The Daily Drift

Damn, good question  ...

Carolina Naturally is read in 194 countries around the world daily.
 

Stop It Now  ... !

Today is - National Human Trafficking Awareness Day
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Providencia, Chile

Saint John's, Pikangikum, Templeton, Joliette, Vancouver, Byward Market, Ottawa, Britannia, Matsqui, Thunder Bay, Toronto and Mississauga, Canada

Mexico City, Mexico

The Bottom, Sint Eustatius and Saba

Lima, Peru

San Juan and Ponce, Puerto Rico

Bridgetown, Barbados

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Bogota, Colombia

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Caracas, Venezuela

Europe 

Zagreb and Split, Croatia

Sofia, Montana and Ruse, Bulgaria

Dublin, Ireland

Badajoz, Alicante, Madrid, Murcia and Zaragoza, Spain

Rome, Ivrea, Torre Maggince, Milan and Prato, Italy

Bucharest and Sibu, Romania

Paris, Fors, Saint-Amand, Rouen and Laval, France

Muenchen, Dusseldorf, Widdern, Wolfsburg and Kolen, Germany

Riga, Latvia

Marousi, Greece

Oslo, Norway

Kiev and Zhovti Vody, Ukraine

Copenhagen and Tranbjerg, Denmark

Valletta and Luqa, Malta

Gdynia, Libiaz and Tarnow, Poland

Reykjavik, Iceland

London and Northampton, England

Ostrava and Vinicne Sumice, Czech Republic

Vienna, Austria

Palmela, Portugal

Ankara, Turkey

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Lucenec, Slovakia

Yerevan, Armenia

Budapest, Hungary

Asia

Chengdu, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Calicut, Delhi, Bikaner and Mumbai, India

Port Louis, Mauritius

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Bangkok, Thailand

Jakarta and Medan, Indonesia

Karachi, Pakistan

Baghdad, Iraq

Ipoh, Puchong, Selaying and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Tel Aviv, Israel

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Hanoi, Vietnam

Tehran and Karaj, Iran

Seoul, Korea

Beijing, China

Africa 

Oran, Algeria

Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria

Tunis, Tunisia

Djibouti, Djibouti

Cape Town, South Africa

Pacific

Manila and Makati, Philippines

Homebush and Surry Hills, Australia

Today in History

49 BC		Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.
1843		Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," dies in Baltimore.
1861		Alabama secedes from the Union.
1862		Lincoln accepts Simon Cameron's resignation as Secretary of War.
1887		At Fort Smith, Arkansas, hangman George Maledon dispatches four victims in a multiple hanging.
1904		British troops massacre 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
1916		Russian General Yudenich launches a WWI winter offensive and advances west.
1923		The French enter the town of Essen in the Ruhr valley, to extract Germany's resources as war payment.
1934		The German police raid the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.
1941		Adolf Hitler orders forces to be prepared to enter North Africa to assist the Italian effort, marking the establishment of the Afrika Korps.
1940		Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., becomes the U.S. Army's first black general, his son would later become a general as well.
1942		Japan invades the Dutch East Indies at Borneo.
1943		The Soviet Red Army encircles Stalingrad.
1948		President Harry S. Truman proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.
1949		Negotiations in China between the Nationalists and Communists open as Tientsin is virtually lost to the Communists.
1964		A collection of previously unexhibited paintings by Pablo Picasso are displayed for the first time in Toronto.
1980		Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the United States–in Ohio.
1994		The Irish Government announces an end to a 15-year ban on broadcasting by the IRA and its political branch, Sinn Fein.
2003		Illinois Gov. George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on the state's death row in the wake of allegations that Chicago police detective and commander Jon Burge tortured confessions from some 200 suspects over a 19 year period.

Non Sequitur

Fighting back against the NSA

Effort To Shut Off The NSA's Water Supply Goes Bipartisan In California 

The National Security Agency nullifiers have gained a toehold.

A pair of California state senators, one Democrat and one repugican, have introduced legislation to prevent the state from helping NSA mass surveillance.
-
"The National Security Agency's massive level of spying and indiscriminate collecting of phone and electronic data on all Americans, including more than 38 million Californians, is a direct threat to our liberty and freedom," state Sen. Ted Lieu (D), who co-authored the bill with state Sen. Joel Anderson (r), said in a statement on Monday.
-
The measure would ban state agencies, officials, and corporations that provide services to the state from "supporting or assisting the federal government to spy or collect certain data on Californians," according to a press release.
-
"State-funded public resources should not be going toward aiding the NSA or any other federal agency from indiscriminate spying on its own citizens and gathering electronic or metadata that violates the Fourth Amendment," Lieu said.

