Nov 30

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

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11.30.16 Week: 48 \ Day: 335

November Averages: 51°\22°

86004 Today: H 36° \ L 16° Average Sky Cover: 0% 

Wind ave:   10mph\Gusts:  -mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 66°[1995]   Record Low: -3°[1975]

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Quote of the Day

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

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Observances Today                                                  

Computer Security Day

National Meth Awareness Day Link

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Annual Lighting

Stay At Home Because You Are Well Day

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Today’s US Historical Highlights

►Today’s World Historical Highlights 

►  1487 The German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot), is promulgated by Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria stating beer should be brewed from only three ingredients – water, malt and hops

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►  1731 Beijing hit by an earthquake; about 100,000 die

►  1786 Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II promulgates a penal reform, making his the 1st state to abolish the death penalty. November 30 commemorated as Cities for Life Day.

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1804 Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase begins

1886 First commercially successful AC electric power plant opens, Buffalo, NY

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1907 Pike Place Market dedicated in Seattle

1931 His Master's Voice & Columbia Records merge into EMI

1933 CCC Camps are established in Cleveland Park District

1950 US President Harry Truman threatens China with atom bomb

1956 1st use of videotape on TV (Douglas Edwards & the News)

►  1962 U Thant of Burma becomes the 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations

1967 Senator Eugene McCarthy announces he will run for the US presidency on anti-Vietnam war platform

►  1974 Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy, Australopithecus) discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia's Afar Depression

1982 "Gandhi" directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley and John Gielgudpremieres in New Delhi (Best Picture 1983)

►  1986 Ivan Lendl is 1st tennis player to earn over $10 million in his lifetime

1990 US President George H. W. Bush offers to send Secretary of State James Baker to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein

1993 President Clinton signs Brady Gun Control Bill

1995 Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

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2004 Longtime "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah finally loses, leaving him with $2,520,700 USD, television's all-time biggest game show haul.

2007 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office hostage crisis: Leeland Eisenberg entered the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in Rochester, New Hampshire with a device suspected of being a bomb and held three people hostage for 5 hours..

►  2014 Australia experiences its hottest spring and second-hottest November recorded

2015 NBA star Kobe Bryant (LA Lakers) announces his intention to retire at the end of the season

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My Rambling Thoughts

Got a little snow yesterday early evening, today roads are clear, sky is all blue, and temps are chilly.

There is a great spice, used a lot in the Mexico, that adds a little kick to many foods. It’s called Tajin. Got a bottle and am really enjoying it. Did a little running around this morning. All is good.

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Brain Teasers

(answers at the end of post)

Got the Edge

Rebus brain teasers use words or letters in interesting orientations to represent common phrases.

What's the rebus shown by this display below?

My---------Your

10:30

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“Contronym”—word that is its own antonym

Fast can mean "moving rapidly," as in "running fast," or ‘fixed, unmoving,’ as in "holding fast." If colors are fast they will not run. The meaning ‘firm, steadfast’ came first. The adverb took on the sense ‘strongly, vigorously,’ which evolved into ‘quickly,’ a meaning that spread to the adjective.

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Today’s Trivia Hive

(answers at the end of post)

Which Native American did the Pilgrims first come in contact with after building their settlement in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts?

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…Harper’s Index…

2.4 – Factor by which a white public-school student is more likely than a black student to be labeled ‘gifted’.

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2 jokes for the day

Alfie had been listening to his sister practicing her singing. "Sis," he said, "I wish you'd sing Christmas Carols."

"That’s nice of you, Alfie," she said. "Why?"

"Then I'd only have to hear you once a year!"

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A husband and wife were at the mall when they got separated. The wife calls him on her cell phone. "Where are you?" she asks.

"Well, do you remember the store when we were first married and you were looking at a beautiful ring in the jewelry store window, but we could not afford it?"

"Yes", she replies, excited to think about what he was about to say, a tear forming in her eyes.

