The Daily Drift

Editor's Note: It looks like Monday's postings will be the ones most affected by the passing of our great-great nephew. Thank you for all your thoughts and wishes.

Moon Gate ...!

 

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Today is  -  Moon Day 
 

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Europe

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Today in History

1402		Tamerlane's Mongols defeat Ottoman Turks at Angora.
1588		The Spanish Armada sets sail from Corunna.
1715		The Riot Act goes into effect in England.
1864		Confederate General John Bell Hood attacks Union forces under General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta.
1867		Imperial troops in Guizhou, China, kill 20,000 Miao rebels.
1881		Sioux chief Sitting Bull surrenders to the U.S. Army.
1917		Alexander Kerensky becomes the premier of Russia.
1942		The U.S. Army Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) begins its first training class at Fort Des Monies, Iowa.
1944		Adolf Hitler is wounded in an assassination attempt by German Army officers at Rastenburg.
1950		The U.S. Army's Task Force Smith is pushed back by superior North Korean forces.
1951		King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated.
1969		Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the moon.
1976		The Viking spacecraft lands on Mars and begins taking soil samples.

Non Sequitur

Israel-Palestine ... What Gives

Why Are Israelis and Palestinians at Odds?

With Israel and the Palestinians on the brink of war, Tara Long examines the age-old conflict between the two. What are they fighting about? 

Obama Fights Back Against Hobby Lobby Fueled Discrimination With LGBT Executive Order

There has not been much good, or encouraging, news in America over the past months, and it is due to the perpetual assault on the people by a cabal of un-American groups led by repugicans and empowered by wingnutsson the Supreme Court. To their credit, Democrats have attempted to assuage the damage imposed by the wingnut court, particularly the Hobby Lobby ruling, but repugicans dutifully protected the religio-wingnuts and betrayed American women. There were plenty of Americans concerned the religio-wingnuts would use the court’s ruling as freedom to discriminate against the gay community, and within 24 hours of the Hobby Lobby decision a group of powerful religious leaders informed President Obama that he better “give deference to the christian prerogative” and legalize discrimination by federal contractors with a “robust religious exemption” in an executive order due on Monday.

Friday it was announced that President Obama is not intimidated by Hobby Lobby, or wimpy catholic and evangelical religious leaders, and will sign an executive order on Monday barring discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees doing federal government work. The religio-wingnuts will not get the religious exemption, or the President’s deference to the christian prerogative, they demanded and it is the most encouraging news coming out of Washington since the Hobby Lobby ruling was announced.

By not allowing the religious leaders to intimidate him, President Obama drew a demarcation line between religious freedom wingnut style and the United States Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights for all Americans. The President also sent a powerful message to the religio-wingnuts that regardless the High Court’s ruling, religious liberty is not a license to discriminate; even among so-called christian friends of the White House. The President had warned last month that because repugicans in Congress obstructed progress on the anti-bias law, Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), he would take action on his own to protect the LGBT community from religious discrimination in hiring.

The announcement the President is defending equality for all Americans elicited high praise from GetEqual, a gay rights group, and a threat from the religio-wingnutts of impending lawsuits to protect their religious liberty to discriminate. The director of Get Equal, Heather Cronk, said “We’re so proud today of the decision made by the Obama administration to resist the calls by a small number of lunatic fringe wingnuts to insert religious exemptions into civil rights protections.”

However, while gays were celebrating the White House announcement, the vice president of government relations for the national assholes of evangelicals said “It would be better if the President could provide leadership that promotes tolerance ‘all the way around,’ rather than use the force of the state.” He promised that the President’s order would lead to lengthy and expensive legal fights. The religious cabals wanted the exemption to ensure they would still get taxpayer funded federal contracts while they discriminated against the LGBT community and people who do not share their faith. The remark from evangelicals that the President should promote tolerance all the way around is insincere and a lie. The only tolerance evangelicals are concerned about is the population, and the federal government, tolerating their religious liberty to ignore the Constitution. The President disabused them of any idea they have a clear path to imposing anti-gay discrimination on the nation; particularly using taxpayer money.

The President’s order is certain to enrage repugicans who are already angry the White House is working while the repugican cabal Congress sits on its hands pandering to religious and corporate fascists. But the President’s new protections are built on longstanding executive orders dealing with discrimination in hiring that apply to federal contractors approved by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, Richard Nixon in 1969, and Bill Clinton in 1995 and 1998. All Presidents who, like Barack Obama, took their oath to defend Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights seriously, but they did not face angry and substantial opposition from the religious liberty crowd.

