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Almanac: Week: 31 \ Day: 211
July Averages: 82°\50°
86004 Today: H 88° \ L 50° Average Sky Cover: 75%
Wind ave: 6mph\Gusts: 18mph
Ave.
High: 82° Record High: 92° (1943) Ave. Low: 51° Record
Low: 40° (1913)
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Observances Today:
Cheesecake
Day
Father-In-Law
Day
Friendship
Day Health Care Now! Medicare's Birthday
International
Day of Friendship
National
Chili Dog Day
National
Support Public Education Day
Paperback
Book Day
Independence
Day (Vanuatu-1980-from Britain/France)
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Observances This Week:
AFRMA Fancy Rat & Mouse Week ->8/1
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Quote of the Day
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US Historical Highlights for Today
1619 - House of
Burgesses Virginia forms, 1st elective American governing body
1729 - City of Baltimore
founded
1733 - Society
of Freemasons opens 1st American lodge in Boston
1836 - First
English language newspaper published in Hawaii
1863 - President
Lincoln issues "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for
every black prisoner shot
1863 - Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs
the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in
southern Idaho and northern Utah.
1869 - The
Charles, considered the world’s first "oil tanker", departs from US
headed for Europe with a bulk capacity of 7,000 barrels of oil
1898 - Will
Kellogg invents Corn Flakes
1921 –AZ Governor Thomas
E. Campbell canceled the State Fair to save Arizona taxpayers $90,000.
1928 - George
Eastman shows 1st color motion pictures (US)
1930 - 1st
broadcast of "Death Valley Days" on NBC-radio
1932 - 10th
modern Olympic games opens in Los Angeles
1935 - 1st
Penguin book is published, starting the paperback revolution
1942 - FDR signs
bill creating women's Navy auxiliary agency (WAVES)
1954 - Elvis
Presley joins Memphis Federation of Musicians, Local 71
1956 - US motto
"In God We Trust" authorized
1965
- LBJ signs Medicare bill, which goes into effect in 1966
1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the
assembly line.
2008 - "Slumdog
Millionaire" based on the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup,
premieres at the Telluride Film Festival (Best Picture 2009)
2014 - The EU and US
extend sanctions on Russia to include banks, energy, and defense firms; Moscow
denies the allegation that Russia is arming rebels in Eastern Ukraine
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World Historical Highlights for Today
1792 - 500
Marseillaisian men sing France's national anthem for 1st time
1811 - Father
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executed by the
Spanish in Chihuahua, Mexico.
1870 - The Republic of Klipdrift is proclaimed by
Transvaal President Andries Pretorius after the discovery of diamonds in South
Africa in 1866 resulted in a flood of treasure hunters; ownership of the
diamond fields was contested by the Boer republics
1948 - Emile
Zatopek runs Olympic record (10K - 29:59.6)
1970 - Riots hit Belfast, North Ireland
1987 - An ANC
car bomb directed at the headquarters of the Wits Command in Johannesburg South
Africa kills 1 person and injures 68
2003 - The last
'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line in Mexico
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♫ Birthdays
Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today
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My Rambling Thoughts
Headed over to Sam’s Club for my weekly visit. Their gas station
was shut down…guess I’ll have to go back tomorrow. I save a good 10-15 cents a
gallon by getting the gas there.
While the US Dept of Education is spending money on the ‘Race to
the Top’ to help students, it seems AZ is running a ‘race to the bottom’. AZ has the worst graduation record for
college students, tied with Alaska, in the US. AZ is usually 47 or 48 in
spending on education. Seems our legislature wants our students to win the ‘race
to the bottom’…book learnin’ stuff just leads to problems. The head of our education
system ran on the plan to end Common Core in our state. She can’t really do
that, but has already unsuccessfully tried to fire two assistants who wanted to
keep Common Core. The State Board that oversees our education has moved out of
the Education building to another location for fear of her daily retaliation. I
seem to live in a state of ‘flat earthers’ running the educational direction of
the schools.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Inside
each set of the following words, there is a pair of smaller words. By putting
& between them, lo & behold, you'll make a familiar phrase. For
example, "Thighbone/Swallowtail" conceals "High & Low."
1. Firecracker/Misconstruing
2. Blockbuster/Doohickey
3. Shunting/Bespeckled
4. Proliferation/Climbable
5. Heartstrings/Consciences
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Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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…Cool Facts…
There is a fruit called The Miracle Berry that, when eaten, causes
sour foods to taste sweet, and has been used to treat diabetes, among other
things.
There's a swing on the edge of a cliff in Ecuador. It has no
safety measures and is called the 'Swing at the End of the World'.
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…Flagstaff, AZ
History…
75 YEARS AGO-1940
Even the bugs are different here! W. B. Medear, Research Assistant
of the Etymological Society, says there are more uncaptioned insects in this
area than in any other area of the nation.
There were 29 forest fires this week.
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…Harper’s Index…
+42 – estimated
percentage increase in popcorn a person eats when watching a drama rather than
a comedy.
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…Instagram Photo
of the Day…
natgeoPhoto by @stefanounterthiner | At dawn, this solitary male
standing sentinel on the brow of a hill, scanning the landscape for threats.
This is the moment, between darkness and daylight, when guanacos are in most
danger from pumas. Torres del Paine NP, Chile.
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… Life Lessons…
5.
Maintaining your position.
