10/3/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 40/ Day: 276   

Today: H 66°…L 34°…Ave. humidity: 48%

Wind: ave:   11mph; Gusts:  29mph  

Average High: 68° Record High:  83° (1980)

Average Low: 36° Record Low:  21° (1902)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st black lead (Ethel Waters) on TV (Beulah)…1950

1st telescope lens 200" (508 cm) in diameter completed…1947

1st video recording on magnetic tape, LA, Ca…1952

Billie Jean King became 1st female athlete to win $100,000…1971

Bloomingdale's department store in NY opens…1872

East & West Germany merge to become Germany…1990

Edgar Allan Poe found delirious; last time he is seen in public…1849

English & Dutch army occupies Limerick Ireland…1691

Gary Larson, announces he is retiring from doing "Far Side" cartoon…1994

OJ Simpson found not guilty in murder of Nicole Simpson & Ron Goldman…1995

Pele retires as soccer player…1974

Roy Horn(Siegfried & Roy) attacked by tiger, canceling the show for good…2003

Sinead O'Connor rips up a picture of Pope on SNL…1992

US forms parachute troops…1940

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Another great day here in Flagstaff. Warm, not to breezy, clear blue sky…couldn’t ask for more.

 

All the little children keep playing their games in DC and not a teacher or principal anywhere to be found. ‘WE want this to end, but THEY are stopping it.’ I was thankful today that other countries are not as infantile as our current congress. On my travels, we always visited many National Parks, where the government of the country protected the natural beauty of the area. Many foreign tourists save up for the ‘trip of a lifetime’ to come to see America. Some come to see DC and all its government sites others come to see our natural beauty. As this silly shutdown continues, many tourists are not able to see our great country. Many Americans are also touring the USA right now and they are being denied access to our beauty and government sites. All will return home with horror stories of how the US government treated them during their visit. Tourism is important to every state in the US. When foreigners return and tell their friends that all they wanted to see was closed, future tourism is going to suffer greatly and that will have a very bad turn for our economy. We here in AZ are seeing daily stories of many tourists being turned away for our numerous National Monuments and Parks. One story had a news release to all those staying inside the Grand Canyon. They were given a list of alternate hotels around the state and were given 49 hours to vacate the park. So disturbing.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

There are 4 clues below. Each clue is related to a type of candy. You have to try to figure out what each candy is. Good luck!

1. The average worker loves this day. 2. When actors or actresses get a little break. 3. Think of the 4th planet from the sun. 4. Also referred to as 'geeks'.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Woody Guthrie-This Land Is Your Land

• Gore Vidal Interview

• Author Profile: James Herriot

• THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 1960's INTRO

• Captain Kangaroo Theme

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... England (or the English)
You're suffering from... Anglophobia

If you have an irrational fear of... Everything
You're suffering from... Pantophobia Greek: pantos 'all'

Interesting Disney

Harper’s Index    

• Factor by which the average white US family was wealthier that the average non-white US family before the recession: 4

• Factor in 2013: 6

Unusual Fact of the Day

While Cape Horn certainly resembles a horn, that's not where its name originated. It was named after Hoorn, the hometown of Dutch navigator Willem Schouten.

Joke-of-the-day

We live in a society today where pizza delivery comes to your house before the police

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

WRITING SOMETHING IMPORTANT

If you feel that you need a thesaurus to write something, you are probably trying too hard.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

STANFORD, Calif. - Global warming may impact weather, possibly causing more severe thunderstorms, which could mean billions of dollars in damages, a U.S. researcher said. To examine how global warming could impact atmospheric conditions, researchers led by Stanford University's Noah Diffenbaugh used a complex array of physics-based climate models. Last year, 11 weather disasters in the United State topped the billion-dollar threshold in economic losses, Science World Report reported Tuesday. The researchers identified two main ingredients to generate a thunderstorm. First, the atmosphere must contain a significant amount of what scientists call convective available potential energy, or CAPE, created as the air in the low atmosphere warms. Second, CAPE must interact with strong vertical wind shear, basically a moving wind current that organizes atmospheric energy and moisture so a storm can be sustained. The new model indicates an overall decrease in the amount of wind shear, yet most of that decrease occurs on days producing levels of CAPE much lower than normally seen during severe storms, researchers said. The net effect is that the increases in CAPE on other days pushes increases in the occurrence of severe thunderstorm environments. Researchers found the biggest changes with global warming occurred during spring, Science World Report said. At that time, the United States would experience about 2 1/2 additional storm days by the late 21st century, the modeling indicated. "We're seeing that global warming produces more days with high CAPE and sufficient shear to form severe thunderstorms," said Diffenbaugh, with Stanford's School of Earth Sciences. The researchers also discovered that sustained warming likely would cause strong increases in storm days over a large portion of the eastern United States in fall and winter as well. The summer season showed increases over the region as a whole. "The severe thunderstorms we experience now can result in very high economic losses," said Diffenbaugh. "Sadly, we have many examples of cases where a single storm has had disastrous impact. So a 25- to 30 percent increase in the annual occurrence represents a substantial increase in the overall risk."

