The Daily Drift

Nirvana ... So near yet so far

Carolina Naturally is read in 191 countries around the world daily.

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Today in History

44 BC		Julius Caesar is assassinated by high-ranking Roman Senators.
933		Henry the Fowler routs the raiding Magyars at Merseburg, Germany.
1493		Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.
1778		In command of two frigates, the Frenchman la Perouse sails east from Botany Bay for the last lap of his voyage around the world.
1820		Maine is admitted as the 23rd state.
1862		General John Hunt Morgan begins four days of raids near the city of Gallatin, Tenn.
1864		The Red River Campaign begins as the Union forces reach Alexandria, La.
1892		New York State unveils the new automatic ballot voting machine.
1895		Bone Mizell, the famed cowboy of Florida, appears before a judge for altering cattle brands.
1903		The British complete the conquest of Nigeria.
1904		Three hundred Russians are killed as the Japanese shell Port Arthur in Korea.
1909		Italy proposes a European conference on the Balkans.
1916		General John Pershing and his 15,000 troops chase Pancho Villa into Mexico.
1934		Henry Ford restores the $5-a-day wage.
1935		Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda bans four Berlin newspapers.
1939		Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia, Czechoslovakia.
1944		Cassino, Italy is destroyed by Allied bombing.
1949		Almost four years after the end of World War II, clothes rationing in Great Britain ends.
1951		French General de Lattre demands that Paris send him more troops for the fight in Indochina.
1955		The U.S. Air Force unveils the first self-guided missile.
1956		The first performance of My Fair Lady, starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, takes place on Broadway.
1960		Ten nations meet in Geneva to discuss disarmament.
1965		Gamal Abdel Nasser is re-elected Egyptian President.
1967		President Lyndon Johnson names Ellsworth Bunker as the new ambassador to Saigon. Bunker replaces Lodge.
1968		The U.S. mint halts the practice of buying and selling gold.
1991		Four Los Angeles police are charged in the beating of Rodney King.

Non Sequitur

The Hippie Papers: Trip-Taking, Mind-Quaking, Scene-Making Word from Where it's at (1968)

De rigueur paperback cover in 1968. NSFW blogpost in 2013!
Wikipedia entry on Jerry Hopkins:

He is best known as the co-author (with Danny Sugerman) of No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980), the definitive biography of Jim Morrison of The Doors, which was a key source for Oliver Stone's film about the band. He has written nearly 30 books about music, food and travel, including three volumes on Elvis Presley. He has also written for Rolling Stone (where he was a contributing editor for 20 years), The Village Voice, GQ and numerous other publications. His most recent book as of December 2007 is an oral history of Don Ho. Since the early 1990s he has lived in Thailand.

The Hippie Papers: Notes from the Underground Press

Legal Chocolate Surprise Eggs Coming to the US

The sale of Kinder Eggs has been illegal in the U.S. since 1938. We Americans learned of these wonderful chocolate eggs with toys inside them from European friends, and just had to be jealous, unless we traveled abroad. But that will change very soon with the introduction of Choco Treasures!

But first, a history lesson. In 1938, the FDA passed The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which prohibits “non-nutritive (inedible) object inside a candy.” Furthermore, the toys in Kinder and other such surprise eggs are also only safe for kids 3 and up, which violates the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s requirement that all candy-encased toys be safe for children of all ages.

But Choco Treasures are different. First off, each of the three different editions of Choco Treasure has its own collection of all ages toys, from the original chocolate eggs to sports balls to even a Spider-man-inspired egg, licensed from Marvel. Second, each egg features a specially-designed capsule that separates the two halves of the chocolate so even a small child can see the there’s something on the inside.

Choco Treasures should be in major retailers before Easter. Find out more about them at FoodBeast.

