The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1553		The Sadians defeat the last of their enemies and establish themselves as rulers of Morocco.
1561		Philip II of Spain gives orders to halt colonizing efforts in Florida.
1577		William of Orange makes his triumphant entry into Brussels, Belgium.
1667		Slaves in Virginia are banned from obtaining their freedom by converting to Christianity.
1739		The Austrians sign the Treaty of Belgrade after having lost the city to the Turks.
1779		The American navy under John Paul Jones, commanding from Bonhomme Richard, defeats and captures the British man-of-war Serapis.
1788		Louis XVI of France declares the Parliament restored.
1795		A national plebiscite approves the new French constitution, but so many voters sustain that the results are suspect.
1803		British Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley defeats the Marathas at Assaye, India.
1805		Lieutenant Zebulon Pike pays $2,000 to buy from the Sioux a 9-square-mile tract at the mouth of the Minnesota River that will be used to establish a military post, Fort Snelling.
1806		The Lewis and Clark Expedition arrives back in St. Louis just over three years after its departure.
1864		Confederate and Union forces clash at Mount Jackson, Front Royal and Woodstock in Virginia during the Valley campaign.
1911		The Second International Aviation Meet opens in New York.
1912		Mack Sennet's first "Keystone Cop" film debuts, Cohen Collects a Debt.
1945		The first American dies in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon to French forces.
1952		Richard Nixon responds to charges of a secret slush fund during his 'Checkers Speech.'
1954		East German police arrest 400 citizens as U.S. spies.
1967		Soviets sign a pact to send more aid to Hanoi.
1973		Juan Peron is re-elected president of Argentina after being overthrown in 1955.
1983		Gerrie Coetzee (Gerhardus Coetzee), boxer from South Africa; first boxer from the African continent to win a world heavyweight tittle (World Boxing Association).
1983		Gulf Air Flight 771 from Karachi, Pakistan, to Abu Dhabi, UAE, bombed; all 117 aboard die.
1992		Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates 3,700-lb. bomb in Belfast, completely destroying the Northern Ireland forensic laboratory, injuring 20 people and damaging 700 houses.
2002		The first public version of Mozilla Firefox browser released; originally called Phoenix 0.1 its name was changed due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies.
2004		Hurricane Jeanne causes severe flooding in Haiti; over 1,000 reported dead.

Non Sequitur

What’s the Matter with Kids These Days?

Some people shake their heads at how far youth has fallen, with their selfies, lack of formality, and droopy pants. A couple of decades ago, it was video games and rap music. Before that, rock music and long hair. NPR looks at the phenomenon of moral panic by examining the song "Ya Got Trouble," from the 1957 musical The Music Man, which was set in 1912. In it, con man Harold Hill panicked the citizens of small town in order to sell them musical instruments.

A lot of folks are familiar with the "trouble right here in River City" refrain of the song, but when you look at this double echo of cultural fretting — 50 years plus 50 years on — it serves as an impressive reminder that nothing, nothing, is new about the raising of alarms about the decline and fall of culture.

Hill has noticed that people are peeking into the billiard parlor, and he learns that it's because they've got a new pool table in there. And these folks haven't had a pool table in town before — "Just billiards." And he instantly knows that just this, just change, change itself, is enough to plant the seeds of panic, no matter how little sense it makes to suggest that pool is wicked but billiards is noble.

Did you know there was a difference between billiards and pool? I didn't. Although we laughed about the sinfulness of pool and some boys' habit of rebuckling their knickerbockers below the knee, the song was a sneaky jab at contemporary folks who were easily stirred up about rock ’n’ roll and surfing. The article at NPR is actually a lot of fun. 

The Mainstream Media Ignored 100,000+ Progressive Protesters At People’s Climate March

A crowd estimated at between 100,000-200,000 progressive protesters who are are peacefully marching through New York City was ignored by the mainstream media.

Video from The People’s Climate March:

Marchers filled up an estimated twenty-five city blocks in what is being described as the largest action against climate change in history, but the mainstream television coverage has been invisible. The march went ignored by the Sunday morning news shows, which instead chose to focus on ISIS and the NFL.

