The Daily Drift

The Seventeenth of our trees of December ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

 
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Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Hurlingham, Argentina

Brasilia, Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Montgomery, Montreal and Ottawa, Canada

Santiago, Chile

Barranquilla and Bogota, Colombia

Mexico City, Mexico

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Atoka and Manitowoc, United States

Europe

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Sofia, Bulgaria

Hluboka nad Vitavou and Prague, Czech Republic

Lancaster, London, Manchester, Slough and Stopsley,  England

Calais, Cerny, Cherbourg-Octeville, Boulogne-Billancourt, Meudon, Nice, Paris, Roubaix, Rouen, Rue, Velizy-Villacoublay and Villeurbanne, France

Berlin and Hamburg, Germany

Athens, Greece

Reykjavik, Iceland

Dublin, Ireland

Assago, Ivrea, Milan, Naples, Rome, Seriate and Uboldo, Italy

Moscow, Ryazan and Saratov, Russia

Rusanj, Serbia

Derio, Eixample, L'Olleria, Madrid and Torrent, Spain

Kista and Stockholm, Sweden

Istanbul, Turkey

Kiev, Ukraine

Asia

Khulna, Bangladesh

Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Jahanabad, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Patna, Shillong and Trichur, India

Cimahi, Jakarta and Kebon, Indonesia

Tehran, Iran

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Bayan Lepas and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Singapore, Singapore

