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Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Monday, July 13, 2015

The Daily Drift

It is also National French Fries Day ...!
 
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Today in History

1099 The Crusaders launch their final assault on Jerusalem.
1534 Ottoman armies capture Tabriz in northwestern Persia.
1558 Led by the court of Egmont, the Spanish army defeats the French at Gravelines, France.
1585 A group of 108 English colonists, led by Sir Richard Grenville, reaches Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
1643 In England, the Roundheads, led by Sir William Waller, are defeated by Royalist troops under Lord Wilmot in the Battle of Roundway Down.
1754 George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to the French, leaving them in control of the Ohio Valley.
1787 Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, enacts the Northwest Ordinance, establishing rules for governing the Northwest Territory, for admitting new states to the Union and limiting the expansion of slavery.
1798 English poet William Wordsworth visits the ruins of Tintern Abbey.
1832 Henry Schoolcraft discovers the source of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
1862 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats a Union army at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1863 Opponents of the draft begin three days of rioting in New York City.
1866 The Great Eastern begins a two week voyage to complete a 12-year effort to lay telegraph cable across the Atlantic between Britain and the United States.
1878 The Congress of Berlin divides the Balkans among European powers.
1939 Frank Sinatra records his first song, "From the Bottom of my Heart," with the Harry James Band.
1941 Britain and the Soviet Union sign a mutual aid pact, providing the means for Britain to send war materiel to the Soviet Union.
1954 In Geneva, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and France reach an accord on Indochina, dividing Vietnam into two countries, North and South, along the 17th parallel.
1971 The Army of Morrocco executes 10 leaders accused of leading a revolt.

11 things other countries do way better than America

Happy smiling young male backpacker tourist staying in front of Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.  (Shutterstock)
Even tiny countries like Ecuador, Nepal and Estonia are kicking our butts in certain areas.

What China Can Do With The Data It Stole From 21.5 Million Americans

Private Prison Forced Immigrant Detainees Into Labor, Paid Them Just $1 Per Day

10-year-old boy charged with attempted armed robbery after holding up trucker with toy cap gun

A 10-year-old boy from the Guildford suburb of Perth, Australia, has appeared in court after he allegedly tried to hold up a truck driver with a toy handgun in Midland on Wednesday. The driver was sitting in his truck after making a delivery at a Great Eastern Highway shopping center when between 4pm and 4.30pm he was approached by a person at his door. The diminutive boy appeared in Perth Children’s Court on Thursday morning.
His mother sat in the public gallery of the court holding back tears, with her three other sons. During his appearance, the court was told the boy had taken a silver cap gun and removed the orange cap at the end before approaching the truck driver. He then allegedly went up to the truck driver who was filling out paperwork after making a delivery to Woolworths and told the man: “Get out, this is a robbery” and “You are about to get robbed”.
The child then allegedly pulled the trigger making a cap go off, causing a loud bang. The State opposed bail because of the seriousness of the allegations, with the prosecutor telling Magistrate Timothy Schwass the boy is already on bail for 13 charges of criminal damage and common assault. However, the child’s defense lawyer Ernesto Godinez told the court the incident sounded like “a prank or joke going very wrong”.
Mr Godinez also said the boy had yet to appear in court on any of the damage charges but was in court on Wednesday for the common assault charge. The boy was released on bail to appear in Midland Children’s Court so the current charge can be joined with his other charges. Magistrate Schwass told the boy to “be sensible” as he granted bail. Earlier police revealed the boy, wearing dark clothing with a hood covering his head, pointed a handgun at the trucker, made threats then pulled the trigger, causing a loud bang. Police stopped the 10-year-old boy a short time later and it will be alleged he had a toy cap gun. He has been charged with attempted armed robbery.

Wife admits murdering husband with disposable barbecue

A Filipina woman has admitted to murdering her Norwegian husband by placing a smoking disposable grill in his bedroom while he slept. The man then died from from carbon monoxide poisoning. Rubirosa Irgens, 31, told a Norwegian court that she had been driven into a rage by 61-year-old Helge Ove Irgens on the night of the killing, resolving to asphyxiate him on impulse. "The evening in question, the two had an argument and my client acted in a state of anger," Jannicke Keller-Fløystad, the woman's defense lawyer, said.
"The accused testified that her husband had treated her very badly over many years and that it peaked on the evening of the murder." The prosecution showed that in the three weeks running up to the murder on June 25 last year last year, Rubirosa Irgens carried out more than 250 internet searches related to effective methods of killing someone. Searches included: ‘How do you poison someone without getting caught’, ’Best poison to use to kill someone and not get caught’, and ’Can rat poison kill humans?’.
On the same day that she did the rat poison search, she also bought some, but does not appear to have used it on her husband. In court she claimed she had needed the poison because of a problem with vermin in their house. Regina Irgens, the daughter of the murdered man said that police had repeatedly refused to examine the suspect grill when they found it in their father's garage. “Among other things, I called the police and told them that I had found a disposable grill in the garage that was used, but that nothing had been barbecued on it," she said.
"The police did not want that grill. They said it wasn’t relevant, which is completely incomprehensible because at the time they knew that Dad had carbon monoxide poisoning, and they didn’t know what the source was,” Keller-Fløystad said that her client had admitted to researching killing methods on the internet whenever the couple had a row. ”My client explained that from time to time she went online to search for killing methods when the couple had a fight. She had been pondering the thought of taking both her own and her husband’s life, but she eventually decided not to. The day it happened, something escalated.”