Cable news provided no live coverage of the event despite the fact that it was taking place in the same city where all three networks are either located or have bureaus. Would it really have been difficult for the so called progressive network MSNBC to go down the street and provide live coverage? A live stream of the march would have been much more interesting to viewers than the standard fare of talking heads discussing the midterm elections.

The media always seems to have an excuse for why they ignore progressive marches, but there is no escaping the fact that they ignored the People’s Climate March because it was an event that drew progressive lawmakers and activists from all around the world. The corporate run media doesn’t want to discuss climate issues out of fear that they will alienate that climate change deniers in the Republican Party.

The climate change marches are happening around the globe, NBC News reported, “In London, organizers said 40,000 took part including actress Emma Thompson and musician Peter Gabriel. A march in Melbourne, Australia drew 10,000 people.” American television networks have decided that citizens don’t need to be informed about the biggest march against climate change in history.

It never ceases to amaze that a tea party rally featuring a dozen people can get more mainstream television coverage than a progressive march that features hundreds of thousands in the nation’s biggest city. The UN Climate Change Summit begins today, but if our media can ignore 100,000 voices, there is zero chance that they will ever take their responsibility to inform the American people about climate change seriously.

Multi-Billion-Dollar Company Wants Customers To Pay Its Workers

A new campaign launched by the hotel chain Marriott-a company that reported $13 billion in revenue last year-encourages customers to leave a tip for the maids who clean hotel rooms. What could possibly be objectionable about that?According to the company-review site Glassdoor, on average, Marriott housekeepers make a paltry $8.32 per hour. (The site pulls from a relatively small sample size). The campaign, titled "The Envelope Please," will place envelopes in rooms at hundreds of Marriott hotels with the intent to remind guests that a tip of $1 to $5 per room, per night, is customary.
It's true: As long as hotel workers are paid peanuts, you should tip them. But the answer shouldn't be gratuity, it should be giving them a raise. Because the company can't be bothered to pay its own employees a reasonable living wage, it's hoping to guilt its customers to chip in a little on top.
Tipping is a broken system. Remember the last time you were totally going to give the delivery guy a few bucks, but didn't have the cash? Or you decided to slip the maid a five after she smiled at you on the way out? Service workers' paychecks shouldn't be subject to the whims of their customers. For cash-strapped restaurants with widely understood tipping customs, the model is defensible on some level, if less than ideal. If you're a multi-billion-dollar company and you think your employees deserve a little more money, you should be giving it to them yourself.

More

Man who ate napkins to conceal insider trading pleads guilty

A Brooklyn, New York mortgage broker, who would scribble secret stock tips on napkins and pass them to an accomplice in Grand Central station before eating them, pleaded guilty to insider trading on Friday, federal prosecutors said. Frank Tamayo, 41, was the middleman in what prosecutors called a three-man scheme that generated $5.6 million in illegal profits over five years, based on tips about a dozen transactions being negotiated by a prestigious New York law firm. Tamayo pleaded guilty to securities fraud, tender offer fraud, and conspiracy charges in the federal court in Trenton, New Jersey. The defendant also agreed to forfeit more than $1 million, the contents of two brokerage accounts, and a 2008 Audi Q7. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the fraud counts. Authorities had in March accused Steven Metro, a managing clerk at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, of passing tips about the law firm's clients through Tamayo to Morgan Stanley stockbroker Vladimir Eydelman, who would then trade for himself, his family, customers and Tamayo.
Prosecutors said the scheme lacked sophisticated computerized techniques or cover-ups now often associated with insider trading. Rather, they said Tamayo would typically meet Metro, a friend and former law school classmate, at Manhattan bars or coffee shops, and write the ticker symbols of stocks to be bought on napkins or Post-It notes. Tamayo would then meet Eydelman near the main clock in Grand Central, show him a symbol and, once satisfied Eydelman had memorized it, "chew the paper or napkin to destroy it," prosecutors said.
The scheme allegedly began in February 2009 when Metro told Tamayo that Liberty Media Corp might invest in Sirius XM Radio, then on the verge of bankruptcy. Tamayo then allegedly told Eydelman to add to his existing Sirius stake, saying a "source" had alerted him to the bailout. Authorities said Tamayo this year began recording conversations with the other defendants, including on Feb. 20 when Eydelman gave him a cigar box containing $7,000 meant to help Metro buy and renovate a new home. "Take these cigars, put it to good use," Eydelman told Tamayo. Eydelman and Metro have both been fired from their respective employers.

