Keep The Top Up: Study Finds Birds Target Red Cars
ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) — Better not put the top down if you’re driving a red car.
According to a study conducted by Halfords, a British automotive company, birds most often target red cars when doing their business.
The company analyzed 1,140 cars across five cities – Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester – over the course of two days.
Researchers found crimson cars topped the number of bird droppings at 18 percent. Birds targeted blue cars 14 percent of the time. Black cars at 11 percent, white at 7 percent, silver at 3 percent and green at 1 percent rounded out the list.
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The Sea Will Wait
The sea is rising. Around the world, people check tide gauges, monitor the shore, watch the waves. And we observe that the water is higher than it was. Sure, in a few places the land is moving upward even more rapidly, such the Hudson Bay Lowlands, so recently released from their glacial burden. But globally there is no question: the sea is rising.
People are building dikes. Engineers are designing tidal barriers, planning new sea walls. We humans are an optimistic species; our can-do attitude has made us what we are today. We can solve this problem! We have done this sort of thing before. After all, the Acadians drained and diked the Tantramar hundreds of years ago. Early last century the Dutch dammed the Zuiderzee and reclaimed land in the polders, and just a few decades ago the English built the Thames Barrier. We can defeat the sea. We have the ability.
New York City from Staten Island
But the sea will watch. Its sun-dappled waves may wash gently on the shore, but they are like a flicking watery tail, and just over the horizon a monstrous salty cat is plotting its next move. The sea will wait.
Maybe we will not be able to save low-lying Third World islands like those of Tuvalu. What hope do we have that funds will be found to prevent the Bay of Bengal from sweeping across the low coast of Bangladesh? What hope is there that millions of people on west African deltas will not be displaced?
But here in the West it is different, surely! After all, New Orleans is being rebuilt, isn’t it? And America has the resources to relocate people from the low-lying land of South Florida! And Venice might be sinking, but I’m sure that the Italian government will block the sea!
We can save those treasures now, we can save them next year. But what will the world be like in 50 years? 500 years? 5000 years?
Continue reading HERE.
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At its height, Greek colonization reached as far as Russia and France to the west and Turkey to the east. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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The Living Chess Game at Marostica, Italy
The medieval town of Marostica, Italy holds a unique pageantry event every second (even) year in second weekend of September when living chess game is played on a giant (20×20 metres) chess board at the Piazza Castello (popularly known as Piazza degli Scacchi meaning Plaza of Chess) against the picture-perfect backdrop of the local castle. About 500 residents of the town dressed in traditional 15th century costume take part in this pageant and re-enact the legend of circa 1454 when two noblemen in love with the elder daughter of the Lord of the Castle, were ordered by the lord to settle their differences over a game of chess instead of the traditional duel. In the present day the entire event starts with music and flag shows followed with chess game played by human chess pieces in black and white medieval costume including duly decked up small horses to represent the knights. At the end of the game the winner gets the hand of Lionora and the loser gets her younger sister Oldrada. The pageant is a big cultural event in the town and and is a big draw with tourist.
MORE.
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Books Behind Bars Cutting Sentences in Brazil
The Brazilian federal penitentiary system has found a novel solution to its overcrowding problem: offering inmates shortened sentences as a reward for reading. The new “Redemption through Reading” program is being implemented in four federal prisons, where eligible inmates will be able to cut their sentences by as much as 48 days a year by reading works of literature, philosophy, science, or the classics and then writing essays about the material. In order to qualify, the essays must meet certain standards, including having proper paragraph structure, being free of errors, and being written in cursive. More …
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Washington’s Wig 8 Bit Fun
Washington’s Wig, the grand prize winning game from season one of IGN’s ‘The Next Game Boss’ reality show, is now available from independent developer Team2Bit in the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace.
Play as George Washington’s loyal canine, Dogsworth McFreedom, as he tries to return his master’s lost wig in this factually disputed account of one the most audacious surprise attacks in military history. Washington’s Wig contains multiple play modes including an endless runner mode, a level-based arcade mode, a time trial mode, and a 2-player simultaneous race mode. Featuring English dogs in canoes, a patriotic sturgeon, bass thumping hot beats, and crossover characters from two of this summer’s hottest indie games, Escape Goat and A Virus Named TOM, Washington’s Wig is a joyous return to the simplicity and challenge of old-school gameplay. Washington’s Wig is available for 80 Microsoft Points ($1) starting June 26th.
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The American Revolution is gaining in popularity in gaming circles. In Assassins Creed, you can be George Washington (I think) or at least fight alongside him against the Brits. However, this would make Betsy Ross mad.
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New Disability Regs Limit Slope of Mini Golf Holes, Require Businesses to Admit Mini Horses as Guide Animals
(CNSNews.com) – Although the Justice Department has extended the deadline for America’s hotels to comply with regulations regarding handicap access to swimming pools, new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines are already being applied at miniature golf courses, driving ranges, amusement parks, shooting ranges and saunas.
Among the provisions in the “Revised ADA Standards for Accessible Design,” which went into effect on March 15, is one requiring businesses to allow miniature horses on their premises as guide animals for the disabled. Another limits the height of slopes on miniature golf holes.
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The Dissolution of the Monasteries
Between 1536 and 1541, English King Henry VIII disbanded hundreds of monasteries and convents in England, appropriating their lands and stripping them of everything of value—including their roofs. Henry carried out this program of dissolution as head of the Church of England, transferring a massive amount of land, wealth, and income to the crown. The monks and nuns were absorbed into their orders, but the dissolution of the monasteries led to the loss of what culturally valuable institutions?
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Can you spot the two camoflaged girls in this pic?
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Stonewall Riots Begin (This day in 1969)
In 1969, gay rights in the US were virtually nonexistent, and discrimination was routine. On June 28, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular Mob-run gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and began arresting patrons for cross-dressing. A crowd gathered outside, taunting police and throwing debris. The police responded with violence. Protest rallies and further riots followed, marking the awakening of the US gay rights movement. At one point during the riot, where did police officers hide?
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High court upholds key part of Obama health law
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the individual insurance requirement at the heart of President Barack Obama’s historic health care overhaul.
The decision means the huge overhaul, still only partly in effect, will proceed and pick up momentum over the next several years, affecting the way that countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care. The ruling also hands Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in requiring most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.
Breaking with the court’s other conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans.
The justices rejected two of the administration’s three arguments in support of the insurance requirement. But the court said the mandate can be construed as a tax. “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Roberts said.
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If men baked gingerbread cookies:
