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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.


Monday, November 23, 2015

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.
Always be Positive ...!
 
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Today in History

1248 The city of Seville, France, surrenders to Ferdinand III of Castile after a two-year siege.
1785 John Hancock is elected president of the Continental Congress for the second time.
1863 Union forces win the Battle of Orchard Knob, Tennessee.
1863 The Battle of Chattanooga, one of the most decisive battles of the American Civil War, begins (also in Tennessee).
1903 Italian tenor Enrico Caruso makes his American debut in a Metropolitan Opera production of Verdi’s Rigoletto.
1904 Russo-German talks break down because of Russia’s insistence to consult France.
1909 The Wright brothers form a million-dollar corporation for the commercial manufacture of their airplanes.
1921 Warren G. Harding signs the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbids doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.
1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalls the American ambassador from Havana, Cuba, and urges stability in the island nation.
1934 The United States and Great Britain agree on a 5-5-3 naval ratio, with both countries allowed to build five million tons of naval ships while Japan can only build three. Japan will denounce the treaty.
1936 The United States abandons the American embassy in Madrid, Spain, which is engulfed by civil war.
1941 U.S. troops move into Dutch Guiana to guard the bauxite mines.
1942 The film Casablanca premieres in New York City.
1943 U.S. Marines declare the island of Tarawa secure.
1945 Wartime meat and butter rationing ends in the United States.
1953 North Korea signs 10-year aid pact with Peking.
1968 Four men hijack an American plane, with 87 passengers, from Miami to Cuba.
1980 In Europe’s biggest earthquake since 1915, 3,000 people are killed in Italy.
1981 Reagan signs top secret directive giving the CIA authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1990 The first all-woman expedition to South Pole sets off from Antarctica on the part of a 70-day trip; the group includes 12 Russians, 3 Americans and 1 Japanese.
1992 The first Smartphone, IBM Simon, introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2005 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected president of Liberia; she is the first woman to lead an African nation.
2006 In the second-deadliest day of sectarian violence in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war, 215 people are killed and nearly 260 injured by bombs in Sadr City.
2011 Yemeni President Ali Abullah Saleh signs a deal to to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity; the agreement came after 11 months of protests.

Non Sequitur

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What It’s Like to Actually Be Fired

Fired
What It’s Like to Actually Be Fired
5 guys reveal the dirty details on the day they got canned, and what you should do if it happens to you

Charter School Shuts Down All Student Clubs After Parents Whine About LGBT Club

Charter School Shuts Down All Student Clubs After Parents Whine About LGBT Club
Neither charter schools nor anti-LGBT discrimination are ever good ideas.

Shenanigans In Waco Biker Prosecution Raise Troubling Questions

New Resistant Superbug Spreading

Public health officials worry that a freakish superbug created on Chinese pig farms may take the world by storm.

The Scary Amphetamine Pill Fueling Middle-Eastern Fighters

ISIL Says Anonymous Are Idiots But Anonymous Shows Who the Real Idiots Are

Anonymous-op-paris
Back in January, in the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the Anonymous collective declared war on the Islamic State with #OpParis (Operation Paris).
Recently, they sort of declared war again, releasing a video Monday in response to the latest Paris terrorist attacks. TheHackerNews.com called it a declaration of “total war.” Anonymous told the world that they were about to “launch the biggest operation ever,” and in the video, warned the Islamic State to “expect massive cyber-attacks.”
“Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down. You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.”
In response Monday, the Islamic State released a statement of its own, resorting to the always effective tactic of name-calling:
“The #Anonymous hackers threatened in a new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots).”

Oh dear. I’m sure that hurt. It was, in fact, the cause of great hilarity.
This video was sent to News2Share by Anonymous ...
We can agree or not agree that our leaders have failed us. What is certainly correct is that governments by their very nature have limited options. Political will is the fuel that drives military operations. Before both world wars, the United States lacked the political will to get involved until certain conditions were met.
Al Qaeda discovered that America does have the political will to do what must be done in response to terrorist attacks, as the shrub junta chased them running with their tails between their legs from Afghanistan in 2001. The Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was far less successful. Nonetheless, the United States sustained a decade-long effort to defeat its enemies in the Middle East, including enemies it had created in the process.
That will, as a result of the cost of that long war, has eroded America’s ability to respond as it once might have. President Obama is constrained by this reality. Anonymous is not.
While Russians and Americans and Iraqis and Kurds and other local groups pound the Islamic State both on the ground and from the air (something of which Anonymous does not approve), Anonymous has gone for their soft underbelly in an effective cyberwar.
ISIL called Anonymous “idiots” but it is Anonymous, by shutting down over 5,500 Twitter accounts belonging to Islamic State members in the first 24 hours, Anonymous showed who the true idiots are. The Islamic State had sent advice to its members on how to avoid being hacked, but this was just more cause for humor among the hacktivist group:
So ineffective were these measures that on Wednesday, Anonymous announced in another video that the count was now at 20,000 accounts. Their masked spokesman announced “this is only the beginning” and that there is no longer “any safe place online”:
Hello citizens of the world, we are anonymous.
It is time to realize social media is a solid platform for ISIS’s communication as well as neutering there ideas of terror amoung youth, but at the same time social media has proven that it is an advanced weapon. We must all work together and use social media to eliminate the accounts belonging to terrorists. More than 20,000 Twitter Accounts belonging to ISIS were just taken down by Anonymous. You can find a list of all the Twitter Accounts in the description. This is only the beginning.
ISIS; we will hunt you, Take down your sites, Accounts, Emails, and expose you…From now on, no safe place for you online…You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure.
They closed with their signature warning:
We are anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
ISIS…it is too late to Expect Us.
If the Islamic State wanted attention, they have gotten it. It seems very unlikely they will enjoy the result.

