…lions and wolves?
Shortly before he left for Pasadena last Sunday night, Bob emptied the 5-gallon pickle bucket that sits at the top of the steps down to the dock. Mid-day today, the bucket had 11" of water in it.
31 December 2004
It’s Been Raining…
Darn the Luck…
From Newsday.com today:
Friends, co-stars mourn Jerry Orbach
New York Times:
To Viewers and Police, Jerry Orbach Was Briscoe
cantonrep.com:
Actor Jerry Orbach dies at 69
Reuters:
NBC’s ‘Jury’ Will Carry on Without Orbach
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
406 - Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia
1600 - British East India Company is chartered
1687 - The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope
1695 - A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax
1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, Ontario, as the capital of Canada
1879 - Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time (Menlo Park, New Jersey)
1929 - Guy Lombardo plays Auld Lang Syne for the first time
1944 - World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany
1946 - President Harry Truman officially proclaims an end of hostilities in World War II
1955 - General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over USD $1 billion in a year
1960 - The farthing coin, used in Britain since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender
1961 - The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than USD $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe
1972 - Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua
1983 - The last day that the AT&T Bell System exists before being broken up by the United States Government
1991 - The Soviet Union officially dissolves
1995 - The publication of the last new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip
1999 - The Panama Canal comes completely under Panama's jurisdiction
Births
1378 - Pope Callixtus III (d. 1458)
1869 - Henri Matisse, painter and graphic artist (d. 1954)
1880 - George Marshall, recipient of Nobel Prize in Peace 1953 for the Marshall Plan (d. 1959)
1908 - Simon Wiesenthal, concentration camp survivor, activist
1920 - Rex Allen, actor, singer (d. 1999)
1937 - Anthony Hopkins, actor
1943 - John Denver, country/pop musician (d. 1997)
1943 - Ben Kingsley, actor
1947 - Burton Cummings, musician (“The Guess Who”)
1948 - Donna Summer, singer
1951 - George Thorogood, musician
1958 - Bebe Neuwirth, actress
Deaths
1888 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi (b. 1888)
1948 - Malcolm Campbell, Grand Prix race car driver (b. 1885)
1969 - George Lewis, jazz musician (b. 1900)
1972 - Roberto Clemente, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1934)
1985 - Rick Nelson, singer (b. 1940)
1999 - Sarah Knauss, dies at the age of 119 years - at death, the world's oldest person alive. (b. 1880)
Holidays & observances
The seventh day of Christmas in Western Christianity
The evening is called New Year’s Eve. In the Netherlands the traditional food is oil-dumpling. At 24:00 the beginning of the new year is celebrated, see January 1
The day and evening are called Hogmanay in Scotland
On This Day
From the BBC:
1964: Campbell speeds to double record
1951: Churchill trip finally underway
30 December 2004
Interesting Migraine Treatment
On Forbes.com:
Surgery Helps Relieve Migraines
DailyNewsCentral.com today:
Surgery Helps Migraine Sufferers - and Their Employers
Reassuring, I’d Say
On InformationWeek.com today:
eBay Dumps Passport, Microsoft Calls It Quits
Further gory details at internetnews.com:
eBay Nixing Microsoft’s Passport
God Have Mercy…
From kidktv.com yesterday (but Top Story today):
A minivan lost control on an icy patch, swerving into the path of an oncoming tractor trailer and causing another minivan to crash. Michael O’Brian (sic) of Idaho Falls died on the scene. Icy Roads Blamed for A Deadly Accident in Idaho. Not a good year for Bear’s family…![[map of Ashton, Idaho area]](http://www.langdon.org/here/graphics/blog/Ashton_ID.jpg)
Asian tsunami toll approaches 60,000
From ChinaDAILY.com yesterday:
Asian tsunami toll approaches 60,000
The most frightening thing in the article (other than the [not unexpected] propoganda) is this satellite photo:
![[DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite photo]](http://www.langdon.org/here/graphics/blog/xin_52120129085801556193.jpg)
28 December 2004
Merck Is Smoking Some Really Bad Socks…
From USATODAY.com yesterday:
Over-the-counter cholesterol drug coming?
…if they think the average consumer will make appropriate decisions about an OTC cholesterol drug.
And Bear’s Driving Home Today???
On kesq.com this morning:
Massive storm moves into California, causing trouble on freeways
From mercuryNews.com:
Storm Causes Mudslides, Floods
And there might be rain for the Rose Parade…
Togetherness Is Sure a Lot of…
From earthtimes.org this morning:
Genes place cancer patients’ relatives at high risk: new study
27 December 2004
25 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
800 - Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome
1223 - Saint Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene
1776 - George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack the monarchy’s Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey
1818 - The first performance of “Silent Night” (Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria)
1914 - Just after midnight on Christmas morning, German troops on the Western Front cease firing their guns and artillery and start singing Christmas carols. Crossing the No man's land, they trade gifts with the enemy forces that face them. The Christmas truce lasts for several days, depending on the location
1917 - Why Marry?, first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City
1926 - Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan, succeeding the Taisho Emperor
1932 - A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills ~70,000 people
1939 - Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was read on radio for the first time (CBS radio)
1939 - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is introduced by Montgomery Ward stores
1973 - The ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University, causing the server to freeze
1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia
1977 - Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with President of Egypt Anwar Sadat
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day).
