The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1776		After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington leads an attack on Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and takes 900 men prisoner.
1786		Daniel Shay leads a rebellion in Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of debt.
1806		Napoleon’s army is checked by the Russians at the Battle of Pultusk.
1862		38 Santee Sioux are hanged in Mankato, Minnesota for their part in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Little Crow has fled the state.
1866		Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, head of the Department of the Platte, receives word of the Fetterman Fight in Powder River County in the Dakota territory.
1917		As a wartime measure, President Woodrow Wilson places railroads under government control, with Secretary of War William McAdoo as director general.
1925		Six U.S. destroyers are ordered from Manila to China to protect interests in the civil war that is being waged there.
1932		Over 70,000 people are killed in a massive earthquake in China.
1941		General Douglas MacArthur declares Manila an open city in the face of the onrushing Japanese Army.
1943		The German battleship Scharnhorst is sunk by British ships in an Arctic fight.
1944		Advancing Soviet troops complete their encirclement of Budapest in Hungary.
1945		The United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain, end a 10-day meeting, seeking an atomic rule by the UN Council.
1953		The United States announces the withdrawal of two divisions from Korea.
1962		Eight East Berliners escape to West Berlin, crashing through gates in an armor-plated bus.
1966		Dr. Maulana Karenga celebrates the first Kwanza, a seven-day African-American celebration of family and heritage.
1979		The Soviet Union flies 5,000 troops to intervene in the Afghanistan conflict.
1982		Time magazine chooses a personal computer as it “Man of the Year,” the first non-human ever to receive the honor.
1991		The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union formally dissolves the Soviet Union.
1996		JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty queen, is found beaten and strangled to death in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, one of the most high-profile crimes of the late 20th century in the US.
1996		Workers in South Korea’s automotive and shipbuilding industries begin the largest labor strike in that country’s history, protesting a new law that made firing employees easier and would curtail the rights of labor groups to organize.
1999		Lothar, a violent, 36-hour windstorm begins; it kills 137 and causes $1.3 billion (US dollars) damage in Central Europe.
2004		A tsunami caused by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake kills more than 230,000 along the rim of the Indian Ocean.
2006		Former U.S. Pretender Gerald R. Ford dies at age 93. Ford was the only unelected pretender in America’s history.

The most useless words of 2015

From 'butthurt' to 'facepalm': The most useless words of 2015

Wait, Eating Bacon Is Good For the Environment?

Not exactly. What a new study on diet and the environment really says.

Why Does a Third of the World's Food Go Uneaten?

Why Does a Third of the World's Food Go Uneaten?

The massive waste not only causes hunger, but helps drives climate change too.

China Invented The Perfect Tool To Kill Democracy And Corporate America Is Bringing It Here

China Invented The Perfect Tool To Kill Democracy And Corporate America Is Bringing It Here

Coming soon to a country near you: The Chinese government, working closely with giant corporations, have finally figured out how to completely enslave...

Jews and Muslims celebrate Hanukkah together as a perfect antidote to wingnut fear-mongering

Jews and Muslims celebrate Hanukkah together as a perfect antidote to wingnut fear-mongering

When the NYC Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee asked Rabbi Burton Visotzky to lead Hanukkah festivities at the Islamic Center of Middle Manhattan, he thought it was a great idea, but he only expected a few dozen participants. He was wrong.

Muslims Shield Christians From Islamist Gunmen During Bus Attack

Would the wingnut “christians” have done the same if the tables were turned?

Read full story

Elderly Wisconsin woman calls cops to report she heard neighbors chanting ‘ISIL is good, ISIL is great’ during sex

Elderly Wisconsin woman calls cops to report she heard neighbors chanting ‘ISIL is good, ISIL is great’ during sex

An elderly Wisconsin woman called police last Sunday night after she claimed her neighbors were expressing their support for terrorists during an intimate moment.

Woman caught behind wheel of car while almost 10 times over the legal limit may be new record

Authorities in Australia have described a drink-driving blood alcohol reading of 0.48 per cent as “crazy” after a Gold Coast woman was caught nearly ten times the legal limit.

