CAROLINA NATURALLY: May 13, 2010

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:
Cupid is sometimes too cautious for your liking.
You can't just strut up to him out of nowhere and demand that he shoots the object of your affections just to power up your love life!
For now, try just acting nonchalant and totally unconcerned with what happens next.
The more frantically you seem to want love, the less likely it is to come your way right now.

Some of our readers today have been in:

Milano, Lombardia, Italy

San Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador

Amersfoort, Utrecht, Netherlands

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Paris, Ile-De-France, France

Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

leicester, England, United Kingdom

Quebec, Quebec, Canada

Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

London, England, United Kingdom

Karlskrona, Blekinge Lan, Sweden

Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

New Delhi, Delhi, India

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Vigo, Galicia, Spain

as well as the Czech Republic, and the United States in such cities as Bossier City, Fairpoint, Shrewsbury, South Bend, Twin Falls and more

Today is Thursday, May 13, the 133rd day of 2010.

There are 232 days left in the year.

Today In History May 13

Today's unusual holidays or celebrations are:
Frog Jumping Day
and
Root Canal Appreciation Day

As The World Turns

As The World Turns

Swedish Cartoonist Object of Attempted Attack

Full story

The Swedish cartoonist whose depiction of the prophet Mohammed as a dog has elicited death threats was the object of an attempted attack Tuesday at Sweden's Uppsala University, police said.

Glitzy hotel boasts 'ATM' that gives gold

An eye-catching kiosk in the Emirates Palace turns cash into 24-carat gold bars and coins.

Customized designs

Also:

Mysterious disease hits Afghan drug crop

The country's infamous poppy harvest is set for a drastic fall, but no one fully understands why.

'Part of nature'

Also:

Crisis in Thailand takes dramatic turn

A rebel general who was shot while talking to a reporter becomes a symbol of the chaos.

Peace talks collapse

Also:

Indian minister says eunuch regiment needed to protect borders

A regiment of eunuchs should be established to guard India's borders and leading politicians, a state minister said on Tuesday, citing their "loyalty and integrity". "In my humble opinion, if eunuchs are engaged in policing or paramilitary forces they would do a better service to the nation," said Tako Dabi, home minister of the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Mr Dabi sent a letter to Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram to offer his idea for the improved defense of the country. "Why can't there be a separate regiment of eunuch community in our country?" he wrote in the letter. "This community would discharge their duties effectively on international borders if enough scope is created for them."

In India, the term "eunuch" is mostly used to refer to cross-dressers and pre- and post-operative transsexuals. Indian eunuchs are severely marginalised and, unable to gets jobs, rely on begging and the sex trade for income. They also attend weddings and births uninvited, as many people believe it is inauspicious to turn them away without giving them money.

Mr Dabi, speaking in Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh - which has a long border with China - said that during the Mugal empire, castrated eunuchs had often been employed to guard harems. Eunuchs last year won the right to be recognised as "others", rather than male or female, on electoral rolls and voter identity cards. Mr Dabi is known for his original ideas. In March he defended policemen who consumed alcohol on duty, saying it gave them extra energy.

Family killed as home swallowed up by giant sinkhole in Quebec

A French-Canadian family were killed when their home fell into a giant sinkhole during a freak landslide in Quebec on Monday.

The four members of the Préfontaines family – including two children aged about 9 and 11 – were watching an ice hockey game on television when the earth suddenly gave way and engulfed their home, on a cliff overlooking the Yamaska River.

Authorities said that the family had been in the basement lounge area cheering on their favorite team, the Montreal Canadiens, when the accident occurred.

Rescuers frantically dug through the night to look for survivors, however the bodies of Richard Préfontaines, his wife and their children, were found late yesterday.

“They were found very close to one another, some of them lying on the couch in the family room in the basement,” said Michel Doré, Quebec’s emergency management co-ordinator.

The family’s pet dog was found earlier, alive and tied to a tree in the mud. The golden retriever, named Foxy, was so weak it was initially thought to be dead, however it is expected to fully recover.

Deadly plane crash leaves sole survivor

Dozens of people are reported dead after an airliner crashes in Libya, but a 10-year-old is found alive.