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Bangkok, Thailand

Al Ayn, United Arab Emirates

Hanoi and Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Taizz, Yemen

Africa

Cairo and Al Minya, Egypt

Centurion and Johannesburg, South Africa

The Pacific

Heidelberg, Homebush and Sydney, Australia

Today in History

546 - Gothic War (535-554): The Ostrogoths of King Totila conquer Rome by bribing the Byzantine garrison.
920 - Romanos I is crowned as co-emperor of the underage Emperor Constantine VII.
942 - Assassination of William I Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy.
1398 - Timur (Tamerlane) captures and sacks Delhi, defeating Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud's armies which include elephants
1526 - Ferdinand of Austria chosen as King of Bohemia
1572 - Spanish army begins fires in Haarlem Netherlands
1586 - Emperor Go-Yozei becomes Emperor of Japan.
1587 - The Earl Leicester's army leaves Netherlands
1637 - Shimabara Rebellion: Japanese peasants led by Amakusa Shiro rise against daimyo Matsukura Shigeharu.
1638 - French/Swedish troops occupy Breisach on the Rhine
1718 - France, Britain and Austria declare war on Spain.
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army retreats to Scotland
1777 - France recognizes independence of British colonies in America
1777 - George Washington's army returns to Valley Forge, Pa
1788 - Russian army of Grigorij Potemkin occupies Ocharov
1790 - Aztec calendar stone discovered in Mexico City
1791 - NYC traffic regulation creates 1st 1-way street
1792 - Opening of 1st legislative assembly of Lower Canada in Quebec city
1798 - 1st impeachment trial against a US senator (Wm Blount, TN) begins
1807 - France issues the Milan Decree, which confirms the Continental System.
1819 - Congress of Angostura establishes Colombia's independence from Spain
1821 - Kentucky abolishes debtors' prisons
1832 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin sails in Strait Le Maire
1845 - German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt arrives in Port Essington after a nearly 4,800 km (3,000 mi) overland journey to explore Australia's Northern Territory
1852 - 1st Hawaiian cavalry organized
1860 - Anaheim Township created in Los Angeles County
1862 - General Ulysses S. Grant issues order #11, expelling Jews from Tennessee
1865 - Franz Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" premieres
1875 - Violent bread riots in Montreal
1885 - France declares Madagascar a protectorate
1887 - Georges Feydeau's "Tailleur Pour Dames" premieres in Paris
1892 - Tchaikovski's ballet "Casse-noisette" premieres in St Petersburg
1893 - Russia ratifies Double Alliance with France
1895 - Anti-Saloon League of America formed, Washington, DC
1895 - George Brownell patents a machine to make paper twine (Mass)
1900 - 1st prize of 100,00 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too easy
1900 - New Ellis Island Immigration station completed costing $1.5 million
1902 - Frank Wedekind's "Der Erdgeist" premieres in Berlin
1903 - At 10:35 AM, 1st sustained motorized aircraft flight (Orville Wright)
1907 - Ugyen Wangchuck became 1st hereditary king of Bhutan
1908 - In Turkey, the new parliament convenes, with reformist Young Turks as the majority
1909 - Leopold II, king of Belgium, buried in Brussels
1914 - Austrian troops beat Russians in Limanova Poland
1914 - Great Britain declares Egypt a protectorate
1914 - Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities
1919 - Austria parliament approves 8-hour day
1920 - British Empire receives League of Nations mandate to Nauru
1920 - Japan receives League of Nations mandate over Pacific islands
1920 - South Africa receives League of Nations mandate over SW Africa
1922 - Last British troops leave Irish Free State
1923 - Greek king George II overthrown by army/republic
1924 - 1st US diesel electric locomotive enters service, Bronx, NY
1925 - Col William "Billy" Mitchell court-martialed for insubordination
1925 - Russia & Turkey sign non-aggression pact
1926 - German Marx government falls due to cooperation with red army
1926 - Lithuanian military state under gen Augustine Woldemaras
1926 - Antanas Smetona assumes power in Lithuania as the ‎1926 coup d'état‎ is successful.
1927 - US sub 'S-4' sinks after collision kills all 34 aboard
1933 - Spain's 2nd government of Lerroux forms
1933 - NFL starts official stats as Bears beat Giants 23-21 in champ game
1935 - First flight of the Douglas DC-3 airplane.
1936 - Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen & dummy Charlie McCarthy, appear on TV
1938 - Discovery of nuclear fission using uranium by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann
1938 - Utrecht Central Station destroyed by fire
1939 - German pocket battleship Graf Spee scuttled by its crew off Uruguay
1940 - British troops occupy Sollum, Egypt
1941 - Dutch & Australian troops lands on Portuguese Timor
1941 - German submarine U-31 sunk
1941 - German troops led by Rommel begin retreating in North Africa
1941 - World War II: Beginning of the Siege of Sebastopol.
1942 - Allies in London sentence German war criminals
1943 - Transport 63 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
1944 - Green Bay Packers win NFL championship
1944 - M-Ocean View streetcar resumes service & is extended to Market St
1944 - US Army announces end of excluding Japanese-Americans from West Coast, detainees released.
1944 - US destroyers sink in storm off Philippines, 790 killed
1946 - US V-2 rocket reaches 183 km, White Sands Proving Grounds, NM
1947 - NY struck by a blizzard, resulting with 27" of snow
1949 - "Regina" closes at 46th St Theater NYC after 86 performances
1949 - Burma recognizes People's Republic of China
1951 - Dutch Communist Party members forbidden to be civil servants
1953 - Dmitri Shostakovitch's 10th Symphony premieres in Leningrad
1953 - FCC approves RCA's black & white-compatible color TV specifications
1954 - 1st fully automated railroad freight yard (Gary, Indiana)
1957 - US successfully test-fires Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile
1957 - The last episode of The Nat King Cole Show airs on NBC due to lack of national sponsorship
1959 - "On The Beach" is 1st film to premiere on both sides of Iron Curtain
1959 - 1st movie opening simultaneously in major cities (On The Beach)
1960 - "La Plume de Ma Tante" closes at Royale Theater NYC after 835 performances
1960 - "Take Me Along" closes at Shubert Theater NYC after 448 performances
1960 - Pablo Casals' oratorio "El Pesebrio" premieres
1961 - Disgruntled employee set fire to a circus tent in Niteroi Brazil
1961 - India seizes Goa & 2 other Portuguese colonies
1961 - Niteroi Circus of Rio de Janeiro catches fire; 323 die
1962 - Beatles 1st British TV appearance (People & Places)
1962 - Current constitution of Monaco promulgated
1963 - Tsjoi Doo Sun forms government in South Korea
1963 - West & East Berlin sign accord about travel rules
1965 - Astrodome opens, 1st event is Judy Garland & Supremes concert
1965 - British government proclaims ends oil-embargo against Rhodesia
1965 - David Levy begins his search for comets
1965 - Dutch government shuts Limburgs coal mine
1965 - Largest newspaper-Sunday NY Times at 946 pages (50 cents)
1967 - Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, vanishes in mysterious circumstances while swimming near Melbourne.
1969 - USAF closes Project Blue Book, concluding no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings
1970 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1970 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1970 - Poland: shipyard workers in Gdansk strike; soldiers in Gdynia fire at workers emerging from trains, killing dozens.
1971 - "Diamonds are Forever" premieres in US
1971 - Cease fire between India & Pakistan in Kashmir
1971 - Radio Bangladesh begins transmitting
1972 - New line of control agreed to in Kashmir between India & Pakistan
1973 - Arabs terrorists shoot passengers on Boeing 737 to Kuwait
1975 - John Paul Stevens appointed to Supreme Court
1975 - Lynette Fromme sentenced to life for attempt on US President Ford's life
1976 - Superstation WTBS in Atlanta went national
1977 - Elvis Costello & The Attractions 1st US TV appearance (SNL)
1977 - France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island
1978 - OPEC raises oil prices 18%
1978 - Referendum approves new constitution of Rwanda
1978 - The Workers Party of Jamaica is founded by Trevor Munroe.
1978 - OPEC decides on a 14.5 percent petrolium price increase for 1979, to be implemented quarterly
1979 - Budweiser rocket car reaches 1190 kph (record for wheeled vehicle)
1980 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 - Mauritania provisional constitution published
1981 - Members of Red Brigades kidnap Brig Gen James L Dozier
1983 - "Peg" closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC after 5 performances
1983 - Disco in Madrid catches fire; 83 die
1983 - The Provisional IRA bombs Harrods department store in London, killing six people and injuring 90
1986 - US Congress forms "Irangate" committee
1986 - Mrs Davina Thompson makes medical history by having the 1st heart, lung & liver transplant (Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England)
1986 - American mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski is arrested at a roadblock
1987 - Czechoslovak party leader Gustav Husak resigns
1988 - USS Tennessee, 1st sub to carry Trident 2 missiles, commissioned
1988 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1989 - Brazil elects Fernando Collor de Mello as president
1989 - The longest-running American sitcom the Simpsons had its debut.1991 - Patrick Manning becomes premier of Trinidad & Tobago
1992 - Gen Suwa finds tooth of 4.4 million year old Australopithecus ramidus
1993 - Bangladesh muslims call for murder of feminist Taslima Nasrin
1994 - KLM's last DC-10 goes out of service
1999 - The United Nations General Assembly passes resolution 54/134 designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.
2002 - Second Congo War: The Congolese parties of the Inter Congolese Dialogue sign a peace accord which makes provision for transitional governance and legislative and presidential elections within two years.
2003 - The Soham murder trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice.
2003 - SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.
2005 - Anti-WTO protesters riot in Wan Chai, Hong Kong
2007 - Republic of Lakotah asserts independence from the United States
2012 - Jiroemon Kimura of Japan becomes the world's oldest verified man at 116 years old
2012 - 17 people are killed and 70 are injured by a blast in a market in the Khyber Agency, Pakistan
2012 - 10 girls collecting firewood are killed by a mine blast in east Afghanistan
2012 - 18 people drown after an overloaded boat sinks in Cotonou, Benin
2012 - NASA completes a successful mission to map the Moon’s gravity field
2013 - Angela Merkel is elected Chancellor of Germany for a third term

