Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Ah, Science ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Friday, March 31, 2017
The Daily Drift
Ah, Science ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in History
| 1282 | The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end. | |
| 1547 | In France, Francis–king since 1515–dies and is succeeded by his son Henry II. | |
| 1776 | Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are “determined to foment a rebellion” if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights. | |
| 1779 | Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea. | |
| 1790 | In Paris, France, Maximilien Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club. | |
| 1836 | The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London. | |
| 1862 | Skirmishing between Rebels and Union forces takes place at Island 10 on the Mississippi River. | |
| 1880 | The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana. | |
| 1889 | The Eiffel Tower in Paris officially opens on the Left Bank as part of the Exhibition of 1889. | |
| 1916 | General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa‘s army in Mexico. | |
| 1917 | The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million. | |
| 1918 | Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time. | |
| 1921 | Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike. | |
| 1933 | To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps . | |
| 1939 | Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade. | |
| 1940 | La Guardia airport in New York officially opens to the public. | |
| 1941 | Germany begins a counter offensive in North Africa. | |
| 1945 | The United States and Britain bar a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco. | |
| 1948 | The Soviet Union begins controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin. | |
| 1949 | Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe. | |
| 1954 | The siege of Dien Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, begins after the Viet Minh realize it cannot be taken by direct assault. | |
| 1960 | The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans. | |
| 1966 | An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City. | |
| 1967 | President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution. | |
| 1970 | U.S. forces in Vietnam down a MIG-21, the first since September 1968. | |
| 1980 | President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry. | |
| 1991 | Albania offers a multi-party election for the first time in 50 years. |
Fox 'News' Just Got SLAPPED With A Racial Discrimination Lawsuit
Years of racism in the workplace has finally resulted in a long overdue lawsuit against Fox 'News'.
A 'Christian' Sex Educator - What Possibly Could Go Wrong?
Oh, boy ... The state Home called, your padded room is ready.
Alabama Girl, 19, Charged With Raping 14 Year Old Boy
by Ian Miles Cheong
Mekenzie Leigh Guffey
Police told the press (via Times Free Press) that they are also investigating the boy’s parents for their involvement in his lover’s crimes.
Speaking to police, Mekenzie said she and the adolescent boy met
through a mutual friend at a McDonalds in December last year and had sex
multiple times in her car. She also told police that with permission of
the boy’s parents, she stayed for at least a fortnight at his home,
where the couple filmed a pornographic video. The video, which Mekenzie
sent to the boy’s phone, is said to depict the boy in the nude.Mekenzie, who is now about six weeks pregnant, is charged with a host
of offenses, including second-degree rape, enticing a child for immoral
purposes, and possession and dissemination of child pornography (the
homemade porno). She was released from Jackson County jail after posting
a $23,500 bail. Under Alabama state law, she may face between two and
20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $30,000, if convicted.
Police chief Jason Hepler said that he caught wind of the illicit relationship after the Alabama Department of Human Resources notified the police of a young woman who had filled out forms listing a 14-year-old boy as her baby’s father when she sought assistance from the state’s Medicaid program. Police caught up to her and she was jailed within days of the notice.
The girl’s grandmother, Peggy Thompson, told the press (via Toronto Sun) that Mekenzie had lived through a difficult childhood, moving from “flea bag motels” to at least one mobile home with parents who abused drugs and who abandoned her to raise her younger brother on her own. Things were looking up when the kids finally went to live with their grandparents.
Thompson said that Mekenzie got a job at a rug plant after graduating high school, but fell apart after her grandfather died. Unable to work due to an injury, Mekenzie sought companionship and fell in love with a “boy who looked a lot older than 14.”
The police chief said it was no excuse for what she did, and that she showed no remorse for her actions.
“Apparently she did a lot of bragging,” he said. “She was bragging to everybody that she was pregnant by this boy. She thought it was the greatest thing, and then she found out we were involved and it was like ‘Oh, no.'”
As news of her arrest broke, Mekenzie’s Facebook page was inundated with raucous debate over the morality of her actions and over whether she deserved to be arrested for having sex with the boy. She had previously posted a picture of a positive pregnancy test and wrote “soon to be mommy” as her status, professing multiple times to how happy she was at the news of her pregnancy. Her page has since been set to private.
Mekenzie Guffey has a court appearance set for April 19.
Married Wingnut And Dumbass Trump Campaign Member BUSTED In Hotel With Teenage Boy
What he said to the boy was unbelievable.
