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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1688   Louis XIV declares war on the Netherlands.  
1812   Napoleon Bonaparte's army begins crossing the Beresina River over two hastily constructed bridges. 1825   The Kappa Alpha Society, the second American college Greek-letter fraternity, is founded.  
1863   The first National Thanksgiving is celebrated.  
1901   The Hope diamond is brought to New York.  
1922   Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter, archeologists, open King Tut's tomb, undisturbed for 3,000 years.  
1939   The Soviet Union charges Finland with artillery attack on border.  
1949   India becomes a sovereign Democratic republic.  
1950   North Korean and Chinese troops halt a UN offensive.  
1957   President Eisenhower suffers a minor stroke.  
1975   Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is found guilty of an attempt on President Gerald Ford's life.
1979   Oil deposits equaling OPEC reserves are found in Venezuela.
1982   Yasuhiro Nakasone is elected the 71st Japanese prime minister.  
1983   At London's Heathrow Airport, almost 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million stolen from Brinks-MAT vault.  
 2000   repugican candidate the shrub is certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes, giving him enough electoral votes to defeat Democrat Al Gore Jr. for the US presidency, despite losing the popular vote.  

President Obama heard the electorate: GO LEFT!

by Egberto Willies
When President Obama walked up to the podium to talk about the thumping the Democrats got in the 2014 midterm election, he was not slouching. He seemed resolute. It is clear that while the president nominally accepts blame, he must know that acquiescing to the will of Democrats to mostly stay out of campaigning with them likely sealed their fates. They decided not to run on Democratic accomplishments that are now paying dividends.
President Obama's seeming disaffection about the election results was so obvious that Faux News Ed Henry's questions became a bit contentious. "I haven't heard you say a specific thing during this news conference that you would do differently," Ed Henry said. "You've been asked it a few different ways. I understand you're going to reach out. You've talked about doing that before. It's almost like you are doubling down on the same policies and approach you've had for six years. So my question is, why not pull a page from the Clinton playbook and admit you have to make a much more dramatic shift in course these last two years?"
In other words, Ed Henry and his ilk are asking the president to capitulate to the repugicans. He brought up President Clinton as if Clinton was a model to follow. One should remember that Clinton's capitulation-or maybe chameleonic triangulation-effected the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a repeal that was partially responsible for the 2008 financial collapse.

Democrat Busts repugicans For Trying To Bury Benghazi Report That Debunks Their Lies

rep adam schiff cnn state of the union
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) busted House repugicans for trying to bury their own Benghazi report by releasing on the Friday night before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Transcript via CNN:
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I have great respect for Lindsey.

But it reminds me of a lawyer’s maxim that, if the law is not on your side, emphasize the facts. If the facts aren’t on your side, bang on the table. I think we heard Lindsey banging on the table quite a bit this morning.

This was a two-year exhaustive investigation. It was released by the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee and had the support of all the repugicans and Democrats on the committee. It’s designed to be the definitive word on what happened from the intelligence community’s point of view.
And nothing I think Lindsey said at all contradicts what is in that report. And calling it crap doesn’t change the fact that it was an exhaustive and objective review. So, I think we have had really the final word on many of these conspiracy theories, on the fact there was no stand-down order, there was no political interference, there was no effort to politically spin the talking points.
BORGER: So, do you think the…
SCHIFF: And I hope that this will guide the select committee.
BORGER: Well, do you think the — the…
SCHIFF: And, you know, I think the — yes.
BORGER: … the administration is exonerated here?
SCHIFF: I think it is exonerated, certainly not the — in the sense that it shows there was adequate security at the diplomatic facility. There wasn’t. There’s been no contesting that. But in terms of whether there was an effort to cover up or spin
or illegal trafficking of arms by the CIA or any of those conspiracies…
SCHIFF: … they have been completely vindicated.
And I hope — really, the only interesting question here, but it answers itself, is, why is this report being released on the Friday before Thanksgiving? Why is it being released in between major developments on immigration and Iran?
BORGER: So, you think it was kind of a dump? So you think it was a dump, so no one would pay attention to it?
SCHIFF: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Exactly.
BORGER: We are.
SCHIFF: When you spend two years doing the definitive report, you want to trumpet it to the high heavens. You don’t want to bury it on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
BORGER: But let me…

SCHIFF: But I will tell you this. If the — yes. If the select committee comes up with a similar conclusion, it will release its report on Christmas Eve.
House repugicans tried to dump the report on a Friday night before a holiday in the attempt to bury it so that nobody would notice that their own committee did not find any evidence to prove their baseless conspiracy theories.
Rep. Schiff was correct. If the House Select Committee on Benghazi finds no evidence of wrongdoing, that report will be released sometime before hell freezes over. Benghazi has become such an ingrained myth within the repugican cabal that  Lindsey Graham went straight Benghazi truther when confronted with reality on CNN.
Benghazi is their great repugican hope for defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016. It doesn’t matter to the repugican cabal if 1,000 investigations find no wrong doing. The repugicans will still try to smear Hillary Clinton with their Benghazi tall tales.
The repugicans tried to bury their latest Benghazi black eye, but they failed. The American people have never bought into the scandal because their BS detector tells them that there is nothing to see here. The repugicans don’t care that they sound crazy every time they mention Benghazi. They are convinced that they can win with a conspiracy theory, so reality be damned, and full steam ahead to a special investigation into Benghazi.

