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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Friday, June 30, 2017

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
It's Social Media Day so be social ...!
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily. 
  
Perseid Meteor Shower... !
Today is - National Meteor Watching Day 

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...!

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Today in History

1520
Montezuma II is murdered as Spanish conquistadors flee the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan during the night.
1857
Charles Dickens reads from A Christmas Carol at St. Martin’s Hall in London–his first public reading.
1859
Jean Francois Gravelet aka Emile Blondin, a French daredevil, becomes the first man to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1908
A mysterious explosion, possibly the result of a meteorite, levels thousands of trees in the Tunguska region of Siberia with a force approaching twenty megatons.
1934
Adolf Hitler orders the purge of his own party in the “Night of the Long Knives.”
1936
Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone With the Wind, is published.
1948
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrate their invention, the transistor, for the first time.
1960
Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, opens.
1971
Three Soviet cosmonauts die when their spacecraft depressurizes during reentry.

Engineering new forms of life

Before human beings wrote books or did math or composed music, we made leather. There is evidence hunter-gatherers were wearing clothes crafted from animal skins hundreds of thousands of years ago, while in 2010 archaeologists digging in Armenia found what they believed to be the world’s oldest leather shoe, dating back to 3,500 B.C. (It was about a women’s size 7.) For a species sadly bereft of protective fur, being able to turn the skin of cows or sheep or pigs into clothing with the help of curing and tanning would have been a lifesaving advance, just like other vital discoveries Homo sapiens made over the course of history: the development of grain crops like wheat, the domestication of food animals like chickens, even the all-important art of fermentation. In each case, human beings took something raw from the natural world—a plant, an animal, a microbe—and with the ingenuity that has enabled us to dominate this planet, turned it into a product.
The natural world has its limits, though. Tanned animal skin may make for stylish boots, motorcycle jackets and handbags—supporting an industry worth about $200 billion a year—but it’s still animal skin. That would seem to be an insurmountable problem if you’re one of the hundreds of millions of vegetarians around the world, or even just someone who worries about the environmental impact of raising tens of billions of animals for clothing and food. But it’s not the animal skin that makes leather leather—it’s collagen, a tough, fibrous protein that is a major biological component of animal connective tissue, including skin. If there was a way to manufacture collagen alone, it might be possible to produce leather that even the most dedicated animal-rights activist could love.
And that’s exactly what’s happening on the eighth floor of the cavernous Brooklyn Army Terminal on New York’s waterfront, where Modern Meadow has its labs and offices.

The World's Oldest Known Temple Was Home to a ‘Skull Cult’

Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey is a temple that has been dated to more than 11,000 years ago, making it the oldest known temple in the world. Recent findings there include human skull fragments from three individuals that were intentionally carved, painted, and even had holes drilled into them. What was the purpose? Could this be evidence of a skull cult? Paleopathologist Julia Gresky gives us some insight.
Microscopic analysis of the bone revealed that the markings were created by stone tools, probably a short time after the skulls' owners died. Gresky and her colleagues suggest two possible explanations for the modifications: Ancestor veneration, or "branding" of perceived enemies for display. The grooves may have acted as "a track for a cord" to mount the skull, she said, and the drilled hole on the top of the cranium may have been used to suspend the skull like a mobile.
"Maybe they put feathers on the skull to make it more impressive and then presented it somewhere in the structures," Gresky said. "It's all speculation at the moment, but hopefully we'll find some more fragments or maybe also primary burials, so it will be more clear what happened in these monumental buildings."
Though this is the first evidence for skull cults at Göbekli Tepe etched in bone, the structure is filled with artistic representations of headless people, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine these folks may have been cranially obsessed.
Read more about Göbekli Tepe and the skulls found there at Motherboard.

The Most Zen City In The U.S.

Castle in the Air Berkeley California
This Might Be The Most Zen City In The U.S.
Get your 'om on in Berkeley, California.

