CAROLINA NATURALLY: Jan 30, 2015

Friday, January 30, 2015

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah, we're talking about you ...!

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1649 Charles I of England is beheaded at Whitehall by the executioner Richard Brandon.
1844 Richard Theodore Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University. 1862 The USS Monitor is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.
1901 Women Prohibitionists smash 12 saloons in Kansas.
1912 The British House of Lords opposes the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.
1931 The United States awards civil government to the Virgin Islands.
1933 Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor by President Paul Hindenburg.
1936 Governor Harold Hoffman orders a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.
1943 Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad. 1945 The Allies launch a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
1949 In India, 100,000 people pray at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
1953 President Dwight Eisenhower announces that he will pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.
1964 The Ranger spacecraft, equipped with six TV cameras, is launched to the moon from Cape Canaveral.
1972 British troops shoot dead 14 Irish civilians in Derry, Ireland. The day is forever remembered in Ireland as 'Bloody Sunday.'
1976 The U.S. Supreme Court bans spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.
1980 The first-ever Chinese Olympic team arrives in New York for the Winter Games at Lake Placid.

Yeti Takes to the Streets of Boston in Snowstorm

As snowstorm Juno fell upon the streets of Boston, another entity appeared to further whiten the streets: a creature by the name of The Boston Yeti. Armed with a furry suit and a Twitter account (@BostonYeti2015), the Yeti, which until now was only the stuff of legend, is creating documented snow prints all over town. Defying curfews and braving snowdrifts, this urban snowman isn't so abominable: he even expresses on Twitter his wish for the Boston populace to stay safe.
Read more and see additional pictures of the Yeti at the Boston Globe.

Origins of Cheese Names

(YouTube link)

It’s true that most cheeses are named after their place of origin, so John Green goes ahead to tell us the story of the cheese’s origin as well. Even cottage cheese was once made in cottages. However, there are some in which the name is a little more complicated, like Monterrey Jack (there is a Jack involved). There’s even a cheese named after another cheese! Learn about two dozen cheese names in this week’s mental_floss List Show.

Perpetual Pizza

Perpetual Pizza.

Love Poetry Generator

Always wanted to write a love poem for your sweethart but feeling tongue-tied? Use this love poetry generator made by ProFlowers to create a love poem for your one and only. Enter a few key words and, like magic, you've got an original poem:

In summertime, our love is sweet, like daisies floating in the breeze.
In wintertime, our love is warm - it floats from head to toes.
If skies are blue, our love is joy - two people dancing in the sun.
If thunder rolls our love is calm, a refuge from the falling rain.
When spring flowers bloom, our love is bold, like red petals on the rose.
When autumn leaves fall, our love is gold, shining bright like a harvest moon.
From Valentine's Day till New Year's Day our love will continue to grow.
From season to season I love you always! My one, my only, my darling.

The Bluetooth logo is formed by Nordic runes

The logo combines "haglaz" (H) and "berkanan" (B), the initials of Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, King of Denmark and Norway.

Harald's nickname "Bluetooth" first documented appearance is in the Chronicon Roskildense from 1140. The usual explanation is that Harald must have had a conspicuous bad tooth that has been "blue" (i.e. black, as "blue" meant dark).

Another explanation, is that he was called Thegn in England (corrupted to "tan" when the name came back into Old Norse) — in England, Thane meant chief. Since blue meant "dark", his nickname was really "dark chieftain".

A third theory, according to curator at the Royal Jelling Hans Ole Mathiesen, was that Harald went about clothed in blue. The blue color was in fact the most expensive, so by walking in blue Harald underlined his royal dignity.

Disaster Looming For repugicans As Poll Finds 64% Want To Keep Obamacare Subsidies

A new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll found that Congressional repugicans are living in a difference universe from most Americans. The poll found that 64% of Americans want to Congress to act to restore ACA subsidies if the Supreme Court rules against the health care law.

