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Almanac: Week: 03 \ Day: 012
January
Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 51°\L 30°
Ave. humidity: 82% Average Sky Cover: 90%
Wind ave: 3mph\Gusts: 14mph
Ave. High: 43° Record
High: 59° (2002)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low: -20° (1963)
Observances
Today:
Feast of Fabulous Wild Men
Day
National
Clean Off Your Desk Day
Observances This
Week:
8-14
Universal
Letter Writing Week
11-17
Cuckoo
Dancing Week
National Vocation Awareness Week
« »
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1493 - Last day
for all Jews to leave Sicily
1616 - Brazilian
city Belem (the entrance gate to the Amazon) founded by Captain Major Francisco
Branco
1773 - 1st US
public museum established (Charlestown SC)
1864 - NAVAJOs have been ordered
to move to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in New Mexico. Many who decide not to
go move to the Canyon de Chelly.
1896 - 1st
X-ray photo in US (Dr Henry Smith, Davidson NC)
1913 - After
using other pseudonyms over the years, Josef Dzhugashvili signs himself
as Stalin ('man of steel) in a letter to the the paper, Social
Democrat
1915 - House of
Reps rejects proposal to give women right to vote
1943 - Frankfurters
replaced by Victory Sausages (mix of meat & soy meal)
1989 - Idi Amin expelled from Zaire
1990 - Civil Rights
activist Rev Al Sharpton is stabbed in Bkln
1995 - Murder trial
against OJ Simpson, begins in LA
2013 - Beijing’s level of air pollution is declared
to be at levels that are hazardous to human health
« »
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
Lazy Sunday. Overcast, tryin’ to rain
to little avail.
Easy to get caught up in the
playoffs. Looking forward to the Bronco
game so am doing this early.
My Sunday news programs were all about
the rally in Paris. Informative and interesting. While there are so many
rallying, it is important to realize that the reason there are so many Muslims
in France dates back to the colonization when France tried to be in charge of
numerous African countries. Also that France has not been the most tolerant nation
with its religious minority. Maybe this horrific event will open a better
dialogue between the various minorities in France…and maybe in other places in
the world. One can only hope and keep working at diaglogue.
« »
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
It
goes up, but at the same time goes down.
Up toward the sky, and down toward the ground.
It's present tense and past tense too.
Come for a ride, just me and you.
What is it?
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
« »
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
60’s
Inventions…
1960
The halogen lamp invented
Education
Facts…
--The U.S. has 115,000 janitors, 83,000 bartenders, 323,000
restaurant servers, and 80,000 heavy-duty truck drivers with bachelor’s
degrees.
--In Brazil, prison inmates can reduce their sentence by 4 days
(up to 48 days a year) for every book they read and write a report on.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
75 YEARS
AGO
Dr. G.F. Manning, director of the County Health Department, has
announced a “Why Register“campaign to urge parents to demand birth certificates
for their children, which are needed in our increasingly complex society.
Flagstaff’s
Iconic 50…
Aspen
Trees
In the mountains above Flagstaff, each year brings an autumnal
leaf season — thanks to the presence of one of the area’s iconic sights, the
quaking aspen.
In the spring, they burst with nearly iridescent green among the
mossy tinge of the evergreens. The leaves swish in the breeze because the broad
leaf of the aspen is suspended on a tenuous support. This means it is readily
acted on by the smallest atmospheric shift. The leaf movement can make a grove
of aspen sound like a stream.
It is the season of fall, however, that brings the gold. The color
spreads across the base of the San Francisco Peaks and heralds the change in
season. The goldenrod yellows and rich reds and seeped oranges can all appear
within the aspen groves.
It is these colors that bring the leaf peepers. They parade up the
Inner Basin Trail from Lockett Meadow on the first two weekends in October. And
they turn Forest Road 151 through Hart Prairie into a major thoroughfare.
The winter white includes the aspen, which bare their ashen
branches that make them appear like elegant ghosts. The branches also are
creased and pocked with black marks from a parasite known as aspen canker. Some
of the canker spots look like eyes, and some trees have dozens that look out
across the forests in all directions.
Underground, the aspen roots interconnect. Sprouts known as
suckers lock into root systems and join a grove of aspen that are often clones.
This can make a walk into a forest of aspen a dizzying experience from the
optical effect of repeating trees.
In the groves along the Weatherford Canyon Trail, it creates an
eerie pattern among the natural chaos. Because of the shared roots and
biological identity, a grove is considered by biologists to stand as a singular
organism.
The presence of the aspens here near Flagstaff adds to the wonder
and allure of the forests here, making them truly iconic.
