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Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Thursday, November 20, 2014

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts this means you ...!
 
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Today in History

269   Diocletian is proclaimed emperor of Numerian in Asia Minor by his soldiers. He had been the commander of the emperor's bodyguard.  
1695   Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian leader of a 100-year-old rebel slave group, is killed in an ambush. 1700   Sweden's 17-year-old King Charles XII defeats the Russians at Narva.  
1903   In Cheyenne, Wyoming, 42-year-old hired gunman Tom Horn is hanged for the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.  
1914   Bulgaria proclaims its neutrality in the First World War.  
1928   Mrs. Glen Hyde becomes the first woman to dare the Grand Canyon rapids in a scow (a flat-bottomed boat that is pushed along with a pole).  
1931   Japan and China reject the League of Council terms for Manchuria at Geneva.  
1943   U.S. Army and Marine soldiers attack the Japanese-held islands of Makin and Tarawa, respectively, in the Central Pacific.  
1945   The Nazi war crime trials begin at Nuremberg.
1947   Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) marries Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey.  
1950   U.S. troops push to the Yalu River, within five miles of Manchuria.  
1955   The Maryland National Guard is ordered desegregated.  
1962   President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
1967   U.S. census reports the population at 200 million.  
1971   The United States announces it will give Turkey $35 million for farmers who agree to stop growing opium poppies.
1974   The United States files an antitrust suit to break up ATT.  
1978   South Africa backs down on a plan to install black rule in neighboring Namibia.  
1981   Microsoft Windows 1.0 released.  
1992   Fire in England's Windsor Castle causes over £50 million in damages.
1998   First module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.  
2008  Dow Jones Industrial Average sinks to lowest level in 11 years in response to failures in the US financial system.

Photographer Documents Modern Witchcraft

Alice Smeets describes herself via her website as a "Photographer. Journalist. Filmmaker. Artist. Wedding photojournalist. Project Manager. Teacher. Traveler." She studied under a photojournalist as his assistant, and her specialty is documentary photography.
These images are from a series Smeets did on the practitioners of modern witchcraft in Europe and the United States. They are striking shots, vivid in their depiction of the involved individuals. Here is Smeets' take on the project: 
“Modern Witchcraft is practiced across Europe, the USA and the rest of the Western World. It is extremely diverse; with beliefs that range widely from polytheism to animism, to pantheism and other paradigms. The largest movements of this self-termed Neo-Paganism are Wicca and Druidism; the followers of which call themselves Witches or Druids, sharing beliefs of Magic, Witchcraft and Nature’s Power. They respect their environment and celebrate eight Sabbats in the Wheel of the Year where they praise the divinities of nature. They often hold rituals – called Esbats – on the Full Moon. In part, they return to some of the old Celtic traditions. While Wicca is a very young religion, formed by Gerald Gardner not more than 50 years ago, its roots are much older than christianity. It has no relationship to Satanism, which is one of many misconceptions held by the public. Ancient pagan beliefs have begun to make their way into the Neo-Pagan community in many ways, making our spiritual path a very deep one, rooted and grounded in the very earth that supports us. From its origins in England it is now widely spread across Europe, America and the rest of the world. At the present time, Neo-Paganism is a large network of small communities with its own organizations, festivals, magazines, shops, workshops, gatherings and ceremonies. Witches can be found everywhere: in the supermarket, in the streets, as well as in our own neighborhood. And you would not know these Witches unless you were told who they were or were one yourself.”
We encourage anyone interested in this series to visit Smeets' website to see more photos. They are compelling shots.

Woman fighting to get back lost dog after he was adopted by family that won't give him back

Four-year-old Killer, a white fluffy Pomeranian maltipoo mix, is in another home instead of sleeping on 25-year-old Meghan Gregor's pillow in Bakersfield, California. Gregor says the nightmare started on November 3, when she gave Killer a haircut. "It looked horrible, I'm not going to lie that poor little thing, but I have been doing it for a while so I've been getting better and better at it," she said. Gregor raised Killer from birth. He was one of the two puppies her old dog Toots had. Gregor gave Killer a bath after his haircut and put him outside to dry off, then went upstairs to shower. About 30 minutes later Killer was nowhere to be found.
"Well I guess the gardener's came... and I came to let him back in and was like, 'Killer! Killer!' like, freaking out." Gregor said. She immediately went to her car and started driving around the neighborhood. She taped posters all over the neighborhood and had search parties made up of friends and family. She also posted a Craigslist advertisement for her missing dog. On November 6th she found out her neighbor had found Killer and taken him to Kern County Animal Services, but she couldn't go to him. She was at a dialysis appointment because her kidneys have failed.
Gregor found out her organs were failing in the beginning of February and that's when the hospital visits started. Since then she has had a daily regimen of 30 plus pills and a nine-hour dialysis treatment. She was ordered by the doctor to take time off of work. On November 7th Gregor went in to KCAS and sees her best friend, "he was so excited to see me, I was like 'Killer baby!' and you know he's doing his little circles, like so excited, you know whining at me and I'm like 'Don't worry I'm going to get you out!'" Gregor went to the front desk and after an employee looked up her dog, Gregor was told Killer is not legally hers anymore. He had been adopted out two hours previously. "I'm crying I'm like 'no, you don't understand - this dog is very important to me',"

