Category: World Culture

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What Food Seems Okay Until You Realize How It’s Made? Here’s What People Had to Say.

We’ve all heard the stories about how hot dogs are made…yuck!

But they sure are delicious, don’t you think?

You know it! But still…kinda gross…

What food sounds fine until you learn how it’s made?

Here’s how AskReddit users responded.

1. Didn’t know.

“I once was at a conference in Japan.

Me and some friends went into a small restaurant for dinner. My French colleague insisted on ordering Foie Gras, besides other things.

I knew the German name for this but not the French one, so I didn’t know what he ordered there until I later called my boyfriend and he told me.

In Germany you can’t even produce Foie Gras due to obvious animal welfare problems with literally force feeding geese into developing a fatty, sick liver just to eat it.”

2. That’s a bummer.

“I was surprised to learn from people who’ve worked on farms just how bloody harvesting crops is.

There’s not really a good way to clear out wild animals so all of them get ripped to shreds by the heavy machinery moving through the fields.

I miss being able to assume no animals d**d making my produce.”

3. Scraps.

“While off-putting I see no problems with some of the “scraps” we eat.

It’s perfectly fine to me that I’m eating the scraps of chicken in chicken nuggets. Gelatin from bones and ligaments. The reject pieces of animal being used to make so many great foods or items. People want to say the Natives had the right idea, using every part of the animal.

But suddenly turning around to say eating black pudding is disgusting? I feel better knowing that we used every ounce of that cow, the cow didn’t d** in vain. The cow was used for milk, once done with that stage sold for meat. The meat market sells the bones for dog bones, gelatin, beef stock, literally anything else. Nothing goes to waste.

Don’t get me wrong the treatment from cow to meat and then the food waste alone is problematic but that’s not what the thread is about. We use every part of every item. ‘Scuse me, I have nuggets in the oven that are ready.”

4. Never had it.

“Black Pudding is a common breakfast food, but kinda messed up when you think about how it’s made.”

5. Hell no.

“Cranberry harvesting.

There are a lot and I mean a ridiculous amount of spiders especially Wolf spiders, everywhere.

They crawl up the machines, they crawl up the people harvesting them it’s a nightmare.”

6. Now that’s ruined.

“Gummy Bears ( or just gummies in general).

Took me 19 years to find out that the way they’re made is with pig carcasses and bones.”

7. Hmmm…

“Cheez whiz. It’s transparent until they add the orange coloring.

I don’t know why but that makes me nope out. Not like Cheez Whiz is a salad or anything, don’t get me wrong.

But I don’t think I fully comprehended just how fake it was until I found that out.”

8. Messed up.

“Goose liver.

The goose has been force fed corn and fatty foods its entire life causing intense strain on the liver as it swells and bloats within their body, resulting in better flavor at significant expense of the goose quality of life.”

9. What’s that smell?

“Gelatine.

Comes from processing cattle faces, noses and ears still attached. I worked in a tannery, the face doesn’t have any viable use once tanned so it’s cut from the rest of the hide.

Fun Fact: the truck only came once a week and the pieces were stored outside in a half walled shed, so during summer the smell could be rather…ripe.”

10. Avoid them.

“Avocados from Mexico.

I just learned about the avocado cartel and how they make more money than the drug cartels and it’s insane. Do some research.

Don’t eat avocados from Mexico.”

11. Wow.

“Fish sauce

I went to a fish sauce factory in Vietnam a few years ago. In a giant silo, they put in 1 tonne of fish, and 1 tonne of salt.

After a year, they open a tap at the bottom of the silo, and hey presto, the liquid that pours out is fish sauce.”

12. Thanks, Grandma.

“My German/Polish grandmother made Czernina – Duck Blood Soup.

Being a good farm wife, she would go out to the shed where my grandfather kept some of his birds (chicken, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, peahens, peacocks and a few more I don’t remember). She usually was able to grab a duck on the first try and slit its throat with the straight edge razor she used for butchering small animals. She would squeeze the blood into her steel Thermos bottle, cap it and butcher the duck (sometimes a chicken).

She would roast or fry the bird and make the Czernina which smells exactly like you would think boiled blood smells like but worse. It would take at least a week for the smell to leave the house.

There were times when she would send me to school with her Thermos bottle (filled with milk this time) to school a day or two after she washed out the blood.

Of course, she also made Jello salad with peas, carrots and corn in it. Also, tuna hot dish. There’s no such thing as a casserole in Wisconsin or Minnesota, its proper name is Hot Dish, that’s a hill I will d** on.”

Are there any foods that you refuse to eat because of how they’re made?

If the answer is YES, please talk to us in the comments.

Thanks in advance!

The post What Food Seems Okay Until You Realize How It’s Made? Here’s What People Had to Say. appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Share Free Resources Available to Everyone That We Should Take Advantage Of

Who doesn’t love free things?

I’m pretty sure 99.9999% of the population does…but that’s just off the top of my head…

And today we’re gonna get all kinds of great info that you might not know about.

What are some good free resources people should be taking advantage of?