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Modern-day (legal) tattoos are applied with a needle, tube of ink, electric motor and foot pedal. Ancient methods involved chisels, rakes and picks or soot-covered thread.

• Several U.S. presidents are rumored to have had tattoos, including Franklin Pierce and Dwight Eisenhower. Theodore Roosevelt, however, is confirmed to have had a family crest inked into his chest.

• "Tattoo" derives from the Polynesian term "ta" meaning to strike. Joseph Banks (1742-1821) brought the word Tattoo to Europe. It quickly replaced other ways to describe a tattoo such as "pric" or "marks".

• Throughout history, the government has inspired the use of tattoos. In 1936, after the introduction of social security cards, Americans tattooed their numbers on their arms. In 1955, the assistant secretary of defense recommended U.S. citizens to tattoo their blood type on their arms in case of war.

• In order to achieve a tattoo, the second layer of skin (dermis) must be pierced 50 to 3,000 times a minute by a tattoo machine. Consequently, the cells in the dermis are more stable and less likely to change throughout a person's life. 

• The first tattooing machine (the precursor to today's tattoo gun) was patented by Samuel F. O'Reilley in 1891. It was actually just a modification of an invention designed for autographic printing, first patented by Thomas Edison 15 years earlier.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

1-7

Universal Children's Week
World Dairy Expo
3-10

No Salt Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Child Health Day

·        UN World Habitat Day

~~~~

·        Korea: National Foundation Day founded 2333 BC

Today’s Events through History  

"Father Knows Best" premieres…1954

"Captain Kangaroo" premieres on CBS-TV…1955

"Mickey Mouse Club" premieres…1955

"Dick Van Dyke Show" premieres…1961

"Mr Ed" premieres…1961

~~~~

Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes 1st executed 

     by being hanged, drawn and quartered…1283

Dodgers set major league-record season attendance of 2,755,184…1962

J S Thurman patents motor-driven vacuum cleaner…1899

Lincoln designates last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day…1863

Washington proclaims 1st national Thanksgiving Day on Nov 26…1789

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Chubby Checker [Ernest Evans], songwriter (The Twist, Limbo Rock) is 72

Roy Horn, Las Vegas entertainer (Siegfried & Roy) id 69

Al Sharpton [Alfred Charles], minister and civil rights activist (Keepin' It Real) is 57

Tommy Lee, musician (Mötley Crüe) is 51

Clive Owen, British ITV actor is 49

Gwen Stefani, singer (No Doubt) is 44

Ashlee Simpson, singer/songwriter is 29

Remembered for being born today

John Gorrie, inventor (cold-air process of refrigeration) [1803-1855]

John Ross, Chief of the Cherokee Nation [1790-1866]

Patrick Manson, "Father of tropical medicine" [1844-1922]

James Herriot [Alfred Wight], veterinarian/novelist (All Creatures Great and Small) [1916-1995]

Gore Vidal, author (Myra Breckinridge, Lincoln) [1925-2012]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Queen Fatima, former Libyan queen…2009…@98

Roddy McDowall, actor (Planet of the Apes)…cancer…1998…@78

Myles Standish, Plymouth Colony leader…1656…@72

Janet Leigh, actress (Psycho)…vasculitis…2004…@77

Black Hawk (chief), Leader of the Sauk Native American tribe…1838…@71ish

Woody Guthrie, Folk singer…Huntington's…1967…@55

Elias Howe, American sewing machine pioneer…1867…@48

Saint Francis of Assisi…infection…1226…at 44ish

Dafydd ap Gruffyd, last monarch of Gwynnedd (North-Wales)…hanged…1283…@43

Robert Barclay, Scottish writer/Quaker…1690…@41

Brain Teasers

1. Pay Day 2. Take 5 3. Mars Bar 4. Nerds

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  §