2-22-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 08 / Day: 053   

Today: L 20°…H 55°… Ave. humidity: 39%

Wind: ave:   2mph; Gusts:  20mph  

Average Low: 20° Record Low:  -10° (1955)

Average High: 47° Record High:  64° (2002)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1630 - Indians introduce pilgrims to popcorn, at Thanksgiving

1821 - Spain sells (east) Florida to United States for $5 million

1854 - 1st meeting of Republican Party (Michigan)

1879 - 1st 5 cent & 10 cent store opened by Frank W Woolworth (Utica NY)

1898 - Black postmaster lynched, his wife & 3 daughters shot in Lake City SC

1900 - Hawaii became a US territory

1907 - 1st cabs with taxi meters begin operating in London

1923 - 1st successful chinchilla farm in US (Los Angeles California)

1958 - Egypt & Syria form United Arab Republic (UAR)

1989 - 1st Spanish commercial on US network TV (Pepsi-Cola-CBS Grammy Award)

1998 - 18th Winter Olympic games close at Nagano Japan

2013 - The UK's credit rating is downgraded from AAA to AA1 by Moody's Investors Service

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A much warmer day than yesterday…so hard to realize it is still winter.

 

Travel to Cuba becoming more complicated than expected. I called the tour operator and ‘travel insurance’ is $300. They said to call Focus cause she had a better deal. Then I called Focus and found out that some are getting AAA travel (medical only) insurance for about $90. The Focus called back and the tour operator is not sure that medical only is enough. I called AAA but never got a call back. Then I went to the internet machine and it looks like I can get medical only for about $70 and the internet says that is all you need. They say if you arrive and don’t have it, you are directed to a kiosk that will sell you health insurance since no US health insurance is valid in Cuba. The internet machine also warned that no US bank/credit cards work in Cuba…which I already knew, but was good to see that they knew that too. I’ll try again on Monday to get this figured out.

 

So I was right…AZ is in the National news with our latest new law…called Gov office to tell here to VETO it. Protests taking place at state capitol right now. Maybe it is the heat down there that makes everyone so crazy in the legislature. Then our Flag local senator who hardly does anything has decided that CO2 levels set by the EPA will cause global famine, since we all know that CO2 is needed for plants to grow and if we limit the CO2 levels, the crops will die. Honestly…he said that. Then another idiot in the legislature is trying to stop Common Core implementation in AZ because it teaches “fuzzy math”…which according to him is having students “use letters of the alphabet instead of numbers when leaning math”. Where do these idiots come from, and how do they get elected, did they ever go to school? AZ stays off the radar whenever the legislature is out of session. As soon as they meet, AZ is in the news. Note to self:  Pay them to stay home.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

I am neither inside the house,  nor outside the house.  Clearly you can see through my little charade, because no house seems complete without me. What am I?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat

• Mel Brooks on the David Susskind Show – 1970

• NBC Big Event 1977 Home for Christmas

• Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter gets hand bitten

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"The Waltons": Every night was good on Walton's Mountain, as John-Boy and his kinfolk endured the Depression while keeping their — and our — spirits high.

Bizarre Punishments

Chopping Off Hair

One morning, Lamaya Cammon sat in class minding her own business and playing with the beads in her newly braided hair. Then, after persuading the seven-year-old to come to her desk with candy, her teacher proceeded to grab a pair of scissors and chop a braid off. Lamaya claims that playing with her hair wasn’t disruptive to others, though her teacher, whose name wasn’t released, clearly disagreed. The incident happened in front of the whole class, who began laughing as Lamaya went back to her desk, crying and embarrassed. The teacher has apologized for the incident, claiming she did it out of frustration. She was fined $175 for her bizarre act, but has been allowed to keep teaching.

Strange Obsessions of famous people

Voltaire--Constant Need For Coffee

As one of the most famous Enlightenment philosophers, Voltaire (1694–1778) is extolled for his wit and satire. It is possible, however, that he would not have been quite as witty or satirical without the enormous amount of coffee he ingested daily. Whether he was at home or relaxing with friends at the Cafe de Procope in Paris, Voltaire drank 20 to 40 cups of coffee every day. He enjoyed coffee so much that he willingly ignored the advice of his physician, Theodore Tronchin, to stop drinking it. He even regularly paid exorbitant fees to have luxury coffee imported for his personal use.

It should be noted that a quote often attributed to Voltaire is misattributed. Numerous sources claim that, in response to the assertion that coffee is a slow poison, Voltaire stated, “It may be poison, but I have been drinking it for sixty-five years, and I am not dead yet.” Sometimes the quotation is presented with “sixty-five years,” “eighty-five years,” or “fifty years.” While the quotation is certainly memorable (and useful for coffee lovers), there is no source for this quotation belonging to Voltaire. William Harrison Ukersmakes a strong case in his All About Coffee that the quotation belongs to Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle.

First, in Meidinger’s German Grammar, published in 1800, Fontenelle is given the credit for the quotation. Secondly, the correct quotation is: “I think it must be [a slow poison], for I’ve been drinking it for eighty-five years and am not dead yet.” Given that Voltaire died at the age of 84, while Fontenelle lived to be nearly 100, the evidence seems to support Fontenelle as the origin for the quotation.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

• Percentage of Americans who think children are better off when their mothers stay at home rather than working: 51

• When their fathers stay at home rather than working: 8

Unusual Fact of the Day

The genetic mutation that causes red hair also causes redheads to be more resistant to anesthesia. They can require up to 25% more than patients of other hair colors.

