These Horrible Things Have Happened Since Marriage Equality Went Nationwide

Wingnuts warned us bad things would happen…
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Sex abuse victim to file lawsuit against Josh Duggar

Sex abuse victim to file lawsuit against Josh Duggar

One of Josh Duggar’s molestation victims is planning to file a lawsuit against the former reality show wonk and anti-LGBT agitator.

Police Murders

US police killings headed for 1,100 this year -- with black Americans twice as likely to die

Woman arrested after mango-related shooting

A man plucking what he describes as a 'perfect-looking mango' from a Florida street says the woman who owned the tree the fruit came from fired a shot at him for trying to take it.

Christopher Richey says he was on his way back from an anniversary celebration with his wife when he spotted the pristine mango on a road in Fort Myers. "I wouldn't even have turned around for it if it wasn't a good mango," Richey said.
After Richey had the mango, he said the homeowner drove up, accused him of stealing mangoes from her yard and threatened to shoot him. Josefina Tometich, 64, allegedly went into her home, returned with a .22 calibre BB gun, which deputies say she used to shoot out the rear window of Richey's truck.

YouTube link.

Tometich's family says "no trespassing" signs are on the property, and they'll put up more, to deter mango thieves. But Richey maintains the mango he saw was in the roadway, and therefore free for the taking. In the end, he and his wife left without any mangoes. Tometich was arrested for firing a missile into a dwelling, vehicle, building or aircraft.

Police hunt wheelchair bank robber

A search is underway for suspect in a wheelchair who held up a bank in Astoria, Queens, New York. Police said he held up the Santander Bank in Queens shortly after 2pm on Monday.

He passed a note to a teller demanding cash, and did not display a weapon, police sources say. The teller complied, and police said the suspect made off with $1,212 in cash. He fled in the wheelchair, police said.
“It’s a little surprising,” one person in the area said. “I thought it was a joke at first when I overheard, but with all the police officers coming in, I realized it was serious.”

YouTube link.

The suspect was described as a black male between 25 and 30 years old, weighing about 160 pounds and clean shaven. He was last seen wearing a grey hoodie in a black wheelchair, police said. It was not clear whether the suspect really needed the wheelchair or if he used it as a disguise.

Stolen six-meter tall koala recovered after being found stashed under trees

A six-meter tall inflatable blue koala has been stolen from the roof of a Harvey Norman store in Horsham, in western Victoria, Australia.

Police said the koala was untied and dragged from the roof of the store in the early hours of Sunday morning. Staff found it deflated and stashed under some trees a few hours later.
Acting Inspector Brendan Broadbent said they were still trying to work out who was responsible. "People driving past Harvey Norman in the past couple of weeks would've seen the large inflatable koala over the top of the shop and that was taken and dragged away," he said.
"I'm sure that someone would've seen something because it was approximately a six-meter-high koala, so for people to get up on the roof and take that would've taken some time." It is believed to be worth about $10,000. Anyone with information is being urged to contact Horsham police.

Expert contacted to deal with snake in computer that turned out to be a red and black cable

A snake expert got a call in the middle of the night about a snake trapped in a computer which turned out to be a cable.
Geraint "Snakeman" Hopkins, from Llanelli, West Wales, received the call at around 2.30am last week from a worried man from Cardiff who had contacted South Wales Police. The gentleman had bought the computer in Cardiff and believed there was a snake inside it.
Mr Hopkins said: "They wanted me to go to Cardiff, but I am a volunteer and it was really late so I couldn't get there. I asked them if they could send me a picture instead. After looking at the picture the gentleman said he realized it was actually a red and black lead.
"When I told the police they thought I was joking, and then when they realized I was telling the truth, they couldn't believe it." Mr Hopkins said he gets numerous snake call outs of an unusual nature. "It's not the first time I have had a call like this," he added.

Wildlife experts say rusty bits of tin should be left alone

Rusty bits of tin found in Dorset nature reserves should be left alone, a wildlife charity has urged. They are vital shelters for reptiles and are placed there by researchers counting protected species.

Reptile conservationist Gary Powell said: "If tins are disturbed outside of an official survey then it can affect the results of the research". Disturbing protected species could result in breaking the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations Act.
Conservationists from Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and Dorset Wildlife Trust leave small pieces of tin and sometimes roofing felt at Upton Heath nature reserve in Corfe Mullen. All six native reptiles can be found there.
The smooth snake, adder and grass snake, the common lizard, slow worm and the UK's rarest lizard, the sand lizard. Dorset Wildlife Trust said: "If you spot small pieces of tin or bits of roofing on a nature reserve, please don't lift it up to see reptiles underneath. Did you know you actually need a licence to do this? Anything to disturb them may be breaking the law."

