*Puts On Nostradamus Hat*

Democrat NC governor Roy Cooper will give this vandal a pardon: "Protester who helped pull down Durham Confederate statue arrested."

Random Piece of Advice

Salt and pepper shakers should be made of clear glass so that you can easily distinguish one from the other with a single glance. A salt shaker that can't be recognized for what it is might as well be a Star Trek surgery tool.*








*which they were.

The Day the Heat Left Summer

It's today in the Carolina Piedmont. Oh, summer isn't over, and we'll have almost two full months of hot weather yet, but today is the first cool front that came through, with clear blue skies overhead and low humidity. The end of summer is in sight. Usually this day happens in mid-to-late August, though.

Trump Reverses Obama Policy, Will Forbid Transgenders In the Military

Story.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Military "will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity," citing the "tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender[s] in the military would entail." The decision reverses the "pro-transgender" policy implemented by President Obama in his final year in office.

"​After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military," Trump wrote in a series of tweets. "Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you."

The antics of transgender intelligence leaker Bradley "Chelsea" Manning probably had a lot to do with this decision, Manning being the direct cause of both medical costs and disruption of the type that the President mentioned in his tweets.

Shipwreck Blog: NAZI GOLD!

"Treasure chest with £100MILLION of Nazi gold is found by a British crew in the wreck of a ship deliberately sunk by Hitler to avoid being captured."

Four tons of it, supposedly, off the coast of Iceland.

A group of British treasure hunters have found a chest that could contain up to £100million in Nazi gold in the wreck of a German cargo ship off the coast of Iceland.

UK-based Advanced Marine Services found a box containing up to four tons of valuable metal, believed to be gold from South American banks, in the post room of the SS Minden, which sunk in 1939.

The gold was believed to be on board the ship and headed to Germany when the boat sank 120 miles southeast of Iceland on September 24, 1939, shortly after World War II began.

Click the link to read the rest. Apparently it's in Iceland's territorial waters.

Headline of the Day

"Salvador Dali’s Mustache Still Perky After 27 Years In A Coffin."

They exhumed Dali to gather DNA evidence for a paternity suit. The exhumers had to resort to a saw to remove a piece of Dali's embalmed body to get to bone tissue.

Building Indigo Snake Populations In Florida

Still considered a threatened species on the US Endangered Species list, efforts are being made to re-introduce these beautiful snakes into former habitats.

When I first expressed a desire for a pet snake as a boy, my father took me to a pet shop and I was shown three snakes: an Indigo Snake, a Southern Hognosed Snake, and an Eastern King Snake. The Indigo Snake was rather sluggish and plain; the Hognosed Snake was active and interesting, but when the pet store clerk told me I'd have to catch toads for it to eat, my interest waned. The King Snake was both active and beautiful, and I ended up with that one. It must have been not too long after that that Indigo Snakes were banned for sale in pet shops.

They're the USA's longest native snake, growing up to 9' in length. They are a glossy blue-black in color, hence their name, although it's possible that they were found preying on rats and other rodents in coastal indigo plantations in the antebellum era.

Pope Francis Hits a Home Run With New Policy

Giving your life for another can lead to canonization, pope decides.

To recognize someone officially as a saint to be emulated, the Church has a rigorous, time-consuming process, briefly outlined here. There are stages leading up to canonization, including those marked by the bestowing of the titles Servant of God, Venerable, and Blessed.

Miracles attributed to the intercession of the saint are part of the process.

And today, Pope Francis has made an adjustment to this system by adding another category to the pathways that can lead to canonization.

The document Maiorem hac dilectionem (“Greater love than this”) opens a fourth path for the canonization of saints, a path titled oblatio vitae, “the offering of one’s life.”

This category provides a framework for recognizing “heroic Christian witness,” explained Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci of Bevagna, Italy, secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes, in an interview with L’Osservatore Romano today.

Up until now, there had been three paths leading to beatification and eventual canonization: martyrdom “in odium fidei” [being killed because of your Catholic faith – translator’s note], recognition of the heroic living of virtue, and a third, called “equivalent canonization,” when a pope simply confirms a devotion to a saint who is already well-established in the Church. This equivalent canonization was the case of the Jesuit Pierre Faber (1506-1546) recognized by Pope Francis in 2013, or of Hildegard of Bingen, recognized by Pope Benedict XVI.

This new path, oblatio vitae, is taken from the Lord’s assertion, “Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend.”

*Quickdraw McGraw Voice* "Now Calm Down There, Li'l Jugaloo..."

Axe-wielding Jugaloo prompts swat standoff over radio song-request."

It began just after 1:30 Monday afternoon with 911 calls about a man in a red car brandishing weapons outside the radio studios on Cabot Road in Medford where he apparently tried unsuccessfully to request the song “My Axe” by the Insane Clown Posse and then ranted about his failure to several passersby outside.

“He got out of his car with a machete, stopped a girl who worked up on the second floor and said ‘I want you to play a song for me,’” Doreen Schaivone told WBZ-TV.