Here’s what people said on AskReddit.

1. That’s awesome.

“I was stunned to find out our local library has telescopes you can check out, musical instruments, even a 3-D printer where you only pay for the printing material.”

2. Take a look.

“The Internet Arcade where you can play a lot of classic games along with the Console Living Room which is similar.

They have access to tons of old PC games too and you can even play the original Oregon Trail online. There’s a lot more in their software section too.”

3. Good to know.

“If you’re concerned about your kid’s development (speech, physical, emotional, etc) you don’t have to wait until they are school aged to get services.

Ask at you school district office to have someone come and see if you kid qualifies to have a specialist come to your house (or their daycare if you work) to help out your kiddo.

It’s through the school district, so it’s completely free.”

4. Booyah!

“FilmRise channels on YouTube.

Full length episodes of really cool documentary-style tv shows (including old-school Unsolved Mysteries).”

5. Nice!

“If you live in the United States, you can access a system of volunteer master gardeners who have been trained and certified. They are often an adjunct of the states education and agricultural systems.

They have online classes (due to COVID) and (later) in person classes. You can call help desks, send email, and visit web pages for advice on growing pretty much anything in your residential garden.

Farmers already know about the parent organizations. The master gardener groups were set up to offload residential questions from the ag experts.

Note: They cannot advise about growing cannabis, but -cough cough- whatever helps your tomatoes grow works for pot.”

6. Use it or lose it.

“The Butterball hotline on Thanksgiving for turkey-day tips and tricks.

The West Wing taught me that one.”

7. Very useful.

“PDF24 is a free, simple PDF reader and editor that is a great alternative to paid software- for most people’s needs.

Would especially recommend for students.”

8. Great!

“Free classes online!!!!

It’s so cool dude, EdX, through Harvard, MIT, I know I’m missing some other’s.

They offer online courses for free.

If you want the certificate at the end of the course, you pay $50.

I learned about John Snow, and the Cholera epidemic of 1854, a psych corse, and currently thinking about starting another.

You get to watch lectures from their professors, you have assignments due at certain times, quizzes, and then the final.”

9. A great resource.

“The Library of Congress, specifically the searchable newspaper archives

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

The amount of info in there is staggering.”

10. Academia.

“Outline.com to read articles that are behind a paywall.

And if you read scholarly journals and want to read someone’s paper that’s behind a paywall, you may be able to get it from the author by contacting them directly.”

11. Helpful.

“If you receive SNAP or EBT benefits, many states have programs to pay for you to take one certification course/trade at a local community College.

Just look up the program for your state.”

12. Get ‘er done!

“The Los Angeles Public Library has a free high school diploma program for anyone who is looking to receive their high school diploma.”

13. Serving the community.

“Food banks besides the “official” ones or the Salvation Army.

CHURCHES. Serious, a ton of churches of all denominations have food banks where you can go.

At some, you not only get frozen meats and canned goods but donated local produce like fruits and veggies or chain/small business donations of bread/sweets.

Since COVID, a lot of places might be running dry but just open the phone book and call around and ask.

Also “Mission” services, they don’t always just help the homeless – if you’re down your luck you can score free meals and other essentials like diapers, formula, etc.”

14. FYI.

“Dial 2-1-1 for essential community services anywhere in America.

Basic Human Needs Resources – including food and clothing banks, shelters, rent assistance, and utility assistance.

Physical and Mental Health Resources – including health insurance programs, Medicaid and Medicare, maternal health resources, health insurance programs for children, medical information lines, crisis intervention services, support groups, counseling, and drug and alcohol intervention and rehabilitation.

Work Support – including financial assistance, job training, transportation assistance and education programs.

Access to Services in Non-English Languages – including language translation and interpretation services to help non-English-speaking people find public resources (Foreign language services vary by location.)

Support for Older Americans and Persons with Disabilities – including adult day care, community meals, respite care, home health care, transportation and homemaker services.

Children, Youth and Family Support – including child care, after-school programs, educational programs for low-income families, family resource centers, summer camps and recreation programs, mentoring, tutoring and protective services.

Do you know of any great free resources that we should all be using?

Please tell us about them in the comments.

We’d really appreciate it!

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Stockton, California Gave Residents $500 a Month. Here’s How It’s Going.

There are a lot of conversations happening in politics these days about how we can better take care of everyone in our society. What can we afford, how can we re-allocate funds, who deserves what, and what history says about supporting people with a safety net when times are hard.

Michael Tubbs, though, the young mayor of Stockton, CA, is done talking – in 2020, he decided to start doing, instead. He and the city council approved a budget measure that would give 125 randomly selected residents with a median household income below $50k a year an extra $500 a month.

Image Credit: Pexels

There were no strings attached. No drug tests, no requirements to work or be actively looking for a job. Very little monitoring was done at all.

Tubbs is heavily invested in Stockton, having grown up there below that median income line himself, and was so dismayed in 2012 to hear Forbes call it one of “America’s Most Miserable Cities” that he ran for mayor. He was elected at the age of 26, making him one of the youngest mayors in the country – but also perhaps, one of the most forward-thinking ones in the crowd.

