Awesome Pictures

California Biodiversity Wins West v. East Coast Battle

California Biodiversity Wins West v. East Coast Battle

The topology and geography of California may have spared resident species from extinction, not faster rates of evolution.

Python challenge hunt in Florida

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is holding a month-long "Python Challenge." Officials are offering cash prizes to whoever brings in the longest python and whoever bags the most pythons.

More

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

 Sunset

Some of our readers today have been in:

Randburg, South Africa

Dusit, Thailand

Oxford, England

Warsaw, Poland

Liberty, Philippines

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Berea, South Africa

Bandar Seri, Begawan, Brunei

Islamabad, Pakistan

Zagreb, Croatia

Newcastle, England

Cape Town, South Africa

Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Sampaloc, Philippines

Athens, Greece

Lagos, Nigeria

Panama, Panama

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Guayquil, Ecuador

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Makati, Philippines

Maribor, Slovenia

Kiev, Ukraine

Medan, Indonesia

Ankara, Turkey

Baku, Azerbaijan

Manila, Philippines

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Mykolayiv, Ukraine

Somerset, England

Tunis, Tunisia

Bekasi, Indonesia

Kangar, Malaysia

Davao, Philippines

Bordeaux, France

Santiago, Chile

Bangkok, Thailand

Odessa, Ukraine

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jakarta, Indonesia

Varna, Bulgaria

Vilnius, Lithuania

Lahore, Pakistan

Jawa, Indonesia

Today is Fruitcake Toss Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

1872		Russian Grand Duke Alexis goes on a gala buffalo hunting expedition with Gen. Phil Sheridan and Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
1879		The British-Zulu War begins. British troops — under Lieutenant General Frederic Augustus — invade Zululand from the southern African republic of Natal.
1908		A wireless message is sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1913		Kiel and Wilhelmshaven become submarine bases in Germany.
1915		The U.S. Congress establishes Rocky Mountain National Park.
1926		U.S. coal talks break down, leaving both sides bitter as the strike drags on into its fifth month.
1927		U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg claims that Mexican rebel Plutarco Calles is aiding communist plot in Nicaragua.
1932		Oliver Wendell Holmes retires from the Supreme Court at age 90.
1938		Austria recognizes the Franco government in Spain.
1940		Soviet bombers raid cities in Finland.
1943		Soviet forces raise the siege of Leningrad.
1952		The Viet Minh cut the supply lines to the French forces in Hoa Binh, Vietnam.
1962		The United States resumes aid to the Laotian regime.
1973		Yassar Arafat is re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
1982		Peking protests the sale of U.S. planes to Taiwan.
1991		The U.S. Congress gives the green light to military action against Iraq in the Persian Gulf Crisis.

Non Sequitur

Treasury says it will not produce platinum coins to avert debt crisis

 

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Saturday it will not produce platinum coins as a way of generating $1 trillion (620 billion pounds) in revenue and avoiding a battle in Congress over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The idea of minting $1 trillion in platinum coins has gained some currency among Democrats in recent days, with repugicans threatening to hold up an increase in the debt ceiling unless deep spending cuts are made.
The United States is expected to reach its debt limit in February.

"Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit," said Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley in a statement.

Congress' refusal in 2011 to raise the debt ceiling unless the White House agreed to large spending cuts brought the United States close to the brink of a debt default and dealt the weak recovery a setback.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that with the platinum coin question resolved, the pressure is on congressional repugicans now to act to raise the debt ceiling.

"Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default," he said. "When congressional repugicans played politics with this issue last time, putting us at the edge of default, it was a blow to our economic recovery, causing our nation's credit rating to be downgraded."

The truth hurts

Du bist Papier bitte

Judge rejects secret "no-fly" evidence barring ex-Stanford student from returning to US

The SF Chronicle reports that a federal judge in San Francisco has "indignantly rejected" the TSA's attempt to use secret evidence to thwart the efforts of a former Stanford student to understand why she's apparently on a secret "no-fly" list. The government must stop its "persistent and stubborn refusal" to follow the law, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said this week.

Rahinah Ibrahim's name on the confidential no-fly list has barred her and one of her four children from returning to the United States for nearly eight years. She was a Stanford graduate student in January 2005 when she was first stopped at San Francisco International Airport and prevented from boarding a flight to her native Malaysia.
She was arrested and jailed briefly by San Francisco police but was allowed to take the flight the next day, with her 14-year-old daughter. When Ibrahim tried to return two months later, however, she was again stopped and told she was subject to arrest. The U.S. Consulate later said her student visa had been revoked under a terrorism law.

Secret no-fly evidence rejected by judge.

 

Did you know ...

That more soldiers took their own lives than died in combat during 2012

"I'm not racist, but..." yes, you are

About he sharp, sudden decline of America's middle class

Look it's a giant rubber ducky in Sydney harbor!

A man was arrested in Texas for filming cop

That Arizona's anti-immigration bill is losing the state millions

That it pays for states to raise the minimum wage

That workers digging subway tunnels have discovered emperor Hadrian's poetry and arts amphitheater under Rome

That the repugicans are losing the debt ceiling fight

About the silencing of the science on gun safety

The number of veterans who die waiting for benefits skyrockets

Hooray! It's the manhatten museum of mathematics!

