Three Historical Food Fights

Any group of malcontents can dress up like American Indians and toss tea into a harbor to protest unfair taxation. But how many armies have actually mobilized over food? Real food—as in, “Leggo my Eggo … or I’ll send in the troops!” The answer? Not that many. Nevertheless, here are a few of history’s greatest culinary-based conflicts.
First Course: The Bovine Brouhaha
Grab a fork and a knife (and a rifle, if you’ve got one). First up on the menu is The Grattan Massacre, a bloody clash between American Indians and U.S. troops that played out in 1854 in the Nebraska Territory, just east of what is now Laramie, Wyoming.
If you thought Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was bad news, consider what the cow that wandered away from a Mormon pioneer train on the Oregon Trail started. The rabble-rousing bovine clomped its way into a camp inhabited by the Lakota Indians, one of seven tribes that made up the Great Sioux Nation. Not being ones to turn down a free lunch, the Lakota promptly killed the presumably abandoned cow and ate it.
That might not seem like a big deal, but in the mid-1800s, few peace pipes were being passed between American Indians and new settlers. So, when the cattle owner realized the fate his cow had met, he immediately went to tattle his tale at the Territory’s nearest outpost of officialdom, Fort Laramie. In response to the incident, U.S. officials dispatched an eager young second lieutenant and recent West Point graduate named John L. Grattan to bring the cow thieves to justice.
What happened next underscores the downside of history’s insistence on naming events only after they happen. Had John L. Grattan known he was riding off to The Grattan Massacre, it seems likely he might have conducted himself more civilly with the Sioux. Instead, Grattan’s approach would later prompt a fellow Fort Laramie officer to comment, “There is no doubt that Lt. Grattan left this post with a desire to have a fight with the Indians, and that he had determined to take the man at all hazards.”

Conquering Bear

With nearly 30 men in tow, Grattan met with the Brule Lakota chief, Conquering Bear, and demanded the surrender of the guilty parties. By most accounts, Conquering Bear was open and reasonable during the negotiations, and it was Grattan’s behavior that escalated tensions. At some point, Conquering Bear stood up, and nervous U.S. soldiers—thinking the chief was making a move—opened fire, killing Bear and his brother. Warfare quickly broke out on both sides, and Grattan’s entire party perished.
When news of the event reached the U.S. War Department, officials sought swift revenge on the Sioux. A little more than a year after the Grattan Massacre, on September 3, 1855, General William S. Harney and roughly 600 soldiers caught up with the Lakota tribe. Harney ordered his men to open fire, and nearly 100 Lakota men, women, and children were shot dead in what became known as the Battle of Ash Hollow. (Apparently, 30 Army men being killed equals a massacre, while 100 Sioux being killed equals a battle. Ain’t history grand?)
Second Course: The Breadfruit Battle Royale
History often depicts the infamous mutiny on the Bounty as a power struggle between Captain William Bligh and his crew. But it wasn’t about that at all. It was about breadfruit.

On August 16, 1787, 33-year-old Lieutenant William Bligh was named commander of the Bounty. Two months later, the ship was commissioned to sail to Tahiti, pick up some breadfruit plants, and deliver them to the West Indies, where it was hoped they would provide a cheap food source for slaves. It was a simple shopping trip, but one that seemed to go awry almost immediately. Weather conditions around Cape Horn were so bad that the Bounty was forced to detour across the Indian Ocean, prolonging the journey nearly 10 months. Once the ship finally arrived in Tahiti, the dastardly breadfruit were no longer in season. Bligh and his crew had no choice but to hang out there for five months and await the harvest. Of course, there are worse places to get stuck than Tahiti, and the boys of the Bounty took full advantage of the delay. Bligh allowed his men to live onshore, where they tended the breadfruit plants and “mingled” with the native ladies. Needless to say, discipline lapsed, and when it came time to set sail again, much sulking occurred.

Once more aboard the Bounty, the crew became further upset when they discovered how much room the breadfruit required. The ship carried some 1,015 potted plants in a large cabin beneath the deck, creating crowded conditions that caused an already percolating situation to boil over. On April 28, 1789, Bounty mate Fletcher Christian and nine supporters staged a mutiny.
Although bloodless, the incident was far from friendly. Bligh and 18 others were forced into a tiny 23-foot launch boat and abandoned at sea. The group first landed at nearby Tofua, but the island’s inhabitants didn’t take kindly to strangers. One of Bligh’s launchmates was stoned to death by natives, and the exhausted band had to set sail again on May 2. Making like MacGyver, Bligh captained the launch through a harrowing 43-day, 3,600-mile voyage to Timor using only a sextant and a pocketwatch. There, they finally found safe harbor.
Bligh and crew eventually made their way back to England and reported the mutiny on March 16, 1790. Eight months later, the Pandora sailed to Tahiti to find the mutineers and the Bounty (a pursuit that supposedly spawned the term “bounty hunting”). Unfortunately, that mission didn’t go so well, either. After the ship’s crew rounded up 14 stragglers from the Bounty and imprisoned them in a cell (cleverly named “Pandora’s Box”) on the top deck of the ship, the ill-fated Pandora sank on the Great Barrier Reef.
Bligh was eventually tried and acquitted for losing his ship, and he went back to work. In 1791, he received another commission—to collect breadfruit plants. This time, he succeeded in bringing the fruit to the West Indies, but—irony of ironies—the slaves didn’t like the taste and refused to have anything to do with them. Today, breadfruit growers of the world unanimously consider this the funniest thing ever to happen.
Third Course: Fishy Fisticuffs

