Tuesday, July 31, 2018

He Witnessed His Father's Murder and Now He is Missing



Jacob Caldwell is 14 years old.  He and his other two siblings saw his father, Robert Caldwell, murdered by his mother Tawnney Caldwell, and five other people.
His father was shot to death in a parking lot in Riverside, Ohio, in August of last year.
On Aug. 21, the teen's grandmother went to check on him at night and discovered he was missing. 
 Police say Tawnney Caldwell has not cooperated in the search for her son and they believe somebody is helping to hide him.
The FBI, which is offering a $15,000 reward for information on the teen, believes he may now be out of Ohio and living under a new identity.

Las Vegas Massacre

October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada.
There were over 22,000 attendees on that day of the concert.

58 people died and 851 were injured. 
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the United States.

64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired more than 1,100 rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel, between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m.

He was found dead, an hour later, in his hotel room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Before we get into the story.....

Stephen Paddock
He was born in Clinton, Iowa, but  grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and the Sun Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles.
His father, Benjamin was a bank robber who was arrested in 1960 when Stephen was seven years old.
Benjamin was later convicted and escaped prison in 1969. 
He then appeared on FBI's Most Wanted list.

He worked as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, an Internal Revenue Service agent and then a federal auditor focusing on defense contractors.
Then he worked an internal auditor for a company that later merged to form Lockheed Martin.
He owned personal property in areas including Panorama City, Cerritos, and North Hollywood and two apartment buildings in Hawthorne, California.
In addition, he owned an apartment complex in Mesquite, Texas, which he sold in 2012.
Relatives said Paddock was worth at least US$2 million when he sold off the real-estate business.

He was a high-stakes gambler.
His reported gambling winnings were substantial.
He was sometimes seen in high-limit rooms.
He usually gambled after dark and slept during the day.
He lost a significant amount of his wealth over the previous two years,but had paid off all gambling debts before the shooting.
Stephen was twice divorced, had a long-term girlfriend, and had no known children.
He was living 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada.

Before the shooting....

Paddock reportedly smelled of alcohol and was despondent.
He was reported to have filled prescriptions for the highest dose of 50 tablets 10-milligrams of Valium in June 2017.
The effects of the drug can be magnified by alcohol.

His gun purchases were significantly high between October 2016 and September 28, 2017. 
He purchased over 55 firearms and accessories.

Two weeks before the attack, his girlfriend went to her native Philippines after he had bought her a surprise airline ticket.
Later he wired her $100,000 to buy a house there.

September 28,2017, he was recorded by a home surveillance system driving alone to an area for target practice located near his home.

He reportedly was a conspiracy theorist.
He told a friend that "sometimes, sacrifices have to be made" in order to encourage the American public to arm themselves.

He was researching other events since May 2017.
He may have considered attacking them.
He had reserved a room overlooking the August 2017 Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, but did not use it.
September 17, Paddock stayed at The Ogden in Downtown Las Vegas, which overlooked the open-air Life Is Beautiful festival.
His internet search from mid-September included "swat weapons", "ballistics chart 308", "SWAT Las Vegas", and "do police use explosives".

The Shooting....

Stephen Paddock arrived at the Mandalay Bay on September 25, 2017. 
He was booked into Room 32-135 on the 32nd floor.
Using his girlfriend's name, also checked into the directly-connected Room 32-134. 
Both suites overlook the site of the concert at Las Vegas Village.
Between September 25 and October 1, he stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, often with the help of hotel bellhops through the service elevator.
Cell phone records  show that he also made multiple visits to his home in Mesquite. 
The day before the shooting, he placed "Do not disturb" signs on the doors of both rooms.
He spent much of his time before the shooting, gambling at the Mandalay Bay.

October 1, 2017 was the third and final night of the festival. 
Paddock used a hammer to break all the windows in his suits.
Just before 10:00 p.m., hotel security guard Jesus Campos was sent to the 32nd floor to investigate an open-door alert.
He attempted to open a door that provided immediate access to the floor in vain.
After Campos entered the floor, he discovered an L-shaped bracket screwed into the door and door frame.
After reporting the discovery to dispatch that is when the shooting began.
Country music singer Jason Aldean was giving the closing performance.
Campos heard the sound of rapid drilling coming from Room 32-135 and went to investigate. 
At 10:05, he was hit in the right thigh by one of about 35 bullets that Paddock fired through the door of his suite. 
Campos took cover in the alcove between Rooms 32-122 and 32-124.
He immediately informed the hotel by radio and cellphone that he had been shot.
A maintenance worker Stephen Schuck was on the same floor to fix the door that Campos had reported as being barricaded. 
Campos, encountered Schuck and told him to take cover. 
Schuck contacted hotel dispatchers over his radio, and told them to call the police.

