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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.


Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.
Our twentieth Xmas Tree of the month ...!
 
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Let the games begin ... !
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Today in History

69
Vespians’s supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
1355
Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople.
1802
The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
1860
South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861
English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the “Trent Affair” is not settled without war.
1924
Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
1930
Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
1933
The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
1938
First electronic television system is patented.
1941
The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming.
1943
Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad.
1946
Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi.
1948
U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
1960
National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam.
1962
In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
1963
Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
1989
U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara.
1995
NATO begins peacekeeping operation in Bosnia.
1996
NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS X.
2007
Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch in the history of the UK; previously, that honor belonged to Queen Victoria.

12 Grooming Products You Should Steal From Your Wife

12 Grooming Products You Should Steal From Your Wife
Don’t avoid her side of the medicine cabinet

Police officers recognized for saving elderly lady who had been trapped in sofa bed for 12 hours

An 84-year-old woman was saved from within the clutches of her sofa bed thanks to two San Francisco Police officers. Officers McFall and Cuthbertson, from Richmond Stations Midnight Watch, give regular check-ups on the woman, who lives by herself and has no family in the area.
Having not seen or heard from the woman since taking her a Thanksgiving dinner, the officers decided it was time for a check-up. However, on that particular night the woman did not answer the door though the officers could heard her inside faintly calling out to them, police said.
“They got into the house and found that the woman’s sofa bed frame had cracked causing her to fall through and become stuck,” officials said. The woman had apparently been trapped in the sofa for more than 12 hours, police said. “If the officers had not checked on her, she might have been stuck until her weekly home help visit which was still four days away,” police said.
The woman was taken to the hospital to recover. While at the hospital the next day, she called SFPD dispatch because she needed her glasses, address book and cell phone from home and had no one else to get them. The officers happily got the items and delivered them to her hospital room. Richmond District Captain Simon Silverman said: "I want to recognise Officer Cuthbertson and Officer McFall for their caring and dedication."

The U.S. Is Much Closer to Becoming a Fascist State Than Anyone Could Have Ever Imagined

Malala Yousafzai slams Trump

Malala Yousafzai (Facebook)
Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai condemned Donald Trump’s views on Muslims on Tuesday, at a somber ceremony to remember the 134 children killed in a Taliban attack on a Pakistani school a year ago.

What It's Like to Be a Muslim Woman in the U.S. Right Now

What It's Like to Be a Muslim Woman in the U.S. Right Now
What It's Like to Be a Muslim Woman in the U.S. Right Now
"Even after September 11th, I’ve never felt as much hatred as I have these past few weeks."

Professor suspended for wearing hijab fires back at 'christian' college: ‘Faith, hope, and love. These remain’

A 'christian' college professor was suspended by the evangelical college where she works after she decided to wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslims.

Indian-American woman visited by police after asking to buy AR-15 ammo at Dick’s Sporting Goods

An Indian-American woman said she was questioned by California police after she asked to buy some ammunition for her AR-15 rifle.

Warrant issued for ‘affluenza’ teen Ethan Couch

Couch and his mother, with whom he is living, have been out of contact with his juvenile probation officer for the last "several days," attorneys Reagan Wynn and Scott Brown said in an emailed statement.

Woman who escaped custody found in elderly couple's home wearing the husband's pajamas

