The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1777   The Marquis de Lafayette arrives in the American colonies to help in their rebellion against Britain. 1863   Confederate forces on their way to Gettysburg clash with Union troops at the Second Battle of Winchester, Virginia.
1920   The U.S. Post Office Department rules that children may not be sent by parcel post.  
1923   The French set a trade barrier between occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany.  
1927   Charles Lindbergh receives the Distinguished Flying Cross and is treated to a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his successful crossing of the Atlantic.  
1940   Paris is evacuated as the Germans advance on the city.  
1943   German spies land on Long Island, New York, and are soon captured.  
1944   The first Germany V-1 buzz-bomb hits London.  
1949   Installed by the French, Bao Dai enters Saigon to rule Vietnam.  
1971   The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers.  
1978   Israelis withdraw the last of their invading forces from Lebanon.  
1979   Sioux Indians are awarded $105 million in compensation for the 1877 U.S. seizure of the Black Hills in South Dakota.  
1983   Pioneer 10, already in space for 11 years, leaves the solar system.

Non Sequitur

Winner of the Univ of Miami's amateur Underwater Photography Contest

The photo above, by Kyle McBurnie, won the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science's 2013 Underwater Photography Contest that's open only to amateurs, defined as "photographers who earn no more than 20 percent of their income from photography." The beautiful beastie is a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) in a kelp forest at Cortes Bank, about 100 miles west of San Diego, California.

The History Of The Weird Keyboard Symbols You Never Knew You Needed

Before the age of the internet, you likely never noticed some of the keyboard symbols that you now use all the time. Most of us still don't know the actual history behind these now-ubiquitous symbols, the reasons they exist, or how they ended up in your email addresses and URLs.

It's actually fascinating once you start digging. It turns out that type itself dates back to the early days of civilization. So even in cyberspace, there are a few paleolithic surprises.

Did you know ...

That American workers losing ground on wages

The federal courts ruled it is not illegal to film police

About the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich

That scientists discovered a giant, fluorescent pink slugs on a mountain in Australia

That studies shows overwhelming racial bias in marijuana arrests

The repugicans - hypocritical again

Same shit, different day.

Civil rights group challenges NSA phone surveillance program

 

by Daniel Trotta 

The American Civil Liberties Union sued senior U.S. government officials on Tuesday to strike down the National Security Agency's broad telephone surveillance, a challenge that may have improved chances of succeeding as a result of recent leaks about the program.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York claims the U.S. government's collection of vast communications records violates rights to free speech and privacy as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The suit was filed amid a furor over leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed a massive government program to collect and store phone and Internet records from major telecommunications companies.

Legal experts said the leaks could help the ACLU to succeed where a previous suit involving Amnesty International failed.

After news stories from Snowden's leaks appeared in the Guardian of Britain and the Washington Post, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper declassified some details of the program, acknowledging it existed.

In Amnesty's challenge to the surveillance program, the U.S. Supreme Court in February ruled 5-4 in favor of the government in part because it said the plaintiffs could not prove their phones had been tapped.
"Because the government has told us all that it is collecting the metadata, then that (Supreme Court reasoning) goes away," said Neil Richards, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri.
John Mahoney, a partner at the Washington law firm Tully Rickney, agreed that Clapper's acknowledgement of the program last week had opened the door to a legal challenge.
"This suit has got legs because I do think this (surveillance) program might be overbroad constitutionally," Mahoney said. "I'm all for national security and I do national security law for a living, but to just broadly capture every phone call and every Internet message by every citizen of the United State seems a bit much."
The U.S. Justice Department declined to immediately comment on the suit, saying it needed time to review it and respond.
BALANCE BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY
President Barack Obama has defended the sweeping government surveillance of Americans' phone and Internet activity, calling it a "modest encroachment" on privacy that was necessary to defend the United States from attack.
However, Obama also said he welcomed public debate on the balance between privacy and security.
"The president has said he welcomes a public debate. It would be odd to say that and then expect a state secret privilege," said Jameel Jaffer, one of the ACLU lawyers on the suit.
The rights group asked the court to immediately halt the NSA's vast tracking program of telephone calls, declare the program illegal, and order the government to purge all databases of the call records.
The government "vacuums up information about every phone call placed within, from, or to the United States," the ACLU said, arguing that it violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The suit cited the government's acknowledgement that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court required Verizon Business Network Services to turn over metadata about the calls made by each of its subscribers over a three-month period as a continuation of a program that members of Congress said has been in place for seven years.
As a Verizon subscriber, the ACLU named itself as a plaintiff, saying the government's secret monitoring program was "likely to have a chilling effect on whistleblowers and others who would otherwise contact plaintiffs for legal assistance."
The ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and both of their foundations were named as plaintiffs.