6,800 new Ebola cases this month

Research predicts possible 6,800 new Ebola cases this month

Rate of rise in cases significantly increased in August in […]

Making A Killing ...

How Big Agriculture is Intentionally Giving Rise to Modern Superbugs 

American agri-business is giving rise to modern superbugs due to unsafe factory farm practices. They don't intend to stop these practices any time soon.…

While people are worrying about Ebola, a simple infection now has the potential to kill us all.

This past week, a groundbreaking special investigation was released by Reuters that detailed the feeding practices of five of the nation’s largest chicken producers. The investigation reviewed more than 320 internal documents called “feed tickets” from Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Perdue Farms, George’s, and Koch Foods. These feed tickets showed the names and amounts given of each and every “active drug ingredient” put in the feed of the chickens at these five locations. As well as the ingredient, each feed ticket also indicated the purpose of the dosage as well as a specific timeline to when the dosage should be administered based on the chicken’s current stage of development.

The results were horrifying.

These internal documents showed that antibiotics were given to the chickens throughout their lives, regardless of whether or not they were actually sick. The antibiotics were given to the chickens as a way to promote growth and to keep them healthy in what is often unsanitary and overcrowded conditions. In addition to the obvious moral and ethical concerns about this practice, there emerged a far greater concern to the population as a whole: The consequences of misusing antibiotics. By misusing antibiotics on these factory farms, it can lessen the antibiotics effectiveness overtime, especially as these antibiotics make their way to humans via handling of the chickens themselves, mishandling contaminated meat, or from runoff from these large-scale factory farms. Having less effective antibiotics can have detrimental to human health and can cause what were once curable diseases to become life-threatening and to see the rise of the so-called “superbugs” that have begun to emerge in the last few years. According to the CDC, nearly two million people get sick from antibiotic resistant infections each year, and 23,000 people are killed as a result of these infections. All of this happens due to the fact that 70% of all antibiotics in the United States are used on farm animals.

The problem has not gone unnoticed.

This past week, legislation was introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to authorize the Food and Drug administration to collect data on “farm-level antibiotic use.” Gillibrand sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg in which she stated that “the scale and injudicious use” of antibiotics “was staggering.” This follows up 2013 legislation introduced to the House by Representative Louise Slaughter, (D-NY), whose bill would require that the FDA, livestock producers, and drug makers release more data on antibiotic use in food animals. This past week, Slaughter said, “Industry has kept data showing the rampant, dangerous use of antibiotics hidden from the public for one reason: to protect corporate profits at the expense of public health.” Slaughter urged her fellow lawmakers to address the issue at a scheduled hearing on antibiotic resistance Friday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on health.

And yet, despite all the dangers, big agriculture refuses to change its practices.

As a result of the investigation, many of the guilty parties have claimed to be either unconcerned or innocent about misusing antibiotics on their farms. Foster Farms openly admitted to using antibiotics in their feed, despite being the cause of a salmonella outbreak in July. Koch Foods, a Chicago-based supplier to KFC, had a statement on its website up until August 27th which stated “We do not administer antibiotics at growth promotion doses” and that “No antibiotics of human significance are used to treat our birds.” However, the Reuters investigation found that Koch Foods was, in fact, using antibiotics as a way to promote growth in its animals and the statement was immediately removed from the website in what Koch’s CFO claimed was “a wording mistake.” Pilgrim’s Pride, another one of the guilty parties, took an even more extreme approach. They wrote a letter to their growers on September 8 and asked them to sign a confidentiality agreement to protect the kind of information that would be available on a feed ticket. Should the growers violate this agreement, they then became subject to termination.