At first blush, cod don’t seem like provocative creatures. And yet, these bulbous, fleshy fish have brought NATO allies Iceland and Great Britain to the brink of war no fewer than three times in the past 50 years. Unimaginatively, these incidents are popularly known as The Cod Wars.
The root of the problem in all these tiffs has been Iceland’s enormous surplus of nothingness. The frosty island nation has no real fuel, minerals, or agricultural prospects. What they do have is the world’s oldest functioning legislative assembly—the Althing, first convened in 930. But, as anyone who’s tried to eat or sell a functioning legislative assembly will tell you, they bring little to the party. With nowhere to turn but offshore, Iceland turned to fish. In fact, it’s estimated that fish and fish products have long accounted for more than 90 percent of the country’s exports.
The first two Cod Wars (one in 1958 and the other from 1972 to 1973) were sparked when Iceland unilaterally decided to expand its fishing boundaries, arguing that it should be allowed to cordon off any areas deemed fit to protect its chief resource. Great Britain’s counterargument was, in essence, “Hey, we like fish too!” Ultimately, these “wars” were about as mild as cod itself, consisting mostly of threats, net cutting, and lots and lots of salty language.

A ramming incident during the Third Cod War.

The third Cod War, however, got a bit nasty. In 1975, Iceland deployed 16 ships to enforce control over its fishing territories. In response, Britain floated its own armada of nearly 40 vessels to the area to protect its trawlers as they continued to fish the contested waters. All the while, shootings, sabotage, and rammings were had by all. After seven months of skirmishes, Iceland finally got so bent out of shape it threatened to close its NATO base at Keflavik—a measure that would have compromised NATO’s ability to defend the Atlantic from Soviet incursion. That’s when NATO Secretary General Dr. Joseph Luns stepped in. On June 2, 1976, he brokered an agreement between the nations that limited the British fishing fleet to 24 ships and granted Iceland the right to halt and inspect British trawlers suspected of violating the agreement. In response, the British threatened an embargo on all Icelandic goods, but then remembered there were no Icelandic goods to embargo. Then they all had tea.

Kuldiga: the Latvian city that managed to preserve ancient architecture

Kuldiga is a city in the west of Latvia, its population is 13 thousand citizens. It was founded in 1242 not far from Riga. As opposed to many other Latvian cities the center of Kuldiga avoided destructions during the numerous wars and fires. Here was preserved the original wood architecture, some of the houses are dated the XVI-XVII centuries. More

Paleolithic "Lion Man" Statue

"On August 25, 1939, archaeologists working at a Paleolithic site called Stadelhole (“stable cave”) at Hohlenstein (“hollow rock”) in southern Germany, uncovered hundreds of mammoth ivory fragments. Just one week later, before they could complete their fieldwork and analyze the finds, World War II began. The team was forced to quickly fill the excavation trenches using the same soil in which they found the ivory pieces. For the next three decades, the fragments sat in storage at the nearby City Museum of Ulm, until archaeologist Joachim Hahn began an inventory. As Hahn pieced together more than 200 fragments, an extraordinary artifact dating to the Aurignacian period (more than 30,000 years ago) began to emerge. It was clearly a figure with both human and animal characteristics. However, only a small part of the head and the left ear had been found, so the type of creature it represented remained a mystery..." 

You can read the rest of the story about the recovery of additional pieces and the reconstruction of the figurine in the March/April issue of Archaeology.

'Dead' Bangladeshi man missing for 23 years found in Pakistani jail

A Bangladeshi man who went missing for 23 years has been reunited with his family, who had given him up for dead. Moslemuddin Sarkar, 52, arrived back in Dhaka on Tuesday, a day after being freed from a Pakistani jail with the help of the Red Cross. His family lost contact after Mr Sarkar left for India in search of work in 1989. Years later, he ended up in Pakistan, where he was arrested. He says he was beaten and tortured in his subsequent 15 years in prison. "I requested that embassy officials send me back to Bangladesh but no one listened to me," he said.
"I suffered a lot in the prison and was crying for help. But no-one came to my rescue. Still I don't understand why I was kept in jail for such a long time. At last, I am back with my family and I feel great." There were emotional scenes when Mr Sarkar was welcomed by relatives at Dhaka airport. A younger brother, Julhas Uddin, said that Mr Sarkar's mother "passed out as he hugged her" after returning to his home village. "It was a heartbreaking scene. He could not control his tears for hours," Julhas Uddin said.

A dockworker at the port of Chittagong, Mr Sarkar says he illegally crossed the border to India in 1989 in search of better opportunities, without telling his family. "We searched for him for years and finally gave up hope believing he might have drowned in the sea. But our mother always believed that her son would return home one day," Julhas Uddin said. In 1997, he was caught trying to enter Pakistan without valid travel documents, spending the next 15 years in prisons in Lahore and Karachi.

He said he was completely cut off from the world during that time. "I went to Pakistan believing that I would get a better job there. But they caught me at the border," he said. "I wrote dozens of letters to my village address, but did not have any clue that they were never posted. At one stage I lost all hope of returning home." His fate reportedly came to light when Pakistan sent a list of long-serving Bangladeshi prisoners to consular officials, who informed Mr Sarkar's family. They in turn appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, who facilitated his release.

