September 25, 2015

▼9-26-15

FYI: This blog is now at a new address.
Sept  26, 2015  Week: 39 \ Day: 269
September Averages: 74°\42°
86004 Today: H 76° \ L 43° Average Sky Cover: 3% 
Wind ave:   8mph\Gusts:  24mph
Ave. High: ° Record High: °[] Ave. Low: ° Record Low: °[]
Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
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Observances Today:                         
Batman Day Link
Family Day - A Day To Eat Dinner With Your Children

Family Health and Fitness Day USA
Fish Amnesty Day
International Lace Day Link    

Kids Day (Kiwanis Clubs)  Link  
National Hunting and Fishing Day
National Museum Day Link
National Public Lands Day 
R.E.A.D. in America Day
Shamu the Whale Day

Support Purple for Platelets Day Link
UN World Maritime Day
World Contraception Day Link

Observances This Week:
19-27
International Air Ambulance Week Link
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Quote of the Day 

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US Historical Highlights for Today
1772 - New Jersey passes bill requiring a license to practice medicine
1789 - Thomas Jefferson appointed 1st US Secretary of State; John Jay becomes 1st US Chief Justice
1872 - The first Shriners Temple (called Mecca) was established in New York City
1914 - Federal Trade Commission formed to regulate interstate commerce
1960 - 1st of 4 TV debates Nixon & Kennedy took place (Chicago)
1962 - TV comedy series "Beverly Hillbillies" premieres on CBS
1964 - "Gilligan's Island", starring Bob Denver as Gilligan, debuts on CBS1986 - RUN-DMC is 1st rap group to hit top 10 (Raisin' Hell)
1995 - "George" magazine premieres, published by John F Kennedy Jr

2006 - Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" premieres (Best Picture 2007)
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World Historical Highlights for Today
1396 - Sultan Bajezid I beheads 100s of crusaders
1580 - Frances Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the Golden Hind
1687 - Acropolis in Athens attacked by Venetian army trying to eject Turks, the Parthenon is subsequently damaged in the war
1923 - The Commonwealth Conference is held in London, where Britain recognizes the right of the Dominions to make treaties with foreign powers
1957
- Dag Hammarskjoeld re-elected secretary-general of UN

1968 - "Oliver!" premieres in London (Best Picture 1969)
1980 - Cuban government closes Mariel Harbor ending "freedom flotilla"
1997 - An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse
2012 - Greek trade unions call a general strike to protest austerity measures
2014 - World Health Organizations estimates that Ebola death toll has reached 3,091 - with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone hit hardest
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Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today 

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My Rambling Thoughts
Another beautiful fall day…warm with a cloudless sky.
I’ve been watching a lot of the Pope on CNN. Must say I enjoyed the ceremony at Ground Zero. So many various church leaders from so many different religions all praying was amazing. The Pope was so moved that he apologized that he couldn’t do the speech in English, so did it in Spanish. Then he ended it with his now familiar pray for me. Very amazing Prayers for Peace from so many. The Mass at MSG is going to be in multiple languages…should be interesting.
I’m not into organized religion, but certainly believe in the importance of Peace and Caring for other humans and that is the message I am hearing from this Pope.
I am SMH when I heard that one Catholic US Rep, from AZ of course, and 4 Catholic Supreme Court Justices did NOT attend his speech to Congress. Can’t believe that we have leaders of this country who are afraid to hear opposing views. Sure doesn’t sound very Christian to me. Then the Speaker, a Catholic, who did listen to the Pope decided that today was the day he would announce his resignation from the Speaker’s position and from the House. He fought the battle with the crazy far-right in his party and I think he was fed up and/or tired for the constant bickering.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Unscramble these four word jumbles and use the instructions given below them to form the name of a country which is a jumble of those letters.

1. KERWC. Take the 1st and 2nd letter.
2. LZEA. Take the 1st, 2nd and the 4th letter.
3. KURNT. Take the 1st and the 4th letter.
4. IASB. Take the 2nd and 3rd letter.
5. SUKD. Take the 1st and 3rd letter.

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Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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…Amazing Facts…
The Sun and Moon appear to be the same size because the moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, but 400 times closer to Earth.

Australian Bill Morgan was declared dead for 14 minutes and lived unscathed. To celebrate, he bought a scratch card and won a car worth $27,000. For a news report, he was asked to re-enact winning the scratch card, so he bought another card and won a $250,000 jackpot.
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…Harper’s Index…
1/4 – portion of part-time faculty at US colleges whose households receive government assistance.
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…Instagram Photo of the Day… 