The problem with this issue is that big ag clearly has no incentive to stop their deadly profitable practice, especially since the science behind the issue can still be manipulated. For example, Ashley Peterson, the VP of scientific and regulatory affairs for the National Chicken Council said, “We understand the concern about the use of antibiotics in farm animals and recognize our responsibility to ensure they are properly used for the right reasons to protect the health of animals, humans and the food supply.” The council then went on to say that the majority of antibiotics approved for use in raising chickens posed no threat to human medicine. Even Gillibrand’s legislation does not lack the urgency needed on such an important issue. In fact, her proposed legislation to track farm-level antibiotic use would not even take effect until April of 2016. Even the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology are aware of the issue of antibiotic resistant infections as they released a report on Thursday addressing the issue. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the relationship of factory farms to the overuse of antibiotics anywhere in the seventy-eight page report.

Going forward, the best way for the American people to act is to avoid chicken products by the big five companies mentioned in the Reuters investigation. As more and more of the scientific information becomes available, we are sure to see more and more people begin to realize how much danger big ag is putting us all in by misusing antibiotics. With the rise of superbugs, we as consumers can not take the chance of eating potentially deadly meat for the sole reason that it is a dollar cheaper at our local grocery store. For big ag to change its practices, they need to be hit in the wallet and the only way for that to happen is for American consumers to realize that we are all at risk for a massive public health crisis simply because these large chicken producers want to save a few bucks in their pockets.

Because unlike Ebola, we know exactly who the villain behind these superbugs are and how they can be stopped.

The republicans Are Trying To Steal The Senate By Rigging The Kansas Election

Democrats and Independents need to be on alert because the environment is right for repugicans to try to steal control of the Senate by rigging the vote in the Kansas Senate race.

Transcript:

VANDEN HEUVEL: I think one of the biggest — first of all, turnout is going to be a big issue. And there’s no denying that the Democratic base, Latinos, African-Americans, single women, young people, are not in great form and not that happy about what’s going on.

But rigging the vote has become a repugican hallmark. When we talk about Kansas, I don’t look at Greg Orman or Pat Roberts. I look at that secretary of state who manipulated the ballot and registration. And limiting the voting access means cutting out large parts of our community, African-Americans, single women…

Katrina vanden Heuvel’s concern is justified, especially in Kansas. The Secretary of State in Kansas, Kris Kobach, has been called the nation’s worst repugican. Kobach is a tea party darling who has close ties to Gov. Sam Brownback. Brownback and Kobach both support  repugican Pat Roberts, who currently trailing Independent Greg Orman. Kobach tried to keep the Democratic Senate candidate’s name on the ballot after he had withdrawn from the race. The Sec. of State had to be taken to court and forced by the Kansas Supreme Court to remove Democrat Chad Taylor’s name from the ballot. After the Supreme Court ruling, Kobach tried to send absentee ballots out overseas with the Democratic candidate’s name still on them, but reversed course a day later.

The repugicans realize that if they lose Kansas, they won’t win control of the Senate. Kobach is desperate to get Roberts reelected, so it would surprise no one if the same Sec. of State who purged 20,000 people from the voting rolls in Kansas would try to rig the Senate race for Roberts.

Democrats should be worried about the potential for what could happen in Kansas. The environment is perfect for some repugican vote rigging in the state. Democrats have been very successful at combating repugican vote rigging schemes in the past few elections, but with an Independent running, and Democrats staying out of the way, Kobach attempting to sway the election to Roberts isn’t just a possibility. It should be expected.