Did you know ..

That young people leaving faux news in droves

That Hell, Michigan, freezes over

That wingnut cyber attacks have been confirmed against heathcare.gov

That 5,000 children have been placed in foster care because their parents were deported

These 6 crimes against nature perpetuated by the food industry

That the Mall of America arrests Native American woman so she can't "protest"

About America's obscene wealth inequality

If only 24% of America identify as repugicans, why does the repugican cabal dominate the Sunday talk shows ?

Six million lost coverage on first day of the shrub Medicare drug program

It's not about the health insurance, you know ...

With the Affordable Care Act now in full effect, the wingnut propaganda factory is working overtime to produce and publicize Obamacare horror stories, real or imagined. So with the federal government, the states, private insurers, hospitals, doctors, and pharmacies scrambling to assist the six million newly insured so far, the repugican cabal's media water carriers are decrying enrollment snafus, delayed surgeries, emergency fixes in the states, and even national drugstore chains providing a month of prescriptions to customers whose proof of insurance is in limbo. (Breitbart went so far as to suggest that Walgreens and Walmart might be offering that customer service in order to do data mining for Uncle Sam.)
-
As it turns out, these furious conservatives are suffering from a particularly acute case of selective amnesia. Just eight years ago this week, the calamitous launch of the shrub's Medicare prescription drug program left over six million previously insured seniors without coverage. Hundreds of thousands more could not get their medications as problem-plagued government computer systems, confused insurers, and undertrained pharmacists left subscribers panicked and helpless. But unlike today's sabotage of the Affordable Care Act by repugicans in Congress and in the states, Democrats at all levels helped the Medicare Rx program whose design they opposed.

More

John Boehner Tells His Biggest Lie Yet By Claiming Obama Obstructed House Jobs Bills

The repugicans are riding a three-year job-killing frenzy and still, Boehner has the temerity to claim House repugicans passed several job bills that President Obama stood on the sideline…