Gregor pleaded with the employee. Gregor also said Animal Services called the woman who adopted Killer, but the new owner did not want to know about her and did not care. Gregor was also told by an employee at the shelter that the new owner didn't want to give up the dog and that this had never happened before. Employees have had cases where a dog will be adopted but if the family comes looking for it, the new owner always returns the dog. "I'm not supposed to have a lot of stress in my life which I already have," Gregor said. On top of her medical concerns, she is going through a divorce. Her determination to persevere is what keeps her going. "I'm going to request for the new owner's information and see where that goes," Gregor said.

Pedestrians Lift a Car off a Woman

A woman riding on a scooter in Zhejiang Province, China, was struck by a car at an intersection. As you can see in this video, the car ran over her. A police officer promptly ran over to help her husband and the car driver find a solution. Then a crowd swarmed around the car, hulked out, and lifted it right off of her.
She's now recovering at a local hospital.

Bernie Sanders: repugicans Are Getting Very Nervous About Obamacare’s Success

bernie sanders republican nervous aca
Sen. Bernie Sanders explained on MSNBC that repugicans are very nervous about the success of Obamacare, because the ACA proves their ideology that the government can’t help people wrong.
Video:
Sen. Sanders was asked about the new ACA sign up numbers on MSNBC’s The Ed Show.
Sen. Sanders (I-VT) said, “It tells us that you have a program that is working well. That they have overcome the problems that they initially had. It tells me that about seventy-five percent of the people on the exchanges think that the healthcare they are getting is good, and I think this is making our repugican colleagues very nervous.”
Later, Sen. Sanders explained why repugicans want to destroy the ACA. He said, “They want to destroy it not for what it is, but because it is the federal government doing something to protect ordinary people, and that is not what they like. These are the same guys who want to end Medicare as we know it. Convert it into a voucher program. Make massive cuts in Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs. Ultimately what they want at the end of the day is for all Americans to go into the private sector exclusively for their health care. If you don’t have any money and you can’t afford it, tough luck.”
Sanders summed up the entire repugican philosophy, “What these guys want to do is to tell the American people,’Hey you think government can do something for you? It can’t. Only the private sector can do things for you, and you don’t even have to come to vote because government is irrelevant to your lives. That’s what this whole thing is about ideologically.”
Sen. Sanders also pointed out that repugicans can repeal no part of the ACA because the president would veto it, and Senate Democrats would uphold his veto. The repugicans are getting nervous about the success of the ACA. Every single person that signs up makes it a little bit more difficult to repeal the law.
With two more years of signups and tens of millions of people covered, it will be virtually impossible for repugicans to repeal the law. For this reason, repugicans are getting nervous. None of their dire predictions for year two are coming true. Premium costs have not skyrocketed; people are satisfied with the insurance that they purchased on the exchange, and the vast majority of those people are renewing their plans.
The media coverage and the endless drumbeat of right-wing negativity have combined to obscure the fact that the Affordable Care Act is popular with those who are signing up, and the law is proving that government can respect the marketplace and be a force for positive change. The repugicans are nervous because deep down they know that the ACA is here to stay.

