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Almanac: Week: 49 \ Day: 334
November
Averages: 51°\22°
Holiday Observances
Today:
Cities of Life Day (celebrated by 300 cities with
no death penalty)
Independence Day (Barbados-1966-from UK)
Independence Day (Yeman-1967-from UK)
• • •
Stay At Home Because You Are Well Day
Computer
Security Day
National
Meth Awareness Day
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Annual Lighting
Observances This
Week:
24-30
GERD
Awareness Week; National Bible Week; National Game & Puzzle Week; Better
Conversation Week; Church/State Separation Week; National Family Week
• • • • • • •
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1523 - Amsterdam bans assembly of heretics
1630 - 16,000 inhabitants of Venice died this month
of plague
1731 - Beijing hit by Earthquake; about 100,000 die
1747 - Dutch State of Zealand declare governorship
hereditary for women
1866 - Work begins on 1st US underwater highway
tunnel, Chicago
1872 – 1st
international soccer game, Scotland-England 0-0 (Glasgow)
1886 - The Folies Bergère stages its first revue
1900 - A German engineer patents front-wheel drive
for automobiles
1907 - Pike Place Market dedicated in Seattle
1924 - 1st photo facsimile transmitted across
Atlantic by radio (London-NYC)
1956 - 1st use of videotape on TV (Douglas Edwards
& the News)
1974 - Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy,
Australopithecus) discovered
1983 - Police free kidnapped beer magnate Alfred
Heineken in Amsterdam
1988 - UN General Assembly (151-2) censures US for refusing
PLO's Arafat visa
1993 - President Clinton signs Brady Gun
Control Bill
• • • • • • •
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
Ah, the end of November and it’s ending with lots of wind. The
wind has been blowing since around midnight. Weatherman is saying maybe some
snow is ahead this week. I’m ready. I still have stalled out on putting up the
Christmas decorations, but tomorrow is looking really good to do it. I got the
living room ready today by moving some furniture a little.
Netflix is very cheap, has great movies and TV shows, and if not
careful can take up way too much time. I watched 2 movies and one TV season today—all
were good, but really should not be sitting in front of a TV that long. It does
have a nice pause feature so I could do some other things. I kept telling
myself, it was too windy to be outside and I certainly did not want to do any
shopping, realizing how busy everywhere would be. I spent many a Saturday doing
shopping when I was working, now I wait for a weekday and let the hard working
people deal with weekend shopping.
• • • • • • •
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What
does this mean?
Must get here
Must get here
Must get here
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
• • • • • • •
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
Actor
Facts…
¤ When Will Ferrell met RHCP drummer Chad Smith he looked him up
and down and said: “You´re very handsome,” and then walked away.
¤ Heath Ledger locked himself in a hotel room for a month to
prepare for his iconic role as the Joker in The Dark Knight
¤¤NEW¤¤ December
Holiday Facts…
*Christmas-Christian
¤ Norwegian scientists have hypothesized that Rudolph’s red nose
is probably the result of a parasitic infection of his respiratory system.
¤ The Germans made the first artificial Christmas trees out of
dyed goose feathers.
*Hanukkah-Jewish
Hanukkah
(The Festival of Lights)
The history of Hanukah predates Christmas. Antiochus, the Greek
King of Syria, outlawed Jewish rituals and ordered the Jews to worship Greek
gods. Most Jews were angry and decided to fight back. In 165 B.C.E, the Jewish
Maccabees managed to drive the Syrian army out of Jerusalem and reclaim their
temple. Hanukkah is the celebration of this victory. In history, Hanukkah has
been a minor holiday, only gaining in popularity since the late 1800's. In
Hebrew, the word "Hanukkah" means "dedication."
*Kwanza-African-American
¤ Beginning on December 26 and lasting for 7 days, Kwanzaa is an
African American holiday. It reinforces community, family and good social values
through seven principles.
Kwanzaa is a relatively new holiday in terms of most celebrations
held at this time of year, but it is celebrated by millions and is a
fast growing holiday. It first started in 1966, when Dr. Maulana Karenga
thought up the idea. He was concerned at the loss of identity of The African
American people, and wanted a celebration of their cultural heritage and roots.