For the past three years there have been three overriding policies repugicans have embraced as their raison d’être that includes attacking women, killing jobs, and demanding a ransom in exchange for a policy that kills jobs. The repugicans waltzed into the House in 2011 promising Americans their primary focus was jobs, jobs, jobs, only to begin their war on women and introduce legislation that killed a million jobs. In fact, when Speaker of the House John Boehner was informed the repugican spending cuts would kill 1 million jobs he said, “so be it” as if he could not care less repugicans broke their pledge to voters and sent over a million Americans into unemployment lines. Not much has changed as Boehner said he would consider extending “emergency” unemployment benefits if Democrats and President Obama paid a ransom of passing every repugican so-called “job creation” legislation that failed to pass the Senate.
No-one with a brain expected House repugicans, or Senate repugicans for that matter, to reinstate unemployment benefits for 1.3 million out-of-work Americans without some kind of hostage payment, and although Boehner’s demands will never be paid, it is his contemptible assertion that House repugicans passed even one jobs bill over the past three years. In fact, for three years repugicans deliberately blocked legitimate job creation bills and deliberately killed millions and millions of jobs primarily through hostage taking. Whether it was austerity cuts in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, the sequester, the government shutdown, food stamp cuts, or failing to extend unemployment benefits two weeks ago, repugicans are riding a three-year job-killing frenzy and still, Boehner has the temerity to claim House repugicans passed several job bills that he claims President Obama stood on the sideline to obstruct repugicans.
The so-called three years’ worth of job creation legislation repugicans claim will eliminate the need for unemployment benefits is tantamount to their 2011 promise to focus on jobs; another lie and nothing but substantial gifts to their campaign donors. Boehner even had the audacity to list a few “job creation” bills in an ad campaign where he blamed President Obama for repugican inaction in helping grow the economy and get Americans working again. In Boehner’s ad, he cited five specific pieces of legislation the House passed as “job creation” bills, but like everything repugicans propose, they were gifts to corporations, the energy industry, and financial sector and would have created zero jobs.
One of the bills Boehner claimed created jobs was approving the KeystoneXL pipeline and there is a glaring Constitutional violation with the House vote; only the President of the United States is allowed to approve the pipeline because it crosses America’s international border with Canada. However, for argument’s sake, if the permit to build the pipeline was approved, it would create no more than 2,500 temporary jobs for two years and fifteen (15) permanent jobs. What constructing the pipeline really creates is billions upon billions of dollars in profits for the Koch brothers and Conoco Philips as they refine Canada’s tar and export it to China and Europe. It also boosts John Boehner’s stock portfolio since he bought shares in seven Canadian tar sand companies prior to becoming Speaker of the House and pushing the pipeline as America’s greatest job program. The pipeline actually will kill more jobs than it creates because it will raise the price of fuel that will prevent companies from expanding and hiring new workers.
Many of the repugican “jobs” bills entailed rolling back or eliminating renewable energy standards and environment protections that are responsible for creating three times as many jobs as the dirty energy sector for each dollar spent. Eliminating renewable energy and environmental regulations is a gift to the dirty energy industry including the Koch brothers, fracking industry, and the dirty coal sector. The repugicans never intimated exactly how killing jobs in renewable energy created jobs, but then their focus was enriching the oil industry; not creating jobs.
The repugicans also claimed repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reform and consumer protection law was a job-creating bonanza, but its real intent was giving banks and Wall Street the green light to crash the economy and get bailed out, rip-off consumers’ retirement accounts, and give credit card companies free-rein to charge customers for using their own money. It is an insult to a child’s intelligence to claim deregulating the financial sector is job creation, but repealing financial reform was never about creating jobs, just creating wealth for repugican donors.
The big “job creation” legislation Boehner boasted was the one House repugicans spent over forty times attempting to pass; repealing the Affordable Care Act. The repugicans claimed businesses were firing employees because of the healthcare insurance reform law, but they have never cited how repealing the law creates jobs. In fact, repealing the law, like everything repugicans have done for three years, will kill jobs that were and are being created due to more Americans having access to affordable healthcare insurance.
The idea that repealing the ACA is a job creation bill is as absurd as the one and only piece of legislation House repugicans passed that was even remotely related to employment. Eric Cantor’s bill eliminating overtime pay not only will not create one job, it is another repugican effort to kill millions of existing and potential jobs. Why would a business add one employee at an additional cost in benefits and administrative expense when they can force an existing employee to work a double shift without paying overtime wages? Cantor’s so-called “job creation” bill is specifically created to kill potential jobs and reward big business in the process.
It was no surprise that Republicans demanded concessions from Democrats and President Obama in exchange for helping 1.3 million out-of-work Americans that repugicans could have helped if they had not spent three years in a job-killing frenzy. Mitch McConnell reliably held the unemployment extension hostage for repealing the ACA, and John Boehner said House repugicans would consider “emergency” relief if the President signed repugican legislation rewarding the Koch brothers, Wall Street, and banking industry that would kill more Americans’ jobs. Regardless of their machinations to enrich their corporate masters, repugicans are continuing on the path they began in 2011 when they took control of the House with a promise to focus on jobs and then spent the entirety of three years killing them nearly as fast as the Obama economy could create them. Sadly, they are poised to spend another year killing jobs and telling Americans their focus is still creating jobs that in repugican-speak is code for creating wealth for the one percent.

Roger Ailes Claims That Democrats and the Left Want Sarah Palin Dead

 

Faux News head honcho Roger Ailes claims that Sarah Palin’s life is in danger because Democrats and the left want her dead.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ailes was asked why he hired back Sarah Palin. His answer was that Sarah Palin is a marked women,

The only two people I knew who got worse press than her were Richard Nixon and the shrub — some of it unfairly, much of it unfair to her family. She’s recognizable, she’s attractive, and she still has the message of stop raising taxes. The tea party started as a group that [the government] could make go home to bake meatloaf at any point in the last three years by simply doing two things: Stop raising taxes and stop stealing their money.
Congress can’t stop spending money. I’m not a defender of everything she says. I don’t hear everything she says. But I know she represents a certain group of people who rose up against their own party, which you rarely see. I probably hired her back, if you really want to get to the bottom of it, to give her a chance to say her piece and piss off the people that wanted her dead.

