The Daily Drift

Something we can all get behind ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 197 countries around the world daily.   

Let's go to the Picture Show ... !

Today is - Movie Theater Day

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

Some of our reader today have been in:

The Americas

Delta, Ottawa, Pikangikum, Thunder Bay, Joliette, Fort Nelson, Montreal, Britannia, Winnipeg, Guelph, Vancouver and Saint John's, Canada

Yulee, Dacula, Cockrell, Canadaigua and Chattanooga, United States

Medellin, Bogota, Bacaramanga, Cali and Cartagena, Colombia

Managua, Nicaragua

Mexico City, Mexico

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Conchas and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Lima, Peru

Santiago, Chile

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Europe

Dublin and Limerick, Ireland

Reykjavik and Selfoss, Iceland

Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece

Strasbourg, Salon-De-Provence, Paris, Rouen and Magenta, France

Ravenna, Milan, Bari, Rome and Ivrea, Italy

Dresden, Kabel, Dusseldorf, Hildesheim, Rothe Erde and Nuremberg, Germany

Madrid, Pontevedra, Vinaros and Bilbao, Spain

Covilha, Lisbon and Palmela, Portugal

Sarajevo and Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Mercin, Turkey

Maribor and Ljubljana, Slovenia

London and Willesden Green, England

Riga, Latvia

Frederiksberg, Denmark

Zhovtivody, Kiev, Vinnytsya and Kharkiv, Ukraine

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Lodz, Gdynia, Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Warsaw and Glwice, Poland

Vilnius, Lithuania

Belgrade, Serbia

Bucharest, Romania

Arendal, Norway

Mol, Belgium

Moscow, Russia

Asia

Victoria, Kota Kinabalu, Kajang, Klang, Kuala Lumpur, Sibu and Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Cochin, Mumbai, Delhi, Shillong, New Delhi, Coimbatore and Hyderabad, India

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Beirut and Tyre, Lebanon

La Dagotiere and Curepipe, Mauritius

Jakarta, Densapar, Yogyakarta, Makassar, Jagirsidosermo, Medan, Kolkarta and Cuttack, Indonesia

Tehran, Iran

Manama, Bahrain

Taipei, Taiwan

Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing and Guangzhou, China

Kabul, Afghanistan

Hanoi and Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Vientiane, Laos

Doha, Qatar

Hyderabad, Pakistan

Riyadh and Al Khubar, Saudi Arabia

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Jaljula, Israel

Africa 

Carthage, Tunisia

Tema and Accra, Ghana

Al Jizah and Cairo, Egypt

Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa

The Pacific

Sydney, Perth, Richmond and Melbourne, Australia

Davao, Legaspi, Manila and Pasig, Philippines

Today in History

1348		The first English order of knighthood is founded.
1500		Pedro Cabal claims Brazil for Portugal.
1521		The Comuneros are crushed by royalist troops in Spain.
1661		Charles II is formally crowned king, returning the monarchy to Britain, albeit with greatly reduced powers.
1759		British forces seize Basse-Terre and Guadeloupe from France.
1789		President George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York.
1826		Missolonghi falls to Egyptian forces.
1856		Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas shoots pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back.
1865		Union cavalry units continue to skirmish with Confederate forces in Henderson, North Carolina and Munsford Station, Alalbama.
1895		Russia, France, and Germany force Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.
1896		Motion pictures premiere in New York City.
1915		The ACA becomes the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of NASA.
1920		The Turkish Grand National Assembly has first meeting in Ankara.
1924		The U.S. Senate passes the Soldiers' Bonus Bill.
1945		The Soviet Army fights its way into Berlin.
1950		Chiang Kai-shek evacuates Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao Zedong and the communists.
1954		The Army-McCarthy hearings begin.
1966		President Lyndon Johnson publicly appeals for more nations to come to the aid of South Vietnam.
1969		Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for killing Senator Robert Kennedy.
1971		The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 10, becoming the first in Salyut 1 space station.

Non Sequitur

Public letter from 100+ scientists and economists urges rejection of Keystone XL pipeline

by Laurence Lewis

 April 7, 2014
.
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
.
Secretary John Kerry
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
.
Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,
.
As scientists and economists, we are concerned about climate change and its impacts. We urge you to reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline as a project that will contribute to climate change at a time when we should be doing all we can to put clean energy alternatives in place.
.
As you both have made clear, climate change is a very serious problem. We must address climate change by decarbonizing our energy supply. A critical first step is to stop making climate change worse by tapping into disproportionately carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands bitumen. The Keystone XL pipeline will drive expansion of the energy-intensive strip-mining and drilling of tar sands from under Canada’s Boreal forest, increasing global carbon emissions. Keystone XL is a step in the wrong direction.
.
President Obama, you said in your speech in Georgetown last year that “allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

[...]

Can science win out over the almighty dollar?

Revisiting the Ansel Adams Wilderness

Revisiting the Ansel Adams Wilderness: Photos

A new book pays tribute to Ansel Adams and the wilderness area in California that is named for him.

Are Vegetarians Better for the Environment?

 Are Vegetarians Better for the Environment?

There are many reasons to become a vegan or a vegetarian. One of the popular reasons is because it's better for the environment... but is it really? Our resident vegetarian Anthony did some digging to find the answer.

Birthplace of the domesticated chili pepper identified in Mexico

Birthplace of the domesticated chili pepper identified in Mexico Central-east Mexico gave birth to the domesticated chili pepper — […]

El Arbol del Tule

The tree with what is likely the largest diameter is El Arbol del Tule, an Ahuehuete or Montezuma Cypress growing in Oaxaca, Mexico in the town of Santa Maria del Tule. The trunk of the tree is 33 feet in diameter and has a circumference of 178 feet. Originally thought to be multiple trees that had grown and fused together, DNA tests have shown that it is actually all one tree

Angel Oak

The beautiful ancient Angel Oak Tree in Angel Oak Park, on Johns Island, South Carolina.