Grandmother Attempts Citizen Arrest of Ted Cruz for Being an Arrogant Prick

by Robin Steele
Too bad this is Canadian Satire - would it not be fantastic if it where true.

The catholic cult Says Religious Freedom Protects Them From Going to Court

As the coven of bishops were the instigators behind the Neo-American religious imposition as freedom ideology, it was not surprising that they came up with yet another twist on how they exercise “their” religious freedom.
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports an individual’s freedom to practice, worship, and observe a religion’s tenets or deity, or deities, without interference;  the concept also includes the freedom to change religion at will or not to follow any religion. That concept of religious freedom was what the Founding Fathers and Constitution’s Framers believed was reasonable and universally excepted when they concocted the First Amendment. Although it, relatively speaking, served to protect Americans’ freedom to worship, or not, for almost two-hundred years, it never really caught on with a control-oriented segment of the population under the spell of, and led by, the United States coven of catholic bishops. Now, religious freedom means that a small percentage of the population can impose, and enforce by Supreme Court fiat, compliance to their religious delusions.
According to their distorted reading of what religious freedom means, a catholic school in Indiana and the Fort-Wayne-South Bend Diocese said religious freedom protects the school and cult from having to go to court at all. Even a federal court over the cult school violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The cult and school discriminated on the basis of gender (sex) and religion when it summarily fired an English teacher for going through fertility treatment (in vitro fertilization  or IVF). When “the cult” officials were informed the teacher, Emily Herx, was undergoing IVF treatments, they ruled that she was “a grave, immoral sinner” and fired her (for wanting to give birth, no less). She rightly filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2012 and the school and diocese argued that freedom of religion gives them the constitutional right to fire whomever they choose and violate federal discrimination laws at their religious pleasure; particularly because it was a woman they deemed a gravely immoral sinner according to a vatican document.
In September, a federal judge ruled that there was enough evidence for a jury trial, but the catholic diocese said no. According to another twist on religious freedom, the cult said that just going to trial over the question of discrimination violated its freedom of religion. The cult's attorneys argued that “If the diocese is required to go through a trial, it would irrevocably deny Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese the benefits of its religious freedom.” The cult is appealing to a higher power, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, to verify their newest iteration of religious freedom is religious enough to discriminate with impunity and immune from answering to, or even appearing before, the American judicial system.
There is a “special discrimination exemption” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in that allows religious institutions to favor members of their own faith in hiring. However, there is no special religious exemption for sex discrimination which is how the terminated teacher is framing her dismissal. She proved her point quickly by showing that the diocese had never fired a male teacher for using any type of fertility treatment. The church admitted that indeed, it had never fired a male teacher undergoing fertility treatments in the past, but it probably “would” because it is against church teachings; they just “hadn’t gotten around to it in the past.”
A staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Brian Hauss, that is not involved in the lawsuit but filed amicus briefs in support of the teacher was flabbergasted and said, “I’ve never seen this before, and I couldn’t find any other cases like it. What the diocese is saying is, ‘We can fire anybody, and we have absolute immunity from even going to trial, as long as we think they’re violating our religion. And to have civil authorities even look into what we’re doing is a violation.’…It’s astonishing.” No, it is 21st Century America when the papal-contingent on the Supreme Court eviscerated the establishment clause and imposed the USCCB ideology of religious freedom on the nation.
Another legal expert, Louise Melling, was very critical of the cult argument and said, “It’s an unusual and extreme argument, to be saying the court doesn’t even have the legal authority to ask whether this was, in fact, sex discrimination. I can’t imagine they would prevail on that. It’s too extreme.” However, Melling also said she could never have imagined the explosion of cases where cults, religious cabals, and increasingly businesses have an expansive right to discriminate borne of the UCSSB concept of “religious freedom.”
Of course, it was the High Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling that really empowered “the faithful and the clergy” to use “their” religious freedom to impose “their” belief system on anyone in their realm of influence. In fact, the ACLU has noticed a sharp rise in the number of christian schools claiming that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act empowers them to discriminate against, and fire women undergoing IVF to become pregnant, or terminate employees engaging in same-sex relationships. Now, besides using the “invisible religious freedom clause” in the anti-discrimination law to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, and sexual preference, that same religious freedom includes supremacy over the American judicial system.
Whether Americans are aware or not, this latest ploy is the ultimate expression of “above the law” and a “law unto themselves.” Under this bizarre interpretation of religious freedom, there are no limits, accountability, or responsibility for the cult, any (christian) cult that is, to make, execute, and define any law that they deem either moral or immoral; and no court in the land can interfere. All because in June of 2014, the papal-five on the nation’s highest court ruled that the 1980s concept of “religious freedom” proffered by the United States coven of catholic bishops abolished the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause. The most frightening aspect of this latest Hobby Lobby consequence is that now that the cult garnered supremacy over the  Constitution and the judicial system, the real 21st Century Crusade and Inquisition will begin in earnest.