Killer seagull is eating pigeons in London

A killer seagull has been butchering pigeons in Plumstead, south east London, before feasting on their dead bodies. Residents near Plumstead Common claim the violent bird has been picking off an average of four unfortunate pigeons per day.

Aine McGrillen said: "We are trying to figure out if it is just one feral seagull or if this is a group of them. Is this usual seagull behaviour?" She added: "It killed one in Barnfield Gardens car park this morning, then flew off with it in its beak. Imagine if that dropped on your head!

It actually looks like this. (Image contains dead pigeon being eaten by killer seagull.)

"I guess it is just nature doing its survival thing. It is quite tense when you watch it just hanging out with the pigeons, casual as anything and then he picks his mark and swoops in." Other neighbors claimed the bloodthirsty bird has a voracious appetite and has been menacing the bird population for several years, once "munching" through 10 in one night.
Kirsty Wilson said: "It was doing it a couple weeks back and killed about 10 in one night. For 3-5 days every morning when I'd leave for work at 5 I'd see him there, then when I returned still be there, just munching away at the pigeons! Never seen such a sight before." And Emma Ledgerwood added: "It's been doing it for over two years and kills at least four pigeons a day. It's awful to watch for the pigeons' sake but I suppose it's all nature's ways of keeping the population down."

Orphaned tree kangaroo joey saved by being moved into surrogate wallaby mother's pouch

A tree kangaroo joey, which has been saved after being transferred into the pouch of a surrogate wallaby mother, is making its first public appearance at Adelaide Zoo in Australia. Zoo keepers found the joey's mother had been killed by a falling branch in November last year. The joey was too young to be hand reared, which meant the only option available was to try and cross-foster the joey into the pouch of a surrogate wallaby mother. Cross-fostering is a special breeding technique that Adelaide Zoo began pioneering in the 1990s and involves the transfer of joeys to the pouch of a surrogate mother of a different wallaby species.

Adelaide Zoo veterinarian Dr David McLelland said cross-fostering had never been attempted on a tree kangaroo until now. "We've had great success over the years cross-fostering between wallaby species, but the specialized breeding technique has never been used on a tree kangaroo," he said. "Not only are tree kangaroos distant relatives of wallabies, they also have many behavioral and physical differences. We had no idea if the yellow-foot rock-wallaby would accept the tree kangaroo joey, but if we wanted to save the joey we had to try our luck."
The cross-foster procedure to get the tree kangaroo joey to latch onto the new teat ran smoothly and zoo keepers closely monitored the wallaby over the next couple of days to determine if the attempt was successful. Adelaide Zoo team leader of natives Gayl Males said tiny ripples of movement over the following days confirmed the joey was alive and thriving, tucked carefully away in its surrogate mother's pouch. "We were so excited when we confirmed the joey had made it past the first critical 24-hour period," Ms Males said. "We were uncertain as to whether the joey was going to be accepted. This joey was completely different from other joeys in body shape and behavior – it certainly wriggled around more than a wallaby joey."

YouTube link.

The joey, which has been named Makaia, first popped its head out of the pouch at the end of January. Makaia stayed with his surrogate mum for about three and half months, until Ms Males took over caring for him. "He's certainly a cheeky little fellow and loves running amok, testing the boundaries, using my home as his personal playground, climbing on everything, pulling toilet paper off the rolls, but he also loves quiet time cuddling with my husband in the evening while we watch TV," Ms Males said. Adelaide Zoo said it would share its findings with other zoos around the world to help guide breeding efforts for endangered tree kangaroo species and increase the success of internationally coordinated captive breeding programs.

Pirate monkey bit make-up artist on the ear in sneak attack

One of the monkeys used in filming of Pirates of the Caribbean has attacked a make-up artist at Movie World on Australia's Gold Coast.