104 aboard

Also:

Local Hospitality

Local Hospitality

South End's historic fire station will be saved

A century-old fire station in South End will be saved from the wrecking ball.

Fire station inspires memories
Historic Fire Station No. 2

When you need one

A hero isn't hard to find ...

Elderly have-a-go hero shot four times after smashing beer bottle over armed robber's head

A heroic act potentially saves the life of a store clerk but the hero is shot in exchange for his bravery and it's all caught on camera. A gunman was demanding money from a clerk at a gas station in Caroline County, Virginia, and even fired twice at the clerk's feet.

But then, a customer from the back of the store, snuck up behind the suspect and smashed a beer bottle over his head. The suspect ran for it, but fired multiple times hitting the hero, who is in his 60s, four times causing injuries to his legs, shoulder and head.

People in the store say he's a real hero and saved their lives. "He is a hero. He didn't have to do that. He could have walked right out of the store," the clerk said. "He's a hero and I just want to hug and kiss him."

The man who was shot is believed to have been released from the hospital and is recovering at home.

Hemp isn't just for hippies anymore

It's durable.

It's versatile.

And when it's used in textiles, it's easier on the environment than, say, cotton.

Is it possible to dine out politely with kids?

Is there any hatred more vile and seething than that reserved for parents and young children by people not in the mood?
In cities, particularly, it becomes turf war: small spaces and bulky bourgeois baby-care accouterments really don't mix.

Is it possible to dine out politely with kids?

Family Butler Given $10 Million Inheritance

For 35 years Indra Tamang was a faithful servant to a family inside the venerable Dakota co-op.
When the owners passed away they left him two apartments and an art collection valued at $10 million.

Full story

Upping the cute factor

White otters born at aquarium

A pair of extremely rare white otter cubs seen scampering about at a tourist attraction are believed to be the first to be born in captivity in Britain. The creatures, noticeably paler than normal cubs, took keepers at the Blue Planet Aquarium by surprise.

The pair are part of a litter of three baby Asian short-claw otters born at the Cheshire tourist attraction at the end of March. But it was only when they started appearing outside of their holt that keepers noticed their unusual coloring.

Exhibits manager Tom Cornwell said: ''Normally the cubs, like their parents, are dark brown in color so it came as a major surprise to see these two tiny white cubs running around. We've been doing some checking but it would appear that this is a very rare occurrence indeed.

''There were sightings of a wild albino otter up in Scotland last year, but this is the first time we've seen anything like this in captivity in the UK.'' The cubs are believed to have leucism, which is a rare condition in which the animal's fur develops without its natural pigment.

Baby reindeer is first to be born in England for 800 years

Staff at a country park have celebrated the arrival of this baby reindeer which became the first born in England – for 800 years.

The baby reindeer – nicknamed Blue – is the first born in the country since the animals were hunted to extinction in 13th century.

Blue is the first young born to a herd of one male and five females imported from Scandinavia to the Trevarno Estate near Helston, Cornwall.

Last Broadway Ziegfeld Follies Girl Dies At 106

Doris Travis was one of the legendary Ziegfeld Follies Girls.

Last Broadway Ziegfeld Follies Girl Dies At 106

Early 1900s in Color

In the early part of the 20th century French-Jewish capitalist Albert Kahn set about to collect a photographic record of the world, the images were held in an 'Archive of the Planet'. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was able to amass a collection of 180,000 meters of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true color photography.

Full Story

Pagan police get right to take festivals as holiday

Police officers have been given the right to take days off to dance naked on the solstices, celebrate fertility rituals and burn Yule logs if they profess pagan beliefs.

The Pagan Police Association claimed yesterday that it had been recognized by the Home Office as a “diversity staff support association” — a status also enjoyed by groups representing female, black, gay, Muslim and disabled officers.

Endorsement would mean that chief constables could not refuse a pagan officer’s request to take feast days as part of his or her annual leave. The eight pagan festivals include Imbolc (the feast of lactating sheep), Lammas (the harvest festival) and the Summer Solstice (when mead drinking and naked dancing are the order of the day).

Problematically, the pagan festivals also include Samhain (known to non-pagans as Hallowe’en), a day when police leave is often canceled because of the high incidence of vandalism, violence and antisocial behavior.