These 20 Houses Really Need To Tone Down The Christmas Cheer

Christmas trees, lights, decorations, it's all OK. But these houses need to scale back on the decorations. Seriously... it looks like Christmas Spirit threw up on these houses. These people just need to tone down the Christmas cheer.

5 Tips To Keep Your Christmas Tree Fresh

We all want our Christmas trees to last through the holiday season, but it actually doesn't take more than a few days of heat and neglect to dry out a fresh one. With proper care, most trees can last five weeks or more. Here's how to keep your evergreen well into the New Year.

Hunt for free xmas tree ended with man being winched to safety after falling down cliff

A man was winched to safety after falling an estimated 10 to 12 meters down a steep embankment in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, while trying to cut down a xmas tree.

It is believed the man in his 50s was trying to cut down a small pine tree he had decided would make a great Christmas tree when he fell down the embankment alongside the Eastern Freeway in Doncaster.
Fire commander Bob Lanigan said the man was lucky to escape with minor injuries after being winched to safety. "There are a lot safer ways to source xmas trees," he said. "Personally I got mine from a scout group and they delivered it to my door.
"No need to go over a cliff edge to try to get one." The rescue involved members of the high angle rescue team setting up a complex rigging system. The man was winched up from the bottom of the embankment on a stretcher and suffered cuts and bruises.
There's a news video here.

What You Need To Know About Your Digital Life After Death

One small fact: You are going to die, Death says in the opening of The Book Thief. Despite every effort, no one lives forever. Perhaps you've prepared for the inevitable by getting insured, saving up for those you're leaving behind and writing up a last will and testament.
These days, though, you also need to decide what will happen to your online life after death. What can you do to prepare for it, and what can you do to help if someone close to you passes away?

Lynching Obama

The repugicans just can't get over the fact that they can no longer get together and lynch the black guy they found in the white neighborhood…

We’ve written about racial animus toward our first black president many times, and we can’t let a situation which took place go by without saying something about it.

As Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch reported it, “a small group of wingnut agitators gathered in front of the White House at a rally scheduled to coincide with the visit of a number of sheriffs who were in Washington, D.C., to protest President Obama’s executive action on immigration.”

One agitator babbled on to some of these “good old boys” who expressed a desire to lynch President Obama, and it was all captured on film, including the punishment for high treason: “death by hanging.”

Some of the other “gems” you will hear are:

“Hang the traitor!”
“Hang the lying Kenyan traitor!”
“We’ve got rope.”
“Plenty of trees in the front yard, wouldn’t be the first one hung on one of them trees.”
“Whatever happened to those good ol’ days?”
“Don’t snap his neck, you watch him choke to death.”

“He’s just biding his time until Satan takes him home to where he belongs.”

This isn’t the first call for a lynching. Back in January, “a racist wingnut Facebook cabal, “America the next generation,” created a photo-shopped image of President Barack Obama with a hangman’s noose around his neck that represents the group’s racist hatred of the President” and called it “The Making of a National Holiday.” Facebook, of course, originally claimed that wanting to lynch our first black president wasn’t offensive in any way, shape, or form.

In October of last year, Larry Pittman of North Carolina told a “joke” about Obama being a traitor from Kenya. When the Freedom and Faith Coalition got together in D.C. to hold their Road to Majority conference, somebody threw a plastic Obama figurine in the urinal so folks could show Obama how trickle-down really works.

You might compare this to how liberals felt about the shrub – and some wingnuts have – except for the fact that repugican  Joe Walsh got upset that a radio station wouldn’t let him use the N-word, and repugican Thom Tillis says white folks are the only “traditional” Americans, and hell, even Santa and jesus are white, right Megyn Kelly?

I mean, not like Native Americans, who were here first, and especially not like black folks.

Liberals hated the shrub because he was a criminal, not because he is white. On the other hand, repugicans have sometimes not even tried to hide the racial animus behind their hatred of President Obama.

Based on things wingnuts have said, this is more or less how their thinking goes:

“I mean, we did them a big favor and all by making them slaves (for which they haven’t properly thanked us, by the way) but they’re not, you know, “real” Americans.”

No, it takes a well-armed white man like Cliven Bundy to know all about the “negro.” Or Lush Dimbulb, who says blacks should just get over having been oppressed already and that whites shouldn’t feel bad about slavery, even as he is complaining that the repugican cabal is not racist enough toward the president.

As Lush’s words, the ones coming out of his other mouth prove, blacks are still being oppressed.

The repugicans keep telling us we live in a post-racial country even as the racial epithets fly.

Except racism didn’t end in 1955. Why, if racism ended and you are black, must you “assume the position”? A subsequent tweet attempting to clarify the message just served to make repugicans look even more foolish.

As did Rick Perry’s “pre glasses make me look smart” claim that there is no racism in America’s justice system. No Rick, we can certainly see that in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and Eric Garner. No racism at all.