Many people in the crowd initially mistook the gunfire for fireworks.
Asecurity fence hindered concertgoers from fleeing the 15-acre concrete lot.

Paddock also fired eight bullets at a large jet fuel tank at McCarran International Airport 2,000 feet away.

Two of those bullets made contact with the exterior of the tank.
During the shooting, police officers were initially confused where the shots were coming from.

There were also multiple reports of additional shooters at other hotels on the Strip.
At 10:12 p.m., two officers on the 31st floor reported the sounds of gunfire on the floor above them. 
Officers arrived on the 32nd floor at 10:17 p.m.
Between 10:26 and 10:30 p.m., eight additional officers arrived at the 32nd floor.

Officers manually breached through the door Paddock had screwed shut.
When the gunfire had ceased, the police moved systematically down the hallway.
10:55 p.m., the officers finished evacuating guests. 
11:20 p.m., police breached Paddocks room with explosives.
Paddock was dead on the floor, he had shot himself in the head.

After

Investigators found hidden surveillance cameras that were placed inside and outside the hotel room.

They also found  a "bulletproof vest" and breathing apparatus.
There have been several changes in the official account and timeline of Paddock's shooting of hotel security guard Campos.

The investigation remains ongoing.

The YourNewsWire spread information about a second gunman who was shooting from the fourth floor of the hotel.

Sputnik, a Russian government news agency, claimed the FBI had linked the shooter to a terrorist group. 
The stories were later removed from Sputnik with an apology.
The terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) claimed that Paddock was their "soldier".  
Alex Jones stated that "Vegas is as phony as a three dollar bill or as Obama's birth certificate."

Some people think that the government was involved and that this was all for tighter gun control laws.

What do you think about this terrible tragedy?

I think he probably did this by himself.

I think that the hotel shouldn't let their customers use the service elevator. 
Then maybe some one would have noticed all the excessive baggage he brought.

Also, maybe i am not understanding things, but the police and the hotel security's statements keep changing.
And there is a video of them waiting in the hall until the shooting stopped.
I applaud police and other that put their lives on the line everyday.
I really appreciate them.
However, in the video, it looks like they are just waiting because they are scared.
If it was because they were scared, then they should get in another line of work.
It is possible, if they wouldn't have waited, lives could have been spared. 
HERE IS THE VIDEO OF THEM WAITING.
HERE IS ANOTHER ONE


Murder in Pinyon Pines

18 year old Becky, Becky's 53-year-old mother, Vicki Friedli, and her 55-year-old boyfriend, Jon Hayward were living in a secluded neighborhood called Pinyon Pines in California.
On the evening of Sept. 17, 2006, their home burned to the ground.
Inside, investigators find the charred remains of Vicki and Jon.
Vicki had been shot in the head by a .40 caliber hand gun.
Jon lay beside her, he died of a shotgun blast to the chest.
Outside in a burning wheelbarrow were the charred remains of Becky.
Her body was too badly burned to determine the cause of death.
There were almost no clues left behind. 
The fire consumed the crime scene and destroyed vital evidence. 

Shortly after, police questioned Vicki's ex husband Ron Friedli.
Ron and Vicki divorced after 13 years of marriage.
He is a former deputy sheriff.
He built the house that the three were killed in.
He passed a polygraph test.
Phone records put him 11 hours away at his property in Northern California when the crime took place. 
Police ruled him out as a suspect.

Some people believed that someone had a grudge against Ron and that is why the three were killed and the house burned down.

The police soon came to the conclusion that Becky was the real target and the other two were collateral damage.
A private investigator, who use to work with Ron on the police force, had been following the case since day one.
He came to believe that Becky was the main target.
Becky had a life long fear of fire due to an incident that happened when she was little.
Becky's friend and her cousin were also suspicious about someone right away.

Robert Pape was Becky ex-boyfriend. 
The teenagers dated in high school and were together for over a year.
Robert soon grew possessive of Becky.
In January 2006, Becky Friedli and Robert Pape broke up and started seeing other people. 
Robert's obsessive behavior only grew worse and took an even darker turn shortly before the murders in September.
He would make a lot of weird phone calls.
He would tell her if he couldn't have her, that no one could.
Robert and his military friend Christian Smith, came into her work and harassed her the day before the murder.