A 72-year-old woman from Deltona, Florida, got quite a surprise on Sunday morning after she found a strange woman in her house wearing her husband's pajamas. It wasn’t her husband’s secret lover, as it turned out. It was 22-year-old Eryn Rice, who decided to hole up in the house while hiding from deputies that she escaped from earlier that morning while being handcuffed for shoplifting, according to Gary Davidson of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Rice took the opportunity to wash her clothes in the couple's washing machine, take a shower, and slip into a pair of flannel pajamas, Davidson said.
Now, rather than just facing shoplifting charges, Rice faces a long list of criminal charges that include retail theft, resisting an officer with violence, battery on a law-enforcement officer, giving a false name, escape, burglary and petty theft, according to Davidson. Deputies also arrested an accomplice who was driving Rice’s getaway car, the Sheriff’s Office said. The entire incident began shortly before 6:30am when Rice was seen shoplifting several hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics from a CVS Pharmacy, Davidson said. Before she exited the store, her accomplice, 25-year-old John Willey, realised deputies spotted him in his car and drove off, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
A deputy apprehended Rice as she left the store and got one handcuff on her left wrist, but she became combative, spun around, shoved the deputy to the ground, and took off running, according to the Sheriff’s Office report. Deputies first checked Willey’s house, but Rice wasn’t there. Later, just before 11:30am, the 72-year-old couple flagged down deputies and asked if they were looking for a woman. The couple explained that after the husband left to play golf that morning, the wife found a strange woman in the house wearing her husband’s pyjamas. She called her husband and demanded an explanation. When he came home, the husband insisted that he wasn’t having an affair with the intruder and had never seen her before.
The couple agreed to drive Rice to a residence less than a mile away, the Sheriff’s Office report said. Later, the couple found one of Rice’s socks and a pair of panties in their washing machine. Deputies returned to the home where she'd been dropped off in time to see Willey driving off, according to Davidson. Willey was trying to hide Rice, who was hiding on the floor of his vehicle, Davidson said. Both were arrested. In addition to the other charges, Rice was also arrested on a warrant out of Osceola County for a probation violation associated with a grand-theft charge. Willey was charged with being an accessory after-the-fact to robbery and harbouring an escaped prisoner. Deputies later found the discarded handcuffs that Rice managed to slip out of, not far from the CVS, the Sheriff’s Office said. Davidson said they also found two syringes on Rice and another one, which contained methamphetamine residue, in the car. Rice is in custody on $44,000 bail, while Willey is being held on $20,000 bail.

Business consultant-turned-college president apologizes for saying unprepared professors should be shot

University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld - University of Iowa website
In a conversation with a school librarian who has been critical of his hiring, school President Bruce Harreld said, that any professor who enters his or her classroom unprepared to teach “should be shot.”

Corrupt cop guilty of tipping off crooks will get 'lifetime' health care -- thanks to secret 'golden parachute'

Corrupt cop guilty of tipping off crooks will get 'lifetime' health care -- thanks to secret 'golden parachute'

Florida cop brandishes gun after another customer tells him to stop hassling Applebee’s waitress

A Florida man became enraged and used his gun to threaten another customer who asked him to stop acting like a jerk at an Applebee’s restaurant.

Aging warps our perception of time

Study finds that aging warps our perception of timeStudy finds that aging warps our perception of time
Much like trying to watch a video with the audio out of sync, older adults may have difficulty combining the stimuli they see and hear, and it could have implications for rapid decision-making tasks such as driving, according to new research. A recent study from the...

People Who Curse Have Better Fucking Vocabularies

People Who Curse Have Better F*cking Vocabularies, Science Says
If you curse, science has some fucking amazing news for you!
Read more 

Why Do We Have Nightmares?

While they're more common for children, 85 percent of adults report having had nightmares at some time. What causes these not-so-sweet dreams?

Humans Sleep Less Than Any Other Primate

Do you miss the days when we lived in trees, ate fresh fruit, and slept whenever we wanted? We can't go back to last week, but we can make lifestyle choices now. Perhaps they will be informed by the results of a new study published in Evolutionary Anthropology. The authors discovered that among all primates, humans sleep the least. Esther Inglis-Arkell explains at Gizmodo:
[...] humans get about seven hours of sleep per night. That’s less than half the time that animals like mouse lemurs devote to sleeping. Some primates sleep up to 17 hours a day. And it holds true in both highly technological societies and those that steer clear of technology and keep to cycles of natural light.
We do, however, dream more than other primates:
When humans do sleep, they’re in REM (random eye movement) sleep for about 25% of the time. REM sleep is associated with dreams. Although other primates may dream, researchers estimate that they spend only about five percent of their time in REM sleep.
Why are we different? Perhaps in our evolutionary development, we found that sleep deprived us of social interaction and exposed us to threats:
According to the study authors, once humans moved from the trees to the ground, there were probably three main selective pressures keeping them awake: “increased predation risk in terrestrial environments, threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction.”

