The Tallest Statues In The World

A list of the 12 tallest statues in the world. These statues are immense and unfamiliar. Just for comparison, the Statue of Liberty would be all the way down at number 38 on this list.

Cavity-Searching 10,000 Pigeons

And you thought your job sucked? How would you like to be on the Chinese “security” team that got forced to inspect the anuses of 10,000 pigeons?

About 10,000 pigeons released in a ceremony for China’s National Day underwent unusual scrutiny, each having its feathers and anus checked for dangerous materials, state-run media has said, reflecting government concerns over possible attacks.
The symbols of peace were released at sunrise on Wednesday in Beijing’s symbolic heart of Tiananmen Square in a ceremony for the October 1 holiday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Beijing domestic security police officer, Guo Chunwei, was quoted in the Jinghua Times as saying workers checked the wings, legs and anus of each pigeon ahead of time to ensure they were “not carrying suspicious material”.

Life in a paranoid police state, it’s hard on pigeons and other living things.

Are Chimps Legal Persons?

Are Chimps Legal Persons? Wait for It...

A group of judges could decide whether Tommy the chimp should be recognized as a person by law. 

The Thief of Tachira

Scrappy, Bloodthirsty Dino Found in Venezuela

Venezuela now has its first meat-loving dinosaur, a scrappy carnivore known as Thief of Tachira.

Dolphin Speak

Killer Whales Learn How to Speak Dolphin

Orcas that have been socialized with dolphins mimic the sounds they make. 

Meet the World’s Newest—and Most Endangered—Whale

A genetically distinct group of whales—possibly an entirely new species—has been discovered off the coast of Florida’s Panhandle region.

That’s the good news. The bad news is they could be the most endangered whales in the world.

Scientists discovered the genetically unique set of about 50 whales during recent research in the Gulf of Mexico. The whales, which are members the Bryde’s (pronounced “broodus”) family, lives year-round in the Gulf. The whales reside in an underwater canyon near Florida’s west coast—an area highly susceptible to offshore oil spills.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has petitioned the U.S. government list the whale as endangered, citing the whales’ tiny population and vulnerability.

“Clearly the whales are in need of special protection, and not simply for their small numbers,” wrote NRDC policy analyst Michael Jasny in a blog post. “The massive industrialization of the northern Gulf threatens them six ways to Sunday.”

The whale’s home, DeSoto Canyon, is adjacent to the canyon where the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred. The whales don’t migrate from the Gulf, and are actually are genetically to the Pacific Bryde’s whale than its Atlantic cousin, the according to the study.

“New oil and gas leases are slated for the eastern Gulf, encroaching further on their habitat and adding to the risk of future spills,” wrote Jasny. “With so few remaining, the loss of even one Bryde’s whale puts the entire population in jeopardy.”

Currently, there are only two recognized Bryde’s whale subspecies. But the study’s lead author, Patricia Rosel of the University of Louisiana, found the Gulf group was at least as different as those subspecies are from each other. The study suggests they may even be an entirely different species.

“The level of divergence suggests a unique evolutionary trajectory worthy of its own taxonomic standing,” according to study.

Bryde’s whales are baleen whales, meaning they feed through long, plate-like filters that hang from their upper jaws. Adults are typically about 35 feet to 50 feet long.

If the whales aren’t protected, the population could quietly disappear, Jasny told the Mother Nature Network "It’s hard to imagine how this population—or possibly this species—would survive without protection," he said.

Good thing the whales can hold their breath—it can take years for the government to act on a listing petition as it works its way through a huge backlog of other endangered animals and plants.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Sad, but true ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

He 'discovered' North America nearly 500 years BEFORE Columbus ... !

