Aug 21

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Aug 21, 2018 Week: 34\ Day: 233

86004 Today: H 85 ° \ L 58 ° \ Average Sky Cover: 45% 

Nearest Lightning:  19.8 miles away

Wind ave.:   5mph\Gusts:  17mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 90°[2009]   Record Low: 33°[1979]

Aug Averages: 80°\49°

Today’s Quote

  Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.

   Ann Landers

Harper’s Index

 $5.90

 Amount charged by Zain, Iraq’s largest telecom company,

  for a phone number with nonconsecutive digits

  $1,340

  For a phone number whose last five digits are the same

Observances This Week

15-21  National Aviation Week  

16-26  Little League World Series

18-24  Minority Enterprise Development Week

 National Chef's Appreciation Week  Link  Link  

20-24  National Safe at Home Week 

Observances for Today

Brazilian Blow-out Day Link
Internet Self-care Day  Link
National Spumoni Day  Link
Poet's Day
Senior Citizen's Day

Today’s Significant US Historical Events

Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1600’s                                         

1680 Pueblo Indians takes possession of Santa Fé from Spanish

1689 Battle of Dunkeld fought in Scotland between supporters of King James VII of Scotland and troops of William of Orange

1700’s                                         

1760 The church (later cathedral) of "Our Lady of Candlemas of Mayagüez (Puerto Rico)" is founded, establishing the basis for the founding of the city.

1800’s                                         

1831 Former slave Nat Turner leads uprising against slavery

1852 Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory.

1858 1st Lincoln-Douglas debate (Illinois)

1878 American Bar Association organizes at Sarasota, NY

1888 American inventor William Seward Burroughs patents the adding machine

1900’s                                         

1911 "Mona Lisa" stolen from the Louvre by Vincenzo Perugia (Recovered in 1913)

1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th US state

1972 1st hot air balloon flight over Alps

1987 Clayton Lonetree, 1st US marine court-martialed for spying, convicted

2000’s                                         

2012 Kateri Tekakwitha canonized as the 1st Native American saint by Pope Benedict XVI

2017 Total solar eclipse visible from North America

2017 Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $417m to woman who developed ovarian cancer after using their talc-based products

My Rambling Thoughts

Lazy Monday…just waiting for the monsoon to return. Looks like it will arrive late this afternoon or early this evening.

I have been confused by this administration since day 1 of his campaign. Now I finally know why: ‘truth is not truth’. So happy 45 has a lawyer who can explain it for us.

No matter what 45 states, most Dems and most Americans do not want ICE abolished…but many do want changes in its policy and enforcement. So sad that the leader misinterprets anything he decides is against him. We certainly need border security. We do not need Federal agents going after families that have lived here for decades, never been involved in a crime, and working to support their family.

Nice to see the emotional reunions of a few Korean families that have been separated for over half a century. Too bad it only for three days and only about 11 hours of that time to be with family members. Hard to believe these reunions are constantly monitored by N. Korean ‘minders’.

Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

80’s

80►Kenny Rogers, singer

60’s

@63►Wilt Chamberlin, basketball player, (d. 1999) congestive heart failure

44- Sergey Brin, Russian-born American computer scientist and businessman (co-founded Google with Larry Page), born in Moscow, Soviet Union

Historical Obits Today

80’s

@88-2017 Thomas Meehan, American writer (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray)

70’s

@74-1960 David Barnard Steinman, American bridge designer (Hudson, Triborough)

60’s

@65-1947 Ettore Bugatti, Italian-French automobile designer and manufacturer (Automobiles E. Bugatti) paralysis of his mental faculties

@62-1940 Leon Trotsky, Russian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and founder of the Red Army, assassinated by an icepick wielding Ramón Mercader

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…☼☼☼☼

Aug 20

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Aug 20, 2018 Week: 34\ Day: 232

86004 Today: H84 ° \ L 55° \ Average Sky Cover: 5% 

Nearest Lightning:  421 miles away

Wind ave.:   1mph\Gusts:  11mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 90°[2009]   Record Low: 35°[1979]

Aug Averages: 80°\49°

Today’s Quote

  People really don't have to give you anything,  

  so appreciate what people give you.