The Koch Brothers Have a Shiny New Propaganda Machine

Since the 2012 election repugicans continue to insist their problem is bad messaging. After all, who would turn down the opportunity to create mass poverty, starve as many children as possible, deny seniors access to healthcare and reduce women’s status to state controlled birthing machines?
We just don’t get that we don’t really need the vote – after all property owning men like the Koch brothers know what America needs and the last thing we need is a thriving middle class. We really don’t need a minimum wage, let alone a living wage.  Just ask the happy, peppy people in the Chinese labor camp that got Mitt Romney warm and fuzzy all over. They loved their camp so much, they had to be fenced in.  But then, it wasn’t like they really had time to venture beyond the camp anyways.
You’ll see and the Kochs have been busy making sure we get the message this time.
First, they got to work creating more ALEC like tentacles because obviously setting up dummy political movements like the teabaggers and buying politicians just isn’t enough to show us how things are going to work in the United States of Koch. The Association for American Innovation  is described as a business league that will promote free market bills in state legislatures –  just like ALEC.  Then there’s American Committment, which plans to emulate the Cato institute and Americans for Prosperity.   In other words, same lipstick, new schills.

” What we’re trying to do is take kind of the best research and analysis, and get it into a form that’s more appropriate to a mass audience, things like columns and talking points, blog posts, op-eds,” says Phil Kerpen, head of American Commitment.”

Translation: The spin machine didn’t do a good enough job before.  Now it’s time to really refine the propaganda, make it simple enough for “you people” to understand and spew it through as many tentacles as possible.

Next, they’re thinking of buying The Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times to get their message out to “you people.’
But don’t worry, the Koch’s “respect” the independents of journalists.  Their spokespuppet said so.  Think Progress reports:
The Koches, (sic) who some sources say are interested in the clout they could gain through the Times‘ editorial pages, could bid on their own or combine in a bid with Doug Manchester, the San Diego real estate magnate who bought the San Diego Union-Tribune in November 2011.

Missy Cohlmia, a spokeswoman for Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter : “We respect the independence of the journalistic institutions referenced in today’s news stories… ”

Sure, they respect journalistic independence, just like they respected their employees’ political independence in 2012. In the Koch States of America, journalistic independence means schilling for the Kochs much like Faux schills for the repugican cabal.

When coupled with their additional ALEC “think tanks” that decide on the policies to be passed by Koch owned politicians in state legislatures and Congress, the next step is getting the “message” out to “you people” through Koch owned media. Then you people will be properly conditioned to vote the right way in the next election and if not, the election after that.
Don’t like obstructionism as we see from the Koch bought politicians in Congress? The solution is simple, just hand power over to more of them.  You’ll see legislation pass lickety split – as people are seeing first hand in  Koch owned states like North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio in which the wingnuts successfully gerrymandered their way to power.
Seriously, if we thought 2012 was tough, that’s nothing compared to what the Koch Brothers have in store for 2014 and 2016.