Today is  - Leif Eriksson Day
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Santiago, Chile

Caracas, Venezuela

San Juan and Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Boaco, Nicaragua

Toronto, Montrel, Saint John's, Vancouver, Quebec, Ottawa, Edmonton and Oakridge, Canada

Londrina, Rio De Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Panama, Panama

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Lima, Peru

Europe

Kiev and Zhovti Vody, Ukraine

Mora, Sweden

Warsaw, Poland

Prague and Karlin, Czech Republic

Rouen, Villeurbanne, Laval, Cerny and Roubaix, France

Ryazan, Izhevsk, Vladivostok, Moscow, Nikolayevka, Rostov-Na-Donu and Glazov, Russia

Madrid and La Roda De Andalucia, Spain

Kongens Lyngby and Copenhagen, Denmark

Milan, Naples, Treviso and Prato, Italy

Istanbul, Turkey

Sarajevo and Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bratislava, Slovakia

Ruse, Bulgaria

Yerevan, Armenia

Dublin, Ireland

Cacem, Portugal

Tbilisi, Georgia

Vilnius, Lithuania

Reykjavik, Iceland

Zurich, Switzerland

Widdern, Germany

Asia

Islamabad, Pakistan

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore and New Delhi, India

Jeddah and Buraydah, Saudi Arabia

Jakarta and Medan, Indonesia

Singapore, Singapore

Tehran, Iran

Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Hanoi, Vietnam

Port Louis, Mauritius

Africa

Johannesburg and Centurion, South Africa

Meknes, Morocco

Ejigbo, Nigeria

The Pacific

Quezon City, Philippines

Homebush and Mintabie, Australia

Today in History

28 BC		The Temple of Apollo is dedicated on the Palatine Hill in Rome.
1470		Henry VI of England restored to the throne.
1760		Austrian and Russian troops enter Berlin and begin burning structures and looting.
1779		The Luddite riots being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning cotton.
1781		Americans begin shelling the British surrounded at Yorktown.
1825		The first Norwegian immigrants to America arrive on the sloop Restaurationen.
1863		Confederate cavalry raiders return to Chattanooga after attacking Union General William Rosecrans' supply and communication lines all around east Tennessee.
1888		The Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, opens to the public.
1914		Germans take Antwerp, Belgium, after 12-day siege.
1934		In Marseilles, a Macedonian revolutionary associated with Croat terrorists in Hungary assassinates King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou. The two had been on a tour of European capitals in quest of an alliance against Nazi Germany. The assassinations bring the threat of war between Yugoslavia and Hungary, but confrontation is prevented by the League of Nations.
1941		President Franklin D. Roosevelt requests congressional approval for arming U.S. merchant ships.
1946		Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh opens at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York.
1949		Harvard Law School begins admitting women.
1950		U.N. forces, led by the First Cavalry Division, cross the 38th parallel in South Korea and begin attacking northward towards the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
1983		The president of South Korea, Doo Hwan Chun, with his cabinet and other top officials are scheduled to lay a wreath on a monument in Rangoon, Burma, when a bomb explodes. Hwan had not yet arrived so escaped injury, but 17 Koreans–including the deputy prime minister and two other cabinet members–and two Burmese are killed. North Korea is blamed.
1999		Last flight of the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" stealth reconnaissance aircraft.
2006		North Korea reportedly tests its first nuclear device.

Avoiding Eye Contact

Why Does Everyone Hate Eye Contact?

Have you ever accidentally made eye contact with someone, and you immediately felt uncomfortable? Tara and Trace are here to explain why that is.

Kids say the 'darnedest things'

Toddlers regulate behavior to avoid making adults angry

When kids say “the darnedest things,” it’s often in response […]

The Warships of Uzbekistan--A Doubly Landlocked Nation

Uzbekistan has at least two active warships.
This is remarkable. Although a few landlocked nations maintain navies, Uzbekistan is not only landlocked, but doubly landlocked. That means that Uzbekistan is completely surrounded by landlocked nations. It and Liechtenstein are the only two such nations in the world.
RusNavy, a website about Russian naval affairs, offers what it claims is an English translation of a Russian military journal article about the Uzbek acquisition of two Ukrainian-built armored patrol boats. The US paid for the purchase of these two boats, a claim supported by this State Department website. The Gurza-class patrol boats are typically armed with 7.62 and 30 mm machine guns and a grenade launcher. The boats will patrol Uzbekistan's rivers, such as the Amu-Darya, which forms the border between that nation and Afghanistan.
Pictured above is a photo of what internet rumor alleges is one of the Uzbek warships.

