9/23/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 39/ Day: 266   

Today: H 62°…L 48°…Ave. humidity:  65%

Wind: ave:   18mph; Gusts:  45mph  

Average High: 71° Record High: 83° (1949)

Average Low: 40° Record Low: 20д (1912)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

"Fiddler on the Roof" with Zero Mostel premieres in NYC…1964

ABC's 1st color TV series-Jetsons…1962

1st frontier days rodeo celebration (Cheyenne Wyoming)…1897

Auschwitz begins experimental gassing executions…1942

Cherokee Nation's Supreme Court is established…1839

Congress selects the rose as US national flower…1986

Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass, 1st commencement…1642

Iran blocks the use of Google as a search engine…2012

Johann Gottfried Galle & Heinrich d'Arrest find Neptune…1846

Mark Sennet presents 1st Keystone Cops film (Cohen Collects a Debt)…1912

Richard Rhodes invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone…1879

University of Alberta opens…1908

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A whole lot cooler today and big wind—gusts to 45mph. No reading the Sunday paper on the deck, that’s for sure. A good way to start the fall season, I guess.

 

Our discussion group had a great set of presentations on Energy…nuclear—the good, the bad, and the ugly; solar—the good and the downside; transportation of oil/gas to our homes and gas pumps—the good and the bad; and the vulnerability of the electrical grid as everything is going digital. The best comment of the night…’when talking about energy, there is no such thing as a free lunch’. No matter what energy is used, there are up sides and down sides. It is a difficult choice when looking at they everything energy related. Porpane gas has gotten way cheaper in the past few years, but that is because of fracking. CFL bulbs have produced better light, but contain mercury. Electric or hybrid cars are not adding to the dollars to repair roads through the gas tax, but are using the roads.  Then we talked about what the 3^rd world is/should be doing with their energy needs. Warning the non-industrial nations of the dangers of industrialization really falls on deaf ears, since the industrial nations became so powerful because of industrialization and are not offering new countries better environmental solutions to their energy needs. We didn’t come up with a lot of answers, but sure learned a great deal.

 

On one of my trips to Africa, we landed in Nairobi, Kenya. We were headed for game drives so were picked up at the airport in safari vehicles and headed out. Nairobi is a large city with a lot of poverty. We didn’t spend any time there, but I’m sure we drove past the now infamous mall. The Kenyan people we met on our trip were friendly, courteous, and our Kenyan driver was hilarious. He was so proud of his country, I’ll always remember asking him after hearing about the many countries he had been a driver, why he returned to Kenya. His answer: Kenya is my home. He and his family live in Nairobi. I sure hope his family is OK.  Kenya is such a beautiful country and actually very rural. This horrific terrorist incident is going to affect so many people and I’m sure the tourist industry. So Sad.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Against your royalty I attack, Going black to white and white to black And one by two or two by one, Until I'm caught or the war is done.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• WML 1959 Charley Weaver

• Chief Dan George Centennial Speech

• Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A.

• Paul Petersen Sings, "My Dad"

• Andy Hardy - Drugstore Scene

• Chi McBride Interview

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... Decisions, making
You're suffering from... Decidophobia: Latin-decido-to decide

If you have an irrational fear of... Defecation (painful)
You're suffering from... Defecalgesiophobia: Latin: de-from, fec-excrement

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

It is easily accessible for you or your children to be educated from kindergarten through post-grad at institutions of your faith.

Interesting Disney

Harper’s Index    

• Amount the Chinese government has budgeted for national defense this year: $117,000,000

• For domestic security: $125,000,000

Unusual Fact of the Day

Only two people remain who are fluent in Ayapaneco(Tobasco, Mexico)—but they refuse to talk to each other.

Joke-of-the-day

A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a shotgun and fires a shot, barely missing the man's head. The man gets up, says thank you, and leaves a tip.

Why the tip and thank you; “because the man had the hiccups.”