It Was catholic bishops Who Masterminded The evangelical Hobby Lobby Crusade

A group of catholic bishops in America found an easy means to exert control over 'christian' wingnuts and manipulate them to re-establish vatican control …

From about 313 of the Common Era to the early 1500s, it is relatively safe to say the christian world was dominated by, and subsequently under the total control of, the catholic cult. Whether there were holy Roman emperors or powerful Popes dominating christian nations the world over, questioning the “cult’s” authority was forbidden, considered heresy as well as apostasy, and likely to earn violators a slow and painful execution. If it accomplished nothing else, and it did transform the christian delusion, the reformation made it possible to question catholic cult authority and the vatican has never really gotten over it. In fact there was a “Thirty Years’ War” after the reformation to reassert papal supremacy that decimated parts of Europe, but the genie was out of the bottle and unquestioned catholic supremacy over Western nations’ theocratic and political matters was over for all intents and purposes. However, four-hundred years later a group of catholic bishops in America found an easy means to exert control over 'christian' wingnuts and manipulate them to re-establish vatican control over theocratic and political matters to bring women into subjection to catholic dogma.

It is amazing really, that mainstream christians were mortified at the thought of a potential catholic president (John F. Kennedy) doing the bidding of the pope in the 1960s, and yet within 20 years they were being deftly manipulated by the United States Conference of catholic bishops (USCCB) to do the bidding of the pope. It has taken thirty years, but the USCCB finally succeeded in foisting the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae on the religio-wingnuts and with valuable aide from the U.S. catholic Supreme Court gave the vatican the power to “regulate of birth” over a wide swathe of American women. Although the Hobby Lobby ruling will reverberate over America’s political and religious landscape for decades, the religious right can rest assured that their “apparent victory” was a well-executed plan masterminded by catholic bishops to manipulate evangelical christians like the mindless puppets they are.

Before one can comprehend exactly how, and more importantly why, the USCCB was able to easily influence the religiio-wingnuts to do the vatican’s bidding, it is beneficial to know the history of the evangelical movement’s ardent and often violent opposition to women’s reproductive health choices. One thing is abundantly clear; mainstream christians were not opposed to birth control or abortion prior to 1970 because they had another biblical cause to champion until it threatened their ability to operate as tax-exempt welfare recipients. It was not, as many Americans are led to believe, Roe v. Wade that drove the religio-wingnuts' ascension into a political farce, it was Green v. Kennedy that drove them right into the waiting arms of the catholic bishops.

Green v. Kennedy stripped tax-exempt status from private christian schools known as “segregation academies” set up across the south to allow loving evangelical christians to bar African American students from attending schools with white children after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling banning school segregation. Following closely the mormon “revelation” that Black people were not “cursed by god” as a result of Jimmy Carter’s threat to revoke the LDS tax-exempt status, the religio-wingnuts abandoned segregation and embraced a desperately needed new cause célèbre for their electoral movement.

After Roe v. Wade, most of the wingnut christian minority’s evangelical leaders agreed with the court that abortion is a private matter between a woman and her physician. In fact, before and for several years after Roe, evangelicals were so overwhelmingly indifferent to the subject of abortion that they considered it a “catholic issue.” In 1968 the christian Medical Society and christianity today “refused to characterize abortion as sinful citing individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, the southern baptist coven resolved to “work for legislation allowing abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, fetal deformity, and for the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” In 1976, the southern baptist coven’s president was said he was happy with Roe v. Wade and that, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed. Religious liberty, human equality, and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision.”

So what happened to religious liberty, human equality, and justice? It was replaced by catholic bishops’ insistence that the religio-wingnuts demand their repugican legislators pass strong “conscience clause” legislation in the 1990s to battle what the bishop’s convinced the religio-wingnuts was a sinful woman’s “lifestyle” choice to have sex without consequences. The bishops convinced the religio-wingnuts to embrace a longstanding vatican edict that fertility management was not only frivolous, but an immoral sin against nature, an affront to the vatican as dog’s representative on Earth, and a violation of evangelical christians consciences; the religio-wingnuts jumped on the anti-contraception bandwagon with delusional fervor.

The idea that all contraceptives are “abortifacients” was dreamed up and instigated by the bishops according to the Humanae Vitae edict that defined anything that worked post-sex, or prevented a fertilized egg from implanting, was an abortion and infanticide. The bishops were also the driving force behind the idea that contraception use violated the “religious freedom” of evangelical christians’ who embraced the catholic cult’s fervent opposition to fertility management. Hobby Lobby’s evangelical owners used “religious freedom” as the primary argument to convince 5 catholic Justices to enact the ultimate broad-based conscience clause allowing any evangelical christian employer or insurer to deny women’s contraception use for any religious or moral objection.

