8/26/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 35/ Day: 238   

Today: H 63°…L 55°

Wind: ave:   5mph; Gusts:  11mph  Ave. humidity:  72%

Record Low: 48°    

Record High: 78°    

Average Low: 36° (2002)    

Average High: 88° (1985)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st US roller coaster built 1st free kindergarten in the U.S. started by Susan Blow in 

     Missouri…1873

20th Olympic games open at Munich German FR…1972

Chinese invents toilet paper…580

George Orwell published "Animal Farm"…1946

Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà…1498

U of Tx (Arlington) is 1st accredited school to offer belly dancing…1973

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A cloudy, rainy Sunday here in our little mountain town. Birds are really busy eating, getting ready for something big I presume. We had a hard rain for about 5 hours this morning…it woke me at 5a. Then it has been on and off drizzles all day. The sun is starting to break out but lots of clouds remain and and the weatherman says more still to come.

 

Our discussion group was really awesome last night. We had a visitor who was a former Intelligence Officer in DOD, and one of our members was also a former IO. They certainly had a lot to add about why we are doing intelligence. I learned that one of the guys says that after 20 years and a high clearance, when he retired he was told he would not be issued a passport for 20 years since foreign travel was not allowed by the division he was in. The other guy made an interesting comment about Area 51. While we now know that this was the testing site for the U-2 spy plane, and various other flying objects, the UFO/Alien story made the area more secure. Since all the conspiracy people were talking about hiding aliens, they were not looking at what was really going on there. It seems that the spy guys are going to keep going as far as they can in spying wherever they can. When they get caught, they say ‘oops’ and change just enough to get out of trouble, then keep finding ways to cross the line without getting caught. Both guys talked about various shades of grey when obviously doing something that was illegal. It seems that spying on MLK and others only taught the spies to be more careful. With all the various ways we use technology today…computers, smart phones, speed cameras, street cams, home security systems, land lines, and on and on…we have unwittingly given up the kind privacy I grew up with. We like it when this technology spying catches the bad guys, but don’t like it when the government watches us too closely. All the revelations seem to be doing is causing the spies to find new and better ways to not get caught spying. Very troubling but informative.

 

60 Minutes did just a story about facial recognition in business. Turns out, very soon, when you walk into a store, facial recognition program will know who you are and can send a special buy to your phone from your information on social media…those ad boards in malls will be able to show ads you may be interested in by looking at a picture of you and ‘guessing’ your age, sex, and ‘knowing’ your buying habits at that mall. Companies are also developing products you can put on your face to confuse facial recognition programs, which right now are simply masks or wigs that make you look really funky, but cosmetics are on the horizon. Turns out there are laws that ‘stop’ the government from using facial recognition in certain circumstances, but there are few if any laws to stop commerce from doing it. And as we all remember, the Boston Bombers were caught because of a commerce camera on top of Lord & Taylor.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

What saying is seen here?

Mary Sue Jane
LAW
Bob Fred Jim

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Ted Knight Tribute

• Will Shortz Talks about Choosing Puzzle Difficulty

• Mother Teresa Bio: The Life of A Healer

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... Airplanes
You're suffering from... Aeronausiphobia

If you have an irrational fear of... Amnesia
You're suffering from... Amnesiphobia

Not a Fan of Faux News, but this is crazy.

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

• Portion of religious Americans who believe in reincarnation: 1/4

• Portion of nonreligious Americans who do: 1/4

Unusual Fact of the Day

When MTV debuted on August 1^st, 1981, the first music video ever played was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles.

Joke-of-the-day

A Yankee lawyer went duck hunting in eastern North Carolina. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly gentleman asked him what he was doing. The lawyer responded, "I shot a duck and it fell in this field, I'm going into retrieve it." 

The old farmer replied. "This is my property, and you are not coming over here." 

The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys in the U.S. and, if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything! 

The old farmer smiled and said, "Apparently, you don't know how we do things here in North Carolina. We settle small disagreements like this with the NC Three-Kick Rule." 

The lawyer asked, "What is the NC three-Kick Rule?" 

The Farmer replied. "Well, first I kick you three times and then you kick me three times, and so on, back and forth, until someone gives up." 

The Yankee attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old southerner. He agreed to abide by the local custom. 

The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the city feller. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy work boot into the Yankee lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick nearly wiped the man's nose off his face. The barrister was flat on his belly when the farmer's third kick to a kidney nearly caused him to give up. 

The Yankee lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet and said, "Okay, you old redneck southerner, now it's my turn." 

The old North Carolina farmer smiled and said, "Naw, I give up. You can have the duck."   

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

GETTING A JOB

Never send a resume longer than one page unless you're in the entertainment field, or think you are.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

HOOKSET, N.H. - New Hampshire police said a woman who has called 911 multiple times in the past month was arrested for calling the emergency number to ask for a pen. Police said Jeanie Defresne of Hookset, who has called the emergency number 10 times in the past month, called 911 during the weekend and requested a writing instrument, WBZ-TV, Boston, reported Tuesday. "I just want a simple thing," Dufresne told the dispatcher. "A pen." "You want a pen?" the dispatcher said. "You dialed 911 because you want a pen? You do realize that it's definitely not an emergency. You're dialing 911, you are tying up a 911 line, so you're tying up people who actually have emergencies because you need a pen." Dufresne, whose age was not reported, was arrested on a misuse of 911 charge. She was ordered held in lieu of $5,000 bond. Police did not reveal the reasons for Dufresne's previous 911 calls.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Animals with some of the longest lives are the Giant tortoise (152 years), the fin whale (116 years) and the deep-sea clam (100 years).

• An electric eel can produce a shock of 600 volts. That’ss enough to stun large animals and even knock a horse off its feet.

• Cows can sleep standing up.

• Salamanders are known to come out of wood when it was burning inside a fireplace because Salamanders hibernate in wood.

• Some frogs can pull their eyes into their throat and help push food down!

• An African adult elephant eats about six hundred pounds of food a day; that’s four percent of the elephant’s body weight!

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

25-31

Be Kind To Humankind Week
National Safe at Home Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        National Dog Day

·        Women's Equality Day

^^^

·        Namibia: Heroes' Day

Today’s Events through History  

1st Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium…1748

 Caddoes sign a treaty in Texas;agree to visit other tribes convince them to also 

     with Texas…1842

French government claims no knowledge of assault on Rainbow Warrior…1985

Houdini escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 sec…1907

Ship Amistad is captured off Long Island…1839

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Macaulay Culkin, actor (Home Alone, My Girl, Richie Rich) is 33

Chris Pine, actor is 33

Tom Ridge, 1st US Secretary of Homeland Security is 68  

Will Shortz, NYTimes crossword editor, NPR is 61

Remembered for being born today

Mother Teresa, [Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu], Yugoslavia (Nobel Peace Prize 1979) [1910-1997]

John Buchan, Scotland, Gov-Gen of Canada/writer (Battle of Somme) [1875-1940]

Geraldine Ferraro, 1st female Dem VP candidate [1935-2011]

Albert B Sabin, Russia, US microbiologist (oral polio vaccine) [1906-1993]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Charles Boyer, actor (Gaslight, Rogues)…suicide…1978…at 78

Dominick Dunne, writer, Vanity Fair correspondent….2009…at 83

Ted Knight, [Tadeus Konopka], actor (Mary Tyler Moore)…cancer…1986…at 62

Charles Lindbergh, US aviator…camcer…1974…at 72

Andrew W. Mellon, banker, industrialist and Secretary of the Treasury…1937…at 82

Brain Teasers

No man is above the law.

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  §