They react with violent hostility to any suggestion that anything they have said is racist in any way. I mean, look at how those nice white folks in Rosebud, Missouri, greeted the Ferguson protestors, with fried chicken. Which, at least – however repugnant – was less violent than the murderous greeting promised by the KKK.

And I can’t imagine any racial animus was behind the desire of Open Carry Texas – the same folks who say demanding ID from a white man is a felony but gunning down black men is not – to march through a black neighborhood in Houston! Dear me, no.

And if there is racism, they are the victims and they blame Obama. Mo Brooks (r-AL) pointed to an imaginary “war on whites,” saying Obama “divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.” Wingnut extremist Mychal Massie took it a step further when he accused Obama of being the racist – even as he called him a “spade.”

Yeah, it must be Obama who is to blame for racism. The man is black, after all. It’s all his fault. And according to Massie, if you weren’t in “in a terminal state of denial based on an Erebusic (primordial darkness) ideology, and color of skin,” you’d see it too!

Of course, a panel on CBS’s Face the Nation has debunked that claim but then look at all the panels that have debunked repeating wingnut claims that anthropogenic global warming is not taking place.

They’ll be denying global warming even as rising sea waters are lapping around their necks, a sort of self-lynching, if you want to look at it that way.

Racism is alive and well in America and the justice system is anything but fair. The repugican cabal is Racist to its core. It is proven again and again to be true.

The repugicans claim they are persecuted, but that is only because we don’t let them get away with their racist rhetoric, with their desire to make anyone who isn’t white enough assume the position so they can show us all just how manly they really are.

And that includes a bunch of good old boys reliving the “good old days” as they talk about lynching the black guy down the street who is where he doesn’t belong.

The Truth Be Told

Student vows to help homeless man who offered her his last £3

After a homeless good Samaritan came to her aid, a 22-year-old student at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston has vowed to pay him back. Dominique Harrison-Bentzen from Leyland, Lancashire, lost her bank card while out in Preston city center but only realized when she went to get money for a taxi home. She said: “I suddenly realized that I had no money and a homeless man approached me with his only change of £3.

“He insisted I took it to pay for a taxi to make sure I got home safe.” Dominique, who is studying for her Masters degree in fashion, didn’t take the money but so touched was she by the man’s kind gesture that she has set herself a mission to help him. She said: “I ended up posting a status on Facebook to try and find him the next day and it turns out I’m not the only person he has helped.” Identified only as ‘Robbie’ the man appears to have come to the aid of many, returning wallets to pedestrians and offering his scarf to keep people warm.
And now, Dominique will spend 24 hours with Robbie on Tuesday to raise money to help him get back on his feet. Dominique said: “He has been homeless for seven months through no fault of his own and he can’t get work due to having no address. And I simply can’t just give him the money, I have to go through the right channels so I will be spending 24 hours through the day and night as a homeless person to understand the difficulties they face each day.
“If people can sponsor me £3 – as Robbie attempted to give me his only £3 – in the hope of collecting enough to get Robbie a flat deposit so that he can be safe and warm.” Already the fundraising has gathered pace and over £2,000 has so far been raised. “It’s just so overwhelming the response I’ve had,” said Dominique. “Everyone has been so supportive and I’d love to get as many people as possible out with me on Tuesday to show Robbie our support – be it for the full 24 hours or just one.”

Long-awaited KFC told it can’t cook chicken

A long-awaited KFC in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, has closed its doors, temporarily, after the council barred it from cooking chicken. After opening to huge queues from chicken lovers who’d campaigned for years for the fast food firm to move back to the coast, management are understood to have shut up shop while they try to resolve an issue with the extractor fan. Scarborough Council has been forced to step in after complaints about the smell and noise from the restaurant. While the authority didn’t close the site, KFC bosses were served with a planning enforcement notice, meaning food couldn’t be cooked on the site. It means they can serve drinks, ice cream or anything prepared – but the Colonel’s secret recipe chicken is banned, for the time being.
Andy Skelton, Scarborough Council Director of Service Delivery, admitted the news will be a blow to KFC fans, 6,000 of whom campaigned to bring the chain to Scarborough. But he said the council had no option but to take action, adding: “It is with regret that we have had to serve a planning enforcement notice on the operators of the business and we realize these actions may mean disappointment for KFC customers.
“However, we have been left with no other choice due to the operators opening without complying with planning requirements because the extraction equipment on the premises is not operating correctly. There has been a problem with odor and noise from this equipment and we have received justified complaints. We are hopeful that the operators will be able to resolve the problems as soon as possible and once we are satisfied that the extraction equipment works correctly, we should be able to lift the notice.”

The Strangest Cell Phones Ever Sold

A cell phone painted with 24-karat gold, one that looks like a packet of cigarettes, or one that looks like a Ferrari. Would you buy that? Here are the strangest cell phones ever sold.

Gust of wind blew lawnmower onto roof of house

Winds were so strong in southwest Boise, Idaho, on Thursday, they blew a lawnmower on to the roof of a house.

Amanda Handley says the old push mower was being used to tie down their patio cover with a five gallon bucket of gravel.
Ms Handley said: "Our patio cover was tied to our old lawnmower to help keep it grounded (which it had survived many storms that way) but the wind came through and picked up the cover and mower and sent them flying over the house. The patio cover landed partially in our yard and partially in the neighbours' yard.

YouTube link.

"The mower landed on the roof. So thankful nobody was injured. A mower on my roof ... dare I say I've seen it all?" She says she heard a "kur-plunk," looked outside, and saw the lawnmower had landed on her roof. Fortunately, her brother-in-law was brave enough to climb up and get the mower down.