    Aretha Franklin

Harper’s Index

  +391

  Percentage change since 2009 in reports of

  human waste on San Francisco streets

Observances This Week

15-21  National Aviation Week  

16-26  Little League World Series

18-24  Minority Enterprise Development Week

National Chef's Appreciation Week  Link  Link  

20-24  National Safe at Home Week 

Observances for Today

Cupcake Day Link  
National Radio Day Link
World Mosquito Day Link

Today’s Significant US Historical Events

Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1600’s                                         

1619 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia. They are then sold or traded into servitude.

1800’s                                         

1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War over

1886 Second Salon exhibition by Society of Independent Artists held in Paris; includes Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"

1896 Dial telephone patented

1900’s                                         

1908 America's Great White Fleet arrives in Sydney, Australia, to be greeted with a tremendous welcome; 221 American sailors desert to remain in Australia

1920 1st US commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), Detroit begins daily broadcasting

1939 1st black bowling league formed (National Bowling Assoc)

1940 British PM Churchill says of Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

1953 General Fazlollah Zahedi arrests Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in a CIA supported coup d'état

1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, an anti-poverty measure totaling nearly $1 billion

1980 UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital

1990 Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations (human shields)

1998 The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

2000’s                                         

2015 30 students at West Point Military Academy are injured in a mass pillow fight

My Rambling Thoughts

Our discussion group had a good talk about China Today. China is working to expand its influence in the region and beyond. Since the US administration does not have a clear policy on China, it looks like their expansion will just keep happening. Hopefully there will be some policy before it is too late.

Looks like our monsoon is taking a break. No rain yesterday, and with this almost cloudless sky it doesn’t look good for any rain today or tonight.

One of the biggest issues in our small mountain college town is the growth of the University. The University keeps adding more and more students, which allows the President to get big bonuses from the Board of Regents. This has been going on for several years and is reaching a boiling point. While the University increases students, they are not increasing dorm spaces. So builders have come in from everywhere to build huge housing complexes near campus. And these ain’t the dorms of yesteryear. They are luxury apartments with many amenities and come at quite the cost. These new structures do not have adequate parking nor is there an offer of transportation to campus. On top of that, the roads in our town are not ready for all the new traffic congestion. [Back in the day when I was in undergrad school in Boulder, the University bought some land away from campus and built a huge dormitory complex (Williams Village). It came with free bus transportation by the University to campus. I lived there my sophomore year and really like it. Getting to and from campus was no problem.] This is a small town and we don’t seem to need to study other ‘big’ campuses around the country, the University will just keep growing, the town will complain, infrastructure will not meet the needs, and life will go on. SAD!

Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

80’s

83►Ron Paul, US Congressman, 1988 and 2008 presidential candidate

70’s

70►Robert Plant, singer (Led Zepplin)

60’s

@67►Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (Republican: 1889-93), born in North Bend, Ohio (d. 1901) pneumonia

@64►Bernardo O'Higgins, Chillán, Chile, South American independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule (1817-1823 Supreme Director of Chile) (d. 1842) heart problems

@64- Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia (1991-97) and Yugoslavia (1997-2000), (d. 2006) heart attack in prison

64►Al Roker, TV weather guy

50’s

58- Sally Yates, American lawyer and Acting Attorney General (Jan 2017), born in Atlanta, Georgia

@56►Jacqueline Susann, author (Valley of the Dolls), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1974) cancers

20’s

26-Demi Lovato, Disney singer/actress

Historical Obits Today

90’s

@91-1980 Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank

80’s

@87-2007 Leona Helmsley, American real estate billionaire and convicted of federal income tax evasion

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…☼☼☼☼

Aug 19

 blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Aug 19, 2018 Week: 34\ Day: 231

86004 Today: H 79° \ L 53° \ Average Sky Cover: 80% 

Nearest Lightning:  123 miles away

Wind ave.:   1mph\Gusts:  10mph Visibility: 10 mi

Aug Averages: 80°\49°

Today’s Quote

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

  Henry David Thoreau

Harper’s Index

9/10

Portion of Hawaii’s drinking water that comes from underground wells

53,000,000

Gallons of raw sewage that leak into the ground from Hawaii cesspools each day

Observances This Week

15-21

National Aviation Week  

16-26

Little League World Series

18-24

Minority Enterprise Development Week
National Chef's Appreciation Week  Link  Link  