The figure could set a new national record, leaving police and ambulance workers wondering how the 42-year-old mother could even walk, let alone operate a vehicle.
The legal limit is 0.05, with health experts saying most people pass out by 0.3 and are unconscious or dead before reaching 0.4. Paramedics found the woman passed out in her car outside a Runaway Bay cafe and transported her to Gold Coast University Hospital where the toxication tests were done.
Authorities have suspended the woman’s license while she waits to face Southport Magistrates Court in January charged with high-range drink driving. The Coast’s top traffic officer Brayden Murphy said it was the highest reading he had ever seen.

Firefighters sue siren maker over hearing loss

Approximately 4,400 current and former firefighters across the US say they are losing their hearing, and have filed suit against a siren manufacturer. The firefighters claim the pitch and decibel level of the sirens is “unreasonably dangerous.”

Attorney, Marc Bern, said the sirens are defective. “It’s a product that is so loud, it causes noise induced hearing loss,” Bern said. “It is not something that the fire department or municipalities have a responsibility for.”

The lawsuit also claims that Illinois-based Federal Signal could have designed the sirens to be safer while still functional, but chose not to. “They could have directed the sound by using what we call a shroud,” Bern said.

However, Federal Signal disagrees. The company said: “The claims by these plaintiff lawyers that sirens are too loud and should be more directive don’t make sense,” and that any changes “would make the sirens less effective and subject the firefighters and general public to increased risk of serious accidents. Federal Signal is the world’s largest manufacturer of audible and visual signalling.

Assassin shoots witness, others in danger after agreeing to testify against Detroit cops

Coincidence? Assassin shoots witness, others in danger after agreeing to testify against Detroit cops

A would-be assassin attempted to gun down a witness who agreed to testify against police officers in Detroit.

NYC police crush man’s testicle

NYC police crush man’s testicle — but cops say he injured himself running from robbery he didn’t commit

A Brooklyn man lost a testicle after police burst into an apartment seeking another man, and then repeatedly kicked his groin when he walked away from them.

New York couple reveals injuries from Border Patrol agent’s attack

New York couple reveals injuries from Border Patrol agent’s attack: ‘He was just out of control’

Carol LaDue and her husband, 66-year-old Richard LaDue, were hospitalized after their Dec. 4 encounter with 34-year-old Bryan C. McDonald. They also obtained orders of protection against the officer, who has been charged with second-degree assault.

Man arrested for possession of marijuana after calling 911 for rolling papers

A man from Virginia "was apparently under the influence of marijuana when he called 911 and asked the telecommunicator for rolling papers," according to a statement from Waynesboro Police Department Sgt. Brian Edwards.

Kyle Dustin Head, 24, according to Sgt. Edwards, placed a 911 call "in a disoriented state requesting drug paraphernalia." The call reached the Waynesboro Emergency Operations Center. While the 911 center did dispatch personnel to Head's location, it was not for the purpose Head had in mind.
Two Waynesboro Police Department officers arrived and found Head "sitting in a parked 2005 Chevrolet pick-up truck which had the strong odor of marijuana emanating from it," Edwards said. Officers found loose particles of leafy plant matter on the dashboard, passenger seat, and on Head's clothing.
According to Edwards' statement, it was also found "in his right ear." It was not explained how the plant matter came to be in his ear. Head said to officers that he had been smoking marijuana recently. He apparently misdialed and thought he had phoned a friend when he asked for rolling papers. He was cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession and released.

Career criminal arrested after fleeing from police who weren't pursuing him

A man from Whangarei, New Zealand, dubbed a career criminal, orchestrated his own capture when he fled from police, despite the fact they weren't chasing him.

Proving that experience can sometimes work against you, the 37-year-old driver saw police lights flashing behind him last Thursday night, and instead of pulling over to allow the officers to attend the domestic incident they were rushing to, took off, thinking they were after him, prompting police to give chase.
While another unit headed to the domestic callout, the man was chased by officers for about 4km before being cornered in a dead-end street in Kamo, at about 10.45pm. When stopped he allegedly had methamphetamine and cannabis in his car.
The man was charged with dangerous driving, driving while unlicensed and possession of methamphetamine and cannabis. Whangarei/Kaipara area prevention manager Senior Sergeant John Fagan described the man as a 'career criminal and frequent flyer'. "So he has lost his liberty, his vehicle and his drugs which were in the vehicle. I wonder how paranoid he must have been?" Mr Fagan said.

