Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Math Humor ...!

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Today in History

Today in History

1457		The first book ever printed is published by a German astrologer named Faust. He is thrown in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil.
1559		Spanish explorer de Luna enters Pensacola Bay, Florida.
1605		The Popham expedition reaches the Sagadahoc River in present-day Maine and settles there.
1756		French commander Louis Montcalm takes Fort Oswego, New England, from the British.
1793		Republican troops in France lay siege to the city of Lyons.
1900		The European allies enter Beijing, relieving their besieged legations from the Chinese Boxers.
1917		The Chinese Parliament declares war on the Central Powers.
1942		Dwight D. Eisenhower is named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.
1945		Japan announces its unconditional surrender in World War II.
1947		Pakistan becomes an independent country.
1969		British troops arrived Northern Ireland in response to sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1973		The United States ends the "secret" bombing of Cambodia.
1987		Mark McGwire hits his 49th home run of the season, setting the major league home run record for a rookie.
1995		Shannon Faulker becomes the first female cadet in the long history of South Carolina's state military college, The Citadel. Her presence was met with intense resistance, reportedly including death threats, and she left the school a week later.
2007		Four co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks in Yazidi towns near Mosul, Iraq, kill more than 400 people.
2010		First-ever Summer Youth Olympic Games open, in Singapore. Athletes must be 14–18 years old.

Today we have a extremely tight schedule so we have posts today of facts, figures, humorous anecdotes, assorted substance and fluff and fill to round out the Blog. In other words stuff that did not require much editing. Enjoy

Nothing Is Written In Stone

Pictures say a thousand words

The Big Lie

Pictures say a thousand words

Want To Know The Truth

Pictures say a thousand words

The Truth Hurts

Pictures say a thousand words

To Tell The Truth

Pictures say a thousand words

Two Novels That Can Change A 14-Year-Olds Life

Pictures say a thousand words

Lawyers

Joke Time

Attorney Hunting Regulations.

(Regulation 370)
Sec 370.01 Any person with a valid in-state rodent or snake hunting license may also hunt and harvest attorneys for recreational and sporting (non-commercial) purposes.

Sec 370.02 If an attorney gains elective office, it is not necessary to have a license to hunt, trap, bag, shoot or possess same.

Sec 370.03 Taking of attorneys with traps or deadfalls is permitted. The use of United States currency as bait, however, is prohibited.

Sec 370.04 Stuffed or mounted attorneys must have a state health department inspection for rabies and vermin.

Sec 370.05 The willful killing of attorneys with a motor vehicle is prohibited, unless such vehicle is an ambulance being driven in reverse. If an attorney is accidentally struck by a motor vehicle, the dead attorney should be removed to the road side and the vehicle should proceed immediately to the nearest car wash.

Sec 370.06 It is unlawful to chase, herd or harvest attorneys from a power boat, helicopter or aircraft.

Sec 370.07 It is unlawful to shout, "WHIPLASH," "AMBULANCE," or "FREE SCOTCH" for the purposes of trapping attorneys.

Sec 370.08 It is unlawful to hunt attorneys within 100 yards of BMW, Mercedes or Porsche dealerships except on Wednesday afternoons.

Sec 370.09 It is unlawful to hunt attorneys within 200 yards of courtrooms, law libraries, health clubs, country clubs, hospitals or brothels, except on Saturdays and Sundays.

Sec 370.10 Use of any type killing device is legal including shotguns with the choke removed, high powered rifles, handguns of any caliber, all types and kinds of game traps and snares. Poisoning, however, is prohibited because of the danger to rattlesnakes, coyotes and skunks.

Sec 370.11 It is unlawful to wear a disguise such as a reporter, drug dealer, pimp, female legal clerk, sheep, accident victim, bookie, physician, chiropractor or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting attorneys.

Bag and Possession Limits, per day:

Yellow-bellied sidewinders - 2

Two-faced tortfeasors - 1

Back-stabbing divorce litigators - 3

Horn-rimmed cut-throats - 2

Minutiae-advocating dirtbags - 4

NOTE: Honest attorneys are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Honest attorneys can be identified by their drab plumage, as they do not wear Rolex watches, drive Porsches, BMWs or other expensive luxury automobiles, or wear $500 shoes or $1500 suits. If you can find one that is.