Becky's cousin, Daniela Zermeño, told investigators that on the night of the murders, Becky had told her she was going hiking on her property with Robert and his friend, Christian Smith to smooth things over.
When the police questioned Robert and Christian, they stated that they canceled the hike with Becky and were no where near her at the time the murders went down.
They lied, because their cellphones when dead at exactly the same time, around the time of the murder.
There was no cellphone service up where Becky lived.
Their cellphone records also showed that there last location was going up the highway towards where Becky lived.
The two told investigators that that was a mistake and they were going to church.
At the crime scene there was a business card found.
On that business card was Christian's DNA.
As the six-year anniversary of the crime approached with no arrests in sight, the private investigator put up a billboard.
"We wanted to do a before and after. A beautiful picture of Becky ... and then a picture, a simulated picture of Becky in the wheelbarrow on fire," Bolaños said. "It really, really pulled at heartstrings and sickened people."

Over the next year, tips started coming in. 

One of them was from Becky's cousin, Daniela Zermeño.
She told the private investigator, what the police didn't follow through with far enough.
"I had spoken to Becky the night before the murder," Zermeño explained. "And she told me that her ex-boyfriend ... Robert, had come into her work at Denny's and was harassing her.

He had harassed her to the point of being removed from the restaurant."
And then she told the investigator about Becky telling her she was going to go on a hike with the two.


The breathed new life into the case.
The police decided to look at things once more.
The investigator, along with a Hollywood producer, put together a reenactment video.

A few months later, the D.A.'s office subpoenaed Robert Pape and Christian Smith to appear before a grand jury.

As the grand jury drew to a close, there was news: Pape and Smith were arrested for triple homicide.

As everyone were sure the killers were finally in custody.

Robert Pape and Christian Smith, both 25, pleaded not guilty.

The defendants family's said they that couldn't have done this.
Neither have criminal records. 
Christian Smith is married and a decorated war hero. 
Robert Pape is also married and an active member of his church.

"He saved another man's life ... who was actually ... shot through the lung. And I have a picture of him pulling him out and two of his battle buddies. And Christian has one hand on a rifle and pulling his -- his comrade out and firing back at Afghanis," Christians dad said.
Christian has won commendations for valor and has been awarded two Purple Hearts.


Just six months after their arrests, all charges were dropped.

"Christian Smith and Robert Pape had been really, really good friends in high school. ...And they both kinda beat to the same drum. ...when they were separate they were good guys ... But together they were combustible," private investigator Luis Bolaños explained. 

"Robert Pape and Christian Smith both had an extreme fascination with fire."

Just a few months before the fire at Pinyon Pines, Robert had an instant message conversation with his then- girlfriend, 

Sara. 
Robert seemed to offer a solution to Sara's problem with an ex-boyfriend.
"'Well, if you know where he lives, we can professionally burn his house down,'"  

The defense believes that other people should have been looked at more closely like Javier Garcia Jr.
Garcia Jr. wanted to be more than friends with Becky. 

Garcia's phone records show he was up by Becky's place.
Garcia Jr.'s father is an investigator in the D.A.'s office.
Supposedly the reason why Garcia Jr. was driving in the area before the murders was because he wanted to join the group going hiking, but Becky told him not to come.
So he turned around.
Police determined Javier Garcia Jr. was back on the desert floor at the time of the murders and ruled him out as a suspect. 


In June 2016, Robert Pape and Christian Smith were re-arrested for the murders. 

The State says the charges were based on a Christian's wife Sarah, better cell phone tracking and more evidence that links Christian Smith to that business card found at the crime scene.

The trial began in April 2018, almost 12 years after the crime.

After over a month of trial, the case went to the jury. 

They would deliberate 10 days before giving word that they had finally reached a verdict.

In 2018, Christian Smith, and Robert Pape were found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Vicki Friedli and Jon Hayward. Pape was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Becky Friedli.

At their sentencing in August, Robert Pape, 30, and Christian Smith, 29, face life without parole. 

Monday, July 30, 2018

The World Trade Center Wasn't the Only Attack that happened on September 11th.

America's Second War For Independence
On September 11, 1814, the Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, on Lake Champlain in New York during the War of 1812. 
It ended the final attempt of Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost`s invasion of the United States.
It put an end to British plans to seize more American territory.
American naval force won a against a British fleet, saving New York from being invaded.

