10/29/13


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Flagstaff Almanac:
High Wind Advisory
Week: 44/ Day: 302   
Today: L 39°…H 53°… Ave. humidity: 52%
Wind: ave:   20mph; Gusts:  48mph  
Average Low: 27° Record Low:  9° (1971)
Average High: 58° Record High:  72° ()

Quote of the Day


Today’s Historical Highlights
"Hair," premieres in NYC…1967
1st ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it is patented…1945
1st trial for witchcraft in Paris…1390
Boris Pasternak refuses Nobel prize for literature…1958
Chet Huntley & David Brinkley, NBC News, team up…1956
Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey…2012
Intl Comm of Red Cross forms (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963)…1863
IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit) subway (NYC) opens…1904
Law bans discrimination of sex or marital status in credit application…1974
Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood…1792
National Museum of American Indian opens (NYC)…1994
National Organization of Women founded…1966
Penguin and Random House merge to form the world's largest publisher…2012
Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England….1618
Star of India & other jewels are stolen in NY…1964
United Rep of Tanganyika & Zanzibar renamed United Rep of Tanzania…1964

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
The weather guy said to expect high winds today…and he was right on. I swept my sidewalk this morning to get rid of quite a few dried pine needles. By 3p this afternoon, I had to do it again, as the front walkway looked like no one had lived here for years. My spruce and my bush have long dead pine needles everywhere. This has not been a day to be outside. So I spent the late morning, early afternoon doing laundry. Now the weatherman says we will have snow flurries blowing in, but will be gone for Halloween. Heard that before.
 
Not ready for Prime time. This whole Obamacare thing is getting pretty scary. I got an email newsletter from a group that keeps me informed of changes in Federal employees jobs, benefits, etc. It also includes information for retirees. There are early rumblings in DC that our health insurance plan may become part of the Affordable Care Act. Part of it is the Tea Party people bitching about our ‘special’ circumstances and part is that it will give a much needed boost to the number of people enrolled in the ACA. I start getting Medicare in February of 2014, so whatever happens, it will be my secondary plan. I really don’t want to see a change, but stranger things have happened. I moved from CO Blue Cross to Federal Blue Cross when I started my career back in 1971. Never changed. It has been good for me, I think. I was not sick very often but when I had a major problem, it always paid most of those big bills. No need to get all worried, just yet, as whatever happens will happen. One thing I do know, we don’t get ‘free’ health care and our premiums have been rising just like everyone else. While our employer is paying a large amount of the insurance, we had to give up a whole lot by not being in the private sector and health insurance was one of the perks for giving up so very much.
So our great government spies on just about anybody they want to, whenever they want to, whether friends or enemies, whether private citizens or public officials, whether while working in their jobs or at home with family. Snowden opened this Pandora’s box and now we all have to face up to it, admit it, and find a way to explain why we are doing it. And may be there needs to be a Snowden in other countries to leak who they are spying on. Sure would be interesting to hear that some of our allies are spying on us without the NSA’s knowledge. It is a two way street.
I am being come concerned that our President knows so little about what is happening. He didn’t know that his premier accomplishment, ACA, was not ready for launch and now that his NSA was spying on our allied leader’s private cell phones. He either needs to have some heads roll or fess up that he knew what was going on. He seems to have placed his faith in some very incompetent people.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
There are 10 lit candles on a table. A strong breeze comes and extinguishes 2 of the candles. When you come back later, you see that 1 more has been blown out. To make sure no more flames go out, you shut the window. Assuming the wind doesn't extinguish any more candles and you don't relight the extinguished candles, how many candles do you have left in the end?
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias
If you have an irrational fear of... Horses
You're suffering from... Hippophobia Greek hippos 'horse'
If you have an irrational fear of... Hospitals
You're suffering from... Nosocomephobia Greek νοσοκομεῖον (nosokomeion) "hospital" 
OK Then…
 

Harper’s Index 
  • Minimum number of mosques the NYPD has targeted in a clandestine surveillance program: 288
  • Number of terrorism leads the program has generated in six years: 0

Unusual Fact of the Day
Calvin Coolidge's Vice President, Charles Gates Dawes, was also a songwriter. In 1951, a tune he’d composed called “Melody in A Major” became a number one pop hit.

Joke-of-the-day
Did you here about the guy who lost his whole left side? He's alright now!
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
MAKING BEAR GREASE
One black bear yields 12 gallons of bear grease.   
Yeah, It Really Happened

Somewhat Useless Information   
  •  
    • Did you know that the way we use the Celsius’s temperature scale today is not exactly the way that Anders Celsius introduced? It has been know that when Anders Celsius invented the temperature scale, he put 100 degrees as the point for freezing and 0 degrees as the point for boiling. After his death in 1744, another scientist, Carl Linnaeus, changed the scale to the way we read it today.
  • Feng Xiaogang, China’ s great director, gave a speech in the ‘Director of the Year” ceremony and  the word “censorship” was bleeped, as he was trying to refer to China’s censors. The entire sentence was “In the past 20 years, every China director faced a great torment…and that torment is [bleep]“. China’s media and internet world is separate from the rest of the world and Chinese do not have access to all the websites, the western societies have.
  • After the sinking of Titanic, Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese survivor of the Titanic shipwreck, faced a difficult situation when he returned to his country. The Japanese public, as well as Press and government, ostracized him for saving himself and not going down with the ship!


Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
24-11/11
World Origami Days
25-31
International Magic Week
Give Wildlife a Brake! Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        Internet Day 1st electronic message 1969
·        National Cat Day
·        National Forgiveness Day
·        World Psoriasis Day
~~~~
·        Turkey: Republic Day (1923)

Today’s Events through History  
Colonel Nasser disbands Moslem Brothership…1954
Ho Chi Minh City ITC Inferno-fire destroys a luxurious department store with 
     1500 shoppers...2002
International day of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who declared the first charter 
     of human rights in the world also known as Cyrus Cylinder…529BC
Opera "Don Giovanni" is produced (Prague)…1787
Settlers in Portsmouth, NH advise belligerent Indians that "Queen Anne's War" is over…1712
Supreme Court orders end to all school desegregation "at once"…1969
William Penn lands at what is now Chester Pennsylvania…1682

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Melba Moore, [Beatrice], NYC, singer/actress (Ellis Island) is 68
Richard Dreyfuss, Brooklyn, actor (Jaws, Nuts, Mr Holland's Opus) is 66
Kate Jackson, actress (Rookies, Charlie's Angels) is 65
Winona Ryder, [Horowitz], actress (Heathers, Edward Scissorhand) is 42

Remembered for being born today
[Paul] Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Reich Minister of Information and Propaganda [1897-1945]
Fanny Brice, singing comedienne (Ziegeld Follies, Baby Snooks) [1891-1951]
William Henry Mauldin, NM, political cartoonist (Pulitzer-1945, 59) [1921-2003]
Dominick Dunne, author [ 1925-2009]
Johnny Lewis, actor (Sons of Anarchy) [1983-2012]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Woody Herman, bandleader/composer (Thundering Herds)…1987…@74
Walter Raleigh, English scholar/poet/historian, beheaded…1618…@65ish  
Joseph Pulitzer, American newspaperman…on yacht…1911…@64
Leon Czolcosz, assassin of President McKinley…electrocuted…1901…@28

Brain Teasers
There are 3 candles left in the end. The 7 candles that manage to stay lit will melt down completely. The only candles that remain in the end are the 3 that are extinguished by the wind and therefore stay intact.
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.