How to Know if You’re About to be Struck by Lightning: Amazing Picture of Brothers with Hair on End Minutes Before they Were Hit

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By Daily Mail Reporter. This frightening picture of two brothers with their hair on end was snapped just minutes before they were struck by lightning at Moro Rock, California, leaving the younger boy with third-degree burns and another man dead.

Electrical charges in the atmosphere just before a strike can lift hair into the air, providing nature’s last warning of a bolt from the blue…

The story behind the classic 1975 picture has come to light on the blog of Michael McQuilken, the teenager on the right who had no idea that they were in terrible danger…

McQuilken wrote on his blog that when he raised his right arm in the air ‘the ring I had on began to buzz so loudly that everyone could hear it’…


McQuilken, who is now a drummer and software designer, described the lightning hit as being engulfed ‘in the brightest light I have ever seen,’ similar in intensity to an arc welding light. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APAmerican Men Almost 6x More Likely Than Women to Be Killed by Lightning

By Terence P. Jeffrey. Lightning strikes in the United States are almost six times more likely to kill a man than a woman, according to recently released data from the federal Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC did not explain why males are so much more likely than females to be killed by lightning.

The CDC looked at deaths by lightning in the 43 years from 1968 through 2010. It found that during that period the annual number of Americans killed by lightning was on a downward trend, with the annual number of men being killed declining 78.6 percent and the annual number of women being killed declining 70.6 percent.

However, over the 1968-2010 period, 85 percent of the Americans killed by lightning were male and 15 percent were female. That means American males were 5.66 times more likely to be killed by lightning than American females.

Photo Credit: CDC

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First Open Source Airplane Could Cost Just $15,000

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Photo Credit: WiredThere’s an open source airplane being developed in Canada, and now its designers are looking to double down on the digital trends, turning to crowdsourced funding to finish the project. The goal of Maker Plane is to develop a small, two-seat airplane that qualifies as a light sport aircraft and is affordable, safe, and easy to fly. But unlike other home-built aircraft, where companies or individuals charge for their plans or kits, Maker Plane will give its design away for free.

The group behind the project consists of pilots and engineers who are designing the airplane, allowing it to be built using the kind of personal manufacturing equipment somebody in the maker community might already have at home or can easily purchase. The idea of a home-built airplane is nothing new. It dates back to the earliest days of flight, after Orville and Wilbur made and flew their own airplanes (and engine), the homemade plane movement — literally — took off…

In the spirit of the open source and maker movements, the Maker Plane group is including components from many designers and builders outside their circle. As they focus on the design of the airplane (fuselage, wings, etc.), the Maker Plane team helps connect those interested in building their own with other open source components such as an air data computer and radios. They even show you where you can get plans to build your own traffic and collision avoidance system.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz: D.C. Republicans ‘Scared’

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Photo Credit: APSen. Ted Cruz believes Republicans can defund “Obamacare” if they stand together, but he said “scared” Republicans are standing in the way.

“What I can tell you is there are a lot of Republicans in Washington who are scared. They’re scared of being beaten up politically,” Cruz (R-Texas) told Glenn Beck on TheBlaze radio show Monday.

Cruz said there are too many members of the GOP that want to vote against Obamacare symbolically, but don’t actually want to follow throw.

“I’ve been astonished by how many Republicans in Washington want a fig leaf … but they don’t actually want to succeed,” Cruz told Beck.

As long as Republicans don’t cave, Cruz said, they can win the fight, a theme he reiterated in other media appearances Monday.

Read more from this story HERE.

105 Children Lured into Prostitution are Rescued by FBI in Biggest Ever Bust of its Type in U.S. History – 150 Pimps in 76 Cities Who ‘Tortured’ Girls as Young as 13 are Arrested (+video)

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Photo Credit: FBI.govThe FBI rescued 105 teenagers over the weekend who were forced into prostitution in the largest child sex trafficking sting in U.S. history, which encompassed 76 cities, the agency said Monday.

The youngest child rescued was 13 years old, the FBI said.

The raids resulted in the arrests of 150 ‘pimps’ involved in the sexual exploitation of both adults and children, said Ronald Hosko, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division.

The FBI said 60 percent of the children rescued were in foster care or group homes when they ran away.

‘With no way to survive on their own they are lured into a life of being trafficked for sex,’ Hosko said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Limbaugh Responds to ‘Stations Dumping Him’ (+audio)

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Photo Credit: APRush Limbaugh wasted no time Monday responding to a published report that he is soon to be dropped by Cumulus Media, the second-largest broadcaster in the U.S.

“Someday I am looking forrward to being able to detail all of this for you, but suffice to say, nothing is going to happen that you will notice. Nothing is going to change,” Limbaugh told listeners.

“You are going to be able to get this radio program on as many, if not more, radio stations down the road than it’s on now.”

He said he would love to spill the beans on what’s really going on behind the scenes, but must “use proper business restraint” in addressing what he referred to as a “public business negotiation.”

“What you’re being treated to is just a public business negotiation,” Limbaugh explained. “Negotiations have been taken public by one side of this, when I thought it was done. I thought it was overwith.”

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Are Republicans Too Divided to Have a Civil War?

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Photo Credit: APA nasty fight is brewing among Republicans over a proposal to defund Obamacare. Another intra-party fight is flaring over national security and the war on terror. And yet another is well under way over immigration reform. In each, some Republicans seem more fired up to go after each other than to take on President Obama and the Democrats. The conflicts could be signs that the party is headed toward all-out civil war. Or they could be part of an unhappy but temporary stretch for a party that still hasn’t gotten over its rejection by the voters in 2012.