Murderers dumping bodies in Detroit

A dozen corpses of murder victims have turned up over the last year in desolate and decaying parts of Detroit -- vacant lots, abandoned homes, overgrown parks… From the AP:

"You can shoot a person, dump a body and it may just go unsolved" because of the time it may take for the corpse to be found, officer John Garner said…
When he joined the department 13 years ago, Garner patrolled a 3.6-square-mile area in the tough 3rd Precinct, bumping into another officer every 20 minutes. Now he covers 22 square miles and crosses paths with other officers "maybe once every two hours."
"If we know this, the criminals know this," Garner said. Sparse patrols and slow response times make it less likely that someone will be seen dumping a body.
"Years back, people would go to rural areas" to dump bodies, said Daniel Kennedy, a Michigan-based forensic criminologist. "Now we have rural areas in urban areas."

"Vacant Detroit becomes dumping ground for the dead"

Underwear-clad intruder searching for tennis balls arrested

A man who claimed he was looking for tennis balls for his friend's dog roamed around a Florida neighborhood near Ormond Beach wearing nothing but his torn boxer shorts early on Wednesday. But 41-year-old Charles Snowden also rifled through the kitchen drawer of Karyna Foster who lives on Woodcrest Drive, according to a Volusia County sheriff's report. For Foster, the sight of an almost nude stranger standing in her kitchen was a rude awakening. "He totally did not know I was there," Foster said after the strange episode. "He was in his underwear. It was torn. I have no idea how he tore it."
It was just after 7 a.m. and Foster had just woken up after receiving a telephone call from her brother. She said she was happy she could stay in bed for a few extra minutes because it was her day off. But then she heard a sound coming from the kitchen of her mobile home. Worried because she has three small children and also because her sister was sleeping on the couch, Foster walked toward the kitchen. That's when she spotted Snowden looking through her silverware drawer.

Not one to stay quiet under normal circumstances, Foster said she somehow knew that this time she should not say a word. "I just wanted him out of the house so I could call 911," she said. "He walked right by me." Foster said she watched Snowden walk to another neighbor's front yard. When deputies arrived, they spotted Snowden at Woodcrest and Arroyo Parkway, an arrest report shows. When they approached the suspect, who lives a couple of blocks away on Myrtle Jo Drive, he told deputies he was looking for tennis balls for his friend's dog.

He was arrested and charged with unarmed burglary of an occupied dwelling. Sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught said Snowden was "under the influence of an unknown substance. Foster also said Snowden was "out of it." Regardless, the mother of three was grateful that Snowden left her residence without hurting anyone. "I don't know what he was looking for," Foster said. "It was scary." Snowden was issued an orange jail jumpsuit and was being held Wednesday at the Volusia County Branch Jail on $1,500 bail.

Man makes frantic 911 call while clinging to moving truck

Newly released 911 tape shows the frantic moments when a New York man called begging authorities for help as he clung to a moving pickup truck. Robert Kowalik, 45, of Troy, N.Y., called 911 at around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday to report he had been hit by a truck and was being dragged through city streets. “I got hit by a truck. I’m hanging on the back of a white truck. Hurry, hurry,” Kowalik is heard saying on the 911 call, tape of which has been released by police.

Kowalik told authorities that he had been hit by a truck being driven by his acquaintance Seth Scudds, also 45, with whom he had been arguing outside of a store in Troy. “He just hit me, I’m hanging on his truck, hurry, hurry, oh please hurry, I can’t hang on too much,” he says on the call. “He ran over my leg. He ran over my leg. I can’t hold on much longer. He’s killing me.” Video shows Kowalik clinging to the side of the pickup truck near the back on the passenger side.

YouTube link.

Midway through the call, Kowalik, who suffered cuts and bruises but no life-threatening injuries in the incident, can be heard pleading for an unknown medication. “I want my pills back … my narcotics,” Kowalik says to someone in the vehicle during the call. Kowalik held onto the truck while staying on the phone with authorities and telling them what streets he was passing, until Scudds came to a stop in a Walmart parking lot in nearby Brunswick, N.Y.

Surveillance cameras in the store’s parking lot captured Kowalik then grabbing a bag from the truck before Scudds sped away. Authorities later clarified that it was Kowalik who partly prompted the incident because he was hanging onto the truck and was not, as he claimed, hit by the truck. Scudds was later arrested and charged with assault, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. He is free on $7,500 bail and is scheduled to return to court later today.

Man accused of stealing potato peeler, knife and small dog

Police in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, arrested a 24-year-old man accused of breaking into an apartment building and stealing kitchen utensils and a dog.
According to the police report, Garrett Stauber broke into an apartment on Bridle Trail. Police said he took a kitchen knife and potato peeler and then fled with the resident’s dog. "That's completely weird. That's completely uncalled for," said witness Joseph Sarkis.

Authorities said Stauber appeared drunk after he left the apartment and was confronted by a neighbor. Stauber and the neighbor briefly fought before Stauber was able to get away. Investigators said they followed a footprint trail to a nearby apartment where Stauber was staying.

"They (police) knocked on a door and found a gentleman sitting on the sofa without a shirt on," said Capt. Greg Seamon of Moon Township police. He was arrested and charged with simple assault and burglary. The victim said they’ve since moved out of the apartment.