The Kochs and Their Corporate Arm ALEC Are Out to Destroy the Healthcare System

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, a covert operation aims to fulfill its’ mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation because they are so well-planned and executed and they conceal the identity of the sponsor with great efficiency. America has been the victim of a covert operation that began in 2009 and coincided with the country’s first African American President and the rise of racists protesting the idea that Americans deserved basic healthcare insurance. The teabaggers’ initial mission objective was blocking debate on healthcare reform that escalated into a campaign in early 2011 to end the entire healthcare system of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
In 2010, rumors the Koch brothers were behind the opposition to healthcare reform were confirmed and now their mission objective is overt and there is no doubt the Kochs and their corporate arm ALEC are out to end the healthcare system starting with Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans have yearned to undo New Deal provisions for 80 years, but they never openly stated their intent until this week.
On Tuesday, teabagger hero Paul Ryan said, “This to us is something that we’re not going to give up on, because we’re not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people,” and in Florida, at the urging of the Koch brothers’ front group, Americans for Prosperity, repugicans rejected expanding Medicaid to its poorest citizens with an endorsement by teabag Governor Rick Scott, and the bill’s sponsor said he wants Florida out of the Medicaid program. Those two events should dispel any rumors that repugicans are proposing Draconian cuts to safety nets and social programs out of fiscal responsibility, and informs that America is under siege from a very small group of wealthy industrialists led by the Koch brothers and their surrogates ALEC.
The movement to end the federal government and grant supremacy to individual states is a Koch and ALEC objective that gave rise to the “tenther” movement and increasing “nullification” threats in repugican-controlled states that began in earnest with passage of the Affordable Care Act. Paul Ryan is just a mouthpiece for the Koch brothers’ agenda, and his budget that ends Medicare, slashes social programs, and sends federal dollars to states in the form of bloc grants is part of a larger movement to give Republican governors control over social programs to erode them and give tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy. However, killing and starving the poor is just a side benefit for repugicans who are pursuing the Koch goal of ending all federal programs. Especially those that are successful and popular with the people in their push to portray the federal government as a failure.
When Ryan admitted that repugicans’ goal was “destroying the health care system for the American people,” he was only hitting the tip of the iceberg. The repugicans have proposed: abolishing child labor laws, eliminating the federal minimum wage, ending voting rights, slashing Social Security, abolishing public education, and eliminating regulatory agencies for the Koch brothers. Those objectives are discussed regularly at the Kochs’ secret policy meetings with the nation’s richest corporate leaders, two Supreme Court justices, and the Koch’s legislative arm ALEC. In fact, ALEC regularly writes template legislation for the Kochs that are routinely enacted in repugican states that have restricted voting rights, funneled public school funds to private religious schools and have also eroded environmental protections,  chipped away at programs that assist seniors, women, and the poor. Such as the Medicaid that is under attack nationwide.
Last week it was reported the Koch brothers’ activists, Americans for Prosperity, funded campaigns in states with repugican governors that embraced Medicaid expansion to oppose efforts to give millions of poor Americans access to basic healthcare and Florida was a prime target. Apparently the Koch brothers were successful because not only did repugicans vote against expanding Medicaid at no cost to the state, they convinced them to pull out of Medicaid completely. It is a troubling sign because now that one GOP state is considering dropping out of the healthcare program for the poor, other repugican governors and legislators will feel emboldened to follow suit; especially with the prospect of garnering more campaign dollars from the Kochs and their corporate cohort ALEC.
Over the past couple of years, pundits have wondered aloud who leads the repugican cabal and it is clear that it is not Lush Dimbulb or Karl Rove; it is the Koch brothers. There is no question that every repugican policy, and every piece of legislation, comes directly from ALEC under supervision from the Kochs. Paul Ryan may not have meant to expose the Koch brothers’ goal of destroying the health care system for Americans, but now that he has, it is a simple exercise to compare repugican priorities with ALEC’s template legislation that follows the Koch’s frenzy for federalist policies by giving power to states and neutering the federal government. However the only reason the Kochs were successful installing their surrogates in Congress and state houses is because emoprogs and disaffected Democrats stayed home and failed to vote in 2010 or America would not be under siege.
There is a day of reckoning on the horizon for Americans, and at the rate repugicans are willing to do the Koch brothers’ bidding, it is not a very promising future. They may not control both  houses of Congress, but with 30 repugican governors, and ALEC churning out Koch-inspired legislation to abolish child labor laws, voting rights, minimum wage, public education, women’s rights, environmental regulations, and increasing calls for nullification,  Americans are in jeopardy of seeing their country transformed into a plutocrats’ paradise. Now that Paul Ryan revealed their goal is destroying the healthcare system, and Florida threatens to abandon Medicaid, two Koch objectives, it is obvious that what many pundits have feared is true; the Koch brothers control the repugican cabal and without an intervention, their bloodless coup d’état will give them control of America.

House repugicans Threaten to Shut Down Government Unless Women are Denied Contraception