Frequent Diarrhea Can Put You At Risk Of an Incurable Brain Disease

diarrhea brain damage​How Frequent Diarrhea Can Put You At Risk Of an Incurable Brain Disease
​Your immune response to the dreaded stomach bug can have a dark side

These Foods Might Actually Stop Cancer From Spreading

foods might stop cancer from spreading
​These Foods Might Actually Stop Cancer From Spreading
​People who ate more of them survived longer with the big C

Plant Protein That Can Help You Lose Weight

Reports of Nasty Side Effects From Cosmetics Are Way up

Many Women Are Fantasizing About Their Coworkers

this is how many woman fantasize about coworkers
​This Is How Many Women Are Fantasizing About Their Coworkers
​And here's how many of them actually went through with it

Wingnut forced to explain to colleagues why maternity care also benefits men

A wingnut senator has asked that maternity care not be cut from the Obamacare repeal effort because both men and women are affected by pregnancy.
Addressing the press in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Cassidy said he did not want to see a health care bill that removed the responsibility of insurers to provide maternity care, despite arguments from other Republicans that men are paying for a service they don’t use.
"You end up with policies that don't cover maternity. And as best I can tell, women don't get pregnant without sperm,” Cassidy said in comments carried by The Hill, refuting the idea that men do not have any use for maternity care and prenatal care in their policies

Wonder Woman Is an Excellent Film, but Will It Inspire Viewers to Take Action?

Lunatic fringe cabal buys boat to disrupt migrant rescues

An anti-immigrant, lunatic fringe cabal in Europe wants to disrupt rescue missions and try to prevent migrants from reaching the continent. Defend Europe, whose members classify themselves as "identitarians" who want to protect Europe’s "identity" from immigration, raised money to purchase a ship via a crowd funding campaign and secured €65,000 to attempt to enact its “no way policy” on immigration.

Missouri trooper plea bargains down to misdemeanor in drowning death of hand-cuffed suspect

Under the felony charges, Piercy was facing seven years in prison, a year in county jail or a fine of $5,000 as punishment, or any combination of those, if convicted of the felony. Now Piercy is only facing possibility of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine.

Public Schools In Kentucky Can Now “Teach” The Bible

The religio-wingnuts are at it again — this time by passing a bill that will allow public schools in Kentucky to teach the bible.
***
This is so wrong on every level.

Lunatic fringe wingnut extremists have fallen in love with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh

To most Americans, Timothy McVeigh is the perpetrator of the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, a murderer whose 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City took the lives of 168 innocents, children included.

Allowing teachers to carry guns on school ground

Pennsylvania Senate approved a bill Wednesday that will allow teachers to have guns on school grounds. After an hour-long session, the law was passed by a 28-22 vote, according to the Associated Press. The bill, also known as Bill 383, will advance to seek approval from the House of Representatives.
Bad Idea Gone Bad

Yale University sues Connecticut over gender-neutral bathrooms

Yale University has sued the state of Connecticut over rules it says limit the number of gender-neutral bathrooms it can designate on campus, the latest skirmish in the broader U.S. fight about gender identity.
The Ivy League school said in the lawsuit it wants to designate all single-occupant restrooms at its law school as gender neutral, but the plan would run afoul of the state building code, which does not count gender-neutral bathrooms when it assesses whether a public building has enough toilets.
The suit was filed on Friday in Connecticut Superior Court in New Haven, after the university received complaints from law school students. Yale has asked the state to drop requirements that single-user restrooms have an assigned gender label.

Disabled LGBT man attacked in Chelsea neighborhood of New York by suspect shouting homophobic slurs Disabled LGBT man attacked in Chelsea neighborhood of New York by suspect shouting homophobic slurs

Police report that a 44-year-old disabled LGBT man was attacked by a man shouting anti-gay slurs at him in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City Monday.
The attacker rode up to the man on a bicycle and shouted a homophobic slur. He then punched the man several times, CBS New York reported. The attacked man had a sticker supportive of the LGBT community on his walker.
The suspect then fled the scene and the victim was transported to the hospital where he is expected to recover.
Police reveal that the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.