Chihuahua sniffs out girls lost in forest‎

On Monday, life stood still for David and Rebecca Parga of Newnan, Georgia. Their two little girls, Carlie, 8, and Lacey, 5, were missing. Also with them was Carlie's best friend, Victoria Baker. It was at about 4 p.m. when the girls took their dog, Lucy, for a walk down to the cul-de-sac. What was supposed to be a quick stroll turned into an all-out search. "We tried to find our way out of the woods," Carlie said. "We kept following paths and stuff and we got lost."

The girls wandered through the trails with Lucy for more than two hours. "We were scared we were going to get lost more," Carlie said. Carlie's and Lacey's father said once the girls didn't come back from their walk, he knew something was wrong. "It is not like them to wander off," David Parga said. "They were nowhere. I start running through the woods, calling at different spots, they are not answering, and I'm not hearing anything, so my wife called police."

As police, firefighters and neighbors searched for the children, Carvin Young, who lives across the street, joined in as well. He grabbed his 3-year-old Chihuahua and started looking. "Bell sniffed them out," Young said. "She smelled them, her tail went to wagging and she kept running and running until she got to them. She started jumping up on me and I knew we were close." The girls were found on the opposite side of the woods where they went in.

Carlie's and Lacey's mother, Rebecca Parga, is grateful that her kids play with Bell almost every day and that the dog was able to pick up their scent. "A sheer blessing that she (Bell) lives across the street from us," Rebecca Parga said. "Bell is familiar with them, and she knew they were back there, she knew my kids. That's what kept drawing her to go in that direction." The girls were a little scared when they were found but were not hurt. "She is a good dog, everybody loves Bell," Young said.

Dad buys 10-year-old daughter a zebra for her birthday

A Northern California father bought his daughter an unusual present for her 10th birthday. Brettany Lawton of Newcastle was surprised to walk into her backyard and see a zebra last week. Brettany's 10th birthday isn't until Monday, but that didn't stop her dad, Brett, from going through the measures of tracking down and then purchasing Arumbra, as Brettany affectionately calls her new pet.

"I felt really cool because no one else would get a zebra for their birthday and I felt really excited and really special that my dad got me a zebra because no one else has one and my friends didn't believe me or anything," Brettany said. Ever since Arumbra arrived with his friend, Donkey, the half-mini-horse half-donkey, the pair have had some adjusting to do as they snack on a diet that isn't too different from a horse.

For now, Arumbra and Donkey are confined to half an acre, but Lawton hopes to let the two roam around his property, which is fenced. He said Arumbra's current situation is much better from his previous home in Miami, which he had to be rescued from. Prior to his time in Miami, Arumbra was also featured in an advertisement for a cigar company and later a vodka company. He has also been in a few movies, according to Lawton.

YouTube link.

Now, he's giving a little girl the best birthday ever. Arumbra is only part of Brettany's birthday package, though. She's also heading to Disneyland. "I thought I was sleeping or something because I never thought I would get a zebra, but I did, so it was really cool. He talked about getting a giraffe for a little while but I knew that was never going to happen, but then I got a zebra."

"Nessie" Sighted!

Nessie hunter George Edwards has waited 26 years for this sight, and he now believes he has the best picture ever taken of the Loch Ness monster. He spends around 60 hours a week taking tourists out on his boat Nessie Hunter IV, and has led numerous Nessie hunts over the years. But this image has convinced him that there really is a monster - or monsters - out there. It shows a mysterious dark hump moving in the water towards Urquhart Castle. After watching the object for five to ten minutes, Mr Edwards said it slowly sank below the surface and never resurfaced. 

Humanlike Skin Cancer Found in Wild Fish

The first case of skin cancer in a wild marine fish population looks eerily similar to the melanoma that plagues humans. Read more

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1347		Six burghers of the surrounded French city of Calais surrender to Edward III of England in hopes of relieving the siege.
1492		Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world.
1546		French printer Etienne Dolet, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, is hanged and burned at the stake for printing reformist literature.
1553		Mary Tudor, the new Queen of England, enters London.
1610		Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself.
1692		French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeat the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
1805		Mohammed Ali becomes the new ruler of Egypt.
1807		The trial of Aaron Burr begins. He is accused of plotting the secession of New England.
1864		Federal gunboats attack but do not capture Fort Gains, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
1882		Congress passes the Immigration Act, banning Chinese immigration for ten years.
1908		Allan Allensworth files the site plan for the first African-American town, Allensworth, California.
1911		Airplanes are used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoiter Turkish lines near Tripoli.
1914		Germany declares war on France.
1916		Sir Roger Casement is hanged for treason in England.
1945		Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell take the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.
1958		The first nuclear submarine USS Nautilus passes under the North Pole.
1967		President Lyndon B. Johnson announces plans to send 45,000 more troops to Vietnam.

Blue Moon

Note to waitresses: Wearing red can be profitable

In many restaurants throughout the world, wait staff’s income depends largely on the tips received from customers.

Continue Reading

Where are the US jobs?

Ask the corporate cash hoarders

 

Not only are mega-companies not creating enough decent jobs with this cash, they continue to offshore work and underpay workers. 

Many are not even rewarding investors  

Corporate tax breaks won't boost the economy. If unemployment is to fall, giant companies must invest in job creation As it does every month, Friday's jobs report is expected to underscore the desperate need for job creation in America.