***
Yet another wingnut caught diddling a underage boy ... and they are the "morals and values" people - Yeah, RIGHT! 
Thursday, March 30, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Oh No ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in History
| 1492 | King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella sign a decree expelling all Jews from Spain. | |
| 1840 | “Beau” Brummell, the English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, dies in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. | |
| 1858 | Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patents the pencil with an eraser attached on one end. | |
| 1867 | Russian Baron Stoeckl and U.S. Secretary of State Seward complete the draft of a treaty ceding Alaska to the United States. The treaty is signed the following day. | |
| 1870 | The 15th amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, passes. | |
| 1870 | Grant signs bill readmitting Texas to the Union, the last Confederate state readmitted. | |
| 1885 | In Afghanistan, Russian troops inflict a crushing defeat on Afghan forces, despite orders not to fight. | |
| 1909 | The Queensboro Bridge in New York opens. It is the first double decker bridge and links Manhattan and Queens. | |
| 1916 | Mexican bandit Pancho Villa kills 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico. | |
| 1936 | Britain announces a naval construction program of 38 warships. This is the largest construction program in 15 years. | |
| 1941 | The German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel begins its first offensive against British forces in Libya. | |
| 1943 | Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration, Oklahoma, opens on Broadway. | |
| 1944 | The U.S. fleet attacks Palau, near the Philippines. | |
| 1945 | The Red Army advances into Austria. | |
| 1946 | The Allies seize 1,000 Nazis attempting to revive the Nazi party in Frankfurt. | |
| 1950 | President Harry S Truman denounces McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy. | |
| 1957 | Tunisia and Morocco sign a friendship treaty in Rabat. | |
| 1972 |  |
|
| 1975 | As the North Vietnamese forces move toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese soldiers mob rescue jets. | |
| 1981 | Reagan is shot and wounded in Washington, D.C. by John W. Hinckley Jr. | |
| 1987 | Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is bought for $39.85 million. |
Berger and Moore finally come out of their policy closet on HB2
by Rob Schofield
At long last, wingnuts admit state’s discrimination law is not about bathrooms
For
more than a year now, North Carolina wingnuts and
agitators have been repeating the absurd and offensive mantra that
opponents of HB2 – the state’s infamous LGBTQ discrimination law – want
to force women and girls to make use of showers and restrooms alongside
men disguised as women. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger is one of the most visible and frequent purveyors of this particular falsehood – at times even accusing Governor Cooper of being complicit in the supposed scheme. Here’s Berger a couple of months back during a TV interview:
But there’s also just a real question out there of whether or not it’s appropriate for men to share restrooms and shower facilities with women.”Of course, Berger is not the only public figure to promote this lie. Here’s House Speaker Tim Moore last week in an interview with Raleigh’s News & Observer
If there’s any entity out there that’s going to tell North Carolina that we have to let men in women’s showers, that’s just too bad, we’re not going to change that,” he said.The compassionate 'christians' at the North Carolina Values Coalition and North Carolina Family Policy Council (which deny even existence of transgender people) are also only too happy to communicate this tale to their misguided followers. The misnamed Values Coalition has gone so far as to promote an ad featuring the photo of a young girl with a backpack walking into a dark and dangerous looking bathroom facility with the title “Don’t cave to political correctness.”
Meanwhile, this is from an article describing the reaction of a North Carolina Family Policy Council spokesperson to proposed HB2 repeal legislation in the General Assembly last December:
But NC Family Policy Council President John Rustin said that repeal would ‘represent a significant betrayal of the citizens of North Carolina who deeply care about the privacy and safety of women and children in our state.’”And then there’s commentator Dan Way of the “libertarian” John Locke Foundation. Way has repeatedly tweeted over the past several months about the supposed intent of equality supporters. Here he was just last week criticizing UNC basketball coach Roy Williams’ opposition to the law:
Roy Williams: Basketball home court advantage tops keeping men out of girls showers (sic)At times, it’s been hard to decide what’s more maddening: the dishonesty of the accusation or the way supposedly serious journalists have continued to blithely report it.
The truth finally comes out
Happily, there has been a major breakthrough on this front in recent days. After hiding behind the “men in women’s bathrooms” excuse for 12 long months, wingnut legislative leaders have finally come clean and admitted what they are really after. The admission comes as a result of the determined and relentless advocacy and negotiating efforts of Governor Cooper and his team, who have gradually worked Berger and Moore into a corner of the political chess board.