Joke-of-the-day

Why do seagulls fly over the sea? If they flew over the bay, they’d by bagels

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

CHILD SAFETY

A toddler, or any young child not yet able to stand erect without first stabilizing themselves in a forward flexed position on their hands and knees, can drown in even a small wading pool or any shallow body of water that is deeper than the length of their shortest arm from wrist to shoulder.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The company responsible for Scotland's sewer system said odd items fished out of sewers during the past year include a boat motor and a dead cow. Scottish Water, the private company responsible for the country's water supply and sewer system, said there were more than 40,000 blockages in drains and sewage treatment works during the past year and the items found to be responsible included an outboard motor from a boat, a working clothes iron, a cow carcass, a fax machine, a live otter, false teeth and pairs of underwear, the Scotsman reported Tuesday. "The waste water drain which runs from your house to the public sewer is usually only about four inches wide, which is less than the diameter of a DVD," said Chris Wallace, director of communications for Scottish Water. "We believe the best way to tackle blocked drains and sewer flooding is to work with our customers to prevent blockages that can clog up the cycle in the first place."  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• A team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University studied the color of light emitted by 200,000 galaxies to see what the final mix would be and they concluded that the final color would be similar to beige. They called this colour ‘cosmic latte’. The color was displayed in a ‘Washington Post’ article and readers were forced to suggest names for the new color. Several people sent suggestions and before the final decision of the ‘cosmic latte’ name was taken, others like Cappuccino Cosmico, Astronomer Almond, Cosmic Khaki or even Cosmic Cream were also open for voting!

• Education is believed to be more relevant for men in Saudi Arabia and people still support religious beliefs about gender roles.  Women in Saudi Arabia have been excluded from studying engineering, pharmacy, architecture, and law. However, the last years fields, such as law and pharmacy, are beginning to open up for women. For the history, Saudi Arabia is the home of Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University, the world’s largest women-only university and  in recent years nearly 60% of all Saudi university students are female.

• There has been a study run by an organization called ‘Population Reference Bureau’ which demonstrated that the number of people that have ever lived on Earth is 108 billion, while today the population is 7.1 billion and rising. The author of the study, Carl Haub, counted 50,000 B.C. as zero year as that is when the modern homo sapiens is widely believed to have made its appearance. Around 8,000 B.C. the population was around 5 million and by 1 A.D. which was Roman Empire experts estimate that there were at least 45 million people. In 1650 the number reached half a billion!

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
☼21-23 
Texas Cowboy Poetry Week
☼22-28☼

National FFA Week
Read Me Week
Bird Health Awareness Week 
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
National Secondhand Wardrobe Week 
Peace Corps Week 

Today Is                                                                      

·        International Sword Swallowers Day

·        International Tongue Twister Day

·        National Margarita Day

·        Open That Bottle Night

·        Single-Tasking Day

·        Spay Day

·        Woolworth's Day

·        World Thinking Day

+++++

·        Independence Day (St. Lucia—1979—from UK)

Today’s Events through History  

1561 - William of Orange appointed viceroy of Burgundy/Charolais

1784 - 1st US ship to trade with China, "Empress of China," sails from NY

1878 - Greenback Labor Party forms (Toledo Ohio)

1920 - 1st artificial rabbit used at a dog race track (Emeryville California)

1956 - Elvis Presley's 1st hit in Billboard's top 10: "Heartbreak Hotel"

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Don Pardo, TV announcer (Jeopardy, Saturday Night Live) is 96

Dick Van Arsdale, NBA all-star (NY Knicks, Phoenix Suns) is 71

Tom Van Arsdale, NBA all-star (Detroit, Cincinnati, KC-Omaha, Phil) is 71

Julius Erving, ABA/NBA forward (Virg Squirers, NY Nets, Phila 76ers) is 64

Drew Barrymore, actress (ET, Firestarter, Poison Ivy) is 39

Remembered for being born today

1732 - George Washington, Westmoreland, Virginia, 1st American president 

1838 - Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen, discoverer of hydrogen in Sun

1857 - Robert Baden-Powell, founder (Boy Scouts, Girl Guides)

1892 - Edna St Vincent Millay, poet/dramatist/feminist (Harp Weaver-Pulitzer Prize)

1907 - Robert Young, actor (Father Knows Best, Marcus Welby MD)

1907 - Sheldon Leonard, actor/director (Danny Thomas Show, Big Eddie)

1932 - Edward M "Ted" Kennedy, Senator-Mass

1934 - George "Sparky" Anderson, SD, baseball manager (Reds, Tigers)

1962 - Steve Irwin, Australian naturalist and TV personality (The Crocodile Hunter)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

1998 - Abraham Ribicoff, American politician, 1998, @87

1965 - Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1965, @82

1987 - David Susskind, TV host, heart attack, 1987, @66

1987 - Andy Warhol, pop artist, heart attack, 1987, @58

1371 - David II Bruce, King of Scots, unexpectedly, 1371, @46

Brain Teasers

The windows of a house.

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  §