The rich are screwing us, the country is falling apart

The rich have become so enamored with their own wealth and sense of importance that they are out to destroy the middle class. George Packer has just published a book describing the process of a declining America, calling it "The Unwinding."

The repugicans are screwed up in the head

From Daily Kos and ABC News

House Speaker John Boehner is focused like a laser on jobs:

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, we asked-- our viewers for questions for you. And so many came in on the same exact theme. Where are the jobs? What is this Congress doing for jobs?

    BOEHNER: Well, that's interesting, George. Because it really is our number one priority.

And as if to prove the speaker's point, yesterday House repugicans announced they would vote next week on this crucial job creating measure:

    The House will vote next week on a bill banning abortions across the country after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

You know, it's almost funny...

The repugican's action in Congress seems to be a blended mix of stupidity and hate. They almost look comical they way they are stumbling around, trying to outdo each other in looking like buffoons, but it's impacting our nation in such negative ways that you just can't let the laugh out.

NYC sushi restaurant nixes tipping, provides workers with living wage salaries

At The Price Hike, Bloomberg News food critic Ryan Sutton writes about Sushi Yasuda, a high-end restaurant in New York which recently eliminated tipping. You cannot tip your waiters, but you can eat there (assuming you can afford the bill!) knowing that your wait staff receive a living wage, and benefits including paid sick days and vacation days.

The Price is Right, But the Contestant is a Fraud, and the Game is Up!

PROTIP: After claiming disability due to an injury on the job, it's best not to go on national television.
Here's what happened when a former postal worker, who was receiving worker's compensation payment after claiming she got injured on the job, got nailed after investigators spotted her on The Price is Right:

Cathy Wrench Cashwell's claim that she couldn't lift mail trays into a truck due to a 2004 on-the-job shoulder injury was called into question in September 2009 when she appeared on "The Price is Right" and spun the "big wheel" twice.
According to an indictment filed in September 2012, Cashwell "raised her left arm above her head and gripped the handle with her left hand." On a second spin,  she "raised both arms above her head and gripped the same handle with both hands."

Federal investigators managed to get more proof of the fraud, when they saw her lifting and carrying furniture and bags of groceries. Cashwell pled guilty in Federal court and is now awaiting sentencing: More

Man walked 40 km through forest with pregnant wife on his shoulders

In an effort to save his pregnant wife and their child, a man walked 40km through hilly forest in Kerala, south India, during heavy rains carrying the ailing woman on his shoulders to get her to a hospital, but failed to save the baby. Ayyappan and his wife, Sudha, left their home in Konni forest on Friday morning. When Sudha could walk no more, Ayyappan fashioned a sling from a piece of cloth and carried her on his back, before managing to get a jeep to take his wife to hospital.

But Ayyappan succeeded only partially as the doctors found the six-month-old fetus lifeless. “He might have failed to save his child, but he could save his wife,” Kunjamma Roy, Head of the Department of Gynecology at the Kottayam Government Medical College Hospital, said. When the woman was brought to the hospital, she had edema, high blood pressure and convulsions, Dr Roy added.

Ayyappan, a tribal man living deep in the Konni forests in Pathanamthitta district, married Sudha more than eight months ago. “We were living with Sudha’s father and two sisters,” he said. His relatives lived some distance away in the forest. When Sudha became pregnant, there was no doctor anywhere around whom they could consult. Recently she developed fever and we met a homeo doctor,” Ayyappan said.