Precursor
The War of 1812 began on June 18, 1812, when the United States declared war on Britain. 
The war deceleration had been opposed by a sizable minority in Congress.
It was in response to the British economic blockade of France, the inducting of American sailors into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. 
The Battle
Captain Thomas Macdonough, had been assigned by the war department, to head the naval defense of Lake Champlain.

September 1814, a British army entered New York State from Canada and advanced toward Plattsburgh. 
British ground troops started fighting with the Americans.
September 11, a British naval squadron sailed into battle against a smaller American naval force, that was waiting at Plattsburgh Bay on Lake Champlain. 
After several hours of fighting, and being deprived of naval support,  the British surrendered and then retreated to Canada.
British hopes of creating a homeland in the northwest for its Indian allies were abandoned.
The United States lost 220 people.
100 dead, 120 wounded.
The British lost 680 people.
380 killed or wounded, more than 300 captured or deserted.


After
The American victory on Lake Champlain led to the U.S. and British peace negotiations in Belgium.
December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812.
All conquered territory was to be returned.
A commission would be established to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada.

Shark Attack or Murder?

The Death of Michelle Von Emster
On Friday, April 15, 1994, in the Sunset Cliffs area of San Diego, California, two surfers noticed seagulls standing on what they thought was a mass of kelp beached on the sand nearby.
Upon closer inspection, they discovered it was the body Michelle Von Emster, situated face down on a bed of kelp.
Her remains were taken to area life guard headquarters around 4 p.m. Michelle was found naked, all except for a brass bracelet and two rings.She had a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and long brown hair.

Upon initial examination, the medical examiner, Robert Angle referenced large torn chunks of flesh, and the missing right leg.
He believed that Michelle had not been in the water very long.

A day later a formal autopsy was preformed by San Diego medical examiner, Brian Blackbourne.
Her neck was broken as though she was in a "car wreck".
She had broken ribs, facial scrapes, bruises and contusions.
Substantial amounts of sand lodged in her mouth, throat, lungs and stomach.



The medical examiner found that Michelle had been alive when the injuries were inflicted upon her. The medical examiner came up with this timeline. He said she was last seen alive at 8 p.m. She entered the water sometime around midnight. He concluded Michelle died from injuries sustained during a shark attack, and drowning. He came to this conclusion, because was told this by harbor police, life guards and marine biologists told him so.
The medical examiner stated that Michelle was attacked by a great white shark. The violent shark attack forced Michelle to the ocean floor. This is how she sustained a broken neck, and ingested the huge amounts of sand. She ultimately died from blood loss and drowning.

This that might lead in a different direction.
The medical examiner had never encountered a victim that died from a shark attacked, and neither to anyone else who saw Michelle's body. The experts that the medical examiner referred to never saw the body. 
Many experts don't think this was a great white shark attack. Ralph Collier, a leading expert on Pacific coast white shark behavior and ecology, said after seeing the remains of Michelle's leg bone,

"When a White shark bites off part of a limb, the break is clean.
Almost like you put it on a table saw.
What remained of Michelle's femur was anything but.
It looked like what happens when you get a piece of bamboo and whittle it down to a point with a knife.
I've looked at close to 100 photos of cases that I've reviewed over the years, and I've never seen any bones that came to a point."


Supposedly, the sand entered Michelle's body after her leg had been torn off. Collier stated "The damage would have severed her femoral artery, and she would have bled to death quickly. But, for her to have sand in her stomach, she would have had to take a big gulping breath as she made contact with the sand...There are too many things in this case that are not consistent with White shark behavior."

He also said that there were too many things in this case that didn't fit with white shark behavior.

Richard Rosenblatt, Chairman of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography at the, also disagreed that is was a shark attack as well. After receiving the measurements of Michelle's wounds, he stated, "None of the marks on Michelle's body were caused by a White shark. If she had been bitten by a White shark, they most likely would have also found a Great White tooth broken off into her body." "If a shark had taken her leg, it could only have been taken by a White shark."

No great white teeth were found in Michelle's body. However, there were multiple bite marks left by Blue sharks, and they definitely fed on Michelle's body. A local pathologist, Harry Bunell, found there was no evidence to suggest the bites occurred before death.

