What Happens To Your Body If You Drink A Coke Right Now?

Link via dangerousmeta!

Bonus question: Quick, without looking, are there more red stripes or white stripes in the American flag?

Answers in comments. No peeking.

Image of first page of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence with edits.

Adams and Jefferson were colleagues during the Revolution, but fell apart over political differences during their terms as president (Adams 1797-1801, Jefferson 1801-1809). After Jefferson left office they resumed a remarkable correspondence that lasted until their deaths.

Also, on that same day in 1826, Stephen Foster, the first great American songwriter, was born. “His melodies are so much a part of American history and culture that most people think they’re folk tunes. All in all he composed some 200 songs, including ‘Oh! Susanna’ ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,’ and ‘Camptown Races.’” [American Experience]

And “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River),” “My Old Kentucky Home” and “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Where did these axioms come from? At first, the founders foundered a bit in figuring that out. “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable,” Jefferson wrote in his initial rough draft. Franklin crossed this out with his heavy printer’s pen and changed it to “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” Drawing on the concepts of his friend David Hume, Franklin believed that the truths were grounded in rationality and reason, not in the dictates or dogma of any particular religion.

Similarly, Jefferson originally noted that “from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.” John Adams, a product of Puritan Massachusetts, appears to be the one who suggested that this be amended to, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” But whatever the provenance of these basic premises, it was clear what this meant for the role and the legitimacy of governments: “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A nice concept.

Independence itself was voted two days earlier. We celebrate the anniversary of the birth certificate, not the birth.

Although the section of the Lee Resolution dealing with independence was not adopted until July 2, Congress appointed on June 10 a committee of five to draft a statement of independence for the colonies. The committee included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, with the actual writing delegated to Jefferson.

Jefferson drafted the statement between June 11 and 28, submitted drafts to Adams and Franklin who made some changes, and then presented the draft to the Congress following the July 2nd adoption of the independence section of the Lee Resolution. The congressional revision process took all of July 3rd and most of July 4th. Finally, in the afternoon of July 4th, the Declaration was adopted.

The signing of the embossed copy we recognize as THE Declaration of Independence began on August 2nd.

Information and quote from The National Archives.

That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). [Judge] Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely “speculative.”

Speculative. It’s terabytes of data about us.

Andrew Tobias has a nice posting about Clay Felker, who died earlier this week.

Walt Mossberg provides Some General Tips For Switch to Mac From Windows. I would have found this handy during the first few weeks; not so much later.

Obama leads McCain by 5 points in — wait for it — Montana.

[Not having to blog because I'm taking a break makes it a lot easier to blog. Does that make any sense — other than as a description of insanity I mean?]

So just consider the three items that follow some stuff I phoned in.

Senator Barack Obama and his famous fist bumps have been drawing a lot of attention in recent weeks. So in Ohio on Tuesday, when it was reported that he refused to oblige a boy’s request for one, it created something of a stir.

An instant replay, however, shows that it didn’t happen the way it was reported.

The Caucus has the details.