December 16, 2015

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December 16, 2015  Week: 51 \ Day: 350

December Averages: 44°\17°

86004 Today: H 27° \ L 12° Average Sky Cover: 0% 

Wind ave:   11mph\Gusts:  21mph

Ave. High: 42° Record High: 63°[1958] Ave. Low: 16° Record Low: -18°[1971]

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Observances Today:                         

Barbie and Barney Backlash Day

National Chocolate Covered Anything Day Link

Zionism Day

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Observances This Week:

10-17

Human Rights Week

13-19

Gluten-free Baking Week Link 

14-1/5

Christmas Bird Count Week Link  

14-28

Halcyon Days

16-24

Posadas

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Quote of the Day 

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US Historical Highlights for Today

1773 - Boston tea party incident - Sons of Liberty protesters throw tea shipments into Boston harbor in protest against British imposed Tea Act

1811 - Earthquake hits New Madrid, Missouri, causing widespread damage. Many tribes will tell tales of this event for generations

1835 - Fire consumes over 600 buildings in NYC

1900 - A National Civic Federation is formed in the US to arbitrate labor disputes

1905 - "Variety" covering all phases of show business, 1st published

1908 - 1st credit union in US forms (Manchester NH)

1913 - Charlie Chaplin began his film career at Keystone for $150 a week

1938 - The first Navajo Tribal Fair was held at Window Rock

1950 - US President Harry Truman proclaims state of emergency against "Communist imperialism"

1953 - 1st White House Press Conference (President Eisenhower & 161 reporters)

1962

 - David Lean's film "Lawrence of Arabia", based on life of T. E. Lawrence premieres, starring Peter O'Toole (Best Picture 1963)

1978 - Ronald Reagan denounces President Jimmy Carter's recognition of China PR

1978 - Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.

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World Historical Highlights for Today

1497 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama is 1st European to sail along Africa's East Coast, names it Natal

1617 - Spanish viceroy Hernando Arias de Saavedra founds provinces Rio de la Plata (Argentina)/Guaira (Paraguay)

1631 - Mount Vesuvius, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages & kills 4,000

1707 - Last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan.

1826 - Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican controlled Nacogdoches, Texas and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1893 - Anton Dvorak's "New World Symphony" premieres

1921 - The Anglo-Irish Treaty, agreed to by the British Parliament and Sinn Fein, is ratified

1970 - 1st successful landing on Venus (USSR)

1991 - UN reverses ruling that Zionism is racism by 111-25 (13 abstain) vote

2012 - A gang rape of a woman on a bus in India that resulted in her death leads to national and international outrage

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♫ Birthdays Today: ♫

How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today 

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My Rambling Thoughts

Chilly day, but snow is sort of melting. Got a haircut and a quick eye exam. Amazing the machines that exist. One tests ‘field of vision’ and the other tests how fast light travels from your eye to your brain.

Winter has definitely arrived here. Snow, cold, and big icicles. Love it.

Made my shuttle reservations—plane leaves Phx at 10:25a, shuttle picks me up at 4:20a. Oh well, better than driving…especially if there is snow.

So tired of politics, but being a junkie, I will be watching the debate soon. I said I wouldn’t, but can’t stay away.

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Brain Teasers

(answers at the end of post)

Sylasearch

In a sylasearch I give you a syllable-starter, which is the first syllable in the words you are to find. I will also give you a listing of the other syllables that you must use to figure out the 7 words.

Syllable List - al, cras, fes, file, ly, mo, nate, noun, po, si, sion, tec, ter, ti, tion, tor

Syllable-starter: pro

How many syllables, each word has:

1. (2)

2. (2)

3. (3)

4. (3)

5. (4)

6. (4)

7. (5)

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…Bet You Didn’t Know…

James Bond author Ian Fleming wrote the children’s book "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang."

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…Crazy Law…

New York

In New York, if a person “being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised” then that person is an illegal loiterer, unless you’re at a masquerade ball. Moral of the story: EVERYONE IS GETTING ARRESTED ON HALLOWEEN.

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…Harper’s Index…

$40,000 amount won by a Czech family for completing a reality show that re-created rural life under Nazi occupation

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…Instagram Photo of the Day… 

earthpix Nabana no Sato winter illumination, Japan | Photo by @evolve_basis

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2 jokes for the day

Battery Charged

Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks.