2004 - Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which will land on Saturn’s moon, Titan, on January 14, 2005
Births
7 BC-4 BC (observed): birth of Jesus, considered to be the Son of God (by Christians); also considered an ascetic prophet of Islam. The date of Jesus’ birth is celebrated on several different days worldwide
1642 - Sir Isaac Newton, physicist and mathematician (d. 1727)
1763 - Claude Chappe, telecommunications pioneer semaphore lines (d. 1805)
1771 - Dorothy Wordsworth, diarist and sister of William Wordsworth (d. 1855)
1821 - Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross (d. 1912)
1878 - Louis Chevrolet, race car driver, automotive pioneer (d. 1941)
1887 - Conrad Nicholson Hilton, hotelier (d. 1979)
1907 - Cab Calloway, bandleader (d. 1994)
1924 - Rod Serling, scriptwriter, host of The Twilight Zone (d. 1975)
1946 - Jimmy Buffett, singer, songwriter
1946 - Larry Csonka, American football player
1948 - Barbara Mandrell, singer, actress
1954 - Annie Lennox, singer of Eurythmics
Deaths
795 - Pope Adrian I
1635 - Samuel de Champlain - French explorer, founder of Quebec City. (b. 1567)
1946 - W. C. Fields, actor, comedian (b. 1880)
1977 - Charlie Chaplin, actor (b. 1889)
1983 - Joan Miró, painter (b. 1893)
1995 - Dean Martin, singer, actor (b. 1917)
1996 - JonBenét Ramsey, murder victim (b. 1990)
2003 - Phil Goldman, co-founder of WebTV Networks, Inc. (now MSN TV)
Holidays & observances
The Christmas holiday is celebrated on this day in Christianity. However, some Eastern Churches celebrate on their ecclesiastical December 25, which is January 7 in the civil calendar. Christmas day always falls on the same day of the week as New Years Day (January 1) of the next year
Catholicism - Holy Day of Obligation The Nativity of Christ
One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish calendar
On This Day
From the BBC:
2003: Mars space probe disappears
1977: Silent film legend Chaplin dies
1952: Queen makes first Christmas speech
24 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
640 - John IV becomes Pope
1777 - Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook
1814 - The Treaty of Ghent was signed which ended the War of 1812
1818 - Silent Night composed by Franz Xaver Gruber
1851 - Library of Congress burns
1906 - The first radio program, a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, broadcasts
1914 - World War I: The “Christmas truce” begins
1953 - NBC’s Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program
1968 - The crew of the USS Pueblo was released by North Korea after being held for 11 months on suspicion of spying
1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Australia
1979 - The launch of the first European Ariane rocket
1985 - A black bull blocked Cross Harbour Tunnel of Hong Kong for three hours
Births
1166 - John, King of England (d. 1216)
1491 - Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit order) (d. 1556)
1809 - Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)
1818 - James Prescott Joule, British physicist (d. 1889)
1898 - Baby Dodds, jazz musician (d. 1959)
1905 - Howard Hughes, film producer, inventor, recluse (d. 1976)
1907 - Cab Calloway, musician (d. 1994)
1910 - Fritz Leiber, American science fiction writer (d. 1992)
1929 - Mary Higgins Clark, author
1971 - Ricky Martin, singer
Deaths
1524 - Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer (b. 1469?)
1863 - William Makepeace Thackeray, writer (b. 1811)
1889 - Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate, Dutch poet and clergyman (b. 1819)
1914 - John Muir, naturalist (b. 1838)
1984 - Peter Lawford, actor (b. 1923)
1993 - Norman Vincent Peale, writer
2000 - Aubrey Hawkins, Irving, Texas police officer (b. 1971)
Holidays & observances
December 24 is celebrated as the day before Christmas, thus called Christmas Eve
It is the day when food is set out for Santa Claus and his reindeer. Children around the world are urged to go to bed early so they are not awake when he comes
In Sweden and Iceland, most children are visited by Santa Claus this day
23 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
619 - Boniface V becomes Pope
1620 - Construction of Plymouth Colony begins
1823 - A Visit From St. Nicholas, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, is first published
1909 - Albert I of Belgium becomes King
1913 - The Federal Reserve Act becomes law
1947 - The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories
1954 - The first human organ transplant, of a kidney, was performed by Doctors Murray and Harrison at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston
1972 - Terry Bradshaw throws the Immaculate Reception pass “to” Franco Harris
1982 - The Environmental Protection Agency recommends the evacuation of Times Beach, Missouri due to dangerous levels of dioxin contamination
1986 - The Scaled Composites Voyager aircraft completes the first non-stop flight around the world without refueling.
1990 - Republic of Slovenia votes to secede from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
2012 - The Mayan calendar comes to an end (may also be December 21). This day was predicted by the Mayans to be when life on Earth is going to end
Births
1582 - Severo Bonini, composer (d. 1663)
1732 - Richard Arkwright, industrialist, and inventor of the Water Frame (d. 1792)
1790 - Jean François Champollion, egyptologist, deciphered the Rosetta Stone (d. 1832)
1943 - Silvia, Queen of Sweden
1944 - Wesley Clark, US General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
1970 - Catriona LeMay Doan, Canadian speed skater
Deaths
910 - Naum of Preslav, Bulgarian scholar
1973 - Charles Atlas, bodybuilder
1982 - Jack Webb, actor, producer, director (b. 1920)
2000 - Victor Borge, Danish/American humorist and pianist (b. 1909)
2000 - Billy Barty, actor
Holidays & observances
Sweden - Birthday of Queen Silvia, an official flag day
On This Day
From the BBC:
1972: Earthquake wreaks devastation in Nicaragua
1986: Sakharov comes in from the cold
22 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1807 - The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson
1809 - The Non-Intercourse Act, lifting the Embargo Act except for the United Kingdom and France, passes the U.S. Congress
1849 - The execution of Fyodor Dostoevsky is canceled at the last second
1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins in France when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason
1910 - Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire, 21 firemen were killed
1937 - The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic
1944 - German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge
1989 - Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany
1990 - Lech Wałęsa sworn in as President of Poland
1997 - Acteal massacre: Attendees at a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas were massacred by paramilitary forces
Births
1639 - Jean Racine, dramatist (other sources report December 21st as his birth date) (d. 1699)
1723 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer (d. 1787)
1805 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist
1858 - Giacomo Puccini, composer (d. 1924)
1860 - Austin Norman Palmer, populiser of handwriting style
1862 - Connie Mack, baseball executive, manager (d. 1956)
1912 - Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States
1948 - Lynne Thigpen, actress (d. 2003)
1949 - Robin Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees)
1949 - Maurice Gibb, musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
Deaths
1738 - Constantia Jones, British prostitute (executed)
1828 - William Hyde Wollaston, noted English chemist (b. 1766)
1880 - George Eliot, writer (b. 1819)
1943 - Beatrix Potter, writer (b. 1866)
1989 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969 (b. 1906)
Holidays & observances
The winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. It is an important festival in the Chinese calendar. In the Southern Hemisphere the summer solstice occurs around this time
On This Day
From the BBC:
1972: Survivors found 10 weeks after plane crash
1989: Brandenburg Gate re-opens
21 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1861 - The Congressional Medal of Honor first authorized
1861 - Lord Lyons, the British minister to the United States, meets with United States Secretary of State William Seward concerning Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell, arrested by the United States Navy aboard the British mail steamer Trent in order to prevent war between the United States and the United Kingdom.
1872 - HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth on the 4 year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography
# 1880 - Isle of Man becomes first political entity that allows women to vote
# 1891 - First basketball game played
# 1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium
# 1913 - First crossword puzzle published
# 1914 - First feature-length silent film comedy, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, is released
1935 - First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1962 - Rondane National Park, the first national park in Norway, was established.