Last Week, A Sea of Fog Completely Filled the Grand Canyon

Last Thursday, visitors to the Grand Canyon in Arizona witnessed a spectacular event: the enormous valley filled up completely with fog. Natasha Greiling of Smithsonian explains that this event is known as a "total cloud inversion." That's when cold air becomes trapped in the bottom of the canyon beneath a heavy layer of warm air. This occurs once every few years at the Grand Canyon during unusual conditions.
Fortunately, the National Park Service staff who work at the canyon were ready. They took some amazing photos, as well as a time-lapse video of the event, which you can see below. It looks like the canyon is filling up from the bottom.

Elderly man fined for crossing the street too slowly

An elderly man in north-west Italy has been fined for crossing the street too slowly. 85-year-old Roberto Capellari, who walks with a slight limp, was crossing the road in Pinerolo, a town near Turin, when he was stopped by officers. He had failed to make it across the road before the green light turned to red, violating the town’s rules.
Residents have long since complained that the traffic light gives pedestrians just a few seconds to get across the street, not allowing enough time for the less able walkers. Signor Capellari was nonetheless slapped with a €41 fine and duly paid within days, earning him a reduction to €28.70.
But on hearing the news the town mayor, Eugenio Buttiero, went round to Signor Capellari's home, giving him €30 and a cake by way of compensation. (Video in Italian). However, local police chief Ermenegilda Aloi suggested his officer was right to fine the elderly man. “In the records, there's a doubt that the man crossed on the green light,” he said.

Man got a rude awakening when car crashed through his bedroom wall

71-year-old Terry Brouillette from Worcester, Massachusetts, was rudely awakened from a sound sleep on Thursday morning when a Subaru Legacy crashed though his bedroom wall.

Fast asleep in his ground-floor apartment, Mr. Brouillette awoke at about 2:30am when a loud boom echoed through his room. Groggy and unsure what happened, he flipped on a light switch. “There was almost a whole car. It's a good thing I have a strong heart,” he said. “I heard a big bang. I jumped up out of bed.”
A car had veered off the street and smashed through a concrete wall and into the house before coming to rest inches from Mr. Brouillette's bed. Police said the car's front wheel was above Mr. Brouillette's bed. “I know my time will come,” he said. “Apparently this wasn't my time.” Police were still investigating how the car jumped the curb and crashed into the side of the multi-apartment building.

YouTube link.

Three women and one man were in the car. The driver, identified by police as Jennifer L. Rodriguez, 33, was charged with drunken driving, driving to endanger, unlicensed driving and refusing to identify herself to a police officer. No one in the car was injured, according to police. Ms. Rodriguez was arraigned on Thursday in Central District Court. Judge Jennifer A. Stark set $1,500 cash bail and continued the case to Jan. 8.

Credonia Mwerinde: A mass murdering whore

Credonia Mwerinde (born 1952) was the high priestess and co-founder of the Movement for the restoration of the ten commandments of dog, a sect that splintered from the Roman catholic cult in Uganda. Before founding the movement she was a shopkeeper, brewer of banana beer, and a prostitute. Mwerinde was also a member of a religious cabal that was devoted to the Virgin Mary. She and two other group members approached Joseph Kibweteere in 1989, and said that the Virgin Mary had instructed him to take them in. Kibweteere did, and he was particularity struck by her claim of a Marian apparition near his home, which related to a vision he himself had five years earlier. Together Mwerinde and Kibweteere would found the Movement in 1989.
Mwerinde was part of the triumvirate that lead the sect, which included Kibweteere, and Dominic Kataribaabo, an excommunicated priest. However Paul Ikazire, a sect leader who later returned to the catholic cult, described her as being the true power in the Movement. He said, “The meetings were chaired by Sister Credonia, who was the de facto head of the group. Kibwetere was just a figurehead, intended to impose masculine authority over the followers and enhance the cult’s public relations.”Mwerinde was also the source of the sect’s predictions of an apocalypse and the pronouncements that salvation could only be found with the Virgin Mary’s messages.
The Movement grew rapidly and at its height membership was estimated as being between 1,000 and 4,000. Defrocked catholic priests and nuns joined and worked as theologians. The apocalypse was predicted to occur with the advent of the new millennium. After the Movement was evicted from Rwashamaire, it moved to an estate her father owned in Kanungu District. With the year 2000 approaching sect members sold their property and turned the profits over to group leadership.
When the world did not end by January 1, a crisis occurred in the Movement. Members began to ask questions and demand the return of their money and property. Police investigators believe that Movement leadership, particularly Mwerinde, began a purge of their followers culminating in the destruction of their Kanangu cult building in a fire that killed all 530 inside. Hundreds of bodies were also found at Movement properties across southwestern Uganda. Initially believed to be a mass suicide, police later stated that they were investigating it as a mass murder.
Mwerinde is assumed to have survived the cult building conflagration. Ugandan authorities believe that she left the sect’s Kanangu compound in the early hours of March 17. In April 2000, police issued an international warrant for her arrest in connection to the sect killings.
In September 2011, Mwerinde and several other prognosticators who incorrectly predicted various dates for the end of world were jointly awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for “teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations”.

More

Student hoping to change teacher's behavior accused of spiking drink with Horny Goat Weed

Police say a student at Alexander County High School in Taylorsville, North Carolina, is accused of slipping a pill into his teacher's drink. They said he thought by giving her the herbal supplement Horny Goat Weed it would help get her fired.