Man stole $10 from restaurant tip jar but left without eating $14.90 meal he'd already paid for

Crime did not pay for a tip jar thief in New Zealand who left a restaurant hungry and out of pocket. He paid for a $14.90 a meal, then took off with up to $10 from the tip jar – without eating. The ironic tale, caught on CCTV footage, unfolded at the Nandos Riccarton in Christchurch on Friday afternoon.
Restaurant owner Yateen Lallu said the man, who had been in the day before, sat and waited for his meal before spying his opportunity. "He then quietly got up, looked around and saw nobody was watching and put the tip jar in his bag." The man went to the bathroom before Lallu's wife discovered the tip jar, containing $5 to $10, was gone. Lallu confronted the man when he returned and he denied any wrongdoing.
Lallu checked the bathroom and discovered the empty tip jar on the floor. "I said to him 'there's our tip jar', and he said 'it wasn't me, it must have been someone else'. I said 'are you sure? Are you telling the truth?' And he told me to check his bag and check the security cameras and I started to doubt myself." As Lallu replayed security camera footage to confirm his wife's suspicions the man left. "He hadn't actually got his food, so in total he would have probably got $5 to $10 and he paid $14.90 for something he didn't get.
LiveLeak link. Original Facebook video.
"So it wasn't worth it, he had a bad day. It was not good karma for the poor bloke." Police are investigating whether the suspect was the same man who was filmed stealing security cameras, (video), from the Casa Dei Bambini preschool in Richmond on Sunday November 29. A police spokeswoman said both thefts were under investigation. Officers in charge of the separate cases were looking at CCTV images to see if it was the same man involved.

Discovered: The Oldest European Settlement in the U.S.

We know that St. Augustine (established in 1565) is the oldest existing European community in the U.S. We know Jamestown (1607) is the oldest English community, and although the Roanoke colony was settled earlier, it did not survive. Such was the case of the Luna settlement, a Spanish colony in Florida that was the first multi-year European settlement in what would became the United States. Spanish conquistador Tristán de Luna y Arellano settled his expedition in what is now Pensacola, Florida, in 1559. Stranded by a hurricane that wrecked their ships, the colony lasted until 1561. It’s exact location was lost to history -until now. 

Discoveries by local historian Tom Garner in October and research afterward by University of West Florida archaeologists confirmed where Don Tristan de Luna established his Spanish colony in August 1559 – six years before the St. Augustine settlement and nearly 48 years before the English settled in Jamestown, Va.
The historical site is in an urban downtown neighborhood within view of the two shipwrecks linked to the Luna expedition in Pensacola Bay. UWF declined to reveal the exact location to protect the neighborhood and integrity of the site.
“This is one of those almost once-in-a-lifetime type things,” said John Worth, associate professor of historical archaeology in the UWF Department of Anthropology and a 16th Century Spanish historian. “I figured if the Luna colony would be found it would probably be found accidentally. I did not expect it would occur during my tenure here necessarily. I just figured eventually we might find it, somebody would. I guess this is the culmination. I didn’t even hope to find it as much as just wish.”    

It’s not just a few artifacts, either. Excavations by the University of West Florida have yielded a lot of evidence of the Luna settlement, which you can read about at the Pensacola News Journal.

King Tut's Wet Nurse May Have Been His Sister

King Tut's Wet Nurse May Have Been His Sister

The news revives speculation about the identity of the mother of the boy king.

How Hitler tried to redesign Xmas

How Hitler tried to redesign Xmas

In 1921, in a Munich beer hall, newly appointed Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler gave a Xmas speech to an excited crowd...

Amazon peoples change ancestral ways to save forest

Amazon peoples change ancestral ways to save forest

Nicholas Cage must surrender stolen dinosaur skull

Actor Nicholas Cage must surrender stolen dinosaur skull he bought at auction for $267,000

Where Is the World's Deepest Cave?