The truth be told

The Incredible Beauty of Thailand's Loi Krathong Festival

Stand mesmerized as Thailand's people illuminate the river and night sky with beautiful lights... More

Key witness in Berlusconi sex trial to testify on Monday

 

The nightclub dancer who is the main witness in the sex trial of Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is to testify on Monday, her lawyer said on Saturday. Karima El Mahroug, better known by her stage name "Ruby the Heartstealer", was due to testify in the Milan court in December but failed to show up, telling her lawyer she was on holiday in Mexico.
"Karima will be present in the courtroom on Monday," her lawyer Paola Boccardi told Reuters, adding that Mahroug had returned to Italy on Friday.
Berlusconi, 76, who is seeking a fifth term in government in a parliamentary election on February 24-25, is accused of paying Mahroug for sex when she was under 18, which is the minimum legal age for prostitution in Italy.
The billionaire media mogul denies all charges and Mahroug, a Moroccan who is now 20, has said she never had sex with him.
In December, a judge set February 4 as the date for the final hearing in the trial, making a verdict possible before the election.
However, one of his Berlusconi's lawyers said he was considering asking for the trial to be suspended until after the election.
A poll by the SWG company published on January 11 put the center-left about 10 points ahead of Berlusconi's center-right.
The trial, in which dozens of aspiring showgirls have described so-called "Bunga Bunga" parties at Berlusconi's residences, is the most sensational of his legal cases and has received huge media attention in Italy and abroad.
Berlusconi is also accused of abusing his powers when he was still prime minister to have Mahroug released from police custody when she was briefly held over theft allegations.
Berlusconi could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, but he would not serve time unless he also lost the two appeals allowed by Italian law, usually a lengthy process.
Berlusconi, who controls Italy's biggest private broadcaster Mediaset, was driven from office as prime minister in 2011 at the height of the financial crisis.
His People of Freedom party backed the technocrat government of Mario Monti for a year before bringing it down by withdrawing its support last month.

Antique Camera Contains Undeveloped Film From World War I

Soldiers hold a bomb in what is likely the wreckage of an ammunition site.

A camera collector from San Diego named Anton Orlov purchased a French stereoscopic camera at an antique shop. He soon discovered the camera contained eight undeveloped photographs shot in France during World War I. Amazingly, this was not the first incidence of Orlov finding historical treasures in old cameras.

Read more about Anton's finds and see the rest of his fascinating photographs at his blog The Photo Palace.

Eleven Bizarre and Dangerous Items Sold by Sears in 1902

Long before Amazon, there was Sears and Roebuck. If you lived anywhere the postal service delivered to, you could order everything from farm tools to lingerie to opium. The opium has since been dropped from the catalog. Mental_floss has a look at some of the more bizarre items you could have ordered in 1902. Shown here are the magical Arsenic Complexion Wafers that would improve “even the coarsest and most repulsive skin and complexion." I first thought it was a bar of soap, but its likely that these were sold to be ingested. More

Americana

Sampling Lake Vostok

Russians Nab First Sample of Lake Vostok

Russian drilling operations at Lake Vostok, Antarctica, have succeeded in collecting a core sample of water frozen into the borehole from the 20 million-year-old lake they cracked into last year.

Psst! Wanna Buy a Launch Pad?

With the shuttle program over, NASA is hoping to recoup some of its investment and shed property no longer needed by selling it off. Several facilities are for sale.

Among them: Launch Pad 39A, where shuttles were launched; space in the Vehicle Assembly Building, the iconic 526-foot-tall structure first used to assemble Saturn V-Apollo rockets; the Orbiter Processing Facilities, essentially huge garages where the shuttles were maintained; Hangar N and its high-tech test equipment; the launch-control center; and various other buildings and chunks of undeveloped property.

A lot of the stuff needs to be transferred by the end of 2013, when federal maintenance money will run out. When it does, machinery will start to rust, and buildings will deteriorate in the harsh coastal-marsh environment of Cape Canaveral.

NASA is allowing bids and proposals to be submitted quietly, and will take plans for the properties into account as well as the amounts of the bids. More

Curious Things That Fall From The Sky

Rain and snow aren't the only things to fall from the sky. Throughout history rare occurrences have been recorded of other less expected and surprising forms of deluge. In 2001, parts of India were showered with mysterious red particles that were thought to contain alien microbes. Here are some more examples of this bizarre phenomenon.

Thousands Of Unknown Ancient Structures Seen From Space

Thousands of huge ancient structures made of stone are clearly visible from the air. Their age is estimated to thousands of years and their purpose remains unknown. These puzzling wheel-shapes, and straight lines, stretch all the way from Syria to Saudi Arabia. Some call this area the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines.

It is only recently, with help of satellite images, that archaeologists have been able to explore this region in more detail. As a result, the resolution of available images is now generally high enough to conduct reliable, general archeological surveys.

What's the biggest thing in the universe?

Huge Quasar Cluster is Largest Cosmic Structure

What's the biggest thing in the universe? That would be a cluster of quasars so large it would take a vehicle traveling at the speed of light 4 billion years to cross.

Apophis

Asteroid Apophis Just Got Supersized

Astronomers using the European Herschel Space Observatory have discovered something a little unsettling: asteroid 99942 Apophis is actually bigger than we thought.

