Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Monday, April 3, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Hi, Ho, Silver - Wait that's another show all together ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in History
| 628 | In Persia, Kavadh sues for peace with the Byzantines. | |
| 1367 | John of Gaunt and Edward the Black Prince win the Battle of Najera, in Spain. | |
| 1559 | Philip II of Spain and Henry II of France sign the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, ending a long series of wars between the Hapsburg and Valois dynasties. | |
| 1860 | The Pony Express connects St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. | |
| 1862 | Slavery is abolished in Washington, D.C. | |
| 1865 | Union forces occupy the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. | |
| 1882 | The American outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back and killed by his cousin, Bob Ford. | |
| 1910 | Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America is climbed. | |
| 1920 | F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre are married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. | |
| 1936 | Bruno Hauptmann, killer of the Lindbergh baby, is executed. | |
| 1942 | The Japanese begin their all-out assault on the U.S. and Filipino troops at Bataan. | |
| 1944 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules that black citizens are eligible to vote in all elections, including primaries. | |
| 1948 | President Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan. It will revive war-torn Europe. | |
| 1966 | Three-thousand South Vietnamese Army troops lead a protest against the Ky regime in Saigon. | |
| 1972 | Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States after a twenty-year absence. | |
| 1984 | Coach John Thompson of Georgetown University becomes the first African-American coach to win an NCAA basketball tournament. |
College league ends North Carolina boycott after bathroom law revoked
Amber Heard is a victim of 'sexploitation'
by Ishani Roy
"The Danish Girl" actress Amber Heard claimed Thursday that she is
a victim of "sexploitation" as a nude body double was allegedly used in
the upcoming movie "London Fields" without her approval. The movie has
explicit sex scenes in which Heard is seen, however, it is not her who
has shot for those scenes, according to reports.Heard filmed for "London Fields," a movie based on Martin Amis' novel by the same name, in which she plays a clairvoyant. The movie has been facing troubles and has not been able to get a smooth release. It was due to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 but failed to do so after a legal row between the director and producers. In November 2016, producer Christopher Hanley and the production company Nicola Six sued Heard for $10 million over breach of contract after she allegedly did not “perform certain acting services," which included a couple of nude scenes as well. Among the allegations, Hanley also said last year that Heard did not comply with her publicity contract that required her to attend the 2015 Toronto Film Festival premiere of the film, BBC reported.
However, Heard and her attorney responded in court Thursday against both Hanley and the movie's screenwriter, his wife Roberta Hanley.
"Amber Heard is the latest victim of this lascivious and sexploitive couple," Heard's lawyer said in the cross-complaint. "After reading the script, she insisted on specific restrictions about nudity and sex scenes in the film as a condition to agreeing to appear in the Movie. [Christopher]...expressly agreed to Heard's terms, and they were memorialized in the Nudity Rider to her contract," the lawyer said, according to E! Online. The cross-complaint also said that the Hanleys secretly filmed several additional nude and sex scenes with a body double for Heard and included them in the "Producer’s Cut."
Meanwhile, the original complaint filed by the production company, Nicola Six, alleged that Heard “falsely claimed to Nicola Six that she had not contractually agreed to allow the use of nudity in the Picture," according to People.
Houston doctors facing deportation by immigration officials
by Sherley Boursiquot
Two Indian doctors living and working in Houston were threatened with
deportation by immigration officials on Thursday after their travel
documents expired due to a technical error with their paperwork. The
duo, also married with two small children, were later given a temporary,
90-day reprieve so they could sort out paperwork that would enable them
to continue to live and work in the country legally as they have tons
of patients who are due for surgery in the coming weeks.Dr. Pankaj Satija and his wife Dr. Monika Ummat are both neurologists who have been living in the U.S. for more than a decade. They came to the U.S. to fulfill their medical residencies, the Houston Chronicle reported.
"I have 50 patients today and 40 patients tomorrow," Dr. Pankaj Satija told the Chronicle. "I'm just concerned they'll be left in a lurch. They could land up in the emergency room."
When the couple was coming back from visiting Satija’s sick father in India in October, they were stopped by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in George Bush Intercontinental Airport
because their travel documents had come to an end, the Times of India reported. CBP still stamped their travel documents to expire in June of this year, but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services records indicated their documents expired in June 2016.
CBP told the couple that it was "a common mistake," and they could still enter the country temporarily to fix the discrepancy while they waited for permanent residency papers.
"The officer looked at it and said it's a common mistake, that it was no big deal," Satija said.
However, Wednesday, Satija and his wife were told by immigration officials they had 24 hours to leave the U.S. due to a new policy that could no longer extend their temporary stay. As they were about to board a plane back to India on Thursday, they were granted a 90-day extension on humanitarian grounds.
"These are not tough decisions. These are not criminals, not a threat to society. It’s just the rigidity of the system…and instead of trying to work with people, the new administration is just trying to force them out, no matter what," the couple’s lawyer, Gordan Quan, told the Chronicle.
Satija is set to perform surgery Tuesday to remove hardware from a woman's spine.
