The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

The 2nd Xmas Tree ...! 

 

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Running Free ... !

Today is - National Mutt Day

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Today in HIstory

1804		Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral.
1805		Napoleon Bonaparte celebrates the first anniversary of his coronation with a victory at Austerlitz over a Russian and Austrian army.
1823		President James Monroe proclaims the principles known as the Monroe Doctrine, “that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers.”
1863		General Braxton Bragg turns over command of the Army of Tennessee to General William Hardee at Dalton, Ga.
1864		Major General Grenville M. Dodge is named to replace General William Rosecrans as Commander of the Department of Missouri.
1867		People wait in mile-long lines to hear Charles Dickens give his first reading in New York City.
1907		Spain and France agree to enforce Moroccan measures adopted in 1906.
1909		J.P. Morgan acquires majority holdings in Equitable Life Co. This is the largest concentration of bank power to date.
1914		Austrian troops occupy Belgrade, Serbia.
1918		Armenia proclaims independence from Turkey.
1921		The first successful helium dirigible, C-7, makes a test flight in Portsmouth, Va.
1927		The new Ford Model A is introduced to the American public.
1932		Bolivia accepts Paraguay’s terms for a truce in the Chaco War.
1942		The Allies repel a strong Axis attack in Tunisia, North Africa.
1944		General George S. Patton‘s troops enter the Saar Valley and break through the Siegfried line.
1946		The United States and Great Britain merge their German occupation zones.
1964		Brazil sends Juan Peron back to Spain, foiling his efforts to return to his native land.
1970		The U.S. Senate votes to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
1980		A death squad in El Salvador murders four US nuns and churchwomen.
1982		Dentist Barney Clark receives the first permanent artificial heart, developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik.
1993		NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavor on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
1999		UK devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive, the administrative branch of the North Ireland legislature.
2001		Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in US history.

Democracy is not an inherently stable form of government

Political scientists have a theory called “democratic consolidation,” which holds that once countries develop democratic institutions, a robust civil society and a certain level of wealth, their democracy is secure.

For decades, global events seemed to support that idea. Data from Freedom House, a watchdog organization that measures democracy and freedom around the world, shows that the number of countries classified as “free” rose steadily from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. Many Latin American countries transitioned from military rule to democracy; after the end of the Cold War, much of Eastern Europe followed suit. And longstanding liberal democracies in North America, Western Europe and Australia seemed more secure than ever.

But since 2005, Freedom House’s index has shown a decline in global freedom each year...  

According to the Mounk-Foa early-warning system, signs of democratic deconsolidation in the United States and many other liberal democracies are now similar to those in Venezuela before its crisis.

Across numerous countries, including Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, the percentage of people who say it is “essential” to live in a democracy has plummeted, and it is especially low among younger generations...

Support for autocratic alternatives is rising, too. Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a “good” or “very good” thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995.

That trend is particularly strong among young people. For instance, in a previously published paper, the researchers calculated that 43 percent of older Americans believed it was illegitimate for the military to take over if the government were incompetent or failing to do its job, but only 19 percent of millennials agreed. The same generational divide showed up in Europe, where 53 percent of older people thought a military takeover would be illegitimate, while only 36 percent of millennials agreed...

More at the New York Times.

What Happens to Porn When Women Step Behind the Camera?

What Happens to Porn When Women Step Behind the Camera?

27 Amazing Accomplishments of Elderly People

(YouTube link)

Some people never give up. John Green tells us about some folks who are over the age of 80 and put us all to shame with the things they do, in athletics, in travel, in working, and in the arts. It just goes to show, you're never too old to be the best at something. Enjoy the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show.

If a retailer sends you too much stuff ...

... you don't have to return it.

To put it simply: you can keep it. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you have a legal right to keep unordered merchandise and consider it a free gift. That’s because federal law prohibits mailing unordered merchandise to consumers and then demanding payment...
In general, though you’re not legally obligated to tell the seller, if your conscience is pushing you in that direction, the FTC suggests that you notify the seller and offer to return the merchandise, so long as the seller is the one who will pay for all of the return shipping.

10 of the Most Memorable Bosses in TV Sitcom History

Since so many people have a complicated relationship with their boss, it only makes sense to use a boss in a TV sitcom. They can be a caricature of how one sees their boss in real life, as a dictator, a buffoon, an inspiration, and/or a target of cathartic revenge. The best TV bosses are either extreme caricatures or complicated personalities.

For a lot of us who have exhausting and strenuous relationships with a real life boss, watching a memorable TV boss is therapeutic. It might even help us get along better with our own boss because we can always tell ourselves that no matter how bad our particular lot is, at least we don’t have to work with the incompetent fool on our favorite television show. If this sounds like you, then you’ll love this list.

Check out ten memorable bosses from sitcoms at TVOM. Is your favorite on there?

