Welcome to ...

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.


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.
They're ... Here ...! 
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 206 countries around the world daily.   
  
Old Bicycle ... !
Today is - Bicycle Day

You want the unvarnished truth?
Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Brazil - Canada - Colombia - Nicaragua - Puerto Rico - Sint Eustatius and Saba
Trinidad and Tobago - United States - Venezuela
Europe
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - England - France - Greece - Hungary - Ireland -  Italy 
Latvia - Netherlands - Poland - Portugal - Romania - Russia - San Marino - Scotland - Serbia  Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
China - Hong Kong - India - Indonesia - Malaysia - Maldives - Mauritius - Pakistan 
Singapore - Sri Lanka - Thailand
Africa
Cote D'ivoire - South Africa - Tunisia
The Pacific
Australia - New Zealand - Philippines
Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1539
Emperor Charles V reaches a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1689
Residents of Boston oust their governor, Edmond Andros.
1764
The English Parliament bans the American colonies from printing paper money.
1775
The American Revolution begins as fighting breaks out at Lexington, Massachusetts.
1782
The Netherlands recognizes the United States.
1794
Tadeusz Kosciuszko forces the Russians out of Warsaw.
1802
The Spanish reopen New Orleans port to American merchants.
1824
English poet Lord George Gordon Byron dies of malaria at age 36 while aiding Greek independence.
1861
The Baltimore riots result in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861
Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports.
1880
The Times war correspondent telephones a report of the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the first time news is sent from a field of battle in this manner.
1927
In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek.
1934
Shirley Temple appears in her first movie.
1938
General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939
Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights.
1943
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule begins.
1960
Baseball uniforms begin displaying player’s names on their backs.
1971
Russia launches its first Salyut space station.
1977
Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.
1982
NASA names Sally Ride to be the first woman astronaut.
1989
The battleship USS Iowa‘s number 2 turret explodes, killing sailors.
1993
The FBI ends a 51-day siege by storming the Branch Davidian religious cult headquarters in Waco, Texas.
1995
A truck bomb explodes in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

Meet The Press Roundtable Agrees NC Bathroom Law Is Ridiculous And Unenforceable

Chuck Todd hammers NC's moron over bathroom law

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory speaks to NBC's Chuck Todd (screen grab)Chuck Todd hammers NC's moron over bathroom law: ‘You guys debated for like 10 seconds’

TV host sees through Perkins

Tony Perkins speaks with Fernando Espuelas ("Matter of Fact"/screen grab)TV host sees through Perkins: You support anti-gay laws ‘specifically’ because they discriminate

Victim-blaming pastor isn’t concerned about hiring convicted rapist

Pastor Michael Orten of Truth Apostolic Church (Photo: Church website)
Victim-blaming pastor isn’t concerned about hiring convicted rapist: ‘It takes two to tango’

Texas man brings real gun to water gun fight — and shoots 15-year-old girl

“The man went over there to his car to get his dry clothes and he must have had the gun so he started playing with it."

Couple threatened with jail over overdue library books

Two overdue library books have landed a married couple in Tecumseh, Michigan, in trouble with the law. Not only have the husband and wife been fined more than $200, but they were arraigned in court on Thursday, each charged with larceny of rental equipment. “We were appalled, totally appalled,” Catherine Duren, 44, said. “We didn’t commit a crime.” In the summer of 2014, Duren’s son checked out a Dr. Seuss book for Duren’s granddaughter from the Tecumseh District Library. But the book was misplaced and the library was sending notices to her son’s email, who was a minor at the time and never told his parents about the notices, Catherine Duren said. Catherine Duren said she wasn’t notified directly until October 2014, when she said she received notice from the library that the late charges were now going on her credit report, but she didn't understand that the book itself had not been returned. Both Catherine and her husband, Melvin, 63, have health problems that put them on disability, she said, so they only receive a small amount of money through Social Security cheques. Most of that money goes towards their medications, Duren said.
“We had no intent of not paying the fees,” she said, noting that she and her husband intended to pay the library fees eventually. However, in May 2015, she and her husband received another letter saying the book would have to be replaced, so she went to the library in person to clarify the matter. “They told me they would send me the charges with the late fees through the mail,” Duren said, noting that when she left the library that day, she gave them $10 to pay towards the late fees. At around the same time, the couple went to the library and checked out the book "The Rome Prophecy." When they were moving to an apartment later that year, the book got misplaced, Duren said. Right before Christmas 2015, the Durens received another letter in the mail from the library saying they had a charge of $55 in fees and to return or replace the books if they were lost. The library said the Dr. Seuss book was over a year overdue and "The Rome Prophecy" was approximately 8 months overdue, Duren said. In late December, the couple found “The Rome Prophecy,” but Duren thought her husband had returned it and vice versa. “I thought he returned it, he thought I returned it,” Duren said about the miscommunication, when they found the book still in their home in January.
That's when they finally returned it. Later that month, the newly established Economic Crimes Unit of the Lenawee County Prosecutor's Office, led by Detective Robert Kellogg, sent a notice that the couple would be prosecuted for larceny of rental equipment if they did not pay the fees. The Economic Crimes Unit investigates crimes concerning the intent to steal, such as using bad checks or retail fraud. Duren said she was not able to go to Kellogg to pay the fees until Feb. 3, due to a $500 payment she had to make in January for her and her husband’s medication. When she finally went to Kellogg’s office to pay the fees for the overdue and lost library books, Kellogg said she also had to pay a "diversion fee" of $105 for each book. The diversion fees are used to help fund the unit. “He refused to take my money, because I had to pay the diversion fee first,” said Duren, noting she tried to pay the late and replacement fees, which totaled $55, directly to the library. The library had to contact Kellogg to see if this was possible, and Kellogg told the library not to accept her money, according to Duren. She then tried to send a money order through certified mail and she said Kellogg called them leaving "threatening" messages on their phone that they “circumvented the law.”