The case of Michelle Von Emster's death, was given a re-examination in 2008. Medical examiner, Glenn Wagner concluded that sharks had scavenged Michelle's body after her death.
If it wasn't a shark attack, then what really happened?
Some people believe that Mchelle Von Emster went for a midnight swim. That maybe she had gotten caught in a riptide and drowned.
That her body was violently knocked against the rocks, and this is how she sustained most of her injuries. She was later fed on by Blue sharks after her dead body was submerged in the ocean.
This sounds plausible, however the water temperature was 59 degrees with the night air being 57 degrees.When she was last seen at 8 PM, she was wearing a trench-coat, so she must've been cold?
And what about her leg? 
Another theory is that she died as the result of an unfortunate tumble from Sunset Cliffs. A medical examiner said that her neck, face, pelvic and rib injuries were consistent with a fall or car accident. Sunset Cliffs known for having deteriorating sandstone, and previous deaths have occurred when victims have fallen from the cliffs. Some say they she could have jumped or fell, been pushed or a vehicle could have forced her off the side of a cliff. That still doesn't explained the leg though.

Was she murdered?
Michelle Von Emster lived in a drug-riddled neighborhood that was nick-named, "The War Zone."

It is weird that Michelle was found nude. A lifeguard did see her swim naked in the past. She told a neighbor once, that she "Liked to surf naked."
However, her friends and local surfers never recalled her surfing.
Michelle's purse was found around 2 miles away from her body on the base of the seawall, in a heavily trafficked area. In her purse was her keys and driver's license and her cash inside a fanny pack.
All of this make some people think that someone hurt Michelle and left her to die in the ocean.Then they planted the purse to look like an accident. Or they could have drowned her. One of the experts mentioned the young woman would have had to take huge gulps in order to ingest so much sand.


Unofficial Suspects
Edwin Decker. Decker
He was a a friend and ex co-worker of Michelle's. He was the one that to the police that Michelle liked to surf naked. Decker claimed that he and Michelle had gone out together for drinks the night before. He also said that they had been flirting with each other for weeks. He said that they had kissed after they had drinks and she left in a cab at 5 a.m. He also stated that there was a friend sleeping by them in the apartment that night. He says he believed the two shared an emotional, physical and intellectual connection..., "at least on my part..."
After he learned that Michelle was dead, he wrote and published the following poem:
"The report said there was a tattoo
A butterfly on her shoulder
Which I remembered that night
On my couch when I, like the shark
Chewed on her lips and took off her shirt"

Decker who asked the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office to re-evaluate the case in 2008.

The Unknown Stalker
Michelle was a former employee of a Rumors coffee shop.
There was an unknown man who constantly stalked the young woman. She left her job because of her stalker.
The stalker's name was unknown, but she did know that he rode a motorcycle. She left that job to go work in Cabrillo Stationary, an office supply store, where she thought she would escape her stalker.


Denise Knox, Michelle's former boss at that store, recalls that shortly after Michelle's death, a weird man came into the store and made several copies of Michelle's autopsy report.
Knox further stated that the man rode away from the store on a motorcycle.


What do you think happened?

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Was Rosanne Fired Because Her Conspiracy Theories are True or Did Everyone Get Tired of Her Racist Tweets?

It is true that Rosanne has tweeted some pretty racist things and has displayed some pretty vulgar behavior in her past, but was she really fired for her racism?

In an instance before the tweet that got her fired she referred to George Soros, as a Nazi collaborator who turned in fellow Jews in wartime Hungary. 
The day before, she wrote that Mr. Soros planned on overthrowing the government and that Chelsea Clinton was married to a Soros relative.

At the end of March, she deleted a post saying that David Hogg, an outspoken survivor of the Parkland shooting, gave a Nazi salute.
Days later, ABC announced it was renewing “Roseanne” for another season.


She is not the only television personality to show racism.

Mr. Maher, the comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time,” was talking to Mr. Sasse about the boundaries between adolescence and maturity, and how adults in California still dress up for Halloween.
When Mr. Sasse said this did not happen in his state, Mr. Maher said, “I’ve got to get to Nebraska more.”
Mr. Sasse replied: “You’re welcome. We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.”
Mr. Maher said: “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger. No, it’s a joke.”