Man pepper sprayed after 'monkey sex'

A Florida man and two tourists drank a bottle of vodka at a Key West home on Monday night.
They then had “monkey sex,” before a dispute erupted over payment for the alcohol, according to Key West police.
That dispute led to the Key West man claiming he was pepper sprayed by one of the tourists. There were no reported injuries and no arrests.
Incidentally, for anyone who is as uneducated as I was about these things, apparently “monkey sex” is “loud, wild and passionate fornication.”

Man nicknamed Poo hid crack in his backside

A man from Salisbury, North Carolina, is facing charges after police say he was found hiding just over thirteen grams of crack cocaine in his rectum.
Jimmy Lewis Oglesby, 32, was arrested on Tuesday night following a traffic stop. Police stopped Oglesby for driving with a suspended license.
According to the report, officers found small amounts of crack cocaine and marijuana on the floor of the car, but then found a plastic bag with 13.1 grams of crack cocaine in his backside.
Oglesby was charged with drug possession, maintaining a dwelling for drug use, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving with a suspended license. Bond was set at $75,000. Oglesby has a criminal record and police say his nickname is "Poo."

Pecan pie thrown during road rage incident

A man from Boulder, Colorado, says he called police after a vehicle followed him home and the occupant threw a dessert at him in his apartment parking lot. Adam Raley called police on Tuesday night at about 7:15 to say he had been followed home by an aggressive driver after he may have pulled out in front of that person near the Safeway store in Boulder. Raley admitted to police he has a tendency to 'drive aggressively' and may have cut off a late model Nissan Murano. Raley told police the driver of a small blue vehicle followed him home and into his parking lot before tossing a baked good at his sedan. He believed the driver of that vehicle may have taken offense to his aggressive manoeuvre. According to Raley, an elderly white male, bald, with facial hair, got out and was "scowling."
Raley told police he addressed the male, saying, "Can I help you?" to which the man responded by throwing, what he later discovered was a pecan pie, at his car. The dessert struck the rear window and trunk of Raley's Toyota Corolla. In response, Raley said he picked up what was left of the pie and "threw it back at the male's car". According to police reports, Raley told Boulder officers the man then got back in his car and accelerated towards him, trying to run him over. In what Raley described as an "intense and scary" altercation, he told police he began running to his apartment when the other male got out of his car again and yelled, "Come here, get back here!"
Raley told police the other man then came up to his car and started hitting his tail light with some kind of object, perhaps a short baton.Memorizing the man's license plate, Raley told officers he called that out to the man, who then drove off. Raley was not injured. A witness who saw the incident told police he was convinced the suspect was going to try and run over Raley, describing him as "deranged" and "out of control." Boulder Police tracked down the owner of the suspect vehicle as Boulder resident Gary Strand. When police officers approached Strand at his home, he eventually told them he followed Raley's white Toyota Corolla after he saw it speeding and cutting off other cars. Strand told police he had seen the same Toyota Corolla do similar manoeuvres "another time," and that the male had "flipped him off a couple of times."
Strand, 62,  admitted he threw a pie at the Corolla after following it to the parking lot Raley had described to police earlier. Strand said he left abruptly after the other man, Raley, threw the dessert back at his car. When police asked him about the damaged tail light, Strand denied doing any damage. But, police found a metal flashlight in his pocket which they believed was the same object used to damage Raley's taillight. As police transported Strand to the jail, he began wheezing and "trying to hyperventilate," according to police reports. An ambulance was called, Strand refused medical attention, and he was eventually transported to the Boulder County Jail where he fell asleep. Strand will not face DUI charges since officers could not determine how drunk he was, even though one officer reported smelling alcohol on his breath shortly before his arrest. He does, however, face charges related to felony menacing for the tossing of the pecan pie.