Let’s be clear. When Ailes referred to people in America who she pisses off and who want her dead, he was talking about the left and Democrats.
What never occurs to the wingnut mind is that maybe people like Sarah Palin get bad press because they are uninformed, racist, vile excuses for human beings who are getting back exactly what they put out there. According to Roger Ailes, Sarah Palin has been persecuted by bad press. He leaves out the fact that Sister Sarah creates her own bad press every time she opens her mouth.
As far as people wanting Palin dead, I wish someone would ask Ailes who exactly wants Sarah Palin dead? It certainly isn’t Democrats. Sarah Palin remains one of the best fundraisers that the Democratic Party has. As soon as she gets involved in an election, donations to her endorsed candidate’s opponent skyrocket. Liberals don’t want Palin dead. She alternates between being unintended comedy and a source of shame for all repugicans on a daily basis. Palin makes all repugicans look bad. For that, Democrats are thankful that Ailes keeps her employed.
Sarah Palin has created a myth that the left wants her dead. The truth is that nobody cares enough about the half-term governor, failed VP candidate, and D list celebrity to want her dead. Ailes worked for Nixon, so no one understands how to appeal to the conservative mind’s need for victimization, threat, and persecution like he does, but what he was saying in this interview was total nonsense.
Ailes hired Palin back because she tried to make it on her own and vanished into Facebook oblivion. Palin couldn’t survive without Fox News, so she came back to Ailes grovelling on her hands and knees and took a massive pay cut. That pay cut is why Palin is back on Fox in a reduced role.
As long as Sarah Palin keeps getting media attention, Democrats will keep winning elections. Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving, and there’s no way that Democrats would ever want that to end.

House repugican Bill Requires That the IRS Investigate Sexual Assault Survivors

Chris Smith's bill amends the Internal Revenue Service code to require IRS auditors to investigate and interrogate sexual-assault survivors who access abortion care.…

Every entity on Earth has certain traits, practices, and physiognomies that make them readily identifiable if a person knows what to look for and it includes political parties. Americans identify teabaggers by their incessant claim they love freedom, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers while they advocate restricting other Americans’ freedoms and eschew the Constitution save the 2^nd and 10^th Amendments. The repugicans are known by the preponderance of things they hate which is everything except tax cuts, deregulation, and cutting safety nets. The repugicans particularly hate the Internal Revenue Service, taxes, federal regulations on businesses, IRS prying into Americans’ lives, and of course women; repugicans probably hate women as much as they hate America, but that is another story. It is interesting, then, that the first order of business for House repugicans is a piece of legislation that raises taxes on businesses and individuals, regulates businesses, and mandates IRS prying into Americans’ private lives; all because the repugican cabal harbors intense hatred for women and their constitutional right of the pursuit of happiness.
To set the pace for this year’s session of Congress, instead of addressing jobs, extending unemployment  benefits, or crushing income inequality transforming America into a peasant population serving the wealthy, the House will debate legislation crucial to christian lunatics effort to legislate by bible. The bill, H.R. 7, was introduced by lunatic Chris Smith (r-NJ) and seeks to rewrite the IRS tax code, re-define health insurance, regulate and tax every business in America, tax individuals, insert the federal government between a woman and private medical decisions, and punish rape victims by making them relive the horrors of sexual assault. Smith promoted his legislation on Tony Perkin’s (anti)Family Research Council website as another christian law prohibiting taxpayer funding for abortion, but it is simply legislation mandating the health insurance industry to eliminate coverage for family planning services including abortion. It is important to note that next to raising taxes, The repugicans hate the federal government regulating business, especially big businesses like the health insurance industry, as much as they hate women, but regulating and taxing businesses is precisely what Smith’s legislation does under the guise of “religious liberty” to rob women of their right to choose when they produce offspring.
Smith’s bill punishes every healthcare policy holder in America by disallowing a tax deduction on income tax returns for any medical insurance if the policy includes coverage for family planning that nearly all healthcare plans provide. It even punishes women who pay for an abortion with cash because it disallows a medical deduction on Schedule A of individual income tax returns whether it was included in a healthcare insurance plan or not. The bill does allow a sexual assault victim to take the medical deduction for abortion care in a case of rape, but only after an IRS auditor verifies the victim was really sexually assaulted and conceived her attacker’s progeny.
Smith’s bill violates Republicans’ abhorrence of raising taxes, particularly on millions of small businesses because H.R. 7 raises their taxes if their employer-provided health insurance plan includes abortion coverage. The great majority of private and employer-provided plans do include abortion coverage as a legitimate medical procedure and expense, but theocrats in the House want to regulate the health insurance industry to inflict physical, psychological, and economic harm on women. Tax experts have already weighed in and the consensus is that if businesses are forced by federal regulations to choose between an increased tax liability and providing a healthcare plan that includes abortion coverage, most small businesses will switch to a christian-approved plan under duress from theocrats masquerading as the federal government. The legislation also disallows all businesses from deducting, as a legitimate expense of doing business, their contribution to an employee’s healthcare insurance package or claim employer tax credits if the policy includes family planning coverage. In fact, H.R.7 disqualifies businesses, the insurance industry, and individuals from using the term “qualified health plan” and “health insurance coverage” in any policy covering family planning whether it is privately purchased or through an employer-provided healthcare plan.
The repugicans have long-complained that the federal government, especially the IRS, interferes and intrudes into Americans’ private lives, but Smith’s bill amends the Internal Revenue Service code to require IRS auditors to investigate and interrogate sexual-assault survivors who access abortion care. A woman who is raped and does not want to carry to term and raise for eighteen years their rapist’s offspring will be required to relive the violent experience, provide documentation, and recount the violent assault to an IRS auditor. The bill will force the underfunded and understaffed IRS to set aside auditors’ time to sift through police reports, hospital records, and interrogate a rape victim to verify that their medical expense deduction does not violate the lunatic statute disguised as a tax code law.
Americans should be asking lunatic Smith exactly who the first piece of repugican legislation in 2014 benefits other than the personhood movement, (anti)Family Research Council, (un)American (anti)Family Association, and misogynist christians across America. The legislation certainly does not benefit every business in America offering healthcare insurance as an employee benefit, and definitely not every taxpayer who is fortunate enough to afford healthcare insurance. It certainly offers no help to the underfunded and understaffed Internal Revenue Service tasked with interrogating rape victims to verify they were indeed raped, or businesses mandated to file annual IRS reports verifying that their healthcare plans do not violate the christian tax-code.
Smith’s legislation is an assault on women as much as it is federal government intrusion and interference in business, a universal tax hike, and government overreach into Americans’ personal and business lives. What gives Smith’s legislation away as singling out women for “special treatment” is the lack of an IRS amendment, tax increase, or federal government regulation disqualifying healthcare insurance as a legitimate business expense for policies that include coverage for male boner pills such as Viagra. No, this legislation is solely to impose a religious edict on women even if it means using everything repugicans hate to accomplish the mission and it informs the level of animosity repugican theocrats have for women.
This year is starting out just like the previous three years that repugicans promised to focus on the economy and create jobs only to immediately begin another religious assault on women’s personal rights to make medical and family decisions without interference from theocrats masquerading as the federal government. The biggest difference this year is that repugicans propose raising taxes, increasing business regulations, and forcing the IRS to intrude in Americans’ private lives to impose their religious dogma in what has been a non-stop three-year war against women. This year’s opening assault on women portends that there is no end to repugicans’ demand to control women’s personal lives including breaking character to embrace all the things they hate. Smith’s bill informs that no matter how much repugicans hate tax hikes, regulations on business, or the IRS, it pales in comparison to their hatred of women.