Federal Judge Rules Police Violated First Amendment Rights Of Ferguson Protesters

In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Missouri, a federal judge ruled Monday that police in Ferguson cannot enforce a so-called ‘five-second rule’ requiring protesters to keep moving or face arrest. Shortly after Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson took charge of security in Ferguson to handle the protests that rose up in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death, he instituted a ‘keep moving’ rule. After a tense weekend of demonstrations in mid-August, Johnson informed protesters that they were now required to be in constant movement and weren’t allowed to congregate in large groups.

On August 18th, Johnson said the following in response to a question asked by a Huffington Post reporter regarding the new rule:

“We are not going to let groups congregate and build into larger groups because that’s what causes problems. Because what happens is, the peaceful protesters gather, and the other element blends in. Now they blend in, and that’s what’s been causing us some issues. So by allowing them to walk, that’s not going to let the other element blend in and define this group.”

Johnson also took issue with anyone claiming that this was a violation of constitutional rights.

“We’re not violating your rights, we’re allowing you to protest…Protesting does not need to stand still, it needs to be heard. It needs to move forward. So really, the marching around in the circles, we’re keeping our voice moving. I don’t want it to stand still.”

Since that time, demonstrators and reporters have both claimed that police have arbitrarily enforced a five-second rule, wherein they will tell protesters that they are not allowed to stand still for more than five seconds. People who have been in the protests have claimed that police officers would arbitrarily use these rules, generally when they wanted to target specific groups of protesters or try to tire out demonstrators and perhaps force them to go home.

In her ruling Monday, District Judge Catherine Perry said that this police tactic was a clear violation of the protesters’ First Amendment rights and that local police needed to immediately cease enforcing the rule.

“The practice of requiring peaceful demonstrators and others to walk, rather than stand still, violates the constitution. This injunction prevents only the enforcement of an ad hoc rule developed for the Ferguson protests that directed police officers, if they felt like it, to order peaceful, law-abiding protesters to keep moving rather than standing still.”

Perry also stated that police officers violated due process rights of protesters by arbitrarily enforcing rules and having the “unfettered discretion” to do so. At the same time, she said law enforcement has the ability to enforce legitimate laws, as long as they weren’t violating the constitutional rights of people to gather peacefully and protest. Therefore, they are allowed to enforce Missouri’s failure to disperse law, which is a low-grade misdemeanor. She pointed out that the law can only be enforced in a situation of a riot or an unlawful assembly and a person refuses to obey a command to leave the scene at that time.

The ACLU’s lawsuit named two defendants — the St. Louis County Police Department and the superintendent of the Missouri Highway Patrol, Ron Replogle. The Highway Patrol released a statement on Monday in response to the ruling:

“From the outset, the overriding goal of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Unified Command has been to allow citizens to speak while keeping the community safe. Today’s ruling is consistent with these principles because it allows protesters to exercise their constitutional rights to peaceably assemble but also allows law enforcement to impose appropriate restrictions to protect the public from violence.”

Meanwhile, both Johnson and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar have both claimed that they were unaware of the ‘five-second rule.’ Johnson made the claim after he met with protesters late in the evening last week. He was asked questions about the rule as the ACLU had appeared in court earlier in the day challenging it.

Of course, that comes across as a pretty ludicrous statement considering that he specifically put in place a policy where he demanded that protesters keep moving and not gather in groups. Belmar, who is now in charge of the police force overseeing protests, also made the same claim on Monday. It also seems very unlikely that Belmar had no idea that police officers in Ferguson were using this tactic.

