pm and features footage from RCMP’s Air One and security camera footage inside the mall. The video was being used by the RCMP as a training video when it was unintentionally released to the public.
The video shows the motorcyclist weaving in and out of traffic before entering the Guildford Mall at the Walmart. “First of all I want to explain that the video was a compilation that we put together, the police did, of air services, Surrey RCMP video and Guildford Mall video for evidence in an investigation,” said Sgt. Dale Carr with the Surrey RCMP.
“It was inadvertently posted to a public site, when it was meant to go on a private site, and we’re looking into how that happened and we want to take steps to ensure that doesn’t happen again.” Carr said when the man was in the mall, two officers were chasing him to try to stop him. “We’re really happy no one got hurt,” said Peggy Howard, general manager of the Guildford Mall. She said the mall is not involved with the investigation.

The man riding the motorcycle has not been caught. “Ultimately the motorcycle was dumped, the individual got away and we’re still looking for who that is,” said Carr. They do have the motorcycle in their possession. “I’ve been working in police work for 28 years and I’ve never seen a time where we were in pursuit of a motorcycle and it entered a mall, exited a mall, and ultimately we’re still looking for the driver,” said Carr. “Never happened.”

Car crashed into pizza restaurant with woman on hood

A woman walking past a Pudge Brothers pizza restaurant in Aurora, Colorado, was hit by a car, landed on its hood and was pushed through a glass window into the premises.
Amazingly, she immediately jumped off the car amid the debris and escaped without serious injury.
The moment of impact, which happened at about at around 5pm on Wednesday, was captured on a surveillance camera inside the restaurant.

It has been speculated that the car's driver apparently hit the accelerator pedal instead of the brake while trying to park. No one inside the shop was hurt.

Memories

Grace O’Malley, the 16th Century Pirate Queen of Ireland

by April Holloway
Grace O'Malley was Queen of Umaill, chieftain of the O Maille clan, rebel, seafarer, and fearless leader, who challenged the turbulent politics of 16th century England and Ireland. While Irish legends have immortalised Grace as a courageous woman who overcame boundaries of gender imbalance and bias to fight for the independence of Ireland and protect it against the English crown, to the English, she was considered a brutal and thieving pirate, who controlled the coastlines through intimidation and plunder.
Grace O’Malley was born in Ireland in around 1530, as a daughter of the wealthy nobleman and sea trader Owen O'Malley. Upon his death, she inherited his large shipping and trading business. From her earliest days, she rejected the role of the sixteenth century woman, instead embracing the life on the sea with the fleet of O'Malley trading ships.  The income from this business, as well as land inherited from her mother, enabled her to become rich and somewhat powerful.
During a time when Ireland was ruled by dozens of local chieftains, O’Malley— also known in legends as Granuaile —commanded hundreds of men and some 20 ships in raids on rival clans and merchant ships. She also ran afoul of government officials, who made repeated attempts to curb her activity.
Under the policies of the English government at the time, the semi-autonomous Irish princes and lords were left mostly to their own devices. However this was to change over the course of O'Malley's life as the Tudor conquest of Ireland gathered pace and more and more Irish lands came under their rule.
Artist’s depiction of Grace O’MalleyThe O'Malleys were one of the few seafaring families on the west coast, and they built a row of castles facing the sea to protect their territory.  From their base at Rockfleet Castle, they reportedly attacked ships and fortresses on the shoreline, plundered Scotland’s outlying islands, and taxed all those who fished off their coasts, which included fishermen from as far away as England. O'Malley's ships would stop and board the traders and demand either cash or a portion of the cargo in exchange for safe passage the rest of the way to Galway. Resistance was met with violence and even murder.
Ambitious and fiercely independent, her exploits eventually became known through all of Ireland and England. By March, 1574, the English felt they could no longer ignore her ‘predatory sieges’, so a force of ships and men laid siege to O’Malley in Rockfleet Castle. Within two weeks, the Pirate Queen had turned her defence into an attack and the English were forced to make a hasty retreat. But such victories could not go on forever. The English had been changing the traditional laws of Ireland, outlawing the system of electing chieftains, and O’Malley was a threat to their aims.
At the age of 56, O’Malley was finally captured by Sir Richard Bingham, ruthless governor that was appointed to rule over Irish territories. She closely escaped death sentence, and over the course of time her influence, wealth and lands faded, until the brink of poverty. After hearing about the capture of her brother and son, O’Malley petitioned the Crown for redress, and then set sail for England. During a historic 1593 meeting with Queen Elizabeth I, she somehow managed to convince her to free her family and restore much of her lands and influence.
The Pirate Queen
During the 70 years of her life, Grace O'Malley built for herself a notable political influence with the surrounding nations, as well as great notoriety at sea, making her one of the most important figure of the Irish folklore. She successfully protected the independence of her lands during the time when much of Ireland fell under the English rule.
Grace O’Malley finally died around 1603, in Rockfleet Castle. Many folk stories, songs, poems, and musicals about O'Malley have continued to this day, preserving the legend of the Pirate Queen.

