9-25-13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 39/ Day: 268   

Today: H 72°…L 39°…Ave. humidity:  45%

Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  8mph  

Average High: 70° Record High: 85° (1947)

Average Low: 39°  Record Low: 25° (1918)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

12th amendment to US constitution, regulating judicial power…1804

1st British bus service opens…1897

1st nuclear powered aircraft carrier (Enterprise) launched (US) …1960

1st printing press in America…1639

1st state poorhouse opens in Smyrna, Georgia…1933

300 US Army troops guard 9 black kids return to Central HS in Ark…1957

5 Iroquois Nations send the Governor of New York, stating the Tuscaroras joined 

     the Iroquois Confederacy…1714

American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen captured…1775

Benedict Arnold joins the British…1780

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded…1912

Congress establishes Yosemite National Park (California) …1890

Last of the Magdalen Asylums closes in Ireland…1996

President Woodrow Wilson is paralyzed by a stroke…1919

Saddam Hussein warns that US will repeat Vietnam experience…1990

Sandra Day O'Connor sworn in as 1st female Supreme Court justice…1981

US Congress proposes Bill of Rights (10 of 12 will ratify) …1789

Vasco Nunez de Balboa is first European to see Pacific Ocean…1513

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Cool nights/mornings must be here to stay. The sun continues to warm us up quickly, as long as there isn’t too much wind. Nice day again. Not a cloud in the sky.

 

Cheryl is heading for CA tomorrow to see her son and his family, so we had our weekly lunch today. Mary got to meet with her brother who was passing though Phoenix last weekend. We stopped at Olive Garden for a great soup and salad. Great conversation. When I got home, my new neighbors were just leaving their house. I have seen a Native family with three generations…not unusual by any means. One of the daughters saw me and came over and asked if I had worked at Tonalea. Turns out she was one of the students when I was there. She is now working at a local retirement home and also doing homecare for some elders. She is happy, enjoying her life. Nice to see successful former students. Small world too.

 

So Obama and Iran’s President both spoke at the opening of the UN. Yet they didn’t meet or talk to each other or even shake hands. They both have their own agenda and reconciliation doesn’t seem to be on either’s agenda. Welcome to Kindergarten. Both sides have dug in, and neither will see the other’s side. I keep remembering that Iran wants nuclear energy so badly that the international symbol for nuclear energy is on all their paper money. Maybe next time.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

I have no mind or a soul.  I've been eternally attached since man's dawn.  My kind disappear on and off,  to everyone I accompany them to their death,  and buried with them, then I hide away when the casket shuts.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• William Faulkner - Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

• Shel Silverstein - "Boa Constrictor, Sarah Cynthia & Unicorn"

• Andy Williams,Born free

• Béla Bartók Rumanian folk Dances

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... Depth
You're suffering from... Bathophobia: Greek "bathos", meaning "depth"

If you have an irrational fear of... Dining (or dinner conversation)
You're suffering from... Deipnophobia: Greek “deipno” meaning dining or dinner

Privileges granted to people in the U.S. (and many western nations) for being Christian…

In the event of a divorce, the judge won’t immediately grant custody of your children to your ex because of your faith.

Interesting Disney

Harper’s Index    

Percentage of criminal suspects asked to waive their Maranda rights and speak to police who do so: 84

Unusual Fact of the Day

Crickets' ears are located on their front legs, a little below their knees.

Joke-of-the-day

At a seminar on American Social Justice, a Civil Rights leader opined, "Anti-Americans are killing the better Americans - the likes of Osama-bin-Laden, Bernie Madoff, John Gotti, to name a few - surprising and confusing most Americans."

He further pointed out, "More surprising is the fact that Mob Wives are popular celebrities today."

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

MAKE MEETINGS PRODUCTIVE

When attending a meeting, walk in with one thing in mind - what is your primary objective? Knowing what you want to get out of the meeting will help you keep discussion on-track and eliminate digression.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

MONTREAL - A change in dinosaurs' limbs in relation to their bodies eventually led to the development of wings and their evolution into birds, Canadian researchers say. Birds originated from a group of small dinosaurs called maniraptorans about 150 million years ago, and recent findings show many maniraptorans were already very bird-like, with feathers, hollow bones, small body sizes and high metabolic rates, researchers at McGill University in Montreal said. But true birds began to evolve when both the forelimbs and hind limbs underwent a dramatic decoupling from body size, they said, allowing early birds to accomplish flight. Forelimbs lengthened and served as airfoils, while hind legs shrank, reducing drag in flight -- the reason modern birds tuck their legs as they fly -- and aiding perching and moving around on tree branches, they said. A combination of better wings and more compact legs would have been critical for the survival of birds in a time when another group of flying reptiles, the pterosaurs, dominated the skies and competed for food, the researchers said. "Our findings suggest that birds underwent an abrupt change in their developmental mechanisms, such that their forelimbs and hind limbs became subject to different length controls," Hans Larsson, a McGill macroevolutionist, said. Deviations from the rules of how an animal's limbs normally scale with changes in body size usually indicate some major shift in function or behavior, the researchers said. "The origin of birds and powered flight is a classic major evolutionary transition," said Alexander Dececchi, who participated in the study as a McGill graduate student and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Dakota. "Our findings suggest that the limb lengths of birds had to be dissociated from general body size before they could radiate so successfully. "It may be that this fact is what allowed them to become more than just another lineage of maniraptorans and led them to expand to the wide range of limb shapes and sizes present in today's birds."  

