7/5/13


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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 27/ Day: 186   Today: H 84°L 63°
Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  18mph  Ave. humidity:  60%
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Average
Low
Average
High
Record
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High
48°
82°
32° (1955)
97° (1973)
Quote of the Day



Today’s Historical Highlights
1st recorded tornado in US (Essex County, Massachusetts)…1643
Americans defeat British & Canadians at Chippewa, Ontario…1814
Thomas Cook opens 1st travel agency…1841
US Secret Service began operating under the Treasury Department…1865
FDR signs National Labor Relations Act…1935
Spam, the luncheon meat, was introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods…1937
Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada…1942
26th amendment certified (reduces voting age to 18)…1971
Isle of Man begins issuing their own postage stamps…1973
Emergency UN Security Council meeting; the North Korean missile tests a day before….2006
Ethnic rioting broke out in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China…2009

 Today’s Birthdays:    
How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays



My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Ah, Independence Day in a small town…decent parade this morning…mostly the regulars…worth the visit over there. Got back just in time for the first of several monsoon showers. The latest one has included thunder and lightning with a nice steady rain. So needed in our mountain town. Thankfully most of the rain is soaking in, at least where I am. Always worry about the possibility of flooding east of where I am.
 
A couple of Rez friends stopped by on their way to Phoenix to see their new grandkids…twin boys born last night. That should be a great time…hopefully I’ll see pictures on their return trip. This is their first grandkids so it’s a really big deal, seeing them so happy was nice too.
 
Sure hoping that the news from Egypt has a real bias. My Egyptian travel operator is still going over there.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Take the given words, and by moving a single letter from one word to the other, make a pair of synonyms, or near synonyms. For example, given: Boast - Hip, move the 's' from 'Boast' to 'Hip' creating two synonyms: Boat - Ship.
1. Inks - Tiles 2. Ride - Relive 3. Gaze - Freed 4. Snail - Pike 5. Snag - Cold

Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Hmmmm…Oxymorons
Still life Still moving Strangely familiar
Ok, then?



Harper’s Index    
  • Portion of antimalarial drugs privately sold in  sub-Saharan Africa that are fraudulently manufactured: 1/5
  • Change in years in the life expectancy of a female in sub-Saharan Aftica since 1970: -0.95
  • Of females in the Middle East:: +16.9

Picture of the Day: Flagstaff…long ago

Unusual Fact of the Day
In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans hockey team became the first American team to win the Stanley Cup.
Joke-of-the-day
A very well-known international furniture and interior decoration D.I.Y. Store recently set up a customer assistance department. The first call they got was from a lady who had purchased a wardrobe early in the morning. She explained that after assembly the wardrobe had crumbled three times when the public transport bus passed in front of her house. The store sent a technician over to her place. He reassembled the wardrobe - which was in the night hall on the second floor - and then went into it to observe what would happen when the bus, which was due a few minutes later, went by. The phone rang just then and the lady went downstairs to take the call. Just then her husband came home from work with a terrible flu condition. Hearing his wife on the phone he trudged upstairs where he found the wardrobe; on opening one of the doors and seeing the man inside he exclaimed "What the dickens are you doing in there!?!"
To which the guy replied "I know you'll never believe this, but I'm waiting for the bus!!"
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
HOW NOT TO BE CREEPY
 Remember, date someone no less than half your age plus seven years.   
Yeah, It Really Happened
BRADENTON, Fla. - A Florida woman who planted a kiss on a police officer's nose as he mediated a dispute between her and a neighbor got herself cuffed and charged with a felony. Peggy Hill, 62, of Bradenton was speaking with Manatee County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Randy Lamb late Saturday, who was summoned to the neighborhood to resolve a fight over the placement of a fence between two residences. Lamb said he was speaking with Hill when "she approached him and kissed him on his nose against his will." Lamb, an 18-year veteran, stepped away from Hill and "wiped off the saliva from his nose," the website TheSmokingGun.com reported. With the help of another deputy, Lamb "gently" took Hill to the ground and handcuffed her. In a post-arrest interview Hill admitted to drinking three glasses of wine prior to her encounter with police. She said "the thought just popped into her head" to kiss Lamb on the nose. Hill was charged with felony battery and was being held in lieu of $5,000 bond.
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • America celebrates July 4 as Independence Day because it was on July 4, 1776, that members of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence.
  • In 1777, Philadelphians remembered the 4th of July. Bells were rung, guns fired, candles lighted, and firecrackers set off. However, while the War of Independence dragged on, July 4 celebrations were modest at best.
  • When the war ended in 1783, July 4 became a holiday in some places. In Boston, it replaced the date of the Boston Massacre, March 5, as the major patriotic holiday. Speeches, military events, parades, and fireworks marked the day. In 1941, Congress declared July 4 a federal holiday.
  • John Hancock, the president of the Second Continental Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration. With its ornate capitals, Hancock's sprawling signature is prominent on the document. Since then, when people are asked for their "John Hancock," they are being asked to sign their names.
  • Independence Day acquired its unofficial theme song on July 4, 1897, at the Manhattan Beach Music Hall on the eastern end of Coney Island. On that Sunday afternoon, sometime after 4 p.m., John Philip Sousa lifted his baton and cued his band to launch into their latest hit, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Sousa had not composed it specifically for the holiday, but it has been a marching-band staple on every Fourth of July since 1897.
  • Eleven places have "independence" in their name. The most populous of these is Independence, Missouri, with 113,288 residents.


Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
1-7
National Education Association Week
National Unassisted Homebirth Week
4-7
Beans and Bacon Days:
International Chicken Wing Week
4-10
Freedom Week: 4-10 

Today Is                                                                      
·        Bikini Day
·        International Chicken Wing Day
·        Rosewell UFO Days 4-6
^^
·        Algeria: Independence Day (1962 from Algeria)
·        Venezuela: Independence Day (1811 from Spain)
·        Zambia: Unity Day (to unite the 7 tribes into one Zambia)

Today’s Events through History  
Arrested for murdering the wagon drivers in the raid on May 18th, Kiowas Satanta 
     and Big Tree go on trial in Jacksboro, in north-central Texas, near Fort Richardson.
     They are found guilty after three days of testimony. Satanta tells the court, "If you let
     me go, I will withdrawn my warriors from Tehanna, but if you kill me, it will be a spark 
     on the prairie. Make big fire-burn heap." Although sentenced to be hanged, the Texas
     Governor, fearing a Kiowa uprising, decides to commute the sentences to life in a 
    Texas prison …1871.
Jose Maria Narvaez discovers Point Grey (now Vancouver BC)…1791
Hail kills 6 horses in Rapid City, SD…1891
BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin…1954
Mongolia adopts constitution…1960
N. William Colquhoun is appointed Special Agent to the Choctaws, by Secretary of War, 
    Lewis Cass. Colquhoun is ordered to go to the Choctaw Nation and consult with their 
    leaders about their removal to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma)…1831
Rajan Mahadevan recites 31,811 digits of π (Pi) from memory…1981
US announced it would refuse further unrestricted immigration from Haiti…1994
SARS is declared to be contained by the WHO…2003

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
In their 60’s
Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Wash DC, daughter of Richard Milhaus Nixon is 65
Richard "Goose" Gossage, relief pitcher (Yankees, Padres, A's) is 62
Huey Lewis, rocker is 63

In their 50’s
Edie Falco, actress (Carmela Soprano) is 50

Remembered for being born today
Phineas Taylor Barnum, Bethel Conn, circus promoter (Barnum & Bailey) [1810-1891]
David Farragut, US Admiral (Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!) [1801-1870]
Sylvester Graham, developed graham cracker [1794-1851]
Andrei Gromyko, USSR, diplomat/USSR President (1985-89) [1909-1989]
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Sen/ambassador/VP candidate [1902-1985]
Milburn Stone, actor (Doc-Gunsmoke) [1904-1980]
Mary Walcott, American accuser at the Salem witch trials [1675-1720]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Ben Alexander, actor (Dragnet)…natural causes…1969…at 58
George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate…1966…at 80
Harry James, swing-era bandleader/trumpet player,,,cancer…1983…at 67
Cy Twombly, artist…2011…at 83
Ted Williams, baseball hall of famer…2002…at 84

Answer: Brain Teasers
1. Links - Ties 2. Rid - Relieve 3. Graze - Feed 4. Nail - Spike 5. Nag - Scold
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.