8/7/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 32/ Day: 219   

Today: H 62°…L 57°

Wind: ave:   1mph; Gusts:  6mph  Ave. humidity:  60%

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Is…1942

1st computer chess tournament…1970

1st telephone link between Israel & Jordan…1994

Barry Bonds (SFGiants) breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 

     756th home run…2007

Congress creates Dept of War & Lighthouse Service…1789

Desert Shield begins - US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia…1990

Ft Loudon, Tennessee surrenders to Cherokee Indians…1760

George Washington creates Order of Purple Heart…1782

Jacqueline Kennedy becomes 1st, First Lady to give birth (Patrick—lives 3 days) 

     since Mrs Cleveland…1963

Progressive (Bull Moose) Party nominates Theodore Roosevelt for pres…1912

Some 675,000 employees strike AT&T…1983

US issues 1st Lincoln penny…1909

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Today started out with a very unusual overcast day that lasted all day…never did see the sun. There were several showers throughout the day. A change I accepted with grace and style.

 

The financial guy arrived right in the middle of one of the storms. We had a nice chat for about 45 minutes. He got no new information from me, I signed nothing. I told him I was searching for a new advisor and company that kept all my records in a central clearing house rather than just with the broker. He told me that all companies that have independent brokers are doing the same thing. I told him I’d check that out and give him a call when and if  I was ready to stay with him. A nice guy so I’ll see what I find out.

 

Obama came and spoke at a Phoenix High School. A friend from the Rez has a son who is a senior at that high school. The boy was excited to be seeing the Prez. We had ‘local’ coverage of this visit and his speech. Thankfully, our Governor seems to have been on good behavior. While he is the President, his speeches seem to be so full of change and then it takes years for any of the change to happen.  This is certainly a different time that JFK or LBJ and the office of the President in the US is not really seen as the Commander and Chief or the leader of the free world. Back in the day, the President would propose something and within a few months it would happen. LBJ is famous for bringing together both sides with a bottle of bourbon and sit in the room until the bottle was empty and a deal was struck. Obama is more of a ‘let all sides talk and say what they want’ but doesn’t seem to have the power or strategy to make a plan happen. Yesterday Cantor made a speech about how the government is nothing but spend, spend, spend and the deficit was rising. Neither the Dems nor the White House called him on that untruth. People, especially politicians, seem to be say whatever they want about just about anything and never be called out on it. Ignoring these far out ‘truths’ hasn’t worked in this administration…it is time for change.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

The word candy can be spelled with just 2 letters. Can you guess which ones?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America

• What a difference a day makes - Esther Phillips

• Garrison Keillor Tells a Classic Lake Wobegon Story

Hmmmm…Tongue Twisters

F  
Fat frogs flying past fast.
^^
A fat thrush flies through thick fog.
^^
Flash message!
^^
Flee from fog to fight flu fast!
^^
Fred fed Ted bread, and Ted fed Fred bread.
^^
Freshly fried flying fish, freshly fried flesh.
^^
Friendly Frank flips fine flapjacks.
Ever wonder where the name came from?

Sony

Somewhat surprisingly Sony is actually younger than its Korean arch-rival, appearing in 1946 as Tokyo Tshushin Kokyo (aka Totsuko) Its first product was a rice cooker. The Sony brand - which is a conflation of Sonus, the Latin word for sound and Sonny (as in ‘young boy’) - first appeared in 1955. Totsuko became Sony Corporation three years later.

Early successes were the TR-55 transistor radio, TV5-303 portable TV and, of course, the TPS-L2 Walkman. Sony’s had something of a chequered past: it's enjoyed notable successes with CD, DVD and the PS3; but it’s just as famous for its flops - MiniDisc, DAT and Betamax. It also likes to provoke the ire of its customers - firstly with 2005’s root-kit disaster and then a year later with 2006’s exploding laptop battery epidemic, which saw 8 million Sony-made Li-Ion batteries being recalled.

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

• Percentage of US college graduates who are women: 51.1

• Of Fortune 500 CEO’s who are women: 4.2

Songs with Double Meanings:

• Cat Scratch Fever - Ted Nugent
- Double Lyric of song: "She gives me cat scratch fever" (1) A play on words to cat scratch fever disease, a disease transmitted by cat scratches and bites, or exposure to cat saliva... and .... "I make the pussy purr with the stroke of my hand" (1) Petting a cat; (2) Main/real meaning to both lyrics: A guy sexually in love with all the females that he meets.