It is far more than just a celebration, though. It is a way of bringing the
community together, teaching younger members to be proud of whom they are and
reaffirm the commitment to family and community.
For each day there is a different principle, or theme, to think
about and discuss. The ideas and origin of the Kwanzaa celebrations come from
an ancient African tradition of celebrating the first fruits. The word Kwanza
comes from Swahili, a widely spoken African language. The names of the seven
principles and the Kwanzaa greetings are all in Swahili. This is because it
does not reflect one particular African nation or group, and so can be used by
all.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
25 YEARS
AGO
On Sunday, it was the bullet-proof vest saved Robert Dale Soucie
the first Flagstaff police officer ever shot in the line of duty. He had
stopped a man of I-40 just east of Flagstaff who came out of his car shooting
then fled the scene on foot.
Flagstaff’s
Iconic 50…
Louie the
Lumberjack
218 N Sitgreaves St, Flagstaff, Arizona
Meet Flagstaff's 10-foot cedar statue of Louie the Lumberjack, the
brother of the two 20-foot-plus giants that stand on campus as mascots of
Northern Arizona University.
It's been 20 years since this smaller brother had seen any repairs, and it
showed.
When he was taken down from his location outside Granny's Closet, a famous
restaurant on South Milton Street, it was in the nick of time to save the
logger from disintegration.
These two Muffler Men were originally installed at the Lumberjack
Café. When the restaurant became Granny's Closet in 1973, these statues were
moved to Northern Arizona University and repainted in the school's colors. The
statue that stands just outside NAU's Skydome is known as "Louie". It
is believed that this statue is from 1962 and was the first Muffler Man ever
produced. It was originally built by Prewitt Fiberglass Animals for someone in
Sacramento that never paid for it. The Lumberjack Cafe bought the second
Muffler Man a few years later. That one is now installed inside the Skydome. It
has a Cowboy style body but a Bunyan style head. The NAU football team is known
as The Lumberjacks.
Harper’s
Index…
Portion of the US electrical-power supply that comes from coal:
2/5
Rules of
Thumb…
FINDING
A BALL IN THE ROUGH
To find a golf ball,
first look ten yards past where you think you hit it out, then look ten yards
short, and finally look five yards further into the rough.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
Doves
were called "turtles" long before today's turtles were known by that
name.
• • • • • • •
Joke-of-the-day
A guy walked into a little corner store with a
shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier
put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted, behind
the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but
the cashier refused and said, "Because I don't believe you are over
21."The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him
because he didn't believe him. At this point, the robber took his driver's
license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over
and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the Scotch in the bag.
The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called
the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the
license. They arrested the robber two hours later.
Yep, It
Really Happened
BATH, England (UPI) - The sewage company behind Britain's first
poo-powered Bio-Bus said the vehicle can run up to 186 miles on one tank of
fuel from human and food waste. GENeco, a subsidiary of Wessex Water, said the
fuel for the 40-seat Bio-Bus is produced at the Bristol sewage treatment works,
where human waste and food unfit for consumption are put through a process to
create biomethane. Mohammed Saddiq, general manager of GENeco, said the company
is also producing biomethane for the country's natural gas network.
"Through treating sewage and food that's unfit for human consumption we're
able to produce enough biomethane to provide a significant supply of gas to the
national gas network that's capable of powering almost 8,500 homes as well as
fueling the Bio-Bus." It takes the annual waste from about five people to
create one tank of biomethane for the bus, officials said. The Bath Bus Company
is running the Bio-Bus on the 20-mile A4 route between Bath, England, and the
airport in Bristol, England.
Somewhat
Useless Information
How many alligators
are there in the U.S.?
It
is estimated that five million American alligators are spread out across the
southeastern United States and around 1.25 million alligators live in the state
of Florida. By the way, Florida declared the alligator their official state
reptile in 1987.
For
the history, the United States is the only nation on earth where both
alligators and crocodiles live together.