He founded the Stockton Empowerment Distribution (SEED) in 2019. The funding comes from philanthropic donations, and when a team of independent researchers heard about the initiative, they couldn’t get there to conduct a parallel experiment fast enough.

Researchers Stacia West of the University of Tennessee, and Amy Castro Baker of the University of Pennsylvania, worked together to collect data from those who received the money, and also established a control group of people who were not selected.

What they found was that, instead of “squandering” the cash – a worry of some who thought there should be some requirements and stipulations placed on it – what the extra month did was reduce people’s income volatility compared to those in the control group.

Image Credit: iStock

Basically, unexpected expenses up to $400 in a month would be able to be handled instead of causing an issue that could take months to straighten out, which also improved people’s mental health.

One recipient said that she “had regular panic attacks and anxiety. I was at the point where I had to take a pill for it” but after the checks, “I haven’t even touched the pills in a while. I used to carry them on me all the time.”

The study found that families typically spent the money on essential items like food, home goods, utilities, and gas, and that instead of encouraging people to stay home, the extra cash did the opposite – after one year, the percentage of recipients who were employed full time grew from 28% to 40%, more than twice the rate for the control group.

Image Credit: iStock

Baker believes that having something of a safety net makes it easier to not only imagine a different job or future, but also to take the risks that are often associated with interviewing for new jobs.

“People were able to apply for jobs they knew they were eligible for but just literally could not take a shift off work to do so.”

She adds that people who don’t have enough money almost always don’t have enough time, either.

“When you live in constant scarcity your entire day is taken up with battling poverty and trying to make ends meet.

You literally don’t have the capacity, or the time to even breathe and reset and think about what a different goal might be.”

Extra money, according to the study and also this participant, made a huge difference in that area.

“I was able to finally take time off work to study and complete my real estate license and even pursue an associate degree.

I have more time and net worth to study…to achieve my goals.”

This experiment joins many others that are seeking ways to alleviate poverty around the world, and the idea of a universal basic income is gaining some traction. We’re seeing the needle move in the States with the stimulus checks and also the recent changes to the child tax credit, both of which were given to people without any strings attached as to how they would spend it.

The full analysis from this study will be available in 2022, and in the next few years, researchers agree that there will be a good knowledge base across diverse populations that can be used to make an assessment.

We’ll just have to keep our fingers’ crossed that good policy follows.

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A 4,000-Year-Old Dolmen of Guadalperal Stone Henge Emerged from the Depths of a Canal in Spain

Any fan of Outlander can tell you about the value of a good stone circle or megalith.

They are an incredible feat of engineering that evokes imagery of giants and druids and ancient gods and ancient humans overcoming extraordinary limitations (and doing math!) in the service of those gods.

There is something magical about such places, and even more magical when one emerges before our eyes like Atlantis.

 

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The Dolmen of Guadalperal is believed to be about 4,000 years old, built around 2,000 BCE.

Think “Stonehenge’s little sister.”

According to My Modern Met:

The Dolmen of Guadalperal is a collection of 150 large granite stones arranged in a circular structure with what appears to be an entranceway guarded by a menhir (standing stone) carved with snake and cup motifs.

Incredibly, this Spanish structure was first discovered by a German archaeologist named Hugo Obermaier in the 1920s.

In case you were wondering what the difference between a henge and dolmen and a stone circle are, My Modern Met explains:

The term dolmen is typically used to describe an ancient structure where standing stones support a large capstone to create a chamber–a structure often used for early Neolithic tombs.

Whereas a henge is defined as a prehistoric monument consisting of a circle of stone or wooden uprights.

A henge may or may not include the topping capstone, and can be used for many ceremonies and purposes, as opposed to being a burial chamber.

(For extra nerdy readers, a megalith is one single large stone of several composing a henge or dolmen.)

Proving that modern humans are all pretty much alike, the historic structure was not protected for posterity, and in the 1960s, the Spanish government deliberately flooded the area in order to create the Valdecañas Reservoir.

This left the majority of the stones almost entirely submerged, with only a handful of the talest points visible above the water.

 

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Like much of the world, 2019 was a hot dry year for Europe, and Spain found itself in a deep drought.

By the spring of 2021, that drought had persisted enough that even NASA satellites could see the waters of the Valdecañas Reservoir had receded, and the magnificent stones had finally reemerged after decades.

Understandably, the years under water have not been kind to the structure.

Granite is porous, meaning water was able to infiltrate the stones’ interiors.

Those snake carvings which once decorated the megaliths have largely eroded.

But they are still a sight to behold.

 

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Many local residents are now calling to protect the stones, even if that means moving all 150 of them to higher ground and reconstructing the existing structure, so that once the drought is over, the site can be preserved for tourists and researchers.

Moving the stones wouldn’t be quite the same, but it’s better than nothing, and I really hope they can do it.

I’m a sucker for stone circles myself, having visited both Stonehenge in England and the Standing Stones of Stenness on Orkney, and I’d love the chance to see these old stones in person.