The Traditionalist American Knights Of The KKK Want to Kill The Group Anonymous

Photo Courtesy of Anonymous
As the tension builds with the people of Ferguson, Missouri waiting to hear the decision of the Grand Jury, there is a new threat in the never-ending story of the white cop killing a young unarmed black man…the TAK KKK (Traditionalist American Knights) wants to kill Anonymous. Why? Because of good old journalism:
On November 20, Anonymous posted a video exposing the fact that some members of the Ferguson P.D. are members of the TAK KKK, an organization Anonymous calls domestic terrorists. As Anonymous was exposing their names, a statement from Imperial Wizard Frank Ancona was made. It reads:
The KKK has been bringing a message of hope and deliverance to a white, christian America now for a number of years, we preach a message of love, not hate.
I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. Why the group of wannabe hackers are targeting us is not clear, however we do not have time to ask these questions when we are constantly under attack.
A few names have been obtained by us already, including that of a supposedly high ranking anonymous member Commander X, aka Christopher Doyon, aka The Grand Wizard Of Anonymous. Another name we have been given is that of one Robert Allen Mitchell who goes by @TrezSec. Robert has been brought to our attention by a few of our members for prick waving. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You pathetic n*****r lovers are going down, we’re NOT HIDING. WE’RE NOT ASHAMED OF WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE REPRESENT. THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE OVERTHROWN<.
We held a Klan wide meeting today with the Imperial Wizard, who has decided if you want war, we will give you war, not online, but on the streets, we will hunt you down and tear those masks from your face. You’ll be strung up next to the chimps. On display for the whole world to see. The Klan is to be feared, not threatened. Turn away, or face the consequences.
We would like to wish Officer Darren Wilson and his family all the best in the future. To Anonymous and the people of Ferguson, we will see you on the streets.
So now, the TAK KKK with possibly the help of some of Ferguson’s Finest may go after the Anonymous after the grand jury’s statement has been read. As Ancona said: You’ll be strung up next to the chimps. On display for the whole world to see.
According to Missouri penal code 574
Making a terrorist threat, penalty.
574.115. 1. A person commits the crime of making a terrorist threat if such person communicates a threat to cause an incident or condition involving danger to life, communicates a knowingly false report of an incident or condition involving danger to life, or knowingly causes a false belief or fear that an incident has occurred or that a condition exists involving danger to life:
(1) With the purpose of frightening ten or more people;
(2) With the purpose of causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion of a building, inhabitable structure, place of assembly or facility of transportation; or
(4) With criminal negligence with regard to the risk of causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion of a building, inhabitable structure, place of assembly or facility of transportation.
2. Making a terrorist threat is a class C felony unless committed under subdivision (3) of subsection 1 of this section in which case it is a class D felony or unless committed under subdivision (4) of subsection 1 of this section in which case it is a class A misdemeanor.
3. For the purpose of this section, “threat” includes an express or implied threat.
4. A person who acts in good faith with the purpose to prevent harm does not commit a crime pursuant to this section.
Ancona just committed a crime.