The religio-wingnuts never really cared about reproductive rights as long as they had a dependable political issue to elect repugicans. Combating desegregation was that issue before they risked losing their tax exempt status in the 1970s, and it was a valuable campaign issue they could hardly stand to lose. It is also true that the religio-wingnuts' fight over reproductive rights was never really about abortion or contraceptive use until they were given the “religious liberty” meme from the catholic bishops that repugicans embraced as a dependable dog whistle for their southern evangelical base. Both evangelical christians and repugicans have been manipulated by the catholic bishops whose only agenda is about using catholic dogmata to influence the theocratic and political establishment to control women and sex; specifically the ability of women to have sex without the consequence of pregnancy.

It is doubtful that repugicans even care one way or the other about women’s reproductive rights, but they do care about keeping a dependable voting bloc enraged against Democrats they claim are waging a war against christians and their religious freedoms. The real winners in the war against women’s reproductive rights are not evangelicals or repugicans; in fact, repugicans have suffered at the ballot box due to their opposition to women’s rights and devotion to wingnut christian voters. However, the United States Conference of catholic bishops have made great strides in controlling women’s access to birth control that by extension is controlling women according to catholic dogma. Because if they can keep America’s women perpetually pregnant at home serving their husbands’ every whim, they will have effectively imposed a major theological and political Vatican doctrine on the nation. Sadly, they have nearly accomplished their goal with unquestioned obedience from an alarmingly large number of Americans who aren’t even catholics. Holy Roman emperors and powerful popes from centuries past would be proud and duly impressed that the bishops accomplished their task without a Crusade and Inquisition.

The Truth Be Told

Iranians Who Danced To ‘Happy’ Sentenced To 91 Lashes And 6 Months In Jail

Video Link
Authorities said the jail time was assigned for acting in the video and the 91 lashes are for defying Islamic norms, which prohibit “dancing with members of the opposite sex and women from appearing without a headscarf,”

deathandtaxesmag

 ***

This is what the wingnuts are trying to bring to this country - Utter Stupidity. Disregarding the 'song' - which is totally derivative, but that's another story - the people in this video appear to be happy and that is the 'real threat' to extremists ... people being happy means they are free to use their minds.
And that my friends is what gives extremists the willies, heebie jeebies, and the creepy crawlies all at the same time.
Hence the abnormal over-reaction - OK, the normal extremist over-reaction, which is abnormal.

Spiritual healer arrested after killing follower to prove that he could bring him back to life

A pir was arrested in Pakistan on Wednesday for killing a follower to prove his claim that he could bring him back to life. A Saddar police spokesman said Muhammad Sabir, a pir of village Mubarakabad in Bahawalnagar, gained popularity over the last five years for his ability to perform ‘miracles’. He said on Tuesday, he announced that he could breathe life back into a dead man.

The pir gave the condition that the victim must be married and have children. Sabir said 40-year-old Muhammad Niaz, a daily wage worker and father of six children, volunteered for the miracle. On Wednesday, Niaz was placed on a table in a square and his hands and legs were bound. The police spokesman said Sabir then sliced his throat as people looked on. Meanwhile, an anonymous caller informed the police about ‘the miracle.’
The spokesman said that by the time police arrived, Niaz had died. Witnesses said Sabir uttered some words to bring him back to life. They said when he realized his ‘miracle’ had not worked, he tried to flee. He was detained by the villagers and handed over to the police. Villagers told police that he used ask a local pet store to donate birds and dogs so that could save villagers from black magic. They said he sacrificed animals and sprinkled their blood on his followers.
He also asked them to sprinkle it at the entrance of their houses to be protected from evil. A report against the cleric has been lodged in Saddar police station. The body of the victim was taken to a hospital for an autopsy and later handed over to the family for burial. Samina, sister of the victim, said that her brother had sacrificed himself for the spiritual leader. “Why should I mourn when I know that my brother is in heaven?” she said. “He will be rewarded for his services for the spiritual leader in afterlife.” She said her brother had volunteered for the miracle and that the pir should not have been arrested.