Arizona taxpayers pay through the nose for Sheriff Arpaio's illegal antics

A constant stream of settlements, penalties and legal fees spews out of the tax coffers in Maricopa County, Arizona, all racked up by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The latest, reports The Republic, is the $21.9m tag resulting from his racial profiling policies, which resulted in another courtroom pounding last May. Michelle Ye Hee Lee reports on the outcome of Arpaio's 22-year stint: reckless spending, pervasive incompetence, and federal oversight

Maricopa County also incurred nearly $1.6 million in legal costs and expenses as of late December to defend itself in the case. That cost is expected to grow because the Sheriff’s Office is appealing the judge’s ruling.The Sheriff’s Office is complying with the judge’s order while the appeal is pending.
“We disagree with a number of conclusions the court reached and will be challenging that,” said Tim Casey, Arpaio’s attorney. “At the same time, in good faith, we will be honoring the letter and the spirit of the court’s order complying with that. If something were to happen on appeal that changes it, we’ll cross that bridge.”

And this is just one Arpaio lawsuit: the only about Mexican tourists, legally in the country, who get detained by his officers for hours at a time. Meanwhile, The Atlantic reports, Arpaio is encouraging "Above the Law" star Steven Seagal to run for state governor. The Republic's editorial board seems to have had enough: "The media-savvy sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, likes to tout himself as the country’s toughest sheriff. There’s not much evidence to support the title. So about a new one: America’s Most Expensive Sheriff."