Upon stealing office, Dumbass Trump shrieked about a crackdown on immigration and signed executive orders that called for a drastic increase of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Protecting the American people is the highest priority of our government and this department," the U.S. Department Of Homeland Security website says.
Iowa Wingnuts Reverse Existing Minimum Wage Hikes and Ban Future Increases
Sunday, April 2, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Ah, the staples ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in History
| 1792 | The United States authorizes the minting of the $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle & 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins as well as the silver dollar, dollar, quarter, dime & half-dime. | |
| 1796 | Haitian revolt leader Toussaint L’Ouverture takes command of French forces at Santo Domingo. | |
| 1801 | The British navy defeats the Danish at the Battle of Copenhagen. | |
| 1865 | Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees Richmond, Virginia as Grant breaks Lee’s line at Petersburg. | |
| 1910 | Karl Harris perfects the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber. | |
| 1914 | The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announces plans to divide the country into 12 districts. | |
| 1917 | President Woodrow Wilson presents a declaration of war against Germany to Congress. | |
| 1917 | Jeannette Pickering Rankin is sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. | |
| 1931 | Virne “Jackie” Mitchell becomes the first woman to play for an all-male pro baseball team. In an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, she strikes out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. | |
| 1932 | Charles Lindbergh pays over $50,000 ransom for his kidnapped son. | |
| 1944 | Soviet forces enter Romania, one of Germany’s allied countries. | |
| 1958 | The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics is renamed NASA. | |
| 1963 | Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King begins the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, Alabama. | |
| 1982 | Argentina invades the British-owned Falkland Islands. |
Samuel Franklin Cody ...
or ... How a Wild West Showman Brought Man-Lifting Kites to the British Army
“While touring Great Britain he became enamored with kites,” says Skinner. Kite enthusiasm in Europe was flourishing; serious hobbyists and scientists alike read kiting magazines and gathered at annual fetes. Cody built and flew them, and finally decided to throw his effort into designing a man-lifting kite that could be turned into dollar signs and prestige.The military use of man-lifting kites soon faded with the rise of the airplane, which even Cody preferred. Besides, we eventually figured out how to use airborne cameras without a photographer. Read about the fascinating Samuel Franklin Cody and his kite scheme at Atlas Obscura.
By 1901, Cody had patented a version of a man-lifting kite, and according to biographer Garry Jenkins, was flexing his entrepreneurial muscles. “By then he has already written to the war office, offering them first option on ‘SF Cody’s Aroplaine [sic] or War-Kite: A boy’s toy turned into an instrument of war,’” he wrote in Colonel Cody and the Flying Cathedral.
Catholic diocese in Montana seeks bankruptcy protection in sex abuse claims
Medical Triage
2. "Recently, research has come out strongly in support of dietary fat and cholesterol as benign, rather than harmful, additions to person's diet. Saturated fat seems poised for a similar pardon."
3. "A teenager with sickle cell disease achieved complete remission after an experimental gene therapy at Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris." That is fantastic news.
This Man's Big Mistake Ended Up Exposing the Truth About His "Tiny" Penis
Michael got hit with a double whammy
Rock Candy Arranged Neatly is a Visual Treat!
29 Interesting Archaeological Discoveries
What's
been going on in the world of archaeology? John Green fills us in on
new stuff, big stuff, and fascinating stuff in this week's episode of
the mental_floss List Show. To be honest, it's mostly old stuff, though
-very, very old stuff, even if it's new to you and me.
And don't forget about:
Fossil hominid skulls found in China have both human and Neanderthal characteristics.
And don't forget about:
Fossil hominid skulls found in China have both human and Neanderthal characteristics.
Why Knights Fought Snails in Medieval Art
It could have been a political insult at the beginning, which turned into an inside joke over time. A medieval meme, as it were.
This Little Piggy Went To Home Depot When His Fence Was Blown Down
The Ins and Outs of Exotic Animal Smuggling
The
illegal wildlife trade is a rapidly expanding industry that's quietly
affecting every country in the world. But why has the market gotten so
big? And why are so many criminals getting into the game right now?
Mental_floss has the answers.The black market for wildlife is second only to the illegal drug business in size. It's currently estimated to be worth more than $20 billion. Yes, that's billion with a "b." And it's not just elephant tusks that are changing hands under the table. For every type of endangered species out there, there's an eager collector waiting to shell out a lot of cash. For example, a pair of Queen Alexandra's Birdwings—the world's largest butterflies, with wingspans of up to 14 inches—sells for about $10,000. A baby chimpanzee goes for as much as $50,000. But the black market isn't just for cute critters. In March 2009, New York officials broke up a huge smuggling ring that specialized in snapping turtles, rattlesnakes, and salamanders.
But what's so bad about dealing butterflies?
Many scientists believe that the illegal wildlife trade exacerbates one of the gravest problems facing mankind: the mass extinction of species. Biologists like Harvard's E.O. Wilson predict that half of all plant and animal species will be extinct by 2100, and that could mean dire consequences for humanity. Plants and animals pollinate our crops, filter our water, regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, help decompose waste, and lead scientists to new medical breakthroughs—all free of charge. Each time a species goes extinct, we lose one of these unpaid workers. And because wildlife smugglers tend to target the species that are already the most vulnerable, they're speeding up the rate at which we're losing plants and animals.