Retro Photos

Police investigate reports of crocodile on the loose in Somerset stream

Police were alerted after a crocodile was apparently spotted in a stream between Clevedon and Kingston Seymour in Somerset. A Clevedon resident's morning walk was interrupted when they noticed an unusual shape in the stream to the side of the road.
On closer inspection, the shape looked very much like a crocodile - and the walker snapped a photograph, saying: "It blinked at me."
The walker later emailed Avon and Somerset Police who asked for the picture to be a sent as a matter of urgency. They said they would analyze the picture and decide how to take action.

Hungry Labrador indulged in smörgåsbord of hair bands, rubber bands and underwear

Tiki is a black Labrador retriever with a remarkable appetite and unusual tastes. Her vet, Dr. Hisham Ibrahim, of Good Shepherd's Veterinary Hospital in Mars, Pennsylvania, found proof of that inside her stomach when he surgically removed a variety of discoveries, including 62 hair bands and enough underwear to last someone more than week.
"'Doctor I' started pulling handfuls of different items out," Emily Cottle, his head vet technician, said. "It was quite an experience to see." Tiki's follow-up exam on Wednesday showed the pet of the Weis family in Butler County is bouncing back quickly from her surgery last week. Tiki hadn't responded to medication to treat vomiting and diarrhoea and lack of appetite, then x-rays showed a mysterious mass in her stomach. Ibrahim, known as "Doctor I" to his patients, performed nearly two hours of exploratory surgery.
"And I found this hair band attached to another hair band to another one to another one and to other things again," Ibrahim said. "Four rubber bands, a Band-Aid, eight pairs of underwear and 62 hair bands is a lot to be in a dog's stomach, especially of Tiki's size," Cottle said. Removing it all was like a magician pulling a long string of scarves out of a hat. That's exactly what's going on. It was just amazing, and it's not easy. But, thankfully, we were able to pull through, and Tiki's recovered very well," Ibrahim said.

Sara Weiss recalled the most unusual thing Tiki, her family's pet, had ever eaten prior to this. "A nerf dart," which the dog swallowed but passed through its system without surgery, said Weiss. Ibrahim said he recently surgically removed 15 pacifiers from the stomach of a different dog, but he called Tiki's case "really amazing." "I was there for the pacifiers and many other different items but not something that big (as Tiki's collection)," Cottle said. Ibraham said he believed Tiki ate the items over course of a few days.

Not so wily young fox rescued after getting head stuck in fence

A young fox had a lucky escape after getting his head stuck in a garden fence. A neighbor spotted the fox stuck in the fencing outside a house in South Shields, Tyne And Wear, and called the RSPCA for help on Sunday.
RSPCA animal collection officer Bryan Moffitt attended the property and was initially concerned that the wild animal was dead, as he appeared to be very still.
After carefully lifting the fox out of the fence panels, Mr Moffitt placed him in a crate to observe him, but within minutes it was clear he had suffered no injury.
Mr Moffitt said: “He was very quiet for a couple of minutes, but it seemed he ‘came around’ all of a sudden and sprung to life. I could see he had no injuries, no cuts or bruises, and so I drove him to a nearby field and released him.” He added: “He ran off so quickly, I didn’t even have time to take a photo of his release. He was obviously keen to get back home after his ordeal!”

Dog alerted owner to stranded baby dolphin

A dog saved a baby dolphin on a beach in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, while fishing with her owner. Leia, a two-year-old Cocker Spaniel found the dolphin washed up on the Criccieth shore on Sunday morning while fishing with her owner, Rich Wilcock, 42 from Buckley. Rich said: “I was stood taking pictures and videos of the scenery when Leia started to make a right old fuss.
“She kept coming up to me, barking and nudging me, she must have smelt the dolphin from a mile off. At first I thought it was a baby shark, it was only about one and half foot but on a closer inspection I could see the blow hole on top of his head and realized it was a dolphin. There was nobody around for miles so I did what I could as gently as possible. I lifted him gently under the belly and popped him back amongst the waves and he swam away into deeper water.
“I combed the beach for a while afterwards and stayed for an hour or so to make sure he made it back out to sea.” A spokesperson for the Seawatch foundation said: “It’s probably a juvenile harbour porpoise, it does look quite small even for a porpoise. With the strong winds we are getting at the moment it is quite possible he just got blown out of the way and stranded rather than having anything seriously wrong with him, so let’s hope he made it back out to sea safely.

“It’s great to see people (and dogs!) helping out wildlife and given the circumstances of the remote location Rich did a really good job with helping him back into the water. “If possible we do advise to call in BDMLR in to stranding cases to assess the animals condition but he looked quite lively and had no obvious injuries.” Rich said: “She is a very intelligent dog, more intelligent than most. We often see dolphins and porpoises swimming and playing in Cardigan Bay, Criccieth is a great spot in the summer to spot them.”