1968 - Apollo 8 launched
1979 - The United States government bails out the Chrysler Corporation
1988 - A terrorist bomb explodes and crashes Pan Am flight 103 a Boeing 747, over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270, including 11 on the ground
2012 - The Mayan calendar comes to an end… Experts disagree on whether this happens today or December 23, 2012
Births
1118 - Thomas Becket, lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170)
1804 - Benjamin Disraeli, politician, writer (d. 1881)
1922 - Paul Winchell, ventriloquist
1926 - Joe Paterno, American football coach
1940 - Frank Zappa, musician (d. 1993)
1944 - Michael Tilson Thomas, American conductor
1946 - Carl Wilson, musician (“The Beach Boys”) (d. 1998)
Deaths
1807 - John Newton cleric, songwriter (Amazing Grace) (b. 1725)
1940 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer (b. 1896)
1945 - George S. Patton, U.S. general (b. 1885)
Holidays & observances
The summer solstice (Southern Hemisphere) or winter solstice (Northern Hemisphere), sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. It is an important festival in the Chinese calendar
20 December 2004
Darned Good Thing It Wasn’t the OJ Prosecution Team
More from MercuryNews.com today:
After early scorn, prosecutors in Peterson case win praise
Is it Too Late to Put this on My Christmas List?
On MercuryNews.com today:
MyFi cuts the cord on satellite radio
The Internet stream option would be even better…
Chanticleer: A Christmas Tradition I Must Begin
On MercuryNews.com today:
Chanticleer offers tonic for the soul
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta
1803 - Louisiana Purchase completed
1860 - South Carolina becomes first state to secede from the United States
1915 - Last Australian troops evacuated from Gallipoli
1999 - Macau is handed over to the People’s Republic of China by Portugal
Births
1805 - Thomas Graham, Father of colloid chemistry (d. 1869)
1868 - Harvey Firestone, automobile pioneer (d. 1938)
1881 - Branch Rickey, baseball executive (d. 1965)
1901 - Robert Van de Graaff, physicist, inventor (d. 1967)
1946 - Uri Geller, psychic TV presenter
Deaths
217 - Pope Zephyrinus
1954 - James Hilton, author (b. 1900)
1968 - John Steinbeck, writer (b. 1902)
1973 - Bobby Darin, singer (b. 1936)
1982 - Artur Rubinstein, musician (b. 1887)
19 December 2004
Life and Death at Christmas Time
On mensnewsdaily.com recently:
Life and Death at Christmas Time
Bravo, Doug Patton
Beloved Soprano Renata Tebaldi Dies at 82
From The New York Time Web site today:
Beloved Soprano Renata Tebaldi Dies at 82
Bzzzzttt!!!
On Scotsman.com, tomorrow morning:
Lightning on Saturn ‘1m times stronger’ than on Earth
Latimes.com:
Cassini Detects Powerful Lightning on Saturn
Ooops!!
From The New York Times Web site tomorrow morning:
Rice University Computer Scientists Find a Flaw in Google's New Desktop Search Program
Google, however, unlike other companies who shall remain nameless and initial-less, seems to have quickly come up with a fix.
Better Hope Your Anti-Virus Software Is Up-to-Date…
…or better yet, just say “H*ll, no!” to Windows…
From snopes.com:
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Computers (Zafi.D)
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1187 - Pope Clement III elected
1732 - Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard’s Almanack
1777 - George Washington’s army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
1842 - United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii
1928 - First autogiro flight in the United States
1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
1974 - The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale
1984 - The United Kingdom and People’s Republic of China sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which handed Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997
2001 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters
2001 - A new world-record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 mb (32.06 inches Hg) is set at Tosontsengel, Hövsgöl Aymag, Mongolia
Births
1933 - Cicely Tyson, actress
1944 - Richard Leakey, anthropologist
1946 - Robert Urich, actor (d. 2002)
1972 - Warren Sapp, American football player
1974 - Jake Plummer, American football quarterback
Deaths
401 - St. Anastasius I, Pope
1370 - Pope Urban V (b. 1310)
1737 - James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland (b. 1667)
1741 - Vitus Bering, explorer
1749 - Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (b. 1672)
1848 - Emily Brontë, author (b. 1818)
1999 - Desmond Llewelyn, actor (b. 1914)
Holidays & observances
Feast of Saint Boniface [Eastern Orthodox]
18 December 2004
Fault Zones, and Basins, and Trenches, Oh My!!
From MercuryNews.com yesterday:
Fault zone found near Campbell, San Jose
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
218 BC - Battle of the Trebia, Hannibal's first great victory over the Roman Republic
1352 - Innocent VI is elected Pope
1642 - Abel Tasman lands at Mohua Golden Bay becoming the first European in New Zealandhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.italic.gif
1776 - North Carolina’s Constitution is ratified
1787 - New Jersey is the third state to ratify the United States Constitution
1865 - Slavery is abolished in the United States, with the passing of the 13th Amendment
1894 - Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and to be elected to Parliament
1912 - Piltdown Man “discovered”
1926 - The Makropulos Affair, an opera by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček, premiered in Brno, the Czech Republic.
1966 - Saturn’s moon Epimetheus was discovered by Richard L. Walker, and then lost for 12 years
1973 - The Soyuz 13 was launched
1997 - HTML 4.0 is released by the World Wide Web Consortium
2002 - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is the second Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters
Births
1786 - Carl Maria von Weber, German composer (d. 1826)
1870 - Saki, writer (d. 1916)
1886 - Ty Cobb, American baseball player (d. 1961)
1917 - Ossie Davis, actor
1939 - Michael Moorcock, science fiction author
1943 - Keith Richards, British guitarist (the Rolling Stones)
1946 - Steven Spielberg, movie director
1946 - Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1977)
1961 - Brian Orser, figure skater
Deaths
821 - Theodulf, bishop of Orléans (b. c.760)
1936 - Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist (b. 1857)
1995 - Konrad Zuse, German engineer and computing pioneer (b. 1910)
17 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
283 - St Gaius becomes Pope
384 - St Siricius becomes Pope
1777 - France became the first nation to recognize the United States of America
1830 - Santa Marta, Colombia Simon Bolivar dies
1843 - A Christmas Carol, a fictional short story by Charles Dickens, was first published
1903 - First powered flight, by the Wright Brothers
1935 - First flight of the Douglas DC-3
1982 - Tootsie opens in theaters, starring Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Bill Murray, Sydney Pollack, George Gaynes, and Geena Davis
1989 - The first half-hour length episode of The Simpsons debuts with their Christmas special, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”
2003 - First supersonic flight by Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne
2003 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the third and final Lord of the Rings movie to open in theaters
Births
1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven, composer (d. 1827)
1778 - Humphry Davy, chemist (d. 1829)
1796 - Thomas Chandler Haliburton, novelist (d. 1865)
1807 - John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, abolitionist (d. 1892)
1894 - Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (d. 1979
1906 - Simo Häyhä, most successful sniper in history (d. 2002)
1908 - Willard Frank Libby, physicist and chemist, inventor of radiocarbon dating (d. 1980)
1968 - Paul Tracy, Canadian Champ Car driver
Deaths
1830 - Simón Bolívar, Latin American politician and activist (b. 1783)
1907 - William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, physicist (b. 1824)
1957 - Dorothy L. Sayers, writer (b. 1893)
1964 - Victor Franz Hess, American physicist (b. 1883)
16 December 2004
Under Only the Most Remarkable Circumstances??