Apophis Will (Definitely) Not Hit Earth in 2036

Apophis will not -- I repeat, will not -- hit Earth in 2036. 

Go ahead ...

Imagine you are on a spaceship hurtling through space with all the things you need to survive one board ...

Half of the world’s food goes to waste

by Chris

This stunning report out of the UK points the fingers at all groups along the food chain. While consumers throw away a lot of food, stores also refuse to purchase food unless it has a certain look.Unfortunately for everyone, refusing food because it has the wrong appearance has led to new variations of food that taste no better than the old products. In France it’s now common to see coeur de boeuf (I think these are “beefstake” in the US) tomatoes in the normal grocery stores. They have the “ugly” look that everyone associates with the tasty tomatoes that we find in the country during the summer, but in fact, they’re as tasteless as the other tomatoes in the big city stores.

 

Last summer I spent a week cycling in the apricot region of France (or at least, the best apricot region) and I would pass through farms that were full of harvested trees, but there were still plenty of apricots in the trees. They just didn’t look good enough for buyers. (Some people caught on and I did notice some people collecting the abandoned fruit in the early morning when few people other than older cyclists are out.)
The point is, people want good products and many have been falling for the “ugly” tomatoes, in hopes of having a good product. At the same time, there are plenty more shoppers who want every zucchini and peach to look exactly the same. Part of that “look” that shoppers want involves maintaining the appearance after shipping.
It’s a tough challenge, but someone will eventually figure this out, or at least how to minimize the waste. NBC News:

The world produces about four billion metric tonnes of food a year but up 2 billion tonnes is never eaten, the global study by the London-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said.
The organisation lays the blame at every step of the food chain, from farming practices to consumers.
It says retailers reject millions of tonnes of crops because of the physical appearance of fruit and vegetables, fearing shoppers will not buy them unless they look perfect.

I’ve mentioned this group before, but there’s a fantastic organization here in France that helps promote small farmers and their products, Le Petit Producteur. The products are not cheap, but the quality is high, almost as high as you get out in the country where farmers operate. The produce isn’t always the most beautiful – though it’s still attractive – but the taste is far superior than what you typically find in the city.
While on vacation with friends last summer, my 3 year old goddaughter and her twin sister couldn’t stop eating the local fruits and vegetables that we bought at the farmers market. None of it had the shiny, perfect look that you find in Paris markets but the taste was unbeatable. Our friends were amazed with how much the girls were eating, since at home, they hardly touched the same products because they had no taste.
Will the next generation of farmers find a way to bring back taste, rather than look and ability to be transported? That could go a long way towards solving this food problem.

USDA: Drought cut corn crop by about one-fourth

 

For farmers like Earl Williams, last year couldn't have started out better or ended much worse as a warm, sunny spring that let him plant early gave way to record heat and drought that devastated his corn.

Williams ended up with about two-thirds of the crop he expected, and a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Friday showed most corn farmers didn't fare much better. The final report on the 2012 growing season showed farmers harvested 10.78 billion bushels of corn, less than three-fourths of what the agency predicted last spring.

While the report covers many other crops, much of the attention has been on corn, which is widely used as an ingredient in many foods, provides feed for livestock and is mixed with gasoline as ethanol. The crop also was the hardest hit by the drought that settled in just as the plants were maturing.
Williams, 62, usually gets 150 to 160 bushels per acre on his 1,000-acre farm near Rockford in northern Illinois. Last year, he got about 100, and he's been looking at the sky ever since, hoping for heavy rain or snow to break the drought that still grips the region.
"I've yet to run into anyone around me that wasn't ready for 2013 to come," he said.

Yet things could have been worse. Because demand remained strong and corn prices remained high — above $7 a bushel for much of the summer and fall — the 2012 crop was the most valuable ever produced, with a value of around $85 billion, said Chad Hart, an agriculture economist with Iowa State University.

The harvest also was the eighth largest in U.S. history, a reflection of a big increase in recent years in the number of acres planted and crop technology that has improved plants' ability to withstand drought.
"We learned that corn plants can build roots very, very deep," said Brent Wilson, technical services manager for DuPont Pioneer, a major seed company.
In some areas, farmers got yields that require 40 percent more water than was available in the top few feet of their soil, Wilson said. That means plant roots were driven deeper to reach the subsoil.

While the drought eventually spread to cover two-thirds of the nation, its impact varied widely from one region of the corn belt to another. Some Iowa farmers saw decent results, while those in parts of Illinois and Indiana could only watch as plants withered and died after months of drought.

Friday's reports showed that Illinois, typically the nation's second-largest corn producer, fell to fourth place behind Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota.

Iowa, coming off of its driest year since 1989, remains the largest corn producer with 1.87 billion bushels, down 20 percent from the year before. Minnesota was second with 1.37 billion bushels, followed by Nebraska with 1.29 billion and Illinois with 1.28 billion.

Corn production in Illinois fell 34 percent from 2011 and Nebraska's production was off 16 percent. Minnesota, where the drought was not as severe as in other states, produced 14 percent more corn last year than the year before.