Was she really fired because one of her conspiracy theories hit home?
Or is she just a crack pot?
What do you think?
Me personally, i think it was a little bit of both.
She is a little big nutty sounding, and says racist things.
I also think some of her points about people being financially oppressed and a few other things are valid.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Say goodbye to the white rhino

These are the last Northern white rhinos in the world
This particular species is basically extinct.
These last two rhinos are females. 
The male rhino died earlier this year.
Recent research has suggested the northern white rhinoceros may be an altogether different species, rather than a subspecies of white rhinoceros.
It use to be found in several countries in East and Central Africa south of the Sahara.
The two female rhinos live in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya and are protected round-the-clock by armed guards.
Najin, a female, was born in captivity in 1989.
She is the mother of Fatu.
Fatu, also a female, was born in captivity in 2000.
They arrived at the conservancy after an air and road trip on 20 December 2009 with two male northern white rhinos.
Suni, a male born at Dvůr Králové Zoo in 1980, died from natural causes in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in 2014.
Sudan, caught from the wild in 1975, died on 19 March 2018.
Neither of the females are "capable of natural reproduction".
Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, San Diego Zoo Global, Tiergarten Schönbrunn, and Dvůr Králové Zoo think that, in the future, they might be able to grow more rhinos out of simple skin sells.
The DNA of a dozen northern white rhinos has been preserved in genetic banks in Berlin and San Diego.
Poaching is the main cause of their extinction.



Just Room Enough Island( Hub Island)
In the Ocean, separating Canada and the United States is house, a tree, some shrubs and a small beach sitting on one-thirteenth of an acre.
It was purchased by the Sizeland family in the 1950s, who wanted a holiday getaway and built a house there.
It is the smallest inhabited island, located in the United States.
It lies on the Saint Lawrence River, between Heart Island and Imperial Isle.




The fastest creature on two legs!
The ostrich is a large flightless bird native to Africa.
They can run for a long time at the speed of 34 miles to 43 mph.
The ostrich is the largest living species of bird and lays the largest eggs of any living bird.
When threatened, it will run away or hide itself by lying flat against the ground.
It attacks with a kick of its powerful legs. 
The ostrich is farmed around the world for its feathers.
 Its skin is used for leather products and its meat is marketed commercially.
The ostrich weighs 139–320 lb, that is as much as two adult humans.
They can grow up to around 9 ft tall.
They can life up to 45 years.
Their eyes are said to be the largest of any land vertebrate measuring two inches in diameter.
This helps them to see predators at a great distance. 
The head and bill are small for the birds' huge size.
The wings reach a span of about 6 ft 7.
The feathers are very soft and fluffy and lack the tiny hooks that lock together the smooth external feathers of flying birds.
Ostriches can tolerate a wide range of temperatures. 
It has no gallbladder and has three stomachs.
The secretes urine separately from feces.
Ostriches became extinct in China after the last ice age.
Ostriches are mainly active in the day but may be active on moonlit nights. 
They have acute hearing and can sense predators from far away.
They can go without drinking for several days.
Ostriches typically avoid humans in the wild.
If they feel trapped and attack they can disembowel or kill a person with a single blow. 
In some countries, people race each other on the backs of common ostriches. 

Albert Einstein is Teaching Us Things From Beyond the Grave.

Interesting Facts and Conspiracies You Probably Didn't Know About Albert Einstein.
Even after death Einstein is teaching us new things.
His theory of relativity taught scientists how to uncover a planet 3 times the size of Jupiter.
His General Theory of Relativity explains how stars' gravity can bend light waves.

He just helped us find a massive alien world called MOA-2016-BLG-227Lb.
MOA is a super-Jupiter mass planet circling a star in the Galactic bulge, which is 21,000 light years away from us.
Researchers from countries around the world, including the U.S., Israel and Japan, used a technique called gravitational microlensing. 
This means that they noticed the way the light bends around a planet.


Was Stephen Hawking Albert Einstein?
Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein having such striking similarities in their lives.
This makes some people think that Albert was reincarnated as Stephen Hawking.
You be the judge.

They both had neurological disorders.
Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
ALS is a neuro-degenerative disease that slowly erodes nerves that control voluntary movement.
So he really couldn't move as the disease progressed and that is why he was wheelchair-bound for most of his life. 
Einstein suffered from a mild case of Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, as well as attention deficit disorder (ADD)
This means he had he didn't know what to do or how to act towards others sometimes and he had a hard time concentrating.

They both were married twice.
Einstein divorced his first wife Mileva Maric to marry Elsa Lowenthal.
They were together until she passed away.

