Sikhs post sign reminding bigots they aren’t Muslims in the wake of anti-Muslim backlash

Sikhs post sign reminding bigots they aren’t Muslims in the wake of anti-Muslim backlash

70-year-old man becomes town’s first black Santa 50 years after cops detained him for wearing costume

70-year-old man becomes town’s first black Santa 50 years after cops detained him for wearing costume

Texas authorities fear ‘affluenza’ teen who killed 4 and got probation may have fled country

Texas authorities fear ‘affluenza’ teen who killed 4 and got probation may have fled country

He's 18 years old, but the wealthy Tarrant County teen who killed four people when he drove drunk in 2013 is still a juvenile as far as the legal system is concerned.

‘Pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli arrested on federal securities fraud charges

‘Pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli arrested on federal securities fraud charges

The 32-year-old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG became known as the most hated man on the Internet after buying the rights to a life-saving medication and jacking up the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Off-duty NYC cop attacks lesbian couple for no reason — and then lies to get them arrested

Off-duty NYC cop attacks lesbian couple for no reason — and then lies to get them arrested

A Brooklyn woman said a New York City police officer hurled homophobic slurs before attacking her and falsely arresting her.

Shoe

Is mental illness contagious?

Is mental illness contagious?

Philosophers and literary scholars can choose to interpret facts within “the most convincing perspectives, assumptions and causal frameworks,” as Harriet A. Washington explains in the opening chapter of her latest book, Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We Catch Mental Illness.

Turns out cancer isn’t just a big game of chance

Turns out cancer isn’t just a big game of chance

New research from Stony Brook University in New York suggests that only 10 to 30 percent of cancer is influenced by matters completely out of our hands. The remaining 70 to 90 percent are the result of environmental factors or behavioral choices.

Ziggy

Can We Eat Meat and Still Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

Can We Eat Meat and Still Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

The Seaweed Harvesting Horses of Prince Edward Island

Irish moss is a cash crop that grows wild in the waters off Prince Edward Island, Canada. When storms uproot it and send it washing into the surf, farmers hook up horses to dredges and scoop it up. Brian Barth describes the process in Modern Farmer. He talked to 60-year old Joe Dorgan, a lifelong resident of the island:

I asked Dorgan what I thought was an obvious question: Why horses? When the tradition started on PEI in the 1930s, draft horses were still commonly used in agriculture, so it makes sense that their strength would be harnessed to pull heavy clumps of seaweed ashore. But surely a more efficient mechanized approach would have been devised by the time the industry hit its peak in the ’70ss. Dorgan’s answer wasn’t particularly scientific: “The horses don’t mind the water, and they’re good workers, and that’s just been the way it was,” he says. “Our ancestors done it that way and it’s still done that way today.”
I suspect that the problems associated with using motorized machinery in saltwater, like accelerated rust and corrosion, may have been a practical obstacle. But perhaps the industry was never big enough to warrant R&D investment anyways—a $6 million industry can hardly be called an industry.

Pups Joyfully Unwrapping Their Xmas Gifts

YouTube Link

As it turns out, the dogs in my family aren't the only ones with a habit of ripping open their wrapped gifts (although these dogs don't appear to be sneaking them out from under the tree early, as ours do). This compilation of dogs vigorously tearing the wrapping paper off of gifts with joyful abandon and their obvious pleasure in finding the toys inside makes for lighthearted, amusing viewing.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.

Our twenty-first Xmas Tree of the month ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 205 countries around the world daily.   

  
Blessed Yule ... !

Today is - Yule

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Brazil - Canada - Chile - Colombia - Costa Rica - Ecuador -  Mexico - Nicaragua - Puerto Rico
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Sint Eustatius and Saba - United States - Venezuela
Europe
Austria - Belarus - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - England - France - Georgia - Germany  Hungary - Italy - Latvia - Malta - Netherlands - Poland - Portugal - Romania - Russia - San Marino  Scotland - Serbia - Slovenia - Spain - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Bangladesh - India - Lebanon - Mauritius - Palestine - Saudi Arabia
Africa
Djibouti - Morocco - South Africa
The Pacific
Australia - New Zealand - Philippines