Woman says she was kicked out of apartment's pool over fears her swimsuit would 'excite' teen boys

An East Tennessee woman claims that she was kicked out of her apartment complex’s pool over fears that her swimsuit would “excite” teenage boys who lived there.
Tori Jenkins tells local news station WTVR that she was asked to leave the pool recently by a woman who complained about her pink one-piece bathing suit.
“She basically told me that if I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t understand,” Jenkins explains. “If her kids were at the pool she wouldn’t want me in that swimsuit, how inappropriate I looked.”
She claims the woman then told her she needed to either put on shorts or go to a part of the pool where she was less visible.

US lists China among worst human trafficking offenders

The US hit China Tuesday over its rights record, listing the country alongside Sudan and North Korea on a list of the world’s worst human trafficking offenders.
The State Department downgraded China in its annual “Trafficking in Persons Report,” saying Beijing is doing little to combat trafficking or protect victims.
It pointed to ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority in China’s west, being coerced into forced labor, and to Beijing’s wholesale repatriation of North Koreans without checking to see if they were trafficking victims.

Florida woman charged with raping 11-year-old boy

Authorities in Hillsborough County said Marissa Mowry was 22 years old when she had sex with a boy half her age, and the encountered resulted in pregnancy.

USA Gymnastics Apologizes To Sexual Abuse Victims In Open Letter

Australian police charge Vatican treasurer over historical sexual assaults

Australian police have charged the Vatican's treasurer, Australian Cardinal George Pell, with multiple sexual assault offenses.
"Cardinal Pell is facing multiple charges in respect of historic sexual offenses," Victoria state police deputy commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference in Melbourne.
"There are multiple complainants relating to those charges," he said. Pell was charged by summons to appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 18, Patton said.
Pell's Vatican spokesman and a spokeswoman for the Australian Catholic church did not respond immediately to emails seeking comment.
Patton gave no other details of the charges and would not take questions from the media.
Pell, 76, was a priest in the rural Victorian town of Ballarat before he was appointed Archbishop of Melbourne. He has lived at the Vatican since 2014.

‘This can’t be real’

‘This can’t be real’: Chilling 911 call reveals father’s raw emotion after fatally shooting daughter

Researchers say we have three years to act on climate change before it's too late

If we want a smooth transition into a sustainable future, we need to act fast.

Gun nut agitators aim to take firearms into zoos

Gun nuts are demanding people be allowed to carry firearms into public zoos nationwide.
Their calls for packing pistols while viewing caged animals were setback on Friday, however, when a judge in St Louis ruled in favor of retaining a ban on firearms at the St. Louis Zoo.

The Cheetah Meow

Lions roar, cougars scream, and cheetahs …meow? We know that cheetahs don't roar, and can purr like house cats, but did you know that a cheetah will sometimes meow? Cheetah's Meow

To Buzz or to Scrabble?

To Buzz or to Scrabble? To Foraging Bees, That’s the QuestionTo Foraging Bees, That’s the Question
Imagine going to the supermarket to stock up on groceries but coming home empty-handed because you just couldn’t figure out how to work the shopping cart or figure out how to get to the ice … Read more

Animal Pictures


Thursday, June 29, 2017

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
A REAL Man ...!
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily. 
  
Greetings ... !
Today is - National Hand Shake Day 

 You want the unvarnished truth?
Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
The Truth Hurts!