Police Arrest Reporter Covering Ferguson Protest For Walking On Sidewalk

While covering a protest in front of the Ferguson police station Saturday night, reporter Trey Yingst was arrested for failure to disperse.
trey yingst
With a grand jury decision on Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson imminent, media has descended upon Ferguson, Missouri, to chronicle the aftermath. It is widely expected that large-scale protests will take place in and around Ferguson once the announcement is made, especially since nearly everyone in the area feels that Wilson will not be charged with any crime. The region is on edge as each day brings the possibility of a public declaration that could impact parts of the St. Louis metro area. Anxiety was increased this past Monday when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon preemptively declared a state of emergency ahead of the grand jury decision.
Journalists from around the world figured that an announcement would be made no later than this weekend. Therefore, dozens, if not hundreds, of reporters flocked to the St. Louis area. However, it appears that rumors that the decision would be announced over the weekend turned out to be a false alarm as it was learned that the grand jury would reconvene on Monday and continue deliberating. Thus, with that in mind, there were a number of journalists with not much to do other than make their way to the nightly protests in Ferguson that have continuously transpired since Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown on August 9th.
Saturday night featured an organized march that started at the scene of Brown’s death and made its way to West Florissant Ave., which is where the majority of the protests in August occurred. Less than 100 protesters, led by the Lost Voices and Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, briefly shut down traffic on W. Florissant before heading back to Brown’s memorial on Canfield Drive. After the march, many of the protesters headed to the Ferguson police department, which has been the main focal point of demonstrations over the past couple of months.
Dozens of police were there to ‘greet’ roughly 60 protesters. The number of media members on the scene likely exceeded the actual protesters. This was noted by Deray McKesson, a protest organizer and activist.
Sometime after 11 PM local time, Trey Yingst, a reporter for the website News2Share, was arrested by police for ‘failure to disperse.’ After Yingst’s arrest, the commander at the scene held a small press conference and explained that Yingst was still in the street after police told people they needed to move back to the sidewalk. St. Louis County police even sent out a tweet providing an explanation.
This was disputed immediately by other reporters and protesters on the scene, who said that Yingst was actually on the sidewalk when police decided to arrest him.
There was another arrest Saturday night of a protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask who did not provide his name at the time. It appears he was also arrested for failure to disperse for refusing to stay out of the street. Police provided warning throughout the night that if traffic was impeded they would verbally warn offenders before commencing with arrests. Yingst was released from county jail a few hours after being arrested. He sent the following tweet after his arrest.
It seems obvious that police overreacted and arrested Yingst for no real cause. It seems his questioning of the officers led to him being snatched and grabbed. Perhaps it was an unsubtle message from police to the media, especially independent journalists such as Yingst, that they will be treated as agitators.

Five ugly and uncanny parallels between lynchings and police killings in America

by Shaun King
It's hard to think of anything that was uglier in post-slavery America than lynching. From 1882 to 1964, the archives at Tuskegee University documented that at least 3,445 African Americans were brutally lynched in the United States. While these lynchings are most commonly remembered as hangings from trees, the lynchings in this statistic include men, women, and children who were shot, burned, and beaten to death in every tortuous way imaginable. At its core, to be lynched is not a method of killing, but it is to be murdered without due process.
What is often overlooked is that police, during the height of lynching, were complicit in most lynchings. In  the book Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930, it was determined that 64 percent of lynching victims in the early 20th century were actually seized from jails.
While historical lynchings and modern-day murders at the hands of police have some differences, many of the legal, physical, and emotional parallels are frightening. What follows below the fold are seven troubling similarities between the two.
1. The universal agreement is that the number of lynchings and police murders have both been seriously underreported.
2. The excuses given to justify lynchings and police killings are tragically bad.
3. The lynchings and police killings of African Americans are outrageously brutal and excessive.
4. Few instances in history exist where people are held truly liable for lynchings or police killings.
5. The character of the men and women who were lynched by mobs or killed by police is assassinated as a sick form of justification for the killing.

The Truth Be Told

If you believe repugicans you are insane
Even unicorns know this creature doesn't exist

Brazilian airline changed flight number after psychic predicted doom

Brazilian airline TAM changed one of its flight numbers after a renowned clairvoyant predicted a plane bearing the original number would crash shortly after takeoff.
Jucelino Nobrega da Luz, who says he predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and Brazilian racing legend Ayrton Senna, told authorities flight JJ3720, set to depart on Wednesday from Sao Paulo to Brasilia, would develop engine trouble and crash on Sao Paulo's main Paulista drag.
Leaving nothing to chance, TAM changed the flight code to JJ4732 after receiving what it termed "indispensable information," saying passenger security was paramount at all times.
Nobrega da Luz most recently predicted the August death in a plane crash of Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos. But he was notably off beam on the outcome of Brazil's 2006 presidential elections and also on a vaccine for AIDS being discovered in 2008.

South Korea threatening sellers of unapproved selfie sticks with jail

The government in South Korea began making checks on sellers of selfie sticks on Friday, with retailers selling uncertified products facing a maximum fine of 30 million won (£17,250, $27,000) or even prison time of as long as three years.
The probe focuses on selfie sticks that use Bluetooth functionality to allow users to take photos more easily. Such models generally have a button near the grip of the stick that operates the camera on a connected smartphone.
The problem is, according to the science ministry, that these devices are classified as communications equipment and have to be tested and obtain certification about the level of electromagnetic radiation they emit before being commercially distributed. Electromagnetic radiation from communications equipment, which generally isn’t harmful to people, can interfere with surrounding electronic devices, according to the ministry.
The government has found recently that “a number of” uncertified Bluetooth-connected selfie sticks are being sold, requiring a “heavy crackdown,” the ministry said in a statement. The ministry also added a phone number towards the end of the statement for citizens to report uncertified selfie stick sellers.