Via the Kaiser Family Foundation:

If the Supreme Court rules that financial assistance is only available in states with state-run marketplaces, nearly two-thirds of the public says that Congress should take action so that people in all states can be eligible for financial help to purchase health insurance. Majorities of Democrats and independents say they would support Congressional action while repugicans are more divided. And, although the Supreme Court’s decision would have significant implications for many people in states using the federal exchange, their views are similar to those of people living in states with their own marketplace.

A nightmare scenario for repugicans would unfold if the Supreme Court ruled the ACA subsidies unconstitutional in states that have not set up their own exchanges. The repugicans are committed to killing the ACA. Their most ardent supporters want to kill the law. The problem is that nearly two-thirds of the American people want congressional repugicans to act to protect the subsidies if the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional.

Millions of people will lose their health care if the subsidies go away. The fate of the subsidies would become a big issue in the 2016 presidential election, and the repugicans will be trapped between doing what a majority wants and what their lunatic fringe wingnut ideological base wants. A Supreme Court ruling against the subsidies would be a disaster for the repugican cabal. If Congressional repugicans refuse to act to restore, the subsidies voters will blame them for the loss of their health care.

The House has announced that they will vote to repeal the ACA next week. Only 32% of those polled in Kaiser poll want the law repealed. Congressional repugicans are completely out of touch with the majority of Americans on the issue of the ACA. If the Supreme Court rules against the subsidies, the wingnut justices will be dropping a ticking time bomb into the laps of repugicans.

No matter how the Supreme Court rules, this won’t end well for the repugican cabal.

Texas Open Carry Cabal Wants To “Hunt Down” Lawmakers Who “Don’t Support The Constitution”

Open Carry Tarrant County, a coven of the gun nut agitator cabal Open Carry Texas, created further tension with the cabal and repugican lawmakers in Texas by publicly declaring the need to “hunt down the repugicans” who aren’t pushing a bill in the state legislature that would allow people to openly carry unlicensed handguns. Earlier this month, the coven drew the ire of many wingnuts and open carry agitators for their bullying tactics towards elected officials when they barged into the State Capitol and confronted representatives in an effort to intimidate them into supporting the open carry of handguns.

At that time, the leader of Open Carry Texas, CJ Grisham, called out the head of the Tarrant County coven, Kory Watkins, for “starting fires.”

I’ll be spending tomorrow cleaning up the horse manure Kory Watkins dropped throughout the Capitol today instead of building support for constitutional carry. If starting fires were up for a vote, he’d be a grand arsonist. Yes, I said it. Some of us actually want bills passed that repeal laws violating our fundamental rights instead of vying for the title of Jackass of the Year. I’m done playing softball. I’m still getting phone calls from representatives and media hours later.

Due to Watkins’ actions, state legislators requested panic buttons to be installed in their offices. Really, who can blame them? When you have belligerent gun nuts barging into your office demanding you let them carry firearms anywhere and everywhere, it is likely you’d want to have as much protection as possible.

On Tuesday, Watkins decided to up the ante and requested that his coven’s members, and others sympathetic to the cause, place further pressure on repugicans in the State Senate to support SB 342, a proposed bill that would allow a person to open carry a handgun without a license. Watkins is taking issue with newly elected repugican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick claims that there is currently not enough support for the bill in the Senate. In the Facebook event he created for the cause, Watkins used provocative language to implore members to do whatever they can to change the Senators’ minds.

Below is an excerpt from the Facebook page for the event:

Dan Patrick said there is not enough support in the Senate. What?!?!!? Not enough support for the Constitution? The job they swore to uphold? We have 20 repugican senators. Are they listening to lobbyist and gun organizations who are pro money?…. or the people?

Well, it’s time to hunt down the repugicans who don’t support the Constitution and the repugican Platform. Then, we will expose them and help them find a new job by making sure they won’t have a chance to ever get elected in Texas again. Time to start sending these people to California.