The USDA had predicted a record average yield of 166 bushels per acre of corn when warm weather got farmers in the fields early. But the government began scaling back estimates as the drought spread across two-thirds of the nation. The year-end average was 123.4 bushels per acre.

While Williams and other farmers were eager to say goodbye to last year, they still have reason to be anxious. The U.S. Drought Monitor's weekly updates have shown few signs the drought is relenting. Sixty percent of the continental U.S. is still in some form of drought, and climatologists say it would take an absurd amount of snow for conditions to change much during the winter.

"For us, winter's just not a time of year to make much progress with drought," said Harry Hillaker, Iowa's state climatologist. "Our next hope is a wetter spring."

And even that wouldn't guarantee an end to drought, Hillaker said: "In a nutshell, one hot, dry summer tends to be followed by another year on the dry, warm side of normal."

With almonds' rising revenues, land values soar

 

Bill Enns, a central California real estate agent specializing in farmland, fields dozens of calls every week from potential buyers. Many want almond, pistachio or walnut orchards — or any land suitable for growing nut trees.

This summer in Merced County, Enns brokered the sale of 1,200 acres of open ground lacking a good source of water. Listed at $12,500 per acre, the land attracted dozens of buyers and sold within a month for a whopping $15,000 per acre. The buyer will plant it with almond trees, a notably water-intensive crop.

"It was one of the highest sales per acre that we've seen for that kind of land," said Enns, vice president of the Farm Lands Department at Pearson Realty. "We've seen some numbers that would just blow your mind."

In recent years, farmers in California's Central Valley have seen record-high revenues, buoyed by high demand for fruits, nuts and vegetables in the U.S. and abroad. Investors both foreign and domestic have taken notice, buying up farmland and driving up agricultural land values in a region with some of the highest residential foreclosure rates.

California's almond industry, which grows about 80 percent of the global almond supply and 100 percent of the domestic supply, saw the most dramatic growth — powered by strong demand from new money-spending middle classes in India and China. The growth has prompted a rush for almond-growing land and pushed almond land values through the roof.

Farmland prices have been mostly rising for the past decade throughout the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But over the past three years, despite the recession, they reached record highs.

"A lot of people thought values in farmland would drop like the values in housing," said Allan Barros, a Fresno-area appraiser. "But the sellers ... sat on their properties and farmland values didn't budge. Everybody gave a sigh of relief."

Then land values went sharply up, Barros said, pushed by rising agricultural revenues. In this region with the highest farm receipts in the nation, prices for most commodities rose dramatically. Revenues for almonds and walnuts increased by 30 percent between 2010 and 2011, and revenues for grapes rose by 20 percent, according to the USDA. California's agricultural exports during that time grew by more than $3 billion.
In 2011, for the first time, the value of California's almond crop surpassed the state's iconic grape industry to move into second place, behind dairy, as the state's top commodity. Almond producers increased their productivity and their orchard sizes, and shipments more than doubled over the past 10 years, according to the California Almond Board. During the 2011-2012 crop year, California farmers brought in $3.9 billion in revenue.
Almonds also became the top export, outpacing dairy and wine, mostly due to increased demand from Asia and a weak dollar, almond producers say. Two-thirds of the almonds produced today are shipped overseas.
Real estate experts say farmers and other investors wanting to cash in on that growth quickly cleared the inventories of available nut land. With little else to buy, they ripped out vineyards and other crops to plant almond orchards. Almonds — which grow from Red Bluff to Bakersfield — increased by over 100,000 acres since 2008, to 760,000 total bearing acres today, according to the Almond Board.
Scarcity of available almond land is also pushing some investors to plant trees in areas with a poorer water supply or less appropriate soil. Since nut trees take several years to mature, time will tell whether the risks were worth taking, said Barros, the appraiser.
New investors range from local farmers trying to expand their orchards to international companies seeking high returns on prime almond farmland, experts say. Pension funds, insurance companies and retirement funds also are investing portions of their portfolios into agriculture. Olam International, a Singapore-based commodities supplier, farms 7,000 acres of almonds in California.
Nut land — almond, pistachio and walnut — is now the highest valued type in every county throughout the valley, according to the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers' California chapter.

In Fresno County, almond land was valued at up to $18,000 per acre in 2012, and pistachio land at up to $25,000 per acre. That's higher than citrus, grape, or tree fruit land —and much higher than the $7,200 average per acre farm real estate value in California last year, according to the USDA.

Putting money in farmland pays off, said Biff Ourso, portfolio manager at the New York-based financial services firm TIAA-CREF, because it can generate an income and appreciate over time. But it also brings much-needed diversification.

"Farmland doesn't behave in the same pattern as other traditional asset classes," Ourso said, which means it reduces the risk for investors in case of a market downturn.

Investing in agriculture is attractive in the long term, he said, because of the growing world population, expanding middle classes and the fact that farmland is a finite resource. The company — which manages about 140,000 acres of farmland in the U.S., including almonds in California — leases its farm properties to farmers.

Local almond operators say heightened interest from investors spells out a bright outlook.

"There's lots of excitement in the industry," said Jim Crecelius, CEO of Montavista Farming Company based in Hanford.

Crecelius, an almond farmer, also processes the nuts for investors throughout the Valley and markets them in Asia. "We have never been able to completely supply every almond that our customers need," he said.