The demand for Presidential authority for religious groups to flout anti-discrimination in hiring laws was sent from religious leaders who thought that because they were “friends of the White House,” the President would ignore the document he swore to defend and uphold; the U.S. Constitution. The signatories demanding “deference to the christian prerogative” included baptist hack Rick Warren, former White House faith-based initiative operative Michael Wear, and representatives for catholic charities that believe sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a mortal sin and demanded to keep taxpayers’ funding their cabal while they refused to hire gays. However, not all christian groups supported the concept of using religious liberty as a weapon to discriminate against gays.

The president of the Interfaith Alliance, Reverend C. Welton Gaddy said, “Those of us who really care deeply about both the sanctity and the necessity of religious freedom have grieved to see people use that as a cover for overt discrimination, and the president is not going to allow that to happen.” Gaddy was responsible for organizing 100 real christian leaders to send their own letter to the President opposing giving evangelicals freedom to discriminate. Reverend Gaddy said the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision really “shined a bright light” on christian extremists’ efforts to use religious freedom as a convenient excuse to violate other Americans civil rights.

The president of the Human Rights Campaign, Chad Griffin, said that “With the strokes of a pen, the president will have a very real and immediate impact on the lives of millions of L.G.B.T. people across the country. These actions from the president have the potential to be a keystone in the arch of his administration’s progress, and they send a powerful message to future administrations and to Congress that anti-L.G.B.T. discrimination must not be tolerated.” The President sent an even more powerful message to the religious right that their plans to use the Hobby Lobby decision as a religious weapon to eviscerate anti-discrimination laws and 14th Amendment equal protection guarantees will not go unchallenged.

There is no doubt the threat of lengthy and expensive lawsuits against the government by the national assholes of evangelicals is empty. In fact, the impetus for the Hobby Lobby lawsuit was as much about fulfilling the Manhattan Declaration mission to abolish anti-discrimination laws as it was banning contraceptives and abortion. The religious leaders’ letter demanding the President’s deference to the christian prerogative was a a trial to determine how committed he was to protecting equal rights for the LGBT community, and the President’s message could not be clearer or more decisive; religious freedom is not freedom to discriminate.

The religio-wingnuts celebrated the Hobby Lobby decision as their ticket to use religious freedom to run roughshod over the rights of Americans unwilling to comply with their religious edicts. While they were waving the religious liberty flag, Hobby Lobby ruling, and the christian bible to intimidate the President of the United States into doing their bidding and authorizing legal discrimination, Barack Obama held up the United States Constitution and said this document, not the christian bible, is the law of the land.

The Truth Be Told

Lush Dimbulb Claims Malaysian Airliner Was Shot Down In a Conspiracy To Help Obama

Well, that sure didn’t take long. On Thursday, wingnut hate speach-radio hack Lush Dimbulb tossed around an insane conspiracy theory regarding the Malaysian jet airliner that crashed in Ukraine. Dimbulb suggested that the airline crash, which the US has confirmed was caused by a surface-to-air missile, occurred at the perfect time for the media to “abandon the Obama news at the border.” Dimbulb made sure to carefully parse his words and point out that this all was just “really eerie.” However, it was clear what the repugican blowhard was implying with his comments.

Below is from The Lush Dimbulb Show’s transcript:

LUSH: Holy cow, folks. Have you seen the news? A Malaysian Airlines flight has been shot down by a missile over Ukraine, at least according to an advisory to Ukraine’s interior ministry. The Interfax News Agency — which has nothing to do with fax machines. It’s what the Soviets used to call their news agency, Interfax. You didn’t know that, did you?

They even had a hotel chain called Interfax and everybody thought, “What? Is it fax machines?” and it had nothing to do with that. Anyway, it’s a Malaysian Airlines jet. You know, I’ve got the British Open on to the top monitor. I haven’t had CNN on all day. What do you bet they have broomed everything and are covering wall-to-wall the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down by a missile?

I mean, you talk about… I don’t want appear to be callous here, folks, but you talk about an opportunity to abandon the Obama news at the border? And, no, I’m not suggesting anything other than how the media operates. Anyway, it’s eerie. It is really eerie. A Malaysian airliner. It was on the way to Kuala Lumpur. Why would it be shot down? Over Ukraine? It was shot down by a missile.

This would lead one to believe that it is not an accident. It carried 295 people, and obviously there are no survivors.