Gun nut agitator Says People Should Use Guns To Prevent Obama From Becoming A Tyrant

larryprattnewsmax
In an appearance on Newsmax TV’s America’s Forum, gun nut agitator and white supremacist sympathizer Larry Pratt said that the reason President Obama is for gun control is “he clearly doesn’t like the fact that the American people can own guns because we might just want to use them to keep people like him from becoming tyrants.” The executive director of the wingnut gun agitation cabal Gun Owners for America was discussing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The ATT has long been delayed in the Senate, mostly because Pratt and other conspiracy nuts have convinced a number of wingnuts that passage of the treaty will lead to gun registries and the UN confiscating guns.
Pratt spoke with hack JD Hayworth (a former repugican congressman) and Rick Ungar of Forbes during the segment. When Ungar, who is typically serves as the token liberal on wingnut media programs, pushed back on Pratt’s claims that President Obama is coming for everyone’s guns and that Obama is going to use executive orders to push through the ATT, Pratt then retorted with his belief that Obama is worried that people feel he is a tyrant and will use their guns to stop him.
While mainstream media outlets have turned to Pratt to give his opinion over the years whenever the topic of gun control comes up, they rarely if ever actually highlight just how radical Pratt’s views are. In a profile piece on Pratt this past July, Rolling Stone writer Alexander Zaitchik revealed that Pratt believes that American gun owners shouldn’t be concerned with owning guns for hunting or self-defense. In Pratt’s mind, guns are needed to both scare elected officials and to carry out dog’s will as prophesied.
“The Second Amendment is not for hunting, it’s not even for self-defense,” Pratt explained in his Leadership Institute talk. Rather, it is “for restraining tyrannical tendencies in government. Especially those in the liberal, tyrannical end of the spectrum. There is some restraint, and even if the voters of Brooklyn don’t hold them back, it may be there are other ways that their impulses are somewhat restrained. That’s the whole idea of the Second Amendment.” He reiterated the point this March during an interview with conservative talk show host Bill Cunningham. Speaking of a New York Congresswoman who had expressed fear that one of Pratt’s members wanted to shoot her, Pratt said, “You know, I’m kind of glad that’s in the back of their minds. Hopefully they’ll behave.”
And if they don’t? When speaking before smaller, conservative audiences, Pratt explains that it is necessary to both generate an undercurrent of fear and muster the organization and will to defeat the dictator prophesied in the Book of Samuel. When asked during a 2010 Q&A session, “Do we have the will to stand up to the government when they trample our rights?” Pratt replied, “That is an exceptionally important point to raise. We can have all the guns in the world, and if we don’t have the will to use them [against the government], then they are useless.”
While Pratt is certifiable, he definitely has pull within wingnut circles. The repugicans don’t dare cross him or his ocabal lest they be called weak on guns. Pratt was especially influential in getting a Senate bill on background checks killed in early 2013. Even though the Manchin-Toomey bill was extremely gun friendly and far more wingnutty than other proposed Senate measures, the Gun Owners of America was able to provide the right amount of loud resistance and scare enough senators that the bill was unable to move forward. While the NRA was also a major factor in the bill’s failure, the New York Times claimed Pratt and his group may have been the prime movers. (Pratt took credit for killing the bill during the Newsmax interview.)
While Newsmax TV is trying to provide a further-to-the-right alternative to Faux News and therefore we should expect to hear wackiness from them on a daily basis, it is still troubling that a man like Pratt is consistently given a platform to spew his crazed views. Even more troubling is that he is hardly ever taken to task for his actual delusionss and why he thinks Americans need to own as many guns as possible. Therefore, we will continue to see him used as a counterpoint in MSM discussions on gun control and wingnut media will trot him out as an ‘expert’ on the Second Amendment.