What do you think? Planning a trip to Spain to check them out and attempt to travel through time?

Tell us in the comments!

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Ex-Racists Talk About What Changed Their Views

I’ve seen a few documentaries about people who used to hold hardcore r**ist views and how they completely changed their minds and decided to dedicate the rest of their lives to helping other people and spreading messages of peace and love.

And I think that if guys who used to be that into a r**ist subculture can do it, there’s hope for everyone out there.

AskReddit users who used to hold r**ist views talked about how and why they changed.

Let’s check out their stories.

1. A big lesson.

“The Army forced me to live with black people.

Turns out I didn’t h**e anyone, I was just afraid of what I didn’t understand and had some very stupid notions passed on to me from my dad and his dips**t friends.

I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to understand a greater sample of people than my tiny hometown afforded me.”

2. Changed for the better.

“From birth I was raised to be r**ist in a ra**ist household in Virginia. I was ignorant. I used the “N” word, antisemitic, h**ophobic, r**ist language everyday.

My immediate family and extended family all share the same ignorance. At family gatherings if one of my older cousins let slip they were dating someone new, the first question would be “Is s/he white?” Followed by laughter, but the question was serious.

Then I started middle school. 6th grade. On the first day of class I set down my backpack against the classroom wall (like every other student) while we found our desks and had a small Meet & Greet w/ new classmates. I made sure to only speak to the kids (white) whom I knew from elementary school.

Our teacher told us to take our seats. I’m 42 yrs old and I remember this like it was yesterday. I picked up my backpack, found my desk, before I could open my bag the girl behind me told me she liked my earrings, her Mom wouldn’t let her get her ears pierced until high school.

Then I heard another voice from further behind me say, “Ms. Kay, this isn’t my backpack”. The backpack sitting on this girl’s desk was identical to the one sitting next to my desk. We both opened our backpacks and realized we’d grabbed the wrong bag.

Internally I rolled my eyes in disgust, this girl was a “N”. But I was taught to never let it show. So we met each other to quickly exchange. Her smile was beautiful. She wore glasses the same shape as mine. She wore her hair in a pony tail, just like mine. In our back to school shopping we picked the exact same backpack and we picked the exact same Nikes (pink/white).

Her name was Jacinda. I found myself genuinely smiling back to her, and giggling like young girls do. That day she asked to sit together during lunch, and we sat beside each other for lunch every single day of middle school. She was my very first best friend. Jacinda taught me about her Sunday School classes (my family never attended church), we talked about everything important in the life of middle school girls.

She wasn’t allowed to attend my birthday parties, and I wasn’t allowed to go to hers, but we always celebrated together at school. I loved her so much. When it was time to go to high school I continued in public school and her parents chose to homeschool her. I thought homeschooling was the coolest idea. Jacinda was (is) brilliantly intelligent.

God, she was going to do great things for this world. Long before the age of social media, we lost touch sadly – but I still think of her often. After meeting Jacinda I never used another r**ist or derogatory word. Meeting Jacinda changed my life for the better.”

3. Small town in Iowa.

“I grew up in a very small town in Iowa. Couple of hundred people. All white.

So I guess I was raised not to discriminate against people that were different from me because we were all the same. Once I got older and moved to the city, oh yeah. R**ism is alive and well in Iowa.

I didn’t fall into that trap. I didn’t understand it. Ended up in Alabama. My best friend was black. We just had the same sense of humor and liked the same things. I credit him with my kids being non r**ist. He would crack jokes about racial things and they would be shocked.

As they got older they just rolled their eyes. Funniest thing was one of my daughters date shows up and he opens the door and introduced himself as her dad. He moved to Michigan. I miss Charles.”

4. Quickly realized.

“It’s simple really.

I was raised in a r**ist family. Growing up I was kinda r**ist.

Once I actually spent time with people of different races I quickly realized how stupid that is.”

5. Just plain dumb.

“My dad has some pretty xenophobic points of view and that definitely rubbed off on me when I was younger.

Meeting actual people of color through my teenage years made me realize I was being dumb.”

6. Just jokes…

“I grew up thinking I was not a r**ist. I didn’t think badly of blacks or Hispanics. But r**ist jokes didn’t hurt anyone.

Then I moved to an area with about a 90% Hispanic population. The little things that weren’t r**ist, were. The “How many Mexican” type jokes were hurtful and I felt bad. So I stopped.

The easy same thing with blacks , Asians etc, etc. was about the same time.”

7. Poisonous ideas.

“I was not raised by r**ist parents but you can’t help growing up with r**ist messages all around society and tending to believe some of them. I had ideas about indigenous people, Muslim people, all sorts of poisonous ideas.

When I got into my early twenties I started to make good money and began traveling, and all of my r**ist notions disappeared with that. Nothing made me realize how similar human beings are regardless of race, than traveling.”

8. Native people.

“I definitely had some r**ist ideas about native people in my city growing up. There are a lot of native addicts and vagrants but it’s very much a result of a system that’s rigged against those communities.