It is not uncommon for people to repeat particular behaviors based on their life experience and environment to the point their actions and way of thinking becomes an ethos unto itself. People familiar with convicted felons recognize that the high rate of recidivism is based on a deeply entrenched culture that criminal behavior is normal and following accepted societal norms for behavior is foreign. For the past four years repugicans have adopted a style of governance that informs their obstructionism and hostage-taking, although outside political norms, has become part of their culture that doesn’t bode well for Americans or the government. This week, House repugicans proposed they will shut down the government unless they are allowed to restrict women’s access to contraception that defines their culture that governance entails threats to impose religion on government and the people.
On Tuesday, in advance of negotiations for a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown before March 27, fourteen repugicans wrote to repugican leadership demanding that the continuing resolution must repeal the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The repugicans also introduced (again) a bill to repeal the mandate to make their point that religious employers’ divine right to control women’s reproductive health, and their wont to inject religious dogmata into law, will be enforced under threat of holding government funding as a hostage.
The repugicans used the absurd “religious liberty” argument to oppose contraception coverage since the President announced it was part of the Affordable Care Act, and they are again demanding that religious employers be allowed to exercise their religious liberty by denying women access to birth control. The legislators wrote that “This attack on religious freedom demands immediate congressional action. Nothing short of a full exemption for both nonprofit and for-profit entities will satisfy the demands of the Constitution and common sense” that means christian lunatics demand the right to control women’s reproductive health. It is likely the religious freedom advocates are demanding contraception coverage repeal in support of craft store chain, Hobby Lobby, whose owners defied a court ruling in late December to provide copay-free birth control access to its employees. Apparently Hobby Lobby’s owner believes the law, judicial system, and women’s right to control their reproductive health is the purview of his religious inclinations, and repugicans are providing their support with threats to withhold funding for the government.
Women are already under attack with the enactment of sequester cuts that eliminates $86 million from family planning and reproductive health services, and to help Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO, David Green, impose his religious belief on his employees, repugicans will use budget negotiations to continue christian lunatics’ war on women. Hobby Lobby was “built and will continue to be built on strong values, and honoring the Lord in a manner consistent with biblical principles,” and integral to consistency with biblical principles and honoring the lord is Green’s religious freedom to dictate that women are not entitled to contraceptives. Perhaps Green is unaware that his religious liberty already protects him from being forced by the government to use an IUD, diaphragm, or birth control pills, but not to force women to submit to his Draconian “strong values” founded in his religious beliefs.
One of the repugicans leading the charge to force the government to follow religious demands and repeal the contraceptive coverage mandate is Tennessee congresswoman Diane Black who early in the 113^th Congress introduced a measure to defund Planned Parenthood. Several other House repugicans re-introduced Paul Ryan’s Sanctity of Human Life Act (again) that grants personhood to a single celled organism in a devious attempt to ban contraception. The measures religio-nut repugicans are taking to ban contraception are counter-intuitive to their opposition to abortion, because better access to cost-free contraception reduces the number of unintended pregnancies, and by extension abortion, and it gives women financial freedom to decide when they begin having children, but women’s freedom and christian insanity cannot co-exist in a rapidly expanding theocracy that seeks insert biblical gender inequality into the law.
One of the features of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate was that although it didn’t eradicate gender inequality in healthcare costs, it did level the playing field, and mandated contraceptive coverage was a major factor. However, repugicans oppose gender equality and they have a powerful weapon in religious agitators who will go to any means to deny women access to contraceptives as evidenced by Hobby Lobby’s refusal to follow the law and courts. For Hobby Lobby and religious agitators, the contraceptive mandate is not an economic issue, it is purely religious because Hobby Lobby is paying $1.3 million in fines daily that far exceed the cost of following the law and the majority of Americans who do not agree the mandate infringes on lunatics’ religious liberty.
In repugican-controlled states, women’s reproductive health is under increasing assaults, and that House repugicans are threatening to hold government funding hostage unless lunatics are exempted from following the law, however despicable, is part of repugican culture and philosophy for ruling from the minority. It worked during 2011′s debt ceiling crisis that created sequestration cuts and America’s first credit downgrade, and it worked in 2010 when they held unemployment benefits and payroll tax reduction hostage to maintain shrub-era tax cuts for the richest Americans. Now, to control women’s reproductive health, and place religion above the Constitution and will of the people, they are demanding their perverted interpretation of religion is enforced as a condition of funding the government. It is hostage taking, an attack on women’s rights, and worst of all, the continuing saga of how America becomes a theocracy, and although decent Americans are appalled and outraged, dominionists and their repugican facilitators are celebrating and identifying their next hostage.