“Last week her body developed swelling, and she developed convulsions. I had no other way but to carry her to Kokkathode, a town nearby. It was a day’s walk away. We started early in the morning when it was raining heavily, but I was more concerned about wild elephants. We reached Kokkathode in the evening, and a kind man took us to Konni in his vehicle. From there we went to the Pathanamthitta District Hospital in a jeep,” Ayyappan said. According to doctors, Sudha’s condition is now improving.

Eguisheim

France's Favorite Village

When people say that a place is picture postcard perfect there is usually the scent of slight exaggeration in the air, a hint of hyperbole which should perhaps be accompanied by a pinch of salt.

Yet Eguisheim, a charmingly picturesque village in north-eastern France can be said to be just that without any suggestion of embellishment. Perhaps if the hobbits and the munchkins got together they would live somewhere like this. Little wonder that the place has recently been voted France's Favorite Village 2013.

Migaloo

Luxury Submarine Yacht

Any ol' millionaire can have a yacht. The ultrarich have something better: a submarine yacht!

James Bond villains, take heed: Here's a way to one-up all those other yacht owners in the bad-guys club — the Migaloo Private Submersible Yacht. This luxury design concept for a 377-foot submarine was created by design firm Motion Code: Blue, and could become a reality if some well-heeled buyer steps up.

Of course this vessel features all the usual super-luxury features that are so important for taking over the world on your yacht, such as a helipad for quick escapes, a two-story owner's suite with a private patio on the bow, eight VIP suites for all your henchmen, and plenty of room for those white cats you love to pet as you concoct your diabolical schemes.
And for all those lovely ladies that constantly surround you — because they like you, they really do — there's a huge beach club midship, complete with a pool, bar and plenty of deck space for them to bask in the sun.

How much does it cost? They didn't say, but Charlie White of Mashable noted that a comparable Virginia-class attack submarine by the U.S. Navy costs $2.3 billion to build.
Mashable has more: Here | Motion Code: Blue website

It would be mostly awesome if the Sun went out right now*

Today's XKCD What If? explores many of the benefits that would accrue to the human race if the Sun were suddenly extinguished.

Reduced risk of solar flares: In 1859, a massive solar flare and geomagnetic storm hit the Earth.[1] Magnetic storms induce electric currents in wires. Unfortunately for us, by 1859 we had wrapped the Earth in telegraph wires. The storm caused powerful currents in those wires, knocking out communications and in some cases causing telegraph equipment to catch fire.[2]
Since 1859, we've wrapped the Earth in a lot more wires. If the 1859 storm hit us today, the Department of Homeland Security estimates the economic damage to the US alone would be several trillion dollars[3]—more than every hurricane which has ever hit the US combined.[4] If the Sun went out, this threat would be eliminated.
Improved satellite service: When a communications satellite passes in front of the Sun, the Sun can drown out the satellite's radio signal, causing an interruption in service.[5] Deactivating the Sun would solve this problem.
Better astronomy: Without the Sun, ground-based observatories would be able to operate around the clock. The cooler air would create less atmospheric noise, which would reduce the load on adaptive optics systems and allow for sharper images.
Stable dust: Without sunlight, there would be no Poynting–Robertson drag, which means we would finally be able to place dust into a stable orbit around the Sun without the orbits decaying. I’m not sure whether anyone wants to do that, but you never know.
Reduced infrastructure costs: The Department of Transportation estimates that it would cost $20 billion per year over the next 20 years to repair and maintain all US bridges.[6] Most US bridges are over water; without the Sun, we could save money by simply driving on a strip of asphalt laid across the ice.

Sunless Earth

*Mostly

Rolling Rock ... on Mars

A rolling stone in Mars gathers no moss, because there's no moss in Mars, silly! But there are boulders that roll down the slopes of Mars, as this HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show.
Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy wrote:

What started it up? A Marsquake, a nearby impact, the erosion of its underpinning due to the relentless Martian winds?
You can see the boulder at the bottom of the image, its shadow stretching off to the upper right. The rock is not quite large enough to clearly see any shape or features on it; it’s probably only a few of meters across.

