The Daily Drift

Let it go ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 203 countries around the world daily.   

  
  Just Let It Go ... !

Today is - Let It Go Day

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Today in History

1683		William Penn signs a friendship treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
1700		Russia gives up its Black Sea fleet as part of a truce with the Ottoman Empire.
1758		British and Hanoverian armies defeat the French at Krefeld in Germany.
1760		Austrian forces defeat the Prussians at Landshut, Germany.
1848		A bloody insurrection of workers erupts in Paris.
1860		The U.S. Secret Service is created to arrest counterfeiters and protect the president.
1863		Confederate forces overwhelm a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in Louisiana.
1865		Confederate General Stand Watie surrenders his army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.
1884		A Chinese Army defeats the French at Bacle, Indochina.
1885		Former general and president Ulysses S. Grant dies at the age of 63.
1902		Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy renew the Triple Alliance for a 12-year duration.
1934		Italy gains the right to colonize Albania after defeating the country.
1944		In one of the largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sends 761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.
1951		Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposes cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.
1952		The U.S. Air Force bombs power plants on Yalu River, Korea.
1964		Henry Cabot Lodge resigns as the U.S. envoy to Vietnam and is succeeded by Maxwell Taylor.
1966		Civil Rights marchers in Mississippi are dispersed by tear gas.

Smile!

Smile! People May Trust You More

Even subtle changes in facial muscles can alter a persons perception of our trustworthiness.

The human tragedy of land mines

"Selected as Miss Landmine Cambodia 2009, Dos Sopheap tries on her prize, a titanium leg,

with pageant organizer Morten Traavik..."

As reported by National Geographic:

The American position is complicated. The United States has not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991, not exported them since 1992, and not produced them since 1997. But the nation has a stockpile of some 10 million land mines, and prior to the '90s, it exported 4.4 million antipersonnel land mines, an unknown number of which are still in the ground. Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, described the government's official position in 2009: "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention." Nonetheless, under pressure from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Obama Administration has been conducting a comprehensive review of its land mine policy.

For fox ache.  Just do it.
Editor's Note:  The above was from a 2012 National Geographic article.  A report in 2014 by Reuters indicates that the U.S. still supplies land mines to South Korea and "will begin destroying stockpiles..."
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Link Dump

What was the number one song on the day you were born?‘

Pills that make you poop rainbow glitter

What Does 200 Calories Look like?

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Gas Stations  

Can you Pass This Tricky General Knowledge Quiz? 

Art – Kinetic Hair Dryer Installations by Antoine Terrieux

10 Unique Day Trips In Missouri That Are An Absolute Must-Do

The wit and wisdom of Donald Trump

The home of late ‘Golden Girl’ Bea Arthur for sale at $15.995 mil

12 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Airports

Hidden camera shows what’s making the noises Joe hears at night

The Best Food For a Safe and Healthy Dog

Hermit Crabs Go House Shopping

Short Girl Problems   

This Slippery Floor Warning Sign Looks Like a Banana Peel

Now that's a useful AND ap-peel-ing sign!
That's the Banana Cone, a bright yellow "Caution Wet Floor" sign that warns passers-by of slippery floor. Surely you've seen such a sign before, but this one is shaped like a banana peel! Talk about a universal sign of slipping!
You can get some from Amazon, if you're bananas over things that look like bananas.

Baltimore Woman Vows To Make Her 'Relentlessly Gay' Yard Even Gayer After Homophobic Note

by Curtis M. Wong

A Baltimore woman is vowing to make her garden even gayer after a neighbor reportedly slammed her for keeping her front yard "relentlessly gay" in a note.
A snapshot of the note, which has appeared on the Baltimore Sun, Raw Story and the Daily Mail, among other media outlets, which appeared on Julie Baker's door, reads:

Your yard is becoming Relentlessly Gay! Myself and Others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone it Down. This is a Christian area and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be forced to call the police on You! Your kind need to have Respect for GOD.