• Cracklin' Rosie - Neil Diamond
- Key Double Lyric of song: "Cracklin' Rose, you're a store bought woman" (1) A prostitute named "Rosie"; (2) Main/real meaning: Getting drunk on cheap wine.

Unusual Fact of the Day

Horseradish is a member of the mustard family and can count cauliflower, kale and brussels sprouts among its cousins.

Joke-of-the-day

"Doctor, Doctor, You've got to help me - I just can't stop my hands shaking!"
"Do you drink a lot?" "Not really - I spill most of it!"

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

KEEPING AND DELETING PHOTOS

The average photographer should (and should expect to) delete about 85 percent of the photos you shoot. If you want three good shots, you should take 20- to 25 pictures.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

A 15 million-year-old, 1,000-pound whale skull was found on the Potomac River shore of Virginia's Stratford Hall Plantation -- the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee (born in 1807, which suddenly seems like not such a long time ago).

The skull is from a baleen whale -- a toothless filter-feeder, according to a Calvert Marine Museum press release. At six feet long, it's one of the largest whale skulls ever collected in the area.

The rest of the skeleton is still buried in the cliffs. In its press release, the museum said the whale "would have been 25 or more feet long."

"It would have been similar in size to a modern day minke whale," Nance told The Huffington Post. (Minke whales are about 30 feet long.)

Nance told The Washington Post that the species can't be identified conclusively until the whole whale skeleton has been examined, which could happen within the next couple of weeks.

Somewhat Useless Information   

•  
"Long in the tooth," meaning "old," was originally used to describe horses. As horses age, their gums recede, giving the impression that their teeth are growing. The longer the teeth look, the older the horse.

• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

• Oddly, no term existed for "homosexuality" in ancient Greece - there were only a variety of expressions referring to specific homosexual roles. Experts find this baffling, as the old Greek culture regarded male/male love in the highest regard. According to several linguists, the word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

1-7

International Clown Week 
Simplify Your Life Week 
World Breastfeeding Week 
4-10

National Farmers' Market Week 
Old Fiddler's Week
Rock for Life Week
Assistance Dog Week   
Knights of Columbus Family Week
National Resurrect Romance Week 

Exercise With Your Child Week
National Fraud Awareness Week 
(This is sponsored by the FCC and has to do with phone & mail fraud.)
Single Working Women's Week  (Week always has the 4th in it)
Exhibitor Appreciation Week
Intimate Apparel Week
National Bargain Hunting Week
Psychic Week

Sturgis Rally

Today Is                                                                      

·        Lighthouse Day

·        Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day

·        Professional Speakers Day

·        Purple Heart Day

·        Sisters' Day

^^^

·        Cote D'Ivoire [Ivory Coast]: INdependence Day (1960 from France)

Today’s Events through History  

Apache or Navajos attack the ancient Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh. They burn the church, 

     and kill the resident missionary…1670

Battle of Crannon between Athens and Macedon following the death of Alexander 

     the Great…322BC

Heavy rain forces 20,000 people to flee their homes in Manila, Phillipines…2012

Henry (VII) Tudors army lands in Milford Harbor, South Wales…1485

Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the 

     "sheaves of wheat" design…1959

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

David Duchovny, actor (Fox Mulder-X Files) is 53

Stan Freberg, csatirist/ad executive/cartoon voice (Bertie) is 87

John Glover, actor (52 Pick-Up, Something Special) is 69

Garrison Keillor, PBS radio personality (Prairie Home Companion) is 71

Charlize Theron, South African actress (The Cider House Rules, Monster) is 38

Remembered for being born today

Ralph Bunche, founder/diplomat (UN) (Nobel 1950) [1903-1971]

John Hogan, chemist (discovered methods of producing polypropylene) [1919-2012] 

Louis Leakey, Kenya, anthropologist (1964 Richard Hooper Medal) [1903-1972]

Carl Ritter, cofounder of modern science of geography [1779-1859]

Mata Hari, [Margaretha G Zelle], dancer/courtesan/spy (WW I) [1876-1917]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Red Adair, American oil field firefighter…2004…at 89

Oliver Hardy, comedian of Laurel & Hardy…strokes…1957…at 65

Peter Jennings, Canadian-born news anchor…lung cancer…2005…at 67

Esther Phillips, US singer (What a Difference a Day Makes)…liver failure…1984…at 48

Brain Teasers

c and y

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  §