Why it is Important Scott Lively Be Held Accountable for Wanting to Kill Gays

How long do you think it will be, if you can be murdered for being gay, before extremists go down the rest of their biblical list and find everyone can be murdered …
scott-lively“Gender, race, ethnicity – these are all morally neutral. But homosexuality is – involves voluntary sexual conduct with serious public health, social, sociological implications. It’s not irrational to discriminate on that basis.” – Scott Lively, NPR Interview, 2014
Extremist asshole and bigoted shill Scott Lively is being compared to jesus by Matt Barber, writing over at Wing Nut Daily. Because Lively wants to kill gays, and jesus…well, jesus didn’t. (jesus was gay by the way).
Matt Barber is upset that his buddy Lively is facing charges of committing international crimes against humanity by inciting the persecution of the LGBT community in Uganda. The charges were filed in 2012 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG).
Barber whines people want to destroy Lively, who has called gay-friendly christians “heretics,” said marriage equality caused Noah’s flood, and claimed gay people are responsible for the holocaust in his hate- and lie-filled diatribe, The Pink Swastika.
Gosh. Hard to imagine what anybody could have against Scott Lively!
But Barber, who writes of the crucifixion of Scott Lively, assures us,
As did christ, Scott Lively speaks absolute truth, in absolute love, with absolutely no fear of personal destruction or even death. He loves everyone, whether friend or foe, christian or pagan, straight or ‘gay.’
I don’t know. I think if Lively was like jesus he would just let us crucify him already. After all, jesus didn’t fight back.
Speaking as a Pagan, I’m not feeling the love. And he loves gays so much that he incited their persecution in Uganda.
What a guy. In fact, here is just how much of a guy Lively is:
But he’s innocent, because all he did, Barber says, was exercise “his dog-given First Amendment rights, as well as his free-speech rights afforded by the laws of Uganda, and spoke biblical lies about homosexual sin after having been invited there by a number of Ugandan anti-family cabals,” and now “homosexual activists” have “”Hitlerized” him, and “set-out to make an example of him.”
Well, he is advocating murder, so don’t you think he Hitlerized himself? Remember, this is the guy who “Hitlerized” gay people – literally – but he’s complaining about being Hitlerized? Really?
Barber relates that,
Lively loves those who seek to defend him just as he loves those who seek to destroy him – and, make no mistake about it, precisely because Scott Lively has chosen to both obey and emulate jesus christ, there are people, very powerful people, who seek to destroy him. These people, unless and until they come to know, accept and surrender to the lord jesus, are, and will remain, enemies of dog.
And so Scott Lively prays for them.
But jesus said don’t cast the first stone (John 8:7). Lively loves throwing stones. I think the stone throwing thing sorta erases the alleged love he feels, don’t you?
And jesus also said to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Rather than do so, Lively lashes out at those who criticize him. Not only has this guy not been crucified, don’t pretend a metaphorical crucifixion is the same thing as having spikes driven through feet and wrists and nailed to a piece of wood in agony for three days is at all comparable. Actual crucifixion doesn’t just hurt your feelings. It kills you.
If anyone should be compared to jesus, it’s all those innocent gays Lively advocated killing in Uganda, some of whom were beaten, tortured, and even lynched. They didn’t just get their feelings hurt. They got dead.
But Barber thinks they’re the same things, that having people angry at you for advocating their death and being literally crucified are indistinguishable.
Lively, of course, brought this on himself, by promoting violence against gays in Uganda. As pointed out last year, in 2009, at an anti-gay conference in Uganda, Lively said that gays and lesbians have genocidal tendencies. That speech triggered a witch-hunt in Uganda, which doubtless tickled Lively down to his toes. It was also one of Lively’s contacts in Uganda who proposed the infamous “Kill the gays” bill there.
Words themselves can be a form of violence. So is the physical violence that results from those words. As evidence, here are some quotes from Lively’s 2009 conference in Kampala, Uganda.
Barber argues that, “we’re talking about protected speech here. Lively is being tried for “crimes against humanity” for merely uttering, publicly, millennia-old biblical orthodoxy relative to sexual morality.”
But that orthodoxy dictates killing people, and as written in August of last year,
“This is real simple: If you want to kill people for violating your biblical delusions, that is a crime, not a violation of your First Amendment rights of free speech.”
Matt Barber writes that the case against Lively will eventually be tossed out of court, but he tells us,
Yet, either way, for these anti-christian extremists, the damage is done. The process is the punishment.
This was never about winning or losing.
It was always about intimidation.
Right, because the guy who says First Amendment Rights don’t apply to his critics is the victim here.
This is a big deal because, if you’re familiar with the bible at all, you’ll know that it advocates killing all kinds of people for all kinds of crazy reasons:
  • Incest (Leviticus 20:17);
  • According to Lively’s crowd, homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22);
  • Being a victim of rape in a city, because you know, if you’re being raped you’ll scream and you’ll always be rescued if you scream, so you cannot possibly actually be raped in a city (Deuteronomy 22:23-27);
  • Adultery (Leviticus 20:10-12);
  • Worshipping idols (Exodus 22:20, Leviticus 20:1-5, Deuteronomy 12:2-7);
  • Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:14-16, 23);
  • Apostasy (Deuteronomy 13:12-15 (You can kill an entire city of people if most of them do this);
  • Proselytizing on behalf of another religion (Deuteronomy 13:1-11, Deuteronomy 18:20);
  • Striking (Exodus 21:15) or cursing (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9) your parents; and no doubt Lively’s favorite,
  • Ignoring the verdict of a priest (Deuteronomy 17:8-13).
You can readily see, I hope, why it is important that people not be allowed to do what Lively helped do in Uganda. He is not only peddling hate, but through his hate, he is peddling judicial murder on the basis of HIS religious delusions.
If you violate Lively’s religious delusions, he feels it is not only within his rights to demean and insult you, but to advocate your death. And he feels these are his first Amendment rights and that, assuming you have any First Amendment rights yourself, his trump yours.
His “put gays behind the Constitution” legislation in Oklahoma proves this.
Here’s a sample:
In no circumstance shall sexual orientation regulations superseded the First Amendment rights of individuals, cults and religious cabals to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. For the purpose of this statute religious cabals are those whose policies or culture are substantially influenced by religious values, including but not limited to christian bookstores, adoption agencies, hospitals, businesses, social organizations and student clubs on college campuses.
This is, by the way, how innocent women were killed as witches. By people like Lively who riled up their neighbors about their supposed sin.
If Lively can get away with advocating the murder of people because they violate his religious delusionss, we’re all in trouble. How long do you think it will be, if you can be murdered for being gay, before religio-wingnut extremists start going down the rest of that biblical list and find YOU there as well?