You get that? Lush isn’t suggesting anything; he’s just saying that it all seems a little fishy. This tragedy comes at the perfect time for the President as it distracts everyone from the situation at the border, don’t you know? So it all is just very fortuitous for the administration. They are catching a break. But, maybe, just maybe, they might be in on it. Lush won’t put it past them. But, you know, he’s just pointing things out.

Throughout the show, Dimbulb allowed listeners to spout out their own theories about the airline crash. Lush also told his audience that he didn’t think Obama apologized to Vladimir Putin for the jet crash. The reason is that Putin was the one who called Obama and informed him of the crash. This seemed to be an odd statement from Lush — except when you realize he was helping to feed into his audience’s wingnut fantasies about President Obama. Basically, he lends credence to their thoughts that Obama may have had a hand in this tragic event, even as Dimbulb gives the opinion that Obama likely did not admit any culpability.

LUSH: It was Vladimir Putin who called Obama and told him that the Malaysian Airlines jet had been shot down. Now, Putin was scheduled to call anyway. He was calling Obama about sanctions, US sanctions on Russia. The call was therefore scheduled before the plane was shot down. The AP is claiming that Putin is who informed Obama. So I had some people asking me earlier today if they thought Obama apologized to Putin for the plane being shot down.

I doubt that since it was Putin who made the call.

I know we shouldn’t expect anything else from Dimbulb. But, can’t he at least wait 24 hours before he starts bringing out the crazy conspiracy theories?

The repugican cabal's 'Religious Liberty' Campaign Is Not Working Out Too Well

by Ed Kilgore

Rallying around the Hobby Lobby decision can make repugicans say stupid things.

In the wake of a predictable  repugican cabal filibuster of a Senate bill seeking to reverse the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, repugicans are publicly complaining that Democrats are trying to “change the subject” from this or that issue (real or imaginary) they want to talk about, but are privately conceding the peril for their team of any extended conversation involving reproductive rights. At National Journal Sophie Novack  reports they’d just as soon not go there:

The repugican agitators who were around for [Todd] Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment in 2012 warn candidates to tread carefully on the issue. The repugican cabal’s continued meetings on how to connect with women show the party is still haunted by his loss, and members have denounced his return to the political scene with the release of his new book.

“The fact that the Supreme Court made the decision—repugicans should let that stand and not engage in the debate. It will get them nowhere and take them off the message of real issue Americans are concerned about,” said Ron Bonjean, a repugican cabal agitator and former spokesman for House and Senate leadership. “I think repugicans saw what happened with Todd Akin—it was a stupid and bad campaign strategy. It would be political malpractice for repugicans to engage with that kind of conversation.”

This is another way of admitting that the effort begun in 2012 to reframe the repugican cabal’s extremist position on reproductive rights as a defense of “religious liberty” hasn’t worked as well as cabal agitators had hoped. Indeed, by shifting the focus from abortion to “abortifacient” birth control, the “religious liberty”-driven attack on Obamacare’s contraception coverage mandate has actually increased opportunities for repugican pols to say things that sound stupid or crazy to a big percentage of the population.
Was Akin’s disastrous “legitimate rape” commentary really any farther from the mainstream than talk about IUDs being little Holocaust machines? Is there really any way to frame the the unchanging extremist position on abortion (life begins when ovum fertilized; ban all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest) most repugicans embrace in a way that doesn’t hurt the the party with swing voters generally and single women in particular? I don’t think so. But I also think “don’t talk about it” demands like Bonjean’s will infuriate the anti-choice agitators who set the repugican cabal’s position in the first place and convince them to demand even more demonstrations of loyalty.

The repugican Demonizing of Refugee Children Shames America

The un-American anti-Family Asshat's Sandy Rios says refugee children carry diseases and she be treated like lepers (never mind that we don't even treat lepers like lepers anymore)…

Murrieta’s white folks protest the arrival of brown folks

On July 15, The New York Times reported that “More than 52,000 children have been caught crossing the United States border alone since October — double last year’s number.”

Steve Stockman (r-TX) referred to this flood of refugee children as an “invasion of our nation,” He told Wing Nut Daily and its uneducated readership that “There are more people coming across the border than invaded France in World War II,”

Never mind that the allies sent 160,000 troops across the Channel to Normandy on D-Day alone, and by the end of June, 1944, had shipped across 875,000 men. But Stockman is a Texas repugican so veracity is the last thing you should expect from him.