Simply signed "a concerned home owner," the note appeared after Baker and her daughters had decorated the lawn with a set of rainbow lights, which spelled out "love" and "ohana," a Hawaiian expression for family unity, according to ABC News.
But Baker, who described her neighbors as "predominately beautiful" in an interview with ABC, isn't planning on redecorating. In fact, she's launched an online fundraiser to make her yard even more colorful and pro-equality.
"I need more rainbows," she wrote on the campaign page. "Many, many more rainbows … If we go high enough, I will see if I can get a Rainbow Roof. ...Because my invisible relentlessly gay rainbow dragon should live up there in style!"
She went on to note, "Put simply, I am a widow and the mother of four children, my youngest in high school and I WILL NOT relent to hatred. Instead, I will battle it with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around my home, yard and family!"
At the time this story was first published, Baker's campaign had raised over $31,000.

Philladelphia cops "legally" steal millions from poor people every year

Civil asset forfeiture is way for police to confiscate people's property and share the bounty with prosecutors' offices, without the tiresome hassle of due process.

More

Doctor Throws Breastfeeding Mom Out Of Office Because ‘It Makes Him Uncomfortable’

No one should suffer this kind of discrimination by a medical professional.

Read more

Gun Owner Stephen King Just Weighed In On Gun Control And The Nation Needs To Listen

“Until responsible gun owners support responsible gun control laws, innocent blood will continue to flow.”

Read more

Conrad Hilton Terrorized A Flight, Escaped Prison Time Because He’s A Rich Asshole

If it had been anybody who isn’t a millionaire, they would be sitting behind bars right now.

Read more

A College Is Experimenting with ‘Texting Lanes’ for Students Who Are Too Stupid to Look Up

by Jason Mathews

Utah Valley University has installed a “texting lane” on a campus staircase for students who can’t take their faces out of their phones.
“You have 18-24 year olds walking down the hall with smartphones, you’re almost bound to run into someone somewhere.” UVU creative director Matt Bambrough told Fusion. “It’s something we’re dealing with in this day and age.”
However, while the lane might seem like a plausible idea, it is not meant to be taken seriously. It’s actually part of an art project designed to grab the attention of chronic texters.
“We did it to engage the students,” Bambrough said. “It’s meant to be there for people to look at and enjoy.”
The project might be satirical in nature, but Bambrough still hopes the lane will result in students paying more attention while walking.
“It’s the nature of the world we live in,” Bambrough said. “I’ve texted and walked before; it’s not against the law.”

This Student Was Asked About “Hell” On An Exam

Here Is His Priceless Answer…

I tell ya, sometimes young people can be so profoundly clever it hurts. A professor asked a question in a test:

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

The student’s answer? Awesome:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct….. …leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my dog.’

'We are surrounded'

By last count we heard it was 21 separate fires

'We are surrounded': Firefighters battle massive blazes from Alaska to drought-hit California

Most Americans want better fuel economy

Most Americans want better fuel economy, however it’s achieved

While nearly all American drivers are at least somewhat concerned about fuel economy, a majority don’t care how a vehicle saves fuel—just that it does, say University of Michigan researchers. […]

Science Interrupted

Science Interrupted: How Young Investigators Must Sideline Science to Compete for Scarce Funding

When young investigators start their first labs, their fresh ideas blow open new territories of science. While finding funding to support their work has always been challenging, young scientists now […]

Slow Aging Diet

Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

Want to lose abdominal fat, get smarter and live longer? New research led by USC’s Valter Longo shows that periodically adopting a diet that mimics the effects of fasting may […]

High Salt and High Fat

High salt prevents weight gain in mice on a high-fat diet

In a study that seems to defy conventional dietary wisdom, University of Iowa scientists have found that adding high salt to a high-fat diet actually prevents weight gain in mice. […]

Terrifying Prehistoric Sea Monsters

There are a lot of people who are scared of sharks, but if we traveled back 1.5 million years, we'd find a monster that would terrify the biggest, baddest of sharks -the megalodon. And believe it or not, the megalodon is only ranked ten on TopTenz's list of terrifying prehistoric sea monsters.

So what's scarier than a megalodon? How about a dunkleosteus  -a 30 foot long beast with a bite force of 8,000 pounds per square inch, which leaves it tied to with the T Rex and crocodiles  for strongest bit force in history. Even scarier, the creature could open its mouth so quickly that it would vacuum food into its mouth -including prey as large as a human.

Check out the full list of horrific beasts at TopTenz.

Animal Pictures