I didn’t know any of that growing up so when I saw a group of drunk, native people in the park or something, I was generally unimpressed or even frightened.

And I definitely applied those feelings to all the native people I came across. It’s hard to change those reactions but we can all identify the bad reactions and try to curb them.”

9. No indoctrination.

“Grandfather on one side would drop jokes with hard Rs, grandmother on that side would talk about how (whisper) Mexicans were ruining South Dakota long before complaining about illegal immigration was mainstream.

Father wasn’t nearly that far gone, but after one failed relationship with a Chinese woman he encouraged me to marry a white woman, and my mother once vehemently objected to my sister having an openly gay man as a roommate.

So where did it all go wrong? Basically, I traveled to different places and met different people. The town where I grew up had a pretty large Indian population, and I had an Indian best friend growing up (he was also a bit r**ist at the time, frankly).

Went away to Boston for a summer, and through some random set of circumstances found myself going to a black church for the summer. They were just like the white church I had been going to, one kid wanted to grow up to be a programmer just like I wanted to at the time, etc etc. Went off to California for school and was exposed to a wide variety of people.

Hispanic roommate and Hispanic RA freshman year… one was an a**hole, one became a good friend, and I realized it had nothing to do with their ethnicity. Made a good friend sophomore year, and he later came out to me, and either I wrong the whole time about Josh or I was wrong about whatever leftover prejudices I had about gay people.

Now I’m married to another Chinese woman, one of my best friends is black, another is gay, one of my daughter’s best friends is Hispanic, and I’m still here in the bluest part of CA.

There was no liberal indoctrination in college like conservatives are always b**ching about. There was just meeting people and realizing that whatever reasons I had for disliking them or distrusting them from the beginning were false.:

10. Helped you understand.

“When I was going into college I was ignorant, bitter, and certainly not on a good path.

I had a roommate in college who was a person of color, who really helped me understand and put into context a lot that I had been ignorant about.”

11. Dismantle your thought process.

“My situation was complicated growing up. My father was the son of an Italian immigrant with Egyptian roots and he was so ungodly r**ist towards anyone not considered white as he considered himself white.

The thing is, my dad has dark brown skin, dark brown eyes and black kinked curly hair. He looked EXACTLY like the people he was r**ist against. And he hated Arabs…. all Arabs…. and he is part Arab. This was so confusing. He also hated gay people, Muslims, “commies” and any type of alternative lifestyles.

My father hated black people the most. He told me if I ever brought home a black boyfriend he would disown me. He told me, as a small child, that if I misbehaved I would be sent to live with a ****** family in the ghetto.

He was equally misogynist and held onto a strong patriarchal mindset.

I admit, as a kid I repeated his words. All the other kids did too on my neighborhood so I thought he was right. It wasn’t until I was literally in my 30s did I realise the internalized r**ism I still held onto.

All my partners and friends were white my entire life. I felt unsafe near a group of black men. It was only until I moved to northern Europe that I realized that I am not considered white here and experienced r**ism myself and oooooo wow what an eye opener.

I began to dismantle my entire thought process and honestly, I am so repulsed by my father now I can’t even speak to him without feeling disgusting inside. He’s really old now and much more calm and probably won’t live more than 10 years. I have not returned to my birth country to see him in almost 7 years because I am so angry at him.

Because of his r**ism I missed out on friendships, relationships and understanding cultures different from my own. I am making up for it now as the immigrant community that I live in is amazing and supportive but I will never get back that lost time and I will never know fully the extent of damage that my hateful words may have done to people who didn’t deserve it.”

12. Changed your mind.

“Joined the military, left home and experienced cultures around the world.

I was severely lacking in cultural awareness due to growing up in a small town surrounded by openly r**ist people.

Luckily, my children are able to grow in a completely different environment than the one I did.”

Now we’d like to hear from you.

Do you know anyone who has changed their radical views like these people did?

If so, please tell us about it in the comments. Thanks in advance.

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Do You Know About the Hall of Records in Mount Rushmore? Let’s Learn About It!

Hollywood has posited that there might be secrets in or around Mount Rushmore in at least a couple of films, and while some liberties were taken, there is actually a secret lair inside the giant, carved, monument.

More than meet’s the eye, if you will.

Image Credit: Disney

Mount Rushmore is kind of a strange monument, as these things go. It contains the giant heads of four revered American presidents – Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln – and was never truly finished.

It was created by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, whose original plan was to sculpt the outline of the Louisiana Purchase and then inscribe it with the important events between Washington and Roosevelt’s presidencies (which is arguably even stranger than what we got), and when that fell through, he got the idea for the hidden Hall of Records instead.

That one, to many people’s surprise, did come to fruition.

The Hall of Records was to be a sort of time capsule to store important American documents. Borglum planned it to be 80 feet tall and 100 feet long, lined with brass cabinets that contained the original documents of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, major contributions to art and science, etc, and was to be carved into the canyon behind the president’s heads.

Image Credit: MyCountry955

The only access was to be an 800-foot staircase.

