FYI: Any blue
text is a link. Click to check it out!
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12.13.16 Week: 50 \ Day: 348
December Averages: 44°\17°
86004 Today: H 52° \
L 27° Average Sky Cover: 45%
Wind ave: 9mph\Gusts: -mph Visibility: 10 mi
Record High: 66°[1921] Record Low: -19°[1931]
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Quote of the Day
The more one
pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.
~Stendhal
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Observances Today
Pick A Pathologist
Pal Day Link
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Observances This Week
10-17 Human Rights
Week
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Today’s Significant US Historical Events
▼ Today’s Significant International Historical Events
1636 The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three
militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This
organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National
Guard.
1759 First music store in America opens
(Philadelphia)
1769 Dartmouth College in New Hampshire received
its charter
1774 First incident of American Revolution - 400
attack Ft William and Mary, New Hampshire
1879 First federal fish hatching steamer launched
(Wilmington, Delaware)
▼1902 British
and German ships bombard Venezuelan forts after President Castro refuses to
comply with ultimatum demanding damages caused during his takeover of the
government in 1899; Castro asks US President Theodore Roosevelt to
arbitrate
▼1916 Avalanche
kills 10,000 Austrian & Italian troops in 24 hrs in Tyrol
▼1920 League
of Nations establishes International Court of Justice in The Hague
1924 KOA-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions
1928 Clip-on tie designed
1928 George Gershwin's "An American In
Paris" premieres (NYC)
1938 Los Angeles freezes at 28°F
▼1949 Knesset
votes to transfer Israel's capital to Jerusalem
1950 James Dean begins his career with an
appearance in a Pepsi commercial
1956 "Anastasia" comeback film for Ingrid
Bergman is released in the US, role wins Bergman Academy Award for Best
Actress.
▼1964 In
El Paso, Tx, LBJ & Mexican Pres Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an
explosion diverting Rio Grande, to reshape US-Mexico border
1966 1st US bombing of Hanoi part of Operation
Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War
1967 San Diego, CA records snow at a zero elevation
after temperatures plunge 19 degrees (F) in eight hours.
1969 Arlo Guthrie releases "Alice's
Restaurant"
1975 1st time "Saturday Night Live" uses
a time delay, Richard Pryor hosts
1983 9,655 see highest-scoring NBA game: Detroit
186, Denver 184 (3 OT)
1989 "Driving Miss Daisy" directed by
Bruce Beresford and starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy is
released (Best Picture 1990)
▼1990 South
African President F. W. de Klerk meets with Nelson Mandela to
talk of end of apartheid
▼1996 Kofi
Annan is elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations.
2000 American Vice President Al Gore delivers
his concession speech effectively ending his hopes of becoming the 43rd
President of the United States.
2001 "A Beautiful Mind" based on the bio
by Sylvia Nasar, directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe premieres
in Los Angeles (Best Picture 2002)
▼2002 Enlargement
of the European Union: The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta,
Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004.
▼2003 Former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of
Tikrit, during Operation Red Dawn by US forces
▼2014 Fatou
Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, criticizes
UN Security Council for its lack of action over war crimes in the Darfur region
of Sudan
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My Rambling Thoughts
It’s
Monday. Slowly getting ready for another week.
I’ve
said this election will lead to a very bumpy ride. Months ago I was confused
that all the WikiLeaks were about the Dems. And as a liberal leaning person I
was upset that such emails were ever sent or discussed. I know politics is dirty
and none of our leaders are flawless. And I don’t like seeing it on the news,
but I do understand that it is a necessary part of being informed. (I don’t
like seeing an acquaintances obit in the paper, but I know, and that is good.) However,
was the RNC so pristine that they didn’t send any bad emails? Of course not. So
to me, the leaks were politically motivated. Now our President-elect is adding
to his list of things he denies.
As
a Federal employee, I had a couple of ‘encounters’ with the FBI. I was amazed
at the amount of information they had on a couple of my employees. I was also
amazed how they got these employees to confess their wrong doing. In one case the employee had to be arrested
and handcuffed before leaving the building. This was all happening right at the
end of the school day with students and teachers heading for the buses and the
dorms. I asked that they hold off on the walk of shame until the children were
all gone. They readily complied and it took about 45 minutes extra time for
them. Later the FBI returned just before the plea deal. They asked what I
wanted to happen. My only request was that the money the employees had stolen
from the children’s accounts in the student bank be repaid…a total of about
$5000. Happy to report that the money was repaid to each account, at $50/month
until it was paid off. If they stopped paying, they would return to prison.