False teeth cleansing tablets mix-up led to poisoning scare at school

Emergency services showed up in force at a school in Ruhr, Germany, on Friday after a schoolgirl mistakenly treated her friends to grandpa’s denture cleansing tablets rather than vitamins.
A 10-year-old then admitted that she had wanted her friends to have some fun with a tube of effervescent vitamin tablets she took from home. Only she had mistakenly picked up a similar looking package with fizzy tablets her grandfather uses to sterilize his false teeth.
Dissolved in water, the solution caused a few stomach aches for nine children examined in hospital. But doctors said they were in no danger as the alarm was called off. The fire brigade, which coordinates emergency operations, praised the school’s “exemplary” handling of the situation.

Young hoons forced to scrub skid marks off road

A couple of frustrated business partners in Australia's Northern Territory finally got their revenge on a crew of hoons on Saturday morning after catching the young men in the act and making them scrub the skid marks off their street. The general manager of Territory Marine in Yarrawonga and his business partner were in the back of their shop working late on Friday night when they heard two cars screeching their tires and doing burnouts up their driveway and in front of their business.
It was nothing new, but the two had had enough. “We didn’t appreciate it,” said the GM who asked not to be named. “Plus, we just spent a lot of money on major upgrades so the place looks really nice. Then they go and make a mess of the street out front. It was dangerous.” So, the two men came out and followed the cars down the street. After asking around, the pair found seven men in their late 20s hiding out in a shed with their cars near the shop. “We just confronted them, put it on them and told them, you know, I don’t really want to say what we told ‘em,” the GM said.
“You can use your imagination.” Bright and early on Saturday morning the men showed up outside of Territory Marine ready to work. “They came back and spent two and a half hours cleaning in the hot sun with green scrub pads and kerosene on their knees.” The manager said other business owners in the area were willing to supply the kerosene to help with the street justice, but he said he made all seven “revheads” pay for the kerosene and pads. Two and half hours did not produce perfect results, with the skid marks remaining. “We knew they weren’t gonna (get it all off) but that’s not the point,” the manager said.
“We wanted them to put in the effort.” The manager said hooning was a major problem in the area and that all business owners have been frustrated about it for a long time. “It’s been a problem for a while but we hadn’t worked out who was doing it,” he said. “If you drive around Yarrawonga there’s bloody skid marks everywhere.” This crackdown may be the first step, he added, offering a warning for any other hoons in the area. “If anyone else wants to do burnouts in front of our business, they’ll be dealt with personally,” he said. “I’m pretty confident these guys’ll never do it again.”

Pregnant woman knifed father of unborn child for unplugging plug-in air freshener to play Xbox

A man from Dayton, Ohio, told police the mother of his unborn child cut him with a knife after he unplugged a Glade plug-in air freshener to play Xbox.
Police responded on Friday night to the domestic disturbance, according to the police report. Tanaijah Montra Burns, 21, who told officers she was eight months pregnant, was arrested on suspicion of felonious assault.
The 23-year-old man told officers she held a steak knife to his cheek and proceeded to attack him with it. The victim reported he used a clothes basket to push Burns into a chair and suffered cuts while wrangling the knife away from her.
He refused medical treatment for various cuts to his hands and arms. Burns was taken to the hospital, where doctors confirmed the unborn baby was okay. The victim told officers he tried to plug the air freshener back in before she pulled the knife. Police said Burns was previously arrested for a similar attack against the same man.

Man found passed out while sitting on toilet in wrong house arrested

Indiana State Excise Police Officers arrested a 19-year-old man in Muncie early on Saturday morning on the preliminary charge of illegal consumption of an alcoholic beverage after he was allegedly discovered by homeowners in their residence passed out on the toilet.
Officers arrested Elliott J. Sweazey, 19, of Fort Wayne, after they responded to a dispatch of an unwanted person that was passed out in a home near the Ball State University campus. The homeowners advised officers that they did not know or recognize Sweazey.
They explained that Sweazey was found when they arrived home at approximately 3:14am. He was allegedly passed out in their bathroom while sitting on the toilet with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head. There was no indication that anything had been stolen or damaged.
It appeared that Sweazey had allegedly gained entry into the home through the back door which had been left unlocked. Sweazey was booked into the Delaware County Jail. A preliminary breath test showed Sweazey's blood alcohol content to be at .161 percent.

