Dec 10

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Dec. 10, 2019 Week: 50  Day: 344

86004:   H 44° \ L 16° \ Average Sky Cover: 15%

Nearest lightning:  283mi

Nearest active fire:  468mi.  

Wind:   7mph\Gusts:  8mph  Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 65°[1939]   Record Low: -10°[2013]

Dec. Averages: 44°\17° (5 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

“It is no longer good enough to cry peace,

we must act peace, live peace and live in peace.”

– Leon Shenandoah, Onondaga chief

~ Native American Proverb

Observances This Week

3-10

Clerc-Gallaudet Week Link

3-24

Andisop (Meterological Fiddling  Link

10-17

Human Rights Week

Observances for Today

Dewey Decimal System Day
Human Rights Day  Link
International Animal Rights Day  Link
Jane Addams Day
National Lager Day

Nobel Prize Day

My Rambling Thoughts

Our retirement group meets tomorrow for our Christmas lunch and gifting. I headed out to World Market/Cost Plus for some gifts. I found the gifts quickly, then wandered the store…always dangerous to my credit card. They have amazing Christmas stuff. I walked out spending about 5 times more than I intended. I got other Christmas presents, some cute decorations, and some Christmas breads. A very good visit. As much as I like the store, I only go there for gifts for our retirement group…if I went more often, my house would look like their store and my weight gain would be easily observed.

Today’s hearings are a tad more contentious than previous ones. I guess watching ‘democracy in action’ is just like watching ‘hot dogs being made step by step’.

Saw the New Zealand volcanic eruption on the internet machine. While it was erupting there were at least 30 travelers from Royal Caribbean Cruise line on the island. Scary for sure.

Here we go again…Russia has been banned from the Olympics and the World Cup for years ahead. This time it has to do with drug enhancements of the athletes. I was not a big fan of the USSR ban back in the 80’s and the related US ban four years later. The Olympics are about ATHLETES, and should not be about politics. And yes, I realize there is politics in the Olympics, but I don’t like athletes who have worked much of their life preparing to miss their usual one chance to participate. This ban is different. This time athletes who used banned substances can’t participate but ‘clean’ athletes from those teams can participate, just not under their country flag or hear their National Anthem if the take gold. This appears to be the best solution to a difficult solution.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of this page

f it takes two men 4 hours to dig one hole, how long does it take them to dig half a hole?

Historical Events

Nobel Prize Day

1901 First Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist Frederic Passy

1946 German/Swiss novelist Hermann Hesse wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style"

1950 Ralph Bunche (1st black American) presented the Nobel Peace Prize for mediation in Israel

1959 Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Sicilian writer Salvatore Quasimodo for his lyrical poetry

1960 Willard Libby wins the Nobel prize in Chemistry for his work developing carbon-14 dating (radiocarbon dating).

1964 Nobel Peace Prize presented to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Oslo

1967 Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm

1976 Samuel C. C. Ting is the first person to deliver a Nobel Prize lecture in Mandarin, during the ceremony to award him and Burton Richter the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the J/ψ particle

1978 Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

1983 Danuta Walesa, wife of Lech Wałęsa, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize

1984 South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu is presented with his Nobel Peace Prize

1986 Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepts 1986 Nobel Peace Prize

1994 Nobel Peace Prize presented to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat

2009 US President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

…other events

1033 (Earthquake) Ramala (West Bank)

1478 - Arte dell'Abbaco ('The Art of the Abacus'), the first teaching math book, was printed and distributed in Treviso, Italy. Author unknown.

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published.

1817 – Mississippi became the 20th US state.

1845 - British engineer Robert Thompson patented the first pneumatic (air pressured) tires.

1869 - Montana granted women the right to vote.

1884 -Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published.

1899 - George Safford Parker was issued a US patent (#635,700) on his improved fountain pen.

1936 Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson

1948 - The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1955 - The Mighty Mouse Playhouse began a long-standing "Saturday Morning Cartoon' tradition on CBS.

1963 - Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, then released after $250,000 ransom was paid. The kidnappers were all caught a few days later.

1965 - The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.

1966 - #1 Hit: The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations

1967 - Otis Redding and members of the Bar-Kays were killed in a Wisconsin plane crash.

1983 - #1 Hit: Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson - Say, Say, Say

1988 - #1 Hit: Chicago - Look Away

2009 - Avatar was released in theaters.

2017 Governor of California Jerry Brown tours Southern Californian wildfires and declares them "the new normal"

2018 Theresa May cancels UK parliament vote on Brexit bill in face of certain defeat

2018 Emmanuel Macron announces in TV address rise in minimum wage and tax concessions after weeks of civil unrest

Birthdays Today

@81 - Dorothy Lamour, American actress and singer (died in 1996)

67 - Susan Dey, American actress

@62 - Chet Huntley, American journalist

     (died in 1974; lung cancer)

62 - Paul Hardcastle, English composer

59 - Kenneth Branagh, Northern Ireland-born English actor director, producer, and screenwriter

58 - Nia Peeples, American singer

@55 - Emily Dickinson, American poet

     (died in 1886)

55 - Bobby Flay, American chef

45 - Meg White, American drummer

41 - Summer Phoenix, American actress

Puzzle answer:

t's impossible to dig half a hole. If you tried, you would just end up with a whole hole.