More from Netscape News:
Bush Prepares for Possible GPS Shutdown
I’m REALLY Glad We Drive Through Salinas on Our Way to and from LA…
from Netscape News today (presumably):
Steinbeck’s Birthplace to Close Its Libraries
…I get two chances each trip to spit in the general direction of the Council Chambers at City Hall.
Wonder How Long it’ll Take the Airlines to Implement?
From mercuryNews.com this morning:
FCC votes to allow high-speed Web access on flights
After Miss-cue, it’s another heaping helping of hopeless
From MercuryNews.com this morning:
After Miss-cue, it’s another heaping helping of hopeless
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1689 - The English Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.
1773 - The Boston Tea Party
1811 - The first of a series of severe earthquakes occurs, in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri in the United States
1850 - The first four ships arrive at Lyttelton to settle Christchurch, New Zealand
1893 - World premiere of Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony”
1910 - Henri Coanda makes first short flight in aircraft with jet engine
1973 - O.J. Simpson becomes the first player in NFL history to rush for 2000 yards in one season
2000 - NASA announces that there is an ocean beneath Jupiter moon Ganymede's icy surface
Births
1485 - Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England (d. 1536)
1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven, composer (d. 1827)
1775 - Jane Austen, writer (d. 1817)
1776 - Johann Wilhelm Ritter, physicist (d. 1810)
1882 - Zoltán Kodály, composer (d. 1967)
1899 - Noel Coward, playwright (d. 1973)
1901 - Margaret Mead, anthropologist (d. 1978)
1917 - Sir Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer
1926 - James McCracken, American tenor (d. 1988)
1928 - Philip K. Dick, science fiction writer (d. 1982)
1934 - Elgin Baylor, basketball great
1943 - Steven Bochco, producer, writer
1946 - Benny Andersson, Swedish singer, songwriter, ABBA member
1946 - Trevor Pinnock, English conductor, harpsichordist
1963 - Benjamin Bratt, actor (Law & Order)
Deaths
714 - Pippin of Herstal, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia (b. 635 or 640)
999 - Saint Adelaide of Italy (b. 931)
1859 - Wilhelm Grimm, folklorist (b. 1786)
1921 - Camille Saint-Saëns, composer (b. 1835)
1982 - Colin Chapman, engineer, founder of Lotus Cars (b. 1928)
On This Day
From the BBC:
2001: Thousands rally for Scots countryside
1969: MPs vote to abolish hanging
15 December 2004
Google: The Library
Google Print
On MercuryNews.com yesterday:
Google to digitize millions of books
From the Register today:
It came from the vaults! Google seeks to open the library
From USAToday yesterday:
Google’s library plan ‘a huge help‘
From latimes.com today:
Google’s Stock Jumps on Library-Book Plan
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
533 - The Battle of Ticameron begins
687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed
1891 - James Naismith introduces basketball
1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A is launched
1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 is first released
2002 - BBC 7, digital radio station is launched in UK
Births
130 - Lucius Verus, Roman emperor (d. 169)
1802 - János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician
1832 - Gustave Eiffel, civil engineer (d. 1923)
1852 - Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics (d. 1908)
1859 - L. L. Zamenhof, initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
1860 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician (d. 1904)
1861 - Charles Duryea, automobile pioneer (d. 1938)
1888 - Maxwell Anderson, writer (d. 1959)
1892 - J. Paul Getty, oil tycoon (d. 1976)
1912 - Stan Kenton, musician (d. 1979)
1916 - Buddy Cole, pianist (d. 1964)
1923 - Freeman Dyson, physicist
1933 - Tim Conway, actor, comedian
1939 - Cindy Birdsong, singer, member of the Supremes
1942 - Dave Clark, musician (“Dave Clark Five”)
1949 - Don Johnson, actor (Miami Vice)
Deaths
1025 - Basil II, Byzantine emperor (b. 958)
1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway (b. 1204)
1683 - Izaak Walton, writer (b. 1593)
1816 - Charles Stanhope, engineer, inventor of the calculator
1872 - Mary Anne Evans, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1792)
1890 - Sitting Bull, Sioux nation leader (b. c.1831)
1943 - Fats Waller, musician (b. 1904)
1944 - Glenn Miller, bandleader (presumed date) (b. 1904)
1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, physicist (b. 1900)
1966 - Walt Disney, animator, cartoonist (b. 1901)
1984 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
2001 - Rufus Thomas, musician (b. 1917)
2003 - Johnny Cunningham, Scottish musician, member of Silly Wizard
Holidays & observances
Feast day of St. Valerian, martyred in 457
On This Day
From the BBC:
1993: Anglo-Irish pact paves way for peace
1974: New speed limit to curb fuel use
1958: Film stars raise cash for Colleano
14 December 2004
Interesting Stories From the ’net
From AWADmail Issue 144, November 22, 2004:
What’s the Name of That Lake? It’s Hard to Say
When Words Hide the Truth
Rockin’ and Rollin’
Felt a little earthquake this evening, at 7:53p. The USGS had this to say: Info for Event nc40169580.
Turns out there’s been more than just a little excitement around here very recently: San Juan Bautista, Gonzales, Pinnacles, Aromas, Aromas #2, and Pinnacles #2 have all chimed in.
Among others, as it turns out. Maps of Recent Earthquake Activity in California - Nevada shows a lot of little “events” the past few days.
Human Tests Planned for Diabetes Vaccine
On TechNewsWorld today:
Human Tests Planned for Diabetes Vaccine
Popular Press Opinion to the Contrary…
From the La Cañada Valley Sun’s Web site:
New Sign Lays Claim to JPL for La Cañada
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
867 - Adrian II becomes Pope
872 - John VIII becomes Pope
1287 - Zuider Zee sea wall collapses, killing over 50,000 people
1542 - Princess Mary Stuart becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland.