“The teacher walked into her classroom and saw students messing with something," said school resource officer Michael Millsaps. Taylorsville police said a student was putting something in her drink out of revenge after the teacher took away the student's Chrome Book in class, but the 15-year-old boy tossed out the drink he tampered with before she got to it.
Police say he put Horny Goat Weed in her drink. "The student took a pill and crushed it to a powder before putting it in his teacher's drink. They said he thought if she took it, it might change her behavior,” according to investigators. "He just heard the word 'weed' and thought it was maybe some marijuana-type pill," said Millsaps.

YouTube link. Original news video.

"He wanted the teacher to do something stupid and cause her to get fired." The incident has the student facing an uncommon, but serious charge. Distributing of certain food at Halloween and all other times prohibited is considered a felony offense. Horny Goat Weed is typically used for joint pain, high blood pressure, memory loss and fatigue. The bottle also says it can be used as a source of "vital energy" for men.

Whiskers grabbed from intruder's beard led police to burglary suspect

Police say a suspect was caught by a whisker when DNA from his beard helped lead authorities to his arrest. According to Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol, deputies investigated a home invasion that happened on December 20, 2013 in the Town of Vienna, New York. The incident involved a white man who went into a home and confronted the homeowner.

The suspect was unknown to the victim and had armed himself with a knife from the kitchen after getting into her home, Sheriff Maciol said. The suspect and victim began to fight and the victim grabbed the suspect's beard. Deputies said the suspect then fled the residence and the victim was able to secure her home and call 911. A search of the area found no one matching the suspect’s description.
During the investigation, a clump of hair was located in the victim’s living room where the altercation had taken place, which she believed to be from the suspects beard, Sheriff Maciol said. The hair was collected and sent to the New York State Police Lab in Albany for DNA analysis. In October 2014, the Sheriff's Office was notified that DNA collected from the beard sample matched Leon M. Tennant, 54, whose DNA they already had on file.
Tennant was located in custody at the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Rochester, NY, the Sheriff's Office said. A warrant was obtained from the Town of Vienna Court and Tennant was charged with burglary in the first degree. On December 5, 2014, Tennant was released from the Monroe County Correctional Facility. He was transported to the Town of Vienna Court where he was arraigned on the charge and ordered to be held without bail.

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Rita Hayworth, 1942

The Excruciating Final Hours of President George Washington

A couple of months ago, we told you about the painful last days of King Charles II. Over a hundred years later, when former president George Washington fell ill in December of 1799, medical science hadn’t much more to offer. Washington felt worse the next morning, so his estate’s overseer, George Rawlins, tried to help.

At 7:30 a.m., Rawlins removed 12 to 14 ounces of blood, after which Washington requested that he remove still more. Following the procedure, Col. Lear gave the patient a tonic of molasses, butter and vinegar, which nearly choked Washington to death, so inflamed were the beefy-red tissues of his infected throat.

Dr. James Craik, Washington's longtime physician, was summoned. He didn’t have much to offer, either.

Dr. Craik entered Washington’s bedchamber at 9 a.m. After taking the medical history, he applied a painful “blister of cantharides,” better known as “Spanish fly,” to Washington’s throat. The idea behind this tortuous treatment was based on a humoral notion of medicine dating back to antiquity called “counter-irritation.” The blisters raised by this toxic stuff would supposedly draw out the deadly humors causing the General’s throat inflammation.

That was just the beginning of the efforts Dr. Craik made to save Washington’s life. Washington died on December 14, at the age of 67, but not before enduring dubious remedies that only made his last day likely the most agonizing of his life. Read about the treatment the father of our country endured at PBS Newshour.

Magna Carta Story Illuminated By Discovery Of Medieval Poem

A little-known medieval poem written almost 800 years ago by Scottish monks was revealed last Thursday as the earliest independent account of one of the single most important events in English history: the sealing of Magna Carta.
Curators at the British Library have been researching all aspects of Magna Carta for an exhibition marking its 800th anniversary next year. But even they were surprised by what they found in the Melrose Chronicle, written in the 13th century by worldly Cistercian monks.

Sans-Souci

The Carefree Palace Of A Make-Believe Monarch

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) had left Haiti independent from its old colonial master, France which had only recently felt the convulsions of civil insurgency itself. Yet it also left the country divided in to north and south.
In the north, a remarkable yet despotic man came to be known as Henry I, King of Haiti and held sway for a number of years. He decreed that a palace be constructed to be the centerpiece of his power. Sans-Souci (meaning carefree), as it was named, was to be his Versailles.

Locked Away For Years, Skeleton's Secrets Rewrite Prehistory Of North America

In the summer of 1996, while wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, two students stumbled onto a skeleton.Dated to 7000 to 6900 B.C., it would turn out to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in North America.

2,400-Year-Old Coffin's 'Odd' Art Hints at Ancient Egypt's Brain Drain

The funerary scene shown here is remarkably weird. The deceased is shown on a funerary bed which has …