Lush Dimbulb Is A Sociopathic Pathological Liar

Rush Limbaugh: Obama Is A Sociopathic Liar image Limbaugh Award cropped 422x600Lush Dimbulb lies about President Obama, yet again, calling him a sociopathic liar and a con man. Dimbulb’s insult stems from Obama saying that he hasn’t misled the United States in getting his healthcare plan Obamacare passed.
Obama has been asked by Faux News reporter Ed Henry:
“At your Burma townhall a couple of days ago, you tried to inspire young leaders by saying, ‘governments need to be held accountable, need to be responsive to the people.’ I wonder how you square that with your former adviser, Jonathan Gruber claiming you were not transparent about the health law because in his words the American people, the voters are stupid. Did you mislead Americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan in order to get the bill passed?”
Obama responds to Henry:
“No, I did not. I just heard about this. I get well-briefed before I come out here. The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters, is no reflection on the actual process that was run.”

Lush Dimbulb is furious with President Obama, and the hate radio hack projects himself onto the President.. He shrirks, “This is unbelievable. This little sound bite of 23 seconds may be more jam-packed with lies than any 23-second presidential sound bite I’ve ever played for you.”
Dimbulb continues his assault on Obama, regarding Jonathan Gruber saying, “He was in meetings with Obama. Gruber has been bragging about them. Obama has talked about Gruber being in meetings. He was not just a member of the staff, he was paid $400,000 alone just for this. Gruber has made almost $6 million in government contracts, advising them on various things. Gruber has his hands in advising the regime on amnesty, illegal immigration, how to do it, when to do it, what to do it and all that. The guy’s deep, he’s a rock star with these people.”
President Obama continues in his answer to Faux News’ Henry.
Rush Limbaugh: Obama Is A Sociopathic Liar image 2287332094 c170aeddb1“We had a year-long debate, Ed. I mean, go back and look at your stories. The one thing we can’t say is that we did not have a lengthy debate about health care in the United States of America. Or that it was not adequately covered. I would just advise – every press outlet here, go back and pull up every clip, every story, and I think it will – it’s fair to say there was not a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated and was fully transparent.”
Lush Dimbulb then blows a fuse, verbally attacking Obama and declaring him a liar. He says, “Now, seriously, what are we to do about this? This is sociopathic … there’s something terribly wrong here. I mean this is blatant lying.”
Dimbulb continues the verbal assault on President Obama saying, “There’s over 22,000 pages of regulations written after the bill was passed that have never been debated. The bill itself was never debated. There were never any committee hearings with experts. This is a blatant, once again in-our-face lie that is again indicative of how stupid he believes everybody is.”
Obama is then called a con man by Dimbulb when he says, “the key to the con is that it’s never over. You never let the person you conned know he’s been conned. Never. The con goes on. Well, that’s what’s happening here. They have run a giant con game on the population of this country of Obamacare, and they are continuing to run the con. They are not giving it up. Obama is now fully exposed as nothing more, in common parlance, as a lying con man.”
Lush Dimbulb is a sociopathic pathological liar and con man projecting himself on others.

The Truth Be Told

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The 110 Year-Old Light Bulb That's Never Been Turned Off

The oldest lightbulb in continuous use was installed before the Wright Brothers took flight, is 110 years old, and is still as beautiful as the day she was born. In fact, it's likely the oldest electrical device in continuous use period.

In 1901, the Fire Department Hose Cart House in Livermore, California, installed a new modern technological marvel, one of the first electric carbon lightbulbs in town and invited anyone curious to stop by and witness this new invention.