Work began on the Hall in 1938, but was only partially finished (as were the heads) when Borglum died in 1941. His son finished the portraits, though they were never completed to the waists as they was the original plan, and the Hall of Records was abandoned as a big, empty cavern.

It wasn’t until 1998 that 16 porcelain panels were placed inside the chamber. They describe the construction of Mount Rushmore, including the reasons behind choosing those particular presidents, and a document history of the United States – basically a time capsule for some future time when all of that knowledge has been lost.

The panels are sealed inside a teak box inside a titanium vault, covered by a 1200-pound granite slab that contains a quote from Borglum’s original plans.

“Let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were.

Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away.”

Yep, that’s what they say. Pretty poignant, right?

And this is what it looks like.

Image Credit: My Country 955

If you’re planning to visit Mount Rushmore you should know a couple of things – it’s a very long drive into the middle of nowhere, and also the Hall of Records has no direct access, so you will not be able to peek inside.

The Native history in the area is fascinating, though, and the Badlands and Black Hills are beautiful – so go and enjoy, and happy travels!

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What’s the Scariest Fact You Know? People Responded.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the world can be a pretty scary place.

And I’m talking about the natural world, the actual human beings walking around, all of it is kind of terrifying.

You ready to get scared?

People on AskReddit talked about the scariest facts they know.

Let’s get weird!

1. Sounds painful.

“If a bear attacks it won’t k**l you immediately, it’ll just start eating.”

2. Horrible.

“If you have FFI (fatal familial insomnia) you will experience progressively worsening sleeplessness.

Your inability to sleep eventually turns into total insomnia at which point you’ll die. People who have this rare genetic condition will all die.

It’s inevitable; most people within a year of it’s onset… scary to think about.”

3. Scary plants.

“There’s a plant that grows in Australia called the Gympie-Gympie , touching the plant will result in an unbearable pain because of the small needles on the plant.

The pain is so unbearable people and animals k**led themselves because of it.

There’s also a plant called Hogweed that can cause severe burns and blisters that can scar you for life.”

4. Very strange.

“Totally blind people don’t see black, they don’t see at all.

For some reason that’s always frightened me.”

5. Yikes.

“Fun fact!

Being flayed (skinned alive) by a skilled tor**rer meant that you’d be likely to survive the ordeal. Believe it or not dying of shock, or blood loss wasn’t guaranteed.

Often people survived hours, or days with no skin. In these cases what finished them off was hypothermia.”

6. Can’t be stopped.

“Prion diseases exist.

They’re not bacteria or viruses, there isn’t an infection, per se, to attack.

They’re basically an alternate form of protein, and we can’t stop them.”

7. Frightening.

“A brain aneurysm can hit you any time, anywhere, with next to no warning.”

8. A little weird.

“All communication in the United States is controlled by fewer than 10 companies.

All major news in the US is controlled by 5 companies, including Disney and Comcast.”

9. Messed up.

“In certain parts of South Africa, girls are more likely to be r**ed than learn how to read.”

10. Be careful.

“You can have rabies for years before it even shows symptoms.

Then one day you get a headache and it’s a death sentence from there.”

11. Impressive.

“A moose can swim about 16 feet/5 meters underwater, which is why orcas are natural predators of them.

Imagine you’re diving underwater, suddenly there’s a moose sitting at the bottom eating sea grass, then it gets eaten by an orca.

That would be terrifying.”

12. Oh, great.

“Your skin is not 100% attached to your body.

With enough air pressure beneath the skin, your body will become a balloon with a solid core and it will be excruciating before the embolism k**ls you.”

13. Scary and true.

“Rose West is, alongside her husband Fred, one of the most infamous serial k**lers in modern British history who k**led several lodgers in her house. And if not for a single mistake, she would’ve gotten away with it.

When they were finally caught, all evidence actually pointed to Fred being the sole culprit and she shifted the blame onto him. Either out of a fu**ed-up sense of loyalty or despair for being betrayed, Fred committed suicide in custody which seemed to end the idea of bringing him and his wife to trial, relegating any other investigations into figuring out what crimes Fred had committed.

The police were still deeply convinced that either Rose knew more about the murders than she was letting on or she was a direct participant, but she was a tough egg to crack. The police tried every angle conceivable but she always deflected the blame onto Fred and there was never a crack in her story – too well rehearsed. She knew what to say, when to say it and they couldn’t trip her up.

However, while investigating both her husband and her own backgrounds, they discovered that Fred had a daughter from his first wife… and the police confirmed that not only was this girl one of Rose’s victims, Fred has an iron-clad alibi for when she died because he was in prison.

And when they confirmed that another victim found was the girl’s mother, the police had a clear motive – Rose k**led her step-daughter and told people she was back to living with her mother, and had Fred k**l his first wife to keep her quiet.”

Now we want to hear from you.

In the comments, tell us what you think is the scariest fact you know.

Please and thank you!

The post What’s the Scariest Fact You Know? People Responded. appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Share the Scariest Facts They Know

Whenever I really want to creep myself out, I start to read about the nuclear arsenals that different countries around the world have and how many of them could easily fall into the hands of the wrong folks out there…

That’s the scary stuff for me.