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The Story Of The Mexican Pobladores Who Founded Los Angeles

Every city has a backstory, a tale about its creation and the people responsible for putting it on the map. This is a tale about the people who helped found the City of Angels way back in 1781- The Los Angeles Pobladores.
Forty four settlers and four soldiers were brought from Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico to Las Californias to help build the future home of Hollywood, from 11 families personally selected by the Governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve.
California historian William Mason shared the story of Los Angeles' founding families with the Los Angeles Times way back in 1975, and yet this tale of how the large and influential city of L.A. began with forty four souls is little known to this day.
The city’s Hispanic origins are common knowledge, but the fact that over half of the settlers were of African descent, and only a few were actually Spanish, is quite surprising.
The racial diversity found in the group reveals the progressive nature of the Spanish regarding citizens of African descent, in a time when the United States had only recently abolished slavery.
You can read more of William Mason's research in this PDF entitled Los Angeles Under The Spanish Flag, with research and findings which were reiterated in Mason's obituary posted by the Los Angeles Times after his passing in 2000.

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A time traveler's guide to medieval shopping

Ian Mortimer, author of Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, takes us on a shopping trip in a 14th-century marketplace
A 15th-century continental town - Credit Bridgeman Art Library
The poet WH Auden once suggested that, in order to understand your own country, you need to have lived in at least two others. But what about your own time? By the same reckoning, you need to have experienced at least two other centuries. This presents us with some difficulties. But through historical research, coming to terms with another century is not impossible.
We can approach the past as if it really is ‘a foreign country’ – somewhere we might visit. And we do not actually need to travel in time to appreciate it – just the idea of visiting the past allows us to see life differently, and more immediately. Come shopping in the late 14th century and see for yourself.
The marketplace
“Ribs of beef and many a pie!” you hear someone call over your shoulder. Turning, you see a young lad walking through the crowd bearing a tray laden with wooden bowls of cooked meats from a local shop.
All around him people are moving, gesturing, talking. So many have come in from the surrounding villages that this town of about 3,000 inhabitants is today thronged with twice as many. Here are men in knee-length brown tunics driving their cattle before them. Here are their wives in long kirtles with wimples around their heads and necks. Those men in short tunics and hoods are valets in a knight’s household. Those in long gowns with high collars and beaver-fur hats are wealthy merchants. Across the marketplace more peasants are leading in their flocks of sheep, or packhorses and carts loaded with crates of chickens.
Crowds are noisy. People are talking so much that chatter could almost be the whole purpose of the market – and in many ways it is. This is the one open public area in the town where people can meet and exchange information. When a company performs a mystery play, it is to the marketplace that they will drag the cart containing their stage, set and costumes. When the town crier rings his bell to address the people of the town, it is in the marketplace that the crowd will gather to hear him. The marketplace is the heart of any town: indeed, the very definition of a town is that it has a market.
What can you buy? Let’s start at the fishmongers’ stalls. You may have heard that many sorts of freshwater and sea fish are eaten in medieval England. Indeed, more than 150 species are consumed by the nobility and churchmen, drawn from their own fishponds as well as the rivers and seas.
But in most markets it is the popular varieties which you see glistening in the wet hay-filled crates. Mackerel, herring, lampreys, cod, eels, Aberdeen fish (cured salmon and herring), and stockfish (salt cod) are the most common varieties. Crabs and lobsters are transported live, in barrels. In season you will see fresh salmon – attracting the hefty price of four or five shillings each. A fresh turbot can cost even more, up to seven shillings.
Next we come to an area set aside for corn: sacks of wheat, barley, oats and rye are piled up, ready for sale to the townsmen. Then the space given over to livestock: goats, sheep, pigs and cows. A corner is devoted to garden produce – apples, pears, vegetables, garlic and herbs – yet the emphasis of a medieval diet is on meat, cheese and cereal crops. In a large town you will find spicerers selling such exotic commodities as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, liquorice, and many different types of sugar.
These are only for the wealthy. When your average skilled workman earns only two shillings (2s) in a week, he can hardly afford to spend four shillings (4s) on a pound of cloves or 20 pence (20d) on a pound of ginger.
The rest of the marketplace performs two functions. Producers come to sell fleeces, sacks of wool, tanned hides, furs, iron, steel and tin for resale further afield. The other function is to sell manufactured commodities to local people: brass and bronze cooking vessels, candlesticks and spurs, pewterware, woollen cloth, silk, linen, canvas, carts, rushes (for hall floors), glass, faggots, coal, nails, horse shoes and planks of wood.
Planks, you ask? Consider the difficulties of transporting a tree trunk to a saw pit, and then getting two men to saw it into planks with only a handsaw between them.
Everyone in medieval society is heavily dependent on each other for such supplies, and the marketplace is where all these interdependencies meet.
Essential items such as ale and bread have their prices fixed by law. Yet for almost everything that’s been manufactured you will have to negotiate. Caxton’s 15th-century dialogue book is based on a 14th-century language guide, and gives the following lesson in
how to haggle with a cloth vendor:
“Dame, what hold ye the ell (45 inches) of this
cloth? Or what is worth the cloth whole?
In short, so to speak, how much the ell?”
“Sire, reason; ye shall have it good and cheap.”
“Yea, truly, for cattle. Dame, ye must me win.
Take heed what I shall pay.”
“Four shillings for the ell, if it please you.”
“For so much would I have good scarlet.”
“But I have some which is not of the best
which I would not give for seven shillings.”
“But this is no such cloth, of so much money,
that know ye well!”
“Sire, what is it worth?”
“Dame, it were worth to me well three shillings.”
“That is evil-boden.”
“But say certainly how shall I have it without
a part to leave?”
“I shall give it ye at one word: ye shall pay five
shillings, certainly if ye have them for so many
ells, for I will abate nothing.”
And so you open your purse, which hangs from the cords attached to your belt and find five shillings. Except that there is no shilling coin in the late 14th century. The smallest gold coins are the half-noble (3s 4d) and the quarter-noble (1s 8d), so if you have one each of these, you can make up the sum. Alternatively you will have to make it up from the silver coins: groats (4d), half-groats, pennies, halfpence and farthings (¼d).