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

Today in History

68		Vespian, a gruff-spoken general of humble origins, enters Rome and is named emperor by the Senate.
1620		The Pilgrims land at or near Plymouth Rock.
1708		French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John’s.
1790		Samuel Slater opens the first cotton mill in the United States (in Rhode Island).
1862		The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
1866		Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.
1910		Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China.
1928		President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill.
1944		German troops surround the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne in Belgium.
1945		General George S. Patton dies at the age of 60 after being injured in a car accident.
1946		An earthquake and tidal wave kill hundreds in Japan.
1963		The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution.
1964		Great Britain’s House of Commons votes to ban the death penalty.
1965		Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards.
1969		American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada.
1986		500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai’s People’s Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press.
1988		Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. All 259 passengers were killed in the explosion caused by a bomb– hidden inside an audio cassette player — that detonated inside the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. A shower of airplane parts falling from the sky also killed 11 Lockerbie residents.
1994		Popocatepetl, a volcano in Mexico spews forth gases and ash after nearly a half-century of dormancy.
1995		The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
2004		A suicide bomber attacks the forward operating base next to the US military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, killing 22 people; it is the deadliest suicide attack on US soldiers during the Iraq War.

No Sequitur

Forget the Gingerbread House ...

This is the Age of the Pizza House!

Carrie Dennis of Thrillist recalls a fond childhood memory of Xmas: every year, her mother would make an elaborate gingerbread house—a task that would take 3 full days. That was great, Dennis affirms, “But I am not my mother.” So she built a pizza house using plain cheese pizzas and a wide array of traditional toppings.

You can read the complete instructions at Thrillist (warning: foul language).

Neighborhood Puts Decoy Packages on Doorsteps to Deter Thieves

It's a simple and common crime: a parcel delivery serivce leaves a package on the doorstep of a home for the resident. A thief drives by, jumps out of his car, grabs the package, and runs.
That's how your Christmas presents get stolen.
This crime has frustrated residents of the Daybreak community of South Jordan, Utah. They've come up with a clever solution: they put fake packages on their doorsteps. The boxes are filled with junk or rocks. When the thieves open their loot, they find that they've wasted their time. Kroger Menzer, a resident of Daybreak, explained the strategy to KSL News:

"The goal isn't to catch them in the act, that's for the police," said Menzer. "The goal is to make it confusing and frustrating. So they come and steal a box, and they get home and it's a bunch of rocks, there's a good chance that they're probably not going to come back to steal another box."

It's a strategy that works best when a large number of residents--ideally most of them--are participating.

Wingnut NY terrorist who plotted to kill Muslims with radiation gets 8 years in prison

Wingnut NY terrorist who plotted to kill Muslims with radiation gets 8 years in prison

A man accused of acquiring a device intended to kill Muslim people with radiation will spend eight years in prison, CBS News reports. Eric Feight, 57, of upstate New York, was arrested in 2013 along with Glendon Scott Crawford, and both were charged with providing material support to terrorists.

Live report on bank robbery interrupted when suspect runs by

Live report on bank robbery interrupted when suspect runs by

An Unbelievable Story Of Rape

Was she or wasn't she? 
A real-life detective story.

Hollywood's First Gay Marriage

In another excerpt from Karina Longworth's outstanding podcast You Must Remember This, about "the secret and forgotten history of 20th-century Hollywood," the story of actor William Haines is discussed.

Widely regarded as the first openly gay movie star in Hollywood, the article explores truth and fiction surrounding the legend that Haines was fired by Louis B. Mayer for refusing to abandon his male partner and marry a studio-suggested female ingénue. From the article:

"From 1926 to 1931, thanks to hits like Brown of Harvard and Tell It to the Marines, Billy Haines was ranked as one of the Top 10 box office stars in Hollywood. By 1929, his studio boss, MGM’s Irving Thalberg, was holding up Haines as both the prototypical symbol of male youth of his day, and also the new model of a male romantic star. “The idealistic love of a decade ago is not true today,” Thalberg said. “William Haines, with his modern salesman attitude to go and get it, is more typical.”

By the time Thalberg made that speech, he and everyone else in the Hollywood community knew that Haines was, for all intents and purposes, married to a man. In 1926, on a trip to New York while on the cusp of his superstardom, Haines had a whirlwind fling with a 21-year-old former sailor names Jimmy Shields. When Haines returned to L.A., he brought Shields with him, and moved his new boyfriend into his house and got him work as an extra at MGM. Following the example of his friends from his days in New York’s Greenwich Village, Billy was intent on living with Jimmy without embarrassment or apology.