But everyone is different.

What’s the scariest fact you know?

Here’s what folks on AskReddit had to say.

1. Don’t get rabies.

“A lot of people don’t realize rabies is extremely fatal. It’s one of the deadliest diseases to ever be seen on planet earth, deadlier than any plague.

Only a handful of people have ever survived rabies untreated, I believe the number is around 5. And most of them were completely crippled for the rest of their short lives.

Even treatment isn’t very effective.

Don’t ever get rabies.”

2. Not Hollywood.

“That a large number of asteroids and comets that could potentially hit Earth directly have not even been discovered as of yet.

And our ability to actually stop a large object travelling stupidly fast is much worse than depicted in films.”

3. Now that is gross.

“Your tastebuds are actually cilia and are constantly being worn down by the movement of your tongue in your mouth.

If you end up in a coma for long enough, your tongue becomes fuzzy.

Maybe it’s just me, but that adds to the very long list of reasons I never want to be in an extended coma.”

4. Not a comforting thought.

“We’ve come very close to nuclear war and had nuclear accidents many times.

Also, we’ve lost a lot of nukes.

Google “broken arrows” some time.”

5. Sleep is good.

“That you really do need 7-9 hours of sleep every day.

Even at 6 hours, the lack of sleep decreases efficiency, productivity, and increases risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, it weakens the immune system and handicaps the body’s ability to destroy cancer cells, which therefore increases risk of cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate.

The scary part of it is that you can’t get back all the sleep that you lose out on because “sleep efficiency” decreases, so trying to catch up on the weekends isn’t really making up for what you lost throughout the week. Ironically, those who say “I can sleep when I’m dead” will end up dead quicker because of lack of sleep over time.”

6. Beware of the botfly.

“A botfly can lay an egg in a fraction of a second.

Literally swatting the fly can be enough for it to lay an egg which burrows into your flesh and feeds in there until it hatches and matures enough to fly away and start the cycle again.

It can also happen to an eye. I know this because I’m an eye doctor and I have removed a botfly larva from the INSIDE of an Eyelid (tarsal conjunctival membrane).”

7. Let’s hope not.“

“At any second the whole planet could be completely destroyed by x-ray bursts from quasars.

So many other scary things have practical solutions for protecting the human race, but there is no defense humanity could conceivably develop against such a massive amount of energy.

I subscribe to the Star Trek utopian techno future, massive gamma or x-ray burst.. nothing can stop it.. goodbye planet earth.”

8. We’re due.

“Geologist here.

The earth’s magnetic poles (places your compass point to) are moving at an alarming rate.

While they switch (think north compass arrow will point south) every 10,000 years or so, we are over due for a switch… so like happy 2021 y’all.

Also the supervolcano under Yellowstone does technically have the fire power to wipe out much of life on planet earth, but its NOT over due like many people try to claim it is. That’s just fear mongering.

ALSO there was a point in the past during the ice age (I think) were less then 2000 humans were alive. If it would have been modern humans we would have to put ourselves on the endangered species list.”

9. Freaky.

“Surfer’s myelopathy is a non-traumatic injury most often seen in novice surfers, where they tweak their back while trying to get up on the board.

They initially feel pain and and weakness and then they become fully paraplegic. It doesn’t even have to be surfing. Yoga, pilates, or even getting up from laying down.

You just hyperextend your back a little weird one day and bam, you’re in a wheelchair, completely paralyzed from the waist down.”

10. A world of plastic.

“There is plastic everywhere from the highest mountains to the deepest trench in the ocean.

It’s estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

And it is bad for us, likely causing fertility problems and reducing pe**s size.”

11. Truth.

“You die 3 times..

You die

Your grave gets visited the last time

The last person who even knows your name dies

You are completely forgotten and gone.”

12. Wow.

“If you commit a m**der in the United States, the chances that you will be arrested and convicted for it is less than 50%.”

13. Keep your eyes open.

“An average person walks past at least 16 m**derers in their lifetime.

And sometimes the m**derer turns out to be someone you grew up with.

One of the most disturbing phone calls I’ve ever gotten was an old friend calling to tell me a mutual buddy had just been arrested for beating his ex-girlfriend to death with a brick.

It’s been fifteen years since we graduated high school and went our separate ways, and I still can’t reconcile the memories of a goofy skater kid with the facts that came out during his trial. How could we not have seen the anger in him?”

What do you think is the scariest fact you know?

Talk to us in the comments.

Please and thank you!

The post People Share the Scariest Facts They Know appeared first on UberFacts.

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What Myth About Your Country Is 100% False but People Still Believe in It? People Responded.

There are so many myths and generalizations floating around out there about people from different parts of the world that it’s enough to make a person’s head spin.

And a lot of them aren’t even true!

But still, people believe what they want to believe…until now, that is!

What myth about your country is false but people still believe it?

Here’s how people responded on AskReddit.

1. Not worth it.

“That Welsh people f**k sheep.

Temptation is there but the static shock wouldn’t be worth it.”