Sobering reality of America's drug war

After 40 years and $1 trillion, the U.S. war on drugs has met none of its goals.

Problem 'magnified, intensified'

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Thieves steal Ohio hearse, dump corpse, leave note

A corpse was taken for a ride in Cleveland, then dumped by thieves who stole a crematory's hearse and abandoned it with a note telling police where to find the body.

Full story

In Matters Of Health

In Matters Of Health

Baby vaccine contaminated with pig virus

Because the viruses aren't known to cause disease in humans, the vaccine's benefits still outweigh its risks, say US regulators

Heartburn drugs pose health risks

Certain heartburn medicines can increase the risk of infections and bone fractures.

The study's findings

Also:

Heartburn Drugs Increase Risk of Bone Fractures and Intestinal Distress Prilosec, Nexium and Protonix --drugs that promise to relieve heartburn and excess stomach acid-- can do more harm than good, according to recent studies.

On The Job

On The Job

Video resumés gain in popularity

Low-cost video tools are changing how people get hired or admitted to college.

Good ways to stand out

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Little-known reasons not to hire someone

These under-the-radar issues may be preventing employers from taking you seriously.

One overused word

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Lost jobs that are never coming back

Millions of unemployed workers are unlikely to ever find positions in their fields, experts say.

Shifting economy

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Daily Comic Relief

Calvin and Hobbs

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=2fedc4c2a893ee2a2a74baca5a538a37&w=900.0

The Wizard of Id

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=aaad460a9594fbc1ee3b70369a7e2d4c&w=900.0

Non Sequitur

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=439ee186274539b5ad2cce3950dc21b3&w=900.0

Shoe

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=544c86c1dc1e199b4071f533193b13b7&w=900.0

Some snake bites will soon get deadlier

Production of one antivenom is halted, and the last batch will expire soon.

Potential costs

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Things They Won't tell You

Things They Won't tell You

7 things you shouldn't do on Facebook

Some of these moves could leave you vulnerable to identity thieves, or even worse.

Privacy controls to know

Also:

What your financial adviser won't say

The difference between certified financial planners and standard stockbrokers may surprise you.

Insider secrets

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Oh, for the love of technology

Wayward satellite may black out cable TV

A communications satellite thousands of miles above Earth could spoil reception for some viewers.

Why it's off course

Also:

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Black hole 'hurled out of galaxy'

A supermassive black hole may have been observed in the process of being hurled from its parent galaxy at high speed.

Black hole confirmed in Milky Way

Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Lasers scan future possibilities

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the first demonstration of a ruby laser in the US Hughes Research Labs.

Kingdoms clash in battle for food

A study details how two species from different taxonomic kingdoms - animal and plant - compete for the same food.

For reasons as yet unknown, a dark band on the giant planet's southern hemisphere has recently vanished.

Jupiter loses a stripe

New Primate Discovered: 'Nosmips Aenigmaticus'

Researchers have discovered the fossilized remains of a primate that may have lived in Africa as long as 37 million years ago, but defies classification as to what species it belonged.

First mathematical model of cow behavior

Why does a herd of cows stand or lay down at the same time? Researchers at Clarkson University in New York have worked out a mathematical model to explain the workings behind collective behavior in bovines.
"OK, cool. But, seriously," you may ask, "is that really important?" Actually, yeah.

Happy cows tend to copy each other. And happy cows are also more productive by various measures such as the amount of milk they produce. Some researchers have even proposed that synchrony be used as a measure of the quality of bovine life.
That will ring a bell with many farmers who keep their cattle indoors during winter. They have long recognised that when cattle are so crowded that there is not enough room for them all to lie down at the same time, productivity drops dramatically. In fact, in some parts of the world there are rules about how much space cattle must have to lie down in. The new model could help determine the level of coupling that maintains production.

First mathematical model of cow behavior

Why sky may not have always been blue

The atmosphere's current hue probably differed long ago, a new study suggests.

The previous color

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'Impossible' star among space discoveries

The biggest and brightest star in our galaxy and an enormous hole in space confound scientists.