A heavily armed swarm of responding officers boxed in the suspect’s red sedan outside the building and the standoff began as the suspect drank beer and huffed something from a paper bag. At one point he climbed out of his vehicle…

Wine "Experts" Should Be Tested and Certified

USA Today, Wine Tasting 101.

I'd be interested to see how good most wine "experts" when there is a blind taste testing, with the test subject actually blindfolded so (s)he can't see what's in the glass, only smell and taste it. Start out simple - - distinguish between a red and a white. Then move on to varietals in each color; finally, allow them to attempt to distinguish between wines from famous wineries. Anyone scoring less than 80% should not be called an expert. Anyone scoring 50 or below should be declared a fraud.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

Sickle Vs. Rabid Bobcat - - Sickle Wins

Grandma calls on druid heritage to drive off a rabid bobcat.

Elsie Dabrowski went out to her chicken coop Sunday night as she does every night around dusk, closed up the coop and bent down to cut weeds with a sickle, said her son, Gene Dabrowski.

The animal lunged at Elsie, bit her left cheek, scratched her throat and bit her back.

“I kept thinking why? Why is it attacking me? It attacked me for no reason. I thought, ‘Why, why,’” said Elsie, a former Marine, on Monday evening.

Elsie beat the cat off her with the sickle, and Gene’s five dogs chased it under a nearby porch. He lives only 300 feet away in a separate house, heard the commotion, rushed to the scene and killed the animal with two blasts of a shotgun.

Music Recommendation: Outlaw Ritual

Found via this article from The Truth About Knives. Bass player Olivia Garriga makes apprentice-quality hand-forged knives. Guitarist/one-man-band Mat Hagar has a street preacher's voice similar to that of William Elliott Whitmore. Together they form Outlaw Ritual, currently based out of Knoxville, TN.

Here's a few videos:







Here's a pic of one of Olivia Garriga's handforged knives, available for sale at the Outlaw Ritual website:

I'd be strongly inclined to buy that knife myself if I had the available funds.

The Carolina Fish Camp

The story of Carolina Fish Camps and their link to Piedmont textile mills. Via Southern Foodways Alliance.

A Case of ANTIsocial Media

Police were called to the scene of an assault after a Facebook argument led to violence on Thursday.

According to reports, the victim and the two suspects had exchanged unpleasant words with one another on Facebook causing the two suspects to become enraged.

According to the victim, the two assailants arrived at her house following the online disagreement, and decided to settle the argument with violence. They knocked on the door of her home, and then began to attack her. One of the victims punched her in the face, dragged her into the apartment, and grabbed her hair while the other helped to hold the woman down.

The victim was eventually able to grab her pepper spray, after which time the suspects fled. The victim sustained injuries to her knee, elbow, lip, and shoulder.

From Rock Hill, SC.

Survival When the River Takes Your Backpack

Story.

To summarize for those who don't wish to click the link, he tried to cross a river, lost his backpack doing so, and had no backup survival plan and was forced to improvise, and would have died had he not come across some road maintenance workers in the nick of time.

He found out - - and, to his credit, acknowledged - - that he should have been carrying survival items on his body, outside of the items in his lost backpack. If he'd had a Mylar Space Blanket in his pocket most of his cold/hypothermia issues would have been minimized.

Here's my own current belt survival kit. It includes a Wenger Swiss Army Knife, a whistle, a button compass, a butane lighter, tweezers, and several firestarters made from Vaseline-impregnated cotton inserted into drinking straws and sealed at the ends with heat. They fit into a traveler's plastic soap box, which itself goes into a leather belt pouch. Stick a Space Blanket into a pocket and you'll be ready for much of what Nature can throw at you.

Opening Line of the Next Great American Novel, Take 2

"One might, if one was a homely North Carolina girl, boast proudly of being from Boogertown."

The Neighborhood At War: Hawks Vs. Crows

Had a bit of avian warfare going on when I stepped outside to take my walk - - on one side, a family of red-shouldered hawks that nest across the street in a tall tree in a neighbor's yard - - on the other side, the neighborhood murder of crows. Hawks sailed over my head into the woods behind my house, pursued by crows. All around me came the sound of outraged hawks and jeering crows. I tried to record some of it with my phone, but was unable to upload the results.

Home Invader

He got in through the back door:

That's a Ringneck Snake, by the way. Poor weatherstripping on the back door of our rental home allowed him to enter.

Revealing the Interior of CSS Hunley

Via Stars and Stripes.

A two-person team outfitted in safety uniforms have been inside the sub since early last year, using stainless steel orthopedic tools and a pneumatic chisel to gently remove the sea’s encrustation that slowly enveloped the sub after it went down on Feb. 17, 1864, said project conservator Johanna Rivera-Diaz of Clemson University.

Their work has turned up many small bones – fingers, wrists and teeth, Rivera-Diaz said.

Most of the bones have been traced to first crewman Arnold Becker, who sat closest to the Hunley’s captain, George Dixon, near the sub’s bow, turning the propeller crank, she said.

“When I find something, I step back and say, ‘Wow,’” Rivera-Diaz said.