An ancient Egyptian coffin with strange and amateurish decorations has been revealed, shedding light on a tumultuous period in Egyptian history when the Persian Empire was in control of the region.
In 525 B.C., Persian King Cambyses marched into Memphis, the Egyptian capital, inaugurating a period of Persian rule that would last for more than a century. The Persian Empire was a vast entity that stretched from modern-day Afghanistan to the west coast of Turkey. Ancient texts say that the Persian kings deported Egyptian artists and used them for building projects in Persia.
The coffin bears a series of unusual features that are likely related to the Persian Empire's deportation of artists.
"Many of the best artists in Egypt were taken by the Persians back to Persepolis and Susa as POWs and war booty — you can see their work in those places. There seems to have been a dearth of masters for some time, so that fewer and fewer artists got proper training," Gayle Gibson, an Egyptologist and educator at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, told Live Science in an email.
Gibson presented the coffin at the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities Scholars' Colloquium, which was held Nov. 13 to 16 in Toronto.
Odd features
There are several odd features on the coffin that reflect the lack of knowledge the ancient artist had, Gibson said.
For instance, the deceased is depicted lying on a funerary bed, and the bed has a human-headed bird called a Ba. Flying over the deceased is a winged snake wearing a crown associated with the goddess Hathor. Below them are four jars bearing the heads of the four Sons of Horus, but the jars have a "goofy" appearance, Gibson said.
To an Egyptologist, this is a bizarre scene, Gibson said. "This is the only funerary bed I know of with a Ba's head," she told the Toronto audience, also noting that "we have a winged snake with Hathor's crown — very odd."
There are other oddities. The collar wrapped around the top of the coffin contains two creatures that look almost fishlike. The artist was likely trying to draw falcons, a symbol of the god Horus, but drew them very poorly, Gibson said.
A Mehen snake, a protective deity in Egypt, is also poorly drawn and actually stops at one point and starts in another, something strange for a protective deity. "The artist doesn't really understand the purpose of the Mehen snake," Gibson said.
Mike Sigler, a collector and Egyptian antiquities enthusiast who lives in Kentucky and now owns the coffin, sent a picture to Live Science showing that the ancient artist clumsily attempted to correct an error in an alternating pattern by scratching out an image of a scepter.
Ancient brain drain
Although there is no longer a mummy in the coffin, its inscriptions say that it belonged to someone named Denit-ast, or Dent-ast, likely a woman. Radiocarbon dating of her coffin indicates that she lived at a time when her country was under Persian control.
Ancient texts tell tales of the deportation of Egyptian artists to Persia during this time. Diodorus Siculus, who died around 30 B.C., said that Cambyses, the conqueror of Egypt, transferred both precious metals and artists from Egypt to Persia.
Additionally, Persian King Darius I bragged about the Egyptian artists he acquired in a text describing the construction of his palace at Susa. "The goldsmiths who wrought the gold, those were Mede and Egyptians. The men who wrought the wood, those were Sardians and Egyptians … the men who adorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians" Darius said (translation by Roland Kent).
Authentication
Gibson told the Toronto audience that when she first showed the coffin to other Egyptologists, some expressed skepticism and wondered if it was a fake created before Sigler owned it.
However, radiocarbon dating places the coffin in the Persian period and analysis of its wood indicates that it's sycamore, a wood that was commonly used in ancient Egypt. Additionally, an analysis of the coffin's blue pigments found that the pigment was Egyptian blue, which indicates that the coffin is authentic, Gibson said.
Sigler purchased the coffin in August 2013 from the Edgar L. Owen gallery, which sold it on behalf of a private collector. Paperwork that Sigler received indicates that the collector acquired it from the European art market in 1980. Its history before that is unknown.

Gibson is well-known for her Egyptological work. In the 1990s she helped identify a mummy in Niagara Falls, Canada, as likely being that of pharaoh Ramesses I. The mummy was later returned to Egypt with full military honors.

Given Gibson's reputation, Sigler sought her out and asked her for help in understanding the coffin's strange features.

Despite its odd features, Gibson believes the coffin is not a fake. "I think there is really no doubt that this one is genuine," she said.

Sigler told Live Science that he hopes to find other examples of the coffin's unusual imagery. He said that he is interested in donating the coffin to a museum in the future.

The pigment and wood analysis was carried out by Microscopist William Randle while radiocarbon dating was conducted at the University of Georgia’s Center for Applied Isotope Studies.

Archaeologists discover 3,000-year-old tomb of Pharaonic queen

Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities has announced the discovery of a queen's tomb from ancient Egypt's Ramesside period.

A team of Egyptian and French archaeologists accidentally found the Pharaonic tomb in the walls of the Ramesseum temple complex, on the west bank of Luxor. The Ramesseum was a memorial temple for Ramesseum II, the third pharaoh of Egypt's 19th dynasty. During the Ramesside period, which lasted from 1314 B.C.E. to 1085 B.C.E., there were 11 Egyptian kings named Rameses.
Fragments of 20 funerary statues found in the tomb were inscribed with the name "Karomama." The researchers are now working to figure out who the queen was and which pharaoh was her husband. Archaeologists believe "Karomama" may refer to the wife of Pharaoh Osorkon II, from Egypt's 22nd dynasty.
Whoever the tomb's resident was, the researchers know she was a queen, because the tomb also bears the inscription "the divine wife of God Amun," a title only given to royal wives.

NASA discovers Mercury is 'under steady siege' from meteor showers

NASA's Messenger spacecraft has discovered what may be a recurring meteor shower on Mercury.The spacecraft found a "halo of gases" in Mercury's exosphere, Phys.org reports. Scientists suspect the meteor shower may be associated with the Comet Encke, which also causes several yearly events on Earth.
The Messenger spacecraft observed seasonal calcium surges regularly over a 9-year period, suggesting a periodic meteor shower. The scientists reported that the amount of interplanetary dust on Mercury is abnormally high, and it may have come from a cometary debris field.
NASA scientists noted that the potential discovery is important because Mercury's environment hasn't been explored to much extent.