Harper’s
Index…
682
Estimated number of people executed by all countries other than
China in 2012
3000
By China
Rules of
Thumb…
FOLLOWING
ANOTHER CAR
You should keep at least one car length
between your car and the car ahead for every ten miles per hour of speed.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
The first Ferris wheel was built by a man named George Ferris in
1893 for the Chicago World's Fair, also known as the Columbian Exposition. It
was intended to upstage the Eiffel Tower (the main attraction from the 1889
Paris Exhibition). The original Ferris Wheel was 264 feet tall and carried
2,160 people in 36 cars.
« »
Joke-of-the-day
The Old Man and the Sea
A seaman meets a pirate in a bar, and they take turns to tell their adventures
on the seas. The seaman notes that the pirate has a peg leg, hook, and an eye
patch. Curious, the seaman asks "So, how did you end up with the
peg-leg?"
The pirate replies "I was swept overboard into a school of sharks. Just as
my men were pulling me out, a shark bit my leg off".
"Wow!" said the seaman. "What about the hook"?
"Well...", replied the pirate, "We were boarding an enemy ship
and were battling the other sailors with swords. One of the enemy cut my hand
clean off."
"Incredible!" remarked the seaman. "How did you get the eye
patch"?
"A seagull dropping fell into my eye", replied the pirate.
"You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked.
"Well..." said the pirate, "That was my first day with the
hook."
Yep, It
Really Happened
CHICAGO (UPI) - Prosecutors said an alleged carjacker in Chicago
contacted the vehicle's owner and offered to sell the 1998 Chevy Malibu back to
her for $50. Assistant State's Attorney Erin Antonietti said Jereh Brown, 24,
received a ride in the victim's car from a friend of the owner Dec. 26 and he
forced the woman out of the driver's seat while the car was stopped. Antonietti
told a Wednesday hearing Brown contacted the owner of the car, a 19-year-old
woman, Monday and offered to sell the 1998 Chevy Malibu back to her for $50.
The woman arranged to meet with Brown and contacted police to accompany her to
the chosen location, the prosecutor said. Police found Brown hiding in a closet
in a home at the location of the arranged meeting just before 10 p.m. Monday
and he was arrested. Investigators found a key to the car inside the home where
Brown was arrested. Brown was charged with vehicular hijacking and possession
of a stolen vehicle. He was released on electronic monitoring.
Somewhat
Useless Information
“What
sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals”: Have you ever considered why people tend
to evaluate rhyme sayings as more truthful?
The
answer is “Keats Heuristic”. According to this effect, a statement’s truth
is evaluated according to aesthetic qualities or the fluency heuristic,
according to which things could be preferred due their ease of cognitive
processing.
An
example of persuasive quality? The phrase “If it doesn’t fit, you must
acquit” used by Johnnie Cochran to gain acquittal for O.J. Simpson in Simpson’s
murder trial back in 1995.
« »
Today’s
Events through History
1948 - Mahatma
Gandhi begins his final fast
1966 - "Batman"
with Adam West & Burt Ward premieres on ABC TV
1970 - Biafran
War ends, Biafra surrenders to Nigeria
« »
Birthday’s
Today
Glenn
Yarborough, singer (Limeliters-Honey & Wine) is 85
Kirstie
Alley, actress (Star Trek II, Cheers-Rebecca) is 64
Rush
Limbaugh, American right wing radio personality is 64
Ricky Van
Shelton, country musician is 63
Howard
Stern, "Radio's Bad Boy" (WKRK, WYSP, WJFK) is 61
Jeff
Bezos, Albuquerque entrepreneur and founder of Amazon.com is 51
« »
Remembered
for being born today
John
Winthrop, 1st governor (Mass Bay Colony) 1587-1649@61
Charles
Perrault, Paris France, author (Mother Goose) 1628-1903@75
Hermann
Goering, leading Nazi politician and party member 1893-1946@53
Henny
Youngman, England, comedian (Take my wife please...) 1906-1998@91
Woodward ‘Tex’ Ritter, country
singer (Wayward Wind) 1905-1974@68
A P[ieter] W Botha, Orange Free State, president of
South Africa 1916-2006@90
Ira Hayes,
American soldier 1923-1955@32
Joe Frazier, HW boxer
(Olympic-gold-1964)/champ (1968-73) 1944-2011@67
« »
Historical
Obits Today
Agatha
Christie, British crime writer ("10 Little Indians"), 1976, @ 85
Cyrus
Vance, 57th U.S. Secretary of State, 2002, @84
Marguerite
Bourgeoys, founder-Congregation of Notre Dame in Quebec, 1700, @79
« »
Brain Teasers Answers
It's a See-Saw
« »
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…§