More | Larger pic over at HiRISE's Beautiful Mars Tumblr

Astronomical News

Black Hole Snoozes, Not Bothered With Eating Stuff

News about black holes is usually accompanied by some fun description of them eating stuff. But the supermassive behemoth at the center of NGC 253 has become a little... sleepy.

China Launches to Prototype Space Station

The six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station are about to get some new orbital neighbors.

The Metallic Snow-Capped Mountains of Venus

Mountains on Venus are capped with snow, just like on Earth. Unlike Earth, Venusian snow is made up of heavy metal-containing minerals. 

Mysterious Meteors Could Dazzle in Rare Shower

If two astronomers predictions are right, Earth will plow through a dusty trail of comet debris early Tuesday, setting off a meteor shower that hasn’t been seen since 1930.

Saturn Moon Dione May Hide Ocean Secret

The plain-looking Saturn moon Dione may have once had a geologically active subsurface ocean, new images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal.

Blue Lagoon dyed black

 

This stunning lake at Harpur Hill in the East Midlands of England is just begging you to dive in, no? Problem is, the quarry pool, known as the Blue Lagoon, has a pH level comparable to bleach and is teeming with garbage and dead animals. The bright blue hue (and the high pH) comes from the quarry stone. Signs warning visitors not to take a dip didn't work, so now the High Peak Borough Council recently dyed the water black. "It's not pretty any more," local business owner Rachel Thomas told the BBC. "They don't think they're on holiday in the Bahamas any more, they know they're in Harpur Hill."

The Stark Beauty of North India’s Mountainous Spiti Valley

The area around Kaza and Kibber in Himachal Pradesh is made up of a deep river valley and high mountain desert. Amazing natural beauty and cultural artifacts both abound. More

The Amazon's Secret Killer

The Amazon's Secret Killer

The biggest killers of Amazon trees might not be the massive walls of flame set by humans for deforestation, but stealthy understory fires that eat away at the trees like a cancer beneath the canopy.

The Iceman Suffered Brain Damage Before Death

The Iceman Suffered Brain Damage Before Death

The world-famous mummy gets a new exam showing head trauma caused his death.

The Real Mowgli

Heart-warming pictures of the real life Mowgli, a girl who spent the first ten years of her life growing up in the African bush, have been released for the first time. The magical images chronicle the life of Tippi Benjamine Okanti Degré, who was brought up with wild animals, just like Rudyard Kipling's hero did in The Jungle Book.

The images in 'Tippi: My Book of Africa' - now being published worldwide for the first time - show the young girl making friends with an elephant, who she calls her brother, and a leopard, her best friend. Tippi Degré, daughter of Alain Degré and Sylvie Robert, is now 23 and lives in France.

Turtle, trying to find place to lay eggs, beaten to death at golf course

Kudos to the state of Wisconsin for helping to get this out there via its Facebook page, but what a horrible story.  Someone in the state took a golf club and beat to death, apparently for fun, a snapping turtle. To make matters worse, they didn’t really beat the poor animal to death. It lingered for two days, with gaping, open, bleeding wounds. Then died.

“The female turtle, looking for a place to lay her eggs, was found lying in the sand in a bunker with holes in its shell. It was also struck in the right eye, a wound which appeared to have been from a golf club.” She died before they could perform surgery.

The turtle was reportedly bludgeoned with a golf club at the Delbrook Golf Course in Delavan, Wisconsin on June 10, between 7:30 and 9:30 in the morning.  There were 35 golfers there at the time.
The female turtle was apparently looking for a place to lay her eggs when some golfer decided to beat her:

The female turtle, looking for a place to lay her eggs, was found lying in the sand in a bunker with holes in its shell. It was also struck in the right eye, a wound which appeared to have been from a golf club. The turtle will have surgery today and has about a 40-60% chance of survival.