The repugican cabal Won’t Rest Until Children Starve and Seniors Perish

A premonition is an intuition of a future occurrence, usually unwelcomed and foreboding, which portends danger for the person having the experience and should be a sign that change is called for to avert some impending calamity. The repugicans hate change, and despite promising to transform into a more inclusive party after their defeat in the 2012 general election, they are clinging to an agenda that foreshadows an unwelcome and foreboding future for Americans if they come to power. Since the start of the 113^th Congress, it appeared repugicans were going to stay the course they blazed over the past four years, and this week it is obvious repugicans intend to pursue a more extreme agenda that spells doom and gloom for the people and American society.
After the election, there was a split amongst conservatives regarding why repugicans lost to President Obama, and while one side expressed a desire to be friendlier and appeal to mainstream America, hardliners claimed the party needed to embrace more extreme conservative principles to garner support from the people. Apparently, the hardliners won the debate and Americans are in for a bleak future.
Yesterday, repugican budget guru, Ayn Rand devotee, and failed vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan released another Draconian budget, and The American Conservative Union geared up for its annual CPAC 2013 with a lineup that reveals the conservative movement is serious about extremism in their drive to take the country back to Depression-era America. Just perusing Ryan’s budget, and the best and brightest list conservatives will parade across the stage at CPAC, any thinking person sees a bad omen predicting ravaging poverty, religious edicts, and a few phenomenally rich industrialists.
The CPAC speakers include Ted Cruz (keynote address), Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan. The speakers are listed in order of importance based on the time allotted for their rants against 21^st Century America, and they will preach about the war on xmas, Europeanization of America, United Nation’s takeover of America, Obama’s threats and intimidation, and the virtues of plastic bottles, fracking, Genetically Modified food, and Big Gulp sodas. Donald Trump will spend fourteen minutes debunking the myth that racism exists in America. It is a veritable smorgasbord of conspiracy theories and faux outrages, and the cast of characters highlight the extremes of the repugican cabal. However, if the conservative exreme-athon isn’t a bad enough omen, Ryan’s budget should frighten the life out of 98% of Americans.
Last week Ryan said there were no surprises in his budget proposal, and he was telling the truth because if one imagined a dire American future with rampant poverty, starving children, dying seniors, and a monumental tax cut for the wealthy, they would be fairly close to describing Ryan’s budget. Ryan claims his proposal will balance the budget in ten years, but it is predicated on repealing the Affordable Care Act, slashing domestic programs ranging from Medicaid to college grants to safety nets, and requiring  Medicare patients to give up the healthcare they paid for and purchase private insurance. Ryan’s plan was short on details, but one thing is certain, poverty-level Americans, working-poor, and the middle class will be decimated to award the rich a whopping 14.9% tax cut. It is Ryan doing his best Ayn Rand impersonation to kill off takers and reward the makers, and instead of showing a semblance of humanity for Americans, Ryan shrugged.
Ryan justified slashing domestic programs by touting Bill Clinton’s success at moving welfare recipients into the workforce, but he presided over the greatest job creation since Eisenhower.  Domestic cuts Ryan proposes will kill millions of jobs more than repugicans already destroyed with their spending cuts, and Clinton also did not cut the wealthy’s tax rate to 25%, or eliminate middle class tax deductions. He raised taxes, created millions of jobs, and left a budget surplus that repugicans promptly gave to the wealthy when the wingnut Supreme Court handed the shrub the presidency. Ryan’s tax cuts dwarf the shrub’s, and it portends incredible income for the rich, and higher poverty for the poor as well as economy-crushing unemployment typical of austerity in a tepid recovery. It is the “new” repugican agenda and notably, there is not one mention of infrastructure improvements, job creation, or hope for 98% of the American people; just the way repugicans like it.
Conservatives, in all their iterations, have nothing in store for Americans that does not spell economic despair, and they have plotted to finish what they started after disaffected Democrats stayed home in 2010 and handed the House and several governorships to  the extremist wing of the repugican cabal; teabaggers. This week during the CPAC conference, a wave of teabagger and repugican sycophants will rant and rage against the American people’s choice of president, and bemoan their loss of religious liberty to impose Dark Age mentality on America’s women and school children. Paul Ryan will tell his fellow extremists that the Path to Prosperity is paved with steep austerity, joblessness, crushing poverty, and colossal tax cuts for the richest Americans, and when cameras are gone, no doubt he will demean the 47-percenters (takers) for robbing the makers.
If any American thought they had seen the height of extremes from repugicans in the lead up to the November election, 2013 and the beginning of the 113^th Congress should have been a clue they were just getting started. Speaker of the House John Boehner announced repugicans’ top priority for 2013 was banning abortion with no pretense of creating jobs, helping recovery, or protecting the most vulnerable Americans; children and seniors, but they are hell-bent on stopping abortion. During the sequestration debate, repugicans decried that damage to the economy and jobs the automatic cuts would impose on the nation, and then celebrated their enactment as if they had just won the lottery, and they did because their goal was killing jobs and halting the recovery. Now, between Ryan’s budget and the CPAC lineup, it should be painfully apparent that the new extremist repugicans will not rest until poverty is rampant, children starve, and seniors perish from lack of healthcare as they destroy the New Deal and take the country back to Depression-era America.