¤
¤
How many pounds of
bacteria does an adult human have?
There
are 100 trillion of good bacteria that live in or on the human body.
Researchers have now taken a detailed look at this set of bacteria that may
play even bigger roles in health and disease.
An
adult human has two to nine pounds of bacteria in his or her body.
They
are essential for human life, needed to digest food, to synthesize certain
vitamins, to form a barricade against disease-causing bacteria.
Bonnie
Bassler, a Princeton University microbiologist, said that until recently the
bacteria were thought to be just “passive riders.” They were barely studied, because
it was hard to know much about them.
• • • • • • •
Today’s Events
through History
1016 - Cnut the Great (or Canute), King of Denmark,
claims the English throne after the death of Edmund 'Ironside'
1804 - Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice
Samuel Chase begins
1886 – 1st
commercially successful AC electric power plant opens, Buffalo, NY
1936 - London's Crystal Palace (built 1851)
destroyed by fire
1947 - Day after UN decree for Israel, Jewish
settlements attacked
1954 - 1st meteorite known to strike a woman (Liz
Hodges-Sylacauga Ala)
1962 - U Thant of Burma elected 3rd
Secretary-General of UN unanimously
1967 - Julie Nixon & David Eisenhower announce
their engagement
1968 - A Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
march in Armagh is stopped by Royal Ulster Constabulary because of the presence
of a Loyalist counter demonstration led by Ian Paisley and Ronald Bunting
1971 - The government of the Republic of Ireland
states that it will take the allegations of brutality against the security
forces in Northern Ireland to the European Court of Human Rights
1979 - Ted Koppel becomes anchor of nightly news on
Iranian Hostages (ABC)
2004 - Longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken
Jennings finally loses, leaving him with $2,520,700 USD, television's
all-time biggest game show haul.
• • • • • • •
Birthday’s
Today
G[eorge]
Gordon Liddy, head CIA/Watergate felon/radio host is 84
Noel Paul
Stookey, singer (Peter, Paul & Mary-Wedding Song) is 77
Paul
Westphal, NBA guard (Celtics, Suns) is 64
Mandy
Patinkin, actor/singer (Alien Nation) is 62
Billy
Idol, [William Broad], rocker (White Wedding) is 59
Bo
Jackson, baseball/football player (Royals, Raiders) is 52
Ben
Stiller, actor (Cable Guy) is 49
Clay
Aiken, American singer is 36
Remembered
for being born today
Jonathan
Swift, Dublin, satirist (Gulliver's Travels), [1667-1745]
Mark
Twain [Samuel Clemens], author (Tom Sawyer) [1835-1910]
John
McCrae, Canadian physician, soldier, poet (In Flanders Fields) [1872-1918]
Winston
Churchill, (C) British Prime Minister (Nobel 1953) [1874-1965]
Lucy Maud
Montgomery, Canadian author (Anne of Green Gables) [1874-1942]
Efren
Zimbalist Jr, actor (77 Sunset Strip, FBI) [1918-2014]
Shirley
Chisholm, (Rep-NY) 1st black congresswoman [1924-2005]
Richard
Crenna, actor (Sand Pebbles) [1926-2003]
Abbie
Hoffman, aka Free, Yippie/activist/author (Steal this Book) [1936-1989]
Bill
Walsh, NFL coach (San Fransisco 49ers) [1931-2007]
• • • • • • •
Historical
Obits Today
Zeppo
Marx, [Herbert], US comic (Marx Brothers), cancer, 1979, @78
Charlie
Byrd, American jazz guitarist, 1999, @74
Tiny Tim,
[Herbert Khaury], entertainer (Tip Toe), heart attack, 1996, @71
Evel
Knievel, motorcycle daredevil, 2007, diabetes, 2007, @69
James
Baldwin, writer (Go Tell it on the Mountain), cancer, 1987, @63
Oscar
Wilde, Irish author, meningitis, 1900, @46
Paul
Walker, actor (The Fast and the Furious), car accident, 2013, @40
• • • • • • •
Brain Teasers Answers
Three Musketeers
• • • • • • •
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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…§