The poor thing had its skull fractured, and its shell severely damaged.
The state announced this morning that the turtle died:

For all of those following the case of the turtle which was found beaten on a golf course on Monday, we are sad to report the turtle has died. She passed away late last night or very early this morning. We will update you on the status of the investigation as we can, but wanted to let you know the turtle did not survive the night and surgery was not performed.

She was so ill, they never got a chance to perform the surgery.
What possesses people to do something like this?
The Global Conservative Group is offering a $1,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who did this.  You can contribute to the reward fund via this link (I’ve verified the link, it’s via their Facebook page that is linked to from the State of WI page), or send a check to:

Global Conservation Group, Inc.
808 Fieldcrest Court – Suite 3C
Watertown WI 53094

This comment on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Facebook page summed up the sentiments of many:

It’s not just a turtle. Anyone that can do that to a helpless animal is sick and would probably harm a human too.

Monster Mosquitoes Invade Florida

I, for one, welcome our new mosquito overlords. Meet the monster mosquito Psorophora ciliata or gallinippers, which weigh 20 times the size of a typical mosquito and seems even more aggressive.

According to the TV station, the quarter-sized insects were first spotted in Seminole County late last week. The aggressive blood suckers “can bite right through your clothing and give you a good pinch, more painful than an ordinary mosquito bite,” University of Florida natural resources agent Ken Gioeli told West Palm Beach-based WPTV back in March.
University of Florida entomologists warned in March that psorophora ciliata — or gallinippers as they’re sometimes called — might appear this summer, weighing in at up to 20 times the size of a typical mosquito and even more aggressive. The catalyst? Heavy rains from Tropical Storms Debbie and Andrea, which probably hatched the monster mosquito eggs that can lay dormant for years. As the university quipped in March: “If mosquitos were motorcycles, this species would be a Harley Davidson — big, bold, American-made and likely to be abundant in Florida this summer.”

It's time to escape Florida: More

Bear-like baby animal discovered to be raccoon dog

A bear-like baby animal, which was rescued by police officers in Shanghai's Qingpu District in China has turned out to be a raccoon dog. Workers from the city wildlife protection station went to visit and check the animal, concluding it is a raccoon dog.

A young officer at the Xujing Police Station responded to a resident's call on Friday evening that a "bear" was wandering about a townhouse complex and appeared lost. Soon the officer returned with a furry animal, so small it could be held in one hand.

The little creature has short dark fur and looks like a bear cub. It has a good temperament and looks healthy. Police posted its pictures on Weibo microblog in a hope to find out what the animal really is. The officer who adopted the cub said he had to restrict the time of visits by his colleagues who all love the baby animal.

"This morning I fed it water mixed with honey and it seemed to like it very much. The little fellow is very mild, never barking or biting anyone. It is in good spirit and runs really fast," the officer said. Wildlife protection workers have examined the animal and found it had no injuries. The workers have decided to keep it under observation for one day then release it to a suitable environment outdoors.

Tiger given acupuncture to treat chronic ear infection

A tiger in an Israeli animal park suffering from an ear infection has been treated with acupuncture.

The 14-year-old tiger called Pedang lives in the Ramat Gan Safari park in Tel Aviv and suffers from a chronic ear infection. Staff decided to perform acupuncture on the animal in the hope it will improve its condition and increase its susceptibility to treatment.

Mor Mosinzon, a holistic therapy specialist at the park, said she believes the acupuncture would help Pedang "to deal with his own medical issues by himself, to strengthen his immune system," and aid in opening the ear canal, making the antibiotics treatment more efficient.

YouTube link.

Pedang was under a general anaesthetic during the acupuncture session. Ms Mosinzon said there would be a significant break until Pedang's next treatment, permitting staff to "really see that the acupuncture works".

Dog Disease Threatens Sumatran Tigers

Dog Disease Threatens Sumatran Tigers

Deadly canine distemper virus threatens the Sumatran tiger, a critically endangered species.

Animal Pictures