The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

So, true ...! 

 

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Today in History

217 BC		Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal destroy a Roman army under consul Gaius Flaminius in a battle at Lake Trasimene in central Italy.
1314		Scottish forces, led by Robert the Bruce, win an overwhelming victory against English King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn.
1340		The English fleet defeats the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.
1497		Explorer John Cabot lands in North America in present-day Canada.
1509		Henry VIII is crowned King of England.
1664		The colony of New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, is founded.
1647		Margaret Brent, demands a voice and a vote for herself in the Maryland colonial assembly.
1675		King Philip’s War begins.
1812		Napoleon crosses the Neman River and invades Russia.
1859		At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army, led by Napoleon III, defeats the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I.
1861		Federal gunboats attack Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.
1862		U.S. intervention saves the British and French at the Dagu Forts in China.
1896		Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Harvard University.
1910		The Japanese army invades Korea.
1913		Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.
1931		The Soviet Union and Afghanistan sign a treaty of neutrality.
1940		France signs an armistice with Italy.
1941		President Franklin Roosevelt pledges all possible support to the Soviet Union.
1943		Royal Air Force Bombers hammer Muelheim, Germany, in a drive to cripple the Ruhr industrial base.
1948		The Soviet Union begins the Berlin Blockade, America responds with the Berlin Airlift.
1953		John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announce their engagement.
1955		Soviet MIG’s down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.
1964		The Federal Trade Commission announces that, starting in 1965, cigarette makers must include warning labels about the harmful effects of smoking.
1970		The U.S. Senate votes overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Frankenstein, the Baroness, and the Climate Refugees of 1816

Western Europe’s last famine began 200 years ago this summer when crops failed, causing farms and businesses to fail, which led to hordes of starving refugees wandering across the continent looking for relief. “The Year Without a Summer,” as 1816 is known, was caused by global air pollution in the wake of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. It was in this gloomy setting that 18-year-old Mary Godwin spent the summer with her lover Percy Shelley and several others at Lake Geneva and wrote Frankenstein. The novel has been analyzed as an amazing cautionary tale about the clash between science and ethics, but it also speaks to the experience of the suffering refugees of the time.  

Shelley’s miserable Creature, in the context of the 1816 worldwide climate shock, appears less like a symbol of technological overreach than a figure for the despised and desperate refugees crowding Switzerland’s market towns that year. Eyewitness accounts frequently refer to how hunger and persecution “turned men into beasts”, how fear of famine and disease-carrying refugees drove middle-class citizens to demonize these suffering masses as sub-human parasites, and turn them away in horror and disgust. Two hundred years on, in a summer of more record temperatures, and worldwide droughts, when refugees once again stream across the borders of German-speaking Europe, can we really afford to ignore this reading of Frankenstein as a climate change novel? The novel is a cultural treasure, but it doesn’t belong behind a glass case. It’s alive, like the monster itself. It’s on the loose in our world and our minds, stoking our darkest terrors. Shelley’s untameable tale of human pathos, suffering, and destruction is headline news: on the TV and internet, in a million images, filling well-fed, well-housed citizens with horror.

To get a taste of what the Year Without a Summer did to everyday folk, author Gillen D’Arcy Wood looks at the account of a very real humanitarian of that era, Baroness Krüdener, and her attempts to feed the refugees, which only angered the locals. Read about the humanitarian crisis that contributed to the creation of Frankenstein at the Public Domain Review.

10 Future Technology Jobs

 Do you know where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing ten years from now? While some occupations will fade away, new ones will crop up. These future jobs would have been inconceivable a few years ago, and they don’t exist now, but in the future, our emerging technologies will need operators and experts. For example, there may well be opening for commercial civilian drone operators

With the continued popularity of drones, in the future there will be drones for everything including delivery services, forensics and filming. Once drones take over the world, there will be a great need for commercial civilian drone operators. This will require a pilot’s license and additional extensive training and experience. In the next decade or two, it will not be uncommon to see major delivery airlines using near-pilotless airplanes. Amazon has already proposed the idea of using drones for local deliveries.

Read about more of these future jobs at Money Inc.

41 Facts about Vegetables

(YouTube link)

My garden is overrun with 90 tomato plants and 18 pepper plants this year. I’ve eaten a couple of tomatoes already, so I’m into vegetables right now. There’s always something new to learn about the bounty of the earth, so sit back and learn something about vegetables from John Green in the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show.

Hot NYC Summers

NYC summers: So hot they might kill 3,000 people a year by 2080

The People Hurt By North Carolina’s ‘Bathroom Law’ Who Aren’t LGBT

North Carolina's HB2 law erected huge barriers in front of people who experience employment discrimination and seek justice.

Starbucks Accused of Systematically Under-filling Their Lattes by 25 Percent

Starbucks Accused of Systematically Under-filling Their Lattes by 25 Percent

Thanks To Obamacare, America Will Save $2.6 Trillion In Healthcare Spending

Thanks To Obamacare, America Will Save $2.6 Trillion In Healthcare Spending

As Obamacare continues to survive court challenge after court challenge (and the Republican’s 50+ attempts at repealing), some good news about the...

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You know of course the Insurance companies do not like it because that $2.6 Trillion did not go into their pockets.