Man Suing TSA For Dumping Mothers Ashes In Suitcase

by Moe Diab  

After losing his mother, Shannon Thomas sought to fulfill his mother’s last wish to have her ashes spread in the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea.
In October of 2012, Mr. Thomas boarded his flight from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and embarked on a journey to San Juan, Puerto Rico to lay his mother’s ashes to a final resting place. Instead of completing his grieving process and finally getting the closure he so desperately needed, upon arrival he discovered his mother’s ashes were spilled in his luggage, accompanied by a TSA notice of inspection.
Click here to watch CNN report.

Last Tuesday, Thomas’s attorney Adeladi Williams filed a lawsuit in Cleveland’s Federal Court, claiming TSA agents violated protocols by opening his mother’s urn and spilling her ashes in the suitcase. The TSA rulebook contains a specific section on transport and inspection of urns, which states:

If carrying on the crematory remains, they are subject to screening and must pass through the X-ray machine. If the X-ray Operator cannot clear the remains, TSA may apply other, non-intrusive means of resolving the alarm. Under no circumstances will an officer open the container, even if the passenger requests this be done. If the officer cannot determine that the container does not contain a prohibited item, the remains will not be permitted.

TSA Press Release  ‘TSA Partners With Funeral Homes To Safely Transport Cremated Remains’ stated,

Out of respect for the deceased, screeners will not open a container, even if requested by the passenger.

Filed court documents reveal Mr. Thomas complied with all TSA guidelines in packing his mother’s urn inside his suitcase upon check-in. According to Williams, the urn was “tightly screwed” and packed with “extra clothing for padding” and protection. Shannon was left in complete shock after he discovered his mother’s ashes had been dumped inside of the suitcase, covering his clothing and left with a TSA notice of inspection. Regardless of compliance with TSA guidelines and extra precautions taken, Thomas was unable to fulfill his mother’s final wish.
Thomas’s attorney is seeking $750,000 in damages from the defendants listed as “The United States of America, Transportation Security Administration, Attorney General of the United States, Department of Justice, 10 agents of employees with the TSA, and 10 other unnamed persons who had contact with the luggage.”
The lawsuit states that “The United States is liable for damage to the urn and his personal effects,” and says the actions of the TSA agents and others “constitute intentional and/or negligent infliction of emotional distress.”
His attorney stated,

The negligent, careless, and/or reckless acts and omissions of [the TSA] violated [Mr Thomas's] right to inter the remains of his mother and constitute outrageous disturbance of human remains. The laws of these United States do not tolerate such outrageous disturbance.

In the post 9/11 era, TSA has proven to be an inefficient use of taxpayers’ dollars, a violation of basic rights to privacy, and an abuse of public trust. The empirical data demonstrates that the agency is ineffective and is depriving Americans of much needed resources to prevent future terrorist attacks from ever reaching U.S. soil. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the TSA for unimaginable violations of privacy and misconduct. Like many Americans violated by TSA misconduct and negligence, Shannon Thomas has not even received an apology.

Bill Clinton Terrifies repugicans by Busting and Exposing Their Obama Scam

Former President Bill Clinton told voters what repugicans don’t want them to know while campaigning with Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas. Clinton explained that repugicans are trying use Obama to scam voters into supporting them.

Former President Clinton said, “You can not afford to do what their opponents want. They want you to make this a protest vote. All three of these races they’re saying hey, you may like these guys, but you know what you gotta do. You gotta vote against the president. After all, it’s your last shot. It’s a pretty good scam, isn’t it? Give me a six year job for a two year protest. That’s Mark Pryor’s opponent’s message.

Yeah, I voted to cut student loans. Yeah, I voted to raise the interest rate. Yeah, I voted against the Violence Against Women Act. No, I’ll never vote for equal pay for equal work. Are you kidding? Would I vote for raising the minimum wage? No way, but I’ll give you one more protest vote. To do it, you gotta give me six years for a protest that will be irrelevant in two….Does that make any sense to you?