The 54-year-old woman was on a sound set, which is not related to the film, when she was bitten on the ear at about midday on Tuesday. Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman Steven Burns said the woman was taken to hospital in a stable condition.
He said she told paramedics it was an unprovoked attack. "The monkey had come up from behind the lady and bit her on her right ear," Mr Burns said. "They lady wasn't, we believe, making an attempt to approach the monkey, she was sitting down and it came up to the woman and bit her on the ear. Her bleeding was controlled.
"Fortunately it was not [a serious injury] and we were able to manage it quite well. We believe the monkey was part of the Pirates of the Caribbean film set. But at the time when the monkey bit the lady, it was [on] a different movie set, it was at the Movie World sound stage for a different filming set. It's not related to Pirates of the Caribbean."

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

The Fourth of July ...!

 

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Celebrate ... !

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Today in History

1712		12 slaves are executed for starting a uprising in New York that killed nine whites.
1776		The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, is approved and signed by John Hancock–President of the Continental Congress–and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary. The state of New York abstains from signing.
1817		Construction begins on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
1826		Two of America’s founding fathers–Thomas Jefferson and John Adams–die.
1831		The fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, dies at the age of 73.
1845		Henry David Thoreau begins his 26-month stay at Walden Pond.
1855		Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass at his own expense.
1861		Union and Confederate forces skirmish at Harpers Ferry.
1862		Charles Dodgson first tells the story of Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole during a picnic along the Thames.
1863		The Confederate town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant.
1881		Billy the Kid is shot dead in New Mexico.
1894		After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declares Hawaii a republic.
1895		The poem America the Beautiful is first published.
1901		William H. Taft becomes the American governor of the Philippines.
1910		Race riots break out all over the United States after African American Jack Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
1931		Novelist James Joyce and Nora Barnacle are married in London after being together for 26 years.
1934		Boxer Joe Louis wins his first professional fight.
1946		The United States grants the Philippine Islands their independence.
1960		The 50-star flag makes its debut in Philadelphia.
1976		An Israeli raid at Entebbe airport in Uganda rescues 105 hostages.

World's Laziest Sign Spinner

Have you ever seen a skilled sign spinner on the side of the road performing near-acrobatic stunt with enthusiasm and zeal? Well, this guy is the opposite of that!
My wife and I ran into a sign guy sitting comfortably on a lawn chair reading a book while holding a giant sign to advertise a local business nearby. But he's probably just as effective as the guy who twirls his sign, while expending a fraction of the energy. After all, you can't beat a giant red arrow with the word "Tacos." Those things practically sell themselves!

Meet the Hijab Lolita

Lolita is a fashion style originating in Japan. It features frilly, brightly-colored outfits that look like they might belong on a little girl from the Victorian Era. There are several subsets of this fashion school, including Gothic, Punk, Wa, Pirate, and Witch.
Alyssa Salazar, who lives in southern California, is a fan of Lolita fashion and wears it frequently. She's also a Muslim who wears a hijab, so calls herself The Hijab Lolita. Vice magazine interviewed Salazar about how she blends these two traditions:

Do you ever get creepy comments from men when you're dressed in Lolita?
Actually, no, I haven't yet. I'm waiting for it, though, because I will pepper-spray them. Sometimes people will lift up my friends' skirts to see what's holding it up. My friends told me that this has happened to them. The creepiest thing a guy has said to me is, "Little Bo Peep, where's your sheep?" But it's mostly women, who might say, "That's cute," or try and snap pictures without my permission.
You must get more comments about your scarf then.
I get drive-by haters that say, "Take it off, it's not Iraq." But when I'm in Lolita, it's different. People think it's a costume.

Here are 9 ‘facts’ you know for sure about jesus that are wrong

by Valerie Tarico

jesus has been described as the best known figure in history, and also the least known. If you mentioned the name “jesus” and someone asked jesus who?, you might blink. Or laugh. Even people who don’t think jesus was dog, mostly believe they know a fair bit about him. You might be surprised that some of your most basic assumptions about Jesus are wrong.
We have no record of anything that was written about jesus by eyewitnesses or other contemporaries during the time he would have lived or for decades thereafter, and as best scientists can tell, all physical relics of his life are later fakes. Nonetheless, based on archeological digs and artifacts, ancient texts and art, linguistic patterns, and even forensic science, we know a good deal about the time and culture in which the new testament is set. This evidence points to some basic conclusions about who jesus likely was—and wasn’t.

