The Daily Drift

Guess who's coming to dinner ...!

 

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Today in History

1742		A Spanish force invading Georgia runs headlong into the colony’s British defenders.The battle decides the fate of a colony.
1777		American troops give up Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, to the British.
1791		Benjamin Rush, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones found the Non-denominational African cult.
1795		Thomas Paine defends the principal of universal suffrage at the Constitutional Convention in Paris.
1798		Napoleon Bonaparte’s army begins its march towards Cairo from Alexandria.
1807		Czar Alexander meets with Napoleon Bonaparte.
1814		Sir Walter Scott’s novel Waverly is published anonymously so as not to damage his reputation as a poet.
1815		After defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, the victorious Allies march into Paris.
1853		Japan opens its ports to trade with the West after 250 years of isolation.
1863		Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reports his defeat at Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.
1925		Afrikaans is recognized as one of the official languages of South Africa, along with English and Dutch.
1927		Christopher Stone becomes the first British ‘disc jockey’ when he plays records for the BBC.
1941		Although a neutral country, the United States sends troops to occupy Iceland to keep it out of Germany’s hands.
1943		Adolf Hitler makes the V-2 missile program a top priority in armament planning.
1966		The U.S. Marine Corps launches Operation Hasting to drive the North Vietnamese Army back across the Demilitarized Zone in Vietnam.
1969		The first U.S. units to withdraw from South Vietnam leave Saigon.
1981		Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

This Airline Just Invested Millions Into Turning Garbage Into Jet Fuel

It's the largest investment by United in alternative jet fuels, but it is not the first.

12 Things You Need To Know About Homelessness In America

After reading these 12 things, the answer is clear. We can solve homelessness, and it costs less than what we are spending now. Why aren’t we?

Read full story

A Pharma Payment A Day Keeps Docs' Finances Okay

A Pharma Payment A Day Keeps Docs' Finances Okay

Not only doctors, but thousands of dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors received at least one industry payment from August 2013 to December 2014.

Judge hires lawyer to threaten court over jury summons

Sedgwick County, Kansas District Judge Michael Hoelscher retained counsel to threaten Judge Eric Melgren with a subpoena for insisting that he show up in person when summoned for jury service.
Judges may not serve on juries, but as Judge Melgren explained, it's a matter of respect for the public who are expected to show up when summoned to turn up in person, or at least notify the court.

In response to the Order to Show Cause, Mr. Hoelscher [a state-court judge] contacted the Court's jury clerk to discuss his actions and his reasons for non-appearance. Such contact is not unusual. What happened next, however, was most unusual; indeed, in this Court's experience, it is unprecedented. My staff received an irate phone call from an attorney, ... indicating that he had been retained by Respondent [Hoelscher] ..., informing my staff that respondent was a state court judge (of which fact we were aware) and that as such Respondent was not required to respond to the jury summons. [This] was quickly followed up with an email to the Chief Judge of this court threatening to subpoena numerous officials of this court to demonstrate their "ignorance of the law" and warning that "when I go to court, I go to win."

Some Judges Show Up for Jury Duty. Some Don't. And Some Lawyer Up

Ten Strange Facts About Famous Historical Villains

Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber

Often when individuals make the news for being murderers, they are painted in the press as monsters, and the public often thinks of them as more inhuman than human. But people are complex, and even the most cold and emotionless mass murderers share characteristics with other law-abiding, even upstanding citizens.
In the case of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, an issue that has been in the news of late with regard to the former Bruce and now Caitlyn Jenner was present in his psychiatric profile. According to Kaczynski, it was the impetus for him committing violence.
Kaczynski claims that prior to his planting and mailing bombs that killed three people and injured 23 others, he visited a psychiatrist. One main reason he sought help was due to his growing desire to change sexes from male to female. Yet during the appointment, Kaczynski lost the nerve to bring up his gender identity issues with the doctor.

“Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me.”

Eventually, after isolating himself further and further from human contact, Kaczynski began his crime spree, which continued for some 18 years.
Read other strange facts about notorious criminals and villains here.

A catholic coven vomits a hate-filled ‘It Gets Better’ video — for homophobes

A catholic coven vomits a hate-filled ‘It Gets Better’ video — for homophobes

A “patriotic” catholic coven spewed a video mimicking the It Gets Better LGBT campaign to egg on religio-wingnuts denying the legalization of marriage equality.

Cult Bathroom Cameras

Portland Archdiocese puts priest on leave for not reporting camera hidden inside cult bathroom

Cop Arrested For Lying About Spit In His Drink

A Roswell, New Mexico police officer, who claimed that a Sonic employee spit in his drink, later confessed to making the whole thing up. Now he’s the one under arrest.

Read full story 

Rarely Seen Photos Of Marilyn Monroe

The silver screen goddess known as Marilyn Monroe began life as mild mannered Norma Jeane Mortenson, which her mother quickly changed to Baker, and like the story behind her name the story of her life was rather complicated.

Despite growing up in foster homes, suffering with mental illness and searching for a new identity to help leave her old one behind, Marilyn became one of the most famous and enduring people in Hollywood.

Marilyn is so famous, in fact, that it’s easy to believe you’ve seen every picture ever taken of Marilyn during her all too brief life.

