The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

Today also happens to be National Buffet Day or Smörgåsbord i Kväll ...! 

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.   

   
This Lobster is Blue - let's cheer him up ... !

Today is - Blue Monday

 You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Antigua - Argentina - Aruba - Bahamas - Barbados - Belize - Bolivia - Brazil - Canada - Chile  Colombia - Costa Rica - Dominican Republic- Ecuador - El Salvador - French Guiana - Guatemala Haiti - Honduras - Jamaica - Mexico - Nicaragua - Paraguay - Peru - Puerto Rico
Sint Eustatius and Saba - Sint Maartin - Trinidad and Tobago - Turks and Caicos - United States  Uruguay - Venezuela - Virgin Islands
Europe
Albania - Armenia - Austria - Belarus - Belgium - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia  Cyprus -  Czech Republic - Denmark - England - Estonia - Finland - France - Georgia - Germany Greece -  Hungary - Iceland - Ireland - Isle of Mann - Italy - Jersey - Latvia - Lithuania - Macedonia  Malta - Moldova - Monaco - Montenegro - Netherlands - Northern Ireland - Norway - Poland Portugal - Romania - Russia - San Marino - Scotland - Serbia - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden  Switzerland - Turkey - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Afghanistan - Azerbaijan - Bangladesh - Brunei - Burma - Cambodia - China - Hong Kong - India  Indonesia  Iran - Iraq - Israel - Japan - Jordan - Kazakhstan - Korea -  Lebanon - Malaysia - Mauritius
Mongolia - Nepal - Oman - Pakistan - Palestine - Saudi Arabia - Singapore - Sri Lanka - Taiwan Thailand - Tibet - United Arab Emirates - Uzbekistan - Vietnam - Yemen
Africa
Algeria - Chad - Congo - Egypt - Ethiopia - Ivory Coast - Ghana - Kenya - Libya - Madagascar  Morocco - Mozambique - Nigeria - South Africa - Sudan - Tunisia - Zambia - Zimbabwe
The Pacific
Australia - French Polynesia - Guam - Marshall Islands - New Zealand - Papua New Guinea Philippines

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1492		Catholic forces under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella take the town of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain.
1758		The French begin bombardment of Madras, India.
1839		Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.
1861		The USS Brooklyn is readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.
1863		In the second day of hard fighting at Stone’s River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeat the Confederates.
1903		President Theodore Roosevelt closes a post office in Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to hire a Black postmistress.
1904		U.S. Marines are sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
1905		After a six-month siege, Russians surrender Port Arthur to the Japanese.
1918		Russian Bolsheviks threaten to re-enter the war unless Germany returns occupied territory.
1932		Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.
1936		In Berlin, Nazi officials claim that their treatment of Jews is not the business of the League of Nations.
1942		In the Philippines, the city of Manila and the U.S. Naval base at Cavite fall to Japanese forces.
1943		The Allies capture Buna in New Guinea.
1963		In Vietnam, the Viet Cong down five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta. 30 Americans are reported dead.
1966		American G.I.s move into the Mekong Delta for the first time.
1973		The United States admits the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.
1980		President Jimmy Carter asks the U.S. Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.
1981		British police arrest the “Yorkshire Ripper” serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe.
1999		A severe winter storm hits the Midwestern US; in Chicago temperatures plunge to -13 ºF and19 inches of snow fell; 68 deaths are blamed on the storm.
2006		A coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia, kills 12 miners and critically injures another. This accident and another within weeks lead to the first changes in federal mining laws in decades.

Three Naked Ladies

Starting off 2017 with a picture of 

Three Naked Ladies

You were expecting something different?

100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

Interesting and unexpected facts from daily news stories of last year.

Speaking of transformations ...

Cocktails Have Transformed From Drinks Into Aphrodisiac Experiences

Self Awareness Is the Most Attractive Quality

Why Self Awareness Is the Most Attractive Quality

If You Break Up, Who Gets the Engagement Ring?

If an engagement to marry falls apart, who gets custody of the diamond ring? The original Dear Abby or Emily Post would have a definite protocol, but in the modern world where the principles disagree and the ring cost $26,000, you go to court. State laws vary, and some do not address this specific issue. It comes down to the purpose of an engagement ring. Does the ring signify an implied contract, or is it a gift, given freely without condition? 

Most courts have not adopted this approach, however. They have opted for a “conditional gift” approach. An engagement is a gift subject to a condition—that marriage between the parties occurs. The gift only “vests”, or becomes complete, when the condition is satisfied by a marriage. Conversely, when the condition fails and the marriage doesn’t happen, the ring must be returned.
The concept of a conditional gift in this context is relatively simple. But courts in different jurisdictions have added yet another wrinkle to this approach by asking why the condition failed. If it was the fault of the donee, then she has to return the ring—she caused the condition to fail and would be unjustly enriched by keeping the ring. But if the broken engagement was the fault of the donor, then he can’t seek a remedy for the failed condition. But more recent cases—and the better reasoned ones—tend to apply a no-fault rule. If the condition fails, the ring goes back because the donor did not intend it to be kept under those circumstances. But a strict count of states would reveal that a substantial number, maybe even a majority, still look at fault.

