Poll: 26% Of U.S. Clueless On Who We Declared Independence From


Pop quiz: Who was emperor when the United States declared independence from China?

Give up?

Perhaps you should ask one of the Americans who, when asked what country the U.S. separated from, named France, Japan, Mexico, Spain or, yes, China.

A new Marist poll shows that 26% of people in this country don't know that the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain. That includes 20% who aren't sure –– and another 6% who think it was another country.

Looking at the numbers more deeply, it appears the closer to 1776 you were born, the more likely you are to know the correct answer. So enjoy the July 4th holiday, everyone, and don't forget to be thankful that we're out from under the yoke of our Mexican colonial oppressors.

New Zealand Dollar Benefits From Shit in Market Sentiment, Euro Maintains Narrow Range


The New Zealand extended the rally from the previous day and is the best performing currency against the greenback on Wednesday, while the Euro pared the previous day’s advance to maintain the narrow range carried over from the previous week.

Egyptologists are hoping some 21st-century tech will help them unlock secrets from 4,500 years ago. They’re using a robot to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The robot will traverse two unexplored shafts leading from the Queen's Chamber in the pyramid. Nobody knows where the shafts, which were discovered in 1872, lead.

Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom the Egyptian king Khufu consulted when planning his pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through a secret door in the pyramid’s innards to see what lies beyond.

A robotics team from Leeds University in the UK is working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities to design the tomb bot, which is a follow-up to an earlier robotic mission that found the secret door in the first place.

The Pyramid of Khufu, after the king who built it around 2,560 BC, is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It involves a series of passageways and two rooms at its center, called the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King’s Chamber at 45-degree angles toward the sky -- as the Independent reports, they’re thought to be a passageway to the heavens.

The Queen’s Chamber has two shafts too, but they don’t lead to the outside of the pyramid.

In 1992, researchers sent a camera up the shaft and found it was blocked by a limestone door with copper handles. Ten years later, researchers drilled through the door, hoping to unlock a treasure trove of artifacts -- but they found yet another door about 8 inches away. The Djedi project will drill through the second door and, researchers hope, follow the shaft to its end.

The team hopes to send the robot through the door by the end of the year, the Independent reports.

Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, says the team will continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts, and that they have no preconceptions about what they’ll find.

One can only hope it will be something out of this world.

Prosecutors: Mortgage worker got drunk, shot computer server
By bob mims
The Salt Lake Tribune



A Salt Lake City mortgage company employee allegedly got drunk, opened fired on his firm’s computer server with a .45-caliber automatic, and then told police someone had stolen his gun and caused the damage.

Joshua Lee Campbell, 23, has been charged in 3rd District Court with criminal mischief, a second-degree felony; carrying a dangerous weapon while under the influence and providing false information to police, both Class B misdemeanors; and public intoxication, a Class C misdemeanor.

Salt Lake County prosecutors say Campbell called police late on Aug. 12, claiming a man had stolen his gun and fired into the $100,000 computer server owned by RANLife Home Loans, located at 268 W. 400 South.

However, investigators allege that Campbell had been drinking that night at the Twilight Concert in Pioneer Park with a co-worker and had returned to his office afterward and shot the server.

A probable cause statement alleges that Campbell told police he had been "mugged, assaulted with his own firearm and drugged” by a mystery assailant.

However, acquaintances of Campbell reportedly told police he had earlier been drunk, was armed and had threatened to shoot the computer and maybe himself.

The case has been assigned to Judge William Barrett. No court hearings had been set as of Wednesday.