Pope Francis says “”This humanitarian emergency requires, as a first urgent measure, these children be welcomed and protected.” Far from it, says Michele Bachmann, appearing on CNN’s Crossfire. She shocked co-host Van Jones by calling immigrant children “invaders” and comparing them to rapists.

It was reported Monday by Mother Jones that,

Last week, Phil Gingrey (r-Ga.) wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a dire warning: Some of the child refugees streaming across the southern border into the United States might carry deadly diseases. “Reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” Gingrey wrote. “Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.”

It’s no wonder, with rhetoric like this, that bigoted wingnuts are gathering in their thousands to tell immigrant children they’re not welcome in their neighborhood. They are nothing but a bunch of little terrorists after all, future rapists, drug users, and thieves.

As CNN reported,

Earlier this month in Murrieta, busloads of babies in their mothers’ laps, teens, ‘tweens and toddlers were turned back from a detainee facility.

They were met by screaming protesters waving and wearing American flags and bearing signs that read such things as “Return to Sender.”

They were also, to the lasting shame and embarrassment of us all, chanting “USA! USA!”

The un-American anti-Family Asshat’s Sandy Rios says they carry diseases and she be treated like lepers (never mind that we don’t even treat lepers like lepers anymore):

I think of biblical times, the lepers were separated — right or wrong — they were separated. It was understood that leprosy was so contagious. So there’s nothing wrong with wanting to separate your children. We used to quarantine people when they had diseases.

“We’re such a healthy people that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be diseased and die from those diseases in huge numbers,” she said, “but we’re going to learn, I think, again.”

And egads, these kids are transported in the “same planes that you and I fly in.”

“How do we know about lice and disease before they get on public transportation?”

Never mind that these kids are more likely to be immunized than American children and that many of them have their medical records in hand. In other words, they are nothing like Michele Bachmann, who thinks the HPV vaccine made a child mentally retarded, or Gingrey, who is opposed to mandatory vaccinations.

We saw Arizona’s Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu reveal in a press release the route of a bus full of 40 immigrant children. There must be something in the water in Arizona because that’s all it took to rally the bigots, who gathered in Oracle, Arizona, to do their own Murrieta Intercept. We saw tea party candidate Adam Kwasman freak out over a school bus full of – he assumed – those immigrant children. He hurriedly tweeted, “Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law.” It turned out instead to be a bus full of YMCA kids.

Sheriff Paul Babeu, for his part, says letting those kids come into the country only encourages more. He took to Facebook to say, “These children should be returned to their home country — not to Oracle, Arizona, paid for by American taxpayers.”

Slow your roll, Sheriff. They’re children. They’re not a bunch of diseased invaders looking to grow up and rape white women. They’re children.

The tea party brought out all that is worst in wingnuttery and gave it a point of focus. They crazies then took over the asylum and the repugican cabal is itself now in thrall to the extremists, with the result that attacking and demonizing children has become mainstreamed.

As Sonia Nazario writes in a New York Times op-ed, this is a refugee crisis, not an immigration crisis. Even so, when the Statue of Liberty says…

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

…she could have been looking directly at these children. Instead, Huffington Post reports that a new poll shows that,

A near-majority of Americans want the undocumented immigrant children currently being held at the border deported as soon as possible, even though only about one-third of adults think these children have someplace safe to return to, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds.

The degree of heartlessness exhibited by Americans – by repugicans in particular – beggars belief. Many of these children are victims of the drug war America is funding, and refuses to end. A drug war those same wingnuts support. But then, repugicans want babies to be born without caring what happens to them afterward.

In the end though, you have to wonder how different the repugican reaction would be if these were bus loads of blond-haired and blue-eyed Northern European kids who spoke English. My guess is they’d be volunteering their homes, and serial pedophile Ted Nugent and Duck Dynasty’s bible-totin’ Phil Robertson would probably not be alone in offering to take the 15-year-old girls into their own homes.

11 Roles Changed to Fit the Actors Who Auditioned

Did you know that the role of Garcia in Criminal Minds was supposed to be a middle-aged Mexican man? The producers were so impressed by Vangness’ audition -and we don’t know what role she auditioned for- that they changed the character to a young woman so they could hire her. And Hugh Laurie completely fooled executive producer/director Bryan Singer into thinking he was an American to get the role of Gregory House, M.D. But that’s just the beginning. Warming Glow gives us a list of 11 roles in ten TV shows that were changed in order to fit the actor that impressed the producers.

Random Celebrity Photos

Bridget Bardot

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Spice Up Your Health

Health Benefits May Be Hiding in Your Spice Rack

From cinnamon to thyme to rosemary, some of your favorite spices could offer more to your day than just a nice bit of flavor.