That Haines was living openly with another man, thereby destroying any possibility that he might not be gay, initially did absolutely nothing to impact Haines’ popularity around town or at his home studio. They were one of the few couples to make it into Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst’s inner circle, meriting invitations to San Simeon nearly weekly. And the local movie press knew, too, but nobody had any incentive to publish an exposé about it or anything. If any journalist had, he would have been frozen out of MGM for the rest of time. And at this point in time, as long as they weren’t hurting anybody, which they weren’t, nobody cared. Sometimes Billy would get asked a softball question about his love life, which he was always able to deflect with a wisecrack. Journalist and subject would wink at each other, the actor would be classified in print as an eligible or confirmed bachelor, and everyone would move on." 

Continue reading the story of William Haines at Slate.

"Star Wars" Music Makes Colonoscopies More Effective

Dr. Said S.M. Ardalan and his colleagues at Austin Health in Melbourne, Australia conducted a study about the effectiveness of colonoscopies at detecting polyps. For the Value of Audio Devices in the Endoscopy Room (VADER) study, they played music while examining patients. They hypothesized that Star Wars music would be superior to other compositions. The authors write in the Medical Journal of Australia:

The soundtracks from such movies often contain uplifting musical tracks associated with glory, success and large-scale victory. Given we are avid fans of the Star Wars movies (Lucasfilm Ltd), and with the imminent release of the latest instalment, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we felt it would be important and timely to evaluate the effect of music from the Star Wars soundtrack in colonoscopy. Therefore, we hypothesised that Star Wars music (SWM) would be superior to endoscopist-selected popular music (PM) when measuring quality outcomes in colonoscopy

Their research validated their hypothesis. But why?

As Star Wars fans, we must suspect that the Force was also involved, enhancing our Force-sensitive abilities to detect polyps, despite an overall more hostile luminal environment. Akin to Luke Skywalker’s destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV A New A Hope, despite being pursued by Darth Vader and TIE fighters, we trusted the Force to guide us through the murky colonic waters to locate and destroy polyps.

When "Return of the Jedi" Was Stolen at Gunpoint

My, how things have changed since 1983. That was the year Return of the Jedi hit theaters, and the year that Larry Dewayne Riddick, Jr. decided to make a fortune by stealing the film and selling it to bootleggers who would copy it to newly-popular VHS tapes for profit.

Riddick, 18, stood in the parking lot of the Glenwood Theaters in Overland Park, Kans. and watched as John J. Smith exited the building. Smith was the projectionist; Jedi was finishing its sixth week as the most popular film attraction in the country. It was after midnight. As Smith walked to his car, Riddick came up beside him and flashed a gun. He had come for the movie.

Smith told him roughly 20 people were still inside the theater. Riddick stewed in Smith’s car for 20 minutes, waiting for the last patron to leave. Once inside, he forced Smith to unspool the 70mm film print from the large metal canisters and into a series of portable containers. It took over an hour.

Riddick was far from the only one with the idea of stealing Return of the Jedi from a theater. Read how that case, and others, turned out at mental_floss.

Reasons Why "Star Wars" Spaceships Make No Sense

Practically every movie we see requires the audience to suspend disbelief in one respect or another. In what they call "an exercise in overthinking a great sci-fi series," Popular Mechanics deconstructs some of the spaceships in the Star Wars franchise, pointing out flaws in design. For instance, here's what the author has to say about the TIE Fighter:

Mainstay of the Galactic Empire's fighter force, the TIE fighter is a pretty menacing aircraft. The Twin Ion Engine (TIE) fighter has two such engines—somewhere—and like a World War II Stuka attack plane makes a menacing screeching noise as it passes by.

The biggest drawback of the TIE fighter are the flat panels on both sides that make it look like an eyeball suspended between two playing cards. This is a large vertical surface area that seemingly serves no purpose—except to be a large aiming point for Rebel Alliance fighters. 

Another problem with the panels is they restrict pilot visibility. The F-16 Viper has excellent visibility, thanks to a bubble canopy with the pilot in the center. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has poor visibility, but the Distributed Aperture System helmet is expected to help the pilot "see" 360 degrees. 