Paleontologists dig up prehistoric fossils behind New Jersey shopping center

by Michael Walsh
New Jersey dig site reveals exciting fossils Paleontologists are excavating a fossil site that might unlock a treasure trove of insights into the disappearance of the dinosaurs — and it's just a stone's throw from a New Jersey strip mall.
The Mantua Township quarry could be the most important prehistoric dig site in years if scientists are correct in their hypothesis that it contains animals that died when a meteorite struck the Earth 65 million years ago, killing off the dinosaurs.
“In the end, if our work doesn’t find anything to disprove that, then this would be the only site in the world where we have fossils of organisms that actually died during that extinction event,” paleontologist Paul Ullmann told Yahoo News.
“And that would be really cool."
Every week, Ullmann, a graduate student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, heads over to the site behind the Mantua Square shopping center, which has already turned up loads of prehistoric beasts, from crocodile ancestors to mosasaurs, which resemble giant Komodo dragons.
“Mosasaurs had teeth at the top of their mouths that point backward to help prevent prey from swimming out,” Drexel Professor Ken Lacovara said in an interview with Yahoo News. “They were really frightening sea monsters.”
The animals lived in this stretch of New Jersey back when it was a shallow coastal environment and pterosaurs ruled the skies.
Ullmann is working under Lacovara, who made international headlines after discovering the gigantic dreadnaughtus in Argentina this past summer.
The dreadnaughtus, which was 85 feet long and weighed 65 tons, is the largest land animal whose mass can be calculated accurately because its skeleton was found largely intact.
“It weighed as much as a dozen African elephants or more than seven T. rex," Lacovara said at the time.
The recent dig site, however, provides a much easier commute for the Drexel professor.
“Dinosaur paleontology began in New Jersey,” Lacovara said. “The world’s first discovered dinosaur was in Haddonfield, N.J.”
Scientists have known about the Mantua Township site for about a century, but the idea that these bones go back to the end of the Cretaceous period has been floating around for only a decade.
“We are trying to test that hypothesis and see if there is any evidence that would disprove this,” Ullmann said. “Every week we are going out and finding more from the bone bed.”
Sometimes the researchers invite schoolchildren along for the adventures to help foster a love of science and discovery. Ullmann said they ultimately want to set up a visitors' center where the local community can learn about scientific research while watching it in action.
"We are showing them that science is a process rather than a series of facts to memorize," Lacovara said.
Michelle Bruner, economic development coordinator for the township, told Yahoo News that it has already applied for land acquisition funds to bring this vision to fruition.

Anglo-Saxon Cemetery Unearthed in Suffolk


Twenty-one skeletons have been recovered from 20 burials found in eastern England. The Anglo-Saxon burials also contained a spear, a glass bowl, gold-plated brooches, a cloak pin, and a dagger. “We were very lucky they had survived because they were less than a foot down and the land had been plowed very recently,” Andrew Peachey of Archaeological Solutions told The Cambridge News. Additional testing will attempt to determine the age and sex of the skeletons. The site is slated for development.
To read more about Anglo-Saxons, see "The Kings of Kent."

A Mummy Hoax Might Be Wrapped up in a Modern Murder

There are many ways to hide the body, but passing a murder victim off as 2,600-year-old royalty is one few would have thought of. In 2000, a dealer was trying to sell a mummy for $11 million. It had a sarcophagus and engravings in an ancient Persian language declaring the body to be that of a Persian princess, the daughter of King Xerxes. But if was a hoax.
The mummy of the Persian Princess generated a lot of international interest because no remains of the Persian royal family had ever been found and mummies are not generally found in Iran. At one point the mummy caused diplomatic tensions between Iran and Pakistan because both countries claimed ownership. But months later, after examinations by experts in ancient Persian script, CT scans, chemical testing, and carbon dating, the mummy was not only declared a fraud, but there was also evidence that she may have been a modern murder victim.
Read how they came to that conclusion, and what they know about the body so far, at Atlas Obscura.

Man's attempt at resisting arrest by hugging a palm tree proved unsuccessful

A Florida man resisted arrest on Thursday by hugging a palm tree after police confronted him. Homer Stacey, 50, has been charged with threatening an officer, resisting arrest and disorderly intoxication.
According to a report, Stacey was belligerent when police confronted him outside his home in Greenacres after they heard reports of a disturbance. He said he was going to cause problems and get his friends to help. Shortly after this, a family member told the officer that Stacey had been drinking. “Yeah, I’ve been drinking, so what?” Stacey said.
He went in his house and came back, yelling at the officer, who then said he would arrest him. Stacey attempted to leave and ignored the officer’s warnings. Stacey then proceeded to hug a palm tree, yelling, “You’re not going to [expletive] take me!” The officer fired a stun gun to Stacey’s ribs, which forced him to let go of the tree.
He then tried to tackle the officer, but another officer kicked him so that he fell. As Stacey was handcuffed and taken into the patrol car, he told the officer, “If you take these cuffs off me, I’m going to kill you!” Stacey also complained to the officer that he didn’t have medicine he needed for seizures; he was taken to JFK Medical Center before being taken to jail.