Cat Poo vs Cancer

Cat Poop Parasite Shows Promise in Treating Cancer

A common parasite found in cat poop shows promise in treating aggressive forms of cancer.

Stopping Diabetes In Its Tracks

One injection stops mouse diabetes in its tracks

In mice with diet-induced diabetes—the equivalent of type 2 diabetes […]

Ziggy

Mexican Drug Cartel Thugs Kidnap American 'Courier' in SC

A kidnapping and ransom case in the Carolinas suggests just how active Mexican drug cartels have become in the U.S.

Today, authorities identified three purported members of a Mexican drug cartel as the alleged kidnappers of a South Carolina man last week, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District of Court of South Carolina.

The American hostage, who authorities said was drug courier for the cartel, apparently was kidnapped on July 9 and held for ransom, with demands for as much as $400,000 coming from unknown cartel members in Mexico.

After nearly a week in captivity, the hostage was found chained and blindfolded, but alive, in a Roseboro, N.C., home.

The criminal complaint alleged the kidnapping and ransom demands were triggered by the American courier’s loss of 200 pounds of marijuana. The suspected courier, identified only as "ES" in the criminal complaint, "delivered 200 pounds [$200,000 worth] of marijuana to an unidentified customer. ES 'fronted' the marijuana to the customer, expecting payment at a later date; however the customer absconded with the with the marijuana and never made payment," according to the complaint.

In the days before the kidnapping, the FBI said, the purported cartel operatives demanded repayment for the missing marijuana from ES and his father, “SG” who also was allegedly working as a drug courier.

When the father could not come up with the money, ES was pulled out of his truck at gunpoint the morning of July 9 in St. Matthews, S.C., and went missing, officials said.

The truck was found still running with its doors open in a neighbor’s yard.

Later in the day, ES’ fiance got a call saying that ES had been kidnapped and the caller demanded to talk to SG about a ransom.

Police and federal agents were eventually able to trace the origin of that call to a number in Mexico and soon found that Mexican-based phone had also placed calls to another number in the South Carolina area, officials said. It turned out that local number could be tracked to a man named Juan Manuel Fuentes-Morales, they added.

Fuentes-Morales was allegedly using that phone to communicate with cartel leadership in Mexico, which was making decisions concerning what ransom demands would be made.

The criminal complaint charged that between July 10 and July 15, the hostage-takers placed 13 calls to ES’ fiance and father. The hostage takers "demanded ransom in amounts varying between $100,000 and $400,000," according to the criminal complaint. In addition to the ransom money, according to officials, the kidnappers demanded the return of the “200,” referring to the 200 pounds of marijuana that had disappeared.

Local law enforcement and the FBI were able to listen in on those calls and advised the fiance and father to demand “proof of life” from the kidnappers.

It was the “proof of life” demand that helped break the case and find the hostage. The family asked the kidnappers to provide them with family information that only ES would know.

Law enforcement agents listened in as the caller, allegedly Fuentes-Morales, called his purported bosses in Mexico and told them it would take at least 30 minutes to obtain the information from ES.

Police were able to track the caller's cell phone location as he drove to the home in Roseboro, N.C., where ES was being held, and then listened again as he called the family back with the answer to the "proof of life" question.

Now, law enforcement closed the net. It obtained warrants for the locations in South and North Carolina and, at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, the FBI’s elite hostage rescue team stormed a home in Roseboro, N.C., where they found ES and arrested Fuentes-Morales and two alleged accomplices, Ruben Ceja-Rangel and Luis Castro Villeda.

The complex, international case ended up drawing a massive law enforcement response.

“The cooperation among federal, local and state law enforcement agencies and across state lines was nothing short of incredible throughout this investigation," David Thomas, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Columbia, S.C., field office, said in a statement after the arrests. "The attention and resources contributed to this investigation should send a strong message that the FBI and its partners will not tolerate the kidnapping of American citizens."

Extensive resources were sent to the Charlotte and Columbia FBI field offices by FBI headquarters, including the Hostage Rescue Team, a highly trained group of special agents often called upon to respond to an extraordinary crisis. Crisis negotiators, multiple FBI SWAT teams, evidence response teams, analysts, technical specialists and other personnel were also sent to assist.

The suspects made an initial appearance this morning at the federal courthouse in Raleigh, N.C., and will be transferred to South Carolina to stand trial.