Paleontologists Identify North America’s Oldest Horned Dinosaur

by Sarah Pruitt

Back in 1997, fossil hunters in Carbon County, Montana, uncovered a rock containing the partial skull and lower jaw of a small dinosaur. A new study published this week has confirmed their identification of the fossil as an early ceratopsian (horned dinosaur) that roamed the region during the Early Cretaceous period, some 107 million years ago. This ancient relative of Triceratops, scientists say, had a sharp, hooked beak and spiky cheeks, and was no bigger than a crow.

Artist's interpretation of Aquilops americanus

The most famous of the herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs classified as ceratopsians—and better known as horned dinosaurs—was Triceratops. Known for its three horns and the bony frill on the back of its neck, Triceratops lived during the last several million years of the Cretaceous Period, which ended some 65 million years ago, and is the most common dinosaur recovered from the uppermost Cretaceous deposits in western North America. Before the latest discovery, the earliest known horned dinosaur found in North America was Zuniceratops, which lived some 90 million years ago.
Paleontologist Scott Madsen of the Utah Geological Survey uncovered the rock containing the new ceratopsian fossil during a 1997 expedition to Montana funded by the National Geographic Society. Madsen initially thought it was another dinosaur, a Zephyrosaurus, but after he extracted the fossil from the rock he quickly realized it was a ceratopsian. This was a stunning find, as up until that point paleontologists had found only a scattering of teeth, bones and a tail belonging to early horned North American dinosaurs.

The skull and lower jaw of Aquilops 

According to a report published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, paleontologists have dubbed the new species Aquilops americanus. Though it lacks the prominent horn and bony neck frill of Triceratops, the newly identified dinosaur sports other features unique to horned dinosaurs—most notably, a strongly hooked, toothless beak, called a rostral bone. Most likely used to crop the flowering plants and other vegetation that made up its diet, the beak gives the dinosaur’s skull the appearance of an eagle; the name “Aquilops” means eagle-face in Latin. The skull, which measures 3.3 inches (8.4 centimeters) long, also features a large cavity over the cheek region, as well as cheek spikes that might have been merely ornamental, or might have served as a type of defense mechanism.
To their surprise, the study’s authors found that Aquilops americanus appears much more closely related to Asian ceratopsian species such as Archaeoceratops oshimai and Leptoceratops gracilis than to other previously discovered North American ones. “In most features, it’s virtually identical to them,” lead researcher Andrew Farke of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California, told LiveScience. “And that’s cool because it adds support for this idea that, around 110 million years ago or so, there was a big influx of animals from Asia into North America.” At the time, Asia and North America were further away from each other than they are today, but scientists believe a land bridge might have connected the two continents, enabling the horned dinosaurs to migrate between them.

Artist's interpretation of Aquilops with its young 

Using comparisons with similar ceratopsians from Asia, paleontologists estimate that Aquilops was no more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) long and weighed about 3 pounds, 8 ounces (1.6 kilograms), about as much as a cat or a large rabbit. By comparison, Triceratops weighed up to 4,000 times more. Judging from the skull bones, the study’s authors determined this particular dinosaur was an adolescent, but they believe an adult Aquilops wouldn’t have gotten much bigger. According to their analysis, Aquilops probably hid among bushes and other vegetation to escape predators like Deinonychus, a close relative of Velociraptor.
Though paleontologists hope the discovery of the oldest known North American horned dinosaur will help them reconstruct the early evolution of ceratopsians, they don’t expect to find many other fossils to guide them on this path. Scientists have combed over the rock unit where the Aquilops fossil was found, known as the Cloverly Formation. While they have turned up multiple fossils belonging to other dinosaurs, such as Tenontosaurus and Deinonychus, no others belonging to the earliest horned dinosaurs have surfaced, suggesting that —as Farke told National Geographic—Aquilops americanus may have been “a fairly marginal player at the fringes of the ecosystem.”

Elephant caught on CCTV picking up litter before putting it in the trash can

We're not entirely sure where this is, but suspect it's at a game reserve in South Africa.

YouTube link.

Florida dog who made mysterious 1,500 mile trek is heading home

A dog who somehow traveled 1,500 miles from Florida to Salem, New Hampshire, is now heading back home. Cooper the dog is making the trek down to Naples, Florida, with the help of dozens of volunteers. Cooper disappeared from his back yard nine months ago. "I've received several strays here in Salem, but I've never had one come from that far," said Corie Bliss, Salem animal control officer.

He showed up in Salem a week and a half ago, but how he got there remains a mystery. Cooper had no collar, but he had a microchip, which enabled police to track down the owner. The dog's owner Julie Shields says, "Somebody called me and said he was in New Hampshire. I said, 'you know I'm in Florida, right?' 'Yeah, we know everything about you. We found this microchip on your dog.'" Most of Cooper's life has been a mystery. The dog showed up on Shields' doorstep in Naples, Florida, a year and a half ago.
"I advertised him wherever I could think of - signs, Craigslist, that kind of stuff, nobody ever claimed him," said Shields. She decided to keep him and got him microchipped, a move that paid off when he left in May. No one is sure how Cooper got to New Hampshire, but Bliss said it's unlikely he walked. "He's in really good shape," said Barbara Hanson of Kindred Hearts Transport. "He looks like he's been well taken care of, so he's been with someone."

YouTube link.

Hanson is one of 30 people who have volunteered to get Cooper home. She planned to drive the first leg before handing Cooper off to another driver in Massachusetts. Hanson said transporting animals is the most rewarding part of her job. "You get to interact with the dogs, get them out of being caged up or being lost," she said. Bliss said Cooper loves to ride in the car, and that's good, because the 1,500-mile journey will take three days. While she will miss him, she said this is why she does her job. "Cooper is going home," she said.

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