1. Cropped hair, not long. jewish men at the time of christ did not typically wear their hair long. A Roman triumphal arch of the time period depicts jewish slaves with short hair. In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he addresses male hair length. “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14 NRSV). During the 1960’s wingnut 'christians' quoted this verse to express their disgust against the hippy movement and to label it as anti-christian.
2. Married, not single. In 2012, when an ancient papyrus scrap came to light referring to the wife of jesus (most likely a forgery), some catholics and evangelicals were scandalized at the very thought. But unlike the catholic cult, jews have no tradition of celibacy among religious leaders. Ancient writers documented exceptions like the apostle Paul or the Essene sect precisely because they violated the norm. In the gospels, jesus is called rabbi; and all great rabbis that we know of were married.  A rabbi being celibate would have been so unusual that some modern writers have argued that jesus must have been gay. But a number of ancient texts, including the canonical new testament, point to a special relationship between Mary Magdalene and jesus. For example, the non-canonical gospel of Phillip says, “[jesus] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her [word missing].”
3. Hung on a pole, not necessarily a cross. For centuries scholars have known that the Greek new testament word “stauros,” which gets translated into English as cross, can refer to a device of several shapes, commonly a single upright pole, “torture stake” or even tree. The Romans did not have a standard way of crucifying prisoners, and Josephus tells us that during the siege of Jerusalem soldiers nailed or tied their victims in a variety of positions. Early christians may have centered in on the vertical pole with a crossbeam because it echoed the Egyptian Ankh, a symbol of life,  or simply because it was more artistically and symbolically distinctive than the alternatives. Imagine millions of people wearing a golden pole on a chain around their necks.
4. Short, not tall. The typical jewish man at the time of the Roman Empire was just over five feet tall, which makes this a best guess for the height of jesus. That he is typically depicted taller likely derives from the mental challenge people have in distinguishing physical stature from other kinds of stature. Great men are called “big men” and “larger than life.” In ancient times they often were assigned divine parentage and miraculous births, and the idea that jesus was uniquely divine has created a strong pull over time to depict him as taller than is likely. A good illustration of this is the Shroud of Turin, which is just one of many such jesus-shrouds that circulated during medieval times and which bears the (now reproduced) image of a man closer to six feet in height.
5. Born in a house, not the stable of an inn. The miraculous birth story of jesus is a late, maybe 2nd century addition to the gospels, and consequently it contains many fascinating mythic elements and peculiarities. But the idea that jesus was born in a stable got added to the Xmas story even later. In the original narrative, Joseph and Mary probably would have stayed with relatives, and the phrase “no room for them in the inn (gr: kataluma)” is better translated “no room for them in the upper room.” Later storytellers did not understand that people of the time might bring animals into their ground floor, as in Swiss housebarns, and they assumed that the presence of a manger implied a stable.
6. Named Joshua, not jesus. The name Joshua (in Hebrew Y’hoshuʿa meaning “deliverance” or “salvation”), was common among jews in the Ancient Near East as it is today. Joshua and jesus are the same name, but are translated differently in our modern bible to distinguish jesus from the Joshua of the old testament, who leads the hebrew people to the promised land. In actuality, though, the relationship between the two figures is fascinating and important. Some scholars believe that the new testament gospels are mostly updated retellings of the more ancient Joshua story, remixed with episodes  from stories of Elisha and Elijah and Moses. A modern parallel can be found in the way that Hollywood writers have reworked Shakespearean tropes and plot elements into dozens of modern movies (though for a very different purpose).
7. Number of apostles (12) from astrology, not history. Whether jesus had 12 disciples who ranked above his other devotees is an open question, as their names vary from list to list. Since the gospels echo the story of Joshua, the “12” apostles most immediately mirror the 12 tribes of israel. But the number 12 was considered auspicious by many ancient people, including the israelites, and the 189 repetitions of the number 12 in the bible ultimately may derive from the same pre-historical roots as the 12 signs of the zodiac and 12 months of the year. Astrotheology or star worship preceded the hebrew religion, and shaped both the bible and Western religions more broadly. One might point to the 12 Olympian gods or 12 sons of Odin, or the 12 days of Xmas or 12 “legitimate” successors to the prophet mohammed.
8. Prophecies recalled, not foretold. Even people who aren’t too sure about the divinity of jesus sometimes think that the way he fulfilled prophecies was a bit spooky, like the writings of Nostradamus. In reality, Scooby Doo could solve this one in a single episode with four pieces of information: First, old testament prophecies were well known to 1st century jews, and a messianic figure who wanted to fulfill some of these prophecies could simply do so. For example, in the book of Matthew, jesus seeks a donkey to ride into Jerusalem “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet” (Matthew 21:4). Second, “gospels” are a genre of devotional literature rather than objective histories, which means that the authors had every reason to shape their stories around earlier predictions. Third, scholars now believe that some bible texts once thought to be prophecies (for example in the Book of Revelation) actually relate to events that were past or current at the time of writing. Finally, a psychological phenomenon known as the “Barnum Effect” ensures that those who want to believe in prophecies (or astrology, for that matter) will find amazing coincidences if they look hard enough.
9. Some jesus quotes not from jesus, others uncertain. Lists of favorite jesus sayings abound online. Some of the most popular are the Beatitudes (Blessed are the meek, etc.) or the story of the woman caught in adultery (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone) or the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, which, we are told, sums up the Law and the Prophets.) Which words actually from jesus? This question has been debated fiercely by everyone from 3^rd century catholic covens to the 20^th Century jesus seminar. Even Thomas Jefferson weighed in, but much remains unclear. The new testament gospels were written long after jesus would have died, and no technology existed with which to record his teachings in real time, unless a he wrote them down himself, which he didn’t. We can be confident that at least some of the wise and timeless words and catchy proverbs attributed to jesus are actually from earlier or later thinkers. For example, the Golden Rule was articulated before the time of christ by the Rabbi Hillel the Elder, who similarly said it was the “whole torah.” By contrast, the much loved story of the woman caught in adultery doesn’t appear in manuscripts until the 4^th century. Attributing words (or whole texts) to a famous person was common in the Ancient Near East, because it gave those words extra weight. Small wonder, then, that so many genuinely valuable insights ended up, in one way or another, paired with the name of jesus.