Brothers attacked each other with sticks in dispute over stolen okra

Two brothers were charged with assault and battery after police in Spartanburg, South Carolina, said they got into a fight with sticks over stolen okra.

Officers were called on Thursday about a disturbance. Police that say Anthony Kelly told them his brother Ted Carol Kelly hit him when Anthony confronted Ted about stealing okra from his garden.

Ted told police that his brother hit him with a stick and in response Ted hit him back with a stick, according to police.

Police say both men were intoxicated and were unable to give written statements. Both Ted and Anthony Kelly were charged with third-degree assault and battery.

Woman accused of threatening stepson with pellet gun after 9-hour binge drinking his booze

A Florida woman is accused of drinking for nine hours and threatening her stepson with his pellet gun when he tried to prevent her from polishing off his liquor. Laurie Ann Marlow, 55, was arrested at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after deputies were called to her home in western Flagler County to investigate a disturbance, a sheriff’s report states.

A deputy reported Marlow appeared to be under the influence. She said she had been arguing with her 21-year-old stepson, Taylor Marlow, and that he and his brother, William, 25, left the house with two rifles, including one that they had fought over. “He advised that Laurie had found liquor that he had hidden in his room and that she had consumed a large amount of it,” the report states. The brothers then “heard a loud banging noise coming from within the house” so Taylor Marlow ran to the backyard and entered through a rear entrance that leads directly to his bedroom.
“As Taylor opened the door he observed that Laurie had broken down the locked door and was grabbing his pellet gun,” the deputy reported. “Laurie proceeded to turn around and point the gun into Taylor’s face.” He told the deputy the barrel of the gun was about a foot away from his face and he believed she would shoot him. Taylor Marlow’s brother, William Marlow told the deputy he did not see what happened from outside the home but heard his brother say, “Are you kidding me right now? Are you seriously pulling a gun on me?”
William Marlow said he then heard the two wrestling over the gun. Taylor Marlow got the gun away from his stepmother and his brother took it from him and hid it in the car. Taylor Marlow told the deputy it’s not the first time a situation like this has occurred. “He advised that Laurie had pulled a real firearm on their father, and she hits their father on a regular basis,” the deputy reported. Laurie Marlow was booked into the Flagler County Detention Facility on $2,000 bail.

10-year-old girl rescued after losing balance and getting stuck in washing machine

A mother had to call 911 after a 10-year-old girl found herself stuck in a washing machine in Elmont, Long Island, New York on Wednesday.

Dejannah Price said she was leaning over as she took rugs out of the washer like her mother asked her to do, when she lost her balance and flipped right into the machine. “(I was) scared at first, and then it started to get funny,” Dejannah said. But her mother was did not think it was so funny at all.
“We was pissed because we was like, ‘How the hell are we going to get her out of here?’” said Dejannah’s mother, Diana Brown. “We attempted, but we couldn’t.” Nassau County police had to come to the home, along with the local fire department. They arrived just minutes after Brown called 911. “It was embarrassing,” Brown said.

YouTube link.

“They were like, ‘Uh this is a first. How did she get in there?’” Brown said. “And then I told them.” Dejannah spent nearly an hour stuck. She said first responders ultimately removed parts of the washer to get her out. Luckily, Dejannah was not seriously injured. She said she did learn an important lesson. “I’m never helping my mom with laundry ever again,” Dejannah said. Brown said she can at least stick to a front-load dryer.

Ziggy

The 10 Most Expensive Cars in the World

Some cars are designed just to get you from point A to point B. Some cars are designed to get you from point A to point B really fast. And then there are cars designed with such lavish style and breath-taking performance that point B doesn't even matter anymore - just driving it is the point.
They are built with a level of luxury that most of us will never even see in person, let alone get the chance to own.

Here are the 10 most expensive cars in the world.