More

Wingnut study shows government austerity may be hurting economy

This is not a surprise, but it is interesting that the study is coming out of wingnut-land.

 From HuffPo:

The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, has some data out indicating that cutting government spending may be off-setting private sector growth. That's notable, especially when coming from an organization with the motto "Freedom. Opportunity. Enterprise."

Public sector GDP -- a measure of the goods and services produced by the government -- has shrunk for eight consecutive quarters, according to AEI. At the same time, private sector growth has increased for 12 quarters in a row, indicating that America’s slow overall GDP growth may mostly be a result of a drop in government spending.

Even the Wall Street Journal, owned by repugican propagandist Rupert Murdoch, admits that the end of the stimulus is hurting growth (the repugican party line has been that the stimulus actually "caused" unemployment, which is absurd, but the repugicans tend to pander to its uneducated base, and they've found that the truth doesn't tend to work for them at the ballot box).

Romney spokesman compares releasing his taxes to McCarthyism

Harry Reid says he talked to a source who says Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for an entire decade.  The response from Romney's campaign is classic:

“I’m telling you authoritatively speaking on the behalf of the Governor that those charges are untrue, they are baseless, and there is nothing to back them up,” said Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom on Fox News Thursday. Invoking Army lawyer Joseph Welch’s famous exchange with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (r-Wis.), Fehrnstrom asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Um, first problem, there's also "nothing to back up" the claims that the charges are untrue. So if we use the Romney standard that "nothing to back it up makes its untrue" then the claim from Romney that this is untrue is untrue.

Second, McCarthy, seriously? We're asking to see Romney's back taxes. Something his father had no problem doing. Something he had no problem providing them McCain campaign when he wanted to be VP. But now that he wants to be President, suddenly he refuses and, to top it off, asking Romney to release his taxes is now McCarthyism.

What's next Mitt, asking you to release your taxes is just like September 11? Or will you get Rudy "A noun, a verb, 9/11" to say that one.

A repugican congressman says birth control is just like September 11

So, just to keep things straight, asking Mitt Romney to release his taxes is just like McCarthyism.  And asking insurance companies to cover contraceptives is just like September 11.  (Except thousands of people died on September 11, and no one ever died from birth control, unless you consider 100m sperm people and if so, then you've got other problems.)
What's important about this story is keeping in mind this is a member of Congress. He's from the state, Pennsylvania, where one of the 9/11 planes crashed. And he has the audacity to talk like this.

We've permitted repugicans to move the bar of decency, slowly but surely, again and again. They always get away with it, and by doing so, slowly move the culture further and further to the crazy.

And repugican congressman Mike Kelly is very much what's wrong with the repugican party today. But he's also, sadly, a good sign of what's wrong with our country too.

Romney ignoring a dying man's plea for medical marijuana

Governor Romney dealing with the public in 2007. It's not just that he disagrees with the wheelchair-bound man who spoke with him.
Once he realized the situation the man was in and what he was asking, Romney turned his back as fast as he could. This is the emotional equivalent of sprinting away.

The second half of this short clip is incredibly discomforting. Try watching it twice.

Puts me in mind of this, from Joan Walsh:

But could it be more than entitlement and an odd personal style?

I’ve found myself wondering over the course of the campaign whether Romney has some kind of personality disorder, so dissociated does he occasionally seem from the well-worn routines of normal human interaction.

Maybe we should be asking to see his medical records and not just his tax returns. I don’t mean to be flippant about that or insensitive to any kind of problem he may struggle with. But his struggles are our struggles; he’s running to be our president.

There is something very odd about Mitt Romney.

Many of the very wealthy are inhuman, or at least inhumane. But I'm not sure that Walsh isn't onto something.

Just to be sure, I want to see those medical records, sir. Long form please.

New Olympic Game of … Synchronized Tweeting

USA! USA! USA! Here's a new Olympic sports that Americans will surely dominate for years to come. From the fertile mind of Dan Piraro of Bizarro Comics, here's Synchronized Tweeting: here

Female Olympians

Bad Girl Badminton Olympians Chucked Out

They were allegedly attempting to manipulate the final standings in the first-round group stage. Read more

Female Olympians Don't Get Endorsement Gold

American companies rarely employ female athletes as spokespeople. Read more

Olympics Delayed

TSA Thwarts Kidnappers

A woman whose "friends" turned into her kidnappers was rescued at Miami International Airport by TSA agents, reports CNN.

The woman had traveled to Miami from New Jersey with four friends when it all started to go badly wrong. Two of the women got drunk and started to abuse her, punching her in the face, stealing her valuables and debit card, and withdrawing money on it.

TSA officials noticed the 25-year-old trying to hide her facial injuries and acting fearful at a security checkpoint and asked her several if she was okay, until she broke down and said she was being kidnapped.
"Our officers recognized that the woman was in danger and acted immediately to protect her," CNN reported Mark Hatfield, the TSA's federal security director for Miami International Airport, as saying.

The two women -- Tori Beato, 19, of Secaucus, N.J., and Melissa Pineiro, 25, of North Bergen, N.J. -- were arrested.  

More

***

Now that's a switch - but then again criminals have always detested competition.

Scientology's "Hole"

Torture-camp for high-ranking execs who fell out of favor 

The Village Voice has a haunting, well-sourced account of "The Hole," where upper echelon Scientologists who have fallen into bad odor with the group's leader are imprisoned under inhumane conditions and tortured.