As it turns out, what Berger, Moore and crew really want is not “bathroom safety” but a guarantee that no North Carolina governing body – state or local – will pass a law barring discrimination against LGBTQ North Carolinians.
This from an article last Thursday on WRAL.com in which Speaker Moore held forth on his latest discussions with Berger:
While lawmakers search for something that is more palatable to the business community, Moore pledged that the final product would still restrict the use of restrooms by transgender peopleand would still block local governments from passing any nondiscrimination ordinances that go beyond federal law, meaning they wouldn’t include protections for the LGBT community. (Emphasis supplied.)
He said his ultimate goal is to align North Carolina’s laws with those of neighboring states while still keeping requirements that men and women use the bathroom and locker room corresponding to their gender on the books.
I think a lot of people don’t want North Carolina being the poster child on some of these social issues either way,’ he said.” Did you catch that part about not going beyond federal law? What Moore is saying there is that he and Berger will not agree to allow a scenario in which any North Carolina locality – even a progressive city like Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Raleigh or Charlotte in which the citizenry wants it – can pass a rule or ordinance that forbids discrimination against LGBT people.
In other words, Berger and Moore want businesses to remain free to fire people because they are gay.
This is because, while federal law bests state law in many areas and will probably (hopefully) be interpreted at some point down the road to bar discrimination against people because of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, it doesn’t do so yet. Right now, according to the latest court interpretations of federal law and U.S. Constitution, LGBTQ Americans have marriage equality, but they can also be fired or denied service in a restaurant because of who they are. Unlike people of color who won legal (if not always real world) protection when it comes to such basic civil rights a half-century ago, LGBTQ people remain utterly unprotected. A lesbian in America is free to marry her partner in any state in the union, but under federal law, it’s also okay for her boss to fire her for doing so.
For millions and millions of Americans, this lack of a federal protection has been remedied to a great extent at the state and local level. Dozens of states (including not-so-liberal bastions like Utah and Iowa) and hundreds of municipalities like Columbia, South Carolina have passed laws and ordinances barring such discrimination.
Unfortunately, for vast swaths of the country – North Carolina included – there are no such protections. A year ago, the city of Charlotte was beginning to change this situation and helping to drag our state into the 21st Century, but HB2 stopped this effort in its tracks and Moore and Berger’s latest proposal would only double down on this regressive situation.
So, what should Cooper do?
The new Berger/Moore tack – to propose a “repeal” of HB2 that prevents any new nondiscrimination ordinances “that go further than federal law” and that perhaps guarantees the “religious freedom” of business owners who want to discriminate – is designed, of course, to put Governor Cooper in a bind. The objective is to produce a bill that sounds moderate and reasonable but that will, in fact, do nothing to really change the current situation. Their hope is that they can advance the bill and force Cooper into the awkward position of having to oppose (and maybe even veto) it, all while locking North Carolina in as a state in which LGBTQ equality remains beyond reach.
And, truth be told, from a purely cynical and Machiavellian point of view, it’s not a bad strategy. The public, as well as the business community, are clearly tired of hearing about HB2. Many people long for a solution – any solution – that will bring back their concerts and big games and remove the stain from the state’s “brand.” There probably isn’t a day that goes by in which Cooper isn’t reminded by some powerful corporate entity of the need to get something done on this front. As the Associated Press reported yesterday, the economic costs to the state are now expected to approach $4 billion over the next several years.
Happily, however, Cooper has thus far shown himself to be made of much sterner stuff than Berger, Moore and company undoubtedly wish was the case. While it would be understandable if he sometimes feels a desire to simply cut and run, he thus far gives no indication of backing down from his repeatedly stated objective of passing a genuine repeal that in no way give license to discrimination.