Bus Offers Private Seat for Breastfeeding Mothers

A public bus in Jinhua, Zhejiang, China, offers a special seat for mothers with babies. A mom can sit there and breastfeed her baby. There's a privacy curtain that she can pull around herself and another one mounted on the window to shield her from the street.
So far, there's only one bus equipped this way, but officials with the bus company says that it will expand the service if it's popular.

Food Markets From Around The World

Here are 35 food markets from around the world to put on your travel bucket list.

New York City's 11 Most Accessible Ruins

With space at a premium and construction at a fever pitch, ruins in New York City usually don't last long. But sometimes an abandoned property falls through the cracks - maybe it's a historic structure, or it's in a remote location, or its ownership is unclear.
The developer's loss, though, is the urban explorer's gain, and some are surprisingly easy to get access. Here are eleven of New York City's most explorer-friendly ruins.

Naqsh-i Rustam

Incredible Reliefs Of Persian Empires

Most people have heard of the ancient city of Persepolis in Iran. Yet just north of the metropolis of antiquity is a sheer cliff, known as Naqsh-i Rustam. Here, in the second millennium BCE, work began on a quite staggering series of rock reliefs which - even today - have the ability to awe in terms of their size and the staggering amount of work which must have been involved in their creation.

Karlu Karlu

The Devil's Marbles

The Devil's Marbles or Karlu Karlu, as they are known by the local Warumungu Aboriginals, are a collection of massive granite boulders strewn across a shallow valley, south of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, Australia. They are one of the most widely recognized symbols of Australia's outback.
Formed by erosion over millions of years, the Devil's Marbles are made of granite. Some of the boulders are naturally but precariously balanced atop one another or on larger rock formations, while others have been split cleanly down the middle. Although they appear to have been carefully placed, these boulders actually formed on the ground they stand by erosion of rock that reached the surface from below.

Daily Comic Relief

Meet Lonesome George, The Face Of Extinction

More than 20,000 species of plants and animals around the world are currently under threat of extinction, and hundreds vanish each year. We don't always know the exact time of extinction, but for the Pinta Island giant tortoise, the date was June 24, 2012.
On that day, Lonesome George - the Galapagos Island tortoise now on display at the American Museum of Natural History, and the last known member of his species - died of natural causes. With him, his species, Chelonoidis abingdoni, vanished.

Two-foot alligator prompted cautious investigation

The Stearns County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota responded to a call regarding an exotic animal on Thursday.

The caller was out mowing his lawn near a wetland area when he saw a 2-foot alligator in the grass.

A deputy responded and found the alligator on the grass near a creek and swampy area. The deputy approached on foot and the alligator did not move.

The deputy then used his baton to investigate further and found the alligator to be a plastic toy. It was safely removed.

Sully the Dog Pins Her Owner For Some Epic "I Missed You" Hugs

One of the funniest things about big dogs is that they don't seem to understand that they are big dogs. Take Sully the Saint Bernard for example. A massive dog by any means, but it seems every time "daddy" gets home, Sully tackles him and forces some quality hug time on him to let him know how much he was missed.
I will be honest with you. I would be delighted if something ever missed me that much.

(YouTube Link)

While the thought of a massive Saint Bernard tackling you and pinning you might inspire images of Cujo in your head, it is quite clear to see Sully is just a big teddy bear. And really, what is better than a big teddy bear that loves to give hugs?

Now, That’s A Wasp!

The tarantula hawk is neither a tarantula nor a hawk. It’s a really scary Pepsis wasp. It can grow really large and has an extremely painful sting. From Wikipedia:

Commenting on his own experience, Justin O. Schmidt, entomologist and creator of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, described the pain as "…immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream. Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations."[2] In terms of scale, the wasp's sting is rated near the top of the Schmidt sting pain index, second only to that of the bullet ant, and is described by Schmidt as "blinding, fierce [and] shockingly electric".[5]

The tarantula hawk is the official state insect of New Mexico. But they range all over, with around 250 species in South America alone. Redditor Gonolek found this wasp dead in the hotel he worked at in Brazil. You can put your hand up your screen with his to picture how big it is. I would hate to encounter a wasp that size alive.

Animal Pictures