Some worry that the almond investment boom could lead to overproduction and hurt local farmers.

"Everybody in the industry is continually asking: are we in a bubble or is this a change of economies?" said Chuck Nichols, who farms over 1,000 acres of almonds and pistachios in Tulare and Kings counties. "We don't know the answer to that."

The World's Most Amazing Trees

Most common trees look fantastic but some are just spectacular. Like the Rainbow Eucalyptus, the Divi Divi, or the Tetrameles nudifloras. Here are some of the world's most amazing trees.

Why Yosemite Is A Photographer's Nirvana

For over a century Yosemite Park has been a destination for families and everyone who enjoys the outdoors. With over 750,000 acres of stunning beauty, it doesn't matter what time of year you are there, everything is beautiful. Enjoy these 26 photos of Yosemite and see what it's a top destination for photographers.

Random Photo

Banded mongooses structure monosyllabic sounds in a similar way to humans

Animals are more eloquent than previously assumed. Even the monosyllabic call of the banded mongoose is structured and thus comparable ...

Continue Reading 

Snake hitched ride on wing of plane

Passengers on a Qantas flight from Cairns in Australia to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea who looked out the window of their airborne aircraft early on Thursday morning saw a 3m snake clinging to the wing. There was nothing anyone could do to help the amethystine python in the chamber just a short distance from Qantas's famous flying kangaroo logo.

Altitude was taking its toll as well as freezing temperatures and the high speed of the aircraft. Passengers could only watch on as the animal's tail was whipped against the rear end of the plane, the impact creating a blood trail on the plane's fuselage.

The python was dead on arrival when QF191 touched down at Port Moresby at 7.44am with 40 passengers and four crew on board. A crew member said that when the python's presence was first reported the initial reaction was "you gotta be kidding?'' The crew member said there was a lot of commotion on the ground after the plane landed.

YouTube link. Alternative video link.

"The python didn't quite make it out alive, especially with some flap extension for landing,'' he said. Qantas said hitchhiking pythons were not an everyday occurrence. "We have never heard of this happening before,'' a spokesperson said. "The python must have taken refuge on the exterior of the aircraft at Cairns Airport overnight before take off.'' The python was handed over to quarantine officials in Port Moresby.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Got to love the mountains

Some of our readers today have been in:

Newcastle, England

Dusit, Thailand

Athens, Greece

Warsaw, Poland

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Panama, Panama

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

Maribor, Slovenia

Cape Town, South Africa

Kangar, Malaysia

Guayaquil, Ecudaor

Zagreb, Croatia

Medan, Indonesia

Lagos, Nigeria

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Mykolayiv, Ukraine

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Baku, Azerbaijan

Liberty, Philippines

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Tunis, Tunisia

Sampaloc, Philippines

Bordeaux, France

Kiev, Ukraine

Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Makati, Philippines

Bangkok, Thailand

Ankara, Turkey

Odessa, Ukraine

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Varna, Bulgaria

Somerset, England

Jawa, Indonesia

Istanbul, Turkey

Davao, Philippines

Lahore, Pakistan

Bekasi, Indonesia

Vilnius, Lithuania

Santiago, Chile

Manila, Philippines

Jakarta, Indonesia

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

49 BC		Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.
1843		Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," dies in Baltimore.
1861		Alabama secedes from the Union.
1862		Lincoln accepts Simon Cameron's resignation as Secretary of War.
1887		At Fort Smith, Arkansas, hangman George Maledon dispatches four victims in a multiple hanging.
1904		British troops massacre 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
1916		Russian General Yudenich launches a WWI winter offensive and advances west.
1923		The French enter the town of Essen in the Ruhr valley, to extract Germany's resources as war payment.
1934		The German police raid the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.
1941		Adolf Hitler orders forces to be prepared to enter North Africa to assist the Italian effort, marking the establishment of the Afrika Korps.
1940		Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., becomes the U.S. Army's first black general, his son would later become a general as well.
1942		Japan invades the Dutch East Indies at Borneo.
1943		The Soviet Red Army encircles Stalingrad.
1948		President Harry S. Truman proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.
1949		Negotiations in China between the Nationalists and Communists open as Tientsin is virtually lost to the Communists.
1964		A collection of previously unexhibited paintings by Pablo Picasso are displayed for the first time in Toronto.
1980		Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the United States–in Ohio.

Non Sequitur

Drudge compares Obama to Hitler, Stalin for considering new gun regulations

From the "Nazis trying to focus attention away from themselves be accusing others of being Nazis" Department:

If anyone wonders why people like this guy think President Obama is secretly planning to tear up the Constitution and declare martial law, and that’s why they don’t just need their guns, but they need to threaten to “start killing people” if the President does anything in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, all you have to do is read this guy, below.
And repugicans do.  A lot.
There’s a reason we’re a violent country that fetishizes guns.  Because the Republican elite like to manipulate their ignorant base as it’s a lot easier, and sadly far more effective, than telling them the truth.

The truth be told

Did you know ...

That gun owners are 4.5 times more likely to be shot than non-gun owners

That amidst record drilling, gas prices hit record highs in 2012

The tea party is in its death throes

Which professions have the most psychopaths?

