Sep 25

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

‡‡‡‡

9.25.16 Week: 39 \ Day: 269

September Averages: 74°\42°

86004 Today: H 62° \ L 31° Average Sky Cover: 0% 

Wind ave:   1mph\Gusts:  15mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 85°[1947]   Record Low: 24°[1959]

‡‡‡‡

Quote of the Day

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

~Soren Kierkegaard

‡‡‡‡

Observances Today                                                  

Bright Pink Lipstick Day Link

Gold Star Mother's Day 

International Day of The Deaf 

Math Story Telling Day

National Comic Book Day

National One-Hit Wonder Day

National Psychotherapy Day Link

National Research Administrators Day Link

(World) Ataxia Awareness Day Link

World Pharmacists Day Link

Republic Day (Rwanda-1961)

‡‡‡‡

Observances This Week

18-25 Link	Deaf Dog Awareness Week
19-25  Link	International Week of the Deaf
19-25	International Women's E-Commerce Days
25-10/1    Link	World Hearing Aid Awareness Week

‡‡‡‡

Today’s US Historical Highlights

Today’s World Historical Highlights

1639 First printing press in America

1690 Publick Occurrences, first newspaper in the American colonies (Boston), publishes first & last edition

1775 American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen captured

1780 Benedict Arnold joins the British

1789 US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights

1804 12th amendment to US constitution, regulating judicial power

1820 French Physicist Francois Arago announces electromagnetism in his discovery that a copper wire between the poles of a voltaic cell could laterally attract iron filings to itself

1861 Secretary of US Navy authorizes enlistment of slaves

1866 (Leonard W) Jerome Park opens in Bronx for horse racing

1867 Congress creates 1st all-black university, Howard U in Wash DC

1897 1st British bus service opens

1904 Charles Follis is 1st black to play professional American football

1906 Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the Telekino at Bilbao before a great crowd, guiding a boat from the shore, considered the birth of the remote control

1912 Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York, New York.

1919 US president Woodrow Wilson suffers a breakdown in Colorado, his health never recovers

1926 Henry Ford announces 8 hour, 5-day work week

1934 Lou Gehrig plays in his 1,500th consecutive game

1954 Francois "Doc" Duvalier wins Haitian presidential election

1962 Black church is destroyed by fire in Macon, Georgia

1962 Sonny Liston KOs Floyd Patterson in 1st round for heavyweight title

1974 Scientists first report that freon gases from aerosol sprays are destroying the ozone layer

1976 Bono, David Evans, his brother Dik and Adam Clayton respond to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band, which would eventually become U2

1979 "Evita" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 1568 performances

1980 Chevy Chase calls Cary Grant a homo on Tomorrow show (suit follows)

1981 Sandra Day O'Connor sworn in as 1st female supreme court justice

1988 Florence Griffith Joyner runs Olympic record 100m in 10.54s

1990 Saddam Hussein warns that US will repeat Vietnam experience

1990 UN Security Council vote 14-1 to impose air embargo against Iraq

1996 The last of the Magdalen Asylums closes in Ireland.

2008 The "Celtic Tiger" slides into recession for the first time in over two decades, recording a 0.5% fall in second quarter GDP, following a 0.3% decline in the first quarter; its last recession in 1983 saw thousands of people leave Ireland to seek work overseas

2015 Singapore closes schools due to hazardous levels of air pollution from fires in Indonesia

‡‡‡‡

My Rambling Thoughts

I am not excited that fall has arrived. Had to replace the furnace filter and turn on the furnace to keep my place at 68°…the upstairs was fine this morning but when I went downstairs for breakfast it was a very cool 64°. I realize that isn’t ‘cold’ but it not pleasant when trying to read the morning paper.  And the cool breeze isn’t helping. I usually have the office window open while I am working, but no more for a while. Guess it is time to wash all the windows as soon as this cool front leaves us.

Never been a big fan of either Bush President, but did enjoy watching the opening of the new museum that Jr. signed into law while President. Nice ceremony. Another add to my DC bucket list.

‡‡‡‡

Brain Teasers

(answers at the end of post)

Sight Rhymes 8

Language brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.

In each group below, the three words end in the same three letters, so they look like they should rhyme, but they don't. See if you can figure out the missing letters in each group.

Example: plo___, tho___, to___ would be plough, though, tough.

1. eng___, f___, mar___

2. c___, car___, s___

3. ag___, g___, h___

‡‡‡‡

Today’s Trivia Hive

(answers at the end of post)

What happened to the steel from the Twin Towers after they collapsed?

‡‡‡‡

…Harper’s Index…

75 – Percentage by which using traffic circles rather than stop signs at intersections decreased injurious car accidents

0.09 – Percentage of US intersections that are traffic circles

‡‡‡‡

2 jokes for the day

Hair Replacement 

A man was going bald and told his friends he was going to get a rabbit tattooed on his head as it was a lot cheaper than an implant or a toupée. 

His friends asked how getting a rabbit tattooed on his head would help? 

The man replied, "Well, at least from a distance it will look like hare."

‡‡‡‡

Learning to Read and Write

New research found that pigeons can actually be taught to read and write.

Once the researchers finished teaching the pigeon, the first thing it wrote was, “Get a life, man.”

