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Almanac: Week: 48 \ Day: 330
November
Averages: 51° \ 22°
Holiday Observances
Today:
Muharram 1 (Islamic New Year)
Republic Day (Mongolia-1924)
¤ ¤
International Aura Awareness Day
Tie One
On Day
Observances This
Week:
21-27
National
Farm-City Week:
24-30
GERD
Awareness Week; National Bible Week; National Game & Puzzle Week; Better
Conversation Week; Church/State Separation Week; National Family Week
• • • •
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1716 - 1st
lion exhibited in America (Boston)
1778 - Captain
Cook discovers Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii)
1789 - 1st
national Thanksgiving in USA
1832 - 1st
streetcar railway in America starts operating (NYC)
1859 - Last
weekly installment of Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" published
1861 - West
Virginia created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virginia
1922 - English
archaeologist Carter opens Tutankhamun's virtually intact tomb
1948 - 1st Polaroid camera
sold for $89.75 in Boston
1956 - "The
Price Is Right" debuts on NBC
1973 - Nixon's
personal sec, Rose Mary Woods, admits she accidentally caused part of 18½
minute gap
1979 - Intl
Olympic Committee votes to readmit China after 21 years
1985 - Random House
buys Richard Nixon’s memoires for $3,000,000
1990 - Mikhail
Gorbachev tells Iraq to get out of Kuwait
2012 - Cost of
Hurricane Sandy to New York is announced to be $32 Billion
•
• • •
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
A nice day…guess I’m getting accustomed to the wind.
Concerned about the mess in Missouri. As I finally heard the
results of the Grand Jury, I was amazed. I served on a Grand Jury years ago. It
is not an easy assignment. One day a week for 3 months with at least 3 cases a
week, sometimes as many as 7. At the end of my service, I felt that I had been
manipulated by the system many times. One of the DA’s comes in with a list of
charges and statements. He reads all that stuff, then asks for a decision and
leaves the room. My biggest surprise was the drug cases in our small town.
Undercover cops back then would be at the train station or the bus station.
They would observe those there. By some psychic intervention the person would
do something that would lead to a search. In one case the person was rummaging
in their bag while standing in line to get a ticket. Really? The DA would
not/could not tell us how many searches were conducted before they found the
one person with drugs. Not relevant was the usual response. It was the same
story for traffic stops that lead to drug finds. Since the jury only needed 9
votes to charge the person, in the entire two months we only had two people who
were not charged. So it appeared to me that the DA used the Grand Jury to take
a case to trial so s/he would be able to tell the real jury that the Grand Jury
had voted for a trial. The Grand Jury only hears what the DA wants the jury to
hear. There is no cross examination. Most questions that are asked are answered
with ‘not relevant to the case.’ Until
one has served on a Grand Jury, one doesn’t understand how odd it really is. To
add to that, the Jurors are sworn to secrecy and told that nothing heard in the
‘courtroom’ can be taken out of the courtroom and if one does, incarceration
can be expected.
So this Missouri thing is really strange. The DA is claiming he
gave them all the information…I doubt that. He waited until 8pm to release the
decision. Really? The town’s people seem to be shocked and upset about the
violence. It appears that many of the violent people are not from the area. I
get that many are frustrated by the system that seems to have told cops that it
is OK to shoot to kill anytime. I wasn’t there at the time of the original
incident, nor have I been there since. I too am horrified by the violence. After
hearing the DA’s press conference, speaking as a linguist, the DA did not give
a good speech. I thought he sounded smug. I can only hope that the violence
over this situation ends soon. I also hope that this mess leads to some real
tangible changes in the Grand Jury system, in how police deal with suspects,
and how the many communities work for those changes.
• • • •
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
You
die and the devil says he'll let you go to heaven if you beat him in a game.
The devil sits you down at a perfectly round table. He gives himself and you an
infinite pile of quarters. He says, "OK, we'll take turns putting one
quarter down, no overlapping allowed, and the quarters must rest flat on the
table surface. The first guy who can't put a quarter down loses." You guys
are about to start playing, and the devil says that he'll go first. However, at
this point you immediately interject, and ask if you can go first instead. You
make this interjection because you are very smart and can place quarters
perfectly, and you know that if you go first, you can guarantee victory.
Explain how you can guarantee victory.
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
• • • •
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
Actor
Facts…
¤ For each word he said in Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger was
paid $21,429.
¤The actor who portrays Mike from “Breaking Bad” began his acting
career in an education film on menstruation and puberty in the mid-70’s.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
75 YEARS
AGO
¤ Warning: High-pressure Shingle racketeers from the coast are
operating in and around Flagstaff, selling asbestos siding at a "Special
introductory price." Buy locally from our reliable firms, who live right
there, pay local taxes and provide a real guarantee.