Why America needs a left

Why the super-rich feel victimized by Obama

Why means-testing is just plain mean

10 things you may not know about james bond
 

Here's a checkerboard strategy for regaining the progressive strategy

6 ways to juice up the labor movement

Internet crackpots believe Newtown massacre was staged, citing "absolute" Photoshop proof

"Yes, there really are Newtown truthers," writes Alex Seitz-Wald in Salon. And they can tell by the pixels.
One of them, OperationTerror, produced the video above explaining the latest prevailing conspiracy theory, which involves a Photoshop disaster.

Maybe you’ve already heard some of the others, like the one about fantasy ties between the gunman’s family and the LIBOR banking scandal and a related theory about the Aurora shooting and the “Dark Knight Rises.” Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control. In the latest angle, theorists think they have found “absolute proof” of a conspiracy to defraud the American people. “You reported in December that this little girl had been killed,” a reader emailed Salon in response to a story. “She has been found, and photographed with President Obama.”

Duly Noted.

The Truth

Mali seeks French help against extremists

 

Mali's president asked France for help Thursday to counter an offensive by extremist and terrorist groups who control the northern half of the country and are heading south.

France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters after an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that urgent action is needed against the groups who captured the city of Konna Thursday and are now threatening the city of Mopti, which has 100,000 inhabitants.

The Security Council expressed "grave concern" at the military action by the terrorist and extremist groups and called on U.N. member states "to provide assistance to the Malian Defense and Security Forces in order to reduce the threat posed by terrorist organizations and associated groups."
Araud said it was urgent to act against the threat and to work to restore the country's stability.
"This terrorist attack weakens even more the stability of Mali and thereby that of its neighbors," he said. "Sustainability of the Malian government and the protection of civilian populations are now at stake."
Araud said Mali's President Dioncounda Traore sent a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which he transmitted to the Security Council, and a similar letter to French President Francois Hollande seeking assistance from France, the country's former colonial power, against the offensive.
"It's up to the authorities of my country to decide and announce the nature of this assistance," he said. "It will be announced in Paris tomorrow."
Araud said council resolutions "call on all member states to provide assistance in resolving the Malian crisis in all its aspects, including military and political — and I emphasize — to provide support to the authorities of this country to put an end to the terrorist threat."

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, asked whether the president of Mali requested specific kinds of military support and troops, said: "It wasn't specific, but it basically said, 'Help! France.'"

Mali was plunged into turmoil after a coup in March 2012 created a security vacuum. That allowed the secular Tuaregs, who have long felt marginalized by Mali's government, to take half the north as a new homeland. But months later, the rebels were kicked out by Islamist groups allied with al-Qaida, which have imposed strict Shariah law throughout the north.
Late last year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations.
The Security Council in December authorized an African-led force to support Malian forces in recovering the north — an area the size of Texas — but set no timeline for military action. Instead, it set out benchmarks to be met before the start of offensive operations, beginning with progress on a political roadmap to restore constitutional order, political reconciliation, elections and training of the Malian and African troops and police.
The Security Council called for "the immediate issuance of an agreed political roadmap, which includes serious negotiations with non-extremist Malians in the north and presses for the full restoration of democratic governance."
The council also called for the rapid deployment of the African-led force.
The retreat by the Malian military in Thursday's fighting, however, raised questions in the closed Security Council consultations about its ability to help lead a regional intervention, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.
According to the diplomats, the Malian army melted away in the face of the offensive.
Rice, the U.S. ambassador, said "there was clear-cut consensus about the gravity of the situation and the right of the Malian authorities to seek what assistance they can receive."
She said the Security Council has been encouraging the West African regional group, ECOWAS, to present "a viable plan" as soon as possible to retake the north "and even today the plan to our minds still requires refinement."
"But the point is not that," she said. "The point is that we've got extremists who have very worrying, if not nefarious, ambitions that need to be thwarted, and whether-the best would have been if the Malian army had the capacity and the will to do so back last spring and even still today."
One of the things the Security Council discussed, Rice said, "is the extent to which the Malians are ready and willing to defend their own country."