The only mystery left in this case was what really happened to that 200 pounds of marijuana: If ES was involved, was he ripped off or did he steal the grass himself? The FBI said the investigation into that aspect of the case was “ongoing.”

Wife accused of assaulting husband because he hadn't cooked dinner

A South Carolina woman is accused of hitting her husband, upset with him because he not yet cooked dinner, according to a sheriff's office report. Spartanburg County deputies said they were called to the newlywed couple's Boiling Springs home on Monday about the assault.
The man ran out to officers waving his arms at them saying he had been assaulted by his wife, 31-year-old April Cooper, according to deputies. The report said Cooper was upset her husband had not cooked dinner, so he left to get groceries, but when he returned home, she was gone. The man sat in the recliner and waited for her to return and when she did, she began yelling, hitting him in the head and chest, according to the report. Deputies said the man took his wife's phone and went outside to call 911, but Cooper threatened to damage her husband's property if he did not return the phone. He gave it back but went to a neighbour's to call 911 while Cooper made threats to hurt herself, deputies said.
When officers spoke to her, she told deputies her husband has been stressed out because of work, she never touched him, and they were happily married, only arguing occasionally. The report said the couple was married in January. Deputies said her husband had scratches on his neck, chest and injuries on his face. Cooper was arrested and charged with criminal domestic violence.

Stolen Jeep driven 3,400 miles from Miami to Washington State in two days

Police in the town of Blaine, Washington, near the Canadian border found a Jeep in a bank car park that had been stolen 3,400 miles away in Miami, Florida, just two days earlier.

The Jeep was reported to the Miami Police Department as stolen sometime between June 30 and July 1. On July 2 it was found by Blaine Police.
Police don't know who took the black 2012 Jeep Patriot, or why they sped from one corner of the US to the other.
They found some clothing inside the car and the exterior had minor damage to the passenger-side fender, but little other evidence. Meanwhile, Blaine Towing has the Jeep and is trying to contact the owner to send it back home.

Believe It Or Not ...

Hydro-Pryamids

How Did They Build the Pyramids? With Water!

Powerful things can often derive from simple principles, and this one's a doozy. It turns out the Egyptian pyramid builders were able to move the massive stones by greasing the sleds -- with water!

Summer Storms

How Do Summer Superstorms Form?

A massive line of thunderstorms can be unnerving, but squall lines, as meteorologists call them, are a fairly common phenomenon during the summer season.

Holding More, Releasing Less

Certain arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they release

New research, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), counters […]

Skull Rock

Is This The Best Super Villain Lair Ever?

Are you a super villain looking for a new lair? Then look no further. Take a look at Skull Rock, also known as Cleft Island. Situated off the coast of Wilsons Promontory in the state of Victoria it is at the southernmost point of the Australian mainland.
Skull Rock is beautiful, unspoiled and above all, peaceful. From a distance you may not think it is anything to write home about - and that's the beauty of it. Your new hi-tech facility, where you can evolve your next fiendish plan without interruption, is hidden in plain sight.

This Iceberg Looks Like Batman

This iceberg looks just like the Dark Knight spawned on a cold night in Crime Alley.

*I cannot determine if Victor Fries ever completed his doctorate and should therefore be addressed as "Doctor." He wrote a dissertation, but I find no evidence that he defended it successfully.

Daily Comic Relief

The Longest Known Fossilized Dinosaur Poop

This is coprolite--fossilized excrement. It dates back to between the Oligocene and Minocene Epochs, which makes it somewhere around 5.3 to 33.9 million years old. The poop was found in Lewis County, Washington State. The I.M. Chait auction house is selling it, estimating the price at between $8,000-10,000.
According to the auction house, it is a truly outstanding poop. It "boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring" throughout its full "eye-watering 40 inches." It is a "truly spectacular specimen."
You can see from the picture that this is clearly true. This isn't just an impressive specimen, but a natural work of art.

Elephant Obesity

African Elephants in Zoos Threatened by Obesity

Experts warn that the weight gain is contributing to infertility, which could be detrimental to the survival of the species in zoos. 

21 Big Dogs That Insist They Are Lap Dogs

If you look closely at this picture, you might notice that there’s a woman under all that dog. I’ve said it to my kids, and maybe you have as well: “You’re never too big to sit in Mommy’s lap.” That goes for dogs, too, because they love you, even when they become large enough to crush you! Jeff Wysaski at Pleated-Jeans collected photographs of 21 oversized dogs who still want a little lap time.

Animal Pictures