But there's a treasure trove of rare images from Marilyn's pre-Hollywood movie modeling career with the Blue Book Modeling Agency that are about to be released in a book called Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modelling Years by Astrid Franse and Michelle Morgan.
These images reveal the real girl behind the platinum blonde bombshell, the girl who once claimed to have no ambitions to become an actress and was just happy having a slice of the spotlight.
See more of these rare early photos of Marilyn here

How to Prepare a Traditional English Breakfast

YouTube Link

In Episode 32, the most recent episode of Anglophenia, host Kate Arnell explains all of the culinary components that make up a full English breakfast. How does it look to you, people not of English descent? Americans who've traveled to England, what did you think when you were met with your first English breakfast as shown in this video? Was it to your liking? I wish I could say I was a fan, but I can't honestly say that. I generally opted for an egg (cooked a bit longer than their usual time), some of their delicious tea and a slice of toast.

The Worlds Weirdest Ice Cream Trucks

We all scream for ice cream, but you know what makes us scream even louder? Zombies. Fortunately, this brutal ice cream truck iss ready to serve up all kinds of screams to unsuspecting victims patrons. And that's only one of the crazy trucks out there delivering delicious ice cream to the masses. Check out the rest of the list over at InventorSpot.

The West Is Literally On Fire, And The Impacts Could Be Widespread

Large fires are burning from Alaska to Arizona, and the environmental consequences go far beyond burning trees.

Woman Gets Lost in Woods, Gives Birth, Fights off Bees, and Survives on Apples for 3 Days

Amber Pangborn of Oroville, California got lost while driving through a forest in northern California. She was 9 and a half months pregnant. After her car ran out of gas, Pangborn went into labor. She then gave birth alone in the woods.
Pangborn named her daughter Marisa.
Pangborn was then promptly attacked by bees who, she says, wanted her placenta. They stung her badly. In an attempt to signal for help, she tried to start a fire. She was successful. In fact, she started a wildfire that grew into a quarter acre blaze before being spotted by a US Forest Service helicopter crew.
The helicopter took them to a hospital, where the child is reported to be in good condition. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Pangborn’s mother, Dianna Williams, told the L.A. Times that her nine-months-pregnant daughter went to a casino on Wednesday to visit a friend and get a respite from the hot temperatures. Pangborn, she said, was also hoping to induce labor.

Well, her plan worked.

Blosom, the World's Tallest Cow, RIP

Blosom, the world's tallest cow at 6'2" from hoof to withers, died in May at 13-years-old, according to Guinness World Records. Watch a touching tribute video below. "The funny thing about Blosom was how unaffected she was by all the attention that seemed to surround her," said her human companion Patty Meads-Hanson of Orangeville, Illinois. "As long as she had her oats, and daily chin rubs and ear scratches, life was good."
"The world's tallest cow dies after a lifetime of Photoshop accusations" (CBC News)
"Tallest cow ever - Guinness World Records pays tribute to Blosom" (Guinness)

Night of the Deadly Lights

That mound looks like it belongs in a sci-fi movie, but it's actually real. Photographer Ary Bassous took a photo of an old termite mound in the savannah of Emas National Park, central Brazil, that is inhabited by click beetle larvae. The beetles shine their bioluminescent glow in order to attract prey.
To catch the bioluminescent beetle, Bassous spent the night at the wildlife preserve. Despite "bouts of crippling fear" at the thought of jaguars and other animals that hunt in the night, Bassous told Natural History Museum, he was glad that he was able to get the perfect photo of the eerie, glowing mound against the dark's sky.

A Shark Cage Won’t Protect You from Terror

 

Hillary Rae and friends went diving in a shark cage off the coast of South Africa. They encountered a 13-foot great white shark. Or, more accurately, the shark tried to eat the cage!

(YouTube link)

You’d be screaming, too, if there were any chance you could got into one of those thing!

Crow Tries to Fight Eagle, Gets Free Ride Instead

New photos show a crow riding on a giant eagle. But the trip may have started as an attempt to pick a fight.

Hoovering above the eagle, the crow is actually mid-attack, experts say.

by Maya Wei-Haas

In another instance of one animal riding on another, photos from California-based photographer Phoo Chan show a crow nestled on a flying eagle's back. But the crow was likely looking to do more than catch a lift.

When close enough to land, the crow was probably mid-attack, explains Kevin McGowan, a biologist who specializes in crow behavior at the Cornell lab of Ornithology.

Birds are very territorial, particularly during the summer when their hatchlings are vulnerable. Crows (and many birds) seem to have a Napoleon complex—the mere presence of a larger bird incites heckling and mobbing. McGowan says territorial birds don’t normally get too close, but this particular crow probably found itself in the eagle's draft and settled in for the ride.

Not worth the eagle's attention, it ignores the crow surfing on its back.

"This would be kind of like a dog chasing a car and jumping up" on it, says McGowan. "Dogs always want to catch the car, but they never know what they'd do if they get it."

But why didn't the eagle react to the crow landing? Since the crow wasn't pecking, it didn't warrant the Eagle's attention.

As the largest bird of prey, eagles are harassed nonstop by birds of all species. Sometimes the hecklers are so persistent, it looks like the eagles "are being followed by mosquitoes," says McGowan.

Crows are excellent at adjusting their wings to respond to small changes in the breeze.

There is little doubt, then, that these photos are real. They are "not particularly surprising," says McGowan.

Chan's photos capture the entire sequence of events, suggesting the event actually happened, says Mallory Benedict, an assistant photo editor at National Geographic.

Besides, who wouldn't want to fly on the back of an eagle?

The crow rests a moment on the eagle's back before launching back into the air.

Animal Pictures