It’s more likely that this is just a rocky time for a rejected and confused party. The conflicts inside the GOP today just don’t line up in the configuration of a classic civil war. There are multiple issues involved, and the lawmakers on various sides of various issues don’t lean the same way on each issue. Republicans who are opponents on one issue are allies on another. Looking at the Senate, for example, it’s unlikely that there will be a total civil war between Senate Faction A and Senate Faction B when some members of the opposing factions are united in Faction C, or Faction D, or so on. In other words, it may be that the Republican Party is too divided to have a real civil war. Perhaps chaos would be a better description. We’ll know more later.

What we know now is that GOP lawmakers are remarkably tense over the issue of defunding Obamacare. When I asked Sen. Tom Coburn about it Friday, he went off on the issue, calling the proposal “dishonest” and “hype,” not to mention “impossible.” It can’t be done, given the Republicans’ 46-vote minority in the Senate, Coburn argued, and the government shutdown that could result from such a maneuver would be disastrous for the GOP.

Coburn questioned the motives of the GOP senators — among them Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul — who are behind the effort, calling the move “a denial of reality mixed with a whole bunch of hype to promote groups and individuals.” And then: “The worst thing is being dishonest with your base about what you can accomplish, ginning everybody up and then creating disappointment.” Later, when I mentioned Lee specifically, Coburn responded, “Lee’s answer [to critics] is, ‘Give me a different strategy.’ Well, there isn’t one, because we lost the [election]. I’m getting phone calls from Oklahoma saying, ‘Support Mike Lee,’ and I’m ramming right back: Support him in destroying the Republican Party?”

Those are pretty strong words from a senior Republican about his fellow senators. And some other GOP senators echoed those sentiments. “I agree with my friend Dr. Coburn,” tweeted Sen. John McCain. And Richard Burr called the defunding ultimatum “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Democratic Sex Scandals May Affect Clinton’s Presidential Aspirations (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsWherever Anthony Weiner goes on the streets of New York these days, he’s surrounded by reporters, microphones and cameras – a crush that would ordinarily signal intense interest in a surging campaign. For the beleaguered Weiner, it portends his likely demise.

But he presses on, despite the loss of his campaign manager, blunt face-to-face criticism from tough New Yorkers, and a new Quinnipiac University poll showing him in fourth place. “I’m taking a bet basically that people are more interested in hearing solutions to their problems than hearing about things in my background,” he told one reporter Monday. “And we’ll see if that’s the case.”

Even his wife, in her loyalty to her husband, is now being criticized for risking the presidential hopes of her mentor, Hillary Clinton.

In a “Today” appearance Monday morning, NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell said, “This is getting to the point where it is really splashing up against the Clintons because it’s almost unavoidable that people are making comparisons.”

In a broader sense, the Weiner sex scandal, coupled with those of San Diego mayor Bob Filner and NY comptroller candidate, Eliot Spitzer, now compose a trio of targets for Democratic party elders. Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “The conduct of some of these people that we’re talking about here is reprehensible, is so disrespectful of women.”

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Bloomberg’s Gun-Control Group Loses Mayors Over Deceitful Tactics

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Photo Credit: ReutersNew York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is losing part of his arsenal of local leaders as more and more long-time members of his gun-control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns say they aren’t happy with the coalition’s trajectory and want out.

While the group apparently is growing in membership overall amid an effort to assume a larger profile in the national gun debate, it’s turning some members off. In the past five months, 50 members of the group have quit. Many say they did so because the organization abandoned its mission statement of going after illegal guns, and instead used its political clout to go after lawmakers who supported gun rights.

Most recently, the mayors of Rockford, Ill., and Nashua, N.H., dropped out after saying they felt misled by Bloomberg.

Nashua Mayor Donnalee Lozeau says she called it quits after the group launched television attack ads against New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte voted against legislation that would have expanded background checks to cover almost every gun purchase in the country.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want to be part of something like that,’” Lozeau told The Manchester Union Leader. “I told them, ‘You’re Mayors Against Illegal Guns; you’re not mayors for gun control.’”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cornel West Calls Obama The Drone President (+video)

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Photo Credit: APLiberal activist and scholar Dr. Cornel West last week called President Barack Obama “the drone president” for his administration’s controversial use of drone strikes.

“Bush was the capture-and-torture president. Now we’ve got the targeted killing president, the drone president. That’s not progress. That’s not part of the legacy of Martin King,” West said in a July 22 interview on “Democracy Now!”

West said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be invited to the 50th anniversary of the slain civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, because he would want to talk about drones.

“And you know what the irony is, Sister Amy? Brother Martin would not be invited to the very march in his name, because he would talk about drones,” West said.

“Do you think anybody at that march will talk about drones and the drone president? Will you think anybody at that march will talk about the connection to Wall Street? They are all on the plantation,” West added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Orders Chandra Levy Court Documents Unsealed (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNNA judge on Monday ordered the release of sealed documents and transcripts from court proceedings related to the murder case of Chandra Levy, a Washington intern whose disappearance in 2001 drew national headlines and damaged a U.S. congressman’s political career.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher ruled that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia should release the transcripts of secret conversations between the lawyers and the judge at the judge’s bench in hearings from earlier this year.
The case of Levy, whose body was found in a Washington park in 2002, is back in court because defense attorneys for the man convicted of her murder have called into question the testimony of a key prosecution witness.

Ingmar Guandique, 31, was sentenced in 2011 to two concurrent 60-year sentences for murder with kidnapping and murder with attempted robbery in Levy’s death. He was in court Monday wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

Read more from this story HERE.