Who's buying this stuff?
Part of the answer may lie in the psychology of collectors. Whether they're amassing baseball cards or Beanie Babies, most of them start by gathering the common items and then build to the more unusual ones. Eventually, they start seeking out the things that are truly rare. As author Bryan Christy put it in his book The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers, reptile collectors tend to follow a common progression. First, they get bigger species, then meaner ones, then unusual ones, and, finally, illegal species, which are also frequently venomous.
In truth, the animals that wind up living in some collector's menagerie are the lucky ones. Many trafficked animals and insects are sacrificed to dinner plates and medicine cabinets. In China, turtles are often turned into turtle soup or ground into aphrodisiac powder. Other animals are killed so that smugglers can harvest a certain organ or body part. In a number of Asian cultures, bear paws are thought to impart strength and virility, and their gallbladders are used to treat everything from cancer to hemorrhoids. A single bear gallbladder can fetch thousands of dollars. And as we all know from the Indiana Jones movies, the practice of eating monkey brains is still alive and well in many parts of the world; in the United States, though, monkeys are usually smuggled in to be pets.
So how do you smuggle a monkey through an airport?
For some reason, stuffing animals in one's trousers is a favorite tactic among smugglers. In 1995, two men were arrested at the Mexican border after customs officials noticed that the bulges in their pants were moving. It turns out that the slithering bumps were actually pantyhose filled with more than a dozen snakes.
Even when traffickers get caught, the stories rarely end well for the animals. Because they've been pulled from their normal habitats and potentially exposed to all sorts of diseases, stolen animals can't simply go home. Instead, they end up quarantined in zoos or in wildlife refuges. And while that isn't the worst fate that can befall an animal, it does nothing for the survival of the species in the wild. From a conservation standpoint, sneaking an animal out of its habitat really isn't any different from shooting it for its hide.
How Much for that Baby Gorilla in the Window?
Wondering if you got a good price on that creature in your basement? Here's what the world's hottest endangered species are going for these days.
Hyacinth Macaws
Price: up to $20,000
Why they're so hot right now: This parrot's large size and beautiful blue feathers have made it a favorite among collectors. The poaching of macaws has devastated wild populations and driven up prices, which makes them even more popular.
Chimpanzees and Gorillas
Native to: Central Africa
Price: more than $50,000 for babies
Why they're so hot right now: Because they're cute when they're little.
Sperm Whales
Price: up to several hundred dollars per pound; one whole whale could cost you a few million. Also, one sperm whale tooth can run you $500.
Why they're so hot right now: If you thought hunting for Moby Dick went out with Herman Melville, think again. Although the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, whale sushi is still a delicacy in Japan, and the teeth continue to be carved and sold as knickknacks.
Ploughshare Tortoises
Native to: Madagascar
Price: upwards of $30,000
Why they're so hot right now: Because they might not be around much longer. With fewer than 1,000 ploughshares left in the wild, they're some of the world's most endangered animals.
Oenpelli Pythons
Native to: Australia
Price: $30,000
Why they're so hot right now: This large python can change colors like a chameleon, shifting from dark brown during the day to pale silver at night.
Chinese Alligators
Native to: the lower Yangtze River
Price: $15,000
Why they're so hot right now: In 1999, commercial developments destroyed the alligators' habitat to such an extent that, today, only about 130 survive in the wild. Rarity like that lures the collectors.
When the Nazis Tried to Bring Animals Back From Extinction
“Göring saw the opportunity to make nature protection part of his political empire,” says environmental historian Frank Uekotter. “He also used the funds [from the Nature Protection Law of 1935] for his estate.” The law, which created nature reserves, allowed for the designation of natural monuments, and removed the protection of private property rights, had been up for consideration for years before the Nazis came to power. Once the Nazis no longer had the shackles of the democratic process to hold them back, Göring quickly pushed the law through to enhance his prestige and promote his personal interest in hunting.The idea of an forest preserve full of ancient wild animals was one reason Göring was so excited about the annexation of Poland. Read the story of Heck's breeding experiments and what happened to those animals at Smithsonian.
Lutz continued his back-breeding experiments with support from Göring, experimenting with tarpans (wild horses, whose Heck-created descendants still exist today) and wisent. Lutz’s creations were released in various forests and hunting reserves, where Göring could indulge his wish to recreate mythic scenes from the German epic poem Nibelungenlied (think the German version of Beowulf), in which the Teutonic hero Siegfried kills dragons and other creatures of the forest.
Wild King Cobra Politely Drinks From Water Bottle
From the video description:
The video - shot in Southern India - shows a daring wildlife rescue worker offering water to the snake.
The 12 feet long cobra was rescued from a village in Kaiga township - where it has strayed, apparently looking for water.
Some parts of southern India have been hit by drought, making water scarce. Wildlife officials say the drought has severely affected wild animals in the region.
So when the team of rescue workers found the cobra, the first thing they did was to offer it water.
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