‡‡‡‡

Yep, It Really Happened

*-- Boy, 8, brings dead squirrel to school, says he wants 'squirrel dumplings' --*

OKLAHOMA CITY - An Oklahoma City mother whose 8-year-old son was found to have a dead squirrel in his bag at school said the boy took his father's jokes a little too seriously. Ladye Hobson posted a photo to Facebook of the late rodent taking its final rest in the boy's school bag, explaining the discovery at school had led to an awkward phone call from the principal of Gatewood Elementary in Oklahoma City. Hobson wrote: "When the principal calls to tell you that your son has made her day, so you get excited for the good news... Only to find out that the faculty has discovered a dead squirrel in his backpack (yeah, that 50 dollar Pottery Barn backpack). When asked by the principal what possessed him to pick up this dead squirrel and store it in his backpack, my son replies with 'I really wanted squirrel dumplings for dinner tonight.' Then, she asks if I actually want the squirrel to come home with him. Y'all, I had to explain that we are from the country, but we're not THAT country. (Sorry if any of you actually eat squirrel dumplings - I don't mean that to be offensive). She said 'it looked so peaceful lying there in his bag,' then sent me this picture..." Hobson said her son, Brylan, apparently thought his father was serious when he repeatedly joked about making "squirrel dumplings" for dinner. The mother said in a blog post that Brylan came home in tears and apologized profusely, but she decided "he gets a free pass on this one." "I can't even be mad at this point. He has made the principal's day, after all," she wrote.            

‡‡‡‡

How it was discovered

The secret to discovering the prevailing theory to how the universe was made began with noise, like common radio static. In 1964, while working with the Holmdel antenna in New Jersey, the two astronomers discovered a background noise that left them perplexed. After ruling out possible interference from urban areas, nuclear tests, or pigeons living in the antenna, Wilson and Penzias came across an explanation with Robert Dicke's theory that radiation leftover from a universe-forming big bang would now act as background cosmic radiation.

In fact, only 37 miles from the Holmdel antenna at Princeton University, Dicke and his team had been searching for this background radiation. When he heard the news of Wilson and Penzias' discovery, he famously told his research partners, "well boys, we've been scooped." Penzias and Wilson would go on to receive the Nobel Prize.

‡‡‡‡

Birthdays Today

“[ ]” indicates age at death

[89] May Sutton Bundy, Tennis champion and 1st American woman to win the singles title at Wimbledon in 1905, born in Plymouth, England (d. 1975)

87- Barbara Walters, newscaster (Today, 20/20, ABC-TV), born in Boston, Massachusetts

72- Michael Douglas, American actor (Coma, Wall St, Jewel of the Nile), born in New Brunswick, New Jersey

69- Cheryl Tiegs, Minnesota, model (Sports Illustrated)

[68] Shel Silverstein, American humorist and author (d. 1999)

68- Mimi Kennedy, actress (Spencer, 3 girls 3, Under 1 Roof), born in Rochester, New York

67- Anson Williams, actor (Potsie-Happy Days), born in Los Angeles, California

65-Mark Hamill, actor (Luke Skywalker-Star Wars), born in Oakland, California

[64] William Faulkner, American author (Sound & Fury-Nobel 1949), born in New Albany, Mississippi (d. 1962)

[59] Juliet Prowse, Bombay India, actress/dancer (Who Killed Teddy Bear) [d-1996]

55- Heather Locklear, actress (T J Hooker, Dynasty), born in Los Angeles, California

[52] Christopher Reeve, actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time), born in NYC, New York [d2004]

51- Scottie Pippen, Hamburg, Arkansas, American NBA forward (Bulls, Oly-2 gold-92, 96)

[49] Robert Clive, English explorer/founder (british empire in India) [d1774]

48- Will Smith [The Fresh Prince], American actor and rapper (Men in Black, Independence Day, Fresh Prince), born in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

47- Catherine Zeta Jones, Welsh actress (Christopher Columbus), born in Swansea, Wales

43- Bridgette Wilson, Gold Beach, Oregon, American actress (Mortal Kombat, Billy Madison)

[37] Ethel Rosenberg, American Communist, born in New York City, New York [d1953]

‡‡‡‡

Historical Obits Today

@91-1991 Lydia Cabrera, Cuban Anthropologist

@90-1986 Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian Chemist and Nobel Prize winner

@87-1984 Walter Pidgeon, actor (Forbidden Planet, Mrs Miniver)

@86-1960 Emily Post, etiquette expert

@84-2012-Andy Williams, American singer, bladder cancer

@82-2005 Don Adams, American actor and comedian (Get Smart)

@81-1987 Mary Astor, actress (Cynthia, Meet Me in St Louis, Fiesta) @51-1988 Billy Carter, brother of US President Jimmy Carter, cancer

@77-1991 Klaus Barbie, Gestapo chief of Lyon, cancer

@77-1898 Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet, French Anthropologist who was the first to organize and classify Stone Age cultures into a chronological sequence of epochs

@76-2003 George Plimpton, American writer and actor, heart attack

@73-1974 Coco the Clown, [Nikolai Poliakoff]

@72-1945 Charles A Ellwood,  US sociologist/psychologist

@62-1877 Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich, German Physician and advocate of scientific medicine

@32-1917 Thomas Ashe, Irish revolutionary, inhumane treatment in prison

‡‡‡‡

Brain Teasers Answers

1. engine, fine, marine

2. cafe, carafe, safe

3. agave, gave, have

‡‡‡‡

Trivia Hive  Answers

In January of 2002, Baosteel, a Chinese engineering firm bought 50,000 of the 300,000 tons of steel from Ground Zero. 30,000 tons were also bought by various corporations in India. The rest of the steel was either made into memorials or is sitting in Hangar 17 at the JFK airport. There are 9/11 memorials in all 50 states as well as eight different countries made from the steel from Ground Zero. Source: The Chicago Tribune

‡‡‡‡

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…☼☼☼☼