Former President Clinton hit the nail on the head. The repugican message is a giant scam. It is a trick that is designed to get voters who are angry at the president now to throw away their future. This election is not about Barack Obama. With each passing day, President Obama inches closer to the end of his presidency. There will likely be no more major legislation passed during the Obama presidency.

The repugicans are trying to make this election about President Obama, because they can’t win an election that is contested on the basis of ideas, or vision for the future. The repugicans have nothing productive to offer, so they are relying on what they have used all through the Obama presidency, empty rage.

Bill Clinton is a powerful force on the campaign trail, and his words of truth have an ability to cut to the heart of matters in a very common sense way. The Clinton wrecking ball is moving through the South, and he is telling voters the very last thing that repugicans want them to hear. The repugican platform is a con, and their message is a scam.

Democrats are gaining momentum in Senate races all over the country because they are motivating their voters and party leaders like former President Clinton are spreading the truth.

There is a wave of blue energy growing that will very easy drown the repugican cabal’s fantasies of a Senate takeover.

The repugicans Eye Forcing CBO To Use Special repugican cabal Math To Justify Tax Cuts

Top repugicans, eying full control of Congress next year, are considering changing the rules of the budget process so as to make tax cuts appear less harmful to the deficit.

They want to adopt a method called "dynamic scoring," popular among wingnuts since the 1970s, which scores budgets under the controversial assumption that tax cuts generate economic growth and make up for lost revenue - something critics have likened to "fairy dust." The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper, does not use the method, but repugicans want it to.
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (r-WI), who expects to chair the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee next year, floated the idea of requiring CBO to use dynamic scoring at a Financial Services Roundtable speech on Sept. 18. Likely next Majority Leader if repugicans can steal the Senate, Mitch McConnell (r-KY) championed the method in a 2013 interview with the National Review. Outside proponents of supply-side economics, such as the Wall Street Journal editorial board, also like the idea.

More

Wingnut evangelicals Violate the Law and Campaign From the Pulpit

The agitators behind 'Pulpit Freedom' Sunday do not even contend they are prohibited from preaching religion, they complain they cannot preach repugican delusions …

For most people there is nothing quite as obscene as an ingrate. Not only because they refuse to acknowledge kind acts of other people’s generosity, even to say thank you or I appreciate what you are doing for me, but because they actually expect and demand more special treatment. America is awash in ingrates whether they are the richest one-percent, the oil industry, or corporations that receive special privileges in the form of taxpayer largesse. Instead of thanking taxpayers for their generosity, they claim not getting more is un-American. One specific group that has no socially-redeeming value to American society or culture epitomizes what it means to be an ingrate, and besides never acknowledging the special privileges taxpayers provide them, they demand more and are attempting to get catholics on the Supreme Court to get it for them.

It is a source of contention in America, but the idea that cults are allowed to operate tax-free and exist off of other Americans hard-earned tax dollars is, to many Americans, an obscenity of the first order; particularly in a nation founded on secularism. It is horrendous that hard-working Americans are tasked with paying for the services churches use for free, but it is an abomination that many of those cults are using their free taxpayer-funded welfare to force their delusions on the population. It is too much, apparently, to expect cults to at least acknowledge the overwhelmingly abundant generosity of Americans, or to follow their bible dog’s admonition to be in subjection to the governing authorities by adhering to one measly condition to continue receiving tens-of-billions of free taxpayer dollars; no campaigning from the pulpit.

Every year about a month before an election, an ever-growing number of wingnut 'christian' cult leaders participate in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” According to their covenant with the United States to continue receiving ungodly amounts of free taxpayer-funded welfare, cults cannot campaign from the pulpit according to a change in the U.S. tax code in 1954. The Johnson Amendment is a legally-passed statute that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with muzzling clergy from raining down hellfire and brimstone to scare their congregants into following religious edicts. However, the agitators behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday do not even contend they are prohibited from preaching delusion, they complain they cannot preach repugican delusions and are seeking redress through the courts to use taxpayer dollars to campaign for repugicans.