"Great, I am at the sports store right next to it."

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Somewhat Useless Information

During the First World War much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. Previously beautiful countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over, again and again. The landscape swiftly turned to bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow.

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Bright red Flanders poppies however, were delicate but resilient flowers and grew in their thousands, flourishing even in the middle of chaos and destruction. In early May 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lt Col John McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies to write a now famous poem called 'In Flanders Fields'.

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McCrae's poem inspired an American academic, Moina Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies which were brought to England by a French woman, Anna Guerin. The Royal British Legion, formed in 1921, ordered 9 million of these poppies and sold them on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately and that first ever 'Poppy Appeal' raised over 106,000 British pounds; a considerable amount of money at the time. This was used to help WW1 veterans with employment and housing.

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The following year, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory to employ disabled ex-Servicemen. Today, the factory and the Legion's warehouse in Aylesford produces millions of poppies each year.

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Birthdays Today

► indicates age at death

►  95- Efren Zimbalist Jr, actor (77 Sunset Strip, FBI, Scruples), born in NYC, New York (d. 2014)

►  90- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (Conservative: 1940-45, 1951-55) during World War II and winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature, born in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England (d. 1965)

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89- Robert Guillaume, [Williams], actor (Benson, Soap), born in St Louis, Missouri

86- G[eorge] Gordon Liddy, Watergate felon and radio host, born in Brooklyn

►  80- Shirley Chisholm, 1st African American congresswoman and presidential candidate (Rep-D-NY), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2005)

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►  77- Jonathan Swift, satirist (Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal), born in Dublin, Ireland (d. 1745)

►  76- Richard Crenna, LA Cal, actor (Rambo, Summer Rental, Sand Pebbles) [d2003]

►74- Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens], American author (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn), born in Florida, Missouri (d. 1910)

►  70- Oliver Fisher Winchester, rifle maker (Winchester)

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►  67- Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian author (Anne of Green Gables), born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island (d. 1942)

66- Paul Westphal, NBA guard (Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns)

64- Mandy Patinkin, actor/singer (Yentl, Alien Nation), born in Chicago, Illinois

61- Billy Idol, [William Broad], rocker (White Wedding)

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54- Bo Jackson, baseball/football player (KC Royals, LA Raiders)

►  52- Abbie Hoffman, aka Free, Yippie/activist/author (Steal this Book)[d1989]

51- Ben Stiller, actor (Ben Stiller Show, Next of Kin, Cable Guy), born in NYC, New York

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►  48- Allan Sherman, parody singer/songwriter (Hello Muddah, Hello Fardah) [d1973]

►  45- John McCrae, Canadian physician, soldier and poet (In Flanders Fields), born in Guelph, Ontario (d. 1918)

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Historical Obits Today

@86-1994 Lionel Stander, US blacklisted actor (Hart to Hart)

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@78-1979 Zeppo Marx, [Herbert], US comic (Marx Brothers), lung cancer

@75-1990 Norman Cousins, editor (Saturday Review), heart failure

@74-1999 Charlie Byrd, American jazz and bossa nova guitarist (Desfinado), lung cancer

@71-1996 Tiny Tim, [Herbert Khaury], entertainer (Tip Toe), heart attack

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@69-2007 Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel, American motorcycle daredevil, idiomatic pulmonary fibrosis

@63-1987 James Baldwin, writer (Go Tell it on the Mountain), stomach cancer

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@46-1900 Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and novelist (Importance of Being Earnest), cerebral meningitis

@40-2013 Paul Walker, American actor (The Fast and the Furious), car accident

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Brain Teasers Answers

Time is on my side

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Trivia Hive  Answers

Tisquantum

After the Pilgrims built their settlement, they met Tisquantum, more commonly known as Squanto. Squanto was an imperative assistant to the Pilgrims because he taught them basic survival procedures such as how to plant crops and where to hunt. Source: History.com

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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…☼☼☼☼