The person of jesus, if indeed there was a single historical rabbi at the root of the 'traditions', is shrouded in the fog of history leaving us only with a set of hunches and traditions that far too often get treated as knowledge. The facts I have listed here are largely trivial; it doesn’t really matter whether jesus was tall or short, or how he cut his hair. But it does matter, tremendously, that facts people claim to know about how Jesus saw himself, and dog and humanity are equally tenuous. In the words of Mark Twain: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
The teachings attributed to jesus mix enduring spiritual and moral insights with irrelevancies and Judaica and bits of Iron Age culture, some of which are truly awful. That leaves each of us, from the privileged vantage of the 21^st century, with both a right and a responsibility to consider the evidence and make our own best guesses about what is real and how we should then live. A good starting place might be a little more recognition that we don’t know nearly as much as we’d like to think, and a lot of what we know for sure is wrong.

California Lawmakers Crack Down On Anti-Vaxxers

Governor Jerry Brown signed new legislation into law on Tuesday.

Here’s How Bigots Are Responding To ‘Rainbowed’ Profile Pics On Facebook

Those “rainbowed” profile pics supporting gay marriage really bother the bigots. They’ve adopted their own “overlay” to show support for hate, and it makes no sense at all.

Read full story

26 million and counting have turned their profiles rainbow - so much for the support for equality being a 'minority' thing as the wingnuts and bigots want you to believe.

Girl Scouts returns $100,000 to bigot

Girl Scouts returns $100,000 after donor demands that it ‘not be used to support transgender girls’

Justice Department Report Says Police Exacerbated Violence In Ferguson

The third of 4 Ferguson reports claims police were at fault last August

Shoplifting woman hid stolen TV under her skirt

A woman has been caught on camera stealing a TV from a department store in Zambia.

The woman can be seen inspecting the TV, before she casually bends down and slides it between her legs under her skirt.
While performing the theft, her friend acts as a lookout.

YouTube link.'Original' Facebook video.

How she managed to keep the TV between her legs remains a mystery, but she slowly wandered out of the store with it nowhere to be seen.

Ghost hunters discovered body in old hospital

Police in Vicksburg, Mississippi, have recovered a body at the old Kuhn Memorial State Hospital. “We found a white female that appears to be in her late 60s with trauma to the head and the body has been sent to Jackson to be processed,” Vicksburg Police Chief Walter Armstrong said on Sunday night.

The body was discovered at around 7pm by a group of ghost hunters. “There was some people over at the hospital ghost hunting and they stumbled upon the body, and they took off and reported it to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office,” Armstrong said.

Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey confirmed the cause of death as homicide, but declined to release the woman’s name. Vicksburg police earlier on Sunday were searching for a 69-year-old Vicksburg woman missing from her house. The house showed signs of a disturbance and police began investigating.
The body was sent to the state crime lab in Jackson for processing and identification. “We’re in the process of trying to identify her,” Armstrong said. “We can not say that the body found at the hospital is her, but this body happens to be that of a white female that matches the description of the woman missing,” Armstrong added.