In the Virginia case of McGrath v. Dockendorf, the man bought the ring, and also broke off the engagement. The court considered the ring an implied contract, which she countered by accusing him of breach of contract. Read how that case was decided at Verdict Justia. Your mileage may vary. The best advice is to not spend $26,000 on an engagement ring. You could buy a car, or make a good down payment on a house with that. Houses and cars come with written contracts.

What Would Happen If The U.S. Embraced Isolationism?

Prior to World War II the United States had begun to take an isolationist stance towards global politics, which was a response to the loss of life in WWI and the devastating economic disaster known as the Great Depression.

This isolationist stance was bolstered by the fact that many Americans believed the U.S. was going to war solely for the financial benefit of bankers and arms manufacturers.
Nearly a hundred years later the argument for American isolationism has begun again, but what are the pros and cons of the U.S. adopting an isolationist policy?
It's clear that we'd save tons of money on our defense budget, which would give us the chance to handle many domestic issues which we never seem to have the budget for.But at the same time we'd be more vulnerable to attacks due to a lack of international cooperation, and even though this policy would help us avoid war with China it could also lead to a Russian invasion of the Baltics if the U.S. withdrew from NATO.
There's simply not enough room to discuss this issue in full here, so you'll just have to read 10 Things That Would Happen If The US Became Isolationist at TopTenz and discover more pros and cons of this hot-button issue.

Visiting Disney World is the Modern Version of Making a Medieval Pilgrimage

The religious pilgrimage, whether a medieval hike to a site of a miracle, service in the Crusades, or a required journey to Mecca, is a life-changing, transformative experience. The trouble and expense of such a journey makes it a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many. Does this sound a bit familiar? People say that every family should take their kids to Walt Disney World in Orlando at least once, even if you must save for years to do it. Scholarly studies have been done in 1980 and again in 1989 about how WDW resembles medieval pilgrimage sites, whether that was planned or not.

Pilgrims to Disney World do not have to spend months trekking to Orlando, but the approach to Disney sets the park apart from the space of normal life. To reach the Magic Kingdom requires a journey of many stages. Travelers must pass through private land, on highways owned by Disney, where all signs of the normal world are replaced by signs from Disney World. After parking, visitors make their way, perhaps by tram, across the vast expanse of asphalt to the ticket gates, where they gain entrance to the park. Even after that, though, their journey has one more step: they must take a special form of transportation, either ferry boat or monorail, to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom.

That's just getting there. Read about other features of the park that correspond to religious pilgrimage sites at Atlas Obscura. I've been to Walt Disney World three times, but the one trip with two young children was both transformative and something I never need to do again.

Family Buys Cadaver Bride For Dead Son, But The Bride Is Still Alive

There's a strange funereal practice that was outlawed by Chairman Mao back in 1949 but is starting to make a comeback in China- the practice of buying a cadaver bride to be buried with a family's unmarried son.

This "ghost marriage" is thought to prevent the unmarried son from going through the afterlife alone, and as grim as this practice may seem many Chinese people see ghost marriages as no big deal.
Unfortunately, they also don't see anything wrong with paying grave robbers to dig up women for their sons, and this cadaver black market has led to murder for profit, since the freshly dead are far more valuable.Recently a family in China paid about $3500 for the cadaver of a young girl, but as they were burying the coffin containing the girl and their son they heard noises coming from inside- and discovered the girl was still alive.
She had fallen victim to human traffickers who were kidnapping women from a shelter they ran for disabled people, sedating them and selling them as cadavers for ghost marriages.Six men involved in the human trafficking ring were arrested, and the authorities were able to save five other women from a similar fate.

Read Family Buys Cadaver Bride For Dead Son, Turns Out Cadaver Is Still Alive here

Porn Ban Lunatic Desires Laptop Wedding

This man is behind a nationwide porn-banning campaign – and he wants to marry his laptop

Chris Sevier once sued a county clerk because he was refused a marriage license to make his love of his laptop official. But now Sevier’s latest crusade is to censor laptops everywhere.

Debunking a Scary Myth

Debunking a Scary Myth: Why You Can't Fry Eggs (or Testicles) With a Cellphone

Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

OK, and this is news, why?
Any one with just one functioning brain cell should know this, but alas, functioning brain cells are an endangered species.

Recession 2017

How to get ready for the economic recession coming in 2017

Economists Finally Figured It Out

This Is the Year Economists Finally Figured Out What Everyone Else Long Understood About 'Free Trade'

Google Sued For Spying

Former Employee Sues Google, Claims It Maintained an Internal Spy Network That Encouraged Workers to Snitch on Each Other

Sears CEO Proves Ayn Rand 'Economics' Fail Every Time

Lampert has run the Sears empire on an Atlas Shrugged model. It's failing miserably.

Here it is, Your Puppy Moment of Zen

(Video Link)

Sometimes you need a little break from this world. When you need to relax and be distracted from whatever's bothering you, you might just want to bookmark this video. Watching this little pooch go to his happy place is entirely too satisfying.
Personally, I'll want to watch this the most just after giving my dog a bath -aka fighting and freezing for twenty minutes.

We are seeing animals in a different light

We are seeing animals in a different light

Animal Pictures