Debbie Cook was in for only 7 weeks in 2007, but her experience was brutal. She testified that Miscavige had two hulking guards climb into her office through a window as she was talking to him on the phone. "Goodbye" he told her as she was hauled off to the gulag. Like Rinder, she described a place where dozens of men and women were confined to what had been a set of offices. Cook testified that the place was ant-infested, and during one two-week stretch in the summer with temperatures over 100 degrees, Miscavige had the air conditioning turned off as punishment. Food was brought up in a vat riding on a golf cart. Cook described it as a barely edible "slop" that was fed to them morning, noon, and night. Longtime residents of the Hole began to look gaunt.
They had to find places on the floor or on desks to sleep at night. Rinder said there were so many of them they slept only inches from each other, and having to get up in the middle of the night was a nightmare of stepping over sleeping figures in the dark.
In the morning, they were marched out of the offices and through a tunnel under Gilman Springs Road to a large building with communal showers. They were then marched back to the Hole, and during the day would be compelled to take part in mass confessions.
During these, Rinder says people he had considered friends would put on a show for the officials overseeing them, trying to outdo each other with vile accusations against each other. Cook testified that Miscavige wanted Marc Yager and Guillaume Lesevre, two of his longest-serving and highest-ranking officials, to confess to having a homosexual affair. The men were beaten until they made some forced admissions. When Cook objected to what was happening, she herself was made to stand in a trash can for twelve hours while insults were hurled at her, she was called a lesbian, and water was dumped on her head.

Scientology's Concentration Camp for Its Executives: The Prisoners, Past and Present

Tornado snapshot from 1943

This is a photo of a tornado that hit the Cavalry Replacement Training Center at Fort Riley, Kansas, on May 15, 1943 at 3pm.

"It did $175,000 in damage, destroying 41 buildings. It took 400 carpenters, working around the clock one week to rebuild the buildings. Two were killed and 200 injured."

Immigrants: What Surprised You About America?

The (fantastic, btw) radio show This American Life recently featured a story about America looks to immigrants who recently moved to the United States. In that story, Mary Wiltenburg asked refugees about the image of America they had in mind and the rumor they heard before setting foot in the country, and how that image compared with reality.
In this follow up thread at Quora, immigrants and visitors are asked to relate facts about the United States they did not believe until they come to America.
The answers are fascinating, as Max Fisher of The Atlantic summarizes:

How do they get everyone to obey traffic laws?: Quoting cab drivers is sometimes considered the epitome of lazy journalism, but there is one trend I've found in talking to foreign-born cabbies working in the U.S. and to foreign-based taxi drivers who've visited the U.S.: amazement at how devoutly American drivers follow the rules of the road. Compared to the U.S., driving in many developing world cities can feel like organized chaos, with motorists ignoring not just stoplights and speed signs but lane markers and even the direction of traffic. If you go to Cairo and rent a car (side note: don't rent a car in Cairo), you're obligated to follow the standard every-man-for-himself style if you want to get anywhere; drive like you're back in the U.S. and you'll never leave the parking lot. The miracle of American roads, as outsiders have described it to me, is that it only really works if everyone follows the written rules and unwritten norms alike, and they do.
Nothing like what I saw on Friends: The U.S. is about as famous as a country can get. People around the world experience it through the American films and TV shows that dominate global entertainment. But those media portrayals can sometimes add more confusion than they dispel. A Chinese friend once insisted that of course 20-something Americans all get news boyfriends and girlfriends every single week: she'd seen it on Friends, and Seinfeld, and Sex and the City, and a half dozen other TV shows. They couldn't all be lying.

Read more over at The Atlantic: here

Spain arrests 3 al-Qaida suspects

Police have arrested three suspected members of al-Qaida who had amassed explosives and may have been plotting attacks in Europe, Spain's interior minister said Thursday.
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Dumb Crook News

Inept Robbery Mistaken for Joke

Police say an Alabama man robbed the restaurant where he worked right after he clocked out, to his coworkers' disbelief - then returned three days later to visit with coworkers just as detectives were questioning them about the crime, The Birmingham News reported .

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 Bleach put into dialysis machines

A judge has set a $525,000 bond for a man who authorities say poured bleach into the water tanks used for kidney dialysis machines as revenge against his employer.

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Police Officer Couldn’t Find Himself for Eviction Notice

Lithonia Police Chief Washington Varnum, Jr. is fighting to keep his job, although the city of Lithonia, Georgia, found out his credentials had been revoked for an incident in his past position in the DeKalb County Sheriff’s department. That was the time he was supposed to serve an eviction notice on himself.

“He basically provided a sworn statement to the courts that he himself could not be found,” said Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) spokesman Ryan Powell.
Varnum was living at the Les Jardins apartment complex and working as a DeKalb County Deputy Marshal when, he said, a co-worker asked him to serve a stack of eviction notices at the complex.
Varnum told Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer that he noticed his name was at the top of one of the notices, but he did not serve any of them. He instead checked the box which read, “Defendant not found in the jurisdiction of this court,” and hand-wrote underneath, “All breezeways must be properly marked with the unit numbers for service.”
The option chosen is a technicality used when officers cannot find a certain address, but the marshal’s office has a policy that deputies cannot be an interested party in papers they’re serving.
“Well, it’s an honesty issue. You could argue that it’s a violation of the law. So, POST takes those issues very seriously,” said Powell.
The POST Council voted to revoke Varnum’s police certification in December 2010, citing unprofessional or deceptive conduct and bad moral character.