Here is a list of all repugican senators in order of district. Here is a map to find your district and all the contacts for your reps. PLEASE CALL, email and whatever else you can. We want to know who are the repugican senators who are not listening to the #WeThePeople

For gun control advocates, Watkins and his coven of miscreants are one of the best things that could have come along for them. The coven is largely responsible for a number of chain restaurants and stores placing firearm bans in their places of business. This was due to coven members showing up at stores with assault rifles slung across their backs, causing patrons to disgustingly leave the establishments. The resulting media coverage, complete with images, led to quick action from many businesses to ban guns in their shops.

Obviously, wingnuts know this and want Watkins and Co. to stop acting obnoxiously and making it seem to all the world that gun nut agitators are nothing more than dangerous gun fetishists and ammosexuals who care about nothing else but their firearms. However, the problem is that this Pandora’s Box has been opened, whether by the NRA or the repugican-misled state legislatures stripping away gun control laws, and it can’t be shut. Even if Watkins is quieted down, there are other gun nuts who will continue to draw attention to themselves and become the face of this so-called movement.

Link Dump

Who vs. Whom: It’s Not as Complicated as You Think

New Earth-like planet discovered in another constellation

Plugin That Shows Where Politicians Get Their Funding

13 Amazing Food and Life Hacks You Need to Know Right Now

Safety First??? 25 Crazy People

A little Redneck Ingenuity

Internet helps get a berated pizza delivery guy a $2,048 tip

Laika: The Soviet Space Dogs Who Took Giant Leaps for Mankind

There’s a new burger inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey

Go forth and mess with people

Dexter the rat doesn’t care for broccoli

How Poison Ivy Works

Celebrity boob quiz – Whose Are Whose?

Hotel Indigo San Antonio aims to please

Moose on the loose! Get out of the way!

Irish motorist jailed after being caught driving without insurance for 73rd time

A motorist in Cork, Ireland, was caught driving without insurance for the 73rd time and on Monday he was jailed for five months. The sentencing judge in the case had to ask the prosecuting inspector to repeat the number of previous convictions as he was unsure if he had heard correctly. “Can I ask you again – 72 previous convictions for no insurance?” Judge Olann Kelleher asked at Cork District Court.

Inspector Eileen Foster confirmed this was the case for Anthony O’Sullivan of Togher, Cork. Insp Foster said the 28-year-old had a list of previous convictions for various offenses which ran to the grand total of 421. Defense solicitor Diarmuid Kelleher applied to have the sentencing postponed to allow the accused continue with favorable work he was doing with the probation service in advance of sentencing for another crime before Cork Circuit Criminal Court for another crime.
Judge Olann Kelleher said he could not postpone sentencing in the case. O’Sullivan got into the witness box and said: “I am off everything. I am attending counseling.” Mr Kelleher, solicitor, said: “There is obviously going to be a penalty, I am just asking you to postpone the inevitable.” Judge Kelleher said he had to deal with what was before him and sentence O’Sullivan for driving without insurance where he had 72 previous convictions for the same offense.
The judge jailed him for five months and banned him from driving for 15 years for driving without insurance. That sentence also covered a charge of driving while under the influence of cannabis at the time. Inspector Eileen Foster said the accused was caught driving a Suburu Impreza in Cork, on February 19, 2014, at a time when it was weaving from one side of the road to the other. O’Sullivan was later released on cash bail of €300 pending an appeal of the five-month sentence.

Man who forced daughters to ski competitively and eat a macrobiotic diet jailed for abuse

An Italian father who forced his teenage daughters to ski competitively and eat a macrobiotic diet because he was concerned they were too fat has been found guilty of abuse and sentenced to nine months in prison. The unusual case in Turin may set a precedent in how Italian courts define psychological abuse of children. There are no similar cases of abuse on record.