A well-run market is crucial to the standing of a town. Thus it is heavily regulated. The actual policing tends to be undertaken by the town’s bedels or bailiffs, who enforce regulations like “no horses may be left standing in the marketplace on market days” and “every man is to keep the street in front of his tenement clean”. Most towns have between 40 and 70 regulations, and those breaking them are taken to the borough court and fined.
There are reasons to be grateful for the supervision of trade. Short measures are a notorious problem, and turners normally have to swear to make wooden measures of the appropriate size. Clerks in borough courts will tell you of cooking pots being made out of soft metal and coated with brass, and loaves of bread baked with stones in them to make them up to the legally required weight.
Wool is stretched before it is woven, to make it go further (but then it shrinks). Pepper is sold damp, making it swell, weigh more, and rot sooner. Meat is sometimes sold even though it is putrid, wine even though it has turned sour, and bread when it has gone green.
If you are the victim of malpractice, go straight to the authorities. The perpetrator will be pilloried – literally. The pillory is the wooden board which clasps the guilty man’s head and hands, and shamefully exposes him to the insults of the crowd.
A butcher selling bad meat can expect to be dragged through the streets of the town on a hurdle and then placed in the pillory with the rotten meat burnt under him. A vintner caught selling foul wine is dragged to the pillory on a hurdle, forced to drink a draught of the offending liquor, and then set in the pillory where the remainder is poured over his head.
The sweetness of the revenge makes up for the sourness of the wine.
Shopping in the 14th century will often remind you of how much we have in common with our medieval forebears. It will likewise alert you to the huge differences between us. We are not the same as our ancestors. Look at how young they are – the median age is just 21 – and look at the meagre diet of the poor, their rotten teeth as they smile, their resilience in the face of death.
Consider how rough and smelly the streets are, and how small the sheep and cattle are in the marketplace. When a fight breaks out over some stolen goods, and the bedels rush to intervene, you may see how the spirit of the people is so similar to our own and yet how much the process of managing that spirit has changed. For if the stolen goods are of sufficient value, the thieves will be summarily tried and hanged the same day. This is what makes history so interesting – the differences between us across the centuries, as well as the similarities.
At dusk – just before the great gates of the city are closed for the night, and you see everyone leaving the adjacent taverns – you may begin to think that Auden was on to something. To understand ourselves, we must first see society differently – and to remember that history is the study of the living, not the dead.
Prices in the 1390s*
Ale, ordinary: ¾d–1d per gallon
Wine from Bordeaux: 3d–4d per gallon
Bacon: 15d per side
Chicken: 2d each
Cod, fresh: 20d each
Sugar, loaf of: 18d per lb
Apples: 7d per hundred
Eggs: 33d for 425
A furred gown: 5s 4d
* Prices from the account books of Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby.
Wages/salaries in the 1390s
The king’s physician: £40 per year
Officers in the royal household: £20 per year
Mason: £8 per year (6d per day)
Carpenter: 4¼d per day
Thatcher: 4¼d per day
Labourer: 3¼d per day
Valets in a lord’s household: £1 10s per year
Manservant in a yeoman’s household: £1 per year
Maidservant in a yeoman’s household: 10s per year
In old money, there were 12 pence (d) to the shilling (s) and 20 shillings to the pound (£).

Vikings Red with Blood and Dead ...