Varnum’s defense is that he showed no partiality and treated his own eviction notice the same way he treated all the others in the stack. By ignoring them. Varnum resigned from his job while under investigation in 2010, and was hired by the city of Lithonia -and promoted to police chief- since the incident. More

Teddy bears bring down 2 Belarus generals

Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has sacked two of the nation's top defense officials after two Swedish advertising agency employees piloted a light plane into the country's heavily guarded airspace, dropping 879 teddy bears decked out in parachutes and slogans supporting human rights.
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Cliodynamics

The Science of History?

If history repeats itself, you can blame cliodynamics. The so-called "science of history" is created by Peter Turchin, who specializes in population dynamics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs:

For the past 15 years, Turchin has been taking the mathematical techniques that once allowed him to track predator–prey cycles in forest ecosystems, and applying them to human history. He has analysed historical records on economic activity, demographic trends and outbursts of violence in the United States, and has come to the conclusion that a new wave of internal strife is already on its way1. The peak should occur in about 2020, he says, and will probably be at least as high as the one in around 1970. “I hope it won't be as bad as 1870,” he adds.
Turchin's approach — which he calls cliodynamics after Clio, the ancient Greek muse of history — is part of a groundswell of efforts to apply scientific methods to history by identifying and modelling the broad social forces that Turchin and his colleagues say shape all human societies. It is an attempt to show that “history is not 'just one damn thing after another'”, says Turchin, paraphrasing a saying often attributed to the late British historian Arnold Toynbee.

Historians, on the other hand, are not amused: More

Why Females Live Longer Than Males

The Mother’s Curse

Why do females usually live longer than males? Science may have the answer, dubbed the "Mother's Curse" hypothesis:

The loophole lies in the mitochondria, the energy-generating parts of our cells. The mitochondria have their own DNA, separate from the DNA that resides in the nucleus of the cell that we usually think of when we think of the genome. In almost all species, the mitochondria DNA is passed down solely from mother to child, without input from dad.
This direct line of inheritance may allow harmful mutations to accumulate, according to a new study detailed today (Aug. 2) in the journal Current Biology. Ordinarily, natural selection helps keep harmful mutations to a minimum by ensuring they're not passed down to offspring. But if a mitochondrial DNA mutation is dangerous only to males and doesn't harm females, there's nothing to stop mom from passing it to her daughters and sons.
"If a mitochondrial mutation pops up that is benign in females, or a mutation pops up that is beneficial to females, this mutation will slip through the gates of natural selection and go through to the next generation," said study researcher Damian Dowling, an evolutionary biologist at Monash Univeristy in Australia.
The result: a load of mutations that don't harm females, but add up to a shorter life span for males.

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Healthier Fast Food in New York City

New York City now has hard evidence that its ban on trans fat in restaurant food made a meaningful dent in people's consumption of the artery clogger and wasn't just replaced with another bad fat.
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How Hot Is It?

It’s so hot, the streetlights are melting in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  

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Climate change the cause of recent extreme weather, scientists tell congress

And of course, the far-right nuts running the repugican party just had to weigh in.

In one of the liveliest exchanges, Bernie Sanders of Vermont continued his effort to take down Inhofe for his statements that climate change is a hoax and a conspiracy.

Sanders asked the scientists on the panel for their opinions on some of Inhofe's more notorious assertions – that climate change is a hoax, that the planet is actually in a state of cooling, and that such environmental concerns were a conspiracy by the UN, Al Gore, and Hollywood.

The scientists did not support Inhofe's claims.

And we all know who the repugicans really mean when they say "Hollywood." That would be the folks Mitt Romney admires for their innate ability at "business."  And their horns.

Indian Blackout: Three Inconvenient Truths

Indian energy blackouts bad, but global perspective more serious for three 'inconvenient truths'?

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Dead Zone Down: Thank You Drought For Something!

The drought that is parching the Midwest is allowing the Gulf of Mexico to take a breath of fresh air. Read more

 

World's Northernmost Coral Reef Discovered

The species and seascape in this newly found northern coral reef are completely different from tropical reefs.

Read more

 

Continental Drift, Hollywood Style

'Ice Age: Continental Drift' plays homage to the supercontinent Pangea, plate tectonics and the draining of North America's late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. Three cheers for geology!

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Billionaire Reportedly Planning Real “Jurassic Park"

Clive Palmer, an Australian billionaire, is reportedly planning to clone dinosaurs like in the movie Jurassic Park. Sunshine Coast Daily reports that Palmer, who owns a mining company and is worth over $8 billion, is reportedly working with the team that cloned Dolly the sheep. Palmer allegedly wants to keep the cloned dinosaur at his Palmer Resort in Coolum, Australia.

He is currently building a replica of the Titanic, which will be finished in 2016.

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Twenty Incredible Coconut Crab Photos

The coconut crab is the world’s largest land arthropod. If you don’t believe me, see this pictorial evidence that may haunt your dreams or delight your eyes at Environmental Graffiti.

Orphaned wombat and baby kangaroo become best friends and share same pouch

They are unlikely friends, but orphaned animals Anzac the joey and Peggy, the wombat have become best mates.