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

Today in History

1236
Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon take Cordoba in Spain.
1652
Massachusetts declares itself an independent commonwealth.
1767
The British parliament passes the Townshend Revenue Act, levying taxes on America.
1862
Union forces, falling back from Richmond, fight at the Battle of Savage’s Station.
1880
France annexes Tahiti.
1888
Professor Frederick Treves performs the first appendectomy in England.
1903
The British government officially protests Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
1905
Russian troops intervene as riots erupt in ports all over the country, leaving many ships looted.
1917
The Ukraine proclaims independence from Russia.
1925
An earthquake ravages Santa Barbara, California.
1926
Fascists in Rome add an hour to the work day in an economic efficiency measure.
1932
Siam’s army seizes Bangkok and announces an end to the absolute monarchy.
1938
Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, and Olympic National Park, Washington, are founded.
1950
President Harry S. Truman authorizes a sea blockade of Korea.
1951
The United States invites the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonsan Harbor.
1955
The Soviet Union sends tanks to Poznan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.
1966
The U.S. Air Force bombs fuel storage facilities near Hanoi, North Vietnam.
1967
Israel removes barricades, re-unifying Jerusalem.
1970
U.S. troops pull out of Cambodia.
1982
Israel invades Lebanon.

Even in the 1700s, Book Clubs Were Really About Drinking and Socializing

Once you got all dressed in the 1700s, you ensued to have some place to go! You might even go to the library for a book club meeting, although that could cause people to talk.
These libraries weren’t just places to find books, but social institutions as well. One famous library also had a billiard room, a public exhibition room, and a music library. “They were not the hushed environments that we now associated with libraries, but, at their best, elegant spaces full of people to converse with,” Williams writes. Libraries even had a touch of controversy, as they gave people of different social classes access to books and offered women a place to congregate outside the home.
As books became more available to everyday people, they gathered to share them with each other, and even to discuss them, in bars and public houses as well as libraries. Of course, when people get together to talk, the subject cannot be limited to one subject, and a social gathering needs refreshments, right? Read about those early, rowdy book clubs at Atlas Obscura.

The Best Hot Dogs

Actually Taste-Tested
The staff of the New York Times taste-tested ten hot dogs, most of which are available at your local grocery store. The ten were all-beef franks, so they will cost a little more than average, but you should get some idea of what you're looking for from their descriptions, in case you're hosting a picnic for the Fourth of July.
First, the hot dogs would be cooked on a gas grill until well browned.
Next, each would be tasted plain to evaluate the intrinsic qualities of the hot dog: seasoning, beefiness, snap, texture.
Last, each would be eaten in a bun with the judge’s preordained condiments — the same for each dog, to keep the flavor profile consistent.
This important final step would allow us to assess the melding of meat and bread, sweetness and spice, salt and juice that makes up a perfect hot dog. The bun should hug the hot dog closely; there should be enough juice in the hot dog to keep the whole package together; condiments should complement the hot dog, not overwhelm it.  
If you ask my opinion, any hot dog is great when it's cooked on a grill outdoors in summertime, served with mustard and some potato salad (or even just chips) while you eat outside. I guess that's why they didn't ask me to be a judge. Read the results of the taste-test here.

Best Foods to Keep Your Skin Looking Youthful and Healthy

Mind-blowing Banana Facts Mind-blowing Banana Facts

You may think you know a lot about bananas because you've eaten them all your life. Even if you do, you'll learn more in a list chock-full of banana facts, all with links for further reading. Did you know…
8. The so-called "banana tree" is not a tree at all. In fact, it is the world's largest herb.
9. Walmart sells more bananas than any other item.
10. Banana fibers can be used to purify water.
That's just a small taste of the bananas …I mean, banana facts. Check out all 29 banana facts in a list that's just plain bananas at Buzzfeed.

Opioid Deaths Are This Generation's AIDS Crisis

What Do the Grenfell Tower Fire and Hurricane Katrina Have in Common?

US Supreme Court throws out rulings barring religious school subsidies

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court ruling prohibiting the use of public funds to pay for children to attend private religious schools, a day after it issued a major ruling narrowing the separation of cult and state.
The justices ordered the lower court in Colorado to reconsider the legality of school “voucher” programs in light of Monday’s ruling that churches and other religious entities cannot be categorically denied public money even in states whose constitutions explicitly ban such funding.
In that case, the justices sided with a Missouri cult that objected when the state denied it access to public funds for a playground improvement project.
The justices on Tuesday also threw out a lower court ruling in a similar case in New Mexico over a program that lends textbooks to schools, both public and private.
***
This is Bad, Very, Very Bad

For Young Muslim-Americans Like Nabra Hassanen, IHOP Served as a Rare Safe Space

Florida man beaten by angry mob and shamed online after trying to help lost 2-year-old find her family

A good Samaritan in Lakeland, Florida who tried to help a lost two-year-old girl locate her family was beaten by a group of men who mistook him for a kidnapper.