1790 - Alexander Hamilton proposes creation of a Bank of the United States
1819 - Alabama becomes the 22nd U.S. state
1896 - Glasgow Underground Railway, third in the world, opens (an accident closes it the same day and it only reopens in 1897)
1900 - Max Planck publishes his study of the quantum theory
1902 - First telegraph cable laid across the Pacific Ocean
1911 - First expedition reaches the South Pole, led by Roald Amundsen
1947 - NASCAR founded
1959 - Motown, a famed record label whose roster included The Supremes, The Jackson Five, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Boyz II Men and many other musicians, was founded in Detroit, Michigan
1962 - Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus
1962 - The Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million, the highest insurance valuance for a painting in history
1964 - Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 1964 decided by U.S. Supreme Court
1991 - A rock slide takes off 10 metres of Mount Cook’s elevation in New Zealand
1999 - Charles M. Schulz, creator of the comic strip Peanuts, announced his retirement
2003 - The news of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s capture is finally announced.
2003 - Celebration of the reopening of the Fenice Theater in Venice, Italy.
2004 - The Millau viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, is officially opened
Births
1503 - Nostradamus, astrologer and mathematician (d. 1566)
1546 - Tycho Brahe, astronomer (d. 1601)
1896 - Jimmy Doolittle, American World War II General (d. 1993)
1897 - Margaret Chase Smith, American politician (d. 1995)
1908 - Morey Amsterdam, comedian, actor (d. 1996)
1911 - Spike Jones, comedian, musician (d. 1965)
1932 - Charlie Rich, country music performer (d. 1995)
1946 - Patty Duke, actress
1947 - Christopher Parkening, American guitarist
1954 - Alan Kulwicki, NASCAR driver (d. 1993)
Deaths
1799 - George Washington, first President of the United States (b. 1732)
1861 - Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria (b. 1819)
1985 - Roger Maris, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1934)
1989 - Andrei D. Sakharov, physicist, Soviet dissident (b. 1921)
Holidays & observances
Feast of Saint John of the Cross (in the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England
13 December 2004
Who says safe computing must remain a pipe dream?
From c|net, back in September:
Who says safe computing must remain a pipe dream?
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1545 - Council of Trent begins
1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, on his round-the-world voyage
1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman reaches New Zealand
1978 - First Susan B. Anthony dollar enters circulation
1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland
2003 - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit
2004 - A moderate 5.4 Richter Scale earthquake is felt all over Portugal, with its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean, southwest of São Vicente’s Cape (Algarve), with no losses reported
2004 - Scott Peterson was sentenced to the death penalty in the murder case of his wife, Laci Peterson, and unborn son, Connor
Births
1813 - David Spangler Kaufman, American politician, first Jewish Congressman from Texas (d. 1851)
1816 - Werner von Siemens, engineer, inventor and industrialist (d. 1892)
1818 - Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (d. 1882)
1854 - Thomas Watson, telephone pioneer
1887 - Alvin York, U.S. soldier of World War I, known as ‘Sergeant York’ (d. 1964)
1903 - Carlos Montoya, guitarist (d. 1993)
1925 - Dick Van Dyke, actor, comedian
1927 - Christopher Plummer, actor
Deaths
1124 - Pope Callixtus II
1784 - Samuel Johnson, essayist
1961 - Grandma Moses, artist (b. 1860)
2004 - David Wheeler, Computer Scientist (b. 1927)
Holidays & observances
Catholicism - Saint Lucy’s day
In the Irish calendar the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Feast of Saint Lucy were observed as Quarter tense
St. Lucia Day in Sweden
On This Day
From the BBC:
1981: Military crackdown on Polish people
1972: New offer for Thalidomide victims
1958: Monkey lost after space flight
12 December 2004
Ancestry Research Exposes Hanky-Panky
From allAfrica.com 6 December 2004:
Ancestry Research Exposes Hanky-Panky
Closing In on TB — Again
From TechNewsWorld.com this morning:
Novel Drug Shows New Hope for TB
From msnbc:
Rethinking Old Cures
From SciAm’s Web site on Friday:
New Drug Could Cut TB Treatment Time in Half
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
627 - Battle of Nineveh
1531 - Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City
1787 - Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the United States Constitution
1870 - Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the first black U.S. congressman
1901 - First radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean by Guglielmo Marconi
1913 - Mona Lisa recovered in Florence, two years after it was stolen
1917 - In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys (in 1979 it was opened to girls as well)
1937 - Panay incident
1939 - Finland defeated the Soviet Union in the Battle of Tolvajärvi, their first major victory in the Winter War
Births
1745 - John Jay, United States Supreme Court justice (d. 1829)
1805 - William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist (d. 1879)
1900 - Sammy Davis, Sr., American dancer
1914 - Patrick O'Brian, British author (d. 2000)
1915 - Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (d. 1998)
Deaths
1929 - Charles Goodnight, cattle baron (b. 1836)
1939 - Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., American actor (b. 1883)
1968 - Tallulah Bankhead, actress (b. 1902)
1994 - Stuart Roosa, Apollo Astronaut (b. 1933)
2003 - Keiko, the killer whale in the Free Willy movies
Holidays & observances
Roman Catholic - Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
11 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1816 - Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state.
