9/29/13


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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 40/ Day: 272    
Today: H 62°…L 26°…Ave. humidity:  46%
Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  11mph  
Average High: 69° Record High:  83°  (2010)
Average Low: 37° Record Low:  21°  (1900)

Quote of the Day



Today’s Historical Highlights
1st congress adjourns…1789
Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, is introduced…1966
Henry Robinson opens 1st marriage bureau (England)…1650
JFK authorized use of federal troops to integrate U of Mississippi…1962
John D Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire…1916
OJ Simpson trial sent to the jury…1995
Pope John Paul II becomes 1st pope to visit Ireland…1979
Radio used for 1st time for a presidential campaign…1936
Telephone Answering Machine created by Bell Laboratories…1950
US War Dept established a regular army…1789
Washington National Cathedral construction is completed after 83 years…1990

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



My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Nice lazy Saturday. Watched movies last night, got up at regular time, took an longer nap than usual. Now I’m ready for a nice evening.
 
Listened to an interesting discussion on NPR today. In India there is an ID that is required to get a phone, a passport, open a bank account. The government does not issue the ID’s. A private company issues them and the government says they are not mandatory. In a recent change, the company added a new choice for ‘gender’…they added T for transgender. Many in India already don’t like the ‘optional’ ID because it also lists the person’s religion. The government has access to all the information on the ID’s and many feel this will allow the government to easily locate where certain religious communities live and that could lead to discrimination. Now back to the ‘gender’ issue. Turns out that according to Indian law, only the male can inherit anything. That now means that a transgender male who chooses ‘T’ will not be able to inherit. Something that sounds so ‘progressive’ is not as cool as it sounds.
 
A little frustrated with Apple today. This week I downloaded iOS7 to my iPhone and iPad. Both took a long time. Then today the wonderful people at Apple…much like Microsoft…came out with a new update. The iPad download took about 2 minutes and everything works fine. The iPhone update took 85 minutes. The phone works fine, but really, why should it take that long? That is almost as long as the original upgrade. There is certainly used to be a difference between upgrade and update. The update was to fix something they should have dealt with before releasing the upgrade. Now every user has to put in a 4 digit code to get to the phone or pad. A step I was not happy about and one that cannot be skipped. I’ve read that it is to stop theft. I get that, I guess. But the original update allowed anyone to hit the ‘emergency’ key a couple of times and use the phone. They say that is fixed…NOW. I hope so. I don’t mind minor inconvenience for safety but really dislike any inconvenience that says it is for safety, and then it doesn’t even work for 2 days.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
In this teaser, you are to start with the word 'HALF', and then each time, change a letter to make a new word. You need to continue this process until you reach the word 'BACK'. You must do this in four (4) turns.
HALF _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
 BACK

Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias
If you have an irrational fear of... Dolls (or infants)
You're suffering from... Pedophobia Greek παιδί paidí "child" 
If you have an irrational fear of... Double vision
You're suffering from... Diplopiaphobia Gk, diploos + opsis, vision
Interesting Disney



Harper’s Index    
  • Number of terrorist attacks made against diplomatic targets worldwide since 1970: 2,865
  • Number of those attacks made against American targets: 520

Unusual Fact of the Day
Several states took extreme measures to turn consumers away from margarine; they required the product to be dyed pink.

Joke-of-the-day
Apple Inc. has developed a new high tech toilet. The details are not yet clear, but the company is torn between two names for the new device: Either the iPood, or the iPeed.
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
FINDING YOUR COLLAPSE POINT
Your collapse point is about three times the average distance you swim, cycle, or run each day. For example, if you run an average of three miles a day, you should be able to run nine miles without stopping.   
Yeah, It Really Happened
NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina may be linked to a brain-eating organism in the waters in St. Bernard Parish, La., that has caused two deaths in three years, officials said. While stressing the link to Katrina remains "speculative," Jake Causey, who oversees safe drinking water for Louisiana, said the population accessing St. Bernard's water supply was reduced after Katrina, which could have resulted in a degradation of the water supply, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Wednesday. "Certainly immediately post-Katrina, the St. Bernard population was greatly reduced, and to have a water system designed to provide water to that many people and then you lose half of them, part of the concern would be, just from a water quality perspective, that the water would just be sitting in the pipes, aging, and you could have a deterioration of the water quality," Causey said. Causey emphasized any discussion about a Katrina link was "speculative and would need to be proven." Chlorine kills the brain-eating amoeba found recently in the parish water system, officials said. In four areas where the Centers for Disease Control recently found the amoeba, no detectable traces of chloramine the parish uses to disinfect the water were found. Nearly 80 percent of St. Bernard's housing units sustained damage from storm surge and levee breaches, resulting in its population plummeting by 47 percent from its 2000 U.S. Census figure of 67,229. About 65,000 homes or businesses were using the water before Katrina. The number now is about 44,000, Causey told The Times-Picayune. Michael Beach, the head of the CDC's waterborne disease prevention division, Friday told the newspaper the entry of the amoeba into St. Bernard's water system would never be known "for sure," but the organism often enters through breaks in a water system's pipes. Last week, St. Bernard became the first U.S local government to have its treated water system test positive for a rare brain-eating amoeba. Earlier in September, state health officials confirmed a 4-year-old Mississippi child visiting St. Bernard in July died from the brain-eating amoeba after contaminated water traveled up his nose. In 2011, a St. Bernard man died from primary amebic meningoencephalitis after using tap water in a device used to rinse the nasal passages and sinuses, The Times-Picayune reported. The infection is caused by the amoeba entering the nose, then traveling to the brain, where it destroys brain tissue, health officials said. People cannot contract the infection by drinking contaminated water because stomach acid kills the amoeba.
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Jupiter’s giant red spot is like a tornado and it is 3 times bigger than the earth.
  • The largest crater on the moon measures 183 miles across.
  • Astronomers know Mars is a backwards planet. Once a year, for several days, it appears to move backwards in its orbit. This is actually an optical illusion when the faster orbit of Earth races past Mars.
  • The farthest you can see with the naked eye is 2.4 million light years away! (140,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) That’s the distance to the giant Andromeda Galaxy. You can see it easily as a dim, large gray “cloud” almost directly overhead in a clear night sky.


Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
22nd-29th
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                                                                      
·        Gold Star Mother's Day
·        MAGS Day Subscribe to your favorite
·        National Attend Your Grandchild's Birth Day
·        National Coffee Day
·        VFW Day
·        Poisoned Blackberries Day: the day the devil poisoned all of the blackberries in Scotland cursing us all to bad berries forever

Today’s Events through History  
"Make Room for Daddy," starring Danny Thomas, premieres on ABC-TV…1953
“Milton Berle Show” premieres…1953
"Masquerade Party," TV game Show; moves to ABC…1954
"Sergeant Preston," debuts on CBS…1955
"Oh! Susanna," debuts on CBS-TV…1956
"Johnny Ringo," TV Western Drama; last airs on CBS-TV…1960
"My Three Sons" starring Fred MacMurray, debuts on ABC-TV…1960
"Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Show," debuts on ABC-TV…1962
"Judy Garland Show," debuts on CBS-TV…1963
"My Favorite Martian," starring Ray Walston, debuts on CBS-TV…1963
"Love American Style," premieres on ABC-TV…1969
"McMillan & Wife," debuts on NBC-TV…1971
"Alice," debuts on CBS-TV…1976
"Cheers" debuts on NBC-TV…1982
"MacGyver," starring Richard Dean Anderson, debuts on ABC-TV…1985
"Airwolf," TV Adventure; moves to USA…1986
"Designing Women," TV Comedy, debuts on CBS…1986
"thirtysomething," debuts on ABC-TV…1987
"Grace Under Fire," starring Brett Butler debuts on ABC-TV…1993
~~~~~
"Green Onions" by Booker T & MG's peaks at #3…1962
1st monument honoring Spanish American War erected (Monroeville Ohio)…1904
Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, The Dow 
     Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in 
     its history…2008
Lowell Thomas made debuts on CBS Radio…1930
Zebulon Pike holds a grand council with the Pawnee…1806

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Anita Ekberg, actress (La Dolce Vita)/Miss Sweden (1950) is 82
Ian McShane, Blackburn England, actor (Roots, Bare Essence) is 71
Jerry Lee Lewis, country singer (Whole Lotta Shakin') is 78
Mike Post, composer (Rockford Files, Hill St Blues, Magnum PI) is 69
Sebastian Coe, British 1500m runner (Olympic-gold-1980, 84) is 57
Andrew "Dice" Clay, [Silverstien], comedian (Adv of Ford Fairlane) is 56

Remembered for being born today
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish author (Don Quixote)[1547-1616]
Robert Clive, English explorer/founder (British empire in India) [1775-1774]
Horatio Nelson, Burnham Thorpe Britain, naval hero (Trafalgar)[1758-1805]
Enrico Fermi, Rome, US physicist, (Nobel-1938) [1901-1954]
Trevor Howard, England, actor (Mutiny on Bounty, Ryan's Daughter) [1913-1988]
Greer Garson, North Ireland, actress (Pride & Prejudice, Chips) [1906-1994]
Gene Autry, cowpoke/singer/actor/owner (California Angels) [1907-1998]
Madeline Kahn, actress (Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety) [1942-1999]
Larry Linville, actor (Frank Burns-M*A*S*H, Blue Movie) [1939-2000]
Steve Forrest, actor (Ben-Dallas, SWAT) [1925-2013]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Tony Curtis, Actor [Some Like It Hot]…2010…@85
Casey Stengel, NY Yankee manager (1949-60)…1975…@85
Charles Addams, cartoonist (Addams Family)…heart attack…1988…@76
Winslow Homer, painter (Prout's Neck)…1910…@74

Brain Teasers
HALF HALE BALE BALK BACK
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  §
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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.