Texas police chief creates new position for himself after ‘resigning’ over racist rant

Carmen Ponder was arrested and spent the night in jail after the altercation.

Putin Has Higher World Approval Rating Than Dumbass Trump

Putin Has Higher World Approval Rating Than Trump

The World's Confidence in the United States Has Plummeted Since Dumbass Trump Stole Office

Dumbass Trump Junta Makes Key Decision That Threatens Water Supply of Millions

Link Dump

When the Beast of Gévaudan Terrorized France

At the point where belief in supernatural forest monsters overlapped the new era of newspaper distribution lies the story of the Beast of Gévaudan. Beginning in 1764, the people of the French region of Gévaudan suffered 100 deaths and nearly 300 injuries attributed to a unknown beast. The country was entranced by the press accounts of the attacks, and eyewitness descriptions from those who survived. 
Individuals may have had some success defending themselves, but official hunters had none. In February 1765, the d’Ennevals, a father-son hunter duo from Normandy, announced they would travel to Gévaudan to eliminate the beast. Jean-Charles, the father, boasted he’d already killed 1,200 wolves, relevant information assuming the predator was, in fact, a wolf. But no one was sure of that. “It is much bigger than a wolf,” wrote Lafont in an early report. “It has a snout somewhat like a calf’s and very long hair, which would seem to indicate a hyena.”
Duhamel described the animal as even more fantastical. In his words, it had a “breast as wide as a horse,” “a body as long as a leopard’s,” and fur that’s that was “red with a black stripe.” Duhamel concluded, “You will undoubtedly think, like I do, that this is a monster [hybrid], the father of which is a lion. What its mother was remains to be seen.”
Other witnesses claimed the beast had supernatural abilities. “It could walk on its hind feet and its hide could repel bullets and it had fire in its eyes and it came back from the dead more than once and had amazing leaping ability,” Smith says.
While the animal could have been a lion or other escaped exotic creature, many modern-day researchers believe the Beast of Gévaudan was an particularly large wolf, or wolves. After the newspaper accounts died down, the beast attacks continued until 1767, although normal wolf encounters remained. Read the saga of Beast of Gévaudan at Smithsonian.

New Study Finds Cats Most Likely Domesticated Themselves

Cats are truly amazing creatures, and since humans have never been able to fully tame those tiny tigers it's not all that surprising to hear a new study has found cats pretty much domesticated themselves.
But this discovery does seem to indicate that cats like humans as much as we like them, a secret the Feline Illuminati would kill to keep under wraps.
Casey Smith reported about the findings in National Geographic:
The earlier ancestors of today’s domestic cats spread from southwest Asia and into Europe as early as 4400 B.C. The cats likely started hanging around farming communities in the Fertile Crescent about 8,000 years ago, where they settled into a mutually beneficial relationship as humans’ rodent patrol.
Mice and rats were attracted to crops and other agricultural byproducts being produced by human civilizations. Cats likely followed the rodent populations and, in turn, frequently approached the human settlements.
“This is probably how the first encounter between humans and cats occurred,” says study coauthor Claudio Ottoni of the University of Leuven. “It’s not that humans took some cats and put them inside cages,” he says. Instead, people more or less allowed cats to domesticate themselves.
A second lineage, consisting of African cats that dominated Egypt, spread into the Mediterranean and most of the Old World beginning around 1500 B.C. This Egyptian cat probably had behaviors that made it attractive to humans, such as sociability and tameness.
The results suggest that prehistoric human populations probably began carrying their cats along ancient land and sea trade routes to control rodents.