Burglary suspect arrested after being chased into barbed wire fence by angry bull

Marshall County Sheriff Scott Walls reports that a man caught burgling a home didn't get far after pursuing deputies got a little bovine help on their side.
Walls said an Arab, Alabama, man caught a man and woman burgling his home on Wednesday morning. The homeowner called the sheriff's office then chased them off his property. County deputies and Arab police officers found the suspects' Chevrolet truck shortly after.
Deputies say the suspects led them on a pursuit until they crashed in the Union Grove area. They both fled on foot. The driver, 26-year-old Brad Lynn Hemby, fled across a cow pasture and grabbed the attention of a bull that was roaming the field. The sheriff's office reports that the bull gave chase along with deputies.
They said Hemby tried to elude the bull but fell into a barbed wire fence and immediately surrendered to deputies. Hemby was arrested and charged with burglary, criminal mischief and attempting to elude a police officer. His female companion got away in a wooded area. She has not yet been located. After the arrest, deputies recovered stolen property from the suspects' vehicle. Bond has not been set at this time.

Motorcyclist faces fine for letting dog steer bike

Police in Hanoi, Vietnam, are looking for a man who let his dog steer his motorcycle on the road after a video of the incident appeared online.
The film shows the man with his dog in front letting go of the handlebars while his dog has its paws on them. The man keeps telling the dog “Good!” Traffic police officers called the act “extremely dangerous.”
Nguyen Van Quy, a Hanoi traffic police officer, said: “The act must deserves harsh criticism and punishment.” He said if arrested the man would be fined VND5-7 million (£210, $320), the designated penalty for “releasing both hands while driving a motorbike.”

The officer said he would also lose his drivers’ license for two months and his motorcycle for a week. In addition, the man wasn't wearing a crash helmet, which attracts another VND200,000 (£6, $10) fine. Lawyers said he would bear criminal responsibility if he killed or injured someone.

Runaway horse landed on bed after crashing through roof of motor home

A runaway horse crashed through the roof of a motor home in Wollmannsberg, Austria on Friday, landing on a double bed that was luckily unoccupied.
Her soft landing meant the mare escaped without serious injuries, but she had to be winched out by a team of firefighters. 28-year-old mare Netti, broke out of her paddock during the night and wandered down a hillside which is directly above the mobile home.
Part of the slope, which forms a roof over the motor home, is made of corrugated metal which wasn’t strong enough to hold her weight, so she went crashing through it and the roof of the vehicle. She was lucky to land in a double bed. "If she had fallen onto the concrete she wouldn’t have had a chance,” her owner, Jacqueline-Isolde Bauer-Weiskirchner said.
Bauer-Weiskirchner discovered Netti was not in the paddock and heard the sound of hooves knocking against the walls of the unoccupied mobile home. She called a vet, who gave Netti a sedative, and a team of firefighters who spent some time trying to get her out of the bed, with the help of mountain rescue equipment. The next day Netti was judged fit and healthy and allowed back onto the pasture to graze.

Amazing footage of sharks swimming in boiling water around a volcano is completely baffling scientists

by Tanya Lewis
Brennan Phillips and some colleagues were recently on an expedition to Kavachi volcano, an active underwater volcano near the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. But they weren't prepared for what they saw deep inside the volcanic crater: Sharks!
Hammerheads and silky sharks, to be specific, contentedly swimming around despite the sizzling water temperatures and biting acidity.
Volcanic vents such as these can release fluids above 800 degrees Fahrenheit and have a similar acidity to vinegar, according to the Marine Education Society of Australasia.
"The idea of there being large animals like sharks hanging out and living inside the caldera of the volcano conflicts with what we know about Kavachi, which is that it erupts," Phillips, a biological oceanography Ph.D. student at the University of Rhode Island, says in a YouTube video.
This brings up some perplexing questions about what the animals do if the volcano decides to wake up:
"Do they leave?" Phillips asks. "Do they have some sign that it's about to erupt? Do they blow up sky-high in little bits?"
The volcano wasn't erupting when Phillips' team arrived, meaning it was safe to drop an 80-pound camera into the water to take a look around. After about an hour of recording, the team fished the camera out and watched the video.
First, the video showed some jellyfish, snappers, and small fish. Then, a hammerhead swam into view, and the scientists erupted in cheers. They also saw a cool-looking stingray.
Why the sharks were hanging out inside an active volcano is a mystery, but one Phillips hopes to solve.
Check out the full video here:

Animal Pictures