A 'zombie' craft

Also:

Philosophers and scientists have argued about the origins of life from inorganic matter ever since Empedocles (430 B.C.) argued that every thing in the universe is made up of a combination of four eternal ‘elements’ or ‘roots of all’: earth, water, air, and fire, and that all change is explained by the arrangement and rearrangement of these four elements. Now, scientists have discovered that simple peptides can organize into bi-layer membranes. The finding suggests a “missing link” between the pre-biotic Earth’s chemical inventory and the organizational scaffolding essential to life.

Scientists Discover Missing Link Between Organic and Inorganic Life

Octopus or Shark

What happens when you put an Octopus and a Shark in an Aquarium tank together?

Hawaii law lets state ignore repeated demands for Obama's birth certificate

Aloha 'Birthers'

Hawaii to Birthers: Thanks for writing, now aloha! The island state's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle signed into law on Wednesday a bill that would allow Hawaii to ignore repeated requests for President Obama's birth certificate.

Full story

Travel Arizona

Arizona Tourism's new video ad promoting the Fascist state

Lunatic Fringe

Lunatic Fringe

Lead anti-immigration group has ties to extremist group formed by Nazi sympathizers

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

During the heated debate leading up to the 1994 vote on California’s Proposition 187, a punishing anti-immigrant ordinance that would have denied social services to undocumented immigrants had it not been rejected by the courts, an embarrassing truth about the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) was revealed. Press reports disclosed that FAIR, a major backer of Prop 187, was also a major grant recipient of the Pioneer Fund, a racist organization established by Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s to pursue “race betterment.”

As of that year, FAIR had received a total about $1.2 million from Pioneer, which primarily funds race and IQ studies intended to reveal the inferiority of minorities and to this day describes its grant recipients, generally, as “race realists.” Perhaps the press furor would have died down if FAIR had decided to sever its relationship with Pioneer after the fund’s nature was exposed. But it chose not to.

FAIR ended its financial relationship with Pioneer, which as a foundation must publicly disclose recipients of its grants, in 1994. But it did not end the private relationship of top FAIR officials with leaders of the fund. An SPLC review of John Tanton’s private papers, which are stored at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, shows how close the relationship between the leaders of Pioneer and FAIR principals has been for three decades, even in the wake of the 1994 scandal. Not only did Tanton carry on a close correspondence with Weyher and his partner at Pioneer, John Trevor Jr., he also visited both at their homes. (In one instance, he took his staffer Roy Beck, who now runs NumbersUSA, to visit Trevor in Florida.) And at a 1997 gathering organized by Tanton at the New York Racquet & Tennis Club — three years after FAIR had stopped taking Pioneer Fund money — Tanton brought FAIR board members Henry Buhl, Sharon Barnes and Alan Weeden to a meeting with Weyher. Held expressly to discuss fundraising efforts to benefit FAIR, the meeting was memorialized in a Feb. 17, 1997, memo that Tanton wrote for his “FAIR Fund-Raising File.” A year later, on Jan. 5, 1998, Tanton wrote to Trevor to thank him for his personal “handsome contribution” to FAIR.

Liars and Fools

Faux's Glen Brick asks "Why are we headed towards socialism" when world is "collapsing"?.

We aren't and it isn't ... just take you shot and got to sleep, asshole.

Lush Dimbulb lies that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is a "budding communist," "the first amendment is something she doesn't like".

Having another syphilitic moment I see there Lush ol'boy.

Michael Savage says Kagan is a "radical leftist red-diaper doper baby".

This idiot needs to stay under his rock ... can't you smell the charring of rotten fetid flesh in the sunlight - that's what happens when the dead try to be among the living.

Faux's Shyawn Handjob, Glen Brick, and many on the wingnuts seize on false claim that Kagan's thesis shows she's a socialist.

Just proves they cannot read or comprehend.

Michael Savage lies: Kagan is "part of the New York City communist front".

Get back under your rock you slime there are decent human beings here.

Lush Dimbulb falsely claims Kagan "has written mostly on the dangers of the collapse of socialism and how we need to revive it".

Boy, the syphilis is bad today isn't it Lush.

http://www.sensibleerection.com/images/entry_thumbnails/1272658436_

Arizona gov. signs bill targeting ethnic studies

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies program on Tuesday, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.