Heavily armed bandits staged protest accusing police of extorting money from them

In an unusual event, dozens of armed dacoits in the Ghotki district of Sindh in Pakistan came out in to the open, complaining that the local police are extorting money from them. Dacoits have been operating in Ghotki for years and looting members of the public. Police Superintendent Ghotki Ibrar Hussain termed the protest the result of hard work being done by the police.
At the same time, he denied that the police have been extorting any money from them. The Superintendent claimed that the police had made the dacoits illegal activities difficult by cracking down on them. "This is a success for police that the dacoits are protesting," he said.
However, the officer did not indicate whether the police would arrest the dacoits. He also said that the robbers were carrying the latest arms available in the market. The Superintendent refused to comment on how the dacoits managed to procure the latest weapons, as well as who was patronizing them.

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Top 10 Absurd Overreactions By Schools

School rules are sometimes hilarious and sometimes extreme. What about a school that bans xmas cards because they could lead to hurt feelings. Or a school that bans Birthday cakes. Or a school that bans hugging and handshakes to prevent violence.

Here are 10 Absurd Overreactions By Schools.

How to Reduce Football Concussions with Magnetic Helmets

It's basic science: magnets with similar poles repel each other. So to reduce concussion injuries in football, install magnets in football helmets. When 2 players collide, the magnetic push will help soften the impact between the helmets and the trauma to human brains inside.
That's the proposal put forward by Raymond Colello, a neuroscientist. Every year in the United States, 1.2 million people play football, resulting in about 100,000 concussions. Colello thinks that small but powerful magnets could significantly reduce the number of football concussions. Kate Baggaley writes for Science News:
Colello, of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, is testing magnets made in China from the rare-earth element neodymium. They are the most powerful commercially available magnets and weigh about one-third of a pound each (football helmets weigh from 3.5 to 5.5 pounds). When placed one-fourth of an inch away from each other, two magnets with their same poles face-to-face exert nearly 100 pounds of repulsive force.
Colello tested his magnets with the same procedure that the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment uses to evaluate football helmets. He placed magnets on the front of a weight and let it drop from various heights onto another magnet. The heights Colello tested (between 6 inches and 4 feet) represent the impact forces athletes normally experience on the playing field.
“At 48 inches, if you dropped a standard helmet and it hit a stationary object, it would create 120 g’s of force,” says Colello. “With the magnets we drop that below 100 g’s.”

'Forgotten' Rediscovered

A major pathway of the human brain involved in visual perception, attention and movement is finally getting its moment in the sun.


A Rainbow of Carrot Colors

Carrots are not naturally orange. We see orange carrots often simply because some varieties have been bred that way.
In 2004, the Agricultural Research Service, a division of the US Department of Agriculture, created this image to encourage people to eat more carrots. The premise of the marketing ploy is that people will be more interested in carrots if they're visually appealing. An orange carrot may escape your attention, but a purple one won't!

Medieval kebabs and pasties

5 foods you (probably) didn’t know were being eaten in the Middle Ages
Medieval banquet, from Royal Manuscript (Culture Club/Getty Images)
Roast boars and flagons of wine might be what most of us conjure up when we think of medieval cookery. But contemporary sources suggest that our ancestors enjoyed a wide variety of cuisine, and were adventurous in their tastes, too. Here, freelance writer George Dobbs reveals five examples of commonplace courtly dishes that wouldn't look too out of place on your dinner table today
Sweet and sour
Sweet and sour rabbit is one of the more curious dishes included in Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook. Found in a collection of 14th-century manuscripts called the Curye on Inglish, it includes sugar, red wine vinegar, currants, onions, ginger and cinnamon (along with plenty of “powdour of peper”) to produce a sticky sauce with more than a hint of the modern Chinese takeaway.
The recipe probably dates as far back as the Norman Conquest, when the most surprising ingredient for Saxons would have been rabbit, only recently introduced to England from continental Europe.
Pasta
In the same manuscript we find instructions for pasta production, with fine flour used to “make therof thynne foyles as paper with a roller, drye it hard and seeth it in broth”. This was known as 'losyns', and a typical dish involved layering the pasta with cheese sauce to make another English favorite: lasagne.
Sadly the lack of tomatoes meant there was no rich bolognese to go along with the b̩chamel, but it was still a much-loved dish, and was served at the end of meals to help soak up the large amount of alcohol you were expected to imbibe Рmuch as an oily kebab might today.
In Thomas Austin's edition of Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, you can find several other pasta recipes, including ravioli and Lesenge Fries – a sugar and saffron doughnut, similar to the modern Italian feast day treats such as frappe or castagnole. The full edition, including hundreds of medieval recipes, can be found online through the University of Michigan database.
Rice dishes
Rice was grown in Europe as early as the 8th century by Spanish Moors. By the 15th century it was produced across Spain and Italy, and exported to all corners of Europe in vast quantities. The brilliant recipe resource www.medievalcookery.com shows the wide variety of ways in which rice was used, including three separate medieval references to a dish called blancmager.
Rather than the pudding you might expect, blancmager was actually a soft rice dish, combining chicken or fish with sugar and spices. Due to its bland nature, it was possibly served to invalids as a restorative.
There were also sweet rice dishes, including rice drinks and a dish called prymerose, which combined honey, almonds, primroses and rice flour to make a thick rice pudding.