2. Not accurate.

“Iceland was not named as part of some conspiracy to keep folks away from a good thing.

The name comes from the fact that early settlers arrived during summer and then suffered horrible losses of livestock and people once winter hit and icebergs were seen filling the fjords. It was more of a warning than anything, that this place sucked.

Greenland on the other hand was probably named as such to make it sound more hospitable.”

3. Kenya.

“Kenyans are all long-distance runners, live in huts, speak no English, and have pet wild animals. Ugh.

So here goes: The long-distance guys are mainly from one community/ tribe called the Kalenjin that’s about 15% of the population. Next, Kenya is still a developing nation with a lot of poverty, but there’s a lot of modern architecture.

Next, the country is rated 18 out of 100 on the English Proficiency Index. And lastly: you can apply for a special (and rarely-granted) permit for your bobcat named Babou, but keeping wildlife is not at all common.

And the Kenya Wildlife Service will conduct regular visits to ensure Babou isn’t being kept in Meowschwitz-like conditions.”

4. Italy.

“No, Italians aren’t all short, black-haired, fat mobsters who wear wine-stained tank tops.

We are loud though…”

5. Zing!

“Romania.

Many people believe we have vampires, but in my 700 years of living here, I haven’t even seen one.

I asked my mates back in the castle and they also haven’t seen any, and they’ve been around for longer than I.”

6. Not the way it is.

“People generally assume that when you’re from Belgium, you are French-speaking.

While a big part of the country is Francophone, the majority population is Flemish (Dutch-speaking).

I blame this on mostly 3 factors:

People mainly visiting Brussels (which is bilingual, but has a Francophone majority)

Americans mostly having been stationed in the French speaking part in WWII

Hercule Poirot.”

7. All kinds of stuff.

“Greece is not only beaches and Islands, we also have beautiful places for the winter.

Many mountains and mainland attractions.

Every corner have something interesting.”

8. The view from Russia.

“The myth is that everyone here is always d**nk on vodka and people all ride bears, play on balalaikas and dance the kazachok and that we’re either dr**k or mad.

While there IS a problem with al**holism, a lot of people don’t drink, especially not vodka.

Funnily enough, bears do appear, but VERY rarely. And the people that ride bears or have them as pets? They’re considered unusual by other Russians.

Balalaika is dead I know one person that plays it and thats it

We dance the kazachok only ironically at this point lol

We’re not always mad. We’re. Just people. With emotions ?

But, ushankas ARE great and warm, so people do wear them – not ALL of them though Also we’re not all superpeople.”

9. Dutch life.

“All of our country is just weed and red districts.

Yes we have these things.. but the Netherlands has lots of culture!”

10. Aim high!

“That the Irish are the biggest d**nks in the world.

Completely false and mean as we’re only the second biggest drinker in the world but we hope to get first place next year.”

11. Oh, Canada!

“Everyone drinks maple syrup, there are moose everywhere and we’re saying “sorry” all the time.”

12. Don’t ruin it for me!

“That we say “shrimp on the barbie”.

It was an ad campaign to appeal to Americans.

It was the most successful tourism campaign still to this day, but literally no one in Australia says that.”

13. Get it straight!

“That Brazil is a huge tropical jungle in which people speak Spanish.

Brazil actually has several major cities and different environments.

São Paulo for instance is a huge sprawling metropolis with as many inhabitants as New York and Los Angeles combined.

In some southern areas of the country it actually snows.

And we were a Portuguese colony, so we speak Portuguese.”

Now we want to hear from you.

What myths about your country are not true?

Talk to us in the comments!

The post What Myth About Your Country Is 100% False but People Still Believe in It? People Responded. appeared first on UberFacts.

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A British Guy Gives His Un-Researched Thoughts on 13 States in the U.S.

The Brits and the Americans have a special relationship. We’re like…exes who still have to co-parent, or children who have moved away from their parents and don’t visit often enough for the parents to like.

Or something.

Anyway, we like to razz each other, and this Brit’s ideas on what each state is famous for is just in good fun – and it’s hilarious, too.

Here are 13 more for your enjoyment.

13. Iowa.

I mean…I can’t think of anything else.

12. Kansas.

It wasn’t really a high point for anyone in the movie, but ok.

11. Kentucky

I can see why he would think that.

10. Louisiana

Do people in Britain not know about New Orleans? Because…

9. Maine

And also Stephen King.

8. Maryland

I personally love this take.

7. Massachusetts

I mean, if you ignore Boston. Which, fair.

6. Michigan

If they had clean water maybe more people would stay.

5. Minnesota

This is extremely accurate.

4. Mississippi

He didn’t really need that last word honestly.

3. Missouri

This is a fair assessment.

2. Montana

This is hilariously inaccurate.

1. Nebraska

It’s really not (and it’s not even cooler than Iowa).

Check out 1-14 here, and the next 12 here when you’re ready!

Is yours accurate? Tell us in the comments!

The post A British Guy Gives His Un-Researched Thoughts on 13 States in the U.S. appeared first on UberFacts.