The poor TIE fighter pilot on the other hand has two large panels on both sides of him, preventing him from seeing anything more than perhaps a 50 degree cone in front of him. He would be unable see other TIE fighters flying abreast of him, or even in a staggered formation—unless he had a Distributed Aperture System helmet, too.

Read about four more Star Wars spaceships that Popular Mechanics picks bones with here.

100 Years of Toys

The latest in Mode’s 100 Years series is a look at the hot toys for Christmas. While the oldest toys are indeed classic, they were all new and innovative at one time. Even though I was a child in the 1960s, I remember getting Tinker Toys, and a doll house, and a top, and the Mr. Potato Head features that you used on your own vegetables.

(YouTube link)

One thing I wanted, but never got, was a Barbie doll. That’s possibly because I never came out and asked for one. Oh well. Which of these toys do you recall from your childhood?

Light up Seesaws

Luminothérapie is an annual event at the Quartier des Spectacles in Montreal. It is a celebration of light at night. The firms Lateral Office, CS Design, and the EGP Group offer this contribution called Impulsion. 30 giant seesaws with lights and speakers activate when one person sits on each end. Totter back and forth to emit mesmerising displays of light and sound. They're on display until January 31, 2016.
You can see a video of these wondrous seesaws in action here.

It’s Still Illegal to Wear a Suit of Armor inside the British Parliament

But that may change. A British government task force is looking through 44,000 pieces of legislation, some dating back to the 13th Century, to identify obsolete laws for Parliament to eliminate. Among them are laws about wearing armor inside the Houses of Parliament and beating rugs outside. Stephen Castle writes in the New York Times:

Over the centuries, rules have piled up to penalize those who fire a cannon within 300 yards of a dwelling and those who beat a carpet in the street — unless the item can be classified as a doormat and it is beaten before 8 a.m.

The commission has also debunked many popular myths about laws that are allegedly still on the books:

The commission has found no evidence, for example, of any law stating that, in the city of Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public except while working as a clerk in a tropical fish store.
Nor is it true that a man may urinate in public, providing he does so against the rear-passenger-side wheel of his vehicle, with his right hand placed upon it.

Bejing’s Air Pollution Is So Bad, The Chinese Are Buying ‘Fresh’ Rocky Mountain Air In A Can

No, this is absolutely not an Onion article but you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is.

Read more 

Abandoned Old Cult Turned into Beautiful Mural-Covered Skate Park

An architect named Manuel del Busto designed the majestic old cult in 1912. It gracefully served the community for decades. But for many years afterward, the Cult of Santa Barbara in Llanera, Asturia, Spain had been abandoned.
It's found new life and a new purpose, thanks to artist Okuda San Miguel and Red Bull. The interior is covered with fractal murals of abstract forms, human faces, animals, and skulls. It's an eruption of color that caps a skateboarding pipe in what is now called El Kaos Temple. You can see more photos at Design Boom.

Mommy Frog Covered with Baby Frogs

American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists)This beautiful maternal scene suggests that little frogs are erupting out of a larger frog, like the chestbursters in Alien. Your warm fuzzies of the day are courtesy of the Cryptobatarchus boulengeri, a frog species that lives near freshwater sources from California to Colombia. Mommy Cryptobatarchus likes to carry her babies on her back until they're ready to leave home.

Hop the Kangaroo and His Cat Friend

YouTube Link

These two clips, uploaded by YouTube user P Ces, present playtime adventures between their pet kangaroo Hop and their cat. It looks like the two animals are well acquainted, even friendly. Yet there's only so much a cat can take from this exuberant marsupial.
In the clip above, the cat goes from tolerant to crabby to gone. After the cat escapes his attention, Hop's expression says "What? Was it something I did?" In the video below, the kitty patiently endures Hop's good natured ear grooming.

YouTube Link

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.

Our twentieth Xmas Tree of the month ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 205 countries around the world daily.   

  
Let the games begin ... !