1816 - Citizens of Geneva, Switzerland repel attack by Savoy
1931 - Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Newfoundland
1937 - Edward VIII’s abdication as King of the United Kingdom becomes effective
1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States
1946 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established
1954 - The American Nuclear Society is founded
1971 - The United States Libertarian Party is formed
1972 - Apollo 17 lands on the Moon
Births
1725 - George Mason, U.S. patriot, "Father of the Bill of Rights" (d. 1792)
1781 - Sir David Brewster, physicist (d. 1868)
1803 - Hector Berlioz, composer (d. 1869)
1843 - Robert Koch, bacteriologist and 1905 Nobel laureate (d. 1910)
1863 - Annie Jump Cannon, astronomer (d. 1941)
1918 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian author, 1970 Nobel laureate
Deaths
1282 - Llywelyn the Last, Prince of Wales
1945 - Charles Fabry, physicist
1950 - Leslie Comrie, astronomer and computing pioneer (b. 1893)
Annual events
Tango Day, Buenos Aires
10 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1041 - Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V
1817 - Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state
1836 - Emory College, now Emory University, is chartered in Oxford, Georgia
1869 - Wyoming grants women the right to vote
1901 - First Nobel Prizes awarded
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1936 - Edward VIII, the only British monarch to have voluntarily relinquished the throne, signed his instrument of abdication. He reverted to the title of “His Royal Highness Prince Edward of Windsor” the following day
1953 - Dr. Albert Schweitzer is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965 - The Grateful Dead play their first concert, at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
1975 - Andrei Sakharov wins the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize is accepted by his wife, Yelena Bonner
1978 - Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat win the Nobel Peace Prize
1983 - Lech Wałęsa wins the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize is accepted by his wife, Danuta
1984 - Desmond Tutu wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1986 - Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1993 - Shareware version of Doom is released
Births
1787 - Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, educator (d. 1851)
1805 - William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, journalist (d. 1879)
1815 - Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer (d. 1852)
1822 - César Franck, composer and organist (d. 1890)
1830 - Emily Dickinson, poet (d. 1886)
1851 - Melvil Dewey, librarian, creator of the Dewey Decimal Classification system (d. 1931)
1928 - Dan Blocker, actor (d. 1972)
2003 - Rebeca Martinez, first person to be born with two heads (d. 2004)
Deaths
1896 - Alfred Nobel, chemist, founder of the Nobel Prize (b. 1833)
1928 - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect, designer and illustrator (b. 1868)
1941 - Colin Kelly, American airman
1946 - Damon Runyon, writer (b. 1884)
1951 - Algernon Blackwood, writer (b. 1869)
1967 - Otis Redding, singer (b. 1941)
1968 - Thomas Merton, monk and author (b. 1915)
1987 - Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (b. 1901)
Holidays & observances
Sweden - Nobel Prize Ceremony, an official flag day
09 December 2004
JPL Updates
From latmes.com this morning:
Van Plunge Kills 3 JPL Workers
from the Pasadena Star-News Web site last night:
JPL van plunges off road; 3 killed
From the LA Daily News Web site last night:
Tragedy for JPL
British GP Saved (Despite Bernie’s Best Efforts to the Contrary)
On canada.com this morning:
British Grand Prix saved; five-year deal reached to keep race at Silverstone
On Sports Online tomorrow morning:
British Grand Prix is back for five more years
On Planet-F1.com:
Sir Frank ‘thrilled’ British GP is back
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1793 - New York City’s first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster
1824 - Battle of Ayacucho - Peru defeats Spain
1835 - The Army of the Republic of Texas captures San Antonio
1851 - First YMCA in North America established in Montreal, Quebec
1872 - P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African American governor of a U.S. state
1888 - Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department
1990 - Lech Wałęsa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland
Births
1608 - John Milton, English poet, writer (d. 1674)
1848 - Joel Chandler Harris, author (d. 1908)
1878 - Grand Duke Michael Romanov, Russian royalty (d. 1918)
1886 - Clarence Birdseye, frozen food pioneer (d. 1956)
1906 - Grace Murray Hopper, computer pioneer (d. 1992)
1909 - Douglas Fairbanks Jr., actor (d. 2000)
1915 - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, opera singer
1916 - Kirk Douglas, actor and film producer
1942 - Dick Butkus, American football player
1952 - Michael Dorn, actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine)
1957 - Donny Osmond, entertainer
1967 - Joshua Bell, violinist
Deaths
1996 - Mary Leakey, archeologist, anthropologist
Holidays & observances
Scandinavia (specifically Sweden): Anna's Day. Recognizes everyone named Anna, and marks the day to start the rotting process of the lutfisk consumed on Christmas Eve
08 December 2004
The Washington Post’s Alternate Meanings
(thanks to Thom, Capt Redbeard, on CeltList)
Once again, The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words.
And the winners are…
1. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
13. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.
14. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
AND MY TWO PERSONAL FAVORITES…
15. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts
It’s Not a Good Idea to Get on the Wrong Side of Brass Players
Updated: 10:06 PM EST
Christmas Festivities Draw Scrutiny
Religion's Role in Public Celebrations Debated
MAPLEWOOD, N.J. (Dec. 7) - Members of the Columbia High School brass ensemble were not allowed to play Christmas carols at their holiday concert this year - not even instrumental versions.
At a school board meeting Monday night, parents and students alike expressed their outrage.
“This is censorship at its most basic level and political correctness to its extreme,” said student Ryan Dahn.
“When you close that door you are supporting ignorance, and I think it’s a very sad thing,” said parent Melanie Amsterdam.
The controversy is by no means an isolated case. The role of religion during the Christmas season is a source of annual angst. But this year, people in “red,” or Republican, America - particularly Christian conservatives - are in an unprecedented uproar.
They are sending letters to public schools in Chicago, where the words “Merry Christmas” have been excised from a popular song; boycotting Macy’s, which has removed “Merry Christmas” signs from its department stores; and protesting the exclusion of a church group from Denver’s annual Parade of Lights.
“What they don’t understand is that by not wanting to offend anyone, they’re excluding a huge group of people, and that is all of those of the Christian faith,” said Doug Newcomb, business administrator of the Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, Colo.
Attorney Demetrios Stratis, affiliated with the conservative civil liberties group Alliance Defense Fund, is one of 700 Christian lawyers across the country poised to pounce on such cases.
“We just don’t believe that you need to stamp out religion in the public square,” he said.
There are those in Maplewood - and in “blue,” or Democratic, America generally - who say religion should be a private matter.
“Holiday celebrations where Christian music is being sung make people feel different,” said Mark Brownstein, a Maplewood parent. “And because it is such a majority, it makes the minority feel uncomfortable.”
But Eric Chabrow, who is Jewish, says his son, Sam, should be able to play Christmas songs in the high school band. Chabrow is a part of “blue” America and generally supports the separation of church and state.
“I think that people have become a little too dogmatic in their beliefs on either side,” he said. “And I think in this world today, we need to look at that center. I mean, the center in this country is vanishing. And maybe that’s what’s happening here.”
He says there must be solutions that are neither “red” nor “blue” - just common sense.
Solutions may not be forthcoming: Christian lawyers may sue the Maplewood school board, while the school superintendent is vowing not to bend to outside pressure.
12-07-04 21:29 EST
Thanks to Gary, one of my very favorite St Bede tenors, for this one.
Lee Haines Garden of Native Plants of the Santa Monica Mountains
On latimes.com today:
A Living Tribute to a Green Thumb
Turns our we know one of the principals: the garden’s “founder” credits “a former local city engineering official, Elroy Kipkey (sic), with suggesting that the streambed running through his lot at 28328 Agoura Road [where he was planning to build his company’s headquarters] be preserved.…” Elroy is also a former city engineer in La Cañada.