At just over five months old, Anzac was taken to the Wild about Wildlife Kilmore Rescue Centre in Australia after he was rescued in the Macedon Ranges.

Missing his mum, Anzac was placed with Peggy, the wombat, and the two now sleep together in the same pouch. Lisa Milligan, from the Wild about Wildlife Kilmore facility, said the unlikely friends were comforted by each other's movement and heartbeat.

"There are lots of baby animals about at the moment, and they are orphaned for a range of reasons," Ms Milligan said. She said the babies were developing their own personalities; Anzac was very social while Peggy was boisterous and cheeky.

Men floating Alaska river save drowning bear

The Peninsula Clarion reports that Dustin Klepacki was floating the Kenai River with his father and their friend last weekend when they came upon the bear cub drowning in a whirlpool.

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Deep Sea Squid Detaches Tentacles to Attack

You've probably heard that lizards can lose their tail to escape from predators. Turns out, losing one's appendage is also a tactic employed by the deep sea squid Octopoteuthis deletron. Except that it's not just for a defensive measure:

The obvious interpretation is that the squid jettisons its body parts to confuse and distract a predator. But it can also use this ability offensively. When [scientists Stephanie Bush] threatened the animals with a bottle brush, several of them attacked it. Five of them broke off their arms while they were grabbing the brush. The arms flashed away while continuing to hold their grip, while the squids jetted off. It’s called “attack autotomy”. I imagine it would be quite off-putting if you were a fish or a bottle brush.

Read more and watch the video clip over at Ed Yong's Not Exactly Rocket Science blog: here

Vengeful bull gores man to death, follows him to hospital, then turns up at his funeral

A bull bided its time and gored an Indian man to death when an opportunity came a day after the latter had thrown hot water on it. The bull followed the man when he was being taken to a hospital and later appeared at the crematorium during his funeral in little-known Deori Township in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh.
The bull apparently kept a watch on frail Bhoop Narayan Prajapati, 65, and attacked him when he was having his morning tea, a day after he had thrown hot water on it for sitting in front of his hut. Prajapati ran inside his thatched hut to escape, but the bull followed him, pushed him to the ground twice and gored him. Neighbors, Bhura Khan and Nikhil Soni, came to the rescue of Prajapati. They hit the bull with sticks to scare it away.

When the bull was out of sight, they rushed the him to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. He died due to internal injuries to his stomach and chest. Much to people's surprise, the bull arrived at the hospital following Prajapati. Deepak Chourasia, a town-dweller, said that when the remains of Prajapati were being consigned to flames the bull again sprang a surprise by arriving at the crematorium. Prajapati's house is very close to the hospital and the crematorium is less than half-a-kilometer away, Chourasia added.

There is history between Prajapati and the bull. Six months ago, the bull had attacked him after he hit the animal with a stick. Prajapati was at that time admitted to a hospital where he stayed for more than a month due to leg injury, Deori police station inspector R P Sharmasaid. "I have also come to know during investigations in the case that the bull followed Prajapati to the hospital and the crematorium. It's something strange and surprising," Sharma said. "We are going to write a letter to the civic body to put this bull in a government shelter," the inspector added.

Dead humpback whale found in Sydney swimming pool

A dead humpback whale washed up in a Sydney ocean pool early on Wednesday, surprising morning swimmers and causing a major headache for rescuers who must now remove it. The 38 foot young adult humpback, which appeared to have been dead for several days, washed up at Newport beach's ocean baths overnight as rough seas lashed parts of Australia's east coast. Ocean baths are open-air man-made structures on the edge of the beach filled with sea water.

"It does have some external injuries but there's no way of knowing whether they were anti-mortem or post-mortem," said Wendy McFarlane from the Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA). McFarlane said one possible explanation for the otherwise seemingly healthy animal, estimated to be about 25 to 30 tonnes, to die at sea could be that it had been struck by a ship.

Newport beach, which is north of Sydney city, was closed because of the risk of sharks being attracted to the carcass as wildlife experts mulled their best options to remove the giant creature. McFarlane said one option could be to demolish the pool wall and let the animal wash up on the beach. Another solution could be to pull it out to sea at high tide, or bring in an excavator to lift it over the damaged pool wall at low tide.


YouTube link.

Whales are often seen off Australia's coast in June and July as they make their annual winter migration from Antarctica up to the warmer waters off Queensland state, and again as they return before November. National Parks and Wildlife Service area manager Chris Grudhoff said while a dead animal was unfortunate, it signalled there were increasing numbers of whales in the waters off Australia. "The upside of the fact that we are seeing more dead whales is that it indicates that we have a whole healthy population out there in the ocean," he said.

Limited cave access extended to fight bat disease

An order restricting access to caves and old mines on national forest and grasslands in five states is being extended, so that a bat-killing fungus won't spread.
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New Jersey Man Finds 10-Foot Pythons in Yard Twice in 4 Days

Summer vacation has been anything but routine for a New York City social studies teacher who lives in northern New Jersey.

James Geist has spotted pythons twice within days in his West Milford yard. Geist was reading on his deck when he thought he saw a branch move on July 23. He soon realized it was a snake.

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Lost fur seal shows up on Hawaii beach

A seal that would normally live in waters around the Aleutian Islands and California has shown up thousands of miles away on a beach in Hawaii, officials said Wednesday.
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Animal Pictures