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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The Daily Drift

Welcome to the Wednesday Edition of  Carolina Naturally.
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Today in History

337 Constantine’s three sons, already Caesars, each take the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans share the west while Constantius II takes control of the east.
1087 William the Conquerer, Duke of Normandy and King of England, dies in Rouen while conducting a war which began when the French king made fun of him for being fat.
1513 King James IV of Scotland is defeated and killed by English at Flodden.
1585 Pope Sixtus V deprives Henry of Navarre of his rights to the French crown.
1776 The term "United States" is adopted by the Continental Congress to be used instead of the "United Colonies."
1786 George Washington calls for the abolition of slavery.
1791 French Royalists take control of Arles and barricade themselves inside the town.
1834 Parliament passes the Municipal Corporations Act, reforming city and town governments in England.
1850 California, in the midst of a gold rush, enters the Union as the 31st state.
1863 The Union Army of the Cumberland passes through Chattanooga as they chase after the retreating Confederates. The Union troops will soon be repulsed at the Battle of Chickamauga.
1886 The Berne International Copyright Convention takes place.
1911 An airmail route opens between London and Windsor.
1915 A German zeppelin bombs London for the first time, causing little damage.
1926 The Radio Corporation of America creates the National Broadcasting Co.
1942 A Japanese float plane, launched from a submarine, makes its first bombing run on a U.S. forest near Brookings, Oregon.
1943 Allied troops land at Salerno, Italy and encounter strong resistance from German troops.
1948 Kim Il-sung declares the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
1956 Elvis Presley makes his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show; cameras focus on his upper torso and legs to avoid showing his pelvis gyrations, which many Americans—including Ed Sullivan—thought unfit for a family show.
1965 US Department of Housing and Urban Development established.
1965 Hurricane Betsy, the first hurricane to exceed $1 billion in damages (unadjusted), makes its second landfall, near New Orleans.
1969 Canada’s Official Languages Act takes effect, making French equal to English as a language within the nation’s government.
1970 U.S. Marines launch Operation Dubois Square, a 10-day search for North Vietnamese troops near DaNang.
1971 Attica Prison Riot; the 4-day riot leaves 39 dead.
1976 Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung dies in Beijing at age 82.
1990 Sri Lankan Army massacres 184 civilians of the Tamil minority in the Batticaloa District of Sri Lanka.
1991 Tajikstan declares independence from USSR.
1993 The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officially recognizes Israel as a legitimate state.
2001 Two al Qaeda assassins kill Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
2001 A car bomb explodes outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 people.

The 10 Baddest Names in Motorcycle Gang History

The use of the word “baddest” may seem a bit odd for an article headline. Your mind automatically wants to change it to “worst.” In this case, it is actually a cleaned-up version of “badassest,” which I would have corrected to “most badass.” You might even read it as “best.”
Anyway, it’s a rundown of American motorcycle gangs with names that should strike fear into their enemies. But not only names; we also get a brief look into the history of the gangs. My eye went straight to the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington. My husband was surprised I hadn’t heard of them, but he’s from San Bernardino.
7. PISSED OFF BASTARDS OF BLOOMINGTON
The Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington, or POBOB, is one of the oldest motorcycle clubs in the country. Established in 1945 in Bloomington, a small town near San Bernardino, California, POBOB is also known as the Pissed Off Bastards of Berdoo, a nickname for San Bernardino.
POBOB gained notoriety with its involvement in the 1947 Hollister riot, famously immortalized in the 1953 Marlon Brando movie, The Wild One. However, the "riot" was more of a drunken melee that began when inebriated members of another California MC, the Boozefighters, rode their motorcycles into a bar. After the Hollister riot, a prominent POBOB member broke off and started his own club. You may have heard of it: the Hells Angels.
8. HELLS ANGELS
The Hells Angels (that’s non-possessive, by the way) was formed in 1948. A founder named the infamous one-percenter for his World War II squadron, the Hell’s Angels of the Flying Tigers, an American Volunteer Group that flew in China during the war. That squadron was named for a 1930 Howard Hughes film about combat pilots in World War I. While the Hells Angels are certainly the most famous MC, they are considered "too nice" by the Bandidos.
See there, you’ve learned something already. But notice how far down on the list these names are. You’ll want to read the others at mental_floss.

