FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
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12.5.16 Week: 49
\ Day: 340
December Averages:
44°\17°
86004 Today: H 49° \ L 25°
Average Sky Cover: 3%
Wind ave: 10mph\Gusts:
-mph Visibility: 10 mi
Record High: 67°[1989]
Record Low: -1°[1953]
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Quote of the Day
Gray skies are just
clouds passing over.
~Duke Ellington
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Observances
Today
AFL-CIO Day-merged-1955
Columbian International Day of The Reef Link
International Volunteer Day for Economic & Social Development
Repeal
Day - The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition.
Sachertorte Day [chocolate cake] Link
World Soil Day Link
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Observances This
Week
1-7 Cookie
Cutter Week Link
3-10 Clerc-Gallaudet Week
4-10 National Hand Washing Awareness
Week Link
Recipe Greetings For The Holidays Week
Computer Science Education
Week Link
5-9 Cookie Exchange Week
International Coelenterate Biology
Week Link
Older Driver Safety Awareness Week Link
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Today’s US
Historical Highlights
▼ Today’s World Historical Highlights
▼771 Charlemagne becomes
the sole King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman
1300’s
▼1349 500 Jews
of Nuremberg massacred during Black Death riots
▼1360 The French
Franc is created
1700’s
1776 First US fraternity, Phi
Beta Kappa (William & Mary College), forms
1792 George
Washington re-elected as US President
1800’s
1804 Thomas
Jefferson re-elected US President, George Clinton Vice President
1831 Former
US President John Q Adams takes his seat as a member of House of
Representatives
1832 Andrew
Jackson re-elected President of US
1847 Jefferson Davis is
elected to the US senate, his first political post.
1868 1st American bicycle
college opens (NY)
▼1893 1st
electric car (built in Toronto) could go 15 miles between charges
1900’s
1929 1st US nudist
organization (American League for Physical Culture, NYC)
▼1932 German
physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa to enter America
1935 First commercial
hydroponics operation established (Montebello, California)
1941 Football Writers
Association of America organized
1946 US President Harry
Truman creates Committee on Civil Rights by Exec Order #9808
▼1952 -8] worst
smog in London ever, 4-8,000 die
1955 Historic bus boycott
begins in Montgomery Alabama by Rosa Parks
1957 NYC
is first US city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in
housing market (Fair Housing Practices Law)
1967 Benjamin
Spock & Allen Ginsberg arrested protesting against Vietnam
war
▼1974 Final
episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC TV
1991 Charles Keating Jr (Lincoln
Savings & Loan fraud), found guilty
2000’s
▼2005 The Lake
Tanganyika earthquake causes significant damage, mostly in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
2007 Westroads Mall massacre:
A gunman opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle at an Omaha, Nebraska mall,
killing eight people before taking his own life.
▼2008 Human
remains previously found in 1991 are finally identified by Russian and American
scientists as those of Tsar Nicholas II.
2008 OJ Simpson is
sentenced to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and armed robbery
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My Rambling
Thoughts
Had a great night’s sleep. I usually do, but never woke up last night
and woke up about 6am fully refreshed and ready for a good day.
Spent time with the Sunday paper and my Sunday news shows. Not a lot of
new stuff, but some interesting perspectives of the election. It is time for ‘statesmen/stateswomen’
to step up and deal with the many changes that are ahead. It is way past time
for the social media sites to label ‘fake news’ as just that. I remember a time
when the only ‘fake’ news we saw or could read was at the supermarket checkout
line. There were sensational headlines with a story that had very few, if any
verified information. Now one has to verify almost every story on social media
and sadly, that verification shows few facts. Even more disturbing is that I
know people who read that ‘fake’ news and believe it. In some cases, even
giving them the known and accepted facts does not change their mind. Some even
say that those facts are the fake ones.
A little more about fake news. I have ‘like’d a lot of stuff on the
Facebook recently regarding the Pipeline in ND. Also ‘share’d a lot of posts. The
most worrisome to me about what is happening up there is that the law
enforcement officials are giving out ‘fake’ news to the few National News
networks that are semi-covering the story. There is seldom a story about or
from the water protectors. It is a really old story…the pipeline people want to
build a pipeline. The land owners around Bismarck don’t want it, so the
pipeline people find a new route, through Indian sacred land. The Natives say
no, but the pipeline people continue with their plan. As more and more tribes
join in to stop the pipeline, the pipeline people turn them, in the media, to
be ‘dangerous, threatening, and anti-American’ rabble-rousers. All one has to
do is stay up-to-date on the issue and it becomes obvious that the mainstream
media is not reporting the true story.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Language Barrier
Language brain teasers are those that involve the English
language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
An elderly pool attendant is starting to get sick of having to open the
swimming pool every Monday, so he decides that the pool will remain closed on
Mondays from now on. Being of reasonably limited English, he makes up a sign
which he hangs from the front gate. What's special about his sign?