Did you know ...

That the states with most gun laws have fewer gun deaths

Just where all 50 states stand on abortion in two handy charts

That the Canadian arctic glaciers headed for irreversible thaw

Rape suspect carries stun-gun past TSA checkpoint at JFK airport

The WSJ reports that a 23-year-old man sought by police on charges he raped his 19-year-old girlfriend and subdued her with a powerful stun gun "made his way through a security checkpoint at John F. Kennedy International Airport while carrying" that same 3,800K-volt stun-gun, "which is on the list of banned items for airplane travel."

Texas cop repeatedly tazes the Statue of Liberty

A Fort Worth, TX cop told a guy in a Statue of Liberty suit to move along from the road-median where he was advertising Liberty Tax Services. Lady Liberty did not immediately comply ("Get away from me! What are you doing? Go talk to my boss!") so the cop tazed the Statue of Liberty. Three times. As Lowering the Bar points out, this has bad optics.

People in Liberty suits have rights, too, but not the unrestricted right to solicit customers from a median. While this does implicate the First Amendment, it would be the kind of time, place, and manner restriction that usually passes muster. The situation would be different if a local government tried to completely ban the use of such "moving signs" or (as I prefer to call them) "business mascots," which of course is something that has happened before. See "The McHenry Code," Lowering the Bar (Sept. 6, 2006).
b Coincidentally, that incident (which happened in Illinois) also involved "Lady Liberty," as well as the Verlo Mattress Factory's "Mattress Man," a 4-by-3-foot ambulatory mattress with "comically large hands." McHenry's city council had decided that such "live moving signs" were distracting drivers (which is part of the point of having one) and causing a nuisance because people honk at them. (The council also threw in an alleged "safety risk" to the person in the costume, saying they might get heatstroke.) If I recall correctly, the council later reversed itself on the complete ban, thus giving Liberty some limited freedom.

You Know, It Just Sends the Wrong Message When You Tase the Statue of Liberty

Man arrested after falling asleep face first in his French fries and ketchup

A man who fell asleep face down in his food on Friday night at a Putnam County restaurant got a rude awakening when police tapped on his shoulder.

Restaurant staff at Hardee's in Cookeville, Tennessee, called police after Bratten Hale Cook III, 32, fell asleep with his face planted in a plate of French fries and ketchup.

Workers said Cook been passed out for about an hour. Police said when they woke up Cook, he was so drunk he started eating his fries and didn't acknowledge the officers.

Officers took Cook outside the restaurant and charged him with public intoxication. Cook received even more charges after police searched him and found marijuana and prescription pills in his pockets. Cook was taken to Putnam County Jail. His court date is set for April 5.

The Maldives - Misery And Waste, The Hidden Side Of Paradise

The Maldives islands are known for their landscapes of Heaven on Earth, turquoise water and pristine beaches. Photographer Hani Amir reveals the hidden face of this paradise with a series of photographs taken on the artificial island of Thilafushi.

Built in 1992 to cope with the problem of waste, this island stores 330 tonnes of waste per day. Without safety equipment, expatriate workers are looking for metal pieces among the waste to earn a living.

Man runs school for the poor under a bridge

Three years ago, Rajesh Kumar Singh set up a makeshift classroom under a metro bridge in New Delhi. He had only 2 students then, but now his two-hour morning classes have over 60 pupils, six days a week. Singh has a day job as a shopkeeper in the Indian capital. He pulled out of college in his third year due to financial difficulties and says he started his school because he didn't want other children to face a similar fate.

His students come from nearby slums - their families too poor to send them to school. Students from ages 3 to 16 sit in his open-air classes. All the reading and writing material is provided to the children for free. Singh and Laxmi Chandra, who also helps at the school, decided to hold classes under the bridge because they could still be held during the monsoons and on hot summer days.

At the school, a quarter of the students are girls, and although there is a lack of facilities, many walk long distances barefoot to attend Singh's classes. Many parents of the students at the school under the bridge are now also sending their children to government schools, realizing the more education they receive, the better.