Today is - Games Day

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Brazil - Canada - Colombia - Ecuador - Mexico - Nicaragua - Puerto Rico 
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Sint Eustatius and Saba - United States
Europe
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - England - France - Germany - Greece - Hungary - Italy 
Latvia - Netherlands - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Romania - Russia - San Marino - Scotland  Serbia - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Bangladesh - China - India - Indonesia - Lebanon - Mauritius - Saudi Arabia
Africa
Djibouti - Morocco - South Africa
The Pacific
Australia

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

Today in History

69		Vespians’s supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
1355		Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople.
1802		The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
1860		South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861		English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the “Trent Affair” is not settled without war.
1924		Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
1930		Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
1933		The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
1938		First electronic television system is patented.
1941		The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming.
1943		Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad.
1946		Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi.
1948		U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
1960		National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam.
1962		In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
1963		Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
1989		U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara.
1995		NATO begins peacekeeping operation in Bosnia.
1996		NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS X.
2007		Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch in the history of the UK; previously, that honor belonged to Queen Victoria.

12 Grooming Products You Should Steal From Your Wife

12 Grooming Products You Should Steal From Your Wife

Don’t avoid her side of the medicine cabinet

Police officers recognized for saving elderly lady who had been trapped in sofa bed for 12 hours

An 84-year-old woman was saved from within the clutches of her sofa bed thanks to two San Francisco Police officers. Officers McFall and Cuthbertson, from Richmond Stations Midnight Watch, give regular check-ups on the woman, who lives by herself and has no family in the area.

Having not seen or heard from the woman since taking her a Thanksgiving dinner, the officers decided it was time for a check-up. However, on that particular night the woman did not answer the door though the officers could heard her inside faintly calling out to them, police said.
“They got into the house and found that the woman’s sofa bed frame had cracked causing her to fall through and become stuck,” officials said. The woman had apparently been trapped in the sofa for more than 12 hours, police said. “If the officers had not checked on her, she might have been stuck until her weekly home help visit which was still four days away,” police said.
The woman was taken to the hospital to recover. While at the hospital the next day, she called SFPD dispatch because she needed her glasses, address book and cell phone from home and had no one else to get them. The officers happily got the items and delivered them to her hospital room. Richmond District Captain Simon Silverman said: "I want to recognise Officer Cuthbertson and Officer McFall for their caring and dedication."

The U.S. Is Much Closer to Becoming a Fascist State Than Anyone Could Have Ever Imagined

Why the U.S. Is Much Closer to Becoming a Fascist State Than Anyone Could Have Ever Imagined

Malala Yousafzai slams Trump

Malala Yousafzai slams Trump: His idea to ban Muslim immigration is ‘full of hatred’

Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai condemned Donald Trump’s views on Muslims on Tuesday, at a somber ceremony to remember the 134 children killed in a Taliban attack on a Pakistani school a year ago.

What It's Like to Be a Muslim Woman in the U.S. Right Now

What It's Like to Be a Muslim Woman in the U.S. Right Now

"Even after September 11th, I’ve never felt as much hatred as I have these past few weeks."

Professor suspended for wearing hijab fires back at 'christian' college: ‘Faith, hope, and love. These remain’

Professor suspended for wearing hijab fires back at 'christian' college: ‘Faith, hope, and love. These remain’

A 'christian' college professor was suspended by the evangelical college where she works after she decided to wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslims.

Indian-American woman visited by police after asking to buy AR-15 ammo at Dick’s Sporting Goods

Indian-American woman visited by police after asking to buy AR-15 ammo at Dick’s Sporting Goods

An Indian-American woman said she was questioned by California police after she asked to buy some ammunition for her AR-15 rifle.

Warrant issued for ‘affluenza’ teen Ethan Couch

Warrant issued for ‘affluenza’ teen Ethan Couch

Couch and his mother, with whom he is living, have been out of contact with his juvenile probation officer for the last "several days," attorneys Reagan Wynn and Scott Brown said in an emailed statement.

Woman who escaped custody found in elderly couple's home wearing the husband's pajamas

A 72-year-old woman from Deltona, Florida, got quite a surprise on Sunday morning after she found a strange woman in her house wearing her husband's pajamas. It wasn’t her husband’s secret lover, as it turned out. It was 22-year-old Eryn Rice, who decided to hole up in the house while hiding from deputies that she escaped from earlier that morning while being handcuffed for shoplifting, according to Gary Davidson of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Rice took the opportunity to wash her clothes in the couple's washing machine, take a shower, and slip into a pair of flannel pajamas, Davidson said.