What These Archaeologists Found All Over The World Is Deeply Disturbing

And Yes, It’s Real.
Over the course of human history, societal sensibilities have changed quite a bit. For example, apparently 8,000 years ago having a stake driven through your noggin was not much more than a bad case of the Mondays. Thanks to the work of archeologists, we are now discovering just how horrifying life used to be. By the end of this list, you’ll be glad you don’t live thousands of years in the past because it looks seriously messed up.
1. Babies In The Bathhouse
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Researchers on a dig in Israel were combing through the structures of an Ancient Roman/Byzantine bathhouse. The building was fitted with a sewage system for drainage purposes, but what they found there was disturbing. In the pipes were the bones of hundreds of babies. Why the infants were placed there remains unknown.
2. Neandethal Cannibal Attack
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Though neanderthals are separate from humans, they’re close enough to make this list. In 2010, archeologists in Spain discovered the remains of a cannibal feast. Three adult females, three adult males, three teenagers, two young children and an infant showed indications that they were the lunch of another group of neanderthals. Yikes.
3. The Headless Vikings of Dorset
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Railroad workers in Dorset, England were in the midst of a regular day when they came upon a burial of sorts. The bones of a small contingent of fighting-age Scandinavian men had been placed together and each one was missing his head. Experts surmise the men may have been executed for some sort of defection.
4. The Claw of the Mount Owen Moa
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In 1986, a expedition into the cave systems of Mount Owen in New Zealand came upon a well preserved limb. It was the foot of what looked like a recently deceased bird. In actuality it wasn’t very recent. This specimen was from a prehistoric creature called the Upland Moa which will now haunt my dreams for the foreseeable future.
5. Spike To The Skull
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In the process of excavating a lakebed in Motala, Sweden, archeologists were surprised to find several skulls that had spikes driven through them. Others also had the pieces of other skulls placed inside them. This horriyfing scene likely occurred around 8,000 years ago.
6. The Grauballe Man
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Though mummies in marshes and bogs are not entirely unique discoveries, this man’s story was special in how well it was told by the information in and around his remains. The large slash on his necks suggests his death was the result of a sacrifice – likely in the name of a healthy harvest.
7. Venetian Vampire Vs. Brick
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While seemingly a silly solution when compared to a wooden stake or garlic, this method of vampire prevention wasn’t so odd hundreds of years ago. The brick and cement placed in this person’s mouth were believed to prevent its ability to rise from the dead and bite much of anything. Terrible, but effective.
8. The Oldest Leper
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Lepers have never really gotten much slack throughout history, despite the disease not being very contagious. But the first known instance of its stigma comes in the form of a skeleton from about 4,000 years ago. The Indian man’s body is largely intact, despite Hindu tradition calling for cremation. This suggests he was an outcast and was not give the same sort of burial rights.
9. Burned Alaskan Child
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During an excavation of a home estimated to be about 11,500 years old, researchers discovered a grisly sight. Inside the ancient hearth was the charred remains a 3-year-old child. It appeared that the home was abandoned after the cremation.
10. Chemical Warfare In Ancient Syria
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About 2,000 years ago, a group of 20 or so ancient Roman soldiers were subject to a particularly gruesome demise. Whilst besieging the Syrian town of Dura, Persian soldiers began to dig tunnels in order to get past the Roman defenses. The Romans thought it smart to dig their own tunnels and try and intercept the intrusive Persians. In response to this, the Persians left a trap that was bad by any measure of wartime deaths. They left a petrochemical concoction that would have likely turned the Romans’ lungs to acid. Sounds like a bad time.