Proud

Daily Comic Relief

Delusions

Pictures say a thousand words

Catch - 22

Pictures say a thousand words

On The Job

Daily Comic Relief

http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/dp130810.gif

Sarcasm

Pictures say a thousand words

Random Celebrity Photos

Pictures say a thousand words

Christina Ricci

Eleven Things We No Longer See in Movie Theaters

Odds and Sods

Once upon a time, movie theaters offered a "fancy night out" experience. You no longer see 50¢ tickets, but back then you got an awful lot for your money, whatever the price. Remember when almost all theaters had uniformed ushers?

Those gallant men and women who escorted you to your seats at the cinema used to dress in more finery than a decorated soldier. But that was at a time when movie ushers did much more than tear tickets and sweep up spilled popcorn; they kept an eye out for miscreants attempting to sneak in without paying, offered a helpful elbow to steady women walking down the steeply inclined aisle in high-heeled shoes, and were quick to “Shhh!” folks who talked during the movie. Ushers carried small flashlights to guide patrons who arrived after the movie had started, and they were also the ones who maintained order when the film broke and the audience grew ornery.

Most of us are only familiar with uniformed ushers only because they are depicted in classic films and cartoons. But there are some modern theaters that go all out to recreate those memories with ushers and the other theater amenities on the list here.

Okay, Zippy

Daily Comic Relief

Thermopylae remembers the 300 Spartans

Historical Things

A ceremony marking the last stand of the 300 Spartans and their Greek allies against the Persian hordes of King Xerxes at the Pass of Thermopylae, a gallant battle that helped save Western Civilization, was marked on Aug. 8.

Some 2,493 years ago, an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian Empire at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the Persians for three days in one of history’s most famous battles.

A small force led by legendary King Leonidas of Sparta blocked the only road through which the massive army of Xerxes I of Persia (Xerxes the Great) could pass. After three days of battle, a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks by revealing a mountain path that led behind the Greek lines.

Dismissing the rest of the army, King Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespian volunteers. Despite the fact the the Persians succeeded in taking the pass, they sustained heavy losses, extremely disproportionate to those of the Greeks.

The fierce resistance of the Spartan-led army offered Athens the invaluable time to prepare for a decisive naval battle that would come to determine the outcome of the war.

The subsequent Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis left much of the Persian Empire’s navy destroyed and Xerxes was forced to retreat to Asia, leaving his army in Greece under Mardonius, who was to meet the Greeks in battle one last time.

The Spartans assembled at full strength and led a pan-Greek army that defeated the Persians decisively at the Battle of Plataea, ending the Graeco-Persian War and with it the expansion of the Persian Empire into Europe.

Believe It Or Not

Pictures say a thousand words

What 7 Million Skulls Looks Like

Interesting Stuff

The Paris Catacombs

When in Paris, one of the highlights was a self-guided tour through the Catacombs of Paris.

The Catacombs doors open at 10 AM, and there is always a long line so plan to be there earlier than that. After buying your tickets, one has to descend a long circular staircase to reach the beginning of the tunnels, which were over 60 feet underground.

These tunnels lead to massive limestone quarries that supplied the building materials to construct Paris. They were actually started in the first century A.D. by Gallo Romans to build Lutetia (the forerunner of what is now known as Paris). The tunnels run for over 250 km below the city, but only 2 km are open to the public.

This is a carving of a palace by a quarry inspector who had served time in a prison situated across from a palace in the Balearic Islands. He started the carving in 1777 and finished it in 1782, using only his memory as a reference. According to the sign next to the sculpture he died from a "cave-in while trying to build an access stairway at this location."

A little farther along the tunnel, the famous ossuary appeared. A sign above the entrance reads, Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la mort (Halt, this is the realm of Death). The rest of the tour was through an 800-yard-long gallery stacked high with human bones. In fact, The catacombs hold the remains of 7 million people, which were transferred here in the 18th and 19th centuries because Parisian cemeteries were so overcrowded that they constituted a health hazard.

The bones we saw were completely unsupervised. You could touch them if you felt like it. Don't, though. If this were in the United States, the walls would be lined with thick plastic.

Some of the arrangements were artistic, such as this big urn-shaped collection of skulls and bones.

It is overwhelming to think that every one of these skulls was once a living person with friends, a family, a job, and a reason to live. Who is this? We'll never know.

At the end of the ossuary gallery one walks up a very long circular staircase and exits through this nondescript door. Directly across the street is a privately run Catacombs gift shop, which has a free restroom, delicious espresso, free Wi-Fi, lots of skull-themed items for sale, and friendly staff!
Catacombs of Paris