God Have Mercy…
From MercuryNews.com today:
Three dead as commuter van plunges down SoCal mountain
Newsday:
Commuter Van Over the Side in Angeles Forest
SpaceRef.com:
NASA JPL Vanpool Reported in Accident
![[map of the crash area]](http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/mapimage/2004-12/15386299.gif)
I worked with Kerri on a number of occasions; I’m sure I worked with Jane, too, particularly on Meeting Maker.
One time I was working on Kerri’s Mac, typing away at something. Kerri was looking over my shoulder, and eventually asked, “Do you play the piano?” “Well, yes; how did you know?” Something about the way my fingers and hands moved when I typed…
The JPL announcement:
Contact: Veronica McGregor (818) 354-9452
News Release #2004-284
December 8, 2004
JPL Community Mourns Loss of Three Colleagues
Leadership of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory expressed their deep concern today after a vanpool accident that took the life of three riders and injured several others.
“All of us at JPL are shocked and deeply saddened by the loss of several of our colleagues in this tragic accident,” said JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi, who was on business travel in Washington. “This is a terrible loss for all of us, but most particularly for the victims’ families and their immediate co-workers here at the Laboratory.”
The Laboratory is mourning the loss of Dorothy Forks, an employee in JPL’s Human Resources Department; Jane Galloway, a manager in JPL’s Business Operations Office and Kerri Lynn Agey, an administrator for Wackenhut Security, a contractor at JPL.
According to law enforcement sources, the van carrying 10 riders from the Palmdale/Lancaster area to JPL near Pasadena went off the road on Angeles Forest Highway in the San Gabriel National Forest. The riders included six JPL employees, two NASA employees, and two employees of JPL contractor companies.
“We would particularly like to thank the public safety agencies that responded so quickly and effectively to help our people in the van,” said Elachi. “The California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles County Fire Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff and other agencies provided invaluable help.”
The injured were transported to area hospitals. As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, two had been released. According to the hospitals, two remain hospitalized in fair condition, one in good condition, and two others are listed as critical but stable.
JPL employs a total of 5,500 employees and contractors at its main facility in the San Gabriel foothills above Pasadena. Approximately 450 employees participate in 30 vanpool groups bringing in workers from around the greater Los Angeles basin.
Now, I’m Not Much of a Cook…
From MercuryNews.com today:
The chef’s dream kitchen
…but even I can appreciate what this chef did not have in the way of a kitchen, in its previous iteration (the range right next to the reefer?? Please!!). What a difference!!
I Want One! Or a Dozen!!
From MercuryNews.com this morning:
Stick in your thumb; pull out a sugar plum
I’m Not Holding My Breath It’ll Be Fixed
From MercuryNews.com this morning:
BCS format change in offing
On second thought, I’m pretty sure it won’t be fixed; we’ll probably have a Bogus Crock of S*it…
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin
1888 - Bulgaria’s National Assembly adopted an Act on establishing a higher school in Sofia
1941 - World War II: After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the previous day, the United States Congress passes a declaration of war against Japan, bringing the United States of America officially into World War II; Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin casts the only “no” vote. In response, Hitler’s Germany declares war on the United States
1976 - The Eagles release one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Hotel California
Births
65 BC - Horace, poet (d. 8 BC)
1542 - Mary Queen of Scots (d. 1587)
1765 - Eli Whitney, inventor (d. 1825)
1832 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author
1848 - Joel Chandler Harris, author and folklorist (d. 1908)
1865 - Jean Sibelius, composer (d. 1957)
1925 - Sammy Davis Jr., actor, singer (d. 1990)
1936 - David Carradine, actor
1937 - James MacArthur, actor
1939 - James Galway, Irish flutist
1947 - Gregg Allman, musician
Deaths
1864 - George Boole, mathematician
Holidays & observances
Catholicism - Holy Day of Obligation The Feast of the Immaculate Conception
07 December 2004
Today in My History
In January 1979 I started working for Transamerica Corp., at their building in downtown LA (on the 17th floor; quite the place to be in an earthquake!), doing payroll for their finance company, Pacific Finance (later renamed Transamerica Financial). In June, I moved to Lake Arrowhead, and got a transfer to the branch office in Big Bear Lake in November.
My first or second day, the branch manager sent me home early, knowing that the fog was rolling up Hwy. 18, and not wanting me to fall off the mountain driving home in the fog-enhanced dark (rookie on that road as I was). She reported this to the district manager, who was somewhat scornful of the decision, wondering if she was going to do the same thing every time the weather was the tiniest bit off.
He was in the habit of visiting his branches once a month, and our December visit occured on the 6th. On the way home that night, the thought "Wouldn’t it be odd if John (the district manager) showed up tomorrow?” crossed my mind and fell out my left ear.
Shortly after I arrived the next day, so did John… Shortly after that, he asked me to run down to McDonald’s and get him a cup of coffee. When I got back, my manager was driving out of the parking lot. John reported that he’d fired her (for having arranged a loan to herself, through a friend, when she was the manager of the SLO branch), he was planning to have a replacement quickly, but I would have to mind the store until that happened. It took me years before I didn’t freak badly when asked to leave and go fetch when tensions were high.
A couple of hours after John left, my brother called, with the news that my grandfather had died. Fortunately (particularly given the circumstances), John was most accomodating with my initial ignorance of the schedule, and then needing to be gone the following Monday for the funeral. One of the gals at the Redlands office John called home filled in for the day.
Shortly thereafter, the former assistant manager was hired to manage the place, and therein lies more stories…
People Who *Should* Win Lotto
from PE.com recently:
Inland activist hits the jackpot
You might be interested in:
Garden of Angels Cemetery
The Garden of Angels
Honoring the Forgotten
Chip planned to protect water from terror attack
From MercuryNews.com today:
Chip planned to protect water from terror attack
Coach’s deal takes sting from thorny Rose rebuff
From MercuryNews.com this morning:
Coach’s deal takes sting from thorny Rose rebuff
Our intrepid reporter was being most restrained: “Backward Clumsy Stupid” was his term. I would’ve put it this way: “BIG Crock of Sh*t”
Related tidbits from the Mercury News:
Poll furor: Pac-10 commish rips coaches for Bears’ drop
Reasonable People May Disagree
Well, Looky Here!!