5 reasons Jesus never existed

Most antiquities scholars know that the new testament gospels are “mythologized history.”

Stonehenge isn’t the only prehistoric monument that’s been moved – but it’s still unique

Stonehenge isn’t the only prehistoric monument that’s been moved – but it’s still unique

Coolest Archaeological Discoveries of 2015

From sunken ships to megalithic stones, colorful mosaics, intact tombs, 2015 gave us a rich view into the past.

Arctic Report Card

The Arctic has experienced more than twice the level of warming seen elsewhere on Earth.

East Antarctic Ice Sheet has stayed frozen for 14 million years

E. Antarctic Ice Sheet has stayed frozen for 14 million yearsEast Antarctic Ice Sheet has stayed frozen for 14 million years
Antarctica was once a balmier place, lush with plants and lakes. Figuring out just how long the continent has been a barren, cold desert of ice can give clues as to how Antarctica responded to the effects of past climates and can perhaps also indicate what to expect...

Earth News

The weather pattern is expected to help alleviate California's drought, but it could also bring severe erosion.
NASA recently combined satellite imagery and ocean sensor data to create this image of a phytoplankton bloom in the North Atlantic Ocean.

From Algae to Trees in 1 Billion Years

The plant kingdom has a rich natural history all its own.

Paleontology News

Spain was once home to a newly discovered toothy dinosaur that sported a sail on its back.

Teenager fights to save life of orphaned fawn after court ordered it to be put down

A teenager from Melbourne, Australia, is fighting to stop a young, orphaned deer from being put down following a court ruling. Authorities claim the fawn named Rudolph is a threat to public safety, but 19-year-old Andy Foots plans to head to court to prove them wrong. Andy found the hungry fawn abandoned next to a tree stump, a few kilometers from Mansfield about a fortnight ago.
Within hours the pair were inseparable. “We thought Rudolph was a good name because it was coming to Christmas and he’s male,” he said. In the eight days after they met, Andy fed Rudolph every three hours until he was nursed back to full health. “It slept right next to me because it fretted when I put it in the laundry on its own,” he said. A week ago authorities took notice that Rudolph had taken up residency in Andy’s bedroom.
They then seized the animal. “It got attached to me very quickly and now they go ahead and take it,” he said. “They just come and put it in the police car and drove off”. Authorities claimed the deer was a threat to public safety but Andy disagreed. “I put a lot of time and money into feeding it… finally got him drinking and they come and took him off me,” he said. On Friday a court ruled Rudolph should be put down.

However Andy and his family have appealed the decision, which means the fawn will be kept in a secret location until his fate is decided. “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe that an animal can be killed from a court order,” Andy's mother Kay Antsee said. Andy will return to court early next year with hopes the magistrate will rule that Rudolph won’t have to be put down and can instead live out his days in an animal sanctuary. “I didn’t even know there was a law against taking a deer out of the bush, especially trying to save one”, added Andy.

This 200-Year Old Salamander Could Be the Oldest Living Creature on Earth

Chinese news media is claiming that scientists have discovered a huge salamander in a cave in southwestern China. It measures 4 feet, 7 inches long and weighs 115 pounds. Wildlife experts claim that it's probably about 200 years old, which would make it the oldest living creature on the planet. This would take that title away from Jonathan, the 183-year old tortoise on the island of St. Helena.
The salamander is now resting in a contained pool where he can be further studied.

Animal News

With just a stray date pit, pebble and seashell, a group of parrots figured out how to make a nutritional supplement.
With help from close blood relatives of the famous animal, the Pinta tortoise could one day thrive again.
All dogs alive today can trace at least some of their ancestry back to dogs that were domesticated 33,000 years ago in southern East Asia, suggests one of the most extensive ever investigations of canine DNA.

Animal Pictures