Becoming An Adult Doesn't Mean Your Parents Will Stop Abusing You

We have a serious problem with how we think and talk about child abuse.
by Lynn Beisner
broken mirrorThe first time I became aware of adult children being abused by their parents was when I went on my fifth date with Ken, a guy I met when I was in bible college. I was meeting his family for the first time at a bountiful and delicious Sunday dinner his mother prepared.
I was concentrating on getting a forkful of creamed peas into my mouth without disgracing myself when Ken’s head snapped back, and I heard the distinct and grotesque sound of bones and flesh colliding. For one second, he just let his head rest where his father’s punch had landed it, back and slightly to his left side. And then slowly, Ken steadied himself, wiped at the blood streaming down his face, and let his face fall into a stony mile-long stare.
Ken never looked me in the eye again, not that night, not the next day, not ever. And I understood why. I was now privy to his darkest secret, that as a man pushing 30 he was still a victim of child abuse.
After that family dinner with Ken, I fell into one of the darkest depressions of my life. I was a young adult, still living in my parents’ home and still trying to find my feet while I was constantly being pushed under by abuse. What kept me going was my belief that at some point the abuse would end.
Watching Ken’s family, it dawned on me that the abuse I was still enduring at 19 would probably go on for the rest of my life. It was as if I saw the entire course of my life flash in front of me. My mother would never let me go. She would keep abusing me, never allowing me enough autonomy to leave her, until the day that she finally pushed my soul so far under water, it drowned.
As it turns out, some of my dark thoughts that followed my date with Ken were wrong. Within two years, I slipped my leash by getting married to my first husband. And while I continued to be abused by my parents until well after I was 40, I still managed to have a lot of good moments.
Ken and I are not alone. Many adult children of abusers continue to deal with ongoing abuse long after we have reached the age of maturity.
We have a serious problem with how we think and talk about child abuse. Many people seem to think that child abuse ends when the abused child becomes an adult. But if we talked to adult survivors of child abuse, the abuse they survived in childhood was their parents’ way of laying the groundwork so that they could continue tormenting and manipulating their children for the rest of their lives.
I have searched in vain for a single book or support group that acknowledges that child abuse often continues or even gets worse after a child reaches adulthood. Child abuse is always spoken about as a thing of the past. We either deride adults for being unable to “overcome” it or we encourage them to deal with their “wounded inner child.”
Do we think that a timer goes off and somehow disengages the abusive nature of the abuser? Do we believe that once their victims have the theoretical right to leave, abusers will actually let them go? Or do we imagine that, at 18, a fairy visits abused children and bestows on them the ability to stand up to their abusers?
Imagine applying that same logic to survivors of spousal abuse or rape.
I am sure that some abusers change, and become less abusive or even nurturing to their adult children. But in my experience, that is the exception, not the rule. What happens more often is that the abuser adjusts the type of abuse to suit the new circumstances.
In writing this article, I asked people on social media to send me their stories of ongoing parental abuse. I could not believe how many people I heard from, and each story was more horrifying or sad than the next.
I was surprised by how many people wrote to tell me about ways in which their parents financially abused them. Without any hesitation or feelings of regret, these parents took from their children as if it was their right. And when they couldn’t guilt their children into handing over money, many parents have stolen from their children’s bank accounts, have taken out second mortgages on their children’s home, and run up credit cards they took out in their children’s names. Every time that these children crawl out from under the oppressive debt their parents place them in, the parent starts burying their child all over again.
If the stories of financial abuse shocked me, the stories of new or continued sexual abuse left me bereft. Now I know that Mackenzie Phillips is just one of many adult children who has had a parent initiate or continue sexual abuse well into their adult years.
People sent me stories about parents who have beaten their adult children so badly they had to be hospitalized. Others kept their abuse more strategic, mostly to keep them from feeling strong and independent.
And then there are abusive parents who force their children to care for them. They call their children at all hours of the day and night threatening suicide. One man told me that his father repeatedly put himself into financial jeopardy so that his son would have to let him move in with them. Once ensconced in his son’s home he would claim the role of patriarch and begin verbally and physically abusing everyone right down to the family dog.
The fall-out from continued abuse in the lives of adult survivors is colossal. And the shame of being abused by a parent when you are an adult is overwhelming.
I am grateful to all of the people who are still enduring abuse who have written to me. I wish I could tell you all of their stories.
What I can tell you is that there are many, many child abuse survivors who are still dealing with daily ongoing abuse. Their suffering is very real, and begs to be acknowledged.
Above all, adults who are still being subjected to child abuse need to be able to tell their own stories. And they can only do that when we acknowledge that it is not only possible for parents to continue abusing their adult children, it is a likely outcome. Our default assumption should be that abusive parents never stop abusing. They just change their tactics.