Left natgeoPhoto taken with iPhone 6s Plus by @markleongphotography. The Dong minority women of Sanjiang, Guangxi often have blue hands from dyeing their traditional fabrics in vats of indigo. The is an outtake from a story about the experience of photographing over 25 years in China that appears currently in Proof, National Geographic’s online photography journal.
Right natgeoPhoto by @edkashi / @viiphoto 7/19/04 - Port Harcourt, Nigeria What follows is an excerpt from my book of journals to my wife, called Photojournalisms.
It was a good, long day. I went back to photograph the Shell oil spill and got some important photos. The cloudy, rainy days continue. It’s a nice change of pace but limiting in terms of the quality of light I’m getting to work with. I’m liking the Nigerians quite a bit. Great energy, beautiful people, strong with sweet smiles. I’m constantly hearing the word “I yebo”, which means white man. They don’t consider it rude to yell this out as soon as they see me. It could also be the product of more than 500 years of plundering and subjugation by white men. The one disturbing trend is the constant request for money. We got our car stuck in-between planks of wood and iron girders on a rickety bridge . . . a bit hairy for sure. A truckload of men came by and lifted our car to safety. Afterwards, they asked for money. It was very disappointing. If I hadn’t been there, they would not have done that I was told.
The spill was disgusting. The workers had no protective gear and basically worked knee deep in the oily muck to clear the brush. #photojournalisms #journal #icausebeautiful #photojournalist #nigeria #oil
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…Foreigners Don’t Understand These American Customs…
8. High school proms.
Yes, people outside of the U.S. have seen them depicted on 90210 or Saved By the Bell reruns, but they don't exactly understand why it's such a huge teenage rite of passage.
"Prom, I have cousins who live in the U.S. and just hearing about the number of hoops they had to jump through to ask someone to a dance is hilarious. This and the sheer size and budget of high school sporting facilities," explained reddit user SaysThingsFromABush.
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…Unusual Fact of the Day…
More than 300 million Cadbury Creme Eggs are produced each year.
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2 jokes for the day
A candidate at a job interview was asked a tough question to which he mumbled an inaudible answer. The interviewer said "Come again?"
The candidate got up, collected his file, went out of the room and came back again.
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It was Halloween night... A man was walking home from work when he heard thump noises behind him.
He turned around and saw a coffin following him.
He was scared and started to run, the coffin kept right up with him.
He got to his house ran through the front door, locked it and ran upstairs.
The coffin busted through the front door and followed the man upstairs.
The man ran for his life and then locked himself in the bathroom.
The coffin burst into the bathroom.
The man totally freaked out reached into the medicine cabinet and grabbed what he could find.
What he grabbed was cough drops. He threw the cough drops at the coffin and the coffin stopped.           

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Yep, It Really Happened
NPR – When officials in Richmond, CA learned in 2000 that 79% of the city’s murders and rirearm assults were directly linked to 17 people, they decided on a bold program: to pay off those 17 to behave themselves. For a budget of about $1.2million a year, the program offers individual coaching, healthcare coverage and several hundred dollars a month in stipends to former thugs who stick to their ‘life map’ of personal goals and conflict-resolution training. According too This American Life, Richmond is no longer among the most dangerous towns in America, with the murder rate in fact having fallen from its all-time yearly high of 62 to 11 last year.
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Somewhat Useless Information
Scientists have dosed naked mole rats with carcinogens and radiation, yet they have never been observed to develop cancer, according to vox.com.
They tolerate acid, live 6x longer than other rodents, they hardly age, they survive long periods of oxygen deprivation and can live in heavy metal polluted areas.
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Birthdays Today
“()” indicates age at death
(96) - Jack LaLanne, exercise mogul (Juice Tiger) d.2011
(82) - Donna Douglas, actress (Elly May Clampett-The Beverly Hillbillies) d. 2015
(79) - George Raft, American actor (Scarface, Some Like It Hot) d. 1980
(76) - T. S. Eliot, poet/dramatist/critic (Waste Land-Nobel 1948), d. 1965
(74) - Julie London, Santa Rosa California, actress (Nurse McCall-Emergency) d.2000
(67) - Lynn Anderson, country singer (I Never Promised you a Rose Garden) d. 2015
67 - Olivia Newton-John, Cambridge England, singer (Lets Get Physical)
53 - Melissa Sue Anderson, Cal, actress (Little House on the Prairie)
47 - James Caviezel, actor (Passion of Christ)
(44) - Saint Francis of Assisi, Italian founder of the Franciscan Order d. 1226
34 - Serena Williams, Saginaw, Michigan, tennis player (13 grand slams)
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Historical Obits Today
George Santayana, US philosopher/poet (Last Puritan)-1952@88
Walter Pidgeon, actor (Forbidden Planet)-1984@87
Daniel Boone, frontiersman-1820@85
Paul Newman, actor-2008@83
August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and astronomer-1868@77
Levi Strauss, American clothing manufacturer-1902@73
Richard Mulligan, actor (Soap), cancer-2000@67
Bela Bartok, composer, leukemia-1945@64
Robert Palmer, English singer, heart attack-2003@54
Bessie Smith, singer, car crash-1937@43
Johnny Lewis, actor (Sons of Anarchy), fall-2012@28
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Brain Teasers Answers
1. Wreck.
2. Zeal.
3. Trunk.
4. Bias.
5. Dusk.

The letters taken from the above words using the instructions form WRZELTNAIDS.
Switzerland is the country which can be formed from the jumble.
For much of the 20th century, Switzerland was the wealthiest country in Europe by a considerable margin.

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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

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