NOW NO SWIMS ON MON
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“Contronym”—word
that is its own antonym
Clip can mean "to bind together" or "to separate."
You clip sheets of paper to together or separate part of a page by clipping
something out.
Clip is a pair of homographs, words with different origins spelled the
same.
Old English clyppan, which means "to clasp with
the arms, embrace, hug," led to our current meaning, "to hold
together with a clasp."
The other clip, "to cut or snip (a part) away," is from Old
Norse klippa, which may come from the sound of a shears.
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Today’s Trivia
Hive
(answers at the end of post)
Where does most of the 1941 film "The Devil and Daniel
Webster" take place?
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…Harper’s Index…
$50,000 – Value of a
federal grant given to Cleveland for riot gear ahead of the Republican National
Convention this year
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2 jokes for the
day
An Irishman proposed to his girlfriend on Saint Patrick’s Day and gave
her a ring with a synthetic diamond.
On learning it wasn't real she protested vehemently about his cheapness.
He explained that in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, he picked her a sham-rock.
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Preparing my son for his first day of kindergarten, we were reviewing
numbers and counting. Suddenly he asked, "What is the biggest number in
the world?"
As briefly as possible, I tried to explain the concept of infinity. I thought I
had done pretty well, but then he said, "Dad, what number comes just before
infinity?"
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Yep, It Really
Happened
*----------- That's Security for You -----------*
The New York Police Department released security camera footage of a man
walking up to an armored truck and walking off with a $1.6 million bucket of
gold. The department released security camera footage this week of the incident
in midtown Manhattan, where the back of the truck had been left unattended
while two men talked in front of the vehicle. The video shows a man casually
taking the 86-pound bucket of gold flakes from the back of the truck and
casually walking away. The man appears to struggle with the heavy bucket and
takes frequent breaks -- traveling about a 10-minute distance in about an hour
before getting into a van. "I think he just saw an opportunity, took the
pail and walked off," NYPD Detective Martin Pastor told local news. Police
said the suspect is believed to have fled to Florida, possibly in the Miami or
Orlando areas.
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Birthdays Today
▼ indicates
age at death
100’s
▼100- [Steve
James] Strom Thurmond, (Sen-D/R-SC) [d2003]
80’s
▼80- Otto
Preminger, Austria, director/producer (Laura, Exodus) [d1986]
70’s
▼79- Martin
Van Buren, Kinderhook New York, (D) 8th US president (d1862)
▼74- Clyde
Cessna, American airplane manufacturer (d. 1954)
60’s
▼69- Pope Julius II,
Albisola, Republic of Genoa, Pope (1503-13), patron of Michelangelo, Bramante,
Raphael, (d. 1513)
▼65- Walt
[Walter Elias] Disney, animator, (Mickey Mouse), producer and co-founder of Walt Disney Co.,
born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1966)
40’s
48- Margaret
Cho, actress/comedienne (Face/Off)
30’s
▼36- George
Armstrong Custer, New Rumley, Ohio, Mjr General (Union volunteers),
(d. 1876)
31- Frankie
Muniz, American actor
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Historical Obits
Today
90’s
@95-2013 Nelson
Mandela, anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner
(1962-90) and South African President (1994-99)
@91-2012 Dave
Brubeck, American jazz pianist, dies from heart failure at 91
80’s
@86-1926 Claude
Monet, French impressionist
70’s
@78-1770 James Stirling, Scot mathematician
(Formula of Stirling)
@71-2002 Roone
Arledge, American sports broadcasting pioneer, prostate
cancer
60’s
@68-1870 Alexandre
Dumas, French writer ('The Three Musketeers', 'The Count
of Monte Cristo')
@64-1951 "Shoeless" Joe
Jackson, of baseball's black sox scandal, heart attack
40’s
@49-1991 Richard
Speck, mass murderer, heart attack a day before his 50th birthday
@44ish-1895 Chief
Gall [Phizí],
Hunkpapa Sioux chief, at Little Big Horn
30’s
@35-1791 Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart,
composer, fever
@31-1784 Phillis
Wheatley, American poet and first published
African-American woman
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Brain Teasers
Answers
If you spin the sign upside down it will still read the same thing as it
did.
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Trivia Hive Answers
New Hampshire
In real life, noted statesman and Secretary of State Daniel Webster was
actually from New Hampshire, so it only makes sense that the film (and the 1936
short story it was based on) set the action there. Edward Arnold played Webster
in the movie and Walter Huston starred as the devil, in the form of
smooth-talking Mr. Scratch. Source: TCM
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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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