The case started in 2011 when the two teenage girls, one is now an adult, complained to their mother that “Daddy treats us badly” and said they no longer wanted to visit their father. The parents are separated. The 53-year-old father, who has not been named but has been described as a wealthy individual, has said he became worried about his daughters’ health when he saw pictures of them on Facebook.
He said he encouraged them to ski and to eat a macrobiotic diet, avoiding processed and otherwise refined foods, out of a normal level of parental concern. But the mother of the teenagers and the prosecutor in the case painted a different picture, of constant pressure and taunting by the father of his daughters.
The sentence for mistreating the girls and causing psychological trauma was a month short of the punishment sought by the prosecutor. The father has said he will appeal against the verdict. Experts say children subjected to psychological abuse sometimes face the same mental health challenges as children who are sexually or physically abused and can suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and substance abuse.

Woman jailed for public nuisance after spinning child too quickly on playground merry-go-round

A woman who spun a stranger’s child around on a playground merry-go-round so fast he became upset and screamed for help, has been handed a six-month prison sentence. Kylie Radatti had to be restrained by two people before police arrived and arrested her at Justins Park in Burleigh, Queensland, Australia, on Sunday night. The 34-year-old pleaded guilty in Southport Magistrates Court to one count of public nuisance and was sentenced to six-months jail with immediate parole. Radatti said she was innocently playing with a group of kids before the fun took a turn for the worse. “I was just having a good time and I told one little kid, ‘I’m going to go fast, do you want to jump on?’ and he said he’d have a go,” she said.

“He had a bit of a scream then he got off and the other kids jumped on and off we went. There was one family that decided they wanted to ring the police and they hunted me down and handcuffed me in front of everyone.” Radatti added that she thought it was a little harsh for the police to arrest her. “They took me away from the park and wouldn’t even let me get my bag so I can’t even get into my house,” she said. “I was having a good night and everyone enjoyed me and there’s always got to be one who’s got to make a big deal of it.” Prosecutor Ben Fotheringham told the court when police arrived a witness said Radatti had encouraged their four-year-old boy to climb on to the merry-go-round.
“The defendant began spinning the merry-go-round faster and faster, causing the four-year-old to scream out for help,” he said. “It’s said the four-year-old was incredibly distressed from being spun around.” Mr Fotheringham said two people had to physically restrain Radatti to stop her spinning the child and to move her out of the way. Solicitor Matt Maloy said it was an “unusual” case of public nuisance as all Radatti was doing was spinning a child around on a playground. “My client instructs she had done that for a number of children on the evening in question,” he said. “When the four-year-old in question got off, more children got on, wanting her to do it with them.”

Mr Maloy said Radatti, who works as a dental assistant, said she was heavily intoxicated at the time. “This is not a matter that involves violence,” he said. “This is possibly what could best be described as poor decision making, but no other parents were opposed to this,” she said. “She was of the view that she was playing with the children and the children were enjoying it.” Magistrate Dermot Kehoe said it was a serious matter due to the risk of injury to the child. “It’s not fun and games to have a complete stranger going up and spinning children around,” he said. “If you don’t know the children, you shouldn’t be playing with them.” Mr Kehoe said Radatti had a three-page criminal history including other public nuisance type offences. She was sentenced to six months jail but was released immediately on parole.

Florida Woman Tells Police She Knew Truck Was Stolen, But Not “That Stolen”

There are degrees of stolenness. Something can be just a smidgen stolen. Something else can be fairly well stolen. Or, in more extreme cases, an item can be very stolen or even profoundly stolen. The gradations can be subtle, but they are not invisible.
Alas, for this woman in Sandestin, Florida, police did not accept her argument that the truck she was in was not as stolen as they believed. The Daily News reports:

When officers pointed out that she knew the vehicle had been stolen, she replied, “I didn’t think it was that stolen,” according to the report.
She is charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle.

10 Unsettling Urban Legends from the Battlefields of History

Tales born in the confusion of battle can sometimes grow and change considerably by the time they get to you, particularly stories from long long ago. The old saying “History is written by the winners” holds true also, because accounts from the battlefield can be used for political purposes. Some are attempts to explain unexpected victories or defeats. Other stories just grew like any other strange tale. For all these reasons, war is full of urban legends, like the one about the White Tights.