Thai woman found hiding in suitcase at US-Mexico border

US Customs and Border Protection officers inspecting the vehicle of a Phoenix man on his way back into the United States found a Thai woman in the man's suitcase.

According to a CBP spokeswoman, the 56-year-old Phoenix resident, whose name wasn't released, was driving back into the country through the port of entry in Nogales.
Officers selected the man and his Honda SUV for further inspection. In the lone suitcase in the back, officers found a 48-year-old Thai national zipped up inside.

The woman, identified as Pornkamol Mongkolsermsak, had been "denied admission, excluded, deported, and removed from the United States" through Los Angeles just 10 days earlier, according to the documents. A CBP spokewoman says the man's vehicle was seized.

French supermarket chain reassures Argentinian customers that its cakes don't contain cocaine

Carrefour Argentina has reassured customers that its cakes don't actually contain cocaine after a supplier listed “12 grams of cocaine” as an ingredient.The French supermarket chain, which has more than 500 stores across Argentina, said it regretted what it called a “joke in bad taste,” apparently made by a worker at the supplier.

Supermarket officials had to work overtime to remove all cakes with the labels listing cocaine as an ingredient on Carrefour brand cakes from store shelves.
“We at Carrefour Argentina want to reassure our customers that there was no unusual ingredient in Carrefour brand cake,” a company statement said.

Zambian opposition leader charged with defamation for calling President Sata a potato

Zambian police have arrested and charged an opposition leader with defamation, after he compared the president to a potato.

Frank Bwalya, head of the Alliance for a Better Zambia, allegedly referred to president Michael Sata as "Chumbu Mushololwa" during a live radio broadcast on Monday.

The Bemba term literally refers to a sweet potato that breaks when it is bent and is used to describe someone who does not heed advice.

"The police decided to arrest and charge him with defamation of the president," Eric Chanda, the secretary general of Alliance said. If convicted, Bwalya faces a maximum jail term of five years.

The 30 Greatest Living Geniuses In Business

A number of high-flying entrepreneurs and CEOs have business degrees to their name, and their studies may well have given them the leg up to making that first million or even billion.

While knowledge can get some individuals far, a touch of brilliance also pays dividends, as many of today's shining executive stars prove. Some have Mensa-level intelligence, others a winning management style, sharp business sense or just a good idea and the wherewithal to succeed - yet all are super smart in their own way. Here are 30 of the greatest living geniuses in business.

Engravings From A French Ice-Skating Manual (1813)

Colored engravings from France's first ice-skating manual Le Vrai Patineur (The True Skater) written by Jean Garcin. The manual details many movements and poses, putting an emphasis on artistry and grace in contrast to the more straightforward technical approach usually practiced in England. The book is considered to be one of the earliest works in any language devoted entirely to ice-skating.

Ziggy

‘Largest’ Scottish ancient artworks revealed

A retired silversmith has ­uncovered the largest collection of ancient rock art ever found in the Highlands on a remote hill overlooking the Cromarty Firth....pictured - One of the 28 cup marked stones found on Swordale Hill, Evanton, some of which measure 10ft across.

Utah avalanche was largest in modern history

 

Landslide at the Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon Mine

The avalanche near Salt Lake City last year that carried enough rock, dirt and debris to bury New York's Central Park under 66 feet of rubble was North America's largest such disaster in modern history, according to University of Utah scientists. The April 2013 rockslide sent 165 million tons of debris into a nearly mile-deep pit where it cracked bedrock and triggered unprecedented earthquakes, the researchers said in a newly published study.
"We don't know of any case until now where landslides have been shown to trigger earthquakes," said Jeff Moore, assistant professor of geology and geophysics.
There were no injuries or deaths as the slide temporarily shut down a copper mine, burying 14 giant haul trucks and leading to a series of layoffs and buyouts at Kennecott Utah Copper Corp.
"It was a creeping movement that had been developing over many months along an old fault line," Moore said Tuesday. Kennecott had been monitoring the area and evacuated workers ahead of the danger, he said.
The disaster didn't involve a volcanic explosion and was actually a pair of related slides about 90 minutes apart, said Moore, who co-authored the study together with Kris Pankow, associate director of the university's seismograph stations.
The peer-reviewed research was published Monday in the Geological Society of America's magazine, GSA Today.
The debris slides falling as fast as 100 mph crashed to earth with such force that they registered as magnitude-5 earthquakes and then triggered 16 smaller quakes where the bedrock cracked, Moore said.
Mother Nature has put on bigger shows, the scientists noted.
The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington unleashed a landslide 57 times larger than Kennecott's.
Another slide about 8,000 years ago at the mouth of Zion Canyon in southern Utah was five times as large.