Observances for Today

Aviation Day
"Black Cow" Root Beer Float Day
Chef Appreciation Day Link  
Coco Chanel Day
International Bow Day Link
International Geocaching Day

International Orangutan Day   Link
National Honey Bee Day Link  
World Humanitarian Day Link  
World Photo Day  Link

Today’s Significant US Historical Events

Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1600’s                                         

1692 Five more people hanged for witchcraft (20 in all) in Salem, Massachusetts

1700’s                                         

1745 Jacobite Rising 1745 : Bonnie Prince Charlie, raises his standard at Glenfinnan, Scotland, igniting the second Jacobite rebellion.

1800’s                                         

1839 Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris

1887 Dmitri Mendeleev makes a solo ascent by balloon to an altitude of 11,500 feet (3.5 km) above Klin, Russia to observe an eclipse

1897 1st electric taxis drive in London

1900’s                                         

1914 In a message to the Senate, US President Woodrow Wilson urges the American people to be 'neutral in fact as well as name'

1934 The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

1942 World War II: Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers killed, wounded or captured raiding Dieppe, France

1944 Last Japanese troops driven out of India

1960 Francis Gary Powers convicted of spying by USSR (U-2 incident)

1960 Soviet Sputnik 5 carries 2 dogs, 2 rats, 40 mice, 1 rabbit and fruit flies into orbit, - 1st animals to return alive from obit

1970 The Chinese Community in South Africa is granted 'White' status

1979 "My Sharonna" by the Knack hits #1 (stays for 42 days)

1993 Mattel & Fisher Price toy companies merge

2000’s                                         

2015 US Food and Drug administration approves Female Viagra libido pill Addyi

My Rambling Thoughts

My computer went crazy last night. Thankfully I have a good tech support team and they brought it back, except for all my browser bookmarks. I had a list of the most sites so it just took some time to re-enter them.

The readings for our China discussion certainly opened my eyes. I knew China was busy in Africa, and the water around China, but they are everywhere. We are not keeping up. Our current administration is trying to play a different game with China, but so far, it ain’t slowing down their plans. Hopefully our seasoned diplomats will figure out a way to stay ahead of China’s plans.

Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

80’s

@87►Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, French fashion designer (Chanel), born in Saumur, France (d. 1971)

@85►Charles E. Hires, American pharmacist, inventor and manufacturer of the Hires Root Beer beverage, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1937)

70’s

@76► Orville Wright, aviator (Wright Brothers), born in Dayton, Ohio (d. 1912)

@73►Seth Thomas, American pioneer in mass production of clocks (d. 1859)

72►Bill Clinton [William Jefferson], 42nd US President (Democrat, 1993-2001), born in Hope, Arkansas

@70►Malcolm Forbes, American publisher of Forbes Magazine, born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1990) heart attack

70►Tipper Gore, wife of US Vice President Al Gore (1993-01)

60’s

@68►Ogden Nash, humorous poet (I'm a Stranger Here Myself), born in Rye, NY (d. 1971) Crohn’s diseast

@62- Edward John Dent, British Clockmaker to Queen Victoria and commissioned to make Big Ben, London (completed after his death by his son Frederick Dent), born in London, (d. 1853)

Historical Obits Today

90’s

@93-1994 Linus Pauling, Nobel prize scientist (Vitamin C advocate)

80’s

@86-2009 Don Hewitt, television news producer & director; creator of 60 Minutes

@83-1887 Alvan Clark, American astronomer and maker of the Dearborn Observatory telescope, the largest telescope in the world at the time

@82-2016 Donald Henderson, American epidemiologist, led world campaign that eradicated smallpox

40’s

49►Mathew Perry, actor (Friends)

30’s

@39-1662 laise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist and Christian philosopher (Pascal's Law, Pascal's Wager), stomach tumor

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…☼☼☼☼