Part and parcel of the Pulpit Freedom Sunday crusade is to videotape wingnut christian clergy actively campaigning for repugican and teabagger candidates on Sunday (October 5)  in defiance of the law and then send the videos to the Internal Revenue Service director and dare him to attempt to enforce the 501c3 agreement and take away their welfare.  According to the phony christian agitators, Alliance Defending Freedom, “Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a strategic litigation plan. Through tactical lawsuits against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to restore the right of each pastor to speak scriptural delusion from the pulpit  to generate test cases that we can carry to the U.S. Supreme Court to end the unconstitutional restrictions infringing on the rights of pastors to use biblical standards to support or oppose candidates for public office.”

There is a longstanding biblical truth the fake christians running Alliance Defending Freedom organization refuse to acknowledge in their illegal and sinful drive to bait the IRS into court to allow “each pastor to speak ‘teabagger’ truth from the pulpit.” According to the christian bible, the one each pastor already has the right to speak scriptural delusion from the pulpit until they are blue in the face, christians are commanded to obey the laws of the land and pay taxes. In Romans 13:1-6 it plainly says, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which god has established. The authorities that exist have been established by dog. Consequently, whoever rebels against the government authority is rebelling against what god has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.  it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes.”

There are several scriptures throughout the christian bible, old and new testament that reiterate the point that christians are required, on pain of death on judgment day, to obey the government authorities and to pay taxes. Integral to “submitting to governing authorities” certainly includes obeying the fifty year-old Johnson Amendment and the conditions laid out in all 501c3 tax-free agreements with the IRS. Every year for the past five or six years, primarily evangelical christian clergy have defied their dog’s commandment to subject to government authority, and blatantly violated the law allowing the ingrates to receive tens-of-billions of taxpayer dollars they claim is their rightful due in their crusade to rule America by christian and catholic theocracy.

There is a very simple solution to the poor wingnut beleaguered christians living off the taxpayers’ “forced largesse” that will allow them to preach teabagger and repugican delusions from the pulpit without fear of the dreaded IRS enforcing the fifty year-old Johnson Amendment. Strip their tax-exempt status once and for all. It will save taxpayers well-over $83.5 billion a year in lost revenue and give repugicans and teabaggers a frightened captive audience the clergy can threaten with eternal Hellfire if they do not dutifully vote according to repugican religious edicts issuing forth  from the pulpit.

Many people claim the cult tax-free status is due to the ‘good works’ they provide for society, but they really do nothing substantial; particularly compared to nurses, police, firefighters, street sweepers, sanitation workers, and teachers who all dutifully pay their taxes that end up providing free-services for cults; many actively advocating eliminating the rights of at least half of America. Besides the loss of revenue at the federal level resulting from the clergy’s double-dipping income tax avoidance scam, every community in America is losing billions in property tax because cults large and small do not pay or even show up on property tax rolls like every home and business owner. Why? Because they are cults, and as such they do not pay corporate income taxes, sales tax, capital gains tax, or investment tax in addition to receiving parsonage and faith-based initiative subsidies; all funded by taxpayers.

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson believed, quite ardently, that taxation to benefit religion was an abomination. He wrote in his Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786; “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money, or forcing of him to support the propagation of his or another’s religious persuasion is sinful and tyrannical. No man shall be compelled to support any religious worship, or place, or ministry whatsoever.” Still, not only are taxpayers compelled to support religious places of worships and ministries, they are being forced to support evangelical ingrates that are blatantly violating a law to give the catholics on the Supreme Court a golden opportunity to force all Americans to fund repugican campaigns from the pulpit every Sunday.