They charged one - and let the other one off.

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Dear Bartender

A man crosses the road from a hospital and enters a bar and immediately asks for three treble whiskeys and a beer. The barman pours the drinks and the man swallows each whiskey in one swallow.

The barman is alarmed by this and expresses his concern only for the man to reply, ”IF YOU HAD WHAT I HAVE THEN YOU WOULD BE KNOCKING THE DRINKS BACK TOO!”

The barman places the beer on the counter and watches the man chug down the brew and asks sympathetically, “what have you got?”

The man places the empty glass down and replies “an empty wallet.”        

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Yep, It Really Happened

TORONTO - An elementary school in Toronto has placed a temporary ban on tag and other games after several students suffered injuries. A spokesperson for the Toronto Catholic District School Board confirmed that tag and other games involving physical contact were no longer allowed at St. Luke Catholic School as of November. Spokesperson Jon W. Yan cited "a number of injuries" including scrapes, bruises, sprains and in one case a fractured leg. Yan went on to say that the majority of the injuries stemmed from students playing a more aggressive version of tag. "The game of tag they were playing was getting overly physical and rough," he said, according to the Toronto Star. "It was tag -- but it was a rough form of tag." The school has also been enrolled in Canada's Playground Activity Leaders in Schools or PALS program, which instructs students and administrators on safe playground behavior. One parent questioned the practice on Twitter writing, "So tag and soccer are unsafe activities? What happened to allowing kids to play?" School board trustee Jo-Ann Davis insisted that "nothing is banned" and stated that the school's principal was simply trying to ensure the safety of the students. Physical activities currently allowed at St. Luke include "ball tag" and soccer although students below seventh grade must use a softer ball. 

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Somewhat Useless Information

Middle names are a somewhat recent tradition in Western civilization. No person aboard the Mayflower had a middle name. Only three of the first 17 U.S. presidents had one.

Retailer J.C. Penney had an appropriate middle name: Cash. 

The T in educator Booker T Washington's name stood for Taliaferro. The former slave added the middle name in his later years after learning that his mother had once called him Booker Taliaferro. Even today, the significance of Taliaferro is not known.

Tom Cruise's middle name is Cruise. His birth name was Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. When he moved to New York to pursue acting after high school, he adopted the last name of Cruise, which was the name of an ancestral family matriarch.

Frances Bean Cobain, daughter of rockers Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, got her middle name because her late father thought she looked like a kidney bean. 

When Reginald Kenneth Dwight changed his name to Elton John, he took the middle name Hercules.

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Birthdays Today

“()” indicates age at death

(90) - Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Minehead England, science fiction author (2001, 2010, Childhood's End) (d.2008)

(88) - George Santayana, Spain, philosopher/poet/humanist (Last Puritan) (1952)

(76) - Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (Coming of Age in Samoa), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d.1978)

74 - Lesley Stahl, newscaster/correspondent (CBS)

(73) - Noel Coward, England, playwright (In Which We Serve-1942 Acad Award) (d.1973)

(56) - Ludwig van Beethoven, Bonn, Germany, composer (5th Symphony, Ode to Joy), (d. 1827)

53 - William "The Refrigerator" Perry, NFL defensive back (Chicago Bears)

52 - Benjamin Bratt, California, actor (Det Reynaldo Curtis-Law & Order)

(50) - Catherine of Aragon, Spanish princess/1st wife of Henry VIII, born in Madrid, Spain (d. 1536)

 (41) - Jane Austen, Winchester, Hampshire, novelist (Pride and Prejudice), (d. 1817)

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Historical Obits Today

@90-1980 - Harland Sanders, founder Kentucky Fried Chicken

@87-2013 - Ray Price, American singer

@79-2009 - Roy E. Disney, American businessman, cancer

@73-1859 - Wilhelm Grimm, writer,

@64-1989 - Lee Van Cleef, US actor (Good, Bad & Ugly), heart attack

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Brain Teasers Answers

1. profile (pro file)

2. pronoun (pro noun)

3. promoter (pro mo ter)

4. protector (pro tec tor)

5. procrastinate (pro cras ti nate)

6. proposition (pro po si tion)

7. professionally (pro fes sion al ly)

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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… 🎄 🎄 🎄 🎄