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

HEATING A GARAGE OR WORKSHOP

Heaters are rated by BTU, which stands for British Thermal Unit (the amount of heat needed to heat one pound of water by 1 degree F). To find out how many BTU you need: Calculate the volume of the space to be heated by multiplying square footage by height then multiply that number by 4 if your insulation is poor, 3 if it's average or 2 if it's good. The resulting number is a ballpark figure for how many BTU you'll need.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

HOLIDAY, Fla. - A Florida man was arrested after allegedly trying to perform an exorcism on his 80-year-old girlfriend, police said. The alleged exorcism started Monday when David Edward Benes, 54, of Holiday, and his girlfriend of three years, whose name was not reported, got into an argument, the Orlando (Fla.) Times reported. A Pasco Sheriff's report states that at some point during the argument, Benes grabbed the 80-year-old woman, held her down, and said he was going to "exorcise her and get the devil out of her." When authorities arrived at the scene, Benes' girlfriend was found sitting outside the couple's home, crying. Benes was inside the home, intoxicated, and did not remember what had just happened, the sheriff's report said. Benes was arrested Tuesday and charged with domestic battery on a person 65 or older, tampering with a witness and false imprisonment.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The Hubble Telescope has photographed pictures of auroras on Jupiter and Saturn very much like those at our North and South Poles. But if we had auroras as big as these, they would cover the entire Earth and more.

• If you were to place the planet Saturn in a big enough bowl of water, it would float!

• After a blistering day of exploring, astronauts may relax with a nice cold glass of ice water from Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. Since there is no atmosphere there to spread the heat around, shadows in deep craters at the poles could hold ice deposited by early comet collisions.

• Where do comets come from? There is a huge cloud of objects made of ice and rock encircling our solar system, called the Oort Cloud. It lies beyond Pluto and extends half way out to the next star. These objects occasionally bump into each other, sending one in towards the sun to become a comet like the recent Hale-Bopp comet.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

17th-23^rd

Constitution 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                                                                      

·        Celebrate Bi-sexuality Day

·        Checkers Day/Dogs In Politics Day [1952: Nixon]

·        Hug a Vegetarian Day

·        Innergize Day to make some time for ourselves

·        Love Note Day

·        Restless Legs Awareness Day

~~~~

·        Saudi Arabia: Kingdom Unification (1932)

Today’s Events through History  

"That'll Be Day" by Buddy Holly & Crickets reaches #1…1957

1st broadcast of "Marcus Welby MD" on ABC-TV…1969   

Cheryl Ladd replaces Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels…1977

Hernán Cortés and his army arrive at the gates to the Mexican city of Tlascala…1519

Lewis & Clark return to St Louis from Pacific Northwest…1806

Nintendo Koppai (Nintendo) founded to produce and market the playing card 

     game Hanafuda…1889

South Africa decides to allow multi-racial teams to represent them…1976

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Mickey Rooney, actor is 93

Julio Iglesias, Spain, singer (Of All the Girls I Loved Before) is 70

Paul Petersen, actor (Jeff Stone-Donna Reed Show) is 68

Mary Kay Place, actress/country singer (Mary Hartman!) is 66

Bruce Springsteen, rock musician (Born in the USA) is 64

Dwight Yoakam, singer/songwriter is 57

Jason Alexander, [Greenspan], actor (George-Seinfeld) is 54

Chi McBride, actor is 52

Remembered for being born today

William H McGuffey, educator (McGuffey Readers) [1800-1873]

William Archer, Scotland, writer (Green Goddess) [1856-1924]

John Lomax, folk song collector/ethnomusicologist [1867-1948]

Walter Lippmann, journalist/political writer [1889-1974]

Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (Mrs Miniver, Madame Curie) [1897-1984]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and creator of psychoanalysis…1939…@83

Chief Dan George (Geswanouth Slahoot), Canadian Native actor (Little Big Man)…1981…@82

John Wesley Powell, US geologist (Grand Canyon)…stroke…1902…@68

Cliff Arquette, comedian (Charlie Weaver)…stroke…1974…@68

Brain Teasers

A knight on a chessboard.

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  §