Founder of Kurdish PKK among three women slain in Paris

Play VideoThree Kurdish women activists ‘executed’ in Paris

A woman who helped found the Kurdish PKK rebel movement and two other women were found shot dead in Paris overnight after execution-style killings that cast a shadow over peace moves between Turkey and the guerrillas. The bodies of Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the early 1980s, and her two fellow activists were found in the early hours of Thursday at an institute in the French capital that has close links to the PKK.
They appeared to have been shot in the head, a French police source said. Kurdish media said one woman was also shot in the abdomen. Workers had broken in to the room at the Information Centre of Kurdistan after seeing blood stains on a door.
Cansiz was a prominent PKK figure, initially as a fighter and later in charge of the group's civil affairs in Europe, according to a Kurdish lawyer who knew her. A 1995 photograph shows her standing next to militant leader Abdullah Ocalan, wearing olive battle fatigues and clutching an assault rifle.
Ocalan is now in a Turkish jail and the killings came shortly after Turkey announced it had resumed peace negotiations with him - something likely to anger hardliners within the PKK.
French investigators gave no immediate indication of who might be behind the murders; the PKK has seen intermittent internal feuding during an armed campaign in the mountainous Turkish southeast that has killed some 40,000 people since 1984.
Turkish nationalist militants have in the past also been accused of killing Kurdish activists, who want regional autonomy. But such incidents have been confined to Turkey.
"The choice of Cansiz as a target is because she was symbolic of the Kurdish movement," said Franck Cecen, a Kurdish lawyer in Paris who met Cansiz at least half a dozen times and described her as exceptionally well-spoken and well-educated.
"She had been one of its founding members, she had spent years in prison for her convictions, and she had become a historical figure," he told Reuters, adding that he found it hard to believe fellow Kurds would have taken her life.
"It is difficult to imagine that this was done by a Kurdish cell," he said. "Everyone is talking about a Turkish role."
ERDOGAN
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said it was too early to apportion blame: "This may be an internal reckoning," he said. "We are engaged in a struggle against terrorism. We want to make progress, but there are people who don't want this. This could be a provocative undertaking by these people."
The killings came shortly after Erdogan's government announced it had resumed talks with Ocalan, who has been confined on a prison island near Istanbul since 1999. Talks to end the conflict would almost certainly raise tensions within the Kurdish movement over demands and terms of any ceasefire.
Among a crowd that gathered behind police lines at the Paris Kurdish institute were onlookers chanting slogans and waving yellow flags bearing Ocalan's likeness. France is home tens of thousands of Kurdish immigrants, of who some are PKK activists.
"Rest assured that French authorities are determined to get to the bottom of these unbearable acts," French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said at the scene, adding the killings were "surely an execution". His predecessor, Claude Gueant, said Turkey's engagement in the peace process led him to conclude it was unlikely that Ankara's agents were behind the killings.
Any Turkish government contacts with the PKK, deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union, are highly controversial in the Turkish political establishment.
Last year, the months preceding the move to talks, saw some of the worst bloodshed of the three-decades-old conflict. Television footage of soldiers' coffins returning home draped in the red Turkish flag inflamed nationalist tensions.
Valls identified one of the victims as the head of the Information Centre and said homicide and anti-terrorism units had been assigned to investigate the murders. A police source confirmed that all held Turkish citizenship.
The two victims other than Cansiz were named as Fidan Dogan, 28, and Leyla Soylemez, 25.
POLITICAL CRIME
"This is a political crime, there is no doubt about it," Remzi Kartal, a leader of the Kurdistan National Congress, an umbrella group of Kurdish organizations in Europe, told Reuters.
"Ocalan and the Turkish government have started a peace process, they want to engage in dialogue, but there are parties that are against resolving the Kurdish question and want to sabotage the peace process," he said.
The Kurdish question has taken on a particular urgency with the rise of Kurdish groups in Iraq, where they have self-rule in the north, and in Syria. Turkey fears Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could encourage Kurds to feed militancy in Turkey.
Many Turks fear such autonomy as the PKK is seeking could stoke demands for an independent Kurdish homeland, within Turkey and beyond its borders, that would undermine the Turkish state.
The Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, said another of the three victims was the Paris representative of the Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress. It said the murder weapon was believed to have been fitted with a silencer.
"A couple of colleagues saw blood stains at the door. When they broke the door open and entered they saw the three women had been executed," French Kurdish Associations Federation Chairman Mehmet Ulker was reported as saying by Firat.
Female militants have played a significant role in the PKK's insurgency, partly reflecting a principle of equality within the group's Marxist ideology. In some cases, desire to avenge the killing of other family members was the motivation for joining, for others it was a way out of family repression, analysts say.
The government and PKK have agreed a framework for a peace plan, according to Turkish media reports, in talks which would have been unthinkable in Turkey only a few years ago. Ocalan is widely reviled by Turks who hold him responsible for a conflict that burns at the heart of the nation.
Erdogan has introduced some reforms allowing Kurdish language broadcasting and some other concessions on language; but activists are demanding more freedom in education and administration.
CANSIZ
Several members of the Kurdish community in Paris said that Cansiz, who was in her 50s, was an emblematic figure who had been imprisoned in Turkey before obtaining asylum in France.
"She was in charge of communicating information on events in Turkey, she would denounce arbitrary arrests, unsolved murders," said a member of the Arts and Culture Academy of Kurdistan who asked not to be identified.
Turkish political analyst Emre Uslu, who previously worked in Turkey's counter-terrorism police unit, said in a blog that the killing of Cansiz could point to a split within the PKK.
He said Cansiz was a leading member of a faction within the PKK that had in the past opposed Ocalan's moves towards peace.
"For Turkey to sit down with the PKK before its internal problems are solved is considerably problematic," Uslu said.
Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP) party, two of whose members were allowed to pay a rare visit last week to Ocalan, condemned the killings: "We call on our people to hold protest meetings wherever they are to condemn this massacre and stand up for the Kurdish people's martyrs," its leaders said.

Burglary suspect found thanks to trail of Cheetos

Police officers in Kershaw County, South Carolina, say Cheetos led them to a burglary suspect. Officers took 19-year-old Austin Lee Westfall Presler into custody, charging him with second-degree burglary.
On January 6th, officers say a man was delivering fuel to the Cassatt Country Store when he noticed the front glass of the store had been shattered. Responding officers determined that the suspect went into the store and stole beer, cigarettes, snacks, and energy drinks.