Fox & Friends explains the mistake that makes funny women ugly

Rapist Leaves 2-Year-Old Victim In Pool Of Her Own Blood, Gets No Jail Time

Image of Boden via KIDY
He isn’t even being put on the sex offenders register.
Read more 

The Islamic State Diary

A Chronicle of Life in Libyan Purgatory
The Islamic State Diary: A Chronicle of Life in Libyan Purgatory
For months, the Islamic State visited its reign of terror on the city of Derna, Libya -- until it was stopped by an al-Qaida offshoot. Farrah Schennib describes the horrors of daily life under the IS in his diary. More

Quick Hits

Massive aid convoy heads to Hungary to help with influx of refugees
Indianapolis Zoo briefly locked down after cheetah escapes enclosure
More jobs and a living wage: Inside Bernie Sander's drive to lock up the labor vote

Buildings wrapped in tin foil to protect them from wildfires

Officials with the National Forest Service in Idaho are protecting lookouts and cabins across the Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest from wildfire activity in a rather unusual way.
Officials said they have been wrapped the structures in tin foil to protect them. Forest Service officials estimated that a roll of the multiple-ply foil costs $398.
They also used duct tape to seal the foil and a line of rocks at the bottom to hold the foil down. Forest Service crews began using the foil in the late 1980s to protect historic cabins and lookout towers that cannot be replaced.
They called the success rate of Shelterwrap "tremendous" in Idaho. One of the buildings being wrapped in foil is the Scurvy Mountain Lookout on the North Fork District.

Food Aid Was Just Cut To Refugees In Jordan

Re-solidified coconut oil forms hexagonal cylinders

A totally unexpected result is lucidly explained in the top comment at this AskScience subreddit thread.
Hint:  it's the same reason that Devil's Tower and the Giant's Causeway are formed of cylindrical hexagons... if that helps...

Treasure found in waist-deep water close to shore

Bartlett and the 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels Salvage Crew counted more than 300 gold coins valued at four point five million dollars. The larger coins-- called Royals-- tell an important story of the past. Royals were specifically made for King Phillip V and are  incredibly rare.  There were only 20 or so known to exist in the world before the crew found these 9. The photo is a screencap from the video at the link, which I've posted to show how close the treasure was to shore and that it was within walking distance of hotels further down the shore in Vero Beach.
In other news, a metal detectorist in Germany has found a hoard of Nazi-era gold valued at €45,000.
And... two men claim to have found one of the legendary Nazi treasure trains.   "...the train might hold up to 300 tons of gold... (but)...There are reasons to doubt the existence of this mythical gold filled Nazi train..."  And if it does exist, there is a high probability that it is protected with land mines.

"Traverse board" for navigating at sea

The rounded top of the board bore a painted 32-point compass pattern. Each point featured a line of eight holes radiating from the center of a circle. The lower, square portion of the board had horizontal lines of holes under columns that represented the speed of the ship in knots.
During each standard four-hour watch, the crew measured the ship’s speed and direction eight times, every half hour, and recorded them using pegs: direction under the appropriate compass point on the rounded top; speed along the bottom. After each watch, the navigator collected the data, logged it, plotted it on a chart, cleared the board, and then began the process again.The boards were widely used throughout Europe and Scandinavia from the late 15th century until the mid-19th century. More information at Hakai Magazine.