Astronomical News

Solar Boom: Sun Blasts X-Class Flare Right At Us

Yesterday, the sun reminded us that although the current peak of its solar cycle has been a little sub-par, it is still capable of mustering the magnetic energy to erupt with its most powerful class of solar flare.

Has the Weirdest Star in the Universe Been Found?

Astronomers have announced the detection of a Thorne-Żytkow object -- a neutron star inside a red supergiant -- potentially putting a weird hybrid star on the stellar map as a very real phenomenon.

Ancient plants, frozen in amber

Amber: It's not just a medium that allows crazy old rich men to make bad decisions about de-extinction. It can also capture flowering plants, preserving delicate parts well enough that scientists can see a hundred-million-year-old flower in the process of reproduction.

Australia's national science agency apologizes for lack of research on dragons

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has issued a touching apology for its lack of research on dragons after receiving feedback from a younger-than-usual observer. The letter, penned by Brisbane's seven-year-old Sophie Lester, had one request of Australia's primary research body – a female, toothless dragon.

"I would keep it in my special green grass area where there are lots of space," Sophie wrote, adding that she would play with it 'every weekend'. I would feed it raw fish and I would put a collar on it. If it got hurt I would bandage it if it hurt himself. I would like it if you could but if you can't that's fine." Sophie's mother Melissah Lester said her daughter had begged her parents to get her a dragon for Christmas.

When her husband explained to Sophie that this was not possible, she decided to take matters into her own hands and write to a "lovely scientist", she explained. Mrs Lester said they had hoped to hear a reply but CSIRO had another idea, releasing a tongue-in-cheek statement on Monday. "Over the past 87 odd years we have not been able to create a dragon or dragon eggs ... our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire breathing variety," CSIRO said.

"And for this Australia, we are sorry." There could be many practical uses for dragons, the statement continued, including a low-emissions dragon fuel. Mrs Lester said Sophie was overjoyed with the response and had been telling everyone since of dragons' environmentally-friendly applications. "All her friends are now saying they want to be a scientist and Sophie says she now wants to work in the CSIRO. She’s saying Australian scientists can do anything," she said.

Psychedelic cell division

Desmids are a type of green algae, usually single-celled, and known for being extremely symmetrical and nifty to look at. In this video, you can watch a desmid divide and grow into two new individuals. A desmid's symmetry comes from the fact that it's really made up of two identical parts joined by a central connection, which also houses the nucleus. What you're watching is that nucleus splitting in half and each half growing a new symmetrical side.

Video Link

Daily Comic Relief

Biggest New Animal Discoveries Of 2013

Thousands of species were scientifically described for the first time in 2013. Many of these were 'cryptic species' that were identified after genetic analysis distinguished them from closely-related species, while others were totally novel.

Here are some of the most interesting new species discoveries that took place or were formally announced in 2013.

Incredible Snapshots Of Chameleons Launching Their Tongues At Prey

Chameleons are famed for being able to change their color, but another of their amazing characteristics is the way they unleash their long, sticky tongues to grab the insects - and even sometimes small birds - on which they feed.

Behind these remarkable appendages are some extremely intricate and impressive biological features that are of great interest to scientists. Yet chameleons flicking out their tongues also make for some very attractive photos.

4 million-year-old ‘Ardi’ fossil more human than ape, study confirms

4 million-year-old ‘Ardi’ fossil more human than ape, study confirms

One of the most hotly debated issues in current human origins research focuses on how the 4.4 million-year-old African species […]

'Fish-Lizard' Fossil Just Misses U.K. Storm

'Fish-Lizard' Fossil Just Misses U.K. Storm

A dino-era ichthyosaur fossil surfaced after storms rocked the the southwest coast of England, then nearly crumbled into the sea as another storm approached.

The Eyes of Starfish

Starfish have eyes — not just light-sensitive "eye spots", but real, honest-to-Poseidon eyes, one at the end of each of their arms. They probably see the world differently than we do (for instance, they're likely colorblind and can't see at near the level of detail), but they can see. And they know about that time you poked them with a stick.

Prairie Dogs Do the Wave

Prairie Dogs Do the Wave

Prairie dogs and humans have an unusual behavior in common -- they both do the wave.

Animal Pictures