Somewhat Useless Information   

•  
Someday you may go ice fishing on Jupiters moon, Europa. Evidence is being constantly discovered that there is an ocean under the ice of Europa. The ice would keep the ocean from evaporating and huge tides caused by Jupiter would keep the ocean temperature above freezing. What kinds of life might there be in such a strange ocean?

• A giant game of cosmic pool was played when the solar system was first formed billions of years ago. Neptune was hit by an asteroid so big it was knocked sideways on its axis. It orbits with one pole pointed at the sun. Venus was hit so hard it is almost upside down and is the only planet to spin backwards on its axis. And most astronomers believe the Moon was formed when an asteroid almost the size of Mars hit Earth and shot debris into orbit. I wonder who won the game and when is the next tournament?

• When you think you’re standing still remember this fact. Even though you don’t feel it, our entire local group of galaxies is moving at about one million miles per hour toward another galaxy group called the Virgo Cluster.

• Scientist believe that diamond rains occur on Neptune and Uranus. The heart of these planets may be a layer of diamonds hundreds of miles thick.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

22nd-29^th

Banned Books Week
Deaf Awareness Week
International Women's E-Commerce Days

National Dog Week
National Keep Kids Creative Week

Remember to Register to Vote Week
Sea Otter Awareness Week
Tolkien Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        A Day to Eat Dinner With Your Kids

·        (World) Ataxia Awareness Day: neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements.

·        Family Day

·        Gold Star Mother's Day: after World War I to provide support for mothers who lost sons or daughters in the war

·        Math Story Telling Day

·        National One-Hit Wonder Day

·        National Comic Book Day

·        National Women's Health & Fitness Day

~~~~

·        Rwanda: Republic Day (1961 end of monarchy)

Today’s Events through History  

Antonin Scalia appointed to Supreme Court…1986

Henry Ford announces 8 hour, 5-day work week…1926

Leonardo Torres Quevedo before a great crowd, successfully demonstrates the 

     invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, 

     in what is considered the birth of the Remote control…1906

Lou Gehrig plays in his 1,500th consecutive game…1934

Publick Occurrences, first newspaper in the American colonies (Boston) …1690

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Barbara Walters, newscaster (Today, 20/20, ABC-TV) is 84

Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense is 70

Robert Walden, actor (Joe Rossi-Lou Grant, New Doctors) is 70

Michael Douglas, actor (Coma, Wall St, Jewel of the Nile) is 67

Mark Hamill, actor (Luke Skywalker-Star Wars) is 62

Heather Locklear, actress (Stacy-T J Hooker, Sammy Jo-Dynasty) is 52

Scottie Pippen, American NBA forward (Bulls, Oly-2 gold-92, 96) is 48

Will Smith [The Fresh Prince], actor/rapper (Men in Black, Independence Day) is 45

Catherine Zeta Jones, Wales, actress (Christopher Columbus) is 44

Remembered for being born today

Charles Robert Maturin, Irish playwright and novelist [1782-1824]

Ethel Rosenberg, American Communist/spy [1915-1953]

William Faulkner, author (Sound & Fury-Nobel 1949) [1897-1962]

Lope K. Santos, Father of the Philippine National Language and Grammar [1879-1963]

Aldo Ray, actor (God's Little Acre, Green Beret) [1926-1991]

Juliet Prowse, Bombay India, actress/dancer (Who Killed Teddy Bear) [1936-1996]

Shel Silverstein, humorist and author [1930- 1999]

Christopher Reeve, actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time) [1952-2004]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Walter Pidgeon, actor (Forbidden Planet, Mrs Miniver)…1984…@87

Emily Post, etiquette expert…1960…@86

Andy Williams, singer…2012…@84

Don Adams, actor and comedian…2005…@82

Mary Astor, actress (Cynthia, Meet Me in St Louis, Fiesta)…1987…@81

Klaus Barbie, Gestapo chief of Lyon…cancer…1991…@77

Bela Bartok, composer…leukemia…1945…@64

Brain Teasers

A shadow

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  §