Hawking divorced his wife of 30 years, Jane Wilde, to marry Elaine Mason.
He eventually divorced her too.
They both were fascinated by the universe and time travel.Einstein looked at things from a relativistic point of view while Hawking focused more on quantum physics.
They both thought that their own ideas were stupid.Einstein thought that one of his biggest mistakes was the cosmological constant he introduced into equations for general relativity.
Hawking, thought his was the “information loss” in black holes.
Both of them became famous.
They both had a good sense of humor.
Einstein claimed that humor powered his brilliant intellect.
On his 72nd birthday a photographer asked him to smile, so he stuck out his tongue.
He was known for his childlike sense of humor.
Hawking was known for his amazing one liners that had intelligence to them.


Both Einstein and Hawking passed away when they were 76 years old. 

Was he part of the Illuminati?
Some believe Einstein was a member of the Illuminati.
While there is no clear connection to the Illuminati, it has been reported that Einstein visited Bohemian Grove.



Some say his first wife might have co authored his 1905 Relativity Paper.

In the 1980's, American physicist Evan Walker Harris published an article in Physics Today claiming that Einstein first wife, Mileva Maric, was one of many coauthors of his 1905 paper on special relativity.
Most physicists and historians of science have rejected it.
After Einstein’s death in 1955, Soviet physicist Abram Fedorovich Joffe described some correspondence he had with Einstein early in their careers in a article published in Russian.
He had asked Einstein for a prints of some of his papers and wrote: “The author of these articles Einstein-Marity” 
A popular Russian science writer called Daniil Semenvich Danin, interpreted Joffe’s account to mean that Einstein and Maric collaborated on the work. 

Einstein’s letters are full of his ideas about physics.
Maric’s contain none and she was not a talented physicist or mathematician. 
She failed her final examinations and was never granted a diploma.

Maric and Einstein divorced in 1919, but as part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed to pay his ex-wife all of any future Nobel Prize he might be awarded.
That is another reason why people think she might have been a co author.

B-25 Crashed into the Empire State Building and Exploded

1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, flying in heavy fog, crashed into the Empire State Building killing 14 people.
The accident did not compromise the building's structural integrity.The damage estimated at $1,000,000 ($13,593,346 in 2017 dollars).
It was  July 28, 1945, which was a Saturday.
The sky was thick with fog.
Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith Jr. was piloting the aircraft from Bedford Army Air Field to Newar on a routine trip he has made many times before.
He asked permission to land, but was advised against it because the visibility was zero.
He proceeded anyway.
He became hopelessly disoriented, and turned the opposite way he was supposed to, passed the Chrysler Building.
9:40 a.m., the aircraft crashed between the 78th and 80th floors.
This carved a 18-by-20-foot hole in the North side of the building.
The offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located there.
One engine rocketed through the opposite side of the building and flew as far as the next block before dropping 900 feet.
Then it landed on the roof of a nearby building starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse art studio. 
The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft and caused a fire that was extinguished in 40 minutes.

Fourteen people were killed in this tragedy.
Smith was thrown through the elevator shaft and fell to the bottom.
He wasn't found until two days later when search crews discovered  his body.
Along with Smith, two enlisted men aboard the bomber (Staff Sergeant Christopher Domitrovich and Albert Perna, a Navy Aviation Machinist's Mate, and eleven people in the building, all lost their lives.
Betty Lou Oliver was operating the elevator, when the cables supporting her elevator broke and the elevator fell 75 stories, ending up in the basement. 
She was found among the rubble alive and a record holder for the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall.
Her record still stands to this day.
Betty Lou Oliver Tells What it was Like
Astonishingly, the building was open for business on the following Monday.

The crash motivated the passage of the long-pending Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, as well as the  allowing people to sue the government for the accident.

The Iron Nun and Giant Ants

The Iron Nun
Marie Dorothy Buder was born in St. Louis, Missouri on July 24, 1930. 
Madonna Buder is a Roman Catholic religious sister and Senior Olympian triathlete.
She has the current world record for the oldest woman to ever finish an Ironman Triathlon.

She was educated at Visitation Academy of St. Louis.
She attended Washington University in St. Louis and was a member of the Alpha Iota chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta.
She entered a convent of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd at age 23.


She left the congregation in 1970 to join other Sisters from different and varying backgrounds to establish a new and non-traditional community of Religious Sisters.