NC public schools teaching children the biblical creation fantasy is a ‘fact’

 by Michael Stone 

A North Carolina public school system is caught indoctrinating children in christian dogma, teaching elementary school students that the biblical 7-day creation story is a scientific “fact” as well as other points of christian propaganda.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is calling on the Rowan-Salisbury School District in North Carolina to put an immediate stop to the “flagrantly unconstitutional” bible classes currently being taught in at least three elementary schools including Cleveland, Woodleaf, and Mount Ulla Elementary schools.
Local cults fund the weekly 45-minute bible classes; however, as the FFRF points out, under firm Supreme Court precedent, such outside funding does not relieve the school of its obligation to ensure all public school students a secular education free of religious indoctrination.
FFRF Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott sent a letter to the district on Sept. 24 calling the classes “flagrantly unconstitutional,” pointing out that the Supreme Court had struck down similar classes in 1948 in a landmark case in which the facts “could hardly be more similar.”
Elliott said:

“It is appalling that the District would take away from instructional time to indoctrinate children in christian dogma.”

According to the FFRF, the school district’s youngest students attend a bible class in which the teacher presents the bible as literal fact, including teaching a 7-day creation, giving students examples of “dog’s plan” that “clearly” showed the universe was created with a purpose, and supposed examples of the bible predicting scientific discoveries, among other inappropriate teachings inculcating biblical delusions.
FFRF Staff Attorney Elliot headed off any justification that students can apparently be excused from the bible classes, writing that “suggesting that children who do not wish to be subjected to religious activity at their school should be segregated from their classmates is reprehensible.”
Elliot continued:

“Parents should not be required to excuse students from constitutional violations, and segregating students based on religious delusions, or lack thereof, is not a way to get around prohibitions on religious activity in public schools.”

District superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody told WBTV that the school board met on Thursday to discuss the FFRF letter, but did not wish to make a statement at that time.
FFRF is calling on Rowan-Salisbury School System to put an immediate moratorium on the elementary school bible classes involving “young, impressionable elementary school students.”

Woman Says Being 'Too Pretty' Made Dating a Total Nightmare

by Maressa Brown

 

Maybe once you're married and thoroughly removed from it, dating doesn't seem that bad, but when you're in the trenches of singledom and looking for love, it can be downright hellish. No matter what you look like. Although, at least according to one woman named Paula Jane Allen, the prettier you are, the harder it is to date and find a good man. Pardon?
The 33-year-old, who is now married with two kids, recently shared her story with The Daily Mail, inspired to give her take after reading the Mail's interview with Verity Brown, a woman who says she struggled to find a guy online as a result of being overweight. Nonsense, according to Allen! She argues that it's easier for more unattractive women to find dates, because guys don't see them as arm candy or hookup material. Oh, dear.
Allen, a size 6 blonde (pictured right), says she was sick of being approached by shallow guys in clubs looking for one-night stands, so she turned to online dating sites, which "guarantee to match you up with someone who shares your interests, so it's more about personality."
But surprise, surprise! She found that the scene on sites like Match.com and eHarmony was still "truly awful."
She elaborated:

You'd regularly get people getting in contact just saying, "Fancy meeting up for a f**k?" You'd get married men just wanting fun, and you'd get people saying, "I just need someone for one night, can you do me a favor?"

Apparently, Allen wanted to share her struggle to let women like Verity know that weight loss isn't the answer to finding The One. "Just be yourself, no one should have to change," she says.
More from The Stir: Dating Only Attractive People Is Something Only Ugly People Do
Yes! Hurrah! However, she struck out big time by griping that being conventionally attractive makes it even harder to find a partner. By making it like women need to compete for who has it worse! Come on, that's a.) ridiculous and b.) simply not the point.
What is: The dating scene is replete with superficial jerks, cheaters, people looking for sex and nothing more, etc. No matter what you look like, you're going to have to encounter these "unviable candidates" either way! Like one free dating site will tell ya, there are plenty of fish, and A LOT of them aren't in the sea for the right reasons.
That's why you do need to be yourself, be confident, and be prepared to stick to your guns and just say NO to a slew of losers while searching for Mr. or Ms. Right. That's true, whether you're size 6 or 24 or anything in between.

More than 80% of waitresses report sexual harassment

If it doesn't surprise you, that's the problem: "Since the workers depend on tips to make a livable wage, they 'must often tolerate inappropriate behavior from customers, co-workers and management,' the report said."