Pasties
Wrapping food in pastry was commonplace in medieval times. It meant that meat could be baked in stone ovens without being burnt or tarnished by soot, while also forming a rich, thick gravy.
Pie crusts were elaborately decorated to show off the status of the host, and diners would often discard it to get to the filling. However, there were also pastry dishes intended to be eaten as a whole. In The Goodman of Paris, translated into English by Eileen Power, we find a recipe for cheese and mushroom pasties, and we're even given instruction on how to pick our ingredients, with “mushrooms of one night... small, red inside and closed at the top” being the most suitable.
Candy
Subtleties are a famous medieval culinary feature. The term actually encompasses the notion of entertainment with food as well as elaborate savory dishes, but it's most often used to refer to lavish constructions of almond and sugar that were served at the end of the meal.
These weren't the only way to indulge a sweet tooth, however. Maggie Black describes a recipe in the Curye on Inglish that combines pine nuts with sugar, honey and breadcrumbs to give a chewy candy. And long before it was a health food, almond milk was a commonplace drink at medieval tables.
So what have we learned? From just a few examples it's easy to see that, despite technological restrictions, cookery of this period wasn't necessarily unskilled or unpalatable. It's true that a cursory glance over recipe collections reveals odd dishes such as gruel and compost, which look about as appetising as their names suggest. But for every grim oddity there were many more meals that still sound mouthwatering today. In fact, many of our modern favorites may have roots in medieval kitchens.

The Sad Fates Of The World's Six Tallest Unfinished Buildings

Building a house is stressful. Building a skyscraper is a nuclear bomb of stress, problems, and carefully-coordinated chaos that is closely tied to the economy, and that is easily derailed by war, politics, and financial downturns.
It's not an uncommon story. There are plenty of super-tall buildings that were proposed but never made it through to reality. Recently, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat looked at a unique subset of these failed projects that are especially interesting: Super-tall buildings that actually did begin construction, but were never completed.

The One And Only Cabrio Gondola In The World

Hiking and all is a lot of fun but there is no better way to 'climb' a mountain than on the Stanserhorn Cabrio Gondola. Each gondola has two floors which are connected by a spiral staircase. If you decide to take the ride on the top, open floor you will be treated to amazing views of the surrounding valleys and lakes.

Gondar

The Camelot Of Africa
When pre-twentieth century Africa is studied in schools it is the slave trade, its awful consequences and the later colonial Scramble for Africa of the nineteenth century which tend to attract the focus of both teachers and students.
Often overlooked is the only country which successfully resisted European incursion and retained its own sovereignty: Ethiopia. Perhaps its late twentieth century tragedies of famine and attendant local and civil wars do little to persuade the casual historian to look further in to its past.

Subtly Major

Small, slow-moving shifts in the Earth's offshore plates may accurately provide a heads up to major earthquakes and tsunamis.

Pavlof Belches

Pavlof volcano, one of Alaska's most active volcanoes, erupted for the second time this year on Nov. 15. 

Refuge Garbage

The Marine National Monument in Hawaii has become a catch-all for the massive amount of garbage that humans dump into the oceans.

The Sand Bubbler Crab

Sand bubbler crabs are small crabs (the size of a fingernail) that live on sandy beaches in the tropical Indo-Pacific. During the low tide, they form inflated sand pellets that are disintegrated by the incoming high tide.

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