Given that Berger and Moore have finally uncloseted themselves and owned up to their true objectives, the Governor’s only option at this point is to stick to his principles. What’s more, one senses that if he takes his case to the people and makes plain why he can’t support any plan that endorses firing people because they are gay, North Carolinians will understand and agree. ****11
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Oh No ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in HIstory
| 845 |  |
|
| 1461 | The armies of two kings, Henry VI and Edward IV, collide at Towton. | |
| 1638 | A permanent European colony is established in present-day Delaware. | |
| 1827 | Composer Ludwig van Beethoven is buried in Vienna amidst a crowd of over 10,000 mourners. | |
| 1847 | U.S. troops under General Winfield Scott take possession of the Mexican stronghold at Vera Cruz. | |
| 1867 | The United States purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. | |
| 1879 | British troops of the 90th Light Infantry Regiment repulse a major attack by Zulu tribesmen in northwest Zululand. | |
| 1886 | Coca-Cola goes on sale for the first time at a drugstore in Atlanta. Its inventor, Dr. John Pemberton, claims it can cure anything from hysteria to the common cold. | |
| 1903 | A regular news service begins between New York and London on Marconi’s wireless. | |
| 1913 | The German government announces a raise in taxes in order to finance the new military budget. | |
| 1916 | The Italians call off the fifth attack on Isonzo. | |
| 1936 | Italy firebombs the Ethiopian city of Harar. | |
| 1941 | The British sink five Italian warships off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean. | |
| 1951 | The Chinese reject Gen. Douglas MacArthur‘s offer for a truce in Korea. | |
| 1951 | Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical The King and I opens on Broadway starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner. | |
| 1952 | President Harry Truman removes himself from the presidential race. | |
| 1961 | The 23rd amendment, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote for president, is ratified. | |
| 1962 | Cuba opens the trial of the Bay of Pigs invaders. | |
| 1966 | Leonid Brezhenev becomes First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He denounces the American policy in Vietnam and calls it one of aggression. | |
| 1967 | France launches its first nuclear submarine. | |
| 1971 | Lt. William L. Calley Jr. is found guilty for his actions in the My Lai massacre. | |
| 1973 | The last U.S. troops withdraw from South Vietnam. | |
| 1975 | Egyptian president Anwar Sadat declares that he will reopen the Suez Canal on June 5, 1975. | |
| 1976 | Eight Ohio National Guardsmen are indicted for shooting four Kent State students during an anti-war protest on May 4, 1970. | |
| 1986 | A court in Rome acquits six men in a plot to kill the Pope. |
Woman with Down Syndrome Realized Lifelong Dream of Becoming a Weather Forecaster
But thanks to a Facebook campaign called
#MelaniePeutLaFaire or "Melanie Can Do It," she became France's first
ever weather forecaster with Down syndrome.
Jennifer Earl of CBS News has the story:
Jennifer Earl of CBS News has the story:
Within hours after posting her request on February 26, her page went viral with more than 100,000 likes. Over the past few weeks, Segard’s page has grown to nearly 250,000 followers, and she proudly announced last week that she would be France’s first-ever weather presenter with Down syndrome.
"I'm different, but I want to show everyone I can do a lot of things," she wrote on her Facebook page. On Tuesday, Segard did just that. "This is it. I did it. I'm finally a weather girl," Segard said after making her debut on France 2.
Escalator Etiquette
People in Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore are very good at following this rule.
In Australia, you stand on the left and walk on the right. Unless those guys are pulling our legs.
Some people in rural areas have never heard this rule, because they only see escalators in department stores and malls, where no one is in that much of a hurry. And escalators in rural areas are often too narrow for passing. Some people from cities think that's because rural people are fat and lazy.
In the District of Columbia, people on the escalator will scold you for breaking the rule. That makes sense, as they have a lot of tourists who get in the way of commuters.
Several commenters told stories of getting angry over people standing in their way, and then finding that the offender was blind, deaf, or missing a limb. Lesson learned.
While studies have shown that standing is more efficient overall, the etiquette remains. So even if you're from Wyoming, stand on the right, walk on the left, and do watch your step on an escalator. And remember, if the escalator stops, you can use them as stairs. Also, there's no need to make fun of people who don't know things.
In Australia, you stand on the left and walk on the right. Unless those guys are pulling our legs.
Some people in rural areas have never heard this rule, because they only see escalators in department stores and malls, where no one is in that much of a hurry. And escalators in rural areas are often too narrow for passing. Some people from cities think that's because rural people are fat and lazy.
In the District of Columbia, people on the escalator will scold you for breaking the rule. That makes sense, as they have a lot of tourists who get in the way of commuters.
Several commenters told stories of getting angry over people standing in their way, and then finding that the offender was blind, deaf, or missing a limb. Lesson learned.
While studies have shown that standing is more efficient overall, the etiquette remains. So even if you're from Wyoming, stand on the right, walk on the left, and do watch your step on an escalator. And remember, if the escalator stops, you can use them as stairs. Also, there's no need to make fun of people who don't know things.
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