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1732 - The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London
1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution
1941 - The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor officially brings the United States into World War II
1949 - Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei
1965 - Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054
1972 - Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched
1982 - First US execution by lethal injection is carried out
1988 - In Armenia an earthquake 6.9 on the Richter scale killed nearly 25,000, injured 15,000 and left 400,000 persons homeless
1988 - Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist
Births
521 - Saint Columba, Irish Christian missionary to Scotland (d. 597)
1598 - Gian Lorenzo Bernini, artist (d. 1680)
1637 - Bernardo Pasquini, composer (d. 1710)
1761 - Marie Tussaud, museum proprietress and waxwork modeller (d. 1850)
1847 - George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer, best remembered for his work with Gilbert & Sullivan (d. 1912)
1863 - Pietro Mascagni, composer (d. 1945)
1863 - Richard Sears, department store founder (d. 1914)
1873 - Willa Cather, novelist (d. 1947)
1879 - Rudolf Friml, American composer (d. 1972)
1905 - Gerard Kuiper, astronomer (d. 1973)
1927 - Helen Watts, Welsh contralto
1928 - Noam Chomsky, linguist, political writer
1942 - Harry Chapin, musician (d. 1981)
1947 - Johnny Bench, Baseball Hall of Famer
2003 - Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands
Deaths
283 - St. Eutychian, Pope
1817 - William Bligh, British naval officer
1902 - Thomas Nast, cartoonist
1975 - Thornton Wilder, playwright
Holidays & observances
United States: Pearl Harbor Day (observance)
On This Day
From the BBC:
1941: Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor
1993: Activists lose battle over chestnut tree
1983: Tomcat halts steeplejack
2001: Taleban surrenders Kandahar
06 December 2004
And They Thought This Was a Good Idea???
From ProFindPages.com last Saturday:
Lycos Europe anti-spam Screensaver bites the dust!
05 December 2004
Who’s the Daddy?
From The Observer recently:
Fathers will know best…
Thanks to Dick Eastman’s Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter for the pointer.
New light shed on mystery of Amelia Earhart’s final landing
From scotsman.com tomorrow morning:
New light shed on mystery of Amelia Earhart’s final landing
04 December 2004
Chilly?
It’s been getting cold enough lately that the puddles on the tarp on the deck have been freezing over. This morning, when Glenkerry went to the water bowl for her inaugural morning drink, she stopped and looked at it… There was a thin coating of ice on the top.
Bob further reports that the Boulder Creek Web site weather page reports a roasty toasty 26° for the low last night.
You think winter’s coming on?
03 December 2004
02 December 2004
Just to Chuckle
The girl was supposed to write a short story in as few words as possible for her college class and the instructions were that it had to discuss Religion, Sexuality, and Mystery.
She was the only one who received an A+ and this is what she wrote:
Good God, I'm pregnant; I wonder who did it.
(From Peter, on the H&C list.)
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1409 - The University of Leipzig opened.
1755 - The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire
1823 - US President James Monroe delivers a speech to the United States Congress, announcing a new policy of forbidding European interference in the Americas and establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts (this would later be called the Monroe Doctrine)
1845 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West
1859 - Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper’s Ferry
1867 - In a New York City theater, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States
1915 - Albert Einstein publishes the general theory of relativity
1927 - Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile
1930 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy
1939 - La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City
1942 - Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, “The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.” was then sent to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt).
1954 - Red Scare: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute”
1982 - At the University of Utah, 61-year-old retired dentist Barney Clark, becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (he lived for 112 days with the device)
1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state
1990 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932
1993 - Space Shuttle program: STS-61 - NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope
1999 - The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to a the Northern Ireland Executive
Births
1578 - Agostino Agazzari, composer and music theorist (d. 1640)
1738 - Richard Montgomery, Irish-American soldier (d. 1775)
1863 - Charles Ringling, circus leader (d. 1926)
1885 - George Richards Minot, American physician, winner of 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1950)
1914 - Ray Walston, actor (d. 2001)
1923 - Maria Callas, opera singer (d. 1977)
1952 - Michael McDonald, musician
Deaths
1547 - Hernán Cortés, Spanish explorer and conqueror
1552 - Francis Xavier, Catholic missionary
1594 - Gerardus Mercator, cartographer
1774 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, composer and organist
1859 - John Brown, militant abolitionist (hanged)
1986 - Desi Arnaz, actor, musician, band leader, composer
1988 - Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
1990 - Aaron Copland, composer
Holidays and observances
Feast day of St Bibiana
01 December 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1640 - Portugal regains its independence from Spain and João IV of Portugal becomes king
1822 - Peter I is crowned as Emperor of Brazil
1824 - U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task to decide the winner (as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution)
1835 - Hans Christian Andersen publishes first book of fairy tales
1884 - American Old West - Near Frisco, New Mexico (now Reserve, New Mexico), deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy (the cowboys were terrorizing the area's Hispanos and Baca was working against them)
1885 - Although the exact date is unknown, the US Patent Office acknowledges December 1st, 1885 as the first day Dr Pepper was served
1913 - Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes (although Ford was not the first to use an assembly line, his successful adoption of one did spark an era of mass production)
1918 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed
1919 - Lady Astor becomes first female member of the British Parliament to take her seat (she had been elected to that position on November 28)
1941 - World War II: Former mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, and the director of the Office of Civilian Defense, sign an order creating the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) as the civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force (in April 1943 the CAP was placed under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Force)
1952 - The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark became the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation
1955 - American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws (Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr. later led the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott as a result)
1959 - Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (this was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War)
1969 - Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, the New York Times ran a long article, “Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random”)
1973 - Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia
1987 - NASA announces the names of four companies who were awarded contracts to help build the International Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric’s Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell
1990 - Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first ground connection between the island of Great Britain and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age
1991 - Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union
Births
1083 - Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian (d. 1153)
1886 - Rex Stout, author (d. 1975)
1911 - Walter Alston, baseball manager (d. 1984)
1912 - Minoru Yamasaki, American architect (d. 1986)
1913 - Mary Martin, actor, singer (d. 1990)
1935 - Lou Rawls, singer
1939 - Lee Trevino, golfer
1945 - Bette Midler, actress
1946 - Gilbert O’Sullivan, singer
1950 - Keith Thibodeaux, drummer and actor (“Little Ricky” on I Love Lucy)
1951 - Jaco Pastorius, bassist (d. 1987)
1976 - Matthew Shepard, murder victim (d. 1998)
Deaths
1973 - David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel
1975 - Nellie Fox, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1927)
1975 - Anna E. Roosevelt, radio personality (b. 1906)
1985 - Alvin Ailey, dancer, choreographer
Holidays and observances
Ancient Latvia - Barbes Diena observed
Feast day of St Eligius
Romania - Union Day (the national holiday)
World AIDS Day
On This Day
From the BBC:
1973: Israel's founding father dies
1986: Surprise inquiry into Guinness affairs
1990: Tunnel links UK and Europe
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