Detroit EMT worker fired after refusing to help dying 8-month-old girl

Detroit EMT worker fired after refusing to help dying 8-month-old girl

Charged with attending to the aid of a 8-month-old girl who had stopped breathing, Detroit EMT Ann Marie Thomas seemingly did the unthinkable: she refused and stood idly by a block away while she waited for other EMTs to arrive.

Bad Cops

Cop Tases Man And Yells ‘Stop Resisting’ Even Though He’s Clearly Not Resisting

Ryan Hutchinson was tased by police on a train in Illinois for allegedly using “foul language.” Video of the incident is going viral because...

Washington man given less than 2 gallons of water while jailed 13 days over bad check — and now he’s dead

Washington man given less than 2 gallons of water while jailed 13 days over bad check — and now he’s dead

An autopsy showed that Keaton Farris died of dehydration and malnutrition after nearly two weeks in the Island County Jail.

Anthropological Humor

Dying Amazon Healers Take Potential Cures For Cancer, AIDS And Other Diseases With Them

Nowhere on earth is richer in animal and plant species than the Amazon, the most biodiverse ecosystem on Earth.

China Just Made Its Plans To Fight Climate Change Official

The world's three largest carbon polluters have now made commitments ahead of the Paris Summit at the end of 2015.

The Great Wall Is Disappearing

Because so much of the Great Wall is believed to be dilapidated, estimates of how long it stretches range from 13,000 to 5,600 miles.

Catfish on a rope used to damage vehicle

Police in Fremont, Nebraska, responded to a report of criminal mischief on Saturday.

Officers were called at 11am said Lt. Kurt Bottorff of the Fremont Police Department.
Upon arrival, a victim informed police that an unknown person threw a 2-foot-long catfish attached to a rope onto their vehicle's front windshield.
The fish caused an estimated $800 worth of damage.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

The answer is 3 ...!

 

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Today in History

1775		George Washington takes command of the Continental Army.
1790		In Paris, the Marquis of Condorcet proposes granting civil rights to women.
1844		American ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiates a commercial treaty with China.
1863		Confederate forces attack the center of the Union line at Gettysburg, but fail to break it.
1878		John Wise flies the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
1901		The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, commits its last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.
1903		The first cable across the Pacific Ocean is spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.
1944		The U.S. First Army opens a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.
1945		U.S. troops land at Balikpapan and take Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
1950		U.S. carrier-based planes attack airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.
1954		Food rationing ends in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
1962		Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
1967		North Vietnamese soldiers attack South Vietnam’s only producing coal mine at Nong Son.

How to Hold a Baby

(YouTube link)

New Zealander Jordan Watson has a baby, and has classified 17 different ways to hold her. He’s glad to share them with you in this instructional video. He must be doing it right- the baby never hit the ground and never started wailing in terror. My favorite is the Superman.

The Richest Have Claimed More Of The Country’s Income Than They Did In The Roaring 1920s

Income inequality got even worse last year despite some recovery for the bottom 99 percent.

‘Antonin Scalia is a Douche’ brunch special sells out in record time

Philly diner’s ‘Antonin Scalia is a Douche’ brunch special sells out in record time

A Philadelphia diner’s topically titled menu items were such a hit with customers this past weekend, the restaurant couldn’t keep up with demand.

Captive virgins, polygamy and sex slaves

What marriage would look like if we actually followed the bible

The bible delusionists are beside themselves about the prospect that marriage norms and laws are changing, but let me tell you a secret about bible delusionists - most don’t actually read their bibles.

Fox News Hack Calls Women A 'Biological Accident' To Argue Against Correcting Gender Bias

A Fox News hack argued this past weekend that a college professor was trying to correct gender bias just because a "biological accident" had made her into a woman.

Why racism is not backed by science

Why racism is not backed by science

As we harvest ever more human genomes one fact remains unshakeable: race does not exist

How evolutionary psychology may explain the difference between male and female serial killers

How evolutionary psychology may explain the difference between male and female serial killers

Researchers such as psychologist Marvin Zuckerman have long noted the morbid curiosity of humans; there’s just something about horror and terror that captures our attention.