A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get
to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'
'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. It's
full of nutrients.'
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough
strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the
tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.
Moral of
the story: Bull sh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you
there.
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…USA Facts…
There is a superhero supply store in Brooklyn with a cape fitting
room that has a wind tunnel. They also sell oxygen gum, bottled chaos and have
an invisibility testing center.
Forest growth in the US has exceeded harvest since the 1940’s. Today,
we have more trees than any time in the past 100 years.
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…Unusual Fact of
the Day…
The small "You Are Here" sticker that indicates your
position on a map has a name — it's called an ideo locator.
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2 jokes for the day
“Please keep your dog beside you, sir,” a
woman said crossly to the man sitting opposite to her on the bench at the park.
“I can feel a flea in my shoe.”
“Midnight, come here,” replied the man. “This woman has fleas.”
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A family was having dinner and the little boy
said, "Dad I don't like the holes in the cheese!"
Well son, eat the cheese and leave the holes on the side of the plate.
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Yep, It Really
Happened
HAFRSFJORD,
Norway - The groundskeeper of a Norwegian golf course said a mystery
pooper targeting course holes must be a man "because the poos are too
massive to be from a woman." Kenneth Tennfjord, groundskeeper at the
Stavanger Golf Club, said he has been finding human feces and toilet paper in
course holes since 2005. "He has a couple of favorite holes,"
Tennfjord told the Rogaland Avis newspaper. "And we know it is a man
because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." "He poos only
on weekdays. On weekends I have never found poo on the golf course,"
Tennfjord said. He said the fecal discoveries are usually accompanied by used
toilet paper. Steinar Floisvik, managing director of the club, said the mystery
pooper used to arrive via bicycle. "In the early morning dew we observed
bicycle tracks on the course. Footsteps showed that he had done his business,
and the bicycle tracks disappeared back the way they came," Floisvik said.
Frode Jormeland, another groundskeeper, said the club installed high-powered
spotlights to discourage the defecation, but the poop-etrator disabled them.
"He climbed up a tree next to the lights and wriggled far out on a branch
and dismantled the spotlights. How he managed the feat without electrocuting
himself or falling is a riddle," he said. Floisvik said the pooper's
motives are unknown. "Our idea is that it could be someone who, for
unknown reasons, hates the game of golf. Alternatively, the person may have a
fetish or suffer from mental problems," he said.
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Somewhat Useless
Information
Legend
has it that hot dogs or frankfurters originated in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany
around 1484.
Hot Dog season lasts from the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, until
the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day. During this time about 20 billion hot
dogs are consumed, which means more than 800 hot dogs per second are eaten in
the U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt served frankfurters to King George VI of
England when he visited the United States in 1939.
Nearly 90 percent of hot dog eaters choose mustard as their go-to topping, but
get ready to cringe if you're not from one of these regions. In Chicago, they
like to use cucumber, tomato, pickle, onion and pickle relish and in Los
Angeles they use mayonnaise and cheese. New Yorkers, however, prefer mustard.
The famous Nathan's hot dog began when Nathan Handwerker created a business on
the Coney Island boardwalk in 1916. Back then, you could buy a Nathan's hot dog
for a nickel!
The annual Coney Island eating contest on the Fourth of July supposedly started
after four immigrants agreed to determine who was most patriotic by eating the
most Nathan's hot dogs.
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Birthdays Today
92 - Henry W. Bloch, American co-founder of
H&R Block
82 - Edd
"Kookie" Byrnes, LA, actor (77 Sunset Strip, Jack the Ripper)
81 - Bud Selig, owner (Milwaukee
Brewers)/acting baseball commissioner
76 - Peter Bogdanovich, Kingston NY,
director/producer (Last Picture Show)
75 - Patricia Schroeder, (Rep-D-Colorado)
68 - Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Austria, body builder/actor/politician (Terminator, 38th
Governor of California)
61 - Ken Olin,
actor (Hill St Blues, Michael-30 Something)
59 - Delta Burke, Orlando Fla, actress
(Suzanne-Designing Women)
52 - Lisa Kudrow, Encino California, actress
(Phoebe-Friends, Romy & Michele)
51 - Vivica A.
Fox, American actress (4th of July)
45 - Simon Baker, Australian actor
(The Mentalist)
41 - Hilary Swank,
American actress (Boys Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby)
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Born this day…Died in __@__
Casey
Stengel, baseball manager (Yankees (1949-60)/NY Met's 1st)-1975@85
Henry
Ford, industrialist and auto maker (Ford- model T)-1947@83
Emily
Brontë, English novelist (Wuthering Heights)-1848@30
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Historical Obits Today
Claudette
Colbert, French-born American actress (It Happened One Night)-1996@92
Ingmar
Bergman, Swedish stage and film director-2007@89
Otto Von
Bismarck, German "Iron" chancellor-1898@83
Buffalo
Bob Smith, American television host (Howdy Doody)-1998@80
Bill
Walsh, 49er’s football coach, leukemia-2007@75
William
Penn, English Philosopher, Quaker\founder of Pennsylvania (No cross,
no crown)-1718@73
Joyce
Kilmer, American poet, sniper during WWI-1918@31
Lane
Frost, American bull rider, after bull ride-1989@25
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Brain Teasers Answers
1. Rack & Ruin
2. Lock & Key
3. Hunt & Peck
4. Life & Limb
5. Arts & Sciences
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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…§