Now, rather than just facing shoplifting charges, Rice faces a long list of criminal charges that include retail theft, resisting an officer with violence, battery on a law-enforcement officer, giving a false name, escape, burglary and petty theft, according to Davidson. Deputies also arrested an accomplice who was driving Rice’s getaway car, the Sheriff’s Office said. The entire incident began shortly before 6:30am when Rice was seen shoplifting several hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics from a CVS Pharmacy, Davidson said. Before she exited the store, her accomplice, 25-year-old John Willey, realised deputies spotted him in his car and drove off, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
A deputy apprehended Rice as she left the store and got one handcuff on her left wrist, but she became combative, spun around, shoved the deputy to the ground, and took off running, according to the Sheriff’s Office report. Deputies first checked Willey’s house, but Rice wasn’t there. Later, just before 11:30am, the 72-year-old couple flagged down deputies and asked if they were looking for a woman. The couple explained that after the husband left to play golf that morning, the wife found a strange woman in the house wearing her husband’s pyjamas. She called her husband and demanded an explanation. When he came home, the husband insisted that he wasn’t having an affair with the intruder and had never seen her before.
The couple agreed to drive Rice to a residence less than a mile away, the Sheriff’s Office report said. Later, the couple found one of Rice’s socks and a pair of panties in their washing machine. Deputies returned to the home where she'd been dropped off in time to see Willey driving off, according to Davidson. Willey was trying to hide Rice, who was hiding on the floor of his vehicle, Davidson said. Both were arrested. In addition to the other charges, Rice was also arrested on a warrant out of Osceola County for a probation violation associated with a grand-theft charge. Willey was charged with being an accessory after-the-fact to robbery and harbouring an escaped prisoner. Deputies later found the discarded handcuffs that Rice managed to slip out of, not far from the CVS, the Sheriff’s Office said. Davidson said they also found two syringes on Rice and another one, which contained methamphetamine residue, in the car. Rice is in custody on $44,000 bail, while Willey is being held on $20,000 bail.

Business consultant-turned-college president apologizes for saying unprepared professors should be shot

Business consultant-turned-college president apologizes for saying unprepared professors should be shot

In a conversation with a school librarian who has been critical of his hiring, school President Bruce Harreld said, that any professor who enters his or her classroom unprepared to teach “should be shot.”

Corrupt cop guilty of tipping off crooks will get 'lifetime' health care -- thanks to secret 'golden parachute'

Corrupt cop guilty of tipping off crooks will get 'lifetime' health care -- thanks to secret 'golden parachute'

Florida cop brandishes gun after another customer tells him to stop hassling Applebee’s waitress

Florida cop brandishes gun after another customer tells him to stop hassling Applebee’s waitress

A Florida man became enraged and used his gun to threaten another customer who asked him to stop acting like a jerk at an Applebee’s restaurant.

Aging warps our perception of time

Study finds that aging warps our perception of time

Much like trying to watch a video with the audio out of sync, older adults may have difficulty combining the stimuli they see and hear, and it could have implications for rapid decision-making tasks such as driving, according to new research. A recent study from the...

People Who Curse Have Better Fucking Vocabularies

If you curse, science has some fucking amazing news for you!
Read more 

Why Do We Have Nightmares?

Why Do We Have Nightmares?

While they're more common for children, 85 percent of adults report having had nightmares at some time. What causes these not-so-sweet dreams?

Humans Sleep Less Than Any Other Primate

Do you miss the days when we lived in trees, ate fresh fruit, and slept whenever we wanted? We can't go back to last week, but we can make lifestyle choices now. Perhaps they will be informed by the results of a new study published in Evolutionary Anthropology. The authors discovered that among all primates, humans sleep the least. Esther Inglis-Arkell explains at Gizmodo:

[...] humans get about seven hours of sleep per night. That’s less than half the time that animals like mouse lemurs devote to sleeping. Some primates sleep up to 17 hours a day. And it holds true in both highly technological societies and those that steer clear of technology and keep to cycles of natural light.

We do, however, dream more than other primates:

When humans do sleep, they’re in REM (random eye movement) sleep for about 25% of the time. REM sleep is associated with dreams. Although other primates may dream, researchers estimate that they spend only about five percent of their time in REM sleep.

Why are we different? Perhaps in our evolutionary development, we found that sleep deprived us of social interaction and exposed us to threats:

According to the study authors, once humans moved from the trees to the ground, there were probably three main selective pressures keeping them awake: “increased predation risk in terrestrial environments, threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction.”