Women in Saudi Arabia Get around Driving Ban with Bumper Cars

Women in Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive. So when some women there feel the need for speed, they head to amusement parks to ride the bumper cars. They are allowed to drive those vehicles, although not on the open road. The Wall Street Journal explains:

At the weekly ladies-only night at the Al Shallal Theme Park in the coastal city of Jeddah, women discard head scarves and head-to-toe black gowns to reveal the latest trends—ripped jeans, tank tops, and tossed-to-the-side ’80s-style hair. For many of them, the biggest draw of the amusement park isn’t the few hours of fashion freedom. Instead, they go there to get behind the wheel—even a bumper-car wheel—in a country that bans female drivers.
There are no loud bangs or ferocious head-on crashes. There are a few slow-speed collisions, but also a lot of dodging, as many women are content with just gliding over the smooth surface. For some, the biggest risk of bumping into each other is while taking a selfie.
“They love driving the cars,” Aman al-Abadi, the ride attendant, said of the women who were getting back in line for another spin. “Men are always bumping.”

Women In New York City Just Scored A Major Victory In The Fight For Tax-Free Tampons

New York City just took a stand for women's periods -- something that can cost a woman about $18,000 in her lifetime.

Why Is Chemical Castration Being Used on Sex Offenders in Some Countries?

Why Is Chemical Castration Being Used on Sex Offenders in Some Countries?

Father pleads guilty in New York cult beating that killed son

Father pleads guilty in New York cult beating that killed son

Good Samaritan who helped free family trapped in crashed van was later billed by paramedics

A man who helped a family trapped following a crash later received a bill in the mail for his unselfish act. Paramedics sent him the first-responder fee of nearly $150 after he says they only checked his pulse and gave him a bottle of water. Derrick Deanda jumped into action when he encountered a rollover crash in Elk Grove, California, that trapped a man and his three children inside.
“I pulled up right as it happened,” he said. “There was a guy standing inside the van, because it was on its side, holding a 2 year-old infant.” Deanda broke the glass to free the family before paramedics arrived. Everyone was okay. But weeks later Deanda got a bill in the mail from the Cosumnes Community Services District with a $143 first-responder fee. Deputy Chief Mike McLaughlin says his district billed the good Samaritan.
“We’re obligated to provide the same level of service, the same billing the same everything, for every patient we encounter,” he said. Deanda became a patient, he says, when a paramedic at the scene checked him out after breaking the van window to help save the family inside. Deanda had a small cut. “This is truly a unique situation,” he said. “In my 28 years, this is my first time I’ve run into a situation similar to this.”

YouTube link.

The district began implementing the fee two years ago. But in this case, McLaughlin says he’d like to see the fee waived. “There is a mechanism for appealing this. a mechanism for making this right. Our desire it to make it right,” he said. But for now, this heroic act has Deanda facing a bill. “I mean why would I want to stop to help somebody if I’m going to get a bill for $150?” he said. Deanda plans to appeal and hopes the matter is resolved before it goes to collections.

Man with a van arrested for making a noise

A 47-year-old man was arrested in Queens, New York, over the weekend for oufitting his van with dozens of speakers and leaving the doors open while playing "exorbitantly loud" music.

Nelson Hidalgo allegedly plastered the back of his van with about 80 different speakers ranging in size and swung the doors open, blasting out music on Saturday night.

Hidalgo, also armed with several high-output amplifiers, parked his van at about 10:45pm, drawing a large crowd, police said. Police say they received multiple noise complaints “I spent over $20 grand on this equipment,” Hidalgo allegedly told police, according to court records.
“I know it’s illegal, but it’s the weekend.” Hidalgo, who has no prior arrests, was charged with second-degree criminal nuisance, general noise prohibition, disorderly conduct, and obstructing the driver’s view. He was released without bail and told to return to court on August 1.

Man Fined $450 For Stealing $5 Worth Of Food Accuses Court Of Profiting Off Debtors Prison

One plaintiff says he was fined $450 for stealing $5 worth of food for his family and then booked into jail when he couldn't pay.

Being punished for theft is correct.
But the excessive - wholly over excessive - fine in this case is way out of line and over the top ... or at least should be ... unfortunately it is on par for the course.
More appropriately a fine of 3 times the value of the theft would be a deterrent - facing $15 rather than $5 most people would pay the $5 and be done with it, whereas facing a fine of 'who knows what' or in this case $450 a larceny-mind person will opt for the larceny knowing they will never pay such an excessive fine and will get free room and board for their troubles. 

Long-Headed Woman from Ancient Kingdom Revealed

It is unlikely that this woman had her head deliberately flattened.

 The 1,500-year-old skull (shown here after reconstruction) of a woman, who was part of an ancient royal dynasty called the Silla culture, shows she had an elongated head.

The grave of a woman with a bizarre, long-headed skull has been unearthed in Korea.
The woman was part of the ancient Silla culture, which ruled much of the Korean peninsula for nearly a millennium.

More

Dormant black hole caught 'waking up' to devour a star

Unprecedented: Dormant black hole caught 'waking up' to devour a star 

Shedding Snake Gets Trapped in Its Own Skin

(Video Link)

The circle of life is a beautiful thing.
This is Tim, a Stimson's Python that lives at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in Northern Australia. Recently, Tim shed his skin. As he shucked it off, he slithered in a circle. He ended up entering the hole left by the end of his own skin, thus creating a continuous tunnel of skin.
Tim spent 3 hours on Wednesday doing laps through his old skin before exiting it. The Daily Mail quotes Rex Neindorf, the director of the facility:

After trying to exit from his bubble wrap-esque skin for the first time, Tim hit the side of another snake and was forced back in through the mouth of his already shed skin, where he continued to circle.
‘He did laps for about three hours,’ Mr Neindorf said.
Mr Neindorf has worked with snakes for over 30 years and said he had never seen anything like it.
Tim managed to break free from his sloughed skin after a ‘marathon shedding session’ and is back in his enclosure at the reptile center.

Animal Pictures