Surveillance video showed the suspect left in a white car. Deputies, though, say Presler made a mistake: he broke open a bag of Cheetos on the floor of the store. A foot search by officers led them to a nearby home.

When they arrived, they found fresh Cheetoes on the front porch of the home, and a white car in the front. According to officers, they then found Pressler in a room in the home with the stolen items. Presler has been released on a $10,000 bond.

Woman used cat to fend off police dog

Police in Orlando, Florida, say a woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend used a cat to fight off a police K-9 on Monday. Police said they were called to Danton Avenue at about 12:30 on Monday morning for a report of a man who said his girlfriend attacked him with two knives.
The victim told police that his girlfriend of six years, Lisa Frink, 46, was off her medication and behaving erratically. He told police they got into an argument over an EBT card and Frink grabbed two knives from the kitchen and swung the knives at him. He tried to fight her off with a chair, he said, but she was able to cut him in the neck and face.
 

After the attack, Frink ran out of the house and hid in a shed, according to police. Officers responded to the area but she refused to exit or show her hands, police said. When a police K-9 was ordered to apprehend Frink, police said she picked up a cat inside the shed and shoved it in the K-9's face, police said.

Police said Frink then pushed an officer into the wall and began swinging a concrete rake at officers. Police sprayed a chemical into her eyes and handcuffed her. Police charged her with attempted murder, aggravated battery, battery on a law enforcement officer, injuring a police animal, three counts of resisting an officer without violence and two counts of resisting an officer with violence.

Miss Congeniality guilty of participating in riot

A former beauty queen has pleaded guilty to taking part in riots in the Canadian city of Vancouver following the 2011 Stanley Cup ice hockey final.

Sophie Laboissonniere, who won the Miss Congeniality prize in a 2011 beauty pageant in Vancouver, has admitted a charge of participating in a riot. A breaking and entering charge is likely to be stayed, her lawyer said.

Cars were set on fire and buildings looted after the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in the NHL final. Laboissonniere, who was 20 at the time of the riots in June 2011, did not appear at the provincial court in Vancouver on Monday. However, her lawyer entered a plea on her behalf and said she would be present at a sentencing hearing scheduled for May.

"She has received a level of notoriety that goes way beyond the offense she committed. She's stuck with that for a long time," lawyer David Baker told reporters. Laboissonniere was a contestant in the 2011 Miss Coastal Vancouver pageant and and was awarded the title of Miss Congeniality.

Smurfs Arrested for Assault

Last week it was Oomps-Loompas; this week Smurfs. Four men painted blue and dressed as Smurfs entered a store in Pascoe Vale, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

A 37-year-old Pascoe Vale man was buying cigarettes at a convenience store when he was approached by a man painted blue and dressed as a character from the 1980s cartoon show, police say.

The Smurf asked for a cigarette and was offered one, but he demanded the man light the cigarette before handing it over.

The man refused and was later assaulted.

Police appealed to the public and asked the four men to come forward. Three unidentified 19-year-men and one 18-year-old turned themselves in, and will be charged with "assault-related offenses." More

Man Beheading His Sister Caught on Video

A man from Kolkata, India, in an apparent honor killing dragged his sister out into the open and beheaded her in one bloody blow, according to reports.

Sources say this gruesome happening occurred on December 7, just last year. The related turn of events had it that around 11 a.m., the duty officer at Nadial police station was understandably alarmed when he saw a 29-year-old man, Mehtab Alam, walk in with the macabre exhibit. Before he could find the words to alert his colleagues, the killer put the sword and the head on the table, pulled up a chair, and told him that he was ready to be arrested for murdering his sister, 22-year-old Nilofar Bibi. He was recorded to have exhorted the duty officer to “seize the head as evidence.”
The Times of India reported it was the first honor killing known to happen in Kolkata in decades. An investigating officer told The Times: “Somehow he has started believing that he sacrificed his sister for the bigger purpose of saving his family from dishonor. So he is the last man to believe that he has committed a medieval, barbaric act.”
Mehtab himself said he decapitated his sister, Nilofar, for “eloping with a lover and dishonoring the family,” stated sources. Nilofar, who had been married for eight years, had run away from her in-laws and was reportedly relishing a spicy relationship with a former lover. The siblings’ family expressed support for Alam, saying they were proud he upheld their honor.
The BBC states that there are no cut-and-dried statistics on the number of so-called “honor killings” across India, but according to a recent study, “hundreds of people are killed each year for falling in love or marrying against their families’ wishes.”
Al Jazeera juxtaposed its own thoughts on the matter, citing a UN study in 2000 that shows an estimated 5,000 such honor killings occur globally each year. The National Commission for Women in India reports that it investigates between 70 and 80 possible cases a month.
Last year, India’s Supreme Court ruled that those guilty of honor killings should face capital punishment, the BBC added.
The aftermath of this event that leaves behind an acrid aftertaste was actually captured on video. Viewer discretion is advised.

Four people in Georgia exposed to rabid pet llama

Officials say a veterinarian was called to a house in Morganton on Dec. 28 because a llama was showing signs of aggression -- biting at itself, at others and spitting at one of its caretakers.

More

Random Photo