Police officer seen stuck in his patrol car window

A Texas Department of Public Safety officer was spotted while stuck in the driver's side window of his patrol vehicle in Edinburg.

He was seen waving his legs about desperately trying to break free.
It's unclear what happened to the officer during the incident that happened on June 19.

YouTube link.

The Texas Department of Public Safety did not respond to a request for comment.

Couple's $1.7million life insurance scam went astray when man refused to jump in front of train

Esther Maree Vella had a $700,000 debt on her property in Strathfield, Sydney, Australia, she was determined to be rid of. So she concocted a plan in which her long-suffering partner Peter Siskos would increase his life insurance to $1.723 million, name her as the sole beneficiary, and then commit suicide. But the plan backfired spectacularly when Siskos, a 49-year-old security guard "chickened out" of throwing himself in front of a train. Instead, he disappeared from work and slept rough for a week-and-a-half until he was spotted in a Burwood Park. Several people then came forward to police to say Vella, a 51-year-old school teacher and boarding house owner, had let slip details about the macabre plan. Vella and Siskos were charged under the common law of conspiring with each other to defraud an insurance company, OnePath.

The Crown case was that Vella and Siskos deliberately omitted to inform OnePath of Siskos' intention to commit suicide despite knowing they had a duty of disclosure when taking out the policy. The couple pleaded not guilty but were convicted by a District Court jury in October 2013. Vella was sentenced to six-and-a-half years' jail with a non-parole period of four years and nine months, while Siskos was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of 15 months. Vella and Siskos appealed their convictions and sentences. Last week the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the appeals, noting the case was "extremely unusual". During the trial the jury heard the couple had been in a "tumultuous relationship" since 1989, characterized by Vella's utter domination of Siskos. Several witnesses testified Vella repeatedly said Siskos was to blame for her financial situation and she "wished he was dead".
In March 2010 she told a woman renting a room in a boarding house she owned in Cabarita that Siskos "should kill himself to pay for the debt". The boarder was so alarmed she made contemporaneous notes of the conversation, which she later provided to police. Vella also told friends and acquaintances she was due to receive a large amount of money from an inheritance from her family in Malta. The Crown said this was to cover the money she expected to receive after Siskos committed suicide. The policy was taken out in July 2010. In October 2011, shortly after the 13-month suicide preclusion period expired, Siskos didn't show up for work. He was reported missing 10 days later. The following day he was found, looking disheveled, in Burwood Park.
Questioned by police, Siskos said he'd been "riding the trains". He denied intending to harm himself or having discussed collecting on his insurance policy. The following day, one of Vella's tenants, Tony Appleby, went to police and confessed to helping Vella destroy incriminating evidence. He agreed to meet Vella wearing a listening device and police recorded a conversation in which they discussed suicide involving a train, destruction of incriminating evidence and her lost opportunity to claim an insurance payout. "So what happened to Peter, he just chickened out, did he?" Mr Appleby asked. "Yeah … he's always been a coward," Vella replied. Siskos continued to deny the conspiracy at trial and even carried out work at Vella's boarding houses while he was on bail and she was on remand. However the jury, and subsequently the Appeals Court, found the case proven beyond reasonable doubt. Siskos will be eligible for parole on July 3.

Man arrested after living for months with his mother's decaying corpse on couch

A Florida man is in jail after deputies discovered his mother's months-old remains on his living room couch, according to a Sheriff's Office arrest report. On May 13, a deputy was dispatched to a residence in Pace to check on the welfare of 81-year-old Joyce Willis.

Willis' son, Michael Eugene Sticken, 60, had reportedly been rebuffing family members' attempts to call or visit his mother since January. When the deputy arrived at the residence he immediately noticed a foul odor. Upon entering the house, he found two couches pushed together with blankets piled on top.
Under the blankets, the deputy found a female who was so badly decomposed as to be unrecognizable. The Medical Examiner's Office estimated that Willis' had been dead for between one and four months at the time of her discovery. The Medical Examiner's Office is working to determine her cause of death. In an interview with deputies, Sticken said he had not been responsible for his mother's death, calling her "his best friend," the report said.
By reviewing bank records, investigators found that Sticken had been making withdrawals from a joint bank account he shared with his mother. The only deposits made since January were Willis' monthly $1,400 Social Security payments, all of which had been withdrawn by Sticken. Investigators found significant cause to charge Sticken with grand theft and failure to report a death. He was booked into Santa Rosa County Jail on Thursday morning on $6,000 bond.