She set that record at age 82 by finishing the Subaru Ironman Canada on August 26, 2012.
She also a senior Olympian and holds several records in various distances.
She completed her first triathlon at age 52.
She completed her first Ironman event at age 55 and has continued ever since.
She has completed over 325 triathlons.
45 of them were Ironman Distances.
At the 2005 Hawaii Ironman, at age 75, she became the oldest woman ever to complete the race.
At the 2006 Hawaii Ironman, at age 76, she again became the oldest woman ever to complete the race.
She has worked hard at raising money for various charities. 
August 24, 2008, she participated in the Ironman Canda.
She was unable to finish the race by a factor of seconds.
On August 30, 2009, This time she completed Ironman Canada. She broke her own record of being the oldest female to complete the Ironman distance at 79 years old. 
The Ironman organization has had to add new age brackets as the sister gets older. 
She started the 2010 Ironman Canada competition at the age of 80, she was unable to complete the course, due to a wetsuit issue.
She competed in the 2011 Ironman Canada competition but missed the bike cut-off by 2 minutes.
She competed and finished the Ironman Canada triathlon again in 2012 as she wanted to open up an 80+ age category and be the oldest person, male or female, to finish an Ironman triathlon.
She became the overall Ironman world record holder in age at age 82. 
She beat the record previously held by 81-year-old Lew Hollander. 
In 2014, she was inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame.
In 2016, she was featured in an ad for Nike, Inc that was aired during the Summer Olympic Games.




The Hooded Pitohui 
It is a medium-sized songbird with rich chestnut and black plumage.
Its feathers contain one of the most potent toxins known to science.
It was the first poisonous bird discovered.
The Hooded pitohui have a strong poison in their skin and feathers.

It is a species of bird found in New Guinea. 
The toxins are thought to be derived from their diet.
The toxins may function both to deter predators and protect the bird from parasites. 
This species is one the most poisonous species of pitohui.

The hooded pitohui is found in forests from sea-level up to 6,600 ft, It is most common in hills and low mountains. 
It is a social bird that lives in family groups and frequently joins and even leads mixed-species foraging flocks. 
The diet is made up of fruits, seeds and invertebrates. 
Family groups help to protect the nest and feed the young. 
The hooded pitohui is common and not at risk of extinction.

The hooded pitohui is 8.7–9.1 in long.
It weighs 2.3–2.7 oz.
The adult has a black upperwing, head, chin, throat and upper breast and a black tail. 
The rest of the plumage is a chestnut color. 
The bill and legs are black.
The irises are either reddish brown, dark brown or black.

Brown tree snakes are bird predators that have been shown to be vulnerable to the poisons found in hooded pitohui.

The hooded pitohui makes a variety of calls, mostly forms of whistles. 
There eggs are creamy or pinkish with brown to black spots and blotches and faint grey patches.




Army Ants
Also legionary ant or marabunta.
The name is due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids". 
Huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area.
Army ants do not construct permanent nests.
An army ant colony are constantly on the move.
The ants do the same thing, they act the same.
This is called"legionary behavior".
The workers of army ants are usually blind or have stuff in their eyes so they can't really see.
The soldiers of army ants are larger than the workers, and they have much larger mandibles.

They protect the colony, and do the heavy lifting.
The males have wings and can resemble wasps.

As soon as they are born, they will fly off in search of a queen to mate with. 
Sometimes males seek to mate with a queen from an existing colony.
Males are sometimes called "sausage flies" or "sausage ants."
Colonies of  army ants always have only one queen.

The queen is blind and does not have wings.
They are larger than worker army ants.
Queens will mate with multiple males.
They can produce 3 to 4 million eggs a month. Army ants are to the most ferocious social hunters.
They are the largest ants on Earth.

When the queen ant dies, most of the time, the colony will most likely die too. 
The new queens that are hatched be sorted and picked through until two queens are selected. 
The two that are not selected will be abandoned to die.
The colony of army ants can consume up to 500,000 animals each day.
Underground species prey primarily on ground-dwelling arthropods and their larvae, earthworms, and occasionally also the young of vertebrates, turtle eggs, or oily seeds. 
The "colony robbers", specialize in the offspring of other ants and wasps. 
Some army ants attack birds and their eggs.
Colonies can have over 15 million workers.
They build a living nest with their bodies.

The members hold onto each other's legs and so build a sort of ball.

These ants are the same ones that are in the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie.
They are just smaller, no ant is that big.


Jeez Alabama...
Alabama was the last state in the U.S. to lift the ban on interracial marriage.
The ban wasn't lifted until 2000.
That is 30 years after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.