3-10-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 069   / Week: 11  

Today: L 27°…H 53°… Ave. humidity: 42%

     Wind: ave:   10mph; Gusts:  23mph  

     Average Low: 22° Record Low:  -9° (1958)

    Average High: 49° Record High:  70° (1989)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

0418 - Jews are excluded from public office in the Roman Empire

1681 -  William Penn receives charter making him sole proprietor Pennsylvania

1831 - The French Foreign Legion is established to support his war in Algeria.

1862 - US issues 1st paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000)

1874 - Purdue University (Indiana) admits its 1st student

1876 - 1st telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson)

1880 - Salvation Army of England sets up US welfare & religious activity

1896 - After Bob Fitzsimmons KOs much larger Jim Corbett to win world HW 

     championship he says, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall"

1922 - KLZ-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions

1969 - James Earl Ray pleads guilty to murder of Martin Luther King Jr

1980 - Willard Scott becomes the weather forecaster on the Today Show

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

OK day here in Flag.

 

Time for a big trip to a grocery store. Not a lot of choices left in the fridge or freezer. A little tired of the choices I still have.

 

A lazy Sunday, catching up on DVR shows I recorded during the week. Nice to be able to watch a show and skip the commercials.

 

Still confused about the missing Malaysian plane. When I have traveled internationally there is always a channel on the screen that shows where you are. It shows what I thought was a pretty exact location…altitude, longitude, latitude, distance and time from takeoff airport, distance and time to arriving airport. There is even a camera under the cockpit that shows you the basically empty sky. Can’t see how all that information could be available to the passengers without anyone on the ground knowing exactly where the plane is. I do have a feeling that the story now that the plane change course is that when it blew up, the flight recorder is what is showing the change in direction as it went flying through space on its way to the ground. I’m sure that all the technology will bring closure to this mystery and bring some peace to the families involved. I’m just as sure that international travel and probably domestic travel will get a whole lot harder at the security check points. Far too many officials are talking about how ‘easy’ it is to have false ID to board a plane. Also keep thinking about my brother’s stolen passport in Houston. At first I assumed that the thief say his money when he pulled the passport out. Now something much more sinister may be happening. Who knew, before this tragedy that Interpol had a list of stolen ID documents that could be accessed by any government with over 40 million reported stolen or fraudulent documents.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Below are anagrams of some musical instruments popular in a particular style of music. Your task is to discover what these instruments are and the style of music. I have placed the number of letters in brackets if there are two words. Good luck.

Term put Clear tin Bent room Air tug O! A pin A U.S. bobsled (6, 4) A drab show

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• A Different World - Relax Relate Release 2

• Carrie Underwood - Two Black Cadillacs

• The Iron Man of Kansas – Trailer

• Top 10 Chuck Norris Moments

Remembering TV’s great shows

"The Shield"--No badges for good behavior, but there was plenty of glory for this steely story of Los Angeles cops gone bad.

Ancient Sports

Chunkey--Culture: Native American

One of the earliest sports played in what is now the United States, chunkey was developed by the Mississippian culture and centered around the ancient city of Cahokia. Basically, any number of people participated on either of two teams, though it was usually just one-on-one. A small stone disk was rolled from the starting point and the opposing teams would throw spears at the area at which they thought the disk would end up.

Spreading to much of the Native Americans of the Southeast, chunkey is believed to have played a major role in joining the different tribes together, as they formed one of the largest North American civilizations north of Mesoamerica. Each tribe had unique rules, but the spirit of the game was the same. The sport was taken so seriously, and gambling so ingrained in the culture of chunkey, that losers would even commit suicide in some cases, normally because they had wagered all of their possessions.

Bizarre Facts about World’s Dictators

“Joseph Stalin” Was A Pseudonym

Joseph Stalin was one of the worst dictators ever to have lived. Not simply aggressive but downright paranoid, he often took vicious actions in the name of supposed national security and perceived suspected or merely potential “traitors” as personal safety threats. However, it was not his brutal practices—that included mass purges or the execution of engineers working on confidential projects once the job was done—that we consider with surprise in this account. “Joseph Stalin” was in fact, a pseudonym for a man with a different true identity. Born in Georgia, a country with a diverse history that included long periods of Soviet occupation, “Stalin” was originally named Joseph Vissarionvich Djvugashvili. His name was changed to Stalin, which literally translated to “Man of Steel,” as in the Superman film.

Misconceptions of Medieval Figures

Gutenberg Did Not Invent the Printing Press

With Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, Europeans were able to share and distribute information more effectively than ever before, permanently altering the political and artistic landscape. So influential was Gutenberg’s invention, a recent Economist poll ranked it as a more important event than the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The catch is, Gutenberg didn’t invent the printing press. His printing press, completed in 1439, made the invention readily available and distributable in Europe, but he can’t be credited with its original invention. In fact, it’s quite possible that his printing press was heavily “inspired” by existing printing presses of the time. These presses largely came out of Asia. Chinese and Korean inventors had created printing presses around a century before Gutenberg. Given that heavy trade was occurring between Europe and Asia in the 15th century, Gutenberg may have had knowledge of the Asian printing technology. The Chinese had been experimenting with the process for hundreds of years. In fact, printing blocks had been in development since 2300 B.C., courtesy of the Sumerians. The Chinese were printing books with woodblocks in the mid-800s, and a man named Bi Sheng invented movable type in the 1000s. A notable example of a mass-produced medieval Chinese book is The Book of Agriculture, written by Wang Zhen and printed in 1313. It was a Korean monk named Baegun who created metal movable type in 1377. These lasted longer than wood. He used these to print a book on Buddhist wisdom. After that, Gutenberg had only to figure out how to build a printing press that could be mass-produced.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Percentage of flights out of Beijing’s Capital International Airport that have left on time this year: 27

Unusual Fact of the Day

Kathleen Casey of Philadelphia was born at 12:00:01 A.M., Eastern time, on January 1^st, 1946. This not only made her the first child born in the United States that year, but also made her the first "Baby Boomer."