YouTube link.

Rajesh says: "When I give two hours of my time to these children, I feel very good, my soul feels at peace. People give money and other things, I donate education. My parents educated me and I'm giving a part of that to these children."

There's an additional video here.

Fifteen Tech Predictions For Smartphones in 2013

Smartphone technology changes faster than most any other man-made invention. In fact, some chances may become reality at the time you read this.
Here are 15 Tech Predictions For Smartphones in 2013.

High School Students Invent Air Freshener Made Out of Cow Manure

What's that smell? It's the smell of refreshing air from the rear end of a cow. Two high school students in Indonesia developed air freshener from a plentiful source of foul odors--cow manure:

Dwi Nailul Izzah and Rintya Aprianti Miki won first prize in the country's Science Project Olympiad with their alternative and environmentally-friendly air freshener.
The air freshener is said to have a natural fragrance of herbs and is good for human health because it doesn't contain any harmful chemicals like other freshener products on the market.
The girls collected cow dung from a cattle farm in Lamongan regency of East Java and left it to ferment for three days.
Secondly, they extracted water from the cow dung and mixed it with coconut water.
Then the liquid was distilled to remove any impurities; the end product is a liquid air freshener with a natural aroma of herbs from digested cow food.

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Who Really Invented the Smiley Face?

Fifty years ago, a graphic artist named Harvey Ross Ball designed a smiley face on a yellow background to raise morale at his company. It was a hit, but neither Ball nor his company sought a copyright or a trademark.

In the early 1970s, brothers Bernard and Murray Spain, owners of two Hallmark card shops in Philadelphia, came across the image in a button shop, noticed that it was incredibly popular, and simply appropriated it. They knew that Harvey Ball came up with the design in the 1960s but after adding the the slogan “Have a Happy Day” to the smile, the Brothers Spain were able to copyright the revised mark in 1971, and immediately began producing their own novelty items. By the end of the year they had sold more than 50 million buttons and countless other products, turning a profit while attempting to help return a nation’s optimism during the Vietnam War (or provide soldiers with ironic ornament for their helmets). Despite their acknowledgment of Harvey’s design, the brothers publicly took credit for icon in 1971 when they appeared on the television show “What’s My Line.”

In Europe, there is another claimant to the smiley. In 1972 French journalist Franklin Loufrani became the first person to register the mark for commercial use when he started using it to highlight the rare instances of good news in the newspaper France Soir. Subsequently, he trademarked the smile, dubbed simply “Smiley,” in over 100 countries and launched the Smiley Company by selling smiley T-shirt transfers.

That was a long time ago, but when Loufrani's company finally sought a U.S. trademark in 1997, they ran up against Walmart, who was using the symbol already. And what about Ball, the original designer? Find out all about the history of the smiley face at Smithsonian's Design Decoded blog.

Were Wright Brothers Second in Flight?

The Wrights flew two years after German immigrant Gustav Whitehead in 1901, says an aviation historian.

Babies Delight in the Suffering of Others

When my children were born, I held with Thomas Sowell's view that "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." Practical experience as a parent has only confirmed this view. Now a psychological study provides evidence that babies may look innocent, but aren't:

A University of B.C.-led psychology study found that infants as young as nine-months-old embrace those who pick on individuals who don’t share their preferences.
Study lead author Kiley Hamlin said the findings reveal that babies are constantly busy assessing their surroundings, trying to determine who their friends and enemies are. [...]
The youngsters were then shown a puppet show where the character demonstrated the same food preference as the baby. Another puppet demonstrated the opposite preference.
The puppets harmed, helped or acted neutrally towards the puppets with different or similar food preferences.
Results showed that the babies far preferred the puppets who harmed the puppet with the opposite food preferences to their own. One baby even planted a kiss on the puppet she liked. [...]
Hamlin said the findings suggest that babies feel something like schaudenfreude, a German term describing the pleasure experienced when someone you dislike or consider threatening experiences harm.

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Neanderthals Lacked Social Skills

Neanderthals Lacked Social Skills

Neanderthal brains focused more on vision and movement, leaving less room for cognition related to social networking.

Cannibals Of The Old West

Just the thought of cannibalism, or the eating of human flesh, induces shudders in the living. However, most people would agree that as strong as the cultural taboo is, cases in which people ingested corpses because it was the only available food in order to survive can be forgiven (if not forgotten).