White Martyrs and the Conquest of the American Frontier 
by David Krueger
Kensington stone  Flikr
Abstract: In 1898, a Swedish American immigrant unearthed a mysterious stone from a Minnesota farm field. The stone had an inscription written in a runic alphabet telling the story of a party of Scandinavian explorers who lost their lives while traversing the area in the fourteenth century. Although Scholars have dismissed the stone as a nineteenth-century hoax, some Minnesotans have ardently defended its authenticity. This paper illustrates how local residents used the artifact to legitimate the white conquest of the American frontier by producing and disseminating a civic religious narrative of a primordial Viking sacrifice at the hands of Indians.
Introduction: Alexandria is a small town in western Minnesota that local residents affectionately refer to as the ‘Birthplace of America.’ This claim is emblazoned on the shield of a twenty-eight-foot fiberglass Viking statue that stands across the street from the local history museum. Enshrine in this museum is an artifact known as the Kensington Stone or KRS. Many residents believe that the KRS explains the origins of Alexandria and its neighboring communities. The verifiable history of the stone begins in 1898 when it was unearthed from a farm field by a Swedish immigrant near the village of Kensington. As local legend has it, the farmer Olaf Ohman discovered the two hundred pound stone tangled in the roots of a tree. The stone face has a runic inscription later translated as follows:
8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by two rocky islets one day’s journey north of this stone. We were out of fishing one day. When we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. Ave Virgo Maria, save us from evil. Year: 1362
If the inscription on the stone were authentic, it would prove that Europeans had traveled through what is now Minnesota 140 years before Christopher Columbus first sailed into the Caribbean. The authenticity of the KRS as a legitimate medieval artifact has been fiercely debated since its discovery. The KRS and the environment in which it was found have been analyzed by scholars in the fields of geology, archaeology, Scandinavian linguistics, and Nordic history throughout the twentieth century. Most have concluded that the evidence indicates that the KRS is a hoax, created in the late nineteenth century by the immigrant farmer and his neighbors.

The Discovery of a Roman Girl in the 15th century

roman girl discovered in 1485
The name of this girl, however, would continue to remain a mystery, as any inscriptions from this site had long since disappeared. One rumor that was spread around was that this was the body of Cicero’s daughter Tulliola. Another said that had an inscription had been found, saying ‘Here lies Julia Prisca Secunda. She lived twenty-six years and one month. She has committed no fault, except to die.’ Everyone did agree that this girl must have been famous and wealthy. In his diary, Antonio di Vaseli, who also saw and marveled at the body, explained she “must be an illustrious one, because none but a noble and wealthy person could afford to be buried in such a costly sarcophagus thus filled with precious ointments.”

Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie

by Graham Pick
400 million year old hammer A half billion year old hammer embedded in rock that formed 400 million years ago.
This find and others has been and still is hotly debated among archaeologists/anthropologists.

The Saguaro Cactus And Its Greedy Guests


This Is the Beak of a Colossal Squid

In 2013, the crew of a fishing boat in the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica found a rare creature in their nets: a colossal squid. The female squid weighed 770 pounds and was the second entire colossal squid ever caught. The crew put the squid into cold storage.
The Museum of New Zealand acquired the squid. On Sept. 15, scientists dissected it live on camera. It was a great opportunity for study. They measured the squid's 2 eyes, which were 14 inches across. The scientists also found that the squid was pregnant, giving them a chance to examine squid reproduction.
You can view more photos and read more information about the squid on the museum's blog.

Seadevil Anglerfish Caught on Video

We know quite a bit about the anglerfish because it’s so weird that bloggers love to talk about it. But it’s rare to catch footage of one in its natural habitat because they live deep down where there is little sunlight. An ROV from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) recorded this anglerfish at a depth of 600 meters in Monterrey Canyon. Although scientists at MBARI have recorded anglerfish before, they believe this is first time the species Melanocetus, or the Black Seadevil, has been filmed.

Robin visits lady's home up to 15 times a day

A robin has become so friendly with a generous grandmother that he visits her up to 15 times a day. Pat Lowe, 77, has become "surrogate mother" to the red-breasted bird, which arrives every morning for breakfast and taps on the window with its beak. The little creature, nicknamed Bob, then hops in the back door at least 15 times a day and flits around the kitchen.
Pat gives her visitor treats including mealworms, breadcrumbs and small bowls of cooked porridge. Grandmother-of-eight Pat, of Viney Hill, Gloucestershire, says the bird first appeared over the summer. She said: "I didn't go out into the garden one day because of the cold and then he started coming into the house - he thinks I'm his mummy.
"Umpteen times I've let him out the window and said 'go back find your friends'. But he goes away for a little while and then the next day, I'm in the kitchen and he's back and then in he comes. And he's not at all scared of anybody at all. The other day, I opened the door for the postman and Bob flew over the postman's head and came in.

"He's not eating out of my hand yet but I'm working on it. He loves porridge - the cooked variety. I cook it for him to keep him nice and warm for the winter." Pat, married to Richard, 82, said: "We'll be buying him a nappy because he poops everywhere. But I don't mind. If that's the price to pay for his company then that's the price I will pay."

Animal Pictures