Southwest Airlines accused of singling out Middle Eastern passengers

Southwest Airlines accused of singling out Middle Eastern passengers

Historian Demolishes Idea The Quran Is More Violent Than Bible: 'Christians' Have ‘Holy Amnesia’

Historian Demolishes Idea The Quran Is More Violent Than Bible: Christians Have ‘Holy Amnesia’
This is something every religio-wingnut 'christian' needs to hear.

The Galapagos Islands' Homesteader Death Showdown

Floreana is a small island in the Galapagos that became home to a few very adventurous people almost 100 years ago. They came a few at a time, each with bizarre stories, beginning with Dr. Frederick Ritter and Dore Strauch, who left their lives in Germany behind in 1928 for what they thought would be an island paradise.
Strauch wrote a memoir about her life on the island, and it’s like Into the Wild written by an old-timey German lady with Stockholm syndrome. She met Ritter, a doctor fifteen years her senior, when he treated her for multiple sclerosis. They bonded over their shared hatred of bourgeois domesticity.
Ritter was a sort of reverse Henry Higgins for Strauch, pushing her to change from a bored city wife into a stateless, toothless hermit. He told her she could overcome her physical ailments through sheer willpower, she believed him, and they left their respective spouses and families to move from Germany to Floreana.
He also held, uh, unorthodox views for a doctor. Ritter preemptively removed his teeth before the trip because he wanted to see if his gums would toughen up in the wilderness. He didn’t bother arranging for Strauch to get her teeth removed, nor did he bring any dentistry tools, so her teeth rotted and had to be yanked out with gardening supplies while they were on the island. Then they shared the one pair of DIY stainless steel false teeth Ritter had made. They also didn’t wear many clothes.
Other people followed, but they didn’t form a community because they didn’t have anything in common. They didn’t even like each other. First came a family with a pregnant mom, then a baroness with two lovers, and occasional visitors who might be shot at. The animosity between the Floreana islanders led to accusations of murder when two of them disappeared. Read the whole sordid story at Gizmodo.

Is Earth Running Out of Groundwater?

One of the world's most precious resources is being used up more rapidly than it can be replaced.

New NASA Tool Displays Earth's CO2

NASA's OCO-2 satellite may help answer question of how much carbon oceans and forests can store.

Astronomical News


NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected a massive, never-before-seen icy cloud at the south pole of Saturn's huge moon Titan.
Although the NASA New Horizons mission's close encounter with the Pluto system lasted a matter of hours, the probe was still able to image a full 'day' on Pluto and largest moon Charon.
While measuring the speed of stars whirling around a nearby dwarf galaxy, astronomers have realized that a reservoir of dark matter may be lurking within.
Some stars are just born with extremely magnetic personalities.
Astronomers have detected something baffling at the furthest frontiers of our observable universe: lots of massive galaxies that shouldn't even exist.

Historical Archive Found in Russian Birds' Nest


Although most of the papers are torn and ruined by bird beaks, it's still possible to read their contents.

Weird and Wonderful Animal Eyes

These ocular show-offs really bring the visual razzle-dazzle.

Puppies rescued after being found inside sealed aquarium on riverbank

A resident of Hinds County, Mississippi, was searching for his lost dog alongside a creek near his home when he found two puppies trapped inside a glass aquarium with the lid sealed shut.
“As I got closer, I saw these eyes peering out at me and they looked like they needed help. That’s when I called authorities,” Matt Williamson said. The aquarium containing the puppies was perched on the creek bank.
“They put them in here to drown,” Williamson said of whoever was responsible. With the help of Hinds County sheriff’s deputies, the puppies were rescued and taken to the Mississippi Animal Rescue League, where hopefully, they will recover. “We think they are a little feral (and) not used to human handling. They were running a slight fever.

“Our standard procedure is to put them in a quiet place, No. 1, because of their temperature, and No. 2, their stress level,” said MARL Director Debra Boswell. The puppies will remain in isolation for a couple of days, but if they check out healthy, they will be put up for adoption. A veterinarian said the puppies are in pretty good health, considering what they went through.

Rare bald squirrel caught on camera

A bald squirrel that has evaded capture by animal experts concerned it could freeze has been caught on film.
The unusual creature was spotted in Grove Park, Dunstable, where Bedfordshire Wildlife Rescue has spent the past fortnight searching for it.
Dr Helen McRobie, a lecturer in biomedical science at the Anglia Ruskin University, said its lack of hair is probably caused by a genetic defect.
"This is very rare. I have been studying squirrels for years but I have never come across one without any hair," she said. "Sadly, the squirrel is probably not going to survive the winter if it remains at large. It needs to be kept in the warm once the temperature drops."
With video - you can watch it here.

Animal Pictures