The most famous example in American history is the Donner Party, a group of snowbound pioneers who may have resorted to eating their deceased members in 1846-47. On the other hand, those who murder and then eat their victims are viewed with particular horror and contempt.

The Ghosts of Antarctica

Antarctica has an abundance of abandoned structures for several reasons. No one stays there long, there are few (if any) looters, and while the environment might wreck buildings, they won't see mold, bacterial rot, or damage from plants. Shipping old equipment, ships, and buildings off the continent is usually more trouble than it's worth. And those abandoned camps and towns each have a fairly well documented history. Some even contain their original supplies! Take a little tour and see some of the more interesting abandoned places in Antarctica at Dark Roasted Blend.

Earth News

Physicists Hunt Weird Antimatter Within Earth

Scientists have tentatively identified several particles lurking deep inside the Earth's mantle that could reveal how much heat the planet produces.

Dead Pigs? Not a Big Deal in Shanghai River

Putrefying pigs produce a wide variety of noxious and toxic chemicals. 

Flammable Ice: The Next Big Thing?

Slushy methane hydrates lie below seafloor, but releases could boost climate change.

This Winter: Warmer and Wetter than Average

This past winter wasn't the warmest ever in the U.S., but it was still above average.

Astronomical News

Giant Alien Planet May Solve Mystery

The giant alien planet HR 8799c is the size of seven Jupiters, but orbits is in a Pluto-like orbit, scientists say.

Confirmed! Newfound Particle Is the Higgs

The long-sought God particle is what gives mass to other matter.

Life Under a Tiny, Red, Angry Sun

A recent study suggests that most of the galaxy's terrestrial planets may orbit red dwarf stars -- could there be alien life on any of these worlds?

NASA Starts Making Plutonium

After a 25-year hiatus, the Unites States has produced its first non-weapons grade plutonium needed to power space probes.

Curiosity's Hunt Turns to Organics

After finding Mars has all the ingredients to support life, Curiosity will now search for organic carbon.

What Is Life, Anyway?

It may have existed on Mars, but it turns out there's no single satisfactory definition for life.

Monster Starbursts Seen by New Radio Telescope

The ALMA radio telescope, not fully operational, has already doubled the number of star-forming galaxies seen from the first 1.5 billion years of the universe's history.

Could WE Probe ET With Interstellar Radar?

Building a huge radar system to bridge vast interstellar distances may not be such a silly idea. 

Random Photo

Swimming With Predators

Some people like to risk their lives swimming with predators. Sometimes scientists do the same to study the animals in their natural habitat. Here are pictures of people swimming with crocodiles, anacondas, sharks, and orcas.

Birds Flew Like Four-Winged Kittyhawk

Birds Flew Like Four-Winged Kittyhawk

The world's first birds all had four wings and not two, contends new research led by the renowned dinosaur and early avian hunter Xing Xu. 

 

Microbes Living Deep Under the Sea Floor

Scientists have discovered living things living in unbelievably hostile environments, from hot thermal vents to a lake buried under Antarctic ice to high-pressure deep ocean trenches. Now we have evidence of living things living in rocks under the bottom of the seas -with no access to sunlight at all.

Persisting in microscopic cracks in the basalt rocks of Earth’s oceanic crust is a complex microbial ecosystem fueled entirely by chemical reactions with rocks and seawater, rather than sunlight or the organic byproducts of light-harvesting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Such modes of life, technically known as chemosynthetic, are not unprecedented, having also been found deep in mine shafts and around seafloor hydrothermal vents. Never before, though, have they been found on so vast a scale. In pure geographical area, these oceanic crust systems may contain the largest ecosystem on Earth.

“We know that Earth’s oceanic crust accounts for 60 percent of Earth’s surface, and on average is four miles thick,” said geomicrobiologist Mark Lever of Denmark’s Aarhuis University, part of a research team that describes the new systems March 14 in Science.

If what the researchers found resembles what’s found elsewhere below Earth’s oceans, continued Lever, “the largest ecosystem on Earth, by volume, is supported by chemosynthesis.”

This ecosystem is completely separated from all other life on earth, living without oxygen. Read about how they do it at Wired Science.

Animal Pictures