"Cherry tree from space" behavior unexplained

Cherry trees grown from seeds that had been sent into orbit are exhibiting unusual behavior and blossoms:

The four-year-old sapling -- grown from a cherry stone that spent time aboard the International Space Station (ISS) -- burst into blossom on April 1, possibly a full six years ahead of Mother Nature's normal schedule.

Its early blooming baffled Buddhist brothers at the ancient temple in central Japan where the tree is growing...  "A stone from the original tree had never sprouted before. We are very happy because it will succeed the old tree, which is said to be 1,250 years old."..

By April this year, the "space cherry tree" had grown to around four metres (13 feet) tall, and suddenly produced nine flowers -- each with just five petals, compared with about 30 on flowers of the parent tree.

It normally takes about 10 years for a cherry tree of the similar variety to bear its first buds.

The Ganjoji temple sapling is not the only early-flowering space cherry tree.

Of the 14 locations in which the pits were replanted, blossoms have been spotted at four places.

Random Celebrity Photos

Jean Harlow, 1930s

Mysterious black ring seen floating over England

"It was just floating there like a cloud"

Fission Chipz has the most convincing explanation so far: transformer explosions.

Dino-Killing Asteroid Dwarfed by Earlier Space Rock Crash

Dino-Killing Asteroid Dwarfed by Earlier Space Rock Crash

Scientists have reconstructed a long-ago asteroid impact that makes the strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago look like a playful chuck on the chin.

Wells Spew Greenhouse Gas During Pre-Fracking Drilling

Wells Spew Greenhouse Gas During Pre-Fracking Drilling

The potent greenhouse gas methane is spewing from Pennsylvanian natural gas wells during the drilling that precedes fracking.

Climate Change, Noah's Arks and Kansa in Flames

Energy Change Key to Meeting UN Climate Change Goal

The world can still meet the UN goal to limit global warming provided it cuts annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40-70 percent by 2050, a top expert panel said Sunday.

Natural Noah's Arks on Earth

Many animals and plants hold on to existence in fragments of their former homelands, surrounded by a flood of human farms and homes.

Satellite Images Show Kansas in Flames

Kansas grasslands are burning, and these controlled burns will help preserve the prairies.

Air Pollution Over Asia Makes Pacific Storms More Intense

Air Pollution Over Asia Makes Pacific Storms More Intense

In the first study of its kind, scientists have compared […]

Ziggy

Rivers and Mountains Directly Shape Languages

Rivers and Mountains Directly Shape Languages

Geographic features responsible for biodiversity also shape human languages.

A century of earthquakes in one map

Earthquakes with a magnitude of at least 5 are enough to damage buildings, and there were at least 72,000 such events in the last century, writes Nathan Yau at Flowing Data, who created a plainly-readable world map depicting all of them. He provides the code to reproduce his work using USGS data, too, and it's surprisingly short and straightforward: "the dataset linked in the code is just a small sample of what's available."

Unstirring the Himalayan Pot of Mashed Mountains

Unstirring the Himalayan Pot of Mashed Mountains

New work shows how the highest mountain range in the world is not so much a tectonic train wreck as a shuffled pile of crumbly crustal dominoes.

Random Photos

Sahara El Beyda

The White Desert Of Egypt 

The word sahara means desert in Arabic so when you hear the name Sahara el Beyda you could be forgiven that it means one thing - sand, sand and more sand.

Yet the sight of Egypt's Sahara el Beyda belies the traditional way one imagines a desert. Are those icebergs on the horizon?

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត) was first a Hindu, then subsequently a Buddhist, temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. The temple was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yasodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Breaking from the Shaivism tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture which got major influence from Kalinga architectural style. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian Architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometers (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the center of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.
The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds", derived from the Pali word "vatta" (वत्त). Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok (Vara Vishnuloka in Sanskrit), after the posthumous title of its founder.

^{Read more here.} 

The Cave City Of Vardzia

The Cave City of Vardzia is remarkable. Situated in the European country of Georgia at the juncture of Eastern Europe and Western Asia it has an over eight hundred year history. Yet you would be forgiven for wondering why such a place was built in the first place. The words why and how spring immediately to mind.

Albarracin

Daily Comic Relief

Ireland's Spiralling Storehouse

The Irish are often the first to admit they have an inclination to exaggerate. So, when a corkscrew-shaped barn was built on an estate in County Kildare near the town of Leixlip in 1743 the locals quickly called this extraordinary structure The Wonderful Barn. Yet in this instance their hyperbole was not unwarranted. This is indeed the most remarkable of barns.

Magical Houses From Around The World

A Minimalist Vacation Home Inside A Concrete Rock

270 square feet isn't much space to live in, but when we're talking vacation homes on the coast of Spain, it's just enough. And this gorgeous minimalist home isn't going to leave you wanting since it comes equipped with a toilet, a shower, a fireplace and a bed with an amazing view of your vacation space.

While it might not have a kitchen, you can always cook your freshly caught fish over your fireplace -or, since you're on vacation, go out to eat and treat yourself to something special.
Learn how The Truffle, as it is named, was made and see more cool pictures at Homes and Hues: That's No Rock; That's A Vacation Home

Coming Tomorrow

Coming Tomorrow

• 10 things you didn't know about Shakespeare
• Tabloid Strip Search, 1897
• The fix was in for ancient wrestling match
• Bloody Ludlow

And more ...

This Hairy Coo (Coo is Scots for Cow) is our Animal Picture, for today.