It's not the Spanish Armada ...

Can you guess what the unusual formations are in this nanosatellite photo? (The area being imaged is the Myeongnyang Strait - if that helps...)
Which brings us to the subject of "nanosatellites" -
On Nov. 26, 2013, Planet Labs, a private start-up company of San Francisco, CA, announced that it successfully launched its most recent nanosatellites, Dove 3 and Dove 4, into orbit on a Dnepr vehicle (launch on Nov. 21, 2013 from the Yasny Cosmodrome, Russia), completing a series of four prototype nanosatellites in 2013. Those proved successful, enabling the company to quickly follow up with the production of a 28-member network. The launch of Planet Labs' "Flock 1" fleet of 28 nanosatellites in December/January, which will be the largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites ever launched...
Their "Dove" nanosatellites are meant to be low-cost and rapidly deployable, and capable of taking pictures of Earth that provide a spatial resolution of 3-5 m. — On March 17, 2014, Planet Labs announced that it has confirmed launches for more than 100 satellites over the next 12 months. This full constellation of nanosatellites will allow Planet Labs to image the entire Earth every day
It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the concept that technology and data processing have progressed to the point that it is now possible to image the entire planet Earth every day at a resolution of a couple meters.

Denmark's First Astronaut Arrives at International Space Station, Brings LEGOs

Andreas Morgensen, 38, is the first astronaut to hail from Denmark. He's an aeronautical engineer from Copenhagen. On Friday, he arrived at the International Space Station for a 10-day mission. Morgensen brought 26 specially designed LEGO minifigs--one of Denmark's most famous exports.
Morgensen is participating in Project Thor, a study of thunderstorms and lightning. The Daily Telegraph reports:
“It’s a great honor for me to represent Denmark as an astronaut,” Mogensen told fans on an ESA hangout before the launch. “It’s difficult for me to imagine what it’s going to be like … It’s not until I’m strapped in the seat and feel the rocket lighting that I’ll feel: ‘Woah, this is really happening!’”
Mogensen is also taking Danish flags, a classic rye-bread porridge and a text by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

The Science of Weightlessness

Floating around in microgravity -- sounds fun, right? Although escaping Earth's gravitational well is a great weight-loss solution, it comes with many dangers. Here are some pros and cons of escaping gravity's pull.

You Are Now Leaving Earth

by Christoph Seidler and Anne Martin
Our Solar System: You Are Now Leaving Earth
With eight planets, five dwarf planets, at least 146 moons, more than half a million known asteroids and about 4,000 comets, the solar system is more crowded than you might think. Come join us on our cosmic voyage. And don't forget to turn on the Sound.  More

This dog can sniff the location of hidden flash drives

Bear, you see, is no ordinary dog. He's able to sniff out things that most people may not even realize have a scent... During a police raid on Fogle's home in July, investigators seized multiple smartphones, MP3 players, tablets, laptops, CDs, memory cards and drives. But there was one crucial piece of evidence that would have gone undiscovered if it weren't for Bear and his incredible sense of smell. The dog, say prosecutors, was able to track down a flash drive Fogle had hidden that contained data important to the investigation. As it turns out, the rambunctious black Lab is one of only four K9 units in the country who has been specially trained to detect the smell of electronic storage devices. "Bear is unique because he can sniff out SD cards, thumb drives, external hard drives, iPads and micro SD cards..."

Rhino rescues a zebra foal entrapped in a mud hole

The rhino bull, after being rebuffed by the cows numerous times, made his way down to the water and near to the muddy patch the foal was stuck in. The rhino started to prod the zebra with his horn out of curiosity. After a while he grew impatient and lifted the body out. The foal, still being alive but very weak, could only lift its head out of the mud. The rhino lifted the foal so quickly that it had no time to react. The rhino then dropped the foal and moved off. More details about the encounter and its unfortunate outcome at Africa Geographic.

Animal Pictures