¤ Over 2,300,000 1"-2" trees, 800,000 6" trees (2
yrs old) and 500,000 3-year-old pine trees are being covered with winter covering
that will protect them from being consumed by the deer or destroyed by Jack
Frost. Roland Beatty is in charge of the Forest Service Nursery.
Harper’s
Index…
Year in which the World Health Organization began keeping records
of global obesity: 1980
Number of years since then in which at least one country has
reduced its obesity rate: 0
Pilgrim
Fact…
Popcorn
Myth
We all learn in elementary school about how the Indians introduced
popcorn to the new settlers at that first Thanksgiving. Though a heart-warming
tale, the variety of corn grown by the Native Americans would have been
Northern Flint. This kind of corn does not pop well but would have been dried
to make a simple snack or ground up and mixed with strawberries for a cake-like
dessert. So much for the "Popcorn Myth."
Rules of
Thumb…
HANGING
UP A TELEPHONE
Telephone
salespeople should always let the customer hang up first. Jumping the gun can
cut off a last minute add-on order.
Unusual Fact
of the Day…
Gerald
Ford is the only person to serve as both president AND vice-president of the
U.S. without having been elected to either office.
• • • •
Joke-of-the-day
A guy runs into the bar and says, "Quick,
pour me 5 shots of your best scotch."
The bartender pours them and the man drinks
them as fast as he can. "Wow that's the fastest I've seen anyone
drink," says the bartender.
"Well you'd drink that fast if you had
what I had," The man says
"Oh my god," the bartender says,
"What do you have?"
The man replies "50 cents."
Yep, It
Really Happened
Foreign
Policy
November is tax-publicizing season in Finland, where, starkly
unlike America, the government releases all individuals' tax records to help
build public support for the country's vast welfare state. Thus, reported
Foreign Policy magazine, Finnish society gets a "yearly dose of
schadenfreude" ... "opening the door for a media frenzy of gossip,
boasting and finger pointing" about "fair share" and who's more
worthy. A few, however, proudly pay high Finnish taxes as a "badge of
patriotism," rejecting common tax shelters. "We've received a lot of
help from society," said one homegrown (and wealthy) entrepreneur,
"and now it is our turn to pay back."
Somewhat
Useless Information
Did
pencils ever contain lead?
Have
you ever wondered what’s the origin of pencils and which was the initial
material they were made of back in 1500?
Modern
pencils owe it all to an ancient Roman writing instrument called a “stylus” and
some early styluses were made of lead.
However,
they soon started to be made of graphite, firstly, due to the discovery of a
large graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England in 1564, as well as for leaving a
darker mark than lead.
¤
¤
What
sound does an atom make?
Have
you ever wondered what‘s the sound of an atom? Researchers at Chalmers
University of Technology succeeded in making acoustic waves couple to an
artificial atom.
The
sound an atom makes is equal to a D note, specifically D28, about twenty
octaves above the highest D on a piano.
At
such high frequencies, the wavelength of the sound becomes short enough that it
can be guided along the surface of a microchip.
•
• • •
Today’s
Events through History
411- Maya King Siyaj Chan K'awill II (Stormy Sky) ascends the
Tikal throne in Guatemala
1703 - Great
storm hits Southern England- thousands killed, Royal Navy losses 13 ships and
around 1,500 seamen
1867 - Refrigerated
railroad car patented
1885 - 1st
meteor photograph
1975 - US
Federal jury finds Lynette Fromme guilty of attempted assassination
1978 - 1st lesbian
theme TV movie - "Question of Love"
2003 - Concorde
makes its last ever flight over Bristol, England
Birthday’s
Today
Tina Turner, [Anna
Mae Bullock], singer (Proud Mary) is 75
Shawn Kemp, NBA
forward (Cavaliers, Supersonics) is 45
Remembered
for being born today
William G Armstrong, Baron/British
industrialist (hydraulic crane) (1810-1900)
William Wilson (Bill W.), co-founder (alcoholics
anonymous), (1895-1971)
Karl Ziegler, chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (polymers), (1898-1973)
Bruno Hauptmann, kidnapper
of Lindbergh baby(1899-1936)
Eric Sevareid, newscaster
(CBS Weekend News) (1912-1992)
Charles M. Schulz, cartoonist
(Peanuts), (1922-2000)
Robert Goulet, singer
and actor (1933-2007)
• • • •
Historical
Obits Today
Sojourner Truth, US
abolitionist/women's rights advocate, 1883, @ 96
Robert Coote, actor
(Timmy-Rogues), in sleep, 1982, @73
Philippe de Broca, French
film director (Le Bossu) cancer, 2004, @71
Tommy Dorsey, big
bandleader, sedated, choked, 1956, @51
•
• • •
Brain Teasers Answers
You place a quarter right in the center of the table. After that,
whenever the devil places a quarter on the table, mimic his placement on the
opposite side of the table. If he has a place to place a quarter, so will you.
The devil will run out of places to put a quarter before you do.
• • • •
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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…§