“He was so rude to me,” Duren recalled. “He treated me like a criminal.” An acquaintance who is a lawyer, advised the couple to ignore the calls, until one day, the Tecumseh Police Department called them to say that they had to appear in court and that "there was a warrant out for a $100 bond on both of us,” Duren said. The police wanted the Durens to come down to the station and turn themselves in, but Duren said she was bewildered that the situation had ballooned from misplaced library books, so she told them, “You can go ahead and serve your warrant.” The police showed up at their home this week, took the $200 bond paid in cash, and “they never arrested us, no fingerprinting, no handcuffs,” Duren said. When the couple appeared in court on Thursday, they pleaded not guilty to larceny of rental equipment, which carries a maximum sentence of 93 days in jail and a $500 fine, according to police. The fees and the brouhaha over the matter are taking a huge toll on the couple, said Duren, who noted that her husband is being tested for cancer and that she is in stage-three of kidney disease. The library charges should be the last of their worries right now, she said. “If we intended to steal a book, why would we go in legally to check them out?” she said. The Durens are scheduled to appear in court on May 3.

Man arrested after allegedly letting off fart spray in bar

A man was arrested last weekend for allegedly using bottled flatulence to stink up a bar in downtown Athens, Georgia, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report. Upon arriving at the Whiskey Bent bar at about 1:40am on Saturday, police saw “several patrons leave quickly while making comments about how bad it stunk inside the bar,” according to the report.
Bar patrons pointed out 20-year-old Blake Leland Zengo as the culprit, and one woman accused Zengo of spraying her face, according to police. When police found Zengo in the bar's patio area, he claimed to not know what was going on, and said he did not spray anything, according to the report. Zengo was described in the police report as being “very inebriated, and was slurring his words.”
When police searched the Oconee County resident, they found in his pants pocket a spray bottle of Liquid ASS, which appeared to have worked as advertised. The website for the prank product promises: “Once unleashed, this power-packed, super-concentrated liquid begins to evaporate filling the air with a genuine, foul butt-crack smell with hints of dead animal and fresh poo. The funny pranks you can pull with Liquid ASS are unlimited.
“Watching the facial grimaces of people and hearing their comments about the part-your-hair, gagging stench will have you laughing until it hurts.” Zengo, of Bogart, was charged with disorderly conduct, public intoxication and underage consumption of alcohol. The 21-year-old woman who alleged that Zengo sprayed her in the face declined to press charges, according to the police report. Zengo was at the Clarke County Jail for less than two hours before he posted a total bond of $1,500 and was released.

To Wax or Not to Wax

Move Over, Popcorn

Crackpot Creationist Says Stonehenge Built by Race of Satanic Giants

Crackpot Creationist Says Stonehenge Built by Race of Satanic Giants
Satan needed a base from which to attack Israel and this makes sense because the Salisbury Plain is so close to Israel...oh wait...…

Cosmic Ray Tech May Unlock Pyramids' Secrets

A new generation of muon telescopes has been built to detect the presence of secret structures within Egypt's pyramids.

Obama to Shine Light on Unsung Hero of Astronomy

President Obama will highlight Henrietta Swan Leavitt, whose insights helped devise a cosmic yardstick for measuring the universe.

How could we build an invisibility cloak to hide Earth from an alien civilization?

How could we build an invisibility cloak to hide Earth from an alien civilization?

Hubble photo of the "Red Rectangle"

This strikingly detailed Hubble image reveals how, when seen from space, the nebula, rather than being rectangular, is shaped like an X with additional complex structures of spaced lines of glowing gas, a little like the rungs of a ladder.
The star at the center is similar to the sun, but at the end of its lifetime, pumping out gas and other material to make the nebula, and giving it the distinctive shape. It also appears that the star is a close binary that is surrounded by a dense area of dust—both of which may help to explain the very curious shape.
The Red Rectangle is an unusual example of what is known as a proto-planetary nebula. These are old stars, on their way to becoming planetary nebulae. Once the expulsion of mass is complete a very hot white dwarf star will remain and its brilliant ultraviolet radiation will cause the surrounding gas to glow. The Red Rectangle is found about 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn). Additional information at PhysOrg.

All About Galactic Walls

You know how hard it is to get your mind around the size of even a single galaxy in the universe? Now try to imagine a wall of galaxies cemented together by dark matter.

Europa's Deforming Ice Is a Surprising Heat Generator

Laboratory test on ice compression has revealed that Jupiter's icy moon's crust could generate a surprising amount of heat, opening a new window into understanding the moon's potentially life-giving ocean.

'Tiger whisperer' mauled to death at zoo

A tiger has fatally mauled a woman keeper inside an enclosure at Palm Beach Zoo in Florida. Stacey Konwiser, 38, suffered a "severe bite" wound while inside the big cat's habitat on Friday afternoon, say zoo officials.
She was performing basic tasks with the male Malayan tiger at the time, said zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter. "This is the first death at the hands of an animal in the history of the Palm Beach Zoo," she said. The tiger was not on exhibit at the time of the attack and guests were never in danger, Ms Carter added.
Ms Konwiser was taken to St Mary's Medical Center, where she died. West Palm Beach police said the Malayan tiger, a critically endangered species, was tranquilized. Ms Carter said Ms Konwiser was known as "the tiger whisperer" because of how well she handled the attraction's four Malayan tigers.
It is not known which big cat carried out the attack, but the victim earlier this year uploaded a photo of a tiger to Facebook. Ms Konwiser, who was married to another keeper at the zoo, commented on the picture: "The newest man in my life." The zoo will remain closed until further notice.

Animal Pictures