Joke-of-the-day

A man awoke one evening to discover prowlers in his storage shed. He immediately called 911, gave his address, to report the prowlers and possible burglary. The operator at the other end said "Are they in your house?" He said they were not, only in his storage shed in back of the house. The operator said there were no cars available at that time. He thanked the operator, hung up the phone and counted to 30 and called again. "I just called you about prowlers in my storage shed. Well you do not have to worry, as I just shot them all dead!" Within seconds there were 3 police cars, an ambulance and fire engine at the scene. After capturing the prowlers red-handed, the policeman asked the caller, "I thought you said you had shot them all!" The man answered, "I thought you said there were no police available!"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

NEGOTIATING FOR RADIO ADVERTISING

Subtract 30 percent from the rate on the rate card. Then negotiate downward.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

NEW YORK - New York police arrested a fortune teller accused of scamming a woman out of more than $200,000 with claims of a curse that needed to be lifted. Investigators said Amanda Ufie, 26, a fortune teller operating out of a Manhattan storefront, convinced Jiawei Li, 22, that she was suffering from a curse in January 2012, and Li paid Ufie $217,040 in the ensuing 10 months to lift the curse, the New York Post reported Thursday. Police said their investigation, which began when Li filed a complaint against Ufie in January, discovered a "second individual" had been bilked of $1,400 when Ufie claimed "to have the power to remove negative energy from the second individual's body," the criminal complaint states. Ufie, aka Amanda Petro, was arrested Tuesday and charged with grand larceny and scheme to defraud. She was held in lieu of $25,000 bail.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth President of the United States (1837–1841) and his administration was largely characterized by the economic hardship of his time, the Panic of 1837. He was called “Martin Van Ruin” by his political opponents. Van Buren spoke English as a second language. His native language was Dutch, as he grew up in a Dutch-speaking community. He has been the only U.S. President who has spoken English as a second language!

• He died at the age of seventy-nine.

• How is it possible for ice to float on top of liquid water, instead of sinking to the bottom? The answer lies in the density of each substance. If substance is less dense than the water, it floats. According to Chemistry.about.com water reaches its maximum density at 4°C (40°F). As it cools further and freezes into ice, it actually becomes less dense. On the other hand, most substances are most dense in their solid (frozen) state than in their liquid state. Water is different because of hydrogen bonding.

• Did you know that regarding native languages over a billion people speak Chinese, whereas only 350 million people speak English? Although English is extensively spoken  around the world by many people as a second language, its native speakers are not that many as they are in Chinese. There are several discussions about the dominance of Chinese over the language of computers, however its main disadvantage is that Chinese has 60,000 alphabet letters, compared to the 26 letters of the English alphabet! After Chinese the second most widely spoken language is Spanish with 400 million people.

• Hiccups are bursts of breathing in activity. The muscles we use when we breath in are the intercostal muscles situated between the ribs, and the diaphragm. 

• Why do we hiccup? After eating or drinking too much or too quickly, the stomach, which is situated right below the diaphragm, becomes distended and irritates it. This will cause the diaphragm to contract, as it does when we breathe in. However, sometimes hiccups may occur with temperature changes or emotional situations. In this case, hiccups will occur because of a disturbance to the nerve pathways from the brain to the muscles involved.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
1-16

Iditarod Race
8-11

American Council on Education

8-14
National Procrastination Week
Universal Women's Week
National Agriculture Week

9-15

Teen Tech Week
Girl Scout Week

International Brain Awareness Week
Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Fill Our Staplers Day

·        International Day of Awesomeness

·        Harriet Tubman Day

·        Land Line Telephone Day

·        Mario Day

·        Name Tag Day

·        Napping Day 

·        Salvation Army Day

·        US Paper Money Day

·        Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

·        World Kidney Day

Today’s Events through History  

1847 - 1st money minted in Hawaii

2012 - At least 130 rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza
2013 - Aung San Suu Kyi is re-elected leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Carlos Ray ‘Chuck’ Norris, martial arts actor (Missing in Action) is 74

Shannon Lee Tweed,  playmate/ actor (Meatballs 3) is 57

Sharon Stone, actress (Basic Instinct, Sliver, Casino) is 56

Jasmine Guy, actress (Whitley-Different World) is 52

Carrie Underwood, American country singer is 31

Remembered for being born today

1748 - John Playfair, Scotland, clergyman/geologist/mathematician

1888 - Barry Fitzgerald, Dublin Ireland, actor (Acad Award-Going My Way)

1920 - Kenneth "Jethro" Burns, US country singer (Homer & Jethro)

1928 - James Earl Ray, assassin (Martin Luther King Jr)

1957 - Osama bin Laden, Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Islamic militant and founder of al-Qaeda

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR, 1913, @93ish

Lloyd Bridges, American actor (Sea Hunt), 1998, @85

Ray Milland, actor (Lost Weekend-Acad Award 1945), cancer, 1986, @79

Glenn Cunningham, US world record miler, 1988, @78

Corey Haim, Canadian actor, OD, 2010, @38

Andy Gibb, singer, heart infection, 1988, @30

Brain Teasers

Trumpet Clarinet Trombone Guitar Piano Double Bass Washboard The style of music is traditional jazz.

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  §