Where Is the World's Deepest Cave?

Some undiscovered ones may extend far deeper into the Earth than the record of 1.36 miles.

Oetzi's Tattoos

Oetzi the Iceman Has World's Oldest Tattoos

The Iceman, who died between 3370 and 3100 B.C., has 61 marks on his body made by fine incisions into which charcoal was rubbed.

Giant Comets May Threaten Earth

by Mariëtte Le Roux

A comet strike is believed to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago

Planet Earth could be at higher risk of a space rock impact than widely thought, according to astronomers who suggested Tuesday keeping a closer eye on distant giant comets.

Most studies of potential Earth-smashers focus on objects in the asteroid belt roughly between Mars, Earth's outside neighbor, and Jupiter on its other flank, said the researchers.

But they noted that the discovery in the last two decades of hundreds of giant comets dubbed centaurs, albeit with much larger orbits, requires expanding the list of potential hazards.
These balls of ice and dust, typically 50-100 kilometers (31-62 miles) wide, have unstable, elliptical orbits that start way beyond Neptune, the most distant planet from the Sun.
Their paths cross those of the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, whose gravity fields occasionally deflect a comet towards Earth -- once about every 40,000-100,000 years.
As they draw closer to the Sun, the comets would gradually break up, which is what causes the trademark cometary debris tail -- "making impacts on our planet inevitable".
"The disintegration of such giant comets would produce intermittent but prolonged periods of bombardment lasting up to 100,000 years," the research team wrote in the Royal Astronomical Society journal, Astronomy and Geophysics.
And they argued that "assessment of the extraterrestrial impact risk based solely on near-Earth asteroid counts, underestimates its nature and magnitude."
They noted that a single centaur contains more mass than the entire population of Earth-crossing asteroids discovered to date.

"In the last three decades, we have invested a lot of effort in tracking and analyzing the risk of a collision between the Earth and an asteroid," said co-author Bill Napier of the University of Buckingham.

"Our work suggests we need to look beyond our immediate neighborhood too, and look out beyond the orbit of Jupiter to find centaurs.

"If we are right, then these distant comets could be a serious hazard, and it's time to understand them better."

Scientists believe a comet bombardment may have kickstarted life on Earth by bringing water and organic molecules.

A comet strike is also a leading contender for having ended the reign of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The team said no risk was "known to be imminent", although cometary encounters were largely unpredictable.

"A centaur arrival carries the risk of injecting, into the atmosphere... a mass of dust and smoke comparable to that assumed in nuclear winter studies," wrote the researchers, referring to the hypothesized climate effects from the soot that would be released by firestorms caused in an atomic war.

"Thus, in terms of magnitude, its ranking among natural existential risks appears to be high," they said.

No Water Required

No Water Required: Mars Gullies Caused by 'Dry Ice'?

More than a decade ago, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor returned stunning images of gullies shaped like water-carved streams on Earth, raising the prospect that Mars may be a friendly haven for life. But appearances can be deceiving.

World's Oldest Gorilla Turns 59

World's Oldest Gorilla Turns 59

Colo, a western gorilla in residence at the Columbus Zoo, has added yet another candle to her birthday cake.

Dogs 'Catch' Emotions From People

Dogs 'Catch' Emotions From People

Like catching the flu, dogs adopt the expressions and emotions of their owners.

Man who jumped from chairlift while over tiger enclosure at zoo was 'overcome with excitement'

A man jumped from a chairlift passing above the tiger enclosure at a zoo in central China's Henan Province on Saturday.

The thrill-seeker fell onto a protective net and moments later, the wild animals beneath him began to circle. A zoo employee was able to isolate the tigers in another area before climbing onto the net and helping him get down safely.
According to Wang Jianluo, who is responsible for the chairlift safety at the zoo, the 40-year-old visitor admitted that he "didn't do a good somersault" when he made the leap.

YouTube link.

"After hearing that, I don't know what to say to him," Mr Wang said. The tourist, who was later questioned by police for disturbing public order, told officers that a thrill of excitement ran through him as he was passing over the enclosure - inspiring him to jump down.

Animal Pictures