Good outcome. I guess the President-elect doesn’t believe the FBI or CIA
either. Bumpy ride ahead!
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Brain Teasers
(answers
at the end of post)
Back in Forth 9
Language brain teasers are those that involve
the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
Based
on the clue in parentheses, find a four-letter word that can be inserted
backwards into the blank to complete a longer word.
Example: di____ve (a defeat)
Answer: dissolve ("A defeat" gives you LOSS, which is placed backwards
in the blank: di_SSOL_ve.)
1. s____ing (profound, extreme, or intense)
2. si____ll (inspired by a feeling of reverence)
3. re____ed (draw with force)
4. s____hot (to extend over)
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“Contronym”—word that is its own antonym
Bitch, as reader
Shawn Ravenfire pointed out, can derisively refer to a woman who is considered
overly aggressive or domineering, or it can refer to someone passive or
submissive.
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Candy Cane Facts
Each
year, 1.7 billion candy canes are produced, and 90 percent of them are sold
between Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
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…Harper’s Index…
45 → Percentage of Africans who believe that being LGBTQ
should be criminalized
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2 jokes for the day
A
close friend confided in me that she had finally found Mr. Right...
Later she confessed she did not realize that she had found Mr. Always Right!
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Charlie
Brown, Snoopy, Dilbert, Dogbert, Garfield, Jon Arbuckle, and a whole lot of
comic strip characters and their pets were on an airplane flying from Miami to
Los Angeles.
In the middle of the flight, the flight attendant gave out food to everyone but
Charlie Brown and Snoopy. They asked him why everyone else got some food and
they didn't.
The flight attendant said, "Sorry, but we don't serve PEANUTS on this
flight."
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Somewhat Useless Information
In
A.D. 610, while baking bread, an Italian monk decided to create a treat to
motivate his distracted catechism students. He rolled out ropes of dough,
twisted them to resemble hands crossed on the chest in prayer, and baked them.
The monk named his snacks pretiola, Latin for "little reward."
Parents who tried them referred to them as brachiola, or "little
arms." When pretiola arrived in Germany, they were called bretzels.
***
The
phrase "tying the knot" came from the Swiss, who still incorporate
the lucky pretzel in wedding ceremonies. Newlyweds traditionally make a wish
and break the pretzel, in the same way people in other cultures break a
wishbone or a glass.
***
Hard
pretzels were "invented" in the late 1600s, when a napping apprentice
in a Pennsylvania bakery accidentally overbaked his pretzels. His job was
spared when the master baker took a bite out of one and loved it.
Until the 1930s, pretzels were handmade, and the average worker could twist 40
a minute. In 1935, the Reading Pretzel Machinery Company introduced the first
automated pretzel machine, which enabled large bakeries to make 245 pretzels per
minute, or five tons in a day.
***
Julius
Sturgis opened the first commercial pretzel bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in
1861. He received his original pretzel recipe as a thank you from a
down-on-his-luck job seeker after Sturgis gave the man dinner.
***
Pretzel
bakers may have been the first to advertise "We deliver!" Medieval
street vendors carried pretzels on a stick and sold them to the locals.
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Birthdays Today
▼ indicates age
at death
91- Dick
Van Dyke, West Plains Mo, actor (Rob Petrie-Dick Van Dyke Show)
87- Christopher
Plummer, Canadian actor (Sound of Music, Doll's House),
born in Toronto, Ontario
▼63- Mary
Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln and First Lady (d1882)
59- Steve
Buscemi, actor (Fargo)
▼57- Phillips
Brooks, Episcopal bishop/composer (Little Town of Bethlehem) [d1893]
49- Jamie
Foxx, comedian (In Living Color)
27- Taylor
Swift, American singer/songwriter (Our Song), born in
Reading, Pennsylvania
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Historical Obits Today
@80ish-1466 Donatello,
Florentine artist and sculptor
@75-1784 Samuel
Johnson, English writer and lexicographer
@74-1924 Samuel
Gompers, organizer (American Federation of Labor), uremia
@72-1999 Allen
Breed, American inventor of the first automotive airbag sensor, heart attack
@71-1958 Tim
Moore, actor (Kingfish-Amos 'n' Andy), TB
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Brain Teasers Answers
1.
speeding (DEEP - s_PEED_ing)
2. sidewall (AWED - si_DEWA_ll)
3. regarded (DRAG - re_GARD_ed)
4. snapshot (SPAN - s_NAPS_hot)
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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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