Australian Teens Recreate Key Ingredient in 'Pharma Bro' Drug for Just $20

Australian Teens Recreate Key Ingredient in 'Pharma Bro' Drug for Just $20

The Sticky Science Behind the Deadly Boston Molasses Disaster

On January 15, 1919, 21 people were killed in the Great Boston Molasses Flood. Over two million gallons of molasses burst out of a defective tank and traveled in a wave estimated to be between 15 and 30 feet tall. That all sounds a little suspicious, especially to people who have actually used molasses in the kitchen. 

Though an anarchist terrorist attack was first blamed for the calamity, investigators soon pointed at the holding tank’s shoddy construction. But the question has remained, why did the molasses explode as a wave and not just slowly drip out of the tank? A group of students at Harvard investigated the event and presented their conclusions at recent meeting of the American Physical Society.
“I’m originally from Arkansas, where we have an old expression: ‘Slow as molasses in January,”​ Nicole Sharp, aerospace engineer and science communicator who led the group, tells William Kole at the Associated Press. “Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here, except that this molasses wasn’t slow.”

The students studied the history of the molasses flood in detail, and came up with the reasons why molasses flowed like water on that January day. Read what they found at Smithsonian.

Good Question

Texas Will Now Require Funeral Services Whenever a Woman Has an Abortion or a Miscarriage

Texas Will Now Require Funeral Services Whenever a Woman Has an Abortion or a Miscarriage

They keep getting more stupid in Texas ...

Baltimore Teacher Breaks 7-Yr-Old’s Jaw For Being ‘Disruptive,’ Throws Child Into Wall

Baltimore Teacher Breaks 7-Yr-Old’s Jaw For Being ‘Disruptive,’ Throws Child Into Wall

The boy’s jaw was broken and two of his teeth were knocked out in the violent assault.

Man Dedicates His Racist Attack To Dumbass Trump While Beating Hispanic Man

Man Dedicates His Racist Attack To Dumbass Trump While Beating Hispanic Man

“This is for Dumbass Trump.”

Lawyer Nails Cop's Pathetic Excuse for Shooting Walter Scott in Murder Trial

Lawyer Nails Cop's Pathetic Excuse for Shooting Walter Scott in Murder Trial 

Loss of soil carbon due to climate change will be ‘huge’

55 trillion kilograms: that’s how much carbon could be released into the atmosphere from the soil by mid-century if climate change isn’t stopped. And all in the form of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and … Read more

As Tennessee Burns, State Law Lets Teachers Lie About Climate Change's Role In Wildfires

Scientists say that climate change has intensified the deadly wildfires raging through the Appalachian Mountains, but Tennessee state law gives teachers the right to tell students that the science is wrong.

A living antibiotic?

We may have found a new ally in the fight against antibiotic resistance… though it might not be what you’d expect. Researchers have found exciting evidence to suggest that a predatory bacteria, Bdellovibro bacteriovirus, could … Read more

Kansas Camera Traps Look for Cougar, Find Gorillas

Police in Gardner, Kansas, got a report of a possible mountain lion sighting in Celebration Park. To determine whether it was true, they set up two wildlife camera traps in the park. Three days later, they were surprised at how many times the cameras were tripped. There were pictures of a skunk, a coyote, a raccoon, two gorillas, a ninja in a ghilly suit, a homicidal senior citizen, Man Bear Pig, and Santa Claus. Chief of Police James Pruetting saw the humor in the situation.

“They did a pretty good job of centering themselves and putting themselves in the camera’s view, because you can’t—it’s like a box and I wouldn’t have known where to stand,” Pruetting said. “We still don’t know who it is. The attention has been 100 percent positive but no one has come forward. I mean, how many people have two gorilla costumes?”

You can see all the pictures at the Gardner Police Department's Facebook post.

Cat Fence Erected Around Volcano

The National Park Service has built a five-mile-long fence around Mauna Loa on the Big Island in Hawaii. The purpose of the fence is to keep cats out, making it the longest cat-proof fence in the country. Isn't that nice, they're trying to save the poor kitties from death by volcano. Except, while it might keep cats away from flowing lava, that's not the purpose of the fence. It's to protect nesting birds from the cats.

Mauna Loa’s lava-covered slopes make for some seriously forbidding landscape, but that hasn’t deterred cats, which have adapted to the Hawaiian islands just fine since arriving on explorers’ ships. So fine, in fact, that the little invasive predators are now a mortal threat to the endangered Hawaiian petrel, a seabird that breeds on Mauna Loa. Several thousand of the birds live in Hawaii, but only about 75 breeding pairs are on the Big Island.  

The fence, which took three years to erect, is six feet tall and has a special curved design at the top that is supposed to be cat-proof. I find it hard to believe that cats couldn't scale it if they had to, but I can well believe that it might be more difficult than a cat would consider worth the effort.

Animal Pictures