According to Russian legend, the White Tights – or beliye kolgotky – are blonde, beautiful women who are as deadly as they are attractive. The stories began to circulate during the Chechen Wars, when men would tell of a group of women hired as assassins, targeting anyone they’re paid to dispatch.
The legend gives them something of a background, too. They’re reputed to be members of a biathlon team, doing their training right out in the open where they’re groomed for long-distance marathons that end with putting a bullet in someone. They’re also said to be originally from the Baltic states, born with a grudge against Russia that makes them the perfect, cold-blooded killers.
Russian soldiers would report their units receiving radio transmissions from the women, giving them fair warning that they were coming. Their goals were often to wound the regular soldiers and kill the officers – not with a head shot, but with a shot to the groin.
It’s one story that definitely walks the line between truth and fiction, and when members of the Russian Biathlon Federation issued a statement saying that their athletes absolutely weren’t a part of the secret society of assassins, it’s said that they had to double-check first just to make sure. There’s a historical basis for the idea, too – as far back as the Russian Civil War in 1918 women were often employed as snipers. They were patient, they were calculating, and it was easier for them in infiltrate certain areas – especially if they were armed with a child. But the White Tights take the idea of a secret group of deadly, beautiful blonde women who can kill with a single shot to a whole new level.

That’s just one of ten battlefield urban legends you can read about at Urban Ghosts. Others tell of monsters that only come out at night, angelic beings who saved the day, and propaganda stories about the evils of the enemy.

Chewing Gum as Good as Flossing

Chewing Gum Can Be Just as Good for You as Flossing

Next time you're out walking and chewing gum, consider that you might actually be practicing good oral hygiene while you stroll. It turns out that some gums trap their fair share of bacteria, leading to a cleaner mouth.

Is It OK To Eat Snow?

'Everyone should eat snow because it's really fun,' says Anne Nolin, a professor at the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. Nolin, who studies snow and ice in the climate system, says most snow is just as clean as any drinking water.
To make their way from a cloud to the ground, cold water molecules have to cling to particles of dust or pollen to form the ice crystals that then grow into snowflakes in a process called deposition. Plus, as snowflakes fall, they have a harder time picking up soot and other air pollutants than raindrops, which are better at picking up these particulates.

Long-Term Risk of Brain Injuries

Medieval Skulls Reveal Long-Term Risk of Brain Injuries

Skull fractures can lead to an early death, even if the victims initially survived the injuries, historic skulls show.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids and COPD

Can Omega-3 Fatty Acids Combat COPD?

The National Institutes of Health awarded $1.6 million to Rochester researchers to study a group of compounds derived from omega-3 fatty acids and their ability to combat inflammation caused by […]

Blackbeard's Medical Supplies

Blackbeard's Pirate Ship Yields Medical Supplies

Medical equipment on the vessel that served as the flagship of the pirate Blackbeard suggests the buccaneer had to toil to keep his crew healthy.

Itchy Skin, Diarrhea Promote Good Health

Itchy Skin, Diarrhea Evolved to Promote Good Health

Flatulence, diarrhea, rashes and other health issues have been with some humans and their ancestors for up to a million or more years.

Neanderthal-Human 'Love Child'

First Neanderthal-Human 'Love Child' From Israel

The remains of an ancient Israeli female strongly suggests that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens first met and mated in Israel.

Cueva De Las Manos

The Cave Of Hands In Argentina

People leave their stories through books, photographs, graffiti, or through their social media accounts. Leaving marks has been a practice since the prehistoric times and astonishing evidence of this can be found in Patagonia, Argentina.
Stencils of human hands fill the cave walls together with other rock paintings depicting the life of